The Kingdom of Broken Bread

7 Features of Christian Fascism

2011-10-05T11:03:00.006-04:00

Some of these features are borrowed from Umberto Eco's definition of Ur-fascism, or Eternal fascism.

1. Confusion of national identity with religious identity. The interests of the nation are given priority by rhetorically fusing them to the interests of the religion. For instance, in the crusades, the interests of the nations involved in fighting Turkish invasions was rhetorically framed as fighting for the sake of Christianity, confusing political victory with the mission to preach the Gospel. This was also the case during the age of discovery, when European nations expanded and conquered foreign nations under the guise of spreading the Gospel. (In contrast, Jesus commanded his disciples to travel two by two, not with an army, and rely on their reception as guests at particular homes in particular towns. If they were not treated well and their message not accepted, they were to leave and shake the dust from their feet. The apostles in the book of Acts also followed this protocol. They advanced the Gospel by preaching as guests, with humility, not as owners making claims for a higher power. At the heart of the Good News was that the closed nationalism of the Jewish identity had been opened to receive those from every tribe and nation as one catholic family of God. Thus prioritizing one nation over another results in the destruction of this catholic identity, just as the formation of an imperial Christendom in the image of the Roman State defeats the individual reception of the Gospel on the basis of grace through faith.)

Surrounding the various nationalistic faces of Christianity is an array of symbols, used as propaganda to capture the imaginations of the people so that they will remain obedient to the ruling national and clerical elite. For instance, the Roman fasces, a bundle of rods tied to an ax carried by the lictor, who attended the magistrate and used the fasces to clear the crowd, became a symbol of authority. It was the official symbol of Benito Mussolini's Italian Fascist Party, but it also appears on the Great Seal of the US American Senate. Other Roman symbols also follow the various rebirths of Roman politics throughout Western history, such as the eagle and the wreath. Similarly, the Christian cross often appears in various forms on flags, or is pictured with it in popular, patriotic art. The Cross of Lorraine appears in front of the fasces on a propaganda poster of the Italian fascists in order to convince Christians that to serve the state is to serve God. Implied was the claim that the state was serving God. When Christians in the United States claim that it is the Christian's duty to maintain the state and make sure it is serving God, the question must be raised if the weapons of the Roman state are an adequate means, and if this conflicts with the mandate to preach the Gospel of reconciliation in a non coercive manner, especially when the cross symbolized the victory of God over the powers through Christ's willing victimization by them. And it should also be asked why the early Christians went from being victims of the weapons of the Roman state, starting with Christ's crucifixion, to wielding them. How did Jesus' followers go from being "licked" by the lictor, as was Paul, to the ones carrying the fasces?

From this schizophrenic identity stems all of the following:

2. An obsession with fixing cultural degradation. Instead of focusing on morality as a response to the faith received by grace within the community of believers, the moral imperative is transferred to the surrounding culture through the progressive seizure of the political power and media forms of that nation to create a parallel culture and powerful special interest group, mobilized to eventually take control of the country "for God".

3. Widespread fostering of xenophobia and plot obsession. The media is used to spread fear of the competing agendas of other groups that are different, claiming that they are trying to take over the world, are destroying the economy, the family, etc. It feeds off of experiences of humiliation or financial instability. Instead of the fearless faith in the power of God and the resurrection that gave early Christian martyrs the courage to love their enemies even as they were being fed to lions, the enemies of the nation are seen not as souls in need of the Gospel, but as objects to be destroyed by the nations' weapons. There is also a disdain for immigrants, and efforts to tighten border security, despite the fact that those claiming to uphold the "law"often are descended from immigrants that came when there were no such laws or security measures in place. Historically, when national borders have been heavily regulated, it eventually had the adverse effect of keeping those inside who wanted to leave. Rather than blame the nation, it is always the fault of the foreigner.

4. An obsession with strength, machismo and weapons. Fear breeds the despising of weakness, especially in one's self. Women thus are given passive status, weak men are ridiculed with women's status, and strong, macho men who are "brave" enough to kill (i.e., die) for the cause are exalted into heroes and given active status. Yet heroism is also rhetorically given to those who keep to their place and act out their lives within their narrowly defined social status. This, they are told, is true freedom, a glorious calling, etc.,etc.

5. An obsession with hierarchical human structures. Claimed as divine structures, the consequences can conveniently be transferred to God, giving the enforcers of these hierarchies immunity from inward and outward criticism. Most of the support for this view comes from a confused interpretation of the first few verses of Romans 13, in which Christians are exhorted to submit to human rulers because God ordained them to carry out vengeance. But they were NOT exhorted to become them or imitate them. Vengeance was not part of the Christian calling. Rather, the pacifist character of the early Christians existed in order that the Gospel be advanced through their own weakness in order for all power and glory to be given to God; and the message received voluntarily by grace through faith, not human coercion.

Government hierarchies are also transferred to the household, as in ancient Rome, in order to keep everyone in their place and uphold the broader social structure. Again, various New Testament epistles are cited, but their purpose can arguably be attributed to both the pacifist character of the early Christians toward surrounding culture, waiting for change from the inside out by the work of the Spirit (they viewed their time as apocalyptic, the ends of the ages, a new creation where the forms of the old creation were passing away), or practical necessity, especially for women coming from a society in which they were not educated and often did not even speak the worship language. Any evolutionary maturing beyond these early concessions is systematically denied consideration because of...

6. An obsession with tradition. Not tradition as a growing, maturing organism, but tradition as a closed, final, absolutist, monolithic belief system that is immune to inward and outward criticism and denied the ability to mature alongside evolving criteria, experience and theology. An oft used tactic is to claim that various traditional beliefs have always been universally held down through the ages of Christianity, despite evidence that tracks their evolution and their varying nuances, not to mention sharp disagreements, within the historic faith community.

7. Perpetual and Failing Warfare. This worldview of hierarchy and control would cease to exist if there was not a perpetual need for enemies to justify political power. They at once claim victim status ("We are the only ones not tolerated") yet insist God is on the side of their country in any international conflict, even in wars that cannot but fail, because of the vagueness of the enemy (drugs, terror, for example), as well as the dwindling resources of the taxed population to finance both the wars and the fake reconstruction contracts given to multinational corporations. Where the money goes is anybody's guess, while the schools, roads and hospitals designated for rebuilding continue to lie in ruins.

In summary, then, the fusion and confusion of national and religious identities has left a wide swath of death, genocide, ethnocide and ensuing environmental destruction in its wake. It has reared its ugly head in many guises throughout history, masquerading as an angel of light, but it is known by its fruit. Where there is a carcass, there the vultures gather.

On Power: My Conversion From Religious Conservatism

2011-06-01T10:30:00.004-04:00

The Western consciousness is deeply shaped by its perception of power structures. Even in democracies we are addicted to authority structures that give stability and predictability to life. It is intrinsic to all civilization.

Undergirding these structures are always religions of some sort. Even with the arrival of a god-less creation story, the religion of no religion is still a religion. Darwin's theory has served as a myth of origins to give moral commission for the advance of humanity, the pinnacle of evolutionary process. Humans alone possess the power to observe how the world works and this higher knowledge has allowed us to conquer disease, advance our technologies and make moral choices. Indeed, with our elaborate power structures, once seen as a way to mediate God's authority to the world, it is not surprising that the structures themselves would begin to replace God. After so long, with so little change, these fixtures seemed permanent, functioning to keep the wheels of politics, society, industry and innovation turning like clockwork.

The old traditions still have their proponents, of course. I once read a book that delineated the structures of Christian society into such neat hierarchies of church, family and state, that it was hailed by the publisher as a definitive work on the subject. I was quite taken with it at the time; it seemed to hold so much promise for the enlightenment of a world sitting in confused darkness. And then I met someone, or rather fell in love. He was actually the one who loaned the book to me, and then we started dating. But it was during one of our romantic, late night theological discussions that he dropped the proverbial anvil. "I really don't think there is a place for a Christian state. Every argument I've ever heard was just repeating Romans 13." In other words, he had begun to suspect that there really wasn't that much to go on. It was Romans 13 plus a whole lot of elaborate schematization that was needed to support the pillarized theory of Christian society.

My mind began scrolling through the paradigm. Israel had both a kingly and priestly function, divided that way through Moses and Aaron. That served, for covenant theologians at least, as a foundation for the state and church, right? But then the image of Christ enthroned in heaven, both as king and high priest, flashed through my brain. Weren't the two functions merged into one in the person of Christ? And didn't he begin a new kind of society from out of Israel itself? And didn't he make everyone who was part of that society both king and priest? I felt a large crack, almost audible, appear in my stable worldview. Light was filtering through, and God was wriggling out of my firm grasp like a muscled, slippery, wet fish.

