God as Judge

The metaphor of the judge does not have its locus in a theory of law. It lives, rather, in a world of desperate, practical appeal to those who have no other ground of appeal or hope and in a world of righteous rage among those who are appalled at exploitative brutality that must be called to accountability.
~ Walter Brueggemann, Theology of the Old Testament.
As Christianity was infiltrated by Greek philosophies and other modes of thought from the Greco-Roman world, the idea of judgment became increasingly related to a law of moral purity, and personal piety. That is to say, judgment became associated with sin that had more to do with personal holiness and less to do with social justice. Of course this is only natural once Christianity becomes the official religion of the Constantine's empire (and any other subsequent Christian empires), for the religion of empire is a religion which cannot show much regard for the social injustices that result from the excercise of power. If anything such a religion provides a the empire with a justification for such inequalities.
However, a Christianity that only thinks of judgment in this context is essentially unbiblical. As Brueggemann emphasises, the notion of God as the judge, the notion of God excercising his judgment, is intimately tied to socio-economic issues.* God as judge is understood as the God who will not tolerate social injustices. God as judge is the God who sides with the oppressed over against the oppressor. God as judge is the God who brings liberation to captives and food to the hungry.
Of course Christian discourse about judgment is mostly dominated by questions relating to the final destination of one's eternal soul (which is itself a Greek, and not a Hebraic, concept). However, Krister Stendahl, a New Testament scholar who is partially responsible for launching the school of thought known as 'the new perspective on Paul,' does an excellent job of bringing a genuinely biblical understanding of judgment back into the discussion. He argues that God's judgment cannot be divorced from the realm of the social and the political. The notion of God's judgment cannot help but give us pause about our current socio-economic status. In the conclusion to his stirring essay “Judgment and Mercy” (found in Paul Among Jews and Gentiles), he writes,
Judgment and mercy. We must resist all homogenizing, neutralizing, dialecticizing and balancing acts with these terms.** There is little mercy except the chance of repentance for those of us who sit in judgment; but when judgment comes upon us, there is much mercy for the oppressed… So let us weep! And let them rejoice when the judgment that comes upon us provides their liberation!
Christians would do well to worry less about the state of their own souls and worry more about the state of their neighbours' bodies.
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* I say “his” because the title of “judge” when applied to YHWH is generally associated with YHWH's masculinity. There are other titles that emphasise YHWH's femininity — of course, as Brueggemann also highlights, we need to understand all nouns as “noun-metaphors” when they are applied to YHWH in the Old Testament. They are not Israel's primary way of referring to YHWH and only gain their meaning from their association with the broader narrative and from the ways in which YHWH acts in the story of Israel.
** This thought also fits well with Brueggemann's insistence that one should refuse to resolve tensions that are inherent to the biblical texts. Brueggemann argues that such tensions must be maintained because they are essentially a part of the character of YHWH as it is revealed to us.

The Symbol Gap

Psychic numbness is possible, says Lifton, because of a “gap of symbols,” meaning that a community lacks adequate symbols to mediate and communicate the horror and brutality of its own life. Thus where symbolic life in a community is thin, lean, or one-dimensional, violence can be implemented, accepted, and denied with numbed indifference.
~ Walter Brueggemann, commenting on the writings of Robert Jay Lifton [Jude, have you read anything by this guy?] in Theology of the Old Testament.
Tom Wright argues that Jesus, following the prophetic tradition, was a master of reworking symbols in meaningful ways (cf. Jesus and the Victory of God). Jesus was capable of taking the dominant symbols of the religion of his time and manipulating them in ways that made them come alive in urgent and often radically new ways.
If the contemporary Western church is to be transformed it must encounter people who, like Jesus and the prophets, are capable of rediscovering the power, and significance, of rich religious symbols that have now been reduced to trite and kitschy icons.
Similarly, if the church hopes to be a community that lives peaceably, if it hopes to live in the midst of all the darkness, blood and violence of reality, it must — as Lifton implies, and Brueggemann affirms — rediscover the symbols that it has to deal with the horror and brutality of real life. As Christianity has become a religion of a class of people who are committed to faking life, a people committed to maintaining an image that says everything is alright, all the time, symbols that speak of things not being okay have lost their meaning (as many people have pointed out before me, the cross was an instrument of torture, not a piece of costume jewelry [cf. esp. Martin Hengel's work on crucifixion]). Until the church regains the power of its symbols, until the church lives honestly in the midst of reality (cf. Jon Sobrino's Where is God?) violence will continue to be “implemented, accepted, and denied with numbed indifference.”

