Meat in a vat?

This piece from NPR has generated some interest in the topic of in-vitro meat–that is, meat grown in a lab from a cell culture. Apparently there is a real possibility that sometime in the next decade or so we could see lab-grown meat on our supermarket shelves. On its face, this seems like a win-win for animals and for the environment given the well canvassed evils of industrial meat farming. That is, assuming the resulting product is safe for human consumption.

Undoubtedly the idea of eating meat grown in a petri dish will not sit well with a lot of people, at least initially. Similar to concerns about genetically modified crops, they may consider lab-grown meat “unnatural.” But in the case of GMOs there are legitimate concerns about cross-pollination or other forms of environmental harm that wouldn’t seem to apply here. This likely wouldn’t satisfy everyone, but the way most meat is currently produced isn’t exactly natural either, unless you consider being pumped full of hormones and antibiotics meat’s natural state. Maybe in the in-vitro future, “real” meat will become a niche or luxury item affordable only by the very rich. Or maybe eating real meat will come to be seen as grotesquely immoral given the widespread availability of ethically sound alternatives!

From a vegetarian/animal liberation perspective I can imagine that in vitro meat might seem like admitting defeat or a concession to “carnivore culture” (or “carnism” as some people refer to it): instead of convincing people to give up eating animals through moral persuasion, we’re enabling their flesh-eating ways. But assuming the rationale for animal liberation is reducing or ending the suffering and exploitation of animals, rather than just an objection to meat-eating per se (and what would the rationale for that be?), it’s hard to see this as much more than an emotional response.

I could be persuaded otherwise, and I likely wouldn’t eat “vat-meat” myself, but I have a hard time seeing anything wrong with this apart from the initial “ick” factor.

Church, class, and bourgeois virtue

Jim Henley cites some recent research showing that church attendance correlates with income and “familistic and bourgeois values”; he goes on to offer some speculative explanations of why church might be inhospitable to working-class folks. I think there’s a lot of truth there, but I also have to ask, if this is a recent phenomenon (as the research Jim cites suggests), then what changed? Why are churches losing ground among the working class now? Is this something specific to churches, or are people who have lost ground economically losing faith in all the institutions in society (church, government, business)? After all, divisions between rich and poor in the church go back at least to the church at Corinth.

There are a few possible additional explanations I can think of, but it would also be helpful if we knew whether this phenomenon is evenly distributed among different kinds of churches. Are liberal mainline churches doing better or worse among working class people than conservative evangelical ones? While it might seem plausible, for example, that poorer people would find “prosperity gospel” preaching alienating, my sense is that this variety of Christianity actually is more appealing to those trying to better their economic condition than it is a post facto rationalization for wealth already accumulated, though it may also be that. (See this Peter Berger article on prosperity-type teaching among pentecostal Christians in the global south for a provocative take on that.) Meanwhile, I can think of reasons why lower-income working people might find the “peace and justice” preaching of some comfortably upper-middle-class liberal churches less than fully relevant to their lives.

Whatever the explanation, there’s clearly evidence that churches often become “self-selecting circles of the economically and socially successful,” as Jim puts it. What should–but apparently doesn’t–go without saying is that this is a far cry from the kind of community that Jesus gathered around himself and which Christianity at its best has embodied. The church isn’t primarily–if at all–supposed to be a training ground for bourgeois virtue, although it has certainly functioned that way for much of American history. If there’s a silver lining here it may be that this model of the church is finally dying a well-deserved death. But what, if anything, will replace it?

Any other thoughts?

Friday Metal: Sinister Realm, “Winds of Vengeance”

File under “neo-traditional.” Nice to hear some of these recent metal acts with actual singing! A refreshing change from the now-cliched “extreme” vocals.

God and the White Whale

Brandon points to this interesting piece by Reformed theologian R.C. Sproul on Moby-Dick, which Sproul correctly notes is the greatest American novel.

Sproul argues for a Christian reading of Melville’s work–seeing Ahab as man in rebellion against God (symbolized by the White Whale).