That was just the beginning. It was not long before I began to pose the question, "What would the Bible and history look like if it were not read from the top looking down, with all of its structured hierarchies, but from the bottom looking up?" My worldview began to take on an entirely new shape. From N.T. Wright's "The New Testament and the People of God", I learned to read Jesus from the perspective of the Jew who had never quite recovered from the state of exile. From John Howard Yoder's "The Politics of Jesus", I began to see that taking up the cross didn't just mean bearing our own difficult burdens in life, it meant being on the wrong end, politically, of an imperial justice system. And through wide reading from many perspectives and disciplines, a clearer picture began to emerge as to just how imperial and oppressive my own history, as a US American Christian, actually was. I began to see colonization and industrialization from the perspective of the Native Americans, Australian Aborigines and African tribes, from the bottom looking up. I read of malappropriated lands, polluted rivers and razed forests, which once provided food, water and fuel for their previous inhabitants. Now they must work long hours in factories and corporate industry farms, every day, to make toys and games and chocolate for us to enjoy, while barely scraping enough to eat from their meager pay. I read how the World Bank uses loan sharks to persuade a country's rulers to go into debt. The loan goes to multinational corporations to set up their infrastructures which benefit a few rich, while the debt goes to the people who cannot repay it and must then become the labor force for the rest. And if the president refuses the loan, they are soon after killed in a tragic accident. But the next one usually takes it. And I read how missionaries were used as spies to destabilize tribal resistance to such predators. And how indigenous children were stolen from their families and forced to attend Christian boarding schools well into the 1960's in order to enculturate them to the white, Christian ways. I read how the missionaries always followed the armies and forts into the Western territories of Dakota and other Native peoples. And how Romans 13 was quoted by Lutherans in Germany when Hitler came to power. I read how SWAT teams invade homes in the ghetto and you can get shot if you even move, or if you are a little girl sleeping on the couch, even when they get the wrong address for a drug raid. And how these events happen every day, but go unreported. And how armies invade other countries to bring them freedom by deposing a tyrant, but somehow only depose tyrants in oil rich countries and ignore the rest, and somehow feel the need to stabilize oil rigs before stabilizing villages, and somehow end up staying and building permanent bases, and somehow the multinational corporations get the aid money to set up their infrastructures.

And I could go on. Needless to say, I found things a bit different from the glossed over account of history in the Christian curricula from my homeschooled days. An account gushing with God's favor upon those who emerged victorious. Yet nothing was ever said about those who lost their ancient homelands. The account was from the top looking down.

And here is the place to quote Walter Brueggemann. Looking to the Biblical narrative and Moses' prophetic stance against Egypt he writes, "We will not understand the meaning of prophetic imagination unless we see the connection between the religion of static triumphalism and the politics of oppression and exploitation...The gods of Egypt are the immovable lords of order. They call for, sanction, and legitimate a society of order, which was precisely what Egypt had. In Egypt,...there were no revolutions, no breaks for freedom. There were only the necessary political and economic arrangements to provide order, "naturally," the order of Pharaoh. Thus the religion of the static gods is not and never could be disinterested, but inevitably served the interests of the people in charge, presiding over the order and benefiting from the order. And the functioning of that society testified to the rightness of the religion because kings did prosper and bricks did get made." (Brueggemann, The Prophetic Imagination) Thus it was the function of the Egyptian religion to determine a static system of roles in order to keep everyone in their place.

Oh, how I detest the religion of fixed roles. I was told that because I was a woman I could never teach in church and that my place was in the home under my husband's "headship." And there were plenty of Bible verses to back it up. Yet somehow I could not reconcile that which I was not allowed to question with the vision of full participation that I saw elsewhere in Scripture, indeed, almost everywhere else. When I read of Abraham, I was Abraham. I was there somehow when that terrible sleep encompassed him and the torch passed between the divided animal carcasses. And the Holy One spoke in symbols, “So be it to me if I do not keep my promise to you.” And I was Jacob, wrestling with God and not letting him go. Gripping flesh and not heeding pain until I limped away with the blessing of my deepest desires, which I had not known before I began wrestling. But I was not supposed to go there. I was breaking the rules. I was meant for other things. Like sitting on the sidelines as a spectator, waiting for Prince Charming to rescue me after I watched and applauded his valiant fight with the dragon. Ah, the Imperial Ego. It dragged me through Sunday mornings, choking on the array of chemical scents that formed a halo around the Moral Ones, and cowering under paste smeared faces, stuffed into shiny, hard shoes that squeezed my toes and clothes that prevented the freedom of my body by forcing me to be on constant guard that my underwear was not showing. I was a fish out of water, but made to feel that if I did not conform I was rebelling against God.

I no longer believe in that God. I do not worship the white Christ of dominion, fixed hierarchy, colonization, oppression and repression. God is the God of freedom. He doesn't function according to our neat, imperial categories. God's power is dynamic, always moving and always bringing those on the bottom, the prisoners, the exiled, those bowed down physically and those held down under imperial oppression, up to his side. The Apostle Paul knew this. His letters often were in response to questions about how the church should behave in a hostile, patriarchal society. Perhaps he felt a little like Samuel did when the Israelites demanded a king like the nations around them. His response was to get the power dynamic rolling, not to set up a static system of inequality. Slaves, wives, children, you are all on the bottom in this imperial society, so I am asking you to submit, that Christ might bring you upward . And those on top, the patriarchs, go down, kneel, and be like the Christ who lifts up those who are down. Because Christ went down from his place of power and lifted up those who were bowed down and seated them beside himself. As God raised Christ from the dead and seated him beside himself. So God is in Christ and Christ is in God and we are in Christ and Christ is in us, for in God we all live and move and have our being. It is not a static, fixed order, but a fluid, dynamic one, like the creation, the dance of the stars and seasons, the bonding and unbonding of atomic particles. All is perfect order, yet none of it of a static nature. It is a dynamic interplay of roles, like the blood that courses through the body that is joined to a head so the two might become one flesh. It is a profound mystery. And where the apostle leaves off talking about human relationships and goes into doxological stammerings of wonderment at the relationship of Christ and the Church is often hard to determine. He is so enamored with Jesus that all discussions trail off into open-ended mystery, of ways of being yet to be dreamed of. Exist peacefully with the Imperial order, each in their place, because a change is just around the corner.

Yet Paul is also a product of his times. His views cannot help but be shaped by the culture, language and history of which he is a part. Yes, God's Spirit breathes and penetrates through those, but never to the point of creating a static, ahistorical, universal system of truth. Truth is always relational. God allowed different viewpoints and perspectives by various authors of the Scriptures, yet taken together they form a unified narrative. The author of Judges seems to promote the idea that a king was what Israel needed. Samuel did not. And the prophetic tradition was usually against the king. And perhaps some things are left on purpose as unresolved plot tensions, awaiting the readers' response as they contemplate the larger narrative. Creation, Fall, the calling of Abraham, the creation of Israel from slavery in Egypt, their fall into idolatry and subsequent exile, the coming of Jesus to bring about a new exodus and a new creation humanity, to the formation of the Church, called out from every tribe and nation to be God's ministers of reconciliation in the world and to be raised at the last day when the whole creation is released from its bondage to death. Our task is to read the Scriptures faithfully and to take them as they are, in all their diversity and mystery and unresolved plot conflict. To realize the unified narrative and yet not repeat it verbatim as if it were a script or rulebook. We respond not with systematic theologies, fixed orders and imperialistically static roles, but with faithful improvisation, as actors in an unfinished play. And we read it from the bottom looking up.

The story of Israel has been a history lived from the bottom looking up. They were slaves in Egypt, wanderers of the wilderness. When they possessed land, they turned to other gods. Gods that were predictable. Gods that could guarantee that the storehouses would be full if their practical systems of production, labor and economy were implemented. Who wanted the unpredictable God of the wilderness, who only gave enough manna for one day? “We want a king like the other nations!” they begged. And so they were forced to build Solomon's empire and send their sons to die in his wars and send the fruit of their hard earned labor to his table. Oh, there was a surplus of food, and they all got a share of it, but they had no time. Day after day, there was nothing new under the sun. Rise, work, go to bed, then rise again the next day until they put you in your final bed with its blanket of sod. The best you can do is be happy with what you’ve got, stay in your place, and keep the wheels of industry turning to fill the tables of kings with sweets and trifles.

The prophets came, disrupting the daily cycles. They predicted droughts when the Baals promised eternal seasons. They were sustained in the wilderness by ravens who brought food each day. They defied gravity, floating ax heads, they turned bitter stews into nourishing food. Armies were sent after them and were struck blind. They humiliated kings. They walked around naked and starving, crying out that Israel was left destitute while everyone feasted around them. They defied every static, imperial claim to order. They were disorderly, dirty, dwelling in caves and wearing camel hair. And saying crazy things like “Every valley shall be exalted and every hill made low before the coming of the Lord.” And when the dynasty ended, when the survivors found themselves enslaved in Babylon, they understood. But it was too late.

When Jesus came, it was not to those favored by the Empire, who helped keep the people in their proper roles through the temple system. It was to those who might not have known where the next meal would come from and who watched Imperial soldiers march outside of their windows on a daily basis. He went to the unclean, the shepherds, prostitutes, demon possessed, lepers and fishermen, who were not allowed to be touched by moral people. And to them was given the vision of the victor on the white horse, though when he was among them he rode a baby donkey. To those who were surrounded by horses and chariots on every side, announcing the Pax Romana, the peace that Caesar brought when he colonized the nations, bringing law, order, stability, predictability, transportation systems, sewer systems, economic systems. And at last life could be for everyone a long, deathless now. As long as everyone stayed in their place. Diverse religions were tolerated, but were relegated to hopes of the afterlife, something to look forward to if you kept in your proper place. They functioned to support the empire, for after all, the empire looked after you in this life and you should be willing to defend it if you were truly grateful.

