R. R. Reno's "Preferential Option for the Poor"

1. Introduction
In Matthew 13.44-46, Jesus is recorded as describing the kingdom of heaven in this way:

The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which someone found and hid; then in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field.  Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant in search of fine pearls; on finding one pearl of great value, he went and sold all that he had and bought it.

There are many people who have found their field of treasure or their pearl of great value.  Not everybody stumbles into this blessed curse (or cursed blessing) but for some it is a career they love, for others it is a partner or a child, for others it is power.  The list could go on and on: sex, a sense of safety or security, drugs, a place to belong, fame, honour, a country to die for, a God to worship–these are all things for which people have given up everything else in their lives.
I often think of one particular young person whom I have had the privilege of knowing when I read these parables.  His “pearl of great value” was a mixture of cocaine and heroin.  For that, he sacrificed everything else — his health, his family, a place to sleep with a bed and a roof, all of his worldly possessions — until all he had left were the clothes on his back and his guitar.  He loved that guitar.  He referred to it as his soul.  But then, one day, he pawned the guitar.  “I put my soul in the pawn shop.”
With only the clothes on his back and the money he received for his guitar, he was able to afford a point of heroin (one tenth of a gram and just enough for him to get high).  Having finally sold his “soul,” this was the pearl of greatest value.
Now, that’s where the parable cuts off, but continuing to track with my friend, something incredible happens.  Having scored his heroin, he steps into an alley in order to shoot up and runs into another friend who is also a heroin user but who has no money, no drugs, and nothing of value to sell.  What, then, does my friend do with his pearl?  He shares it.  He splits it — this treasure for which he has sacrificed all else — and he gives half away, without any thought of return.  There, in an alley in Vancouver’s downtown eastside, my friend engaged in an act of generosity and self-sacrifice far greater in scale than pretty much every other act of generosity or self-sacrifice that I have seen practiced — whether by Christians or by others.  Make what you want about drug use, the value of that pearl to my friend, and the extent of his sacrifice comes nowhere close to any act I have ever done.
Yet my friend is not alone in acting this way.  In communities of drug users, as in other communities of poor people, a kind of grace-based economy of giving without thought of return is not uncommon (for more on this, cf., Philippe Bourgois and Jeffrey Schonberg’s aptly titled book, Righteous Dopefiend, wherein the authors explore the “moral economy of sharing” that exists in communities of drug users in San Francisco).
2. R. R. Reno’s Preferential Option… for “the poor”?
I thought of these things recently, because I came across R. R. Reno’s reflections about “The Preferential Option for the Poor” in the June/July 2011 issue of “First Things.”  In this piece, Reno asserts that the true poverty of “the poor” (whom he admits to not knowing very well, if at all), is not economic but moral.  Thus, he writes:

On this point I agree with many friends on the left who argue that America doesn’t have a proper concern for the poor. Our failure, however, is not merely economic. In fact, it’s not even mostly economic. A visit to the poorest neighborhoods of New York City or the most impoverished towns of rural Iowa immediately reveals poverty more profound and more pervasive than simple material want. Drugs, crime, sexual exploitation, the collapse of marriage—the sheer brutality and ugliness of the lives of many of the poor in America is shocking. As the Catechism of the Catholic Church reminds us, poverty is not only material; it is also moral, cultural, and religious (CCC 2444), and just these sorts of poverty are painfully evident today…
Preferential option for the poor. A Christian who hopes to follow the teachings of Jesus needs to reckon with a singular fact about American poverty: Its deepest and most debilitating deficits are moral, not financial.

As evidence of this, Reno asserts that “[t]he lower you are on the social scale, the more likely you are to be divorced, to cohabit while unmarried, to have more sexual partners, and to commit adultery.”  He then goes on to share two stories from people whom he has known who, unlike Reno, actually appear to have made (at least some professional) contact with poor folks:

A friend of mine who works as a nurse’s aide recently observed that his coworkers careen from personal crisis to personal crisis. As he told me, “Only yesterday I had to hear the complaints of one woman who was fighting with both her husband and her boyfriend.” It’s this atmosphere of personal disintegration and not the drudgery of the job—which is by no means negligible for a nurse’s aide—that he finds demoralizing.
Teachers can tell similar tales. The wife of another friend told me that her middle-school students in a small town in Iowa were perplexed by Hawthorne’s novel The Scarlet Letter: “What’s the big deal about Hester and Reverend Dimmesdale gettin’ it on?” It was a sentiment that she wearily told me was of a piece with the meth labs, malt liquor, teen pregnancies, and a general atmosphere of social collapse.

Consequently, while Reno wishes to affirm John Paul II’s assertion that “[t]he needs of the poor take priority over the desires of the rich,” he does so by claiming the what the poor really need is moral guidance and a shift of focus from “income inequality” to “moral inequality.”  Of course, Reno does recognize the lack of (his form of) Christian morality amongst many “progressives” or “bohemians,” and so this moral duty falls upon Christians who are “bourgeios in the best sense.”  Thus, he asserts that ” [i]n our society a preferential option for the poor must rebuild the social capital squandered by rich baby boomers, and that means social conservatism.”  He then concludes with some examples of what it means to live out this preferential option:

Want to help the poor? By all means pay your taxes and give to agencies that provide social services. By all means volunteer in a soup kitchen or help build houses for those who can’t afford them. But you can do much more for the poor by getting married and remaining faithful to your spouse. Have the courage to use old-fashioned words such as chaste and honorable. Put on a tie. Turn off the trashy reality TV shows. Sit down to dinner every night with your family. Stop using expletives as exclamation marks. Go to church or synagogue.
In this and other ways, we can help restore the constraining forms of moral and social discipline that don’t bend to fit the desires of the powerful—forms that offer the poor the best, the most effective and most lasting, way out of poverty. That’s the truest preferential option—and truest form of respect—for the poor.

3. A Response to Reno
There are a lot of things that one could say about Reno’s efforts to reformulate theological reflections about a “preferential option for the poor” in order to transform it into an affirmation of the social conservatism of middle class Christians.  I will limit myself to a few points.  I will also chose to respond in a manner that tries to be “chaste” and “honourable” even though it would not be inappropriate to take a different tone when replying to an article that many would consider to be offensive and life-negating.
The first point I want to highlight is the ways in which Reno’s “preferential option for the poor” is one that arises outside of any interaction or relationship with poor people.  Reno admits this, with some sense of trepidation at the outset of his reflection:

[Matthew 25.31-46 is] a sobering warning, and I fear that I am typical.  For the most part I think about myself: my needs, my interests, my desires.  And when I break out of my cocoon of self-interest, it’s usually because I’m thinking about my family or my friends, which is still a kind of self-interest.  The poor?  Sure, I feel a sense of responsibility, but they’re remote and more hypothetical than real: objects of a thin, distant moral concern that tends to be overwhelmed by the immediate demands of my life.  As I said, I’m afraid I’m typical.

