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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My Words to City Council

[Update: this is what happened — the Council decided to cut the 70+ speakers out of their agenda,  and are seeking to employ silence, co-opt, divide, and conquer tactics.]
Over the last few years, the mayor and other council members in Vancouver have made it increasingly clear that they function as middle-management for corporate interests and do not function as democratically-elected representatives of the people whom they have been appointed to serve.  One of the ways in which that is now coming to a head in Vancouver is around the matter of gentrification in our downtown eastside — the central community of poor and marginalized people in this city.  Essentially, real estate developers and their allies are trying to change very significant zoning bylaws in order to gentrify that neighbourhood, drive out the poor and the homeless, and make a lot of money while further ostracizing, isolating, and harming the most vulnerable populations of our city.  Basically, they want the City Council to legalize a criminal act (which is a fair expectation on their part, the law in Canada has consistently demonstrated its willingness to modify itself in order to meet the rapacious goals of Canadian capital).
The crucial vote on these zoning bylaws is occurring today (the matter has been given the name of the “Historic Area Heights Review” in order to obfuscate what is really going on).  Prior to that vote, any citizen of Vancouver has been invited to contact City Hall in order to speak to the Council about the issues involved.  I have agreed to do this.  If you live in Vancouver, you should try to attend (things start at 2pm and will probably go late).
Being fully cognizant that others will go into much more technical and statistical detail about this effort to gentrify the downtown eastside, here is the transcript of what I intend to say to City Council later today:
When all is said and done, I believe that the discussion of the Historic Area Heights Review (HAHR) is prompted by a very basic division. This is a division between the mostly poor and marginalized people who actually live in the downtown east-side, and the wealthy and powerful real estate developers who do not live in that community, but who want legal permission to steal the land and gentrify the neighbourhood. To gain this legal permission, the developers need the City Council to implement the HAHR. Therefore, I want to pose a simple question to the Council:
Will the Council permit people who live in the downtown east-side to determine the future of their neighbourhood, or will the Council permit external corporate interests to determine the fate of that community and the people who live there?
If we are trying to live within a “democracy” and actually subscribe to the notion of “the rule of the people,” then it is clear that the City Council should prioritize the desires and goals of the residents of the downtown east-side who have almost unanimously gathered together to voice their opposition to the HAHR and have, instead, requested that the City set aside ten previously determined sites for social housing.
However, I sometimes wonder if the democratic process has stopped working in Canada. For years, the government has been transferring public property and common wealth into the pockets of private corporations and individuals. Thus, during the 2010 Olympics we saw an international spectacle that was used to transfer public monies into private pockets, we saw services being cut, social housing being destroyed and promises being broken. Additionally, we saw the further criminalization of poverty, something already begun by the Safe Streets Act, and the increased exercise of surveillance and force over against poor people.
Consequently, I am often left thinking that City Council members, those who are elected to represent and serve the people, actually do not care about the people. Instead, they seem to be the representatives of corporate interests and appear to be more keen to befriend the wealthy and powerful few who want to plunder the poor and marginalized many.
I think the ways in which the Council members vote on the HAHR will make their allegiances apparent. If council members choose to faithfully act as democratically elected representatives, they will reject this move to gentrify the downtown east-side. However, if Council members are more interested in profit – even when the cost of that profit is human life – then they will approve of this move.
To be perfectly honest, I have little hope that this Council will listen. I only agreed to speak here today because those whom I know and love, who happen to live within the downtown east-side, requested that we come and speak. Out of respect for them, I am doing that. Besides, there are sometimes wonderful and unpredictable moments when the unexpected happens and when those with power choose to act in a life-giving instead of a death-dealing (but profitable) manner. Maybe this will be one of those moments. If it is not, then you will have joined a great host of those who have gone before you—those who have had power and walked away with blood on their hands.
If that more predictable result occurs, then we should consider this: when the democratically elected representatives fail to listen to the people but instead choose to oppress the most vulnerable segments of the population, then it is time for the people to reject the legitimacy of those representatives and come together to rule themselves. Remember the words of the prophet Isaiah:
“Woe to you who add house to house, and join field to field til no space is left and you live alone in the land… Surely the great houses will become desolate, the fine mansions left without occupants” (Is. 5.8-9).
Even now, it is not too late to do what is right. Reject the gentrification of the downtown east-side. Create 100% resident-controlled social housing at the ten sites selected by the Downtown east-side Neighbourhood Council. Or plunder the poor and then look for a pretty way to phrase that so that you can sleep at night. The choice is yours. But regardless of whether you choose to serve Life or serve Death, we will continue to serve Life and will continue to resist all that which is death-dealing.
_____________________________
For more on this issue, see the following media links:
Plan for towers in the Downtown Eastside under fire
The Province
Condo towers could push out poor from DTES: activists
CTV News
Downtown Eastside activists protest over-height condo plans
Vancouver Sun
Activist Rider Cooey joins fight against towers proposed for Downtown Eastside
Global TV
City building height review faces more opposition

