[What follows is my submission to the series on “Violence and Christian Holy Writ” that has been running for the last number of weeks over at the blog of Cynthia Nielsen. Up until today, I was under the impression that my post had been accepted but Cynthia has since notified me that (for reasons I won’t go into here) my submission has been rejected. Therefore, I thought I would post it here because I am genuinely interested in what others might think of this topic. I envision three follow-up posts exploring this theme in the New Testament — the nonviolence of Paul, the sectarianism of John, and a concluding post on the importance of respecting and employing the diversity of tactics we encounter in the NT.]
The Violence of Jesus
For our struggle is not against enemies of blood and flesh, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers of this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places – Eph 6.12
In what follows, I will argue that some Christians should embrace a certain kind of violent action in order to faithfully follow Jesus within our present context. By making this argument, I will be situating myself within an uncomfortable ideological location – rejecting the (often imperialistic and murderous) Niebuhrian position on violence as a “necessary evil,” and standing outside of the (often superficial and self-serving) pacifism of Anabaptist-inspired Christians, there is every chance that both parties will be ill-equipped to hear what I am saying.
This is why it is essential to examine the words and actions of Jesus before we embrace any ideology related to non/violence. Rather than asking, “Is violence (whatever that is) right or wrong?” it is better to ask “How did Jesus act and what might it mean to faithfully follow Jesus today?” Pursuing this question, helps us to escape from ingrained theological or cultural perspectives that have prevented us from recognizing what the Gospels actually say on this subject.
When studying Jesus, a few important points stand out. First, although Jesus sometimes verbally abuses others – referring to Peter as “Satan” (Mk 8.33), calling a Gentile woman a “dog” (Mk 7.27), and saying a whole host of nasty things about the scribes, Pharisees, and teachers of the law (cf., for example, Mt 23.1-33) – and although he seems to expect some sort of future divine violence to be enacted against people, in part, because of the way they treat him (Mt 11.20-24, 23.35-38, 25.1-46, 26.24, etc.) – Jesus never engages in any act of physical violence against another person. Furthermore, when people do engage in what could be legitimate forms of violence against others, Jesus is quick to counteract their actions (as when he heals the fellow whose ear is lopped off by one of the disciples [cf. Lk 22.49-51]).
The concomitant of this rejection of acting violently against others is Jesus’ ongoing action to heal, forgive, accept, and touch others – especially, the poor, the sick, the sinners, and the ostracized. Thus, while some may be fated for the experience of divinely-imposed violence in the future, at the moment of Jesus’ ministry all people are offered God’s gift of new and abundant life.
Here we get to one of the fundamental points of Jesus’ ministry: Jesus was acting in the service of the God of Life, offering life to all, and thereby also actively resisting all the Powers that acted in the service of Death (Powers that included demons, sin, sickness, loneliness, deprivation, and the theopolitical authority of Rome and Jerusalem). This is why, despite his sometimes violent rhetoric and his threatening scare-tactics, Jesus cannot act in a way that harms anybody else. To be in the service of life for all, means that one cannot physically harm anybody else. One must love even one’s enemies, and loving one’s enemies means that one cannot harm them, even if they seek to harm you. Here, the Anabaptist-inspired Christians are right, and the Niebuhrians and the “just war” theorists are wrong. Physically harming any other person falls outside of the range of actions appropriate to contemporary followers of Jesus.
However, that is not the end of Jesus’ engagement with violence, and this is where the Anabaptist-inspired Christians tend to get things wrong. What is almost universally neglected in Christian conversations regarding non/violence, are Jesus’ actions of violence against private property. This is the second point that needs to be highlighted (indeed, that this point is neglected by both sides of the debate demonstrates that both parties tend to share a common class interest and bias – i.e. people on both sides tend to hoard a great deal of private property).
The most obvious example of this type of violence is the “direct action” Jesus takes in the Jerusalem temple (John 2.13-16; cf. Mk 11.15-17; Mt 21.12-3; Lk 11.45-46). This event is interesting because it is the closest Jesus comes to employing physical violence against others. Indeed, the reason why the buyers and sellers fled the temple was because of the perception that physical violence might be employed against them. However, the texts seem to suggest that violence was only actualized against property. Here, property is not only damaged, it is probably also stolen, and violence is used to facilitate that theft (to imagine the scattered coins being left for the money changers to gather is a bit implausible).