Melville experts and scholars come to different conclusions about the meaning of the great white whale. Many see this brutish animal as evil because it had inflicted great personal damage on Ahab in an earlier encounter. Ahab lost his leg, which was replaced by the bone of a lesser whale. Some argue that Moby Dick is Melville’s symbol of the incarnation of evil itself. Certainly this is the view of the whale held by Captain Ahab himself. Ahab is driven by a monomaniacal hatred for this creature, this brute that left him permanently damaged both in body and soul. He cries out, “He heaps me,” indicating the depth of the hatred and fury he feels toward this beast. Some have accepted Ahab’s view that the whale is a monstrous evil as that of Melville himself. That the whale is not a symbol of evil but the symbol of God Himself. In this interpretation, Ahab’s pursuit of the whale is not a righteous pursuit of God but natural man’s futile attempt in his hatred of God to destroy the omnipotent deity.

While I think there’s something to this, I also think it’s a bit too pat–and maybe too comforting to Christian sensibilities.

The Whale certainly does symbolize transcendence, I think. Sproul points to the key chapter “The Whiteness of the Whale” where the many facets and connotations of the property of whiteness evoke what we might, following Rudolph Otto, call the mysterium tremendum et fascians. I would go further and say that much of the book–such as the allegedly boring chapters on cetology, history, the details of whaling, etc.–are intended by Melville to create a mythology of sorts in which the whale (and by extension all of non-human nature) takes on a transcendent, larger-than-life quality.

However, I think Sproul overlooks another key theme–the inscrutability of the Whale (and, by implication, ultimate reality). One of the things that makes Melville seem so contemporary is what we might call his “perspectivalism.” There is no single privileged perspective that can give us a “true” picture of reality. This comes out perhaps most clearly in “The Doubloon” where the crew members inspect the symbols on a gold doubloon Ahab has nailed to the ship’s mast, each one finding in them a radically different meaning. Each character’s understanding of reality is as much a product of himself as it is of the world. We can also cite the early chapters in which Ishmael, through his relationship with the “savage” Queequeg, comes to a rather “relativistic” view of religious and cultural pluralism.

Indeed, this perspectivalism is inherent in the very structure of the novel–the shift from first- to third-person narrative, telling the story from the point of view of different characters, the mixing of genres (realistic novel, history, drama), and the general “unreliability” of Ishmael as a narrator. This structure destabilizes the reader by refusing to provide anything like the classic omniscient narrator to tell us how things really are.

We also see this in the treatment of Ahab. Sproul seems to want to read him as more classically villainous–as man in revolt against God. But Ahab is closer to a Shakespearean tragic figure–someone who is admirable in many ways, but who is set, almost in spite of himself, on a path that can only end in his own destruction. By contrast, the more conventionally pious Starbuck, while perhaps morally in the right, is too weak-willed to prevent Ahab from carrying out his quest for revenge.

If the White Whale is a symbol of ultimate reality for Melville, then it has to be said that he regarded that reality as deeply mysterious and ambiguous. The world can by turns appear beneficent, brutally cruel, and indifferent. And each character responds to that reality in a different way, none of them obviously “correct.” If we take Ishmael as Melville’s stand-in (a decidedly dicey proposition) we might, tentatively, characterize his response as something like “diffident awe.” But this is certainly far from Christian piety. You could well argue that the novel leaves us with a picture of reality as supremely indifferent to human affairs, with “the great shroud of the sea roll[ing] on as it rolled five thousand years ago” and Ishmael as “another orphan” on that sea.

A worry about open Communion

I don’t have really strong feelings one way or the other about “open” Communion–i.e., communing the non-baptized. I can see arguments both for and against it. But I do have some questions about how I’ve seen it put into practice.

At several churches I’ve been to that practice open Communion, there is little or no effort at instructing the congregation in the meaning of the sacrament. Which is odd since you’d think that if atheists, agnostics, Buddhists, Jews, etc. are being invited to participate, they might be interested in knowing just what it is they’re being asked to participate in. Surely we can’t assume that everyone already knows what Communion is all about, can we?

This raises the suspicion that open Communion–at least as it’s practiced in a lot of places–is really more about the appearance of inclusion for inclusion’s sake than about inviting people to partake of the Eucharist understood specifically as the sacrament of Christ’s presence. It also suggests that if you really want to invite people to participate in Communion with some meaningful understanding, something like catechesis is necessary. But doesn’t this just call the whole practice of open Communion into question? I’d be interested in hearing what others think about this, especially if they think they’ve seen it put into practice effectively.

Friday Metal: Iron Maiden, “Number of the Beast”

From Rock in Rio:

Elvis 101

The AV Club has a great primer on the music of Elvis Presley, presumably in honor of the anniversary of his death this week.

