In 1976, Jean Baudrillard wrote a provocative essay entitled Forget Foucault, wherein he argued that Foucault's discourse, as powerful as it is, is fatally flawed. Drawing on Foucault's writings on both power and sexuality, Baudrillard argued that Foucault was able to speak so well of these things only because the forms of those things were disappearing. Hence, Baudrillard writes that “Foucault spoke so well of power to us… only because power is dead”. He then goes on to say that “[Foucault] spoke so well of sexuality only because its form, this great production (that too) of our culture was, like that of power, in the process of disappearing”.
Now, I'm not convinced that Baudrillard is correct when he argues that power is “dead” (by this he means that it is “[n]ot mere impossible to locate because of dissemination, but dissolved purely and simply in a manner that still escapes us, dissolved by reversal, cancellation, or made hyperreal through simulation (who knows?)”). Indeed, it seems to me that contemporary capitalism reflects a change in the form of power, but not its death or disappearance — it continues to exhibit a great concentration of power within particular institutions.
I am, however, more sympathetic to Baudrillard's notion that the form of sexuality is disappearing — and that got me thinking.
In particular, it got me thinking about criticisms of the State project that have been raised by the likes of Hauerwas, Cavanaugh, and Bell Jr. What if Hauerwas et al. are able to speak so well about the State, because the form of the State is disappearing? Perhaps we are able to so trenchantly criticise the State because the State is, in essence, dead.
Now, don't get me wrong, I don't disagree with the criticisms of the State raised by Hauerwas et al. I just think that when such criticisms are limited to the State we are not getting to the root of the problem we are confronting today. At its core, I believe the problem we are confronting today is that of late capitalism (global capitalism, disaster capitalism, call it what you will). Power today is not rooted in the State, it is rooted in global economic forces and institutions, and it is these forces and institutions that then manipulate the State to meet their desired ends. Therefore, rather then focusing overly-much upon the State (and spending all our time trimming branches — indeed, trimming branches that these institutions are also eager to trim!), it is these economic powers that we must confront if we are to have any hope of digging up the roots of the problem of living Christianly today.
February 2008
The Sins of the Father (and a further thought on universalism)
You shall not worship [false gods] or serve them; for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, on the third and the fourth generations of those who hate Me.
~ Ex 20.5
This idea, that God punishes children for the sins of their parents, is one that is widely considered offensive — to both Christians, and those who stand outside of the Judeo-Christian tradition. Indeed, I have often heard people say, “Who wants to worship a God like that?”, assuming that God is some sort of vindictive asshole. Indeed, underlying this objection is a more general refusal of the idea of a God who engages in judgment and who punishes sin. In response, I want to begin with the general point and work my back from there.
In general, it seems to me that God does not actively punish sin. Rather, I believe that God usually punishes sin by passively allowing a person to suffer the consequences of his or her actions. Hence, in the OT, when Israel rebels against God, God permits Israel to chase after other gods, to look to foreign empires to save them (from other foreign empires!), and the result of this is that Israel is dominated by those empires — she is conquered and led away into exile. Further, in the NT, this seems to be the view that Paul presents in Ro 1.18-32: once people exhange the glory of God for that which is corruptible, God “gives them over” (a phrase Paul uses three times in this passage) to the consequences of that exchange. Stated simply, the punishment for chasing after that which is dehumanising is to be allowed to become less than human.
How then does this relate to our reading of Ex 20.5? I believe that this verse, and the others like it, make it clear that our actions don't simply impact ourselves, but impact others. I am not alone in causing myself to suffer because of my sinfulness; I also cause others to suffer. Hence, the seriousness of sin: when I sin, I cause others to bear the burden of my sinfulness.