And so the god of predictability and satiation was paid homage to daily. And the wheels kept turning. And those crushed under it cried out, but no one heard their cries. Because in the system the cries did not exist. Only lazy people, social misfits and criminals would defy the Order. They were the workers of Chaos, which the Order successfully vanquished. Babylon, the castle of the great Marduk, whose throne the king represented, had conquered the chaos beast, the sea goddess Tiamet, dismembering her carcass and creating the cosmos out of her slain parts. The forces of chaos, the defeated gods and goddesses, were forced to serve Marduk and his allies. Yet the defeated gods were still gods, still royalty, and so to serve them, Tiamet’s consort Kingu was slain, and humanity fashioned from his blood, to be servants of all the gods. (see the description of the Enuma Elish, the Babylonian creation myth, in Truth is Stranger Than It Used to Be by J. Richard Middleton and Brian Walsh)

Thus the Empire of Order has its national allies. And it has its deposed and defeated nations as well, but these it still treats well. Their people can still serve their own kings, if everyone cooperates, and the kings are guests in the emperor’s palace. And the wheel keeps turning, all is well in the land. Now and then challengers come to disrupt the security that people call freedom, but they are quickly crushed by the military might of the empire. Lives are lost, but sacrifices are sometimes needed to maintain the Order. And the Empire memorializes those who are sacrificed, because the Empire is the Empire that cares.

One of these sacrifices, one of the criminals that the Empire had to do away with, because he was disrupting the peace, (and order must be maintained or civilization collapses) became a bit of a problem. They didn’t want to kill him, because they thought he was an innocent man, but they had to, or chaos would have broken loose. That could have been the end of the story. But for some reason, his little band of followers kept claiming that he had come back to life. And they wouldn’t go away. And some had prophetic visions that the Empire was the chaos beast from the sea, and that a greater God, who had just been leading it along, frolicking with it as if it was a toy, had grown tired of its boasting and angry at the innocent blood it devoured, and decided to end its reign. “In one hour such great wealth has been brought to ruin!” (Revelation 18:17)

And the wheel stopped turning for a second. The treaders stopped treading and turned their gray, tired faces upward for a moment. Was that hope? Was there an echo of something, somewhere? A different sort of freedom than that of order and security. A completely new creation, a new way of being. Full participation and inheritance for all. The supervisor gave a stern glance and the wheel started up again. But when the whistle blew, the workers started home under the smog choked stars and over the ash covered streets, and their step was just a little lighter, and a few of them cast knowing glances toward each other. And from somewhere beyond, where there were gardens and forests with deer and singing birds and the scent of real pine that the janitor would not have recognized, came a breeze. And on the breeze, a whisper. Just barely audible. “Alleluia. He lives.”

What is Sin?

2011-03-26T14:27:00.003-04:00

The Westminster Shorter Catechism defines sin as "...any want of conformity to, or transgression of, the Law of God."

This definition provides a window into the larger framework of Presbyterian systematic theology and the still larger framework of Western thought in general. Concepts of sin, justice, law, authority are seen in terms of the abstract and absolute. What "sin" is (or justice, or law, or authority) exists as an ideological entity, defined as an eternal, unchangeable thing, which is defined by the eternal, unchangeable nature of God.

This method of breaking reality into abstracts hearkens back to Platonic and Aristotelian thought processes, which have dominated all Western thought, theology, politics and society. As the first century drew to a close, the Christian Church began to move away from its Jewish roots and ancient Near Eastern conceptual framework and embrace more and more of a Hellenistic worldview. By worldview, I do not mean a system of ethics and faith practices that is sometimes implied by the word, but I mean the basic questions that one asks in order to define reality. The very fact that soon after the first century, the Christian Church became embroiled in heated controversies over abstractions such as the nature of God, of Christ, and of humans is evidence that different questions were being asked and a different conceptual framework for reality was being used that was foreign to both the ancient Biblical authors and the Church of the New Testament era.

This is, of course, an oversimplification, but a general description nonetheless. It is how the West has come to be dominated by authority structures based upon a chain-of-command, or representational, form of government, and how Christian theology has come to be dominated by a reading of Jesus' atonement based upon Hellenistic concepts of justice. (Justice as a cosmic abstract).

I know it is hard for anyone in the West to even think beyond this framework. What is she talking about?!? So to clarify, I would like to offer an alternative based upon a theology of creation in an attempt to recapture a more Near Eastern "feel" to the Biblical narrative. I am not particularly educated in this area, so this is more of an exercise of informed imagination rather than a carefully researched thesis. I do believe that imagination is precisely what is lacking in Western thought.

What is sin?

When God created the heavens and earth, God kept saying that it was very good. I have read that "good" is an understatement. In the Hebrew language, it meant more like "Woweee!" It was an expression of intense satisfaction and delight.

The point is, that this is the first definition of goodness, so in the story so far, the creation is good. The trees, sky, stars, animals and humans are all good. The land is good. Adam and Eve did not have some abstract, cosmic concept that they knew as "good". Rather they had the green grass and the God they walked and talked with upon it.

Then came their disobedience, and their banishment from the garden. There was the first bloodshed, when God gave them animal skins to clothe themselves with. Then there was Abel's offering of the lamb, which pleased God better than Cain's offering of vegetative produce. What followed was Cain's jealousy when he let sin enter his door, and shed his brother's blood. The blood that cried out to God from the ground. The land was desecrated as a result of the desecration of Cain's heart.

We then have the great Flood, in which God repents of the creation of humanity and decides to cleanse the polluted land with a thorough washing. This washing, the Apostle Peter writes, is the type of Christian Baptism.

In the subsequent story of Israel, as told in the pages of Torah, we have the Law given, not in terms of cosmic morals, but in terms of pollution of the holy, particularly of the land and of the human body. We have, before the Mosaic law, the institution of circumcision, a bloody symbol of cutting off the unholy. There is Zipporah's pronouncement when she laid her sons' foreskins before the Angel of the Lord, saving Moses and her family from death, "Surely you are a bridegroom of blood." The taking of the promised land through genocide of the Canaanites is in terms of cleansing the land from the pollution of idolatry. And throughout all the purity codes there is this theme of being separate and holy, with the bloody sacrifices of animals shed to cleanse the land. Even the death penalty is seen in ceremonial terms. If a homicide was discovered and the perpetrator not apprehended, an animal was killed instead so the land could be cleansed.

Though Western theologians have conveniently described the Mosaic Law as consisting of both a moral and ceremonial code, in the text itself there is no such distinction. Morality is ALWAYS seen in terms of the sacramental. And it is ALWAYS seen in terms of God's particular covenant with them as the God who brought them out of slavery in Egypt. Morality is relational.

This puts a whole new perspective on Jesus' sacrifice on the cross, far different from the classic Lutheran concept of justification based on cosmic abstractions of wrongs made right in a judicial sense. It means an end to the pollution of the land. The world has been cleansed and the demands of purity met. No created thing is now unclean. Gentiles may now share Abraham's inheritance, which is bound up in Christ. Yet, according to the apostle Paul, this does not give license to sin. But sin is not simply a concept of cosmic wrongness, it is defined by that which pollutes. The Christian is cleansed through Baptism into Jesus' death, and partakes of his cleansing death through the sacrament of Eucharist. To pollute their bodies with greed, idolatry or sexual immorality is to pollute the body of Christ himself, as well as to pollute the good person that God made. The Law was given to Israel so that Israel could define, magnify and concentrate that which pollutes, which could then be dealt with by the final sacrifice of the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world. And a blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel.

So sin, justice, and law are not abstract concepts, but things very much related to the physical creation and to our physical bodies. We are good, our bodies are good and our planet is good. We require the sacramental cleansing of Jesus' sacrifice and the presence of the Spirit to create clean hearts within us so that we will no longer walk in ways that pollute the good that God made.

If, then, I were to answer the question, "What is sin?" I would say that sin is whatever pollutes that which God made and called good.

Renouncing the Nation-State and Recapturing the Reality of Eucharist

2010-05-04T11:06:00.004-04:00

With all the debate that has been going around regarding immigration and the new law in Arizona, it is a good time to examine the building blocks that have created our concept of the modern nation-state. It is a good time to read William Cavanaugh.

In his article, "World in a Wafer", Cavanaugh contrasts the artificial unity of Globalization with the true communion of the Eucharist. While corporate globalization, upheld by a confederation of nation-states, has succeeded in creating a monolithic "McDonalds" culture throughout the world at the expense of ethnic diversity, it is the Eucharist that truly collapses the walls of division among social groups. Yet it also affirms diversity of culture, being celebrated in small localities and lending itself to take a variety of shapes and forms through its various liturgies.

When I see Christians affirming the walls that divide nations, I am intensely saddened. The reality of the Eucharist should consume and destroy all national identities. Yes, we are to submit to the laws of the nation- state that may exist, but that does not mean we should try to perpetuate them or shouldn't try to change them, or rather change the hearts of those who uphold them through reasonable debate and prayer on their behalf.