Mendacity

The problem with trying to be honest with others is that I first need to learn to be honest with myself. And that… well, that usually takes a lot of time.
But I think I'm finally there. I'm finally ready to speak honestly with others because I have finally spoken honestly with myself.

Bearing Witness

In his monolithic work, Theology of the Old Testament: Testimony, Dispute, Advocacy, Walter Brueggemann continually argues that the Old Testament resembles a law court. Within the metaphor of a trial Brueggemann picks up on the role of a witness and says this:
The witness allegedly had access to [the] actual event, was there, saw it and experienced it, and so is qualified to give testimony.
Now if Christians seek to be witnesses [Gk: martyrion] to Jesus Christ they should have access to Jesus, they should have experience of (and with) Jesus. It is intimacy that qualifies Christians to give testimony about Jesus.
The contemporary lack of witnesses (exhibited especially in the lack of martyrs — martyrs understood in the more radical sense) suggests that there are relatively few who have actually encountered Jesus. The testimony of Christians today garners little credibility because it is generally a false testimony — it is people speaking of something they have not experienced and, therefore, something they know nothing about (for knowing God as a mental construct is quite different than knowing God as a person). Perhaps the largest way that this is exhibited is the fact that, as Brueggemann points out elsewhere in Theology of the Old Testament, the God in the Old Testament is primarily known for acting with transformative power in the midst of history. This God was known for his mighty deeds (cf. Gerhard von Rad). Yet most contemporary Western Christians live with little reliance upon God breaking into history. We have become much too engrossed in God's Being as opposed to God's doing. Which is why I am increasingly echoing the words that Karl Rahner used to say to his theology students: I do not know the God that you are speaking of.
All this brings me back, once again, to another Rahner quote: future Christians will either be mystics or they will cease to exist as Christians. By this he meant that Christians will have a genuine experience of (and with) God or they will (post-Christendom) have no reason to be Christians.
And, of course, the first step to knowing God is admitting how little we know God.

Christian Relevance And Other Square Circles

“We have gotten used to regarding as valor only valor in war (or the kind that's needed for flying in outer space), the kind which jingle-jangles with medals. We have forgotten another concept of valor — civil valor. And that's all our society needs, just that, just that, just that! That's all we need and that's exactly what we haven't got.”
“When, in 1960, Gennady Smelov, a nonpolitical offender, declared a lengthy hunger strike in the Leningrad prison, the prosecutor went to his cell for some reason (perhaps he was making his regular rounds) and asked him: 'Why are you torturing yourself?'
And Smelov replied: 'Justice is more precious to me than life.'
This phrase so astonished the prosecutor with its irrelevance that the very next day Smelov was taken to the Leningrad Special Hospital (i.e. the insane asylum) for prisoners. And the doctor there told him:
'We suspect you may be a schizophrenic.'”
~ Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago
Although Solzhenitsyn does not explicitly link these two passages (they are ten pages apart) it is necessary to note that civil valor will be accompanied by a movement that others will perceive to be a movement into irrelevance. It is a desperate grasping for relevance that continually compromises the church [insert rant about Relevant Magazine here]. Such a movement is antithetical to following in the footsteps of Jesus. Looking at Paul's “master narrative” (Michael Gorman's term) in Philippians 2.6-11 this becomes clear. Because Jesus existed in the form of God he did not regard equality with God thing to be grasped, but emptied himself taking the form of a slave and becoming humble to the point of death on a cross. No, living Christianly means that the disciples of Jesus will be labeled irrelevant.
Paul has a few words for those who have pursued such relevance in Corinth. He says:
For, I think, God has exhibited us apostles last of all, as men condemned to death; because we have become a spectacle to the world, both to angels and to men. We are fools for Christ's sake, but you are prudent in Christ; we are weak, but you are strong; your are distinguished, but we are without honor. To this present hour we are both hungry and thirsty, and are poorly clothed, and are roughly treated, and are homeless; and we toil, working with our own hands; when we are reviled, we bless; when we are persecuted, we endure; when we are slandered, we try to conciliate; we have become as the scum of the world, as the dregs of all things, even until now.
Because we are hopeful we will be called utopian.
Because we affirm the new creation of all things we will be called idealists.
Because we believe in one God we will be called exclusive and sectarian.
Because we believe we are the image of that one God we will be called arrogant.
Because we love with the oppressed we will be called romantics.
Because we rejoice in suffering we will be called masochists.
Because we embody forgiveness we will be called unjust.
Because we are committed to peace we will be called unloving and unrealistic.
Because we eagerly anticipate the return of our Lord we will be called fools.