Perhaps an examples will help. In my last post, I mentioned kids who suffer from Fetal Alcohol Syndrome (FAS), and the devestating consequences that that can have on the life of a child. Now, it is not as though God, as a vindictive asshole, has chosen to punish a child because his or her mother abuses alcohol; rather, it is that FAS is simply one of the consequences of alcohol abuse. God did not set out to punish the child, but in Ex 20.5, God does let us know that our sins will have a negative impact on our children. Other patterns of abuse confirm this — sexual, physical, and substance abuses have a way of being passed on from parents to children, and the abused frequently goes on to become an abuser.
However, as I noted at the beginning of this post, this is the way in which God passively punishes sin. When God actively responds to sin, he tends to favour another method: forgiveness. Hence, the full weight of our punishment for sin is revealed on the cross of Christ, and the result of the cross is our forgiveness. Thus, I can't help but wonder if God's final active response to sin — the return of Christ, the coming of God, and the Day of Judgment — will also be a great (and terrible!) act of forgiveness. On that day, God will no longer hand us over to the consequences of our decisions — indeed, there will be no other Power for God to hand us over to, for Sin, Death, Hades, and all other powers in their service will have been defeated! Thus, rather than handing us over, I suspect that God will welcome us home — all of us.
Hence, as we await that day we have, through the victory of Jesus and the gift of the Spirit, received a wonderful opportunity. Although we know we have been forgiven, we still carry the burden of the sins of others. However, we can now embody and proclaim forgiveness and, in doing so, bear those sins away.
Maranatha!
N. T. Wright on Hell: Summary and Comments
I have always felt some frustration with the way in which N. T. Wright approaches the topic of hell, both because of the positions he engages and because I expect a little more from someone so committed to the larger narrative of Scripture.
I first came across his views in three small articles he had written (“Toward a Biblical View of Universalism” in Themelios 4:2 [1975]: 54-58; “Universalism” in The New Dictionary of Theology, eds. S. B. Ferguson and D. F. Wright [Leicester: IVP, 1988], 701-703; “Universalism in the World-Wide Community” in The Churchman 89:3 [1979]: 197-212), but he has, once again, addressed the topic in his recent book, Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of God. I'll begin by summarising what he says in this book, before making a few comments.
Wright begins, IMO, in the right place by refocusing what Jesus had to say about Gehenna. Essentially, Wright argues, Jesus was warning Israel of what would befall her if she continued to pursue violent revolution and rejected the way of peace that Jesus was offering (Wright expounds on this in more detail in Jesus and the Victory of God). Hence, he argues:
As with God's kingdom, so with its opposite: it is on earth that things matter… Unless they turned back from their hopeless and rebellious dreams of establishing God's kingdom in their own terms… then the Roman juggernaut would do what large, greedy, and ruthless empires have always done to small countries… Rome would turn Jerusalem into a hideous, stinking extension of its own rubbish heap. When Jesus said, “Unless you repent, you will all likewise perish,” that is the primary meaning he had in mind.
So far so good, and Wright continues to argue that the parables that appear to address hell directly must be remembered as parables that insist on the pursuit of justice and mercy within the present life.
Hence, he concludes that Jesus offers us no fresh teaching on this topic, but simply follows the normal first-century Jewish belief on this topic — which does include the belief that some people will be damned.
Wright then goes on the attack against the type of universalism promoted by liberal theologians in the '60s and '70s. He argues that their optimism is naive and that our recent experiences of horrible evils (he names places like Rwanda, Darfur, and the Balkans) remind us that there must be a judgment — good must be upheld, evil condemned, and the world set right.
Again, this is all well and good, but then Wright's argument continues in a way that I wish to challenge. He argues that setting the world right requires that some have “no place” in the new creation — in particular, those who have pursued idolatry, and thereby both acted in subhuman ways, and become subhuman creatures. What is the fate of these subhuman creatures? Not the traditional view of endless torment, nor a universalist view of repentance made possible after death, nor, yet again, a conditionalist view that argues that those who presistently refuse God's love, will be annihilated. Rather, Wright argues that the fate of such people is to become “by their own effective choice, beings that once were human but now are not.” Hence, he argues that these creatures, existing in an ex-human state “can no longer excite in themselves or others the natural sympathy some feel even for the hardened criminal”. In this way, they are “beyond hope, beyond pity”.