CKNW

Mayor Robertson’s party wages war on Downtown Eastside

The Mainlander

Brigade of academics petition city hall not to raise heights in DTES, Chinatown

Francis Bula blog

Fight the height: condos are killing us

Vancouver Media Co-op

SFU, UBC professors concerned about effect of height review on Downtown Eastside

Georgia Straight

Proposal for higher buildings in downtown Vancouver criticized in advance of city vote

Georgia Straight

The Discourse of Marginality: Closing Thoughts

Well, this is probably going to be the final post I write on the series that spontaneously arose regarding what I perceive to be the bourgeois appropriation of marginality.  I wrote my initial thoughts here, and then posted some follow-up thoughts by Thom Stark, and would now like to make a few concluding comments.
In many ways, Thom’s response reminds me of Zizek’s remarks about America’s justification for invading Iraq.  Zizek writes:

We all remember the old joke about the borrowed kettle which Freud quotes in order to render the strange logic of dreams, namely, the enumeration of mutually exclusive answers to a reproach (that I returned to a friend a broken kettle): (1) I never borrowed a kettle from you; (2) I returned it to you unbroken; (3) the kettle was already broken when I got it from you.  For Freud, such an enumeration of inconsistent arguments of course confirms per negationem what it endeavors to deny – that I returned you a broken kettle.

I see Thom deploying equally mutually exclusive responses.  Allow me to provide one obvious example.  In a recent response to Doug Harink, he writes “we at RATM are not claiming to be marginalized” but then he also writes that:

many of us (though not all of us) aren’t as close to conservative Christian communities as we used to be, but again, we’re not whining about that. As the educated so-called “elite,” we recognize that we have privilege and power that others don’t. And that’s why we’re trying to exercise it by calling attention to the way that the power at the center (of various institutions and traditions) is often abused and/or misplaced.

Note how the word “elite” is placed in scare-quotes.  Essentially, Thom wants to claim to be marginalized and not-marginalized as the same time depending on how each claim serves his interests.  Thus, keeping Thom’s remark to Doug in mind, and remembering that Thom recently published a book that a good many Conservative Christians would describe at heretical, we are equipped to read the following:

While I obviously agree with Dan that socio-political marginalization is extremely important, I also think that other forms of marginalization deserve to be highlighted and deserve to be identified precisely as marginal. For instance, heretics are marginalized, and I want to call attention to the way that power from the theological center pushes them to the margins in various ways.

Rounding out our triumvirate, we have the following statement:

While some of us at RATM may be willing to call our own perspectives “marginal,” that does not imply we think we are marginalized people.