Now, this is a decent enough starting point (confession is often related to conversion, coming either before or after that event), but what is troubling about Reno’s article is the way in which his conclusion permits him to remain in exactly the same place… only with less trepidation or fear when he approaches the words ascribed to Jesus in Matthew 25.  According to Reno, the way to act responsibly towards the moral concern presented by poor people is to focus on being well-behaved members of the middle class, instead of falling into the moral relativity or hedonism adopted by wealthy liberals.  This requires no contact with poor people, and frees one up to chum around with the “[g]ood guys” who have careers and families, and who are somehow involved in their middle class communities.  Guys (women are noticeably absent here) who put on ties, only have sex with their wives (single folks and gay people are also absent), and don’t swear or watch reality TV (not even on Jersday!).  Thus, Reno is freed to think he is caring for poor people, even though he has nothing to do with them.
Of course, this is a complete betrayal of one of the fundamental tenets of liberation theology: the preferential option for the poor must be practiced — from start to finish — in the pursuit of a trajectory into lived solidarity with the poor.  One is incapable of loving or caring for or serving those whom one does not know.  One cannot love a remote, hypothetical “object” in the same way that one loves people.  Indeed, although I realize I have very far yet to go on my own trajectory of solidarity, one of the things I have learned is how many of the things I believed would be good for poor people, where so wrong-headed.  So, sure, like Reno I feel a “sense of responsibility” for poor folks but this is not because I believe they need my moral guidance, but because I’ve realized how much of my bourgeois life is premised upon stealing goods, labour, children, and life from those who are poor.  My “moral concern” is not for them, but for the ways in which living a middle class life jeopardizes one’s salvation (a point well made by Jon Sobrino in a collection of essays entitled No Salvation Outside the Poor — the first text I will recommend to anybody interested in liberation theology).  If Reno journeyed with poor people, he would learn how misplaced is his paternalism.
This ties into my second point, one that I first encountered in the writings of  Jürgen Moltmann (I think the relevant passage is in The Way of Jesus Christ, but I’m not sure).  While discussing the various ways in which poor people are marginalised and oppressed, Moltmann talks about political, economic, social and moral or religious factors.  Essentially, the elites claim a monopoly not only over wealth, power, and social mechanisms and institutions, but also claim a monopoly on morality.  The wealthy horde both goods and goodness.  Thus, from the perspective affirmed by the elite members of society (the perspective affirmed by Reno) the poor are considered to be morally inferior.  This, then, helps justify treating them as the sort of “objects” described by Reno.  In this way, regardless of whether one is operating from charitable or honourable intentions, one is already locked into an ideological perspective that makes it difficult to encounter poor people as they actually exist.  This also helps perpetuate the divide between the deserving wealthy and the undeserving poor (i.e. wealthy people who merit the benefits they experience in life due to their strong moral character versus poor people who are clearly suffering because of their inability to live morally — hence the litany of boyfriends, meth labs, malt liquor, and teen pregnancies Reno mentions over against his friends the good guys).  In this way, a moral gloss is put upon what are essentially death-dealing and predatory socio-economic and theopolitical arrangements.
Once again, as one gets to know poor people, much about this perspective gets turned around one hundred and eighty degrees.  That is why I began with the story of my friend who purchased “the pearl of great value” and then chose to share it with another.  What an unheard of act of generosity for those of us who come from other backgrounds.  I could multiply stories like that almost endlessly — people who have chosen to abandon a safe place to sleep, so that they were able to care for vulnerable friends, people who have jumped into violent situations and borne the brunt of the blows given in order to protect another, people who genuinely do follow the advice of Isaiah and provide food to the hungry (even when it means them going without), who bring the homeless poor into their homes (even when it means jeopardizing their own housing), and who clothe the naked (even when it means going naked themselves).  I have literally seen all of these actions take place amongst poor people.  Some on a very regular basis.  Unfortunately, one does not see this kind of activity mentioned in Reno’s article.  One is tempted to play a little with Isaiah’s text: The pious acts you observe today, the “fast” you choose — the wearing of ties, the chaste speech, the selective viewing of television shows — will you call this a fast, a day acceptable to the Lord?  Is this the “fast” the Lord chooses?  Is this breaking the yoke of oppression?  Is this satisfying the needs of the afflicted?
(Short answer: It is not.  Which may also be why we fast but the Lord takes no notice…)
Now, I mention these counter examples not to romanticise poor folks and treat them as objects of another kind.  I’ve spent enough years journeying in various kinds of relationships with marginalised and abandoned people to know that anybody — from any background — is capable of doing great harm to others.  I have seen equally terrible things done by poor people and by rich people.  I have known girls who were raped in alleyways when they tried to score some crack and I have also known girls who were raped by well-to-do Christian parents.  I have known poor people addicted to blow and I have known wealthy people addicted to the same substance.  I have known gang kids who have inflicted terrible beatings onto others, and I’ve seen wealthy suburban kids who have come to “the ghetto” to beat the life out of a sleeping homeless person.  People from every background are capable of engaging in acts of death-dealing violence.  Still, it seems to me that the greatest acts of generosity, grace, and affection arise more often from amongst poor people.  Reno would probably discover this as well, if he chose to spend any time journeying into relationships with folks outside of his circle of good guys.
However, talking about the degrees of morality I’ve witnessed amongst different classes still misses the point of what liberation theologians mean when they talk about God’s preferential option for the poor.  The point of the liberation theologians — a point strongly backed by Scripture, although we lack the space for that here (you can click here from some examples of more detailed commentary on that) — is that God exhibits a preferential option for the poor, moves into cruciform solidarity with them, and calls those who worship God to do the same, not because poor people are more or less moral than others but because poor people are more vulnerable than others.  The determining factor here is need, the threat of death, and the very limited access some people have to the sort of abundant life that God desires for us all.
Abundant life, it should be noted, that actually could be available to us all but is not because those with power and wealth (those bourgeois people of the best sort whom Reno mentioned earlier) horde and steal it from others.  Whether or not they do so knowingly or maliciously is not the point.  The point is that it is happening.  And a focus upon the personal piety and bourgeois morality Reno terms a “preferential option for the poor” will only further entrench this theft of life.  Social conservatism will only perpetuate and sustain structures and practices that are death-dealing.  This is obvious to those who have seen the other side of society — who have witnessed the triumph of death as it works itself out in the life of family, friends, roommates or coworkers — but is harder to see from the side of those who are benefiting from the structures.  Folks like Reno and his friends, who want to save America by wearing ties.
Thus, I will mention one final example of the moral superiority which poor people often practice.  In middle class discourse there is a bit of a fascination with defensive violence.  Employing violence to protect a loved one — to stop a daughter being assaulted, to protect a brother, and so on.  Yet, structured into the daily lives of the middle class are many grievous acts of violence — our electronics, clothing, kids’ toys, and food are stained with the blood of children in the two-thirds world, our reliance upon fuel, oil and plastics is destroying many forms of life around the earth, our hording of property and wealth is continually assaulting neighbourhoods of poor people (gentrification and the legal criminalization of poverty are both exploding throughout North America), not to mention the fact that the Church Fathers teach us that the extra pair of shoes that we have does not belong to us but belongs to the person who has no shoes and should be rightfully restored to that person.
From the poor we have stolen their goods.  We have stolen their communities and their land.  We have stolen their labour and the fruits of their labour.  We have stolen their youth and their health.  We have stolen their children.  We have stolen many of their lives.  Yet how have poor people treated us?  With what I can only term amazing grace.  Poor people are not treating us with the same violence with which we have treated them.  What we deserve from them is what Reno should find truly scary.  Should they follow the laws of rights or of “an eye for an eye” we would be unable to survive.  But this is not what is being practiced and it is not the response I have seen.  In my own life, I have been welcomed and embraced, loved and celebrated by the poor people whom I have known.  This is not because I’m an outstanding person — it is simply because grace is abundant here.
4. Conclusion
At the end of the day, I find myself wondering if it was worth writing a response to Reno.  Folks and all sides of this discussion are so ideologically entrenched — and so determined by their own socio-economic and theopolitical contexts — that I expect nothing to change after I make these remarks.  Lord knows, I’ve tried before.  I’ve spent many hours trying every rhetorical angle in order to encourage chaste, honourable, decent Christians to care about those for whom God claims a preferential option.  I have tried scholarly treatises, I’ve have tried appealing to emotions with sad stories, I’ve tried to gently encourage with “feel good” presentations, I’ve tried to upset people with the hope that their anger might spark them to reflection and change.  After all that, no words, arguments, or rhetorical tricks seem more effective than any others.  Mostly, people will cling on to privilege in whatever way they can and find a way to put a moral overcoding on top of that privilege in order to appease their consciences and feel like justifiably good people.  Consequently, what I wrote here is likely going to be as effective as flipping Reno the bird and telling him to go fuck himself (seriously, the only difference is that Reno might consider the former rhetoric as deserving some thoughtful rejection, whereas the latter rhetoric wouldn’t probably even merit a hearing — either way, no new life-giving change is produced — aside: objecting to swearing is also a good way to bracket out the voices that arise from the margins).
The only thing that seems to produce conversions on any sort of regular basis is when people actually test the claims of the liberation theologians and move towards relationships with those who are poor.  This, more than anything else, produces conversions and, in my opinion, gives a lot of credibility to claims that Christ is found in and amongst those who suffer marginalization and abandonment.  The irony is that most are not convinced that this move is necessary, and the only thing that will convince them of its necessity is making the move!  Still it does make sense in its own way: one can talk to others about God until one is blue in the face, but unless others are encountered by God, that talk isn’t going to make a lot of sense.
Still, we press on and hope that others will come and taste and see that the Lord is good and that goodness is abundant in the company of those who are poor.