Ultimately, Wright states that he would “be glad to be proved wrong but not at the cost of the foundational claims that this world is the good creation of the one true God and that he will at the end bring about the judgment at which the whole creation will rejoice.” Indeed, he even goes so far as to suggest that Revelation 21-22 might open the door for holding the view that those outside the gates might be healed because the water of life flows out of the city, but he holds back from going any further in this thinking. Thus, he says, regarding this suggestion:
This is not at all to cast doubt on the reality of final judgment for those who have resolutely worshipped and served idols that dehumanize us and deface God's world. It is to say that God is always the God of surprises.
There are a few points I would like to raise related to Wright's presentation of these things. To begin with, I'm puzzled that he chooses to engage the forms of universalism that he does (and always has). Granted, there are some serious flaws in the liberal universalism that he criticises, but there is another form of universalism that he either doesn't know or ignores — that is, the hopeful universalism propogated especially by Hans Urs von Balthasar, but also expressed recently by Gregory MacDonald.
Secondly, I'm not sure why Wright links hell so closely to judgment. Indeed, I think the most compelling thing about Moltmann's understanding of eschatology and universalism, is that he deftly and biblically demonstrates that the two need not be held together. It is quite possible for good to be upheld, evil to be condemned, the world set right, and, at the same time, for all people to be saved. Yes, there must be exclusion before there can be an embrace (as Wright argues, following both Volf and Tutu), but that does not mean that the act of exclusion must be final — it could mean that all will, in the end, be embraced. This point, I think, goes a long way to overthrowing his stated objection to universalism.
Thirdly, given Wright's emphasis upon the biblical narrative, I'm a little surprised that he doesn't think (or at least doesn't say) that the salvation of all might be just the sort of “surprise” that fits rather well within the trajectory of that narrative. Despite the Old Testament material that shows us that the Gentiles would be also be welcomed into the Kingdom of God, the offer of the inclusion still came as a surprise to many in the days of Jesus and Paul. Of course, in retrospect, we 21st-century Christians can see how that inclusion fits the story rather well. I can't help but wonder if a similar surprise awaits us. Given the hints that exist within the Scriptures, we might also see the inclusion of all people in the consummation of the Kingdom.
Fourthly, I'm somewhat troubled by the things to which Wright appeals in order to refute “liberal optimism”. In his “catalog of awfulnesses” and his mention of those who are “utterly abhorrent” he lists mass murderers, child rapists, those who engage in “the commodification of souls”, and so on. Here's the kicker: over the years I have personally known several people who would fit into these categories, yet I hold onto the hope that they will be saved, and made new, along with the rest of us. I have known those who have tortured and killed others (gang members), I have known those who have sexually exploited children (pimps and johns), and I have known those who have commodified the souls of others (drug dealers), yet I have been unable to “cast the first stone.” Now, let me be clear on this: I believe that all of these actions are truly, truly horrible, but I do not yet believe that the people who performed these actions are horrible. Yes, such people must be resisted, yes, they must be held to account; but must they be damned? I don't think so.
Wright, I think, is too quick to demonise the humanity of the Other in these examples. I don't know if he has spent much time with such people, but I wonder how that might change his views. You see, because I have had the opportunity to personally journey alongside of many of these people, I have had a chance to see that most of them had little or no chance to be something other than what they are. Some were born broken, others were so broken when they were young that they never had a chance to develop into anything else (remember most of those who sexually abuse kids, were sexually abused as children — this is not to suggest that all those who are sexually abused as kids go on to abuse others, but it is a large factor, and I think other circumstances in one's life go a long way to determining whether or not one goes on to abuse others or not). Ultimately, contra Wright, I don't think that it is the human Other that becomes ex-human and is damned. Rather, I think it is the forces that dehumanise the Other — forces of sickness, of structural evil, and so on — that are damned, while the person is restored to their fully human status in Christ.