Therefore, we arrive at our threefold kettle analogy: (1) I didn’t borrow a kettle from you (we are not claiming to be marginalized); (2) I returned the kettle to you unbroken (we are marginalized in a significant way); and (3) the kettle was already broken when I got it from you (our views are marginal, even if we are not).  Unfortunately, this form of mutually exclusive argumentation carries through on Thom’s other points.  When he denies exhibiting a persecution-complex he asserts that I assume that he and others are “merely reacting to conservative Christianity” but then immediately follows that by asking, “Even if we were, so what?” In the end, I’ll side with Freud on this one.  I think that Thom’s response “confirms per negationem what it endeavors to deny” and makes apparent both a persecution-complex and the bourgeois appropriation of which I spoke (the couple of hundred of readers who read the email exchange between Thom and I, before I removed it from my blog, should easily understand that point by now).
Be that as it may, the original intention of my post was not to provoke a discussion about how awesome (or not awesome) Thom and RATM are.  I simply used that blog as a convenient example of the rhetorical power-play I was discussing.  While Thom does not address a number of the significant points I raise about this issue in my original post (he appears to be more interested in defending himself from what he perceives to be a personal assault), his response further illustrates the rhetorical power-play I criticize in two important ways, and also pushes back on what may be the central issue in this discussion.  I now want to turn to those things, before making one concluding remark.
Beginning with the ongoing power-play related, I want to highlight how Thom stresses that the word “margins is an appropriate term to describe the kinds of perspectives we want to explore and people we want to support, and it functions, due to its broad application in the English language, as a nice catch-all title”.  With this in mind, he emphasizes that “”there really are bourgeois Christians who are marginalized in important ways.”  Again, Thom is making two possibly exclusive arguments here.  On the one hand, he is saying that it is okay for the bourgeois to employ the language of marginality because that fits the dictionary definition of the word, while on the other hand he wants to associate the language of marginality with a significant experience of suffering and trauma — hence, he refers to the “scars” of those Christians (this goes beyond the dictionary definition in some ways, but fits well with a discursive power-play).  However, what really interests me is this appeal to a definition or to the notion that Thom et al. are simply being objectively descriptive, thereby avoiding the deployment of making any kind of power-play (this emphasis also came through quite strongly when I spoke with Thom on the phone).
In response, I want to remind us all of the ways in which definitions or objective descriptions are routinely employed as masks for the exercise of power.  Such things are often examples of ideology operating at its finest.  The argument that the use of a word is technically appropriate according to the rules of the English language in no way refutes the accusations that power is being wielded when that word is employed.  Far from it, such efforts tend to be made to both hide and strengthen the power that is being exercised.
The second way in which Thom’s response illustrates my point is by the way in which he refers to those who experience serious degrees of social, political, and economic marginalization throughout his response.  Thom wants to grant the point that their marginality is important, but he wants to grant that point so that we can not mention them in relation to what he is writing about!  Essentially, he is saying, of course people like sex workers and missing women are important, now can we stop talking about them?  This perfectly illustrates the concern I expressed in my original post: when the bourgeoisie appropriate the language of marginality, those whose very lives are in jeopardy end up being further marginalized and forgotten.  Therefore, when Thom writes that some bourgeois Christians “deserve to be identified as marginalized, even while it’s (very obviously) understood that they’re not in the same plight as disappeared Salvadorian women”  and then asks: “Do we really have to point that out?”  The answer is, yes we do.
This,  then, leads us into what I see as the crux of the matter.  Specifically, we arrive at the question of how we approach the various expressions of “marginality” that we encounter in our society.  Again, I quote from Thom:

I’m not interested in weighing the degrees of profundity of various forms of marginalization. Yes, some forms are banal, like being at the margins of the fast food industry. But a form of marginality doesn’t have to be the most morally profound form of marginality in order to command our attention, nor should it have to.

