Connor Coyne

1. Buy a DVD
2. Scan the beach with metal detector until you have obtained multiple pieces of colored glass.
3. Devise a cypher.
4. Start a social networking meme.
5. Read the Bible.
6. Make a JPop and Electroclash compilation.
7. Salvage metal scrap from dumpsters and junk yards (do not lift it illegally from peoples’ houses).
8. Write a poem.
9. Eat a pomegranate.
10. Read the Upanishad.
11. Out Oulipo Oulipo.
12. Fuse glass pieces to firm metal pieces to make an artistically meaningful lampshade.
13. Melt wax onto recycled newsprint so that letters inscribe your poem in code.
14. Read the phone book.
15. Build a circuit board such that electrical resistance builds up considerable quantities of heat.
16. Meet the surviving decendents of Lyndon Baynes Johnson for coffee and significant conversation.
17. Insert and coil wiring into a column fitted with a socket and light bulb. Attach lampshade to make a lovely and full-functioning lamp.
18. Collate.
19. Read your poem by the light of the lamp.
20. Internet search your DVD and access all available Easter Eggs.

To celebrate the rebirth of my personal blog as a study of the Gothic, I am reposting four entries from years past.  They are a little musty and damp, but they’ll give a sense of what this blog is going to sound like in the weeks and months to come.

This third installment (from 2006) is a review of Pirates of the Caribbean II: Dead Man’s Chest.  So I basically said that I thought it was one of the greatest movies ever.  The post started the closest thing to a shitstorm I’d ever seen on my site.  Several friends of mine are movie buffs and they tried to tear my argument apart.  Maybe they did.  But rereading the piece four years later, I still buy its premise.

Read the rest of this entry »

So I wrote the following letter as a response to Glenn Beck’s recent call for Christians to renounce any church, congregation, or parish that calls for “social justice” or “economic justice” because they are code words for “nazism” and “communism.”

First, let’s be honest; Glenn Beck is a straw man. His arguments are patently absurd, and he’s only dangerous because of his significant reach and influence. He is not representative of most religious Americans or even of most conservative religious Americans. Ordinarily, I wouldn’t waste my time writing someone so entirely devoid of reason and consistently unwilling to listen.

In this case, however, I felt it important to respond not only because the equation of progressive liberalism with regimes espousing eugenics, political purges, and genocide to be offensive and horrid… I felt that it was even more important to respond because there’s a deep and wrenching miscalibration in the way religious conservatives interpret and apply the Bible today. This may be unintentional, and in some cases it may not be conscious, but in effect it is ultimately self-serving. We don’t want to be made to give; we want to keep, and maybe to give of our own initiative. But how many of us do this? Not many. And many many others hunger and thirst as a result. This problem is the ethical struggle of a progressive and liberal Christianity. One of the most enduring themes of history is that the wealthy are always loathe to part with their wealth, but the enduring theme of religion in general, and Christianity in particular, is that wisdom and salvation almost always require such relinquishment.

So the letter I wrote below has been building up inside me for a long time, and it is a bit lengthy and quote heavy. The argument is very simple and direct. It is robust because its source material is robust. Unlike most Biblical arguments which might seem alien to our modernized, mechanized world, or which are based on a singular scriptural passage of difficult interpretation, the passages on poverty and social justice are numerous, and the problems today are similar to what they were millennia ago. I have never heard an argument adequate to counter what I’m claiming here:

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Dear Mr. Beck,

Hi! I’m a Christian and I’m involved in social justice. In fact, giving aid to the poor is one of the least ambiguous points of the Bible. It comes up over and over, in book after book, and unlike passages referring to homosexuality or the social role of women, the message is easily interpreted from Genesis to Revelations. When you say that Christians should leave their churches if the churches espouse “social justice” as a code word for “communism” or “nazism,” you’re effectively asking Christians to renounce their Christianity.

A few quotes to support my point here.

Is social justice addressed in the Pentateuch? Check.

Deut. 15:11: The needy will never be lacking in the land; that is why I command you to open your hand to your poor and needy kinsman in your country.

(There are many other statements like this…)

Historical Books? Check.

1 Sam. 2:8: He raises the needy from the dust; / from the ash heap he lifts up the poor, / To seat them with nobles / and make a glorious throne their heritage.

(There are many other statements like this…)

Wisdom Books? Check.

Ps. 82:3-4: Defend the lowly and fatherless; render justice to the afflicted and needy. Rescue the lowly and poor; deliver them from the hand of the wicked.