May Books

I promise that I’ll write at least two other posts before I get to my next set of book reviews… although they’re not really proper reviews… and not everything mentioned is a proper “book.”  Regardless, here’s what I got for May. [Proof-reading to follow later… sorry… can’t be bothered right now.]
1.  Remember the Poor: Paul, Poverty, and the Graeco-Roman World by Bruce W. Longenecker.
One of the areas of New Testament that is developing strongly, and in some exciting ways, is the study of the socio-economic status of the members of the early assemblies of Jesus.  About until the last ten or fifteen years, that area of study seemed to be a bit stagnant — those let Theissen, Meeks, and Malherbe had done a fair amount of work that turned into a fairly unquestioned dominant paradigm.  THe resurgence of counter-imperial readings of the New Testament began to question this consensus and then in the last decade a number of important works have appeared — Meggitt’s somewhat reductionistic but still significant study, the thoughtful articles of Friesen, Oakes’ study of class and status at Pompeii during the NT period, and then this book by Bruce Longenecker appears and, in my opinion, delivers the final blow to the dominant position these matters.  I think that Remember the Poor deserves to be just as paradigm-setting as The First Urban Christians (Meeks) or The Social Setting of Pauline Christianity (Theissen).
In this book, Longenecker establishes that concern for the poor was one of the primary actions associated with the Pauline Gospel (and with the spread of the Jesus Movement more generally), that the poor were prominent within the early Pauline assemblies, and that this concern for the poor was one of the more attractive elements in the spread of the Jesus Movement, given that Graeco-Roman society tended not to exhibit the same depth of charity (or, more properly, economic mutuality).
Like Oakes (in Reading Romans in Pompeii), Longenecker demonstrates the importance of the differences that exist between various populations of poor and less-poor people.  Thus, he continues to further the nuancing of earlier descriptions of social status in the Roman Empire that tended to lump large groups of people together in a manner that was less conducive to the study of specific communities at specific times (cf. Meggitt’s Paul, Poverty, and Survival).  As he does this, Longenecker relies upon the “Poverty Scale” crafted by Friesen (and then updated by Friesen and Scheidel), although he provides it with the more appropriate name of an “Economy Scale.”  However, Longenecker is more optimistic than Friesen and, given that the scale provides a spectrum of percentages that may compose any given population, Longenecker places a higher percentage of people towards the upper ends of the scale.  I remain unconvinced by this move (it is largely undefended, as Longenecker acknowledges) and prefer Friesen’s numbers, which place more of the population toward the bottom of the scale.
That said, this is really an exceptional book and one that should be recommended reading for all who are interested in the study of Paul.  It’s definitely in the running for my “book of the year.”
2.  Selected Lives by Plutarch.
I’ve really come to enjoy reading the various Roman histories.  Although some of the same material is covered by a number of authors, I appreciate the diversity of perspectives and the different voices employed.  Thus, to me, Suetonius reads more like an official record.  Virgil reads like Scripture.  Tacitus is particular good at adding subaltern voices into his histories, and Plutarch is great for providing multiple perspectives on the same story within a single text.  Thus, for example, he recounts the famous story of how Romulus and Remus were said to have survived by suckling from a wolf.  However, he also mentions that the word for a female wolf was also a term applied to women who “gave their bodies to men” indiscriminately.  Plutarch further notes the the wife of the slave who carried Romulus and Remus away to abandon them was known as one such woman.  Thus, he posits that the twins were possibly saved, not by a wolf, but by the slave family that took them in and disobeyed the orders they had received to kill the children.
Another reason I’ve enjoyed these histories are some of the little gems one discovers within them.  For example, I learned the origins of the tradition of a newly married man carrying his bride over the threshold of their home.  Back when Rome was first founded, it was mostly populated my male misfits, outcasts, and outlaws.  In need of increasing their numbers, the Romans went to the Sabines and carried away( and raped), a number of women, thereby gaining families for themselves.  Thus, began the Roman tradition of carrying a bride over a threshold — this act commemorated the initial abduction (and rape) of the Sabine women.
Anyway, all that to say that I enjoyed reading Plutarch and would recommend him to any NT folks, or others who are interested in this era.  Another point of interest in reading him was the way in which Augustus was portrayed in the biographies of folks like Antony or Brutus.  It’s a good counter-representation to the image of Augustus circulated by most others.  Often, in Plutarch’s account, Augustus doesn’t come off looking much better than any other despot.  Furthermore, Plutarch reminds the reader that Brutus actually defeated the army of Augustus (then Octavian) at Philippi, and Augustus was only saved because he fled his camp and because Antony overthrew Cassius (and later overthrew Brutus).  No wonder this battle is not mentioned much in the Augustan ideology!
3-4.  Agricola and Germany by Tacitus.
Having completed the Annals, I figured I would continue to chip at Tacitus.  I’m glad I did as I both enjoyed these texts and found them to be useful for my own research.  As I mentioned above, one of the things I enjoy about Tacitus is the way in which he permits subalterns to speak — and to speak in the ways in which I imagine subalterns would speak — within his texts.  Thus, for example, in Agricola (a biography Tacitus wrote about his father-in-law, primarily focused upon his time governing Britain), one reads of rebels giving voice to the observation that Romans simply employ the rhetoric of peace and justice in order to engage in a rapacious task of robbing and enslaving others.  Essentially, a good number of these folks (and it is surprising how many of them exist in Tacitus’ texts) are engaging in a counter-imperial or post-colonial deconstructive reading of the Roman ideology.  Furthermore, in Germany, Tacitus provides an example of the more democratic form of rule that existed amongst peoples who were considered, by Rome, to be uncivilized barbarians.  Thus, Tacitus writes that minor decisions are made by the chiefs while major decisions are made by the whole tribe.  Furthermore, Tacitus observes how the chiefs have authority, not because they possess an unquestioned power, but because of the respect they have gained in the community.  Even with this respect, the people are still able to disagree with their chief, and the chief would be required to listen to the voice of the people.  Thus, Tacitus notes how the task of bringing “civilization” to others, was little more than a trap sprung to enslave them.  Here, he is worth quoting at length, as the tactics he mentions are employed just as much today (say, for example, with the First Nations peoples in Canada).

For, to accustom to rest and repose through the charms of luxury a population scattered and barbarous and therefore inclined to war, Agricola gave private encouragement and public aid to the building of temples, courts of justice and dwelling-houses, praising the energetic, and reproving the indolent. Thus, an honourable rivalry took the place of compulsion. He likewise provided a liberal education for the sons of the chiefs, and showed a preference for the natural powers of the Britons over the industry of the Gauls that they who lately disdained the tongue of Rome now coveted its eloquence. Hence, too, a liking sprang up for our style of dress, and the “toga” became fashionable. Step by step they were led to things which dispose to vice, the lounge, the bath, the elegant banquet. All this in their ignorance, they called civilization, when it was but a part of their servitude (Agricola, 21).

I suppose that this would be a fine example of the “hidden transcripts” of the elite mentioned by James C. Scott.  Texts written that lower the guard, cut through the ideology, and speak a little more honestly as they are not intended for non-elite ears.
5-6.  On Mercy and Octavia by Seneca.
Two short texts by Seneca, the first an essay written early during Nero’s reign when Seneca was optimistic about the possible peace, justice, and Golden Age, Nero might bring to earth; the second a play written after that optimism had shattered and Nero’s tyrannical impiety had begun to unveil itself (in the elaborate murder of his mother, for example).
The essay on mercy is a pretty important text, given the role that mercy (or clemency) played within the ideo-theology of Rome.  It provides an important insight in subjects like mercy, the law, and mercy as a form of “justice beyond the law.”  Thus, the practice of mercy creates a “state of exception” but should also only be practiced by the emperor who is akin to the gods and who, therefore, is best suited to be the giver of life to others.
The play about Nero’s first wife, Octavia (whom he murdered so that he could marry his lover, Poppaea… whom he later kicked to death while she was pregnant… and then made her divine after she was dead), is interesting because it is a text quite critical of Nero, written by a person who had been closer to Nero than most others (Seneca was Nero’s tutor and was one of two or three people closest to him at the beginning of his reign).  Thus, although it is written as a play, one can imagine Nero speaking or acting in the ways in which Seneca presents him (although, given their subsequent alienation, leading ultimately to Seneca’s death, one might wonder if Seneca sometimes overplays his hand).  One of the quotes I found interesting was when Nero asserts that he has no need to fear the gods, as it is he who determines who the gods are (by making Claudius divine, for example).  This got me thinking about Brigitte Kahl’s argument in Galatians Re-Imagined, wherein she suggests that the imperial cult essentially made Augustus the greatest of the gods, thereby theoretically maintaining a form of polytheism while, for all intents and purposes, functioning as monotheism.  Food for thought.
7.  Sodom and Gomorrah (In Search of Lost Time, Volume IV) by Marcel Proust.
Well, I finally returned to Proust.  I’m glad I did.  I find his reading to be… soothing.  Maybe that’s an odd word choice, but it’s true.  It makes me feel calm to lose myself in his sentences, tangents, and stories.  That said, I found this volume to be a little bit disappointing when compared to the previous three.  The reflections upon homosexuality (a prominent theme… hence the title) weren’t all that great, some of what was interesting in earlier volumes began to feel repetitive here, plus the protagonist got a little less attractive in his relationships (particularly with his mother and his lover).  Regardless, he still has a great way with words and some good insights.  For example, I’ve been thinking about the following quite in relation to contemporary practices of charity:

I was beginning to learn the exact value of the language, spoken or mute, of aristocratic affability, an affability that is happy to shed balm upon the sense of inferiority of those towards whom it is directed, though not to the point of dispelling that inferiority… “But you are our equal, if not our superior,” the Guermantes seemed, in all their actions, to be saying; and they said it in the nicest way imaginable, in order to be loved and admired, but not to be believed; that one should discern the fictitious character of this affability was what they called being well-bred; to suppose it to be genuine, a sign of ill-breeding.

There’s so much in that text, that I should probably write another post about it.  Until then, I’m looking forward to Volume V.