Here’s the thing: I am interested in trying to assess degrees of profundity of various forms of marginalization.  Yes, this is a tricky area, a complex matter (that’s why I brought it up!), but it is one that I feel we are morally obligated to engage, unless we want to simply capitulate to the culture of victimization I described in my original post.  Indeed, the refusal to assess “the degrees of profundity of the various forms of marginalization” is but another expression of the bourgeois appropriation of marginality, for it minimizes and ignores the significance of the death-dealing forms of marginalization that I have mentioned.  This is the case because it refuses to determine what kinds of marginalization are banal, what kinds of marginalization are extremely significant, and what kinds of marginalization fall at different places between those points.
However, having said that, I think I agree with Thom’s point that “a form of marginality doesn’t have to be the most morally profound form of marginality in order to command our attention”.  That is true to a certain extent, but we do need to be very aware of how much of our attention different forms of marginality command.  Now, in certain Christian circles the discourse of being “at the margins” of Christian “orthodoxy” or “at the margins” of more Conservative expressions of Christianity plays such a prominent role that all other forms of marginality are ignored (or appear as flashy blips on the radar every now and again when somebody wants to establish “street-cred” and advance that person’s “radical” brand-status).  There is so much talk of this, especially amongst “post-Evangelicals” (or others whom circumstance has driven into the circle of Evangelical influence) that I can’t help but wonder if any who wish to add to this conversation are simply contributing to a great wave that drowns out the voices of those who are marginalized unto death.  Certainly, if one wishes to add to that discourse, one should be highly conscious of this possibility and, in my opinion, needs to openly confront it and address it.
However, even with this in mind, I do want to return to my assertion that in most (but not all) cases the death-dealing forms of marginalization experienced by those who are homeless or street-involved, enslaved or sexually exploited, murdered or disappeared, is actually more important than the forms of marginalization experienced by members of the middle-class.  I understand that this might be a provocative statement but, if we are being honest, I fail to see how we can conclude otherwise.  I choose to emphasize it because I feel that us bourgeois Christians spend so much time focusing upon our own petty problems (i.e. at the end of the day, they almost never kill us and we still live a pretty damn good life), when really we should be throwing ourselves into solidarity with those who are far more genuinely crucified today while also throwing ourselves against all the structural, corporate, social and legal powers of Death that are encoded in our societies.  Therefore, until people actually start doing something, I will keep pressing this point (no matter how much they say, “I get it, can we move on?”).
Finally, here is my concluding comment (this thought was only half-formed in my mind until I received an email that nailed it).  Within the academy, people are constantly striving to make their mark within their respective fields, and so they attempt to do something creative, to exhibit some originality, and so on.  By doing so, academics are able to heighten their prestige, status, pay, and job security.  Today, embracing or exploring some form of “marginality” appears to be a particularly convenient way of accomplishing this (a part of what one might call the broader bourgeois appropriation of texts arising from the marginalized).  Thus, a good many academics like to speak about the margins, and claim to be in some sort of solidarity with those on the margins (or, perhaps they might claim to be an advocate or a voice or a saviour for those people), but the benefit of doing this is that one is moved even further away from the margins and ever more increasingly rooted in a central position of wealth and power.  I consider this to be an insidious and destructive process.  Therefore, I believe that any academic who wishes to speak to these things must attempt to move ever deeper into the lived experiences of poverty, shame, and weakness.  To do otherwise is, in my mind, almost always a betrayal.

Guest Post: Thom Stark Responds Regarding Marginality

[Thom, one of the more prolific writers at “Religion at the Margins” (RATM), has written a reply to my recent post on “The Bourgeois Appropriation of Marginality.”  He was going to post it as a comment on my original post, but I suggested that these remarks appear as a guest post, with the hope that this will encourage us to continue to think and dialogue about these things.  What follows are Thom’s words.]
I’ve had a conversation with Dan and we’ve come to a better understanding I think, and so I offer this response in good will and with humility.
Dan is right that many Christians with power in North America have a persecution complex, and it is true that the language of marginality is often appropriated by those with power to legitimate their ventures, political, theological or otherwise. This is important. It is also true that the persecution complex isn’t unique to conservative Christianity. But Dan seems to suggest that Religion at the Margins is an example of a bunch of predominantly white radical Christian people who have a persecution complex vis-à-vis conservative Christianity. Dan writes:

The particular element of this that set my wheels spinning is the way in which those who criticize Conservative American Christians for their persecution-complex, usually end up reworking that same complex to their own advantage.  The obvious twist is that these people — who often come from a background of some sort of close relationship to Conservative Christianity — claim that they are the ones persecuted… by the Conservative Christians.  You see this a lot in the “Christian Radical” or “new monastic” or “Emergent” circles.  Essentially, you have a group of predominantly middle-class, well educated, white males claiming that they (and not the other middle-class, well educated white males) are actually the ones who can occupy the high ground.

Dan then immediately cites our website, Religion at the Margins, as an example of this:

Take, for example, the blog Religion At the Margins (NB: I have nothing against those who post there, but chose this blog as an apt example of this phenomenon).  Here you have eight contributors (six white males, one white female, one non-white male, all well educated) laying claim to the discourse of marginality.