Pro. 22:22: Injure not the poor because they are poor, nor crush the needy at the gate; for the Lord will defend their cause, and will plunder the lives of those who plunder them.

(There are many other statements like this…)

Is social justice addressed by the Prophets? Boy, is it ever!

Is 10:2: Woe to those who enact unjust statutes and who write oppressive decrees, Depriving the needy of judgment and robbing my people’s poor of their rights, Making widows their plunder, and orphans their prey!

Jer 5:26-28: For there are among my people criminals; like fowlers they set traps but it is men they catch. Their houses are as full of treachery as a bird-cage is of birds; Therefore they grow powerful and rich, fat and sleek. They go their wicked way; justice they do not defend By advancing the claims of the fatherless or judging the cause of the poor.

Ez 16:49: The people of the land practice extortion and commit robbery; they afflict the poor and the needy, and oppress the resident alien without justice.

(There are many, many, many other statements like this…)

And then there’s this SOCIALIST gem from the Acts of the Apostles:

Acts 4:32: The community of believers was of one heart and mind, and no one claimed that any of his possessions was his own, but they had everything in common.

Letters of Paul? Check!

Gal 2:10: Only, we were to be mindful of the poor, which is the very thing I was eager to do.

(There are other statements like this…)

Other New Testament letter? Yup!

James 2:5-6: Listen, my beloved brothers. Did not God choose those who are poor in the world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom that he promised to those who love him? But you dishonored the poor person.

(There are other statements like this…)

And what about the gospels? What does Jesus say about helping the poor?

Luke 18:18-24: An official asked him this question, “Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” Jesus answered him, “Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone. You know the commandments, ‘You shall not commit adultery; you shall not kill; you shall not steal; you shall not bear false witness; honor your father and your mother.’” And he replied, “All of these I have observed from my youth.” When Jesus heard this he said to him, “There is still one thing left for you: sell all that you have and distribute it to the poor, and you will have a treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.” But when he heard this he became sad, for he was very rich.

Matt 7:12: Do to others whatever you would have them do to you. This is the law and the prophets.

Matt 25:44-45: Then they will answer and say, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or ill or in prison, and not minister to your needs?’ He will answer them, ‘Amen, I say to you, what you did not do for one of these least ones, you did not do for me.’

Now, as I understand it, Mr. Beck, you yourself are a Christian, or claim to be. If so, you may want to read the Bible (and I think the Book of Mormon would also support the points I’m making here). Sometimes things really are straightforward. My parish is helping people in Nicaragua and Afghanistan because… they’re hungry.

If you don’t get this, you either don’t understand Christianity, or you don’t care about it.

Sincerely,

Connor Coyne

I’m going to write about this at length, but not today.
This is truly an issue where I believe both major party lines are seriously flawed, although Democrats have made more headway recently then Republicans.

The Democrats often decry the practice of abortion while refusing to legislate on the subject. Since these declarations are often offered without a solution proposed, they amount to platitudes, though there are signs of improvement. Some Democrats (the Presidential ticket among them) are encouraging reductions in the number of abortions through social levers. Some may say that this is an ineffective compromise; from the standpoint that life is sacred prebirth, it is certainly a compromise. However it is not ineffective; the nations with the lowest abortion rates have, in fact, legalized abortion in the context of a health care system that provides medical and financial assistance to new mothers.

The Republican Party takes a stand on the legality of the subject, but it is a sanctimonious, self-righteous stand that offers nothing, not even crumbs, to those they would bar from abortion. This is borne out, as the role of poverty is often the decisive factor in whether or not to have an abortion, while Republicans tend to slash welfare programs that respond to these problems, regardless of the program’s effectiveness, and even while other spending proliferates under their watch. This is worse than a platitude; it is a sort of open-book hypocrisy. If conservatives really value the lives of the unborn, they’ll be willing to make real sacrifices in other policy positions to advance this issue: universal health care, provisions for the poor and disenfranchised, and comprehensive sex education to reduce the number of unwanted pregnancies.