You may wonder why arguably the most famous pop/rock star in history needs an introduction, but the article hits the nail on the head, I think:

While Presley’s fame continues unabated, his musical legacy is a different story. Presley’s many hits still get played on the radio every single day, but actually hearing those songs for what they are requires unpacking a lot of baggage and addressing many of the same prejudices that haunted Elvis’ career back when he was alive.

It goes on to identify the recordings from the different phases of Elvis’s career that merit revisiting. I wholeheartedly endorse this top 5 list of essential Elivs:

1. Sunrise

2. Suspicious Minds: The Memphis 1969 Anthology

3. Elvis Country (I’m 10,000 Years Old)

4. Elvis 56

5. Memories: The ’68 Comeback Special

I’d include as an honorable mention Ultimate Gospel. I also have a soft spot for Aloha from Hawaii

Reading the Bible after supersessionism

I’ve started reading R. Kendall Soulen’s The God of Israel and Christian Theology, which is an attempt to rethink the foundational narrative of Christianity within a “post-supersessionist” context. Christian theology has traditionally held that the church replaces Israel in God’s covenant. However, the realization, post-Holocaust, of how Christian theology has contributed to anti-Semitism and the persecution of Jews has led many Christian churches to renounce any supersessionist claims. While this is an important step, Soulen argues that simply renouncing supersessionism isn’t enough–we need to attend to the “deep grammar” in the traditional Christian story that makes supersessionism not only possible, but virtually inevitable.

Soulen introduces the concept of a “canonical narrative” or “canonical construal” of scripture–the overarching story of how the diverse collection of texts that constitute the Bible “hangs together.” In particular, this narrative construal allows us to see how the Old and New Testaments (or, as Soulen sometimes refers to them, the Scriptures and the Apostolic Witness) constitute one canon. This provides a prism for reading the texts as a story about God’s relation to the world.

In Soulen’s view, the traditional Christian narrative construal is one of “creation-for-consummation, fall, redemption in Christ, and final consummation” (p. 16). God creates humanity with intention of ultimately consummating human existence with eternal life. Tragically, because of the fall into sin, this project of consummation is derailed, and God must resort to “plan B.” This, of course, is the incarnation of the Second Person of the Trinity in Jesus Christ and his life, death, and resurrection. This redemptive act restores humanity and allows God’s plans for consummation to proceed.

The problem with the standard view, from a post-supersessionist perspective, is that it views the role of Israel as temporary and inessential to God’s greater purposes. Or as Soulen puts it “it makes God’s identity as the God of Israel largely indecisive for shaping theological conclusions about God’s enduring purposes for creation” (p. 16). It allows God’s acts of salvation to be seen as individualistic and ahistorical–as dealing with the “universal” problem of sin rather than as part of the story of God binding Godself to one particular people. This is why the church has typically erased any religiously significant distinction between Jew and Gentile.

What’s needed, Soulen argues, is a new narrative construal that sees the election of Israel of lasting significance. For such a construal to be faithful to the Christian gospel it must maintain the core evangelical conviction that the God of Israel has acted in Jesus Christ for all, to use Soulen’s summary. But it must do so without treating the election of Israel as a temporary detour in salvation history.

NPR’s SF and fantasy top 100

NPR did a listener survey on the best science fiction and fantasy books and posted a list of the top 100. The ones I’ve read are in bold. At a glance, the list seems a little bit too weighted toward more recent stuff. Anything else on here anyone would particularly recommend?