In our hearts, if the reality of the Eucharist has taken hold, we must also renounce our identities with human nations. By this I do not mean renouncing the diverse ethnic practices and cultural heritage that makes our shared unity in Christ more beautiful. Rather, we must renounce the human boundaries and arbitrary laws that create distinctions between who is "one of us" and who is an "other". In the Eucharist the only "One" is Christ's body, shared by all who are of his body, and the only "other" are those to whom Christ must be preached.

If our identity with the nation-state were dissolved, the nation-state itself would dissolve, because it is only an illusion in people's minds. The power of the powerful is only possible if the masses believe in it. But what would be put in it's place? Perhaps a return to a confederation of local villages would be in order. Things were organized much like this before the Federalists took over the colonies. It is the expansionist ideology, which has taken various shapes and forms throughout our short history, that has created our national enemies. The best course of action to take then, would be to simply and peacefully dismantle the infrastructure that the Federalists have created, to free our minds from the tyranny of fear that is their greatest weapon to keep themselves in power. To free our minds from ignorance and the false claim that safety is achieved through biggering the military and homeland security measures. If we lived simply in small villages, neighbors banding together to protect the weak and provide for the poor in their own localities, if we stopped running after more land, more wealth and more power, if we stopped measuring success in terms of wealth or job security, then our very smallness would be our greatest protection. No one would bother us because we wouldn't own or control anything they would want.

This is a way of life that can be sought after and enjoyed now, even if the vast majority do not agree. By refusing to recognize social boundaries in our everyday interaction with people, by sharing all that we have, by practicing radical hospitality, by refusing to buy things we don't need or own things that would cause us to worry if they were taken away. This is true freedom, and this freedom is absolutely free.

Cross=Justice

2010-04-02T10:45:00.002-04:00

There are a lot of different voices out there telling us how to deal with the problem of injustice. Some say we must do away with aggressors through force. Others say we must extricate ourselves from unjust systems. Some say we must disarm unjust powers, others call for a radical redistribution of wealth.

It is a nagging question, and one that would not leave me alone. I knew I was searching for something, I could see a light ahead, but I was still in a tunnel. Then the answer came when I wasn't looking for it at all, like an explosion of light. I do not know why it seemed so significant, since my discovery was a reaffirmation of what I already knew, what had always been there. And I do not know exactly where to go with it, or how to describe it without resorting to overused "Christianese" cliches.

But there I was, reading an old interview with N.T. Wright, a favorite theologian of mine. His book, The New Testament and the People of God, radically revolutionized the way I read the Bible. Being a scholar of 1st century Jewish thought and practice, he shed a lot of light on our understanding of what justification meant for Israel and for Paul. It wasn't some personal thing between God and the individual, rather it had to do with the definition of who God's people were and how God's promises to Abraham were fulfilled in Jesus. I had been discussing these things with members of my family who had recently "discovered" Wright, and we have also begun reading and discussing the book of Galatians together. And so I "happened" upon this interview, and while reading through it two things popped out to me in a fresh way. One was that, while discussing "justification", Wright mentioned that through Jesus' death on the cross, God definitively dealt with the problem of justice in history. The second came later, as I was growing a bit bored (it was a long interview) and Wright was answering questions about 9/11, etc. He said we needed to bring Bin Laden to justice, but that it couldn't be done with B17 bombers. BOOM! There it was. The two fused in my brain as if in a nuclear reaction. The cross is the only way to bring Bin Laden (or Hitler, or whatever evil thing may be out there) to justice.

I laughed, I cried, I fell down and worshiped. I danced. I opened my doors and windows and blasted the Hallelujah chorus through my poor, abused little speakers. If only the world could see this. If only I knew how to communicate this.

After last night's foot washing at church, followed by Holy Eucharist, I knelt in the pew and continued to wonder. These things that we do and reenact communicate that Jesus is among us, and that we, the Church, are to be his hands and feet in the world. Jesus has nail holes in his hands and feet, the permanent marks of the cross. Here is true justice, God making things right through the sacrifice of the spotless lamb. It isn't something that is simply pronounced, or some scale of right and wrong that is made to balance, but rather something that flows. From the cross, onto us, among us, through us, into the world. The things we do as we are transformed by the Spirit of justice will vary from church to church and from person to person. But the cross will always be there as our defining point, something to measure our deeds against, the ways we think we are bringing about justice. And we will be known as the scarred ones.

The Dawn's Early Light

2010-02-21T21:47:00.003-05:00

Every nation has its own creation myth. In ancient history, the story would go like this: The god of such and such a people engaged in a violent, bloody, cosmic battle with an adversary, the adversary was killed, and the new nation was born. This creation event served as both justification and inspiration for that nation's future military activities.

While not as obvious in our scientifically "enlightened" modern times, the deeply religious nature of our own civil cult has similar manifestations. Pagan sacrifice is alive and well as men and women are glorified for giving their lives in military service, in an endless crusade to preserve the nation's very existence. Their sacrifice is surrounded by symbols which are invoked in reverent piety by vestment and gesture. Uniforms of rank and authority demand homage in the form of salute and stature as grand ceremonies surround the deaths of the sacrificed victims. The national anthem is also played with proper, pious pose, reminding all of the unconquerable symbol of our sacred, blood drenched origin.

While it is heroic and noble for individuals to give their lives to save others, another, deeper story is being told here, one that preaches that abundant life (or freedom, as some like to call it) is not possible without the perpetual shedding of blood, without perpetual sacrifice and perpetual violence. It is a constant cycle of creation, death and regeneration, as the undying spirit of "we the people" defeat the unending challenges to perceived rights. Friends, this is a salvation story if ever there was one.

God's story, however, is different. There was no struggle, no violence. God simply spoke and it came to be. (There is good scholarship showing that the Genesis account was written primarily to subvert the Mesopotamian creation story, a culture that constantly tempted Israel with its idolatrous practices.)

Calling things into being which were not. Calling a people his own people, which were not a people. And redeeming them with a sacrifice offered once and for all, through the free gift of his only begotten son. He offers abundant life, true freedom, now, to all of us. This is not just some hope for a distant, future utopia. This is how we are called to live now, in the midst of these other competing salvation stories and demands for allegiance.

Deliver Me From Institutions!

2009-02-27T10:48:00.001-05:00

Yesterday, as I was exiting the parking lot of the grocery store, a middle aged woman crossed in front of me holding a cardboard sign. I had just enough time to read "Homeless...Need Help...God Bless You" as I passed by. I drove along trying to think of how I could help her with my three kids in car seats and two weeks worth of carefully planned menus in the trunk. By the time I decided to invite her out to lunch and just talk to her, it was too late. She had already left.

Why did it take so long for me to formulate a plan? I am realizing that I am a slave to institutionalized thinking, a slave to organized religion. All my life I have heard or been shown:
1. Don't talk to strangers.
2. Give poor people food, not money.
3. Let the shelters and other ministries take care of them.

But that is a far cry from what our Lord and his apostles taught us:
1. Entertain the stranger.
2. Give to anyone who asks you.
3. Do not let your right hand know what your left hand is doing. Official ministries make their good deeds obvious. For practical reasons, of course. But if every follower of Jesus were in the habit of helping whoever God might bring into their path, not even thinking about the hows and whys and proper ways of dong good, I think God would be better pleased with us.

I hope God will give me another chance soon. I also ask the aid of his Spirit to help me unlearn the habits of thought I have been a slave to, particularly those of practicality and realism. The reality is that the cost of discipleship is very high. In fact, it costs everything.

Some Christmas Musings

2008-12-31T13:50:00.000-05:00

An Uncommon Restoration

“Blessed be the Lord God of Israel; for he hath visited and redeemed his people;

And hath raised up a mighty salvation for us, in the house of his servant David;

As he spake by the mouth of his holy Prophets, which have been since the world began;

That we should be saved from our enemies, and from the hand of all that hate us.

To perform the mercy promised to our forefathers, and to remember his holy covenant;

To perform the oath which he sware to our forefather Abraham, that he would give us;

That we being delivered out of the hand of our enemies might serve him without fear;

In holiness and righteousness before him, all the days of our life.” (Luke 1: 68-75)

These words of Zechariah, and also Mary's song, the Magnificat, have got me questioning, looking deeper this Advent and Christmas season. The burning question in my mind is how? How did Jesus' birth accomplish the raising up of the humble and meek, the filling of the hungry with good things, the deliverance of his people from their enemies, the fulfillment of God's oath to Abraham?

All to often, I fear, we, living centuries later, have lost touch with the scene upon which Jesus arrived: the desolation of Israel, and their longed for deliverance. We make Jesus out to be this white-looking guy who could have been born anywhere, at any time, and accomplish the same thing- a universally applicable atonement for the personal sin of all of mankind (or at least the chosen). While this might satisfy the dogmatic, systematic brains of 15^th century theologians and their modern counterparts, it would hardly have been comforting to a Jew living in the first century under Roman oppression and longing for the consolation of Israel. Imagine telling Mary, or one of the shepherds, or Simeon, or any one of the people who experienced such joy at the news of Jesus' birth, that the salvation they were promised amounted to nothing more than having each of their personal sins paid for, like the time they stole a fish or lusted after their neighbor's spouse. That would be like telling them to forget about Israel's problems. Why not just be glad that they were allowed go to heaven when they died? It sounds preposterous. They knew the Law, the Psalms and Prophets, that God freely forgave the sins of the contrite. And the hope of bodily resurrection had given strength to many Jewish martyrs before them. But what they longed for was a forgiveness on a national level, to see Israel once again restored to God's right hand as chief among the nations. Because they knew that Israel's God was King of all the nations, and that Israel was his special people. And they knew that Israel had fallen from God's favor.