But wait, what do I mean when I say “some were born broken”? A few things: first, some people are born unable to empathise with others or follow moral codes (this is called Antisocial Personality Disorder, or, more commonly, such people are referred to as sociopaths). It is hard to know how to respond to such people. People who never had a conscience. Yes, they can do awful things — but will they be damned or will they, in the end, be healed? Secondly, I also think of kids born with Fetal Alcohol Syndrome — often born into poor and violent homes. Such kids often have their brains damaged in such a way that they are unable to empathise, and unable to understood the consequences of their actions. Again, it's just the way their brains are wired. I've known a few like this; some were gang-bangers, who had done some awful things, but I'm just not sure that they'll be damned in the end. They, too, might be healed. In such people, sinful actions are the symptom of an underlying brokenness — a brokenness they had absolutely no control over.
Similarly, for many of those who are not born broken, but are made broken, I cannot help but wonder if those who have not journeyed alongside of people who have experienced great traumas and violence, can really understand the true depth of the impact that trauma and violence can have — especially on children. If these children grow up to inflict violence upon others this is tragic, but I wonder to what degree they are culpable — or, rather, I wonder if I would have been able to grow up and be any different, or if any of us would. So, in the end, will these people be damned, or will they, like us, be healed, and made new?
I can't help but think of the scenario in Jn 8.1-11 involving the woman caught in adultery. I wonder, if at the moment of judgment, once we have been fully confronted with both our own sinfulness, our own complicity in the broader structures of sin, and the ways in which those who sinned against us have been sinned against, if what will result is similar to what happens to the woman. In 1 Cor 6.2, Paul tells us that the saints will judge the world. I wonder if this means that God will say “If any one of you is without sin, let him be the first to throw a stone.” I wonder then, if we are unable to throw stones, if God will also say to those being judged, “then neither do I condemn you. Come now and leave your life of sin.”
Out-geeking the Geek (R.I.P. ODB)
My oldest brother is a self-professed boardgame geek. In fact, he is such a game geek that, for Valentine’s Day, he wrote a a series of twenty-one poems for his wife… based on boardgames they played together. Not only that, but he posted those poems online (if you enjoy boardgames, you may want to check them out; cf. http://www.boardgamegeek.com/geeklist/29054).
Now, when we were much younger, my oldest brother and I used to send each other ‘hate poetry’, you know, he would write me a poem about ‘the crazies’ that I attracted, and I would respond with a poem about how he would die when his bowels exploded (he has Crohn’s).
Anyway, after reading my brother’s recent poems, I was inspired to write a poem roughly based upon some of my research, and (even more roughly) modeled after Triumph by the Wu-Tang Clan. This is my effort to ‘out-geek’ the geek. I’m turning this into a rap battle, baby!
[Parental/Evangelical Advisory: The Following Contains Explicit Lyrics.]
Triumph: Take II
The Wu-Tang Clan may have bombed atomically,
But I’m sittin here, and I’m droppin eschatology;
We’re not talkin mystery, we’re talkin historicity,
Rediscovering the Church, as political community.
Aight? Let me break it down for you. It goes like this:
Evangelicals have mapped out premillenial chronologies,
They’re waiting for the rapture, and damning all modernities
Waiting for the day, when the clouds are furled,
When Jesus Christ descends, they’ll yell ‘fuck the world!’
Cuz It’s all about the soul, in their Platonist cosmology,
But we’re still a far cry from any Pauline eschatology.
The Liberals be hatin’ on the Evangelical
They’ve got an education, and gone amillenial
Forget the tribulation, they don’t need a timetable
They focus more on action, and not some end-time fable.
So they’re chasing after causes (which are rather fine)
But all this eschatology is too faux Johannine.
Each in their own way are backing a lame horse
And failin to note the dominant discourse
Cuz it’s all economics ruling the globe
And we’re all renting space in cap’talism’s abode.