April Books

I apologize that book reviews are starting to monopolize my (infrequent) posts.  I’m hoping to have another interview posted in the near future, and I have a few other ideas I would like to write down, but for now I’m focused on finished the chapter that I’m currently writing.  Here are the books:
1. Living My Life (2 volumes) by Emma Goldman.
I think my wife now hates Emma Goldman because I developed a serious “dead girl crush” on her while reading her memoirs.  Seriously, this woman, along with many of those with whom she was involved — anarchists, socialists, labour activists — are incredible because of their thoughtfulness, their work ethic (they would work soul- and body-crushing jobs for pennies during the day and then organize in the evenings), their fearlessness (people were killed for protesting in those days), and their unwavering commitment to bettering the world for all (not just for some).  It is because of these people — people who were villianized and treated as terrorists and criminals by the authorities — that we have many of the “rights” that we have today–rights to free speech, to organize, to birth control, to an eight hour work day, a living wage, benefits, etc. (of course, many of those “rights” are being systematically attacked and destroyed today, but that’s a topic for another post).
Goldman, for those who don’t know, was a Russian Jewish anarchist who lived in New York, spoke and organized broadly throughout the states, spent some time in prison, was deported to Russia, fell out with Lenin and his cronies, and eventually ended up in Canada.  Her memoirs cover her life up until a little while after she and Alexander Berkman left Russia.
One of the things I appreciate about Goldman’s memoirs is her honest reflection upon her own actions and the collective actions being taken by the various manifestations of resistance to power and the struggle for life and liberation.  She often expresses doubt or frustration, feelings of impotence, questions about efficacy, all things that soothe my own soul a bit.  I have often felt something like sorrow about the moment of history I have inherited, and looked back on the late 19th and early 20th centuries as one of the more exciting moments in recent history–a time when people actually seemed to have the opportunity to live as proper agents within history.  However, reading Goldman reminded me that everybody probably feels, in their time, pretty close to the way I feel in mine.  I don’t know if that’s encouraging (because maybe change may be created now) or discouraging (because maybe not all that much change was actually created then) but it was still a part of the book that I enjoyed.
This is strongly recommended reading.  The more that one actually gets to know the “anarchists” the harder it is for any to vilify “anarchism.”  Of course, the powers-that-be are aware of that, which is why anarchism is regularly misrepresented and cast-aside-without-being-considered in our political discourse and the corporate media.
2. The Annals by Tacitus.
I continue to work my way through Graeco-Roman literature and am enjoying it more and more all the time.  Across the board, with some differences and nuancing, a pretty common moral vision seems to be communicated by the Roman historians — one that respects family values, tradition, nationalism, respect for the properly ordained authorities — so its fascinating to not only read the individual works but to read them in conjunction with each other.
The Annals by Tacitus cover the time period from the final years of the reign of Augustus to the middle years of the reign of Nero (which is just about perfect for a New Testament guy like myself — thanks, Tactitus!).  A good chunk of material has been lost (the reign of Caligula and part of that of Claudius, as well as the end of Nero’s rule) but the reading is fascinating and rewarding.
3. The Disabled God: Toward a Liberatory Theology of Disability by Nancy L. Eiesland.
This is another of those books that impressed me when I first read it, and so I thought I would read it again (I mentioned earlier that I’m trying to reread some books this year).  It was still a good read, and I still really resonate with Eiesland’s personal epiphany of the disabled god, who appeared in a sip-puff chair.  However, when I first read The Disabled God, it was my first timing reading any sort of liberation theology relation to our perceptions of disabilities.  Because of that, my first reading of the book was really exciting.  However, I think I have since internalized a lot of what Eiesland was on about, so the second reading was less exciting.  Even then, this book continues to be recommended reading.

February and March Books

These are well overdue… I’ve finished another 10,000 words on my chapter about Roman ideology and sociopolitical structures, but I seem to not have written much of anything else.  My apologies.
1. The Complete Works of Horace by Horace.
Horace is probably most well-known amongst New Testament scholars because of his Carmen Seculare — his hymn to the New (Golden) Age inaugurated by Augustus and officially celebrated at the Ludi Seculares (the Secular Games) in 17BCE.  It is an excellent poetic snapshot of many of the central themes of the theopolitical vision of Rome–referring to renewed fertility, peace, abundance, mercy, virtue, victory and so on.
However, Horace (Quintus Horatius Flaccus — a friend and client of Maecenas, who was a close friend of Augustus) wrote a great deal more than that hymn, and this volume also contains four books of odes, a collection of epodes, a famous essay called The Art of Poetry, two books of satires, and two books of epistles (including one epistle written to the Emperor).  Taken together, the writings of Horace provide an excellent glimpse into certain elements of Roman life and values at the beginning of the first century CE.  The more one immerses one’s self in this literature, the more certain themes — especially those related to patronage, status, virtue, election, and family values — gain in prominence.
2. The Human Faces of God: What Scripture Reveals When It Gets God Wrong (and Why Inerrancy Tries To Hide It) by Thom Stark.
I just reviewed this in detail here.  Stark responds here.  He has a tendency to try and refute critics by talking and talking and talking until nobody gives a damn about the subject at hand (I think he seems to be mistaking the silence of the opposition for something more than that [agreement?]… although maybe he is just happy with the silence).  Regardless, I’m not convinced by everything he writes in his response (by the end of it, you’ll notice that my review never actually accurately reflects anything in Stark’s book…  that made me chuckle!), but I am happy to give him the opportunity to clarify points that certainly were not clearly stated in The Human Faces of God.
3. My People is the Enemy by William Stringfellow.
Anyway, moving on to a fellow who really knew a thing or two about practicing his religion at the margins, I arrive at this autobiographical account of the time William Stringfellow spent living in Harlem in the 1950s and ’60s (many thanks to Robin at Wipf and Stock for this complimentary copy!).
Stringfellow is something of a darling amongst a certain group of Christians–i.e. those who appear to have come from a Conservative background and who still strongly value their Christian faith but who want to become more involved in culture, politics, and economics with an orientation towards justice.  So, hey, Stringfellow writes fantastic theology, he was a lawyer engaged in sociopolitical and economic struggles at the grassroots in Harlem, he also organized within the church and, oh, he was gay.  Perfect, right?  Christians from this group can then just go around talking about Stringfellow and that changes their brand status without requiring them to engage in any sort of grassroots struggle for justice and without requiring them to actually know (or, gasp, fully welcome) any non-hetero people!
Okay, that’s my dig at Stringfellow’s audience (how many times has Halden mentioned him on his blog, but what are Halden’s views on sexuality and where is he rooted?  Sorry, Halden!).  I shouldn’t let that distract me from the book at hand.  I should also remember that I am included amongst those groupies (to a certain extent), as I’ve loved the other books I’ve read by Stringfellow.
This book is structured in five parts: Initiation (into the community of the poor), Acceptance (by the community rooted there), Involvement (within and on behalf of that community), Premonition (about the magnitude of the economic and racial divide in America, one that goes far deeper than liberal platitudes are able to recognize), and Epiphany (which points towards a way for white churches and congregants to live more genuinely as Christians and move towards reconciliation with those who are poor or non-white or both).  All in all, this book is full of a lot of great material and I strongly recommend it, not only to those who are accustomed to reading theology but to all readers.  Stringfellow is able to expound upon serious matters in a way that sacrifices neither the seriousness of those matters nor the clarity of his explanation.
However, I do also want to raise a few critical questions.  When he first moves to Harlem, Stringfellow realizes that there is not point in pretending to be something or someone that he is not.  He cannot pretend that he is anything but a white, Christian male coming from a background of privilege and status (he studied law at Harvard).  So far so good.  I’m tired of “homeless chic” or those who slum it just for the sake of slumming it, that one finds amongst (mostly superficial) social activists and hipsters.  However, Stringfellow then says this:

in order that my life and work [in Harlem] should have integrity, I had to be and to remain whoever I had become as a person before coming there.  To be accepted by others, a man must first of all know himself and accept himself and be himself wherever he happens to be.  In that way, others are also freed to be themselves.
To come to Harlem involved, thus, no renunciation of my own past or of any part of it… where I happen to be and what I happen to be doing does not determine the issue of who I am as a human being, or how my own person may be expressed and fulfilled…
I crossed a lot of boundaries in the course of a day.  This in itself is not important.  What is very important is that in crossing boundaries of class and race and education and all the rest, a man remain himself.  What is important is not where a man is, but who a man is, and that he is the same man wherever he is…
The issue for any man, in any place, is to be the same man he is in every other place (p.25-28).