But now they knew that God was doing exactly what they were hoping for! We are told that Zechariah was full of the Holy Spirit when he spoke these words, “Blessed be the Lord God of Israel; for he hath visited and redeemed his people.” A new Exodus was underway! God was once again baring his arm and preparing to unleash his might. And this time it would be nothing less than a new creation. A new covenant order under a new Adam for a newly defined Israel.

But it still is odd the way he did it. He sent a messenger to a peasant girl, telling her that she was the highly favored one to bear his Son. He chose a common carpenter to provide a home and vocation for him. He announced his young prince's arrival to a band of simple shepherds. And for royal companions he provided fishermen, thieves and outcasts. When the time drew near for the kingly heir to take on the powers of the nations, his steed of choice was a little donkey's colt, hardly tall enough to lift his feet off the dust. Last of all, our ruler elect was given over to the fate of all the failed Messiahs before him, a Roman crucifixion.

Where was the promised deliverance? Was it the resurrection? Yes, but this meant more to his followers than a promised afterlife. It meant that God had once again mocked all the strength of man, the rulers of the nations who exercise dominion over people. Like Egypt and Babylon before, Caesar was mocked, Pilate was mocked, Herod was mocked, the chief priests and the chief theologians were all mocked. God defeated them all and all their ideologies. They could not keep this nobody from Nazareth down. The one who promised that the meek would be the ones to inherit the earth. The one who taught his followers to look to God alone for protection and sustenance. The one who offered the ultimate freedom from their enemies- by teaching them to love them. This one, this son of Abraham, was raised from the dead, was exalted as king over all the nations and ascended to God's right hand.

But why were his followers so persecuted? And why are they still, at least those who have chosen not to align themselves with those in power who promise protection and freedom in exchange for patriotic faith? It is because, like Jesus, we must be made perfect through suffering. When we let go our grasping for property, for food and clothing, for comfort, for life, then we allow ourselves to be wholly possessed by love. A love so perfect that it is willing to die for those who are enemies. And that is what we were when Jesus Christ died for us.

But it is more than a willingness to suffer wrong. Throughout history, one nation after another has risen, and fallen. Yet God continues to bless the earth with rain, with seed time and harvest. He blesses the way of the simple. He gives strength for work, and sleep at the sun's going down. He gives us children and laughter, bread and wine, communion with himself and community with his people. Massey Shepherd, Jr., recalls Mary's song and its fulfillment in this context. He writes, “In the outpouring of his Spirit upon his church the disciples knew themselves partakers of the age to come, and to “have tasted the heavenly gift” (Heb 6:4-5). And in the loving fellowship of service one to another, now centered in the holy banquet Table, he had truly “exalted the humble and meek” and had “filled the hungry with good things”. “ And he continues, “It was characteristic of the simplicity as also of the depth of our Lord's discernment that in leaving us a memorial of himself, he should choose, not some strange and exotic ceremony, but an action universal in human experience- the family meal. He took the most obvious symbol of common life and made it the supreme sacrament of his life.” (Massey Shepherd, Jr, “The Worship of the Church”, pg 146, the Seabury Press, 1952)

Here, then, in the most ordinary of places, is the perfected order for the divine social life. To discover this people have fought and slain, argued and died, and written constitutions and all manner of laws- all for vanity! Because it is only when we change and become like little children that we will hear Jesus calling and beckoning us to freely sit down with him and eat and drink as kings at his table. It is only when we are joined to him as family that we will learn to work together in love and peace, reaping the good of the earth for the good of all with thanksgiving, and offering ourselves to him who gives us himself for food and drink and life.

And thou, child, shalt be called the prophet of the Highest: for thou shalt go before the face of the Lord to prepare his ways;

To give knowledge of salvation unto his people for the remission of their sins,

Through the tender mercy of our God; whereby the day-spring from on high hath visited us;

To give light to them that sit in darkness, and in the shadow of death, and to guide our feet into the way of peace. (Luke 1:76-79)

May we all let our feet be guided into this Way. Amen.

National Treasure

2008-07-24T00:18:00.001-04:00

A is my slice of this American Pie

Bodies bled for it

Cops clubbed for it

Dogs drooled

Everyone envies for a bite of it

Felons forfeited it

Gold was gambled away to finance it

Hats were heaved in the air to cheer for it

I inherited it.

Jailers had jobs because of it

Kneelers knelt in thanksgiving for it

Laborers languished under it

Masses were murdered for it

No one really needed it

Orators orated

Politicians paid their way into it

Quotes of old were quoted about it

Reporters reinforced it

Soldiers slaughtered and were slaughtered for it

Teachers taught it

Universities undergirded it

Voters vouched for it

Writers wrote

Xerox machines xeroxed the forms that you had to fill out if you were willing to take part in it

You get yelled at if you don't want it any more

Zealots are zealous for it

Now that I know my ABC's, I long for a different alphabet. How can I sell out without being a rotten sellout? But this pearl of great price has turned out to be a counterfeit. Can I just put it in the recycling bin and hope they make something better next time? Or can I confound it all by striving for the lowest servitude?

The Man Without a Country

2008-07-04T13:15:00.000-04:00

I remember having to read a short story by this title in 7th grade. I don't remember who it was by, but it was about an ex-soldier who was sentenced to remain at sea for the rest of his life because he denied his country. But he kept with him some cloth upon which he sewed a star for every state that joined the Union thereafter, following the growth of the nation by looking at the flags of the other ships that he met. At his death, he bequeaths the finished flag to a young person whom he charges never to take for granted his national identity.

I remember being moved by that story at such a young age. I was proud of my national heritage. I thought it would be a great thing to die for my country...

But what is my country? What gives me the right to claim a piece of soil as my own that once belonged to someone else? That was taken by violence and continues to be defended by violence? What person or group of people has the authority to draw arbitrary lines on God's earth and decide who can live within them and who can't, and what those within can and cannot do?

I've read another story, too. About a man who had no country, not even a place to lay his head. Yet he was the rightful heir of the whole world. He did not come conquering with military might, though he had hordes of angels at his command. He accepted no place of power, though everyone wanted to crown him king after they saw how he could heal the sick and make bread multiply. He did not overthrow the Hasmonian priest/king elite that had taken over the temple cult, nor the Herodians who kissed up to the empire. He led no rebellion against the Roman occupation as the zealots wished, nor enforced the rituals of Moses' law that defined the Jewish nation as the Pharisees would have liked. He did not retreat into the wilderness to await God's judgment upon the unfaithful while living an exaggerated purity as the Essenes would have commended either. Instead he disappointed everyone and died the utterly disgraceful death of a failed messiah, a national criminal, a traitor both to Judaism and Rome, cut off from the holy city like some stinking, unclean thing. And he said, "If any would come after me......."

Crazy. Who would want to follow that guy?

Yet he said, "Take my yoke upon you and learn of me, for I am meek and lowly of heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light." He had no fear, nothing to prove, no reason to stake a claim for himself, no desire to build wealth, no land or family to defend with sword and bow, but surrendered himself, body and soul, to his Father's will. "Therefore he was exalted and given the name that is above every name....."

My country, my land, my people- my Father's world. Irish folk musician, Luka Bloom, has a song called "Tribe" that celebrates the kinship he shares with all living things, gently offering an alternative to the proud nationalism of those around him.

Where is your tribe?

A Living Room Matrix

2008-04-02T19:49:00.000-04:00

Here is a little piece of fiction I wrote inspired by "The Politics of Jesus" and a rough week I had with my little son, who was teething. If it sounds a little insane, that is why. :)
I've added an introduction to the original version, because my husband thought it was too enigmatic. Or something.

A Living Room Matrix

This is the story of your everyday monarch. He has a kingdom, real estate, two royal automobiles and a credit card. At almost every election, he faithfully takes his monarchial self to the voting polls and votes. He also affixes his signature to numerous petitions presented by his underlings. And on days when he feels especially generous, he has been known to purchase a box of Girl Scout cookies...

Old King Cole shifted uncomfortably on his throne and heaved his round belly in a long, loud sigh. He was usually a merry old soul, but today neither pipe, nor bowl, nor fiddlers three could lift the smog of boredom that had lowered itself upon him.

Mechanically, he lifted his scepter and began toying with it lazily. It glinted in the sunlight that flowed profusely through the tall windows of the Great Hall. Studded with gems, multicolored, laid in perfect rows, compact, efficient...

The fiddlers droned on. Old King Cole changed the channel. The news was on, bad news of course. More turmoil throughout the kingdom. He began to mutter his opinions of the individuals he had chosen to run the world for him. A wailing was heard in the distance. He tried to ignore it, and switched back to the fiddlers. His eye wandered distractedly from the large screen, roved about the room, along the tiled floor, over the fake tropical plant in the gilded urn, then to the bearded man by the doorway in monk's habit, with empty hands, and sandals on his feet.