So in a world full of petit récits,
We must recourse to Pauline history
(which, of course, is eschatology).
Cuz Paul never thought about the world’s end,
He talked about the Spirit as God’s given dividend.
So while Neocons tell us, our lives are now consummated,
Paul knew, and we know, of a kingdom inaugurated;
Our Age is now perforated, and we won’t be sedated.
Cuz we are a people with memory and hope,
We don’t live in the moment, the man sells us like dope.
So we don’t buy the lie, he be tryin to sell us
About history arriving at its Hegelian telos.
About how this is all as good as it get,
We be followin’ Jesus, and fuckin that shit.
Like a virus we’re spreadin through Babylon
Proleptically anticipating the eschaton
And countering forces of globalisation
With the Spirit and power of God’s new creation.
So seize the day, seize the past, seize the future as well,
Or we’re all bound to freeze in a cap’talist hell.
Scattered Thoughts
When I was at work in the City Relief Society, before the [Chicago] fire, I used to go to a poor sinner with the Bible in one hand and a loaf of bread in the other… My idea was that I could open a poor man's heart by giving him a load of wood or a ton of coal when the winter was coming on, but I soon found out that he wasn't any more interested in the Gospel on that account. Instead of thinking how he could come to Christ, he was thinking how long it would be before he got another load of wood. If I had the Bible in one hand and a loaf [of bread] in the other the people always looked first at the loaf; and that was just contrary to the order laid down in the Gospel.
~ D. L. Moody
I recently had a conversation with a fellow from Latin America who was a part of a revolutionary movement in El Salvador back in the '70s. We got talking about the Canadian Welfare System, and he argued that it was a way of 'paying off the poor.' By that he meant that we give people enough money so that they will stay poor. They not take their fate into their own hands and take (revolutionary) action. Now I don't mean to get into the pros and cons of the Welfare System in this post, but I was struck by a comment he made about the poverty he saw in Latin America. 'Starvation,' he said, 'will remove all restraints, and all moral codes; when a person is starving nothing else matters.'
In this regard I can't help but think of the words penned by Bertolt Brecht:
You gentlemen who think you have a mission
To purge us of the seven deadly sins
Should first sort out the basic food position
Then start your preaching, that’s where it begins
You lot who preach restraint and watch your waist as well
Should learn, for once, the way the world is run
However much you twist or whatever lies that you tell
Food is the first thing, morals follow on
So first make sure that those who are now starving
Get proper helpings when we all start carving
Moody fails to realise three things: (1) the way in which poverty, cold, and starvation will dominate a person's existence; (2) the necessity of engaging in charity for charity's sake, which considers longterm problems and solutions, rather than engaging in momentary charity with ulterior motives; and, in the same vein, (3) the way in which charity and the Gospel go hand-in-hand and cannot be separated into some sort of hierarchical order. The Good News is both a Word we proclaim, and a meal that we share.
Finally, I would suggest a fourth thing that Moody has not recognised: the possibility that those who appear to reject his Gospel have, in actuality, accepted it by accepting him, but I've already written about that (cf. http://poserorprophet.livejournal.com/2004/10/30/).
January Books (better late than never?)
1. Spirit and the Politics of Disablement by Sharon V. Betcher.
Having happily stumbled into this nexus between liberation theology and disability theory at some point last year (when I read The Disabled God by Nancy Eiesland), I was eager to read what somebody else had to say on this subject. Thus, when I stumbled across Betcher’s book (who, like Eiesland, also writes on this topic as one who has been classified as ‘disabled’) I quickly worked my way through it.
What I think I have learned from those like Betcher and Eiesland is that disability is almost entirely due to social barriers and the biopolitics of capitalism which pushes various standards of normalcy and employability upon us. Thus, Betcher argues that, rather than seeing disability as a loss, or something to be overcome, disability can then become a place that provides us with a powerful alternative to, and critique of, empire and its “ideologies of normalcy”.