Pardon the androcentric language, it will come up again — even the most liberating voices tend to have their blind-spots (something to bear in mind when reading the Bible as well!).
I disagree with Stringfellow on several points here.  While I appreciate his emphasis upon living with integrity and not posing as something we are not, I do not think that it is necessary for a person to continue to be whomever this person has been in the past.  In fact, I think the opposite is necessary: we are more “becoming” than “being” and so it is well worthwhile to pursue a life of ongoing transformation and development.  This does not mean denying or abandoning one’s past, or one’s past selves (I agree with Stringfellow that others are more comfortable with themselves when we are comfortable with ourselves).  It simply means that we need neither to be bound by our past, nor to have our identities rooted there.  I also very strongly disagree with Stringfellow’s assertion that one’s location and actions have no impact upon one’s identity as a human being.  On a very banal level this is true (where I live and what I do, does not change my genetic makeup), but one’s location and actions do have a very strong impact upon the kind of human being a person becomes.  Here, I can’t help but wonder if Stringfellow is unaware of the way in which his own location — having studied a great deal and pursued higher education in the early twentieth century — has blinded him to the impact that locations have upon constructions of self (Stringfellow later recognizes the importance of place for the formation and practice of the law [cf. p44] but he doesn’t draw the same conclusion about one’s identity).  Ironically, I suspect that Stringfellow is only able to see his identity as something isolated from place or deed, because he comes from a certain place.  Thus, I also disagree with his prioritization of this “self” over concrete actions like crossing boundaries.  What really matters are those transgressive acts and it is exactly those acts that will create mutations within your self.  And that is a good thing.
More broadly, I also want to comment on Stringfellow’s understanding of what it means to be a Christian.  He writes:

To become and to be a Christian is not at all an escape from the world as it is, nor is it a wistful longing for a “better” world, nor a commitment to generous charity, nor fondness for “moral and spiritual values” (whatever that may mean), or self-serving positive thoughts, nor persuasion to splendid abstractions about God [cf. pretty much everything related to theological aesthetics].  It is, instead, the knowledge that there is no pain or privation, no humiliation or disaster, no scourge or distress or destitution or hunger, no striving or temptation, no wile or sickness or suffering or poverty which God has not known and borne for men in Jesus Christ.  He has borne death itself on behalf of men, and in that event He has broken the power of death once and for all.
This is the event which Christians confess and celebrate and witness in their daily work and worship for the sake of all men.
To become and to be a Christian is, therefore, to have the extraordinary freedom to share the burdens of the daily common, ambiguous, transient, perishing existence of men, even to the point of actually taking the place of another man, whether he be powerful or weak, in health or in sickness, clothed or naked, educated or illiterate, secure or persecuted, complacent or despondent, proud or forgotten, housed or homeless, fed or hungry, at liberty or in prison, young or old, white or Negro, rich or poor.

I find this to be a very moving understanding of what it means to be a Christian.  Yet it is rather paradoxical, isn’t it?  As far as I can tell, the way in which Christians actually witness the breaking of the power of death is by choosing to die so that others may live.  The shitty thing about that, is that death is still pretty involved and pretty powerful.  Somebody’s dying either way.  Fuck, I’m tired of that.  Oh, and the other interesting implication of this definition of what it means to be a Christian is that most of the Stringfellow groupies who accept it (myself included) should not dare to apply that title to themselves.
4. Thus Spake Zarathustra by Friedrich Nietzsche.
Well, having read more than enough about Nietzsche, I thought I was well overdue to actually sit down and start reading the man himself.  I plan to read a few books by him this year, so I figured I would talk things in chronological order.  All told, this book was a decent place to start.  A lot of prominent themes are present here — the will to power, the revaluation of values, the super man, and so on.  However, I can’t say I loved the way this book is designed (the story of Zarathustra and the melodramatic nature of its telling).  It’s almost as though Nietzsche was writing fan fiction… about himself.  Despite that criticism, there is still a lot of force to his arguments.  So, I’m happy to be on my way here and will be picking up Beyond Good and Evil next.
5. Time For Revolution by Antonio Negri.
I’ve gotta say that these two essays by Negri (“The Constitution of Time” [1981] and “Kairos, Alma Venus, Multitudo” [2000]) left me feeling a little uninspired.  Maybe I didn’t really understand enough of what Negri was trying to do.  There were, of course, exciting moments, like when he gets into talking about the love of the poor as the location of revolutionary potential (NB: this is not our love for the poor, but the love the poor exhibit amongst themselves… and a great gap separates those two loves), but as a whole, both essays left me flat (the former more than the latter).  Half of the time I was wondering why Negri was struggling so hard to make a certain point, and the other half of the time I was unconvinced by the point he was trying to make (especially his emphatic desire to remain within “materialism” as much of his outlook strikes me as heavily ideological or theological in nature).  I enjoyed the trilogy he co-authored with Michael Hardt much more.
6. 2666 by Roberto Bolaño.
This book, published after Bolaño died and before he finalized it, left me with mixed feelings.  The first two sections were incredible, the third section felt too long and overdone, and the fourth section didn’t quote redeem the drift that happened in the third.  It’s hard to know if the book ended the way Bolaño wanted (in the style in which the Coen brothers ended their adaptation of No Country For Old Men) or if it only ended that way because the author died.  Regardless, this is still a pretty incredible piece of literature.  I’m absolutely amazed by Bolaño’s breadth of knowledge.  Some authors are massively intimidating when it comes to the amount of research they put into writing books (fuck that “write what you know” bullshit… more like learn what you want to write!).
Basically, the centrepiece of this novel is a small town in Mexico where a lot of women and girls are disappearing and getting murdered.  However, to get there we travel through a circle of European literary critics, an American law officer, and a number of other characters, including an elusive German author.  Really, it’s hard to do justice to the scope of this text.  It is, however, recommended reading.
7. The Age of Reason by Jean-Paul Sartre.
I’ve hardly read anything by Sartre, but I’ve loved what I have read.  I’m glad this book is the first volume of a trilogy, as I’m looking forward to seeing how things go with the characters and themes Sartre has developed.  For some reason, I really connect with the existentialist French literature that cropped up during the World Wars (Camus remains one of my favourite authors).
In this novel, Sartre does a fine job of capturing the ways in which people are caught between their ideals and their lived lives, between freedom and relationships (both of which can be either life-giving or death-dealing… hence the bind), and in the general bullshit that comes to occupy our years.  Maybe it’s dangerous for me to be reading Sartre at the same time as Nietzsche.  Sartre reaffirms my feeling that life is just one fucked-up meaningless struggle, always ending in defeat, so Nietzsche then jumps in with a call to forget the struggle, forget everybody else, and go and seize what I want (unfortunately, I am too rooted in the company of the former and so I conclude that there is nothing meaningful worth seizing ; thus, this day-to-day existence is just as good and bad as any and every other alternative).
8. I, Superhero!! by Mike McMullen AKA “The Amazing Whitebread.”
Many thanks to the author and to Richard Ember at Kensington for this review copy!
A couple months ago, I had the privilege of posting an interview with Thanatos, a “real life superhero” (RLSH) who operates in Vancouver’s downtown eastside (and who just happens to be one of the most respected members of that movement, although I didn’t learn that till afterward when perusing the various RLSH websites and discussion boards).  One of the fun things that came out of that interview was The Amazing Whitebread’s offering me a review copy of this book.
In it, he documents his own journey into the realm of contemporary super (or not so super) heroes and villains (I love that there are real life super villains… although I feel like they are not tapping into their full potential… which is probably a good thing and keeps them off of the FBI’s “Most Wanted” list).  Thus, the book alternates back and forth from the author’s progression into being a hero to stories of various interviews that the author did with heroes like Geist, Master Legend, Amazonia, and Mr. Xtreme (who is the only member of the Xtreme Justice League–sweet!) and villains like the Joker of Chaos, Psycho-Babble, and Omniarch Supreme.  One of the things I realized reading the book (and from the RLSH sites I mentioned) is how lucky I was to first encounter Thanatos.  Seriously, a lot of the people associated with this movement seem genuinely delusional or are simply patriotic law-abiding assholes (who bully around kids who paint graffiti or who want to jump into bar brawls) or patriotic law-abiding losers.  I like the loser guys more than the assholes (although I think that the delusional ones would probably be the most fun to hang around with on special occasions) but if they are going to serve “justice” then they really need to become more critical about the dominant script of America, which determines what is or is not “just.”
One of the major themes within the annals of superheroes is resistance to the abuse of power and corruption that is intrinsic to police forces, political parties, law courts, and the “justice system” as a whole.  I don’t really see any RLSHs who are keen to step up and actually take on those Powers… because, you know, that tends to require an heroic effort.  Instead, RLSHs are too busy chasing around petty offenders or pot dealers and simply furthering the dehumanization of those whom society has already dehumanized.  Lots of these guys and gals in this movement just can’t wait to bash/beat/kill/whatever a sex offender.  Now, I agree that sexual violence is a terrible, terrible thing but, again, it is generally the product of a certain environment and certain systemic structures.  Victimizing somebody who has already been victimized (and who then goes on to victimize others) sort of misses the point.  If you want to pursue “justice” then first find out what it is, instead of simply accepting the definition provided by those who benefit the most from our unjust status quo.
Anyway, I’ve gone off on a bit of a tangent there.  All in all, this was a fun book to read.  At times it dragged a little (mostly when the author was talking about his own transformation… reading about his diet and gym routine wasn’t the most gripping part of the book) but the characters assembled here are truly one of a kind.  Also, I really enjoyed the author’s concluding reflections upon the RLSH movement, what it does and does not do, and basically calling out a number of claims made by the various members.  I can’t say I agreed with his alternative (basically: “being in shape and being a good dad and husband makes me a real hero”) as I think that it gives up on the struggle for justice–a struggle that is still sorely needed.  I admire the RLSHs for their commitments to that struggle and for their willingness to confront their own fears and make sacrifices as they engage in that struggle (even if their commitments are misguided).  My hope, then, would be that those who engage in this movement eventually move beyond it, not to fall back into some sort of bourgeois lifestyle, but in order to move beyond it into grassroots organization in order to produce more life-giving ways of sharing life together and direct action in order to resist the death-dealing powers that confront us and others.