The king gave a start. “How did you get past the security system?” he demanded fiercely. Then he bit his lip in sudden shame as recognition seeped into his pudgy brain. He lowered his face, but realized the man was smiling at him. The man spoke.

“Follow me.”

At the sound of these words, the fat old king leaped to his feet, feeling as if a great weight had fallen off his shoulders. The smog vanished, he laughed aloud and, throwing back his arm, he sent the scepter hurtling through the air and into the royal pond where it landed with a satisfying kersplash! Then, as fast as his merry little legs could carry him, he ran after the bearded man with the empty hands and sandals on his feet.

The man led him into a small room, where a baby sat, ejecting a loud, dismal sound from out of his round, down curled mouth. From the look of things, and the air about the place, sound was not the only thing being ejected that day, and it appeared that this was the source of the sorrowful wail. The king, still laughing, assessed the situation in an instant, and, bending down, lifted the the child in his arms.

Which left the fiddlers to play to an empty recliner, a half drunk can of Coke, a bag of chips, and a goldfish to goggle at the strange rectangular device that had landed in her tank. Studded with buttons, multicolored, laid in perfect rows...

And where now is the bearded man in monk's habit, with the empty hands and sandals on his feet? And who is that clean diapered baby, who grins and shrieks, and the fat old king, who tickles his toes?

The Politics of Jesus

2008-03-30T18:41:00.000-04:00

I finished the above titled book by John Howard Yoder over a week ago and it has been one of the best reads in a long time. I would have to rate it up there with "The New Testament and the People of God" by N. T. Wright as one of the few great books in my life. "The Politics of Jesus" did not challenge as much paradigm restructuring as with Wright's book, since I was already familiar with most of Yoder's arguments, but it certainly helped clarify and unify a lot of the ideas that have been forming in my mind the past several years.

The book is composed of several essays, some of which could almost stand alone, but if I could sum up the essence of this work in one sentence, I would have to say that the underlying theme was that we must read the New Testament, and particularly the Gospels, with the recognition that Jesus ministry was very political in nature, and the ethic that he preached was not intended to be followed in a pious, individual sense, but as the written constitution of a brand new human social institution-the new humanity of the new creation order, the kingdom of God. The utter impracticality of this Way is precisely why the cross is such a stumbling block. And the church has historically under-emphasized the radical bits of Jesus' social ethic in favor of a system of law and order based upon "nature".

By "nature" I mean an approach to social ethics that may or may not be heavily founded upon biblical "principles" or even direct commandments (The Decalogue is a prime example.) The contrast with the politics of Jesus lies in the choice of whether to exercise one's sway in the various echelons of society, for good or for ill, or to deliberately pursue subordination, humiliation, and social imbecility.

2008-03-13T08:50:00.000-04:00

Wow, it has been a long time since I've written. Lent is drawing to a close with Holy Week beginning this Sunday. I have been reading and reflecting on a lot of things, and been busy with my family and garden. I have continued to think about our consumption of goods and what implications those may have, but this thought process always leaves me with more irking questions than I started out with.

Here are the two biggies:
1. Where does the buck stop? Am I, the consumer, morally responsible for the working conditions and wage of the producer, or is that something solely between the employer and employee?

2. Am I, the consumer, responsible for the pollution and waste caused by the manufacturing process? Global warming aside, there still seems to be a lot of unhealthy air to breathe, water to drink and land to live on because of toxic industrial practices.

Now that I've got them written down, I think I'll have a shot at answering them. First of all, no, I don't think we bear any guilt as consumers. It is not a sin to buy or not to buy. I am not responsible for the actions of miserly corporate policy makers. However, I can make a positive difference, perhaps, in not buying from those whose practices are less than desirable. It is a choice, then, not between good and evil, but between what is acceptable and what is better. In fact, it's a whole lot more fun to see how much less I can consume when the guilt part is taken out of the equation. We live in a culture where it is common to make accusations, point fingers and blame. But this does little to improve our situation. It either causes people to get on the defensive and spend more, or gives people a false sense of righteousness when they "go green" and buy "fair trade". I suggest a third way- lay off the guilt tripping and let's see how far we can go fueled simply on our love for humanity and the rest of creation.

Competing Imaginations

2008-01-31T11:08:00.000-05:00

One of the blogs I regularly "hit" is by a guy named Jason Barr. At An Absolution Revolution, Jason issued a challenge in his post titled, “[I] had been living inside their imagination.”

Here is my response to his very thought provoking questions.

1. In what ways are your community, whether it’s a faith community or simply the community of your neighborhood/apartment complex/residence hall, being dreamed by the corporations, by the government(s), or by other oppressive forces that seek to exploit or control you?

We are told we live in a free country and that lives were sacrificed to make it so. But this freedom has strings attached. We are all numbered so the government can keep track of us. We are statistics for market research. We are told by both government and corporations what we should and should not eat, drink, what substances are good and what are bad. We must pay taxes on our property and obtain licenses to build upon it. Our teens are not allowed to join the workforce and help with the family's income, but are held back from economic maturity. We cannot choose alternative fuel without being rich and filling out mountains of paperwork. We are being watched and filmed at every turn. We are not free to make economic decisions on a personal level, but must go through countless middlemen, insurance agencies, etc. We must submit to every whim of control freak policemen or risk being tased. We are blocked from every side when we try to make a living from a family farm, or other small scale venture, by the competition and lobbying power of the mega-businesses. We cannot feed or house the poor, visit prisoners, or adopt orphans, without shelling out lots of money, going through agencies, wading through red tape, or risk treading on zoning laws and other city stipulations. We are hemmed in on every side by rules designed for our "protection" but in reality stifle the good we might do. And we are constantly bombarded by stories of heroism and Americanized virtue to keep us sending our dollars to Wal-mart, and our children to the public school machines, and the military brainwash establishments.

2. In what ways are you as an individual being dreamed in the same way?

Some of the above are my own concerns, some are my friends' and some of other people I've read. And yes, I am a consumer. I use electricity to heat and cool my house and pump water from my well, run my washing machine, oven and water heater, vacuum my floors and power my cfl's. I use gasoline to fuel my car to go to the grocery store, the library, or to a friend's house. I use the phone lines for local calls and internet, and have a cell phone. It's not that I think these are wrong or anything, but I wish these services could be controlled on a more local, personal level. They would be managed better, and make earth friendly options more readily available.

3. What things you experience in your own life, whether in person or vicariously through reading or other media, give you the tools to begin living out of an alternative imagination?

My husband first got me thinking and challenging popular Constantinian Christianity. I now see Jesus and the State as competing allegiances. N T Wright, Stanley Hauerwaas and John Howard Yoder have all three helped to shape my imagination as I try to discover and recover what the Christian vocation is in the midst of the Empire. The Internet has also been an invaluable resource in the struggle to disentangle myself from the morass of state/ corporate slavery. From Christian Anarchist sites and blogs, to other sites that challenge the status quo such as Lew Rockwell, as well as those that give inspiration in more practical areas, such as Mother Earth News.

4. Does faith fuel your resistance? If so, how? If yes, why (or if no, why not)?

I have an incurably optimistic eschatology. I believe we are living in the Messianic age now, to the extent that we realize and implement the implications of Jesus being Lord and the Kingdom being here, today. It helps me to imagine a world where the nations "beat their swords into plowshares" and where every man dwells beneath his "own vine and fig tree", and thus to work towards that ideal in my own tiny way.

5. What is something you can do to begin resisting in a new way, right now?

Right now I am trying to make friends with my neighbors, and be a good mother and wife, and to nurture a spirit of gentleness in all my comings and goings. And I'm always on the lookout for ways I can reduce our family's consumption and expenses, and make use of the resources in our own locale. But it is only the practice of love that will tear the walls down.

As an aside on that last question, remember that Lent is just around the corner - what an amazing opportunity not just to “give up” something out of some misguided sense of obligation, but rather to deeply examine your life to find a social/thought practice or consumptive habit that is not in line with the values of the basilea of God, to nail it to the cross with Christ, and to celebrate the breaking of its power over you with the resurrection?

I have been thinking about this, incidentally, and am planning to cut way back on the time I spend on the internet, as worthwhile as that might be, because I need to work on putting into deeds the stuff I am always reading about. How much of a limit, I haven't yet decided on. I'll probably set a certain number of hours to allow myself per week, and stick to it. Maybe I'll blog about the "Things I Did While Not Online." So stay tuned.

Just a Little Rant

2008-01-22T22:12:00.000-05:00

For my own record. I am so confused. Why is the "free market" so tabooed amongst most emerging/anarchist Christian discussion when it is the "not-so-free-global-state-capitalist-market" that is ruling the roost and not a laissez-fair model by a long shot? According to experts, we haven't even had a free market for 150 years! This is not really a huge deal for me, I really don't know much at all about economics, but if achieving social justice was mankind's chief end, I'd say the libertarians were on the right track. Get the government out of the way so we can work out our differences on a personal level. It might be "dog eat dog" in some cases, but at least it won't be Tyrannosaurus Rex eat puppy. However, I don't think social justice is our chief end. I think justice is something God will do if we, his people, are faithful in our individual and communal callings, and are content to suffer injustice ourselves for righteousness' sake. That leaves a lot unsaid, but I'm tired and need to get some sleep.