1. The Lord Of The Rings Trilogy, by J.R.R. Tolkien

2. The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy, by Douglas Adams

3. Ender’s Game, by Orson Scott Card

4. The Dune Chronicles, by Frank Herbert [first book only--L.M.]

5. A Song Of Ice And Fire Series, by George R. R. Martin

6. 1984, by George Orwell

7. Fahrenheit 451, by Ray Bradbury

8. The Foundation Trilogy, by Isaac Asimov

9. Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley

10. American Gods, by Neil Gaiman

11. The Princess Bride, by William Goldman

12. The Wheel Of Time Series, by Robert Jordan

13. Animal Farm, by George Orwell

14. Neuromancer, by William Gibson

15. Watchmen, by Alan Moore

16. I, Robot, by Isaac Asimov

17. Stranger In A Strange Land, by Robert Heinlein

18. The Kingkiller Chronicles, by Patrick Rothfuss

19. Slaughterhouse-Five, by Kurt Vonnegut

20. Frankenstein, by Mary Shelley

21. Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep?, by Philip K. Dick

22. The Handmaid’s Tale, by Margaret Atwood

23. The Dark Tower Series, by Stephen King

24. 2001: A Space Odyssey, by Arthur C. Clarke

25. The Stand, by Stephen King

26. Snow Crash, by Neal Stephenson

27. The Martian Chronicles, by Ray Bradbury

28. Cat’s Cradle, by Kurt Vonnegut

29. The Sandman Series, by Neil Gaiman

30. A Clockwork Orange, by Anthony Burgess

31. Starship Troopers, by Robert Heinlein

32. Watership Down, by Richard Adams

33. Dragonflight, by Anne McCaffrey

34. The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress, by Robert Heinlein

35. A Canticle For Leibowitz, by Walter M. Miller

36. The Time Machine, by H.G. Wells

37. 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea, by Jules Verne

38. Flowers For Algernon, by Daniel Keys

39. The War Of The Worlds, by H.G. Wells

40. The Chronicles Of Amber, by Roger Zelazny

41. The Belgariad, by David Eddings

42. The Mists Of Avalon, by Marion Zimmer Bradley

43. The Mistborn Series, by Brandon Sanderson

44. Ringworld, by Larry Niven

45. The Left Hand Of Darkness, by Ursula K. LeGuin

46. The Silmarillion, by J.R.R. Tolkien

47. The Once And Future King, by T.H. White

48. Neverwhere, by Neil Gaiman

49. Childhood’s End, by Arthur C. Clarke

50. Contact, by Carl Sagan

51. The Hyperion Cantos, by Dan Simmons

52. Stardust, by Neil Gaiman

53. Cryptonomicon, by Neal Stephenson

54. World War Z, by Max Brooks

55. The Last Unicorn, by Peter S. Beagle

56. The Forever War, by Joe Haldeman

57. Small Gods, by Terry Pratchett

58. The Chronicles Of Thomas Covenant, The Unbeliever, by Stephen R. Donaldson

59. The Vorkosigan Saga, by Lois McMaster Bujold

60. Going Postal, by Terry Pratchett

61. The Mote In God’s Eye, by Larry Niven & Jerry Pournelle

62. The Sword Of Truth, by Terry Goodkind

63. The Road, by Cormac McCarthy

64. Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, by Susanna Clarke

65. I Am Legend, by Richard Matheson

66. The Riftwar Saga, by Raymond E. Feist

67. The Shannara Trilogy, by Terry Brooks

68. The Conan The Barbarian Series, by R.E. Howard

69. The Farseer Trilogy, by Robin Hobb

70. The Time Traveler’s Wife, by Audrey Niffenegger

71. The Way Of Kings, by Brandon Sanderson

72. A Journey To The Center Of The Earth, by Jules Verne

73. The Legend Of Drizzt Series, by R.A. Salvatore

74. Old Man’s War, by John Scalzi

75. The Diamond Age, by Neil Stephenson

76. Rendezvous With Rama, by Arthur C. Clarke

77. The Kushiel’s Legacy Series, by Jacqueline Carey

78. The Dispossessed, by Ursula K. LeGuin

79. Something Wicked This Way Comes, by Ray Bradbury

80. Wicked, by Gregory Maguire

81. The Malazan Book Of The Fallen Series, by Steven Erikson

82. The Eyre Affair, by Jasper Fforde

83. The Culture Series, by Iain M. Banks

84. The Crystal Cave, by Mary Stewart

85. Anathem, by Neal Stephenson

86. The Codex Alera Series, by Jim Butcher

87. The Book Of The New Sun, by Gene Wolfe

88. The Thrawn Trilogy, by Timothy Zahn

89. The Outlander Series, by Diana Gabaldan

90. The Elric Saga, by Michael Moorcock

91. The Illustrated Man, by Ray Bradbury

92. Sunshine, by Robin McKinley

93. A Fire Upon The Deep, by Vernor Vinge

94. The Caves Of Steel, by Isaac Asimov

95. The Mars Trilogy, by Kim Stanley Robinson [first book only--L.M.]

96. Lucifer’s Hammer, by Larry Niven & Jerry Pournelle

97. Doomsday Book, by Connie Willis

98. Perdido Street Station, by China Mieville

99. The Xanth Series, by Piers Anthony

100. The Space Trilogy, by C.S. Lewis

Friday Metal: King’s X, “Sometimes”

The King’s X obsession continues. This is from their first album, Out of the Silent Planet (note the C.S. Lewis reference).