It's a Wonderful Life

It's a wonderful life.
If you can find it.
If you can find it.
If you can find it.
~ Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds
Pink walls and children laughing in the backyard. Leaning on my desk not thinking anything. Looking at the phone in my hand…
Well, never mind.
Too sad to shift the responsibility off of my shoulders.
Too scared to be angry.
Fighting to stay honest.
Never mind.

Acts of Charity

Cruelty is invariably accompanied by sentimentality. It is the law of complementaries [sic].
~ Arnold Susi (quoted by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn)
And this, my mother, is what I think of most of our acts of charity. Mere sentimentality that offsets (and masks) our inherent violence and cruelty.
The fact that we (as gentle, well-intentioned folk) engage in such acts only highlights our ignorance.
Certainly God is able to brings some good out of these acts but let us not forget that God brought good out of crucifixion. That does not mean we are to continue to crucify others. No, we are to “take the crucified people down from the cross” (as the Liberation Theologians suggest). Or, better yet, we are to join the crucified people on the cross. To allow ourselves to be crucified is the only road that will liberate us from our sentimentality — and from our cruelty.

Self-Esteem

Everybody knows you were trying to be discrete
There were just so many people you had to meet
Without your clothes
Everybody knows
~Leonard Cohen
If I had of known how much I was going to exactly replicate the lyrics of “Self-Esteem” (when I was in Bible college!) I wonder how much I would have liked the song when it first came out…
And maybe it’s the fact that I’ve been up all night and I’m a long way away from Toronto and those memories but I can’t help but smile now as I listen to it.
Damn, I am not the person I thought I would be. Hell, I’m hardly the person I think I am.
I shaved every place where you’ve been boy
I shaved every place where you’ve been
~ Tori Amos

Idolatry and Victimisation

Whether God exists or not, we still face the [problem] of idols. By “idols” we mean historical realities that do exist, and that promise salvation and demand worship and orthodoxy. Their existence, and the worship they demand, are decisively verified by the victims they inevitably produce. There must be many idols in our time, because their victims are millions of human beings.
~ Jon Sobrino
This is the essential difference between Christianity and idolatry. While idols will always produce victims, Christians will refuse to make victims of any other but will choose to become victims — in order to overcome cycles of victimisation.
While the idols' existence is manifest in the production of victims, the Christian God is revealed when Christians choose to take the victimisation onto themselves.
Jesus, the fullest revelation of the Christian God, makes this point painfully clear. Refusing to victimise any other person he goes the way of the cross. This is the character of God. God is not a sovereign Lord who victimises that which he creates. Rather, God is one who takes the pain, the sorrow, the wounds of victimisation upon himself, refusing to lash out lest he too ends up engaging in idol worship.
The fact that we see so many victims today suggests to me that we have all made gods of ourselves instead of following in the footsteps of Jesus who
because he existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped but emptied himself taking the form of a slave, being made in the likeness of men. And being found in appearance as a man he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death — even death on a cross.
~ Philippians 2.6-8

Hope and Realism

Only utopianism and hope will enable us to believe, and give us strength to try — together with all the world's poor and oppressed people — to reverse history, to subvert it, and to move it in a different direction.
~ Ignacio Ellacuria (from an address given ten days before he was assassinated).
One is either an idealist or one is hopeless. Those who possess hope will always be labeled idealistic, utopian, and unrealistic by those too wounded, too fearful, too comfortable, or too knowledgeable to hope for anything more than what they already have.
I suspect that R.R. Niebuhr and those who follow in the footsteps of “Christian realism” miss this point because they never really understood the nature of Christian hope. And I suspect that they neglected hope because they misunderstood the nature of suffering love. And, here I tread with some trepidation, I suspect that they misunderstood the nature of suffering love because they misunderstood Jesus. Without hope Christianity is neither “Christian” nor “realistic.”