Now, all that is well and good, and Betcher does an excellent job of thinking through these things alongside of folks like Foucault, Deleuze, Hardt, and Negri. However, there was much about this book that I found to be frustrating. Particularly, I found her all-out rejection of the healing narratives, as well as Jesus’ resurrection, to be especially troubling — not only because of my own convictions, but because I think she is cutting her own legs out from under herself by arguing in this way. Betcher is opposed to these things because she thinks healing stories, including the story of the resurrection, have been used to support empire’s biopolitics — and there is certainly a great deal of truth in this. However, such stories can be used in other ways. For example, unlike Betcher, who wishes to discard the notions of healing and resurrection altogether, I would argue that all of us are awaiting the transformation of our bodies and, in this regard, both those who are temporarily disabled and those who are temporarily able bodied, are united in awaiting the new creation of all things — including themselves.
Additionally, Betcher appears to focus her argument solely upon those who have physical disabilities. However, when one factors in those with mental disabilities, perhaps we should not be so quick to discard all stories that point to transformation or, dare I say, healing. Granted, whether a person has one leg or two may be entirely irrelevant, but when a person regularly hears voices that tells him to kill himself (I know more than one person who has lived with these voices) then I think we shouldn’t be so hasty to say that all talk of transformation or healing is supporting the biopolitics of empire.
Finally, it is worth noting that Betcher is writing out of a rather ‘liberal’ theological tradition. As such, she appears to exhibit some religious syncretism, some discomfort with ‘orthodox’ Christianity, and I really can’t tell what the difference might be between her religious position and the dominant spirituality of Vancouver more broadly (she teaches at a theology school in Vancouver, but not at the one I attend).
2. Postmodernism, or, The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism by Fredric Jameson.
I’m not entirely sure how to summarise this book as Jameson covers a lot of ground, a lot of sources, and a lot of topics in its 400 pages. Essentially, I think that Jameson is continuing to demonstrate the truth found in the Marxist thesis that it is the mode of production (the base) which is responsible for the shape a culture takes (the superstructure). Hence, he demonstrates how postmodernism — in various media and disciplines, from architecture, to alternative film, to theory, to economics — is an outworking of late capitalism — capitalism in its present form, which if focused upon commodification and the (recycling of) image. One of the major consequences of this is the loss of the historical, and it is the recovery of history (again, an important element of Marxism) that Jameson seems to especially desire.
Of course, there is much more that should be said about this book, it really is an exceptional study of modernism, postmodernism, and the thread that capitalism draws between the two as it develops out of one and into the other. My only complaint would be that I wished Jameson would be a little less anecdotal and cut to the chase more often — but, then again, given that Jameson is attempting to demonstrate cultural shifts, perhaps examples are necessary… it’s just that I don’t get too excited reading about alternative films being produced in the ’70s.
3. Nausea by Jean-Paul Sartre.
This was my first time reading Sartre, and I enjoyed it a great deal. It seems to me that Sartre, like Wittgenstein, must be one of the central precursors to postmodernism (again, a sense of history helps remind us that there are very few ‘clean breaks’ between eras). In this novel, Sartre explores questions about history, epistemology, meaning and subjectivity. I don’t know what it is about the French but they are damn good at writing philosophy in a narrative form. I wish more people would do that.
4. Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett.
Well, I finally got around to reading this little play last month. I’ve never been a fan of reading plays — they are, after all, made for performing and viewing (which, by the way, was part of the reason why I have always thought that it was totally nuts that highschool students are made to read Shakespeare, year after year). To be honest, I’m still sitting on the fence with this one. I think I would like to go to see it before I make up my mind. Initially, I was rather unimpressed but, as I have continued to reflect on it, it has grown on me more and more. Not bad for a play wherein nothing happens!
5. Allah is Not Obliged by Ahmadou Kourouma
This is a book about child soldiers, written by a celebrated French African author. It’s damn good, but terribly depressing. Faforo! Gnamokode!
