Friday Funnies: Stupor Duck

"...And I Aardvark Ratnik will rule the world. Muahahahaha."

Watching the Watchmen

A friend and I recently have read The Watchmen, and here are my recent thoughts. Oh by the way, here is your SPOILER ALERT warning.

The superhero genre was created when Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster imagined a bullet-proof crime fighter from another planet. The genre took another step when Stan Lee wondered how a teenager with the proportionate strength of a spider would deal with the challenges of adolescence. With The Watchmen, Alan Moore pushes the genre even further. What happens when superheroes wrestle with a morally ambiguous world? Deal with mental illness and depression? Grow old? How does the world react to a hero who is seemingly omnipotent? What are the social, political and cultural ramifications of heroes in tights?

Following these issues to their ultimate end is what makes The Watchmen classic. The multiple plots and the endless allusions make for dense reading, but they are done well. The authors understand the conventions of the medium, and they stretch them. They create a world that is rich and textured.

That being said, the graphic novel is very dated. I can understand why the movie didn’t do well at the box office. The market in 2009 for movies about an alternative 1985 in which Richard Nixon is still president must be pretty small. In the book, the Cold War and the threat of nuclear war dominate ever page. The ever present threat of death and destruction pushes society to the point of neurosis. The Watchmen outlines the transition from the moral clarity of the early superheroes to nihilistic confusion.

This descent is probably what bothers me most. The underlying assumption of the book is that there is no purpose or meaning in life. All of the major characters accept this worldview without question. Each responds to the nihilism in his or her own way.

THE COMEDIAN

The Comedian sees justice as a sick joke masking a reality of violence and power. He embodies the joke as an American hero while at the same time he kills, rapes and destroys without thought. Winning, it has been said, is a great disinfectant, and the Comedian wants to be on the winning side.

RORSCHACH

Rorschach suggests that our world is like the random inkblots of his namesake. The only meaning is what we impose upon life. For example, when Nite Owl II expresses remorse at the death of a friend, Rorschach concocts a theory of who killed him. Rorschach hopes that Nite Owl II can take comfort from his theory and the revenge to which it inevitably leads. He himself sees conspiracies everywhere, and he embraces the meaning that he has created without any doubt. His cruelty comes from his own manufactured certitude.

DR. MANHATTAN

Dr. Manhattan is the closest thing to a supreme being in the book. Although his knowledge and power has no limits, he can’t understand humanity. For him, the world is relative without meaning. The future is pre-determined. Even his emotional responses are part of a script that he has been handed. His ability and power is merely a tool in the hands of others. He does not have the moral freedom to act on his own. For example, he cannot stop the JFK assignation, or the Comedian’s murder in Vietnam of someone in cold blood.

OZYMANDIUS

Ozymandius is the existentialist. He wishes to create meaning and shape reality to fit his new world. Like other political messiahs, the nobility of his aims excuses a million crimes. He is willing to slaughter others to usher in a new age of peace and prosperity. Although the book seems to embrace his final solution to the crisis of nuclear holocaust, doubts remain. Even his name, Ozymandius, reminds one of Percy Bysshe Shelley’s poem which suggests that ultimately the mighty do fall.

NITE OWL II AND SILK SPECTRE II

Nite Owl II and Silk Spectre II are harder to classify. On the one hand, they have the closest connection to the superheroes of the past. After all, their names and history have been handed to them. On the other hand, they are products of this nihilistic world. Hence, there is a quick acceptance of the horrific compromise that they are handed at the end of the book. Both attempt to hold the chaos of the world at bay.

Like the snow globe she discovers as a girl, Silk Spectre II seeks a safe place where time moves slower. She finds solace in relationships. She seeks friendship, family ties, and lovers. As the world comes crashing around her, she needs others.

In contrast, Nite Owl II tries to strike a balance between the mechanistic and the meaningful. At the end of chapter seven, Nite Owl II’s secret identity writes eloquently about holding onto the poetry of birds while remaining committed to the scientific and the material. He is a romantic.

Nonetheless, no one in the novel stands for an objective reality. As the Comedian demonstrates, fighting for truth, justice and the American way is laughable. God is dead, yet the novel does not celebrate. There is something sorrowful and regrettable that moral clarity has no foundation or basis. In one of the last scenes of the book, a group of New Yorkers try to do the right thing by intervening when an argument gets out of control. All are slaughtered in a monstrous act of random violence. We lament their deaths and their pointless desire to help their neighbor.

While The Watchmen is persuasive and effective, I can’t accept this view of reality. When accepting the Nobel Prize for Literature, William Faulkner said,

“I believe that man will not merely endure: he will prevail. He is immortal, not because he alone among creatures has an inexhaustible voice, but because he has a soul, a spirit capable of compassion and sacrifice and endurance. The poet's, the writer's, duty is to write about these things. It is his privilege to help man endure by lifting his heart, by reminding him of the courage and honor and hope and pride and compassion and pity and sacrifice which have been the glory of his past. The poet's voice need not merely be the record of man, it can be one of the props, the pillars to help him endure and prevail.”

Faulkner’s words seem to damn the entire world of The Watchmen.

Friday Funnies: Lonely in a Crowd

The Marx Brothers in a scene from "A Night At the Opera".

Where the Treasure Is

In the past few weeks, I have been hit over the head multiple times with a lesson of the obvious.

One source was a Havard Business School Podcast discussing the book, Discovery-Driven Growth. Rita McGrath, a co-author of the book, was discussing business agendas. She suggested that if growth (or anything else) was the priority for a business, it should be one of the first items on the agenda.

The other source was a discussion with a pastor. He said, “Throw away a church’s mission statement. The real way to know what the church believes is looking at its budget.” Where does the church put their financial resources? In a building? In a program?