Two points are usually overlooked here: first, although a detailed exegesis is employed in order to demonstrate the likelihood that Jesus’ violence was restricted to property and not people, the point that Jesus actually does engage in an act of violence against private property is not appropriately emphasized. Secondly, this passage tends to be cited as the only example of Jesus engaging in a physically violent act, but this overlooks other passages demonstrating Jesus’ willingness to destroy private property or approve of others doing so.
To choose a second example, one can also recall the healing of a certain demon-possessed man (cf. Mk 5.1-20; Mt 8.28-34; Lk 8.26-39). In this action, Jesus casts a “Legion” of demons into a herd of about two thousand pigs (the pig, it should be remembered, was a symbol of one of the Roman legions that destroyed Jerusalem in 70CE). These pigs rush into a lake and are drowned. This prompts the locals to plead with Jesus to depart from their region. This response is a bit puzzling until one remembers that Jesus had just destroyed an expensive herd belonging to a wealthy but absent land-owner. This land-owner had entrusted his herd to the locals and would be furious at his loss. Therefore, the locals likely wanted Jesus to leave before he could do any more damage and further threaten their safety.
As a third example, we can recall Jesus’ tacit approval of those who damaged the roof of a private home in order to have their paralyzed friend healed by him (cf. Mk 2.1-5; Lk 5.18-26).
Again, the clash between serving life and confronting that which is death-dealing is at the core of Jesus’ actions in these three cases. When private property is linked to that which is death-dealing or prevents that which is life-giving, Jesus is not afraid to destroy it – regardless of the laws that exist to protect it.
This carries some important implications for those who seek to follow Jesus today and pushes us in an interesting direction. Instead of asking, “Is violence right or wrong?” followers of Jesus should be asking, “What is life-giving and what are the death-dealing things that stand in the way of abundant life for all?” Answering this question requires us to move beyond theory to action, perhaps even militant action. What we may need is a Christian militancy that is willing to destroy idolatrous and death-dealing private property (an enemy not of blood and flesh), while simultaneously holding out the offer of abundant life to all people.
Exploring two partially flawed Canadian examples may stimulate our imaginations in this regard (note: no people were harmed in both cases). First, recall the “Heart Attack” protest that occurred in Vancouver during the 2010 Olympics (cf. here for video of that protest and for information on why the Olympic Games are death-dealing – although you should read Helen Lenskyj or watch this documentary for more detailed analysis). During that protest, some windows of a Hudson’s Bay Company store were smashed (the HBC has a long history of brutality against the Canadian aboriginal peoples, and Vancouver exists on unceded and stolen Coast Salish land). Although I questioned the tactical value of smashing those windows – and raised those questions not from a distance but as one of the thirteen arrested that day – the smashing of those windows did not strike me as immoral. It may very well have been a Christ-like action.
Second, we can recall how an anarchist group (two fifty year olds and one thirty-five year old) firebombed a branch of the Royal Bank of Canada in Ottawa (our capital) prior to this year’s G8/G20 Summits (cf. here for footage and a glimpse into RBC’s brutal history). This may very well be a contemporary example of what it looks like to overturn the tables of the money changers.
This helps to clarify the true “cost of discipleship.” It reminds us that bearing the brand-marks of Christ on our bodies means living with bodies that are scarred by the disciplinary actions of the authorities who operate in the service of Death. We can no longer fool ourselves: our commitment to abundant life for all might lead us to be condemned with a terrorist (lestes) on either side of us. Only then will we be able to journey no further into union with the crucified Christ.
Fire on Babylon. Lord, have mercy.
This is What Democracy Looks Like
Well, I don’t know how many people are aware of what has been happening in France ever since the government started driving through a law that would shift the age of retirement from 60 to 62 but there have been massive uprisings across the country that have seen workers, students, seniors, new immigrants, and many others uniting to fight back against the powers that be. Gas and oil refineries have been shut down, along with other locations like high-schools, universities, highways, and airports.
There is an inspiring series of pictures documenting some of this here. I think this really shows us the two faces of “democracy.” On the one hand, we see the multitude rising up in an effort to claim (a form of) self-rule, and on the other hand we see hegemonic powers employing force to prevent anything that resembles the actual “rule of the people.”
September Books
Finished off a fair amount this month… which is why I’ve been delaying writing this up.
1. Reading Romans In Pompeii: Paul’s Letter at Ground Level by Peter Oakes.
This is a really excellent study of socio-economic diversity that existed amongst the urban populations of cities during the time when Paul was helping to build the early Jesus movement throughout the Roman empire. Employing detailed archaeological evidence from Pompeii, Oakes helps to fill out the picture of the differences that existed amongst the 99% of the people who lived in the empire but were not elite. Picking representative examples from this population, he then looks at how members of those groups would hear Paul’s letter to Rome (while factoring in other local considerations).