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Populism and the Miscarriage of Revolutionary Violence

On January 8, 2011, Gabrielle Giffords, an American congresswoman, was shot in the head in a mass shooting at a political meet-and-greet event.  Nineteen people were shot and six have died at this point — including Arizona’s chief federal judge and a nine year old girl.
Giffords was a Democrat and has drawn negative attention from Republicans for supporting Obama’s health care bill.  Thus, for example, she is listed on Sarah Palin’s target list (which, by the way, placed cross-hairs over Giffords location and employed a fair amount of gun-based rhetoric — oh, and at the same time as posting this list to her facebook, Palin tweeted, “Don’t Retreat, Instead – RELOAD!”).
Giffords’ office was also targeted last March when a glass door and window were found smashed, either by boot or by bullet.  She is not alone in this regard.  Four other Democrat offices had windows smashed on the same day.  Around ten others received death threats.  To pick a few examples: Nancy Pelosi was personally threatened on the phone by a man who said he would burn her house down; a Democrat in New York, Louise Slaughter, had the lives of her and her children threatened; another Democrat in Virginia, Tom Perriello, received death threats and a member of the Tea Party tried to post his address online and encouraged others to stop by to express their “gratitude” to him; and so on.
As of yet, nothing is known of the political position that the shooter, Jared Loughner, may or may not have held.  What is apparent is that he is probably quite unwell mentally and that he may have acted with the assistance of another older male accomplice.
However, regardless of the stance(s) taken by Loughner and his possible accomplice, it is clear the the violence enacted on January 8th fits with the criteria and goals of the Tea Party and the Right of America’s Republican party.  To borrow the language of Hardt and Negri, this is an example of the sort of populist violence that may occur when “the people” rise in order to reassert traditional relationships of privilege, property and power.  Over against the creative resistance offered by “the multitude,” this sort of violence is not liberating but only further deepens the oppression of those who are lashing out against their perceived enemies.
Of course, it is appropriate for Americans to feel betrayed by the Obama administration and the Democratic party.  Obama played off the hope of the voters (who were audacious enough to vote for him) but only continued to further the agendas of the transnational corporate power-players of global capitalism.  Instead of “fixing” America, Obama made it worse (his health care reform is a good example of this — something that postures as a radical action in favour of those in need of health care, but something that actually makes very minimal changes and also furthers the interests of American capitalism — as is his ending of the “combat mission” in Iraq).
It is appropriate for the American public to be thinking about things like subversion, resistance, and revolt (although, I should stress this: I do not think that it is ever appropriate for somebody to do what Loughner did).  However, it is precisely here that the violence desired (and enacted) by the Tea Party has an insidious impact upon movements of resistance.  Populist (American) violence is violence that and supports an oppressive status quo, and also ends up strengthening other pro-capitalist agendas — it causes an increase in security measures and surveillance, it brings more oppressive laws into being in order to target those who pursue change (thereby altering the legal system so that social justice advocates and community organizers become defined as “terrorists”), and it causes the general public to be increasingly suspicious, fearful, and violent against any who might pursue liberating change outside of the prescribed legal, institutional or governmental avenues.
For a parallel example, think of Jim Jones and the ways in which he poisoned the perspectives of any who (even today) think about living in alternate, more intentional, forms of community that seek to explore better ways of sharing life together.  When I first began to approach people about living in  a more intentional kind of community, the same comments (half-serious, half-joking) were always made: “When do we drink the cool-aid?” or “I’m not going to let you sleep with my spouse.”  Thus, those who want to do something that might look a bit like what Jones did — because, you know, he did create a community where people of all races where equal and were the rich shared with the poor so that everybody had enough — are also going to be looked at like they might be sociopathic killers and sex offenders.
Therefore, one of the results of Loughner’s actions will be that the public is increasingly unwilling to consider or engage in anything that looks like less-legal tactics of resistance and the Powers will be increasingly able to criminalize dissent.  This, just like the deaths that occurred on January 8th, is a tragedy because life-giving change will not come through the means that are legally available to us.