Jesus said, “For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also” (Luke 12:34). For the institutional church, our treasure is money, time, and talent. Where do we set our priorities in these areas? Our agendas, budgets, and staffing are practical ways in which we establish where our heart will be. As the church plans for the upcoming year, this is certainly some good guidance.

John Calvin and the Excesses of American Patriotism

Did John Calvin have an influence on the excesses of American patriotism? Damon Linker says, "yes," in a blog posting at the New Republic. Considering the Puritan background of many of the first settlers, I'm not terribly surprised that Calvinism has had an impact. Nonetheless, the line that Linker draws between Calvin and the American situation seems tenuous at best.

There were indeed Puritans who claimed that America had a special place in God's providence. Some even described America as the "new Israel" led from slavery into the promised land. There is a natural temptation for such attitudes to devolve into the suggestion of divine approval for a country's actions right or wrong. Linker suggests that we should blame Calvin for this “theological self-confidence” among Americans that borders on “over-confidence.” Sadly, I don't find anything in Calvin's teaching that suggests that he would approve of associating an earthly realm with the Kingdom of God.

Calvin, who described the heart as an idol factory, would understand someone who turns a nation or an ideology into a god. Moreover, he would call it a sin.

Friday Funnies: Classic Lucille Ball

Here is the famous scene from I Love Lucy where Lucy and Ethel take a job in a candy factory. Could this be a metaphor for pastoral ministry?

Meeting the Lord in the Air

According to a Voice of America report, Buzz Aldrin took communion on the moon. On July 20, 1969, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landed on the moon. Soon after they landed, Aldrin took a piece of bread and a cup of wine that had been consecrated for communion. The first food eaten and the first cup poured on the moon were communion elements.

Aldrin, a Presbyterian elder, wanted to give thanks to God on behalf of all people. The meal was to be a meal of thanksgiving or Eucharist (from the Greek, “eucharistos”). Aldrin wanted to offer a response to God for God's faithfulness. I am deeply moved that Aldrin would want to respond to God in that way.

The VOA report did not delve deeply into the theology, but I was interested in how Rev. Dean Woodruff prepared for the communion service. The article took pains to suggest that this was a “personal” or “private” act. However, it wasn't. In the Presbyterian Church, Communion is a communal act. The Lord's Supper is a sign and seal of our communion with God and with each other.

Several weeks prior to the launch of the Apollo 11, the Webster Presbyterian Church in Texas celebrated communion. After the worship service, a group of elders gathered with Buzz Aldrin. (Aldrin was restricted from contact with too many people.) During that time, Aldrin was given the bread and wine for communion. A benediction was not offered so that the Lord's Supper on the moon was in fact an extension of the worship service in Webster, Texas.

Aldrin on the moon gathered with those Presbyterians in Webster, Texas and with the saints of all time and places. Over 350,000 miles away, Buzz Aldrin remained in the presence of the Lord and the bosom of the Church.

For more information...

• A VOA interview with Rev. Woodruff in mp3.
• A description of the communion by Aldrin from the Webster Presbyterian Church's website.
• Hat tip to Presbyweb.

The Role of Numbers in the Church

Every year, our church sends reports to denominational officials. We send a host of numbers. There are budgets, membership statistics, worship attendance and a host of other facts and figures. Sadly, we do next to nothing with the numbers. They just sit on a shelf gathering dust.

I wonder what would happen if we used the numbers. I know many would balk at the thought. The church they argue is not a business. We can't quantify faithfulness. Attendance or the number of baptisms do not demonstrate the vitality of a congregation. I would agree.

If nothing else my degree in mathematics has shown me that numbers have hidden dangers. As an abstraction, they are useful to make comparisons or calculations, but valuable information disappears when we reduce people or objects to mere number. In The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupery, the narrator mentions the subtleties lost when adults are consumed by numbers.

"When you tell [adults] that you have made a new friend, they never ask you any questions about essential matters. They never say to you, 'What does his voice sound like? What games does he love best? Does he collect butterflies?' Instead, they demand: 'How old is he? How many brothers has he? How much does he weigh? How much money does his father make?' Only from these figures do they think they have learned anything about him."

Another problem resulting from abstraction means that numbers can be manipulated for ill. Scientists have been caught using only data which confirmed their presuppositions and prejudices. Politicians and advertisers have manipulated public opinion with skewed or selective reporting. As Mark Twain once said, "there are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics."

The Scriptures also suggest a danger of numbers which might surprise some. Numbers can lead to the sin of pride. In the ancient world, taking a census was a sign of control and power. Kings used numbers to coerce populations through taxation and conscription into the army. In the Old Testament, God gave Moses specific instructions relating to a census to curb this temptation. Each person involved in the census had to pay a "ransom" as an offering to God (Exodus 30:11-16). An offering was a costly reminder to the leader that God was really the one in charge. The consequences for failing to follow these rules were severe. For example, King David later took an illegal census, and God punished the kingdom with a plague (2 Samuel 24 and 1 Chronicles 21). I could just imagine a church pastor busting with pride as he recites the number of new members added this year. Heck, I have been that pastor.

HOW THEN SHALL WE MEASURE?
Nonetheless, we shouldn't ignore numbers. We must be on guard against abstraction, manipulation and pride, but church leaders shouldn't be blind to the results of their ministry.

Perhaps, we are just looking at the wrong numbers. The percentage of members who come to worship might be a more useful statistic than simply attendance. The number of youth who are still active in church after college is much more helpful than numbering the crowd who gathers weekly. I would assume that there are even more creative ways to measure a congregation's impact on the community.