Book Review: "The Human Faces of God" by Thom Stark

Many thanks to Christian at Wipf and Stock for this review copy.
This book is a sustained assault upon the notion of biblical inerrancy popular amongst English-speaking Evangelicals, and expounded in the Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy (which dates back to 1978 but which was adopted in 2006 by the Evangelical Theological Society… creating awkwardness for more than one member therein!).  In doing this, Stark builds a convincing case, even though he doesn’t necessarily break any new scholarly ground (as John Collins notes in the forward).
After an opening chapter examining some prominent differences amongst some of the biblical texts, Stark spends two chapters exploring the position of those who adhere to biblical inerrancy, while highlighting some of the problems related to this belief.  In the next few chapters, he explores five examples of themes or texts or contradictions between texts that create insoluble problems for the inerrantist position.  In order, Stark examines the biblical shift from polytheism to monotheism, the matter of human sacrifice as practiced by Yahwists, the problem of divinely sanctioned genocides, contradictions about who actually killed Goliath, and then the supposed problem of Jesus and Paul being wrong about the timing of end of the world.  All of these cases are already well known to scholars but Stark explores them clearly and makes a convincing case (except in the last example regarding Jesus and Paul, but I’ll get to that in a moment).  In the next chapter, he explores the positions taken by some who reject inerrancy but who do not, in his opinion, confront the full brutality or reality of the problematical texts.  Thus, he examines and rejects both Brevard Childs’ “canonical” reading of the Bible, as well as more “subversive” or counter-imperial readings.  Finally, in the last chapter, Stark proposes his own way forward.  Rather than accepting or finding ways of avoiding a full confrontation with “texts of terror” and other problems within the Bible, Stark proposes that these texts “must be retained as scripture, precisely as condemned texts.  Their status as condemned is precisely their scriptural value.  That they are condemned is what they reveal to us about God” (p218; emph. removed).
All things considered, this is a very good book and one that I would recommend to those who value the Bible but who have wrestled with it and find themselves dissatisfied with the proposed solutions that they have encountered thus far.  However, I want to raise three points of criticism.
First of all, Stark’s understanding of our contemporary context needs to be sharpened.  On multiple occasions, his deployment of current or recent points of comparison is sloppy or problematical.  For example, on multiple occasions he compares the texts about the conquest of Canaan to the American history of conquest over the First Nations peoples.  Unfortunately, he always refers to that American genocide as though it were a distant past event (cf. p123).  This is simply not the case and the popular State- and Corporate-sponsored oppression, exploitation and genocide of First Nations peoples continues up until this present moment.  In this regard, Stark is still too deeply rooted in the dominant script of America.
Another example of Stark’s rootedness within that script, comes through in his comments about current American wars, which he refers to as “ambiguous” (p222).  A few pages later, it’s as though Stark forgets that America is even at war.  When he speaks about the apocalyptic dualism between good and evil, he suggests that this dualism may be appropriate in wartime when “it is often necessary to draw up sharp dividing lines between sides in the conflict” but now things are no longer so black and white (p226; cf. 225-226).  What Stark neglects here is that America is at war, not to mention the ongoing global class war of the wealthy against the poor that has been steadily increasing over the last several decades.  Of course, lacking a strong understanding of our current situation isn’t a weakness unique to Stark.  One often sees this amongst scholarly-types who are trying to be relevant but who aren’t sufficiently rooted amongst the marginalized and so end up making inadequate or misleading remarks despite their best efforts.
Secondly, I want to mention Stark’s criticisms of “canonical” and “subversive” readings of the Bible.  It seems to me that Stark (a) doesn’t sufficiently engage the possibilities inherent to some of those readings; and (b) does not recognize the extent to which he himself relies upon, and employs, both of these ways of reading.
Beginning with Childs, Stark describes his canonical reading in this way:

If the texts are going to continue to be useful, they will be useful not as objects of historical curiosity but as dynamic scriptures which are the rightful property of the community of faith… with the intention of providing the community of faith the inspiration it needs to be faithful in a trying world.  As a result, readings that challenge the truthfulness of this or that text… render the texts useless for their intended purposes” (p211).

Stark then identifies three problems with this: (1) the final form of the text was not chosen by the community of faith but by the theopolitical elites; (2) diverse voices are lost and problematical texts are buried; and (3) no clear determining factor exists as to who determines the what “canonical reading” actually is (p211-212).  This is fair enough, but it seems to me that Stark only engages in a slightly tweaked variation of this reading, and a tweaking that is susceptible to that same criticisms.  Thus, in treating some scriptures as “condemned texts,” he asserts that what readings are appropriate will vary from context to context and that “each confessing community must decide for itself how to make these and other texts useful for its own purposes” (p219).  Later, he again affirms that “the proper place for critical appropriations of scripture is within the believing community” (p235).  To me, this sounds a lot like a canonical reading and one that is still exercised without clear determining factors as to what might make this reading valid.  I’m not sure if Stark goes beyond “burying” problematical texts.  Rather, instead of burying them, he rejects them, but his criteria for doing so seem just as arbitrary as Childs’.  That is to say, while Childs (as a representative of a believing community) may be less committed to the truthfulness of a text and, by that means, escape a harsh confrontation with some texts in order to affirm a God committed to life, Stark (as a representative of a believing community?) confronts the same text in order to own it by condemning it, thereby ending up in the same position.
In fact, for all its stronger commitment to historical criticism, Stark’s proposed reading ends up sharing a great deal in common with the inerrantists with whom he is arguing: both permit prior commitments to dominate their readings of the Bible.  Just as historical criticism cannot be used as the basis for belief in biblical inerrancy, so also historical criticism cannot provide Stark with the criteria needed to determine if this or that text is condemnable.  As much as Stark rightly criticizes inerrantists who propose “plain” readings over “literal” readings (i.e. who permit an ideological overcoding to provide a previously determined meaning for any given text), we see the same ideologically-motivated methodology at work when Stark describes the “condemned texts” in this way:

Through these texts the voice of God speaks to us today, calling us to reject self-serving ontologies of difference, to abandon any allegiances to tribes or nation-states that take precedence over our allegiance to humanity itself and to the world we all inhabit (p120).