From the point of view of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, abortion is a non-negotiable issue. That is fine, and is in agreement with the Catechism:

Since the first century the Church has affirmed the moral evil of every procured abortion.
This teaching has not changed and remains unchangeable.
Direct abortion, that is to say, abortion willed either as an end or a means, is gravely contrary to the moral law… (2771)

What can and must remain negotiable is the way in which this issue is addressed. Solutions which pass the buck, which demand compliance on the part of others without asking us to scrutinize our own lives and obligations are the easy way out, and have more to do with keeping our own conscience clean according to some minimum standard than leading a true life of faith. But solutions which spread out the sacrifice, where we “do unto others” and take on a portion of the burden as a sign of our commitment are not only more effective; they speak for themselves as a more genuine living out of God’s vision. For “if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing,” (1 Corinthians 13:3).

For Urbantasm, I’ve been reading up quite a bit on theology, eschatology, and the occult. John Bridge considers himself to be the antichrist, and the novel deals quite a bit with religious themes, particularly concerning the nature of space and infinity. It’s been very fascinating, because there’s an automatic tension between a lot of these texts, even though they are widely separated in terms of how and why they were composed. The Catholic Study Bible and Lee Strobel’s The Case for Christ make cases that are automatically critical of, for example, the non-canonical gospels, and the tension between various modes of fortunetelling and the Catechism is well documented.

I personally accept the arguments for why the canonical texts are such, and why other accounts were not included. In fact, reading these texts makes me particularly grateful that they are not a foundation of our faith, since they are frequently misogynistic and tend to restrict salvation to a narrowly definted elect. Many deemphasize the principle of forgiveness and access to grace. It would seem that the canonical gospels, even if they are considered not as religious texts but as social referendum are both more stable and inclusive, and I’d like to think that this is at least part of the reason why they were ultimately selected.

All this said, however, the non-canonical texts are fascinating… they’re fascinating in their diversity and their imagery. The Christ they depict is often more violent — I was dimly reminded of Tetsuo from Akira — and the scenes are often apocalyptic and psychedelic. This is the scary looking god with the red eyes in the stained glass windows at St. John Vianny’s in Flint:

Jesus said, “This heaven will pass away, and the one above it will pass away. The dead are not alive, and the living will not die. During the days when you ate what is dead, you made it come alive. When you are in the light, what will you do? On the day when you were one, you became two. But when you become two, what will you do?”
- The Gospel of Thomas

Another time he took me and James and Peter to the mountain where her used to pray, and we saw (on) him a light such that a man, who uses mortal speech, cannot describe what it was like. Again he took us three likewise up the mountain, saying ‘Come with me.’ And again we went; and we saw him at a distance praying. Then I, since he loved me, went quietly up to him, as if he could not see, and stood looking at his hinder parts; and I saw him not dressed in clothes at all, but stripped of those (that) we (usually) saw (upon him), and not like a man at all. (And I saw that) his feet were whiter than snow, so that the ground there was lit up by his feet; and that his head stretched up to heaven, so that I was afraid and called out; and he, turning about, appeared as a small man and caught hold of my beard and pulled it and said to me, ‘John, do not be faithless, but inquisitive.’ And I said to him, ‘Why, Lord, what have I done?’ But I tell you, my brethren, that I suffered such pain for thirty days in the place where he touched my beard, that I said to him, ‘Lord, if your playful tug has caused such pain, what (would it be) if you had dealt me a blow?’ And he said to me, ‘Let it be your concern from now on not to tempt him that cannot be tempted.’
- John’s Preaching of the Gospel

But the best (in terms of interest), and the worst (in terms of a responsible thesis), is the Infancy Gospel of Thomas:

3:1 The son of Annas the scribe was standing there with Jesus. Taking a branch from a willow tree, he dispersed the waters which Jesus had gathered.
3:2 When Jesus saw what had happened, he became angry and said to him, “You godless, brainless moron, what did the ponds and waters do to you? Watch this now: you are going to dry up like a tree and you will never produce leaves or roots or fruit.”
3:3 And immediately, this child withered up completely. Then, Jesus departed and returned to Joseph’s house. (4) The parents of the one who had been withered up, however, wailed for their young child as they took his remains away. Then, they went to Joseph and accused him, “You are responsible for the child who did this.”
4:1 Next, he was going through the village again and a running child bumped his shoulder. Becoming bitter, Jesus said to him, “You will not complete your journey.”
4:2 Immediately, he fell down and died.
4:3 Then, some of the people who had seen what had happened said, “Where has this child come from so that his every word is a completed deed?”
4:4 And going to Joseph, the parents of the one who had died found fault with him. They said, “Because you have such a child, you are not allowed to live with us in the village, or at least teach him to bless and not curse. For our children are dead!”
- The Infancy Gospel of Thomas