Editing Note

2008-01-07T19:01:00.000-05:00

I have edited my blog a little, because I have been counseled to not be so negative and critical, and I humbly apologize if any articles or comments have seemed a little too abrasive. I am not afraid to say what I believe, but I do not want to hurt anybody or turn them away from the gospel of nonviolence by being too free with my sarcasm. I want to keep digging for the truth, and sharing what I find, but I want to do it in a loving manner.

The God of Americanism

2008-01-07T15:41:00.000-05:00

Here is an excellent arricle by Dr. James K. A. Smith, associate professor of philosophy at Calvin College.

Jubilee

2008-01-05T17:14:00.000-05:00

I have been reading "The Politics of Jesus" by John Howard Yoder (yay! my husband got me the perfect Christmas gift.) and am in the middle of the third chapter, which is about the implications of the Jubilee in Jesus' ministry. Here is a concept that really excites me, although I probably should wait until I finish the chapter to comment on it, but I wanted to get down some thoughts and questions while they are still fresh in my mind.

I thought it most interesting that in Matthew's account of the Lord's Prayer, the word used for "debts" in the petition for forgiveness specifically meant those of the material, monetary kind, while in the following verses, when Jesus requires that we forgive others if we want God to forgive us, the word is different, specifically meaning transgressions.

To the first century Jewish audience, who longed for "thy kingdom come", the two concepts were very much connected. The poor longed for the restoration of their homes and ancestral lands, which was one of the provisions in the Law for Jubilee, while on a nationalistic level, the Pharisees and zealots longed for the day when the Roman occupation would end, signaling God's forgiveness of the nation's sins that first sent them into captivity. For Jesus to proclaim these Jubileean ethics was in essence quite the same as announcing the inauguration of the long awaited kingdom. Thus the gospel is Jubilee.

Sooooooo, my questions are................

1. Exactly how was Jubilee realized in Jesus and where do we fit into this story? It wasn't just "spiritual" or even symbolic, the resurrection forbids that interpretation. The resurrection was proof, to the first century Jew, that God really had chosen Jesus to be the Messiah, the King of the new creation, the second Adam of the new humanity. As believing Gentiles we have been elected into this new humanity and are thus fellow partakers in everything Jesus accomplished. Israel's story becomes our story.

2. To what extent and in what way do the provisions for the Year of Jubilee in the Law inform our ethics toward those within and those outside of the church/kingdom and to the rest of creation? Was the Law a foreshadow of the things to come? If we are living in a greater age, how far do these ethics reach? Are we to be in perpetual Jubilee? In what ways? Forgiveness of debt? of sin? of crime? A gift economy? Cyclical rest for us and for the land? Fair economic redistribution?

3.What kind of social implications does this have for the church and how we define it as a political entity?

Well, I guess I'd better read on....

A New Song

2007-12-30T21:45:00.000-05:00

My husband and I wrote a new song Christmas day. The music is still in the works, but the tune has a bit of a Native American flair. It's a celebration of our createdness.

Adam's Song
Oaken trail and rain drenched wood
My feet up to the mountain climb
Deer, unfearing, walk beside
In symbionic rhyme

I, I am of the earth, the sea and sky
I am spirit made of clay, I'll never die
Time is like a forest breeze, the breath of Life
Is blowing through the trees

Carried high, I sail along
The wind whipped waves and salty spray
No longer stranger to the world
Where seals and dolphins play

I, I am of the earth, the sea and sky
I am spirit made of clay, I'll never die
Time is like the ocean wide, the pulse of life
Is beating with the tide

Solid perch on soaring peak
I look out on the land shaped air
Where only birds and angels dwell
And dream I'm walking there

I, I am of the earth, the sea and sky
I am spirit made of clay, I'll never die
Time, it has no walls or sides, the song of Life
Is echoing on high

To the King! To the Restoration!

Oh, How I Love Your Law

2007-11-14T18:32:00.000-05:00

In my last post, I'm not sure if I made myself clear on this, but I Love God's Law. I do not think it should belong to any nation, but that of the true Israel, the Israel of Jesus and the New Jerusalem, the Church. So I also love it jealously, just as the Pharisees in Jesus day. They, however, failed to recognize Jesus fulfillment of it, and thus lost their inheritance of it.

I love the Law, because it condemns murderers to death. But this death can also be the salvation of the murderer, if only the old Adam within him is destroyed and not his whole self. You see, the death of Jesus Christ was the death of the power of Death in the Law. Now the Law can show us the path of life and point to the Second Adam of the new humanity. It points us to the empty tomb, where Death was left humiliated and disarmed, and to the great Flood of Baptism where a repentant murderer can leave his murderer self behind and come up on the other side a new creation.

I love the Law, because when a member of the covenant community commits a sin worthy of death, the whole community must stone him. But these no longer are stones of mineral that are cast upon the offender, but one Rock upon which he is begged to cast himself for mercy.

The holy ground has been cleansed, once for all, by the blood of the Lamb, given for all, and no longer cries out for vengeance. Death's hold on the Law has been broken, it is now subdued, serene and gentle. It is a quiet teacher who visits its former students to offer words of advice and wisdom.

A Scarlet Thread

2007-10-25T13:05:00.000-04:00

I wanted to write about something that is becoming a growing conviction as I look at the way in which we commonly read the holy scriptures, especially the books in the Old Testament, and even more so the Torah. It seems that there is an overwhelming tendency to draw out universal moral principles and doctrines at the expense of the narrative. We are told that God does not change, nor does his law. The Old Testament law is then chopped up into neat categories of moral and ceremonial, the latter ending with Jesus sacrifice on the cross, the former continuing its applicability to all times and all nations. So when we come across things that seem a bit hard to swallow from our New Testament perspective, particularly those passages that make God out to be a bloodthirsty warrior who commands his people to slaughter mercilessly, we are faced with a dilemma. Do we discard the Old Testament God altogether, like the Marcionites, do we divide the story up into "ages", like the dispensationalists, or do we embrace this bloody God with relish, as in classic reformed theology?

I am not willing to take any of these views. I don't have a perfect alternative, but there appears to be a tunnel opening in some unexplored territory when we begin to read the scriptures from a narrative perspective. Let's ditch classical Greek categories for a change, and try to look with the unscientific eyes of an ancient. I am far from being an expert on the ancient mind, but I would like to share just a few observations I've picked up on.

There is something in the language of symbols and the way they are strategically placed in the text that reminds one of more primitive forms of "writing". The repetition of certain themes, which are woven throughout, points not only to convenience for the accurate preservation of oral traditions, but to a way of thinking "in pictures", rather than abstracts. Sort of a mental hieroglyphics, you might say.

One of these themes is the way "blood" and "bloodshed" is spoken of alongside "ground" and "curse". In the story of Cain, Abel's blood cries from the ground, which is then cursed again for Cain so that it will not produce at all for him. Then there is Noah's sacrifice, and God's promise to never again curse the ground because of man. It is in this context that the blood theme continues. Men can kill animals for food, but may not eat the blood. Neither animals nor men can shed the blood of other men, for God will demand an accounting. He places a curse on the shedding of man's blood, those who do so will end up with the same fate as their victims. When we come to the part of the story when Israel is to posses the land God promised to Abraham, the same symbolic language is employed. The land is cursed by the wickedness of its inhabitants and must be cleansed before the holy people can inhabit it. This was accomplished by shedding their blood and burning everything. Once it was inhabited, everything that would contaminate the holy land and the holy people had to be dealt with in similar fashion. The people were already marked as holy through circumcision, involving bloodshed. The Mosaic law provided further means of preserving purity through certain sacrifices and through certain penalties, most involving bloodshed, either animal or human. So then, murder, seen in this context, is not a crime against society, as we view it today, but a contamination of the sacred. A cleansing sacrifice is called for, the murderer's blood is shed, however, if he were not found, an ox would be killed instead, so the land would be purged. There are no false divisions here between the moral and the ceremonial. All morality was seen in the ceremonial sense of curse and blessing, clean and unclean, it was never perceived as an abstract, universal virtue.

And now, to finally wrap up this longish post, we come to the best part of the story, or rather, we come to "Jesus the Mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling that speaks better things than that of Abel." (Hebrews 12:24) I'll leave you to consider the implications of this statement in light of the scarlet thread of blood, sacrifice, curse and cleansing.

What Would it Look Like?

2007-10-15T10:37:00.001-04:00

I had a conversation with my mom last night over whether Christians were ever called to take part in the politics of earthly governments. She argued that if we all pull out of the political arena, it would quickly become more corrupt than ever.

On the surface that may seem to make sense. Voices for the voiceless would be silenced, godless laws and lawmakers would have a heyday. Or would they?