Of course, the condemned texts literally say nothing like this.  So, while I find Stark’s approach to have a better ethical value than the approach taken by the inerrantists, their hermeneutics may be more similar than both parties care to admit.
On a slightly different note, I’m curious to know how Stark’s reading is one that is really produced by a “believing community.”  It seems to me that his reading is produced by one person struggling to make sense of scripture (one person, it should be noted, who also is rooted more amongst the elite than the oppressed).  I don’t know how it is the result of a “confessing community” struggling to make sense of the Bible.  I’ve heard from others that Stark operates in isolation from faith communities so I don’t know if he follows the methodology he prescribes.  After all, Stark concludes with some pretty individualistic and personal words: “I am proposing [this reading] because to me it represents the most honest struggle–it is the only way that I know how to navigate our moral universe” (p241, emphasis added; no real sign of any “believing community” here).  I wanted to ask Stark about this but he has refused to engage with me after our last exchange.  I invited him to be interviewed about this book but he declined and told me that we are no longer “friends” (a statement I found odd, since I’ve only interacted with him online but perhaps he puts a different stock into online engagements, given that his website proclaims how many people “like” him on facebook, whereas I don’t even have a facebook account…).
Turning to “subversive” readings, one should note that much of what Stark actually does throughout his book is standard “subversive” or counter-imperial readings of the Bible — he appears excited enough about this sort of reading that he is willing to insert it into his argument at times when it feels awkward or diverges from his broader points (cf. pp201-202).  However, Stark draws on the scholarship of Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza and agrees with her assertion that “subversive” readings do not go far enough because they neglect the ongoing impact of imperial language and imagery as those things have shaped the readings, social imaginaries, and actions of Christians up until our present day (cf. pp213-216).  On the one hand, this point is fair enough.  When biblical scholars feel compelled to speak outside of their area of expertise (say the Pauline epistles, or whatever) what they have to say tends to be disappointingly shallow or dull (here one could refer to most “application” sections found in New Testament commentaries).  On the other hand, however, I do not think that the “subversive” or counter-imperial approach is to blame for this error.  Rather, it seems to me that a thoroughly counter-imperial reading is one that takes into consideration the impacts of imperialism not only upon the texts as they were produced, but also upon the formation of the canon (something Stark highlights very well) and upon our present moment (something Stark highlights less well… actually, on this point he doesn’t follow his own advice, as I mentioned earlier).  Thankfully, there are a number of scholars who are engaging in precisely this sort of more fully-informed “subversive” reading (cf., for example, Jennings, Myers, Howard-Brook, Gwyther, Walsh, Keesmaat, and even Schüssler Fiorenza herself, just to name a few NT voices… or those like Brueggemann or Trible who engage the OT in a fuller manner).
Finally, my third and final criticism: Stark’s talk about apocalyptic beliefs and what he takes to be the expectation of the imminent end of the world affirmed by Jesus and Paul.  All my previous criticisms have not been directed at Stark’s primary work in this text: exegesis.  In fact, his exegesis is very strong throughout… except on this point.  My first quibble is that Stark makes contradictory statements about the nature of Second Temple Jewish apocalypticism and never resolves them.  Thus, on the one hand he approvingly quotes Dale Allison, who asserts that the apocalyptic perspective is marked by “a passive political stance” (p165) and goes on the assert that Paul espoused “a strategy of political quietism” because he believed the end of the world was imminent (p202).  Consequently, he concludes that the apocalyptic perspective leaves “no room for any form of engagement… At most political responsibility is narrated in sectarian terms.  To be politically responsible is to be sectarian” (pp226-27; emphasis removed).
On the other hand, however, Stark asserts that the apocalyptic system contained beliefs that were “politically explosive” and “freed one up to walk a dangerous path of hard-line opposition to Rome and to the puppet temple regime in Jerusalem” (p167).  Further, he argues that Jesus’ (supposed) belief in the imminent end of the world functioned as a “pertinent sociopolitical/economic critique” and “was a complex beautiful, and incisively accurate expression of outrage at the existing world order, and a clarion call for fidelity to a new social system based upon justice rather than exploitation… it was the cry of the revolutionary spirit” (p229).
Thus, Stark concludes that the “revolutionary impulse was right… but the waiting for a miracle to make it happen–that was wrong” (p230).  Thus, he rejects what he takes to be an apocalyptic “ethics of waiting” that removes us from the present pursuit of justice and “renders world history a cosmic joke” (p228; cf. pp227-28).
A few things merit comment here.  First of all, Stark’s remarks do not make sense of the actual activities of Jesus and Paul.  Jesus and Paul did not exhibit any sort of political quietism.  There were actively involved in working towards the goals of the just reign of God in the here-and-now of their moments in history.  There was no passivity, no sitting back and waiting involved.  That is why they were both condemned as impious terrorists and executed by the political authorities.  Stark’s whole line of criticism falls apart when his picture of apocalypticism is compared to the textual witness to the lived lives of Jesus and Paul.  Secondly, Stark never adequately resolves the tension he sees between passive sectarianism and revolutionary action that I just mentioned.  Here, it seems to me that he has referred to some of the dominant scholarly voices who have studied apocalyptic literature, and he has pulled out key quotations, but he doesn’t seem to have delved fully into the discussion,  Here, one notices the range of perspectives found within Second Temple Jewish apocalyptic traditions.  Some voices are more passive and quietist, others are more active and revolutionary.  Some are more reformist, others are more radical.  Some are more rooted at the margins.  Others are more rooted at centres of power.  Given that, it is worth asking where Jesus and Paul fall within that spectrum.  This would help Stark to not make contradictory statements.
My second quibble with Stark’s reading of apocalypticism is his acceptance of the thesis that both Jesus and Paul believed in the imminent end of the world (cf., for example, pp160-61 on Jesus and pp125, 199-201 on Paul).  He doesn’t really argue the case for this but simply accepts the work of other scholars (in his assertions about Paul, he only mentions two texts, J. Christiaan Beker’s Paul the Apostle and J. Paul Sampley’s Walking Between the Times).  Again, I think Stark would have benefited from engaging the scholarly literature more fully.  Certainly this thesis has had strong supporters since Johannes Weiss and Albert Schweitzer blew the lid off of it over one hundred years ago, and I recognize that it was the dominant scholarly position twenty years ago.  However, a lot of strong work has challenged this view in recent decades and has pointed out the importance of distinguishing (in Paul’s case, for example) the difference between certain expectation and uncertain hope and longing.  I see good reason to believe that Paul longed for Christ to return during Paul’s lifetime, but I remain unconvinced that Paul was certain of this.  Thus, as Oscar Cullmann noted half a century ago, if Paul was proposing an “interim ethics,” that interim extends until today.  Again, when we look at the actual activities undertaken by Jesus and Paul, that ethics is not problematical because it does not espouse passivity or quietism or telling those who are suffering to “wait it out” (cf. p227).  Thus, while Stark’s penchant for hyperbole leads him frequently assert that his conclusions are “unequivocal” (cf. p173)  there is certainly a lot of equivocation amongst scholars on this point.  Consequently, I am bound to reject his conclusion that his “review makes it clear that an expectation of an imminent end is a consistent feature of canonical strands of Christian expectation” (p204).
My third quibble is with Stark’s final outright rejection of the apocalyptic perspective for contemporary Christians due to what he perceives as its “intractable problems” (p225; cf. pp225-30).  I’ve already mentioned some reasons why this perspective might be misplaced and one also thinks of the writings of Nate Kerr and Douglas Campbell (as well as the Pauline reflections inspired by Alain Badiou) as a sufficient refutation of this suggestion.  However, one further point is worth highlighting.  One of Stark’s problems with the apocalyptic outlook is that he thinks it relies upon waiting for a miracle, a happy ending brought to us by some deus ex machina (cf. pp228, 230).  Bluntly stated, Stark seems to have a problem with God intervening in history (one of his objections to the doctrine of inerrancy is that it “denies the human authors of scripture [their] free will” [p63]).  Yet, it seems to me that the Bible is full of deus ex machina moments.  The whole notion of Jesus coming as a (divine) Messiah is one of those moments.  Paul’s encounter with the risen Jesus on the Damascus road is another.  Hell, creation is this sort of apocalyptic Event.  It’s hard to reject a longing for the parousia of Christ for this reason, while holding on to much of anything else in the Bible.  Furthermore, unlike Stark, I do think we are very much stuck waiting for the miracle for which he says we do not need to wait.  I’ve been involved in the struggle for justice and abundant life for all (and not just for some) for more than ten years now and, despite all our best efforts, I know we are absolutely fucked if God does not come and intervene.  To say that we need no miracle seems to go back to where Stark is rooted.  Getting closer to the margins may change his mind about that.
In conclusion, I should reiterate that this book is very successful in completing what it sets out to do: making the Evangelical belief in biblical inerrancy unsustainable.  It is recommended reading for all those who are concerned about that debate or who don’t know quite what to make of their scriptures.

Rapturous Trauma Redux: Watching "Martyrs" with Maynard


[She] was only a victim. Like all the others. It’s so easy to create a victim, young lady, so easy…
The World as it is, there is nothing but victims.  Martyrs are exceptionally rare. They survive pain, they survive total deprivation. They bear all the sins of the earth. They give themselves up. They transcend themselves… they are transfigured.
~ Mademoiselle, from “Martyrs” (2008).
So long.  We wish you well.  You told us how you weren’t afraid to die.  Well then, so long. Don’t cry here, or feel too down. Not all martyrs see divinity. But at least you tried…
Come down. Get off your fucking cross. We need the fucking space, to nail the next fool martyr.
~ Maynard, Eulogy.
I. Trauma and Martyrdom
In my last post, I feel that I didn’t pay sufficient attention to Will Sheff’s remarks about trauma.  I feel that I too easily brushed aside some important ideas, and so I would like to return to this notion of “rapturous trauma”.  Once again, here is the key portion of Sheff’s quote:

I’m really interested in the idea that trauma can be a really rapturous thing. You know, some people return again and again to trauma– they re-enact it and feel it again. It becomes something that defines their personality.