Sometimes I wonder why I keep reading about all these terribly depressing things. To put it simply, the world is fucked, and the more I learn about it, the more I learn about the depth of this brokenness, the more I feel like I’ve opened Pandora’s box and don’t know how to respond to everything that came flying out. On the one hand, I think we must educate ourselves about how fucked everything is but, on the other hand, I’m not sure what to do with that knowledge. Faforo! Gnamokode!
6. Introduction to Bhagavad-Gita by A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada.
This little book (really a fifty-page tract) was some fun reading. It was a nice refresher for me, as it has been awhile since I’ve read anything in relation to Hinduism, and it was fun to observe similarities with postmodern thought (take, for example, the ‘death of the subject’) and with Christianity (take, for example, Prbhupada’s argument that true knowledge of the Bhagavad-Gita comes only to those who are devotees in direct relationship with the Lord — I think Tom Wright says almost exactly the same thing about an epistemology of love in Surprised by Hope. Or, as another example, take Prbhupada’s emphasis upon tracing truth through discipilic succession, a point that should have our Roman Catholic friends nodding their heads!). Of course, at the end of the day, Hinduism, postmodern philosophy, and Christianity are often miles apart from each other, but that doesn’t mean there is no room for fruitful dialogue.
Performing Beauty: Embodiment in the Society of the Spectacle
I've been a little cautious about exploring the notion of beauty as a category within theology because, to be honest, I'm a little skeptical about it all (and I'm not at all well-read on the topic). Granted, there has been a long tradition of connecting the notion of beauty with theology and philosophy, and some exceptional contributions (like those of von Balthasar) but I can't help but wonder about why there has been such a contemporary resurgence on this topic, given that we live in an image-dominated society. It seems so… emergent (in the bad way). Regardless, I got thinking about the topic today and I wanted to write down my scattered thoughts before they drifted away.
(1) Guy Debord has aptly referred to our contemporary society as the Society of the Spectacle. By this he means that our society has become so image-based and image-obsessed that we have come to a place where social relations are mediated by image. Everything that had directly lived has now moved whole-heartedly into the realm of representation and relations between commodities have supplanted relations between people.
(2) Hence, we live in an imaginary society. It is imaginary because it is image-oriented, and it is imaginary because it moves us into the realm of virtuality and of representation, and away from the realm of the Real. An excellent example of this is a website like facebook, wherein people become virtual advertisements of themselves. (In this regard, I am reminded of a recent experience I had at work. A co-worker was telling me about a movie that he had seen and he described it in this way: “It was so facebook. You know, full of fictional characters that you end up falling in love with.”)
(3) The problem here is not that we are disciplined to be made into this or that image (although that is one of the symptoms of the problem). Rather, the problem is that our very identity is rooted in image.
(3) Consequently, it is within this context that Christians need to think about the notion of beauty.
(4) In particular, Christians need to think about beauty as an aspect of embodiment — embodiment divorced from the spectacle.
(5) So should we simply pursue a notion of embodiment that is imageless? I don't think so. We are, after all, told that we have been made in the image of God.
(6) Yet God, who has often been linked to the category of beauty, is unimage-able. God is said to be beautiful, and yet God cannot be seen.
(7) How is an unimage-able form of beauty embodied? How is it made known? Through action. This is how we have come to know God, and to know God as beautiful. We have not seen God but we have experienced God's actions, and we remember how God has acted in the past, and how God has promised to act in the future.
(8) Therefore, the embodiment of beauty that we seek, is one that is connected to action. In particular, it is the actions of the body of Christ — the Church — that reveal the beautiful.
(9) Thus, beauty falls under the category of doing, not seeing.
(10) In this way, the embodied performance of the beautiful becomes an alternative way of being-in-relation with one another, and counters the way of being (alone?) that is embodied within the Society of the Spectacle.
(11) Finally, this is also why I think that beauty does not exist as an indenpendent category but is a subcategory of love. Beauty is both that which we give to, and that which we discover within, the Beloved.