I do not believe we should ignore the moral issues facing our culture, or turn our backs upon the helpless, the poor, the unborn and the oppressed of this world. But I disagree that we can do much of anything to amend the world's problems by dancing to that drum, by stooping to meddle in the power games of the politicians. Telling a politician how to rule God's way is like telling an eagle how best to catch his prey. The state lives and moves and has its being on the blood of those inferior to its strength. The constant necessity of various groups to be portrayed as a threat to our safety is the only thing that gives meaning to its existence. Peaceful resolution of conflict within the populace and between national borders would be a travesty. Yet one would think that the vast amount of carnage perpetuated in the name of "freedom" would make it obvious that something was amiss. But I digress...

I would like to again suggest an alternative approach to Christians, one that would have infinitely better results than to have a few fingers in the Washington pie. It is for each one of us to actually be the presence of Christ in our own small communities. By our love and care for one another, by our willingness to befriend the outcast, by our hospitality and care of the poor, by our acceptance of insult, by our willingness to be persecuted, even put to death, in the attempt to reconcile all to God. After all, no servant is greater than his Master. Not that we would be without representation, for we have access to a political sphere that makes the White House look like Toys 'R' Us. We have but to ask, and our Father will provide for our safety and welfare by whatever means he chooses. He may use Washington, or a hurricane, or an angel- whatever suits his fancy, for he is in control of all things. We need only to hold out the empty hands of faith, and he will give us a kingdom and all, comprehended in a crumb of the broken Bread from heaven.

The Myth of the Spheres

2007-10-08T16:50:00.000-04:00

One argument I often run into while defending an anarchist position is the blanket statement, "We need to apply the gospel to all spheres of life." Implicit in this claim is a naive acceptance of the validity of certain "spheres" which have become almost universally axiomatic.

But the "spheres" as we know them today did not always exist as such. William Cavenaugh has cleverly described the evolution of these social boundaries in this article. http://www.jesusradicals.com/library/cavanaugh/Wars_of_Religion.html

He shows that the modern conceptions of religious and political, private and public had a long and bloody history in their creation. Religion became privatized and the Church became the arena in which salvation referred to matters of the eternal soul, whereas the State became the public arena in which matters of social ethics were defended through a monopoly of lethal coercion. The conscientious Christian, then, would exercise his heavenly citizenship within his activities at church, and work to produce a more just society through participation in the activities of the State.

But there are quite a few problems with this arrangement. It implies that a just society is something that can be accomplished through fear of the sword, rather than solely through saving grace. This gives the State credit for something only Jesus can do through the power of the Holy Spirit. That is idolatry. It also prevents the Christian community from showing God's mercy to the mortally guilty, other than giving them hope for an afterlife. For instance, if a Christian sought to obey his Lord's command to love, feed and clothe an international criminal, it would be considered an act of treason by the State. Furthermore, any social reform could only be accomplished by playing to the autonomous rules of the secular playing field.

So to read Romans 13, for example, with these social "spheres" in mind, is to read it anachronistically. We need to recapture the political and public reality that the Church alone is the fullness of him who fills all in all. We are a complete alternative society.

The Same Space

2007-10-07T22:03:00.000-04:00

I think I will post another, uh, post, in answer to my anonymous antagonist. (see comments on last post below)

The Narrative:
I do not think most Christians today appreciate the political nature of the first century church. When the authors of the New Testament used the words "ekklesia", "evangelion", "Christos", they were making highly treasonous claims against the Roman Empire, and all human governments thereafter. Christians were persecuted not because they touted a certain religion. Religions were all tolerated in the Empire. It was because they preached a King other than Caesar. King Jesus and Caesar claimed the same space.

But the two kingdoms did not operate on the same wavelength. The apostles were careful to instruct the early Christians not to rebel against Rome with the sword. They were to follow Jesus' example of submission to the authorities, for it was God who put those authorities in place. Jesus said as much to Pilate during his trial. Evil was overcome by way of the cross, in humble submission to the will of God, obeying to the point of death. "Therefore God exalted him and gave him the name that is above every name...."

And here is the paradox. Rome was evil, but God ordained it and allowed it dominion for a time. He used it to punish other evildoers, particularly the Jews who were oppressing the early Christians. So it worked out for their good. Then Rome fell, and another empire arose, then another, then another. At the present time, the world appears to be under the dominion of the American/Western empire. It, too, will fall when God is finished with it.

The Present Application:
The message is still clear for Christians today- submit and wait for the Lord to recompense the enemy and deliver his people from oppression. This is our duty as citizens of his everlasting kingdom.

God has his ministers of wrath- them. And his ministers of reconciliation-us. So it's them, and its us. The two priesthoods are immiscible. That is why we should not participate in their wars, their political elections or their policing systems, and that is why I am a pacifist.

Expecto Patronum!

2007-10-05T16:01:00.000-04:00

It appears that I, too, have been bitten by the Harry Potter craze. But gee, they're just damn good stories!
But to the point. I love this spell. It means, "I expect a protector". The charm wards off the dementors by summoning a Patronus, a spirit of protection. It only works, however, with a great amount of concentration on a happy thought.
Which is a little like faith. You see, I think one of the most obvious reasons Christians choose not to be pacifists is because they are afraid. Afraid of what humans might do. How odd, though, that they also choose to place their faith in human weapons to protect them. Why fear those who have the power only to kill the body? Should we not rather fear God, who can destroy both body and soul? And should we not rather trust him, who can restore life to both body and soul? And not only this, but can he not convert the hearts of our enemies, as he did our own?
Millions of Christians have prayed this prayer from the Book of Common Prayer. I wonder how many really believe it will be answered.
"O God, from all holy desires, all good counsels, and all just works do proceed; Give unto thy servants that peace which the world cannot give; that our hearts may be set to obey thy commandments, and also that by thee, we, being defended from the fear of our enemies, may pass our time in rest and quietness; through the merits of Jesus Christ our Saviour. Amen."
Expecto Patronum!

An Economy of Eucharist

2007-09-28T23:04:00.000-04:00

I must admit I am no expert in the science of economics. Far from it. Actually, it's one of the few subjects that has almost no appeal to my interest. But it is a hot topic amongst Christian Anarchists, and rightly so, because an alternative political model requires an alternative economy. Or at least an alternative way of looking at how goods should be made, distributed and consumed, apart from the control of the wealthy and powerful.
I cannot bring the subject of economics to mind without going back to something I read years ago, in an introduction to a study of Eucharistic Liturgy by Dom Gregory Dix. I never read the whole study, unfortunately, but that bit in the introduction made an indelible impression upon my memory. He writes about how the Lord's Supper is a model for a perfect society, where each member contributes according to his or her calling and each member is fed by the collective goods freely offered by the community, but this is all done in the context of God's provision of redemption through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ communicated in the broken bread and poured out wine. "The gifts of God, for the people of God". He writes, "Over and against the dissatisfied 'Acquisitive Man' and his no less avid successor the dehumanised 'Mass Man' of our economically focussed societies insecurely organised for time, christianity sets the type of 'Eucharistic Man'- man giving thanks with the products of his labor upon the gifts of God, and daily rejoicing with his fellows in the worshipping society which is grounded in eternity. This is man to whom it was promised on the night before Calvary that he should henceforth eat and drink at the table of God and be a king. That is not only a more joyful and more humane ideal. It is the divine and only authentic conception of the meaning of all human life, and its realization is in the eucharist." (Dom Gregory Dix in "The Shape of the Liturgy")
That is all I have to offer in my ignorance of the subject. Just an alternative way of looking at things. And pondering them. And perhaps this seeming Utopian ideal can bring about change for the better, not in simply offering a romantic model for restructuring communities, but in restructuring our priorities, and thus affecting our actions towards our neighbors.

Shane Claiborne at Fusion Youth

2007-09-26T14:49:00.001-04:00

The Ministers of Vengeance

2007-09-24T16:55:00.000-04:00

Wow, my first post has already got a comment. Its the big one, of course, Romans 13, the mainstay of Constantinian Christianity. I will write a quick answer now, and more when time allows. Thanks, "me", for the interest.

Romans 13 must be understood in light of Romans 12. We are simply commanded not to be overcome by evil, but to overcome evil with good. This includes how we confront the powers that be. We do not resist them by military rebellion. Bringing them down is God's job and as he ordains them to judge the wicked, he'll do that when he's ready. Rulers serve at an entirely different altar, that of vengeance, while we have been given the ministry of reconciliation. Christian anarchism seeks to disengage from entanglement with these institutions and offer an alternative society, based upon the mercy we have received rather than the penalty reserved for the wicked.

A Merry Day

2007-09-23T23:28:00.000-04:00

Here is a song for my first post that my husband and I wrote together, and from which I got my title.

Chorus
Sing, O merry day,
Brother sun, lend your ray,
Smile upon this happy morn
For to us a babe is born.

And you, child, shall be called
Beloved of the Most High God,
To join that ever youthful throng
A singer of hosanna's song

Chorus

Take up your palm and shepherd's staff,
Beckon the lion, bear and calf
And lead them to that holy hill
Where none shall ever hurt or kill.

Chorus

For the Prince of Peace has ridden by
And thrown down mountains lifted high
And raised the lowly, poor and least
To sit beside him at his feast.

Chorus

The battle's won, so run and play,
Teach us to put our swords away
And lift our hands to take instead
A kingdom, in this broken bread

Chorus