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Rapturous Trauma? Exploring the Music of Okkervil River

All those men were there inside,
when she came in totally naked.
They had been drinking: they began to spit.
Newly come from the river, she knew nothing.
She was a mermaid who had lost her way.
The insults flowed down her gleaming flesh.
Obscenities drowned her golden breasts.
Not knowing tears, she did not weep tears.
Not knowing clothes, she did not have clothes.
They blackened her with burnt corks and cigarette stubs,
and rolled around laughing on the tavern floor.
She did not speak because she had no speech.
Her eyes were the colour of distant love,
her twin arms were made of white topaz.
Her lips moved, silent, in a coral light,
and suddenly she went out by that door.
Entering the river she was cleaned,
shining like a white stone in the rain,
and without looking back she swam again
swam towards emptiness, swam towards death.
~Pablo Neruda, “The Fable of the Mermaid and the Drunks.”
I never wanted to depress people, and I never wanted to make people feel despair…
I’m really interested in the idea that trauma can be a really rapturous thing. You know, some people return again and again to trauma– they re-enact it and feel it again. It becomes something that defines their personality.  But… I wanted all of those things to be submerged. I wanted on the surface there to be a party going on. We know all of that horrible stuff is down in the cellar, but up here we’re going to have a party.
~ Will Sheff
I. Beauty, Terror, Love and Death
Okkervil River, the band fronted by singer-songwriter Will Sheff, recently released a single called “Mermaid.”  You can listen to it here and I suggest that you do so before continuing.  Others have pointed out the similarities between the song and the poem by Neruda that I have quoted above.  Both pieces are haunting, beautiful and terrible.
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Why Your Child Might be Better Off Watching TV

Unlike most other kids I knew, I wasn’t a really active child.  Partly due to my overly shy personality and partly due to the severe restrictions imposed by my parents (which, of course, contributed in a lot of ways to my shyness), I didn’t spend a lot of time running around outside or playing with friends.  Instead, I spent a lot of time reading.  I would lose myself in books for days at a time (in Junior High, for example, I finished the Lord of the Rings trilogy in three days).
I was thinking about this a week or so ago, when I was feeling lethargic and decided to try and compile a list of all the books I remember reading (thankfully, I started keeping a record of that some years ago).  As I looked over that list, especially the fiction section, I could see how various authors and genres were fairly representative of different stages in my life.  Upon further reflection, I realized that the books I read as a child completely misled me about what I might expect from life.  Everybody talks about how great it is for a child to become a lover of books… but I’m not so convinced.
When I was young, I read a lot of adventure-style books — books by authors like Tolkien, Howard Pyle, Sir Walter Scott, Alexander Dumas, Arthur Conan Doyle, Jules Verne, C. S. Lewis, George MacDonald, Robert Louis Stevenson, Mark Twain, and even Henryck Sienkiewicz.  On top of that, the “non-fiction” books I was reading at that time were a lot of stories about Christian missionaries or martyrs — things like The Cross and the Switchblade and Run, Baby, Run or Through Gates of Splendor or God’s Smuggler.  Truth be told, there was a lot of overlap between that which was presented as “fiction” and that which was presented as “non-fiction.”  Add regular devotional readings of the Bible to that mix and, voila, one ends up receiving a wildly inaccurate picture of what life would be like.
I thought life was going to be thrilling — full of mystery and beauty and excitement and miracles.  A swirl of passions and trials (that would always be exciting to experience even though they would be hard).  Despite everything, love would overcome fear, virtue would triumph over power, God would intervene, and we would all be healed and liberated to pursue abundant life together.
Jesus.  Talk about setting somebody up for disappointment.  Not to say that there is no mystery or beauty or passion in life.  It’s just, well, it’s just that there are a helluva lot of other things that are tedious and boring and painful (not in the large dramatic ways, but in the ways that poke at you day after day after day).  Nobody is ever as great as you expect them to be, everybody will let you down, death tends to win more often than life, almost nobody gives a damn, and those who do are only capable of sustaining that for a set amount of time before they also burn out or blow up.  Sheeyit, man.  Maybe I would have been better off watching TV.

January Books

1. Imperialist Canada by Todd Gordon.
I already mentioned this book in my last post, when I interviewed the author, Todd Gordon.  However, given that I really do think that this book is required reading for every Canadian, I thought I would highlight that again.
Gordon begins with an examination of the big picture of (imperialist) capitalism itself.  This helps the reader to understand that the cases he studies are not exceptions to the rules for how governments and businesses operate within that picture.  Rather, he demonstrates that imperialist and violent behaviour is intrinsic to capitalism itself.  From here, Gordon moves to an examination of the practices of imperialism that take place “at home,” within Canada and against indigenous populations (the book was published in 2010 and this section is up-to-date, which is one of its strengths).  Gordon then moves from the national to the international scene and looks at the expansion of the interests of Canadian-based imperialist capitalism into other nations.  He looks at various trade and legal arrangements before looking at the death-dealing results of these arrangements.  He then looks at the ways in which military and paramilitary state-backed forces have been employed to back those businesses (both in Canada and abroad), before offering a final chapter on more direct Canadian military invasions, occupations and coups.
All in all, this book presents a damning picture of Canadian political and business activities.  Not only that, but it is damning of the status quo of daily life in Canada, as the lives of ordinary “citizens” are caught up within (and often benefit from) the machinations of these parties.  This is very strongly recommended reading.
2. Stolen Continents: The “New World” Through Indian Eyes by Ronald Wright.
As I continue my move into a more sustained reading of the history and present experiences of indigenous groups in Canada, I thought a more sweeping historical overview would be helpful.  In this book, Wright looks at this history of five people groups — Aztec, Maya, Inca, Cherokee, and Iroquois — and explores events from their perspectives through three historical phases that he terms conquest, resistance, and rebirth.  He draws heavily upon histories recorded by the indigenous peoples and offers a narrative that runs counter to the standard histories taught in public schools (America wasn’t an empty wilderness waiting to be populated, the indigenous people weren’t “inferior savages,” and so on).  Importantly, Wright also continues to tell the stories of these First Nations up until the time of writing (c.1993).  By doing this, he demonstrates the ways in which our systems of politics, law, and business continue to actively pursue the genocide of indigenous people groups.  However, Wright also demonstrates that resistance has continued up until our present day and so hope remains.
On a more personal note, I remember reading The Conquest of New Spain when I was young.  That book is an account of Hernan Cortes’ conquest of the Aztec empire, written from the perspective of Bernal Diaz del Castillo, one of the conquistadors present at that time.  As such, it is a classic example of history written from the perspective of the victors.  At that time of my life, I read a lot of adventure stories (lots of Dumas, Tolkien, Pyle, Scott… that sort of thing) and I was thrilled to find such wild adventures — stories of knights triumphing against all odds — occurring in real life.  Shame on me.  I mention this because I think the default position ingrained into all of us (through our education but also through the ongoing presentation of these matters in mainstream media and political discourse) is one that is deeply racist and violent.  Over the years, I have undergone a conversion related to these matters, and hope others will do the same.  This book is recommended reading.
3. The Twelve Caesars by Suetonius.
I first read Suetonius back when I was starting to seriously research Paul.  However, as the years(!) have gone by and as my perspective has gained more and more focus, I made a decision to go back and reread a lot of the primary source material.  It’s very interesting to see how different a text appears after that kind of sustained work.  Many things about Suetonius’ account of the Caesars look very different and all sorts of unnoticed emphases now jump off the page.  It’s funny how much a text changes after you immerse yourself in its context(s).  It feels so different than my prior reading and I’m amazed by how much I missed or just didn’t understand the first time around (in part amazed because Suetonius’ account seems so straightforward and because I already had some basic knowledge of the matters related therein).
When I think about this, I also think that this is what happens when a person begins to engage in a serious and engaged study of “sacred” texts, like the Bible.  I often think that most Christians would be better served if they put down their Bibles and simply spent a few years reading books about the Bible.  After that, I imagine that they would be amazed at how different things look.  Truth be told, after all my years of engaging in biblical studies (I just realized I’ve been doing that for 11 years now!), I only now feel like I can pick up the New Testament and have a decent understanding of what is going on there.
4. Cities of the Plain by Cormac McCarthy.
This is the final volume of McCarthy’s “Border Trilogy.”  In it, he brings together the protagonists of the first two books — John Grady Cole and Billy Parham (see here for a more detailed overview, including spoilers).  Initially, this conjunction rather excited me (like Wolverine meeting Batman, or something) but I ended up finding the book a bit disappointing.  It didn’t seem to quite meet the (admittedly very high) standard set by the earlier volumes.  Of course, as with anything written by McCarthy, there were still really excellent moments, like the conversation that occurs between John Grady and Eduardo during the climax of the novel.
So, one month behind schedule, I have completed my objective of reading all of McCarthy’s novels.  Now I gotta get back to Proust…

Imperialist Canada: An Interview with Todd Gordon

I recently finished reading a book that I consider to be essential reading for every Canadian.  It is entitled, Imperialist Canada and in it the author, Todd Gordon, explores the various ways in which Canadian capital and the Canadian political system engage in an imperialist program of stealing the land, resources, well-being, families, and lives of others (generally poor or indigenous populations both in Canada and abroad) in order to gain profits and power.  A lot of this material will be familiar to those already engaged in the struggle against imperialism and capitalism but it is very good to have a comprehensive study of a number of issues all collected in a single text.  For those who are unaware of the issues presented here — from the practices of Canadian oil, gas, mining, and hydroelectric companies in our own and other countries, to the Canadian-backed coup that occurred in Haiti, to the ways in which RBC has been getting rich off of the war in Iraq, to many other things — this book should be paradigm shattering.
Because I’m so keen on this book, and because I want to encourage others to read it, I contacted the author and asked if he would be willing to do an interview for this blog.  Despite time constraints, he kindly complied to my request, and this is the exchange that we were able to have.  My questions are bolded and Todd’s responses are in plain text.
I am always interested in the ways in which an author’s life intersects with the texts that author produces, and am convinced that the contexts in which we live can be highly influential upon the views we end up holding.  What people or events in your own life brought you to study Canada as an imperialist power?
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