By engaging in this study, Oakes is building upon the important contributions of those like Justin Meggitt and Steven Friesen who have done a lot of important work to demonstrate that the early Christian movement was one that arose amongst those who were poor, of little status, and likely lived just at or below the subsistence level (with a few members living slightly above subsistence). By building this case, Meggitt and Friesen have countered the prior conensus (most often associated with Gerd Theissen) which maintained that Paul’s churches were run by a wealthy and elite minority.
Oakes, then, mostly accepts the case made by Meggitt and Friesen but he fills it out and nuances it in some important ways. He demonstrates that even amongst the poor and those of little status, more diversity existed than had been previously imagined.
I believe that this is an important study and one of the best I have read on the socioeconomic status of the members of the early assemblies of Jesus. Oakes reading of Romans in light of this context, and of the possible members in the assemblies, is especially rich… and (surprise, surprise) continues to build the case for counter-imperial readings of Paul.
2. Christian Origins: A People’s History of Christianity, Volume One edited by Richard Horsley.
Inspired by Howard Zinn’s effort to write a people’s history of the United States — a history that looks at the experience of the conquered, the oppressed, the poor, and those generally not included (or mentioned favourably) in dominant historical narratives — a multi-volume series has been written in order to try and write a people’s history of Christianity. Scholars in various fields, disciplines, and sub-disciplines have contributed to the project creating a rich, albeit eclectic, look at what has arisen after the life and death of Jesus.
In this volume, a number of top notch scholars look mostly at Jesus, Paul, the Gospels, and the Pauline assemblies of Jesus and explore the actual cultural, economic, religious and political contexts of the first-century and what that might mean for a people’s history of the early years of the Jesus movement. There are a number of excellent essays here (and a few that are sorta dull) but all are quite accessible and would probably be of interest to those who want something of a scattered overview of these things.
3. Life of the Beloved by Henri Nouwen.
It’s always interesting to go back and re-read books that impacted you at different times of life. Throughout my undergraduate years, Life of the Beloved was the book that most impacted me. I gave copies to many others and it had a similar impact upon them as well. Last month, I thought I would pick it up again since I’ve been undergoing some pretty major shifts in my thinking regarding the significance of love and of knowing one’s self as “beloved” (I’ll probably blog more about that as some point). Therefore, I thought maybe I should re-read this book and see if it helped to reorient my thinking and root me back where I used to be.
But it didn’t. I actually hardly connected with the book at all this time around. This is not to say that I disagree with what Nouwen says. I actually agree with most of what he says, and still do understand myself to be “beloved”… it’s just that this doesn’t matter all that much to me anymore. Now, I tend to think of breaking through to this understanding of one’s self to be an important step along a certain road, but not the destination I once thought that it was.
I was quite surprised by all this. I have read some other works by Nouwen relatively recently (<i>The Way of the Heart</i> comes to mind) that I enjoyed but this one, previously one of my all-time favourite books, did little for me this time (unlike Jacques Ellul’s <i>Hope in Time of Abandonment</i> which blew my mind the first time around and, now that I’m re-reading it, is impacting me even more deeply… but I’ll save those remarks for next month).
4. Where We Stand: Class Matters by bell hooks.
When reading hooks’ assertion that defaults on loans for mortgages, and issues related to housing, will provoke a massive crisis, it’s hard to believe that this book was written in the year 2000. At that time, hooks thought a housing crisis might give birth to class war. She was wrong about that (so far), but there is so much else that she gets right in this excellent study on the central significance of class analysis for efforts to create positive change.
Basically, what hooks does in a very personal way is demonstrate how struggles for liberation — notably those related to gender and race — are incomplete and bound to remain superficial, impotent or become co-opted unless they are fundamentally rooted in an explicit class struggle (Barack Obama and Hilary Clinton provide us with two great examples of that today). Tied into this is also a lot of discussion of wealth and poverty, status and shame, and ways in which Christian traditions (notably inspirations from Latin American liberation theology) can help us find our way forward.
A great book. Short, easy to read, but intimate and powerful. I recommend it.
5. White on Black by Ruben Gallego.
I saw this book mentioned on Jason Goroncy’s blog, and began searching for it immediately. It’s an horrific but compelling true story of the time the author spent as a disabled youth (he has cerebral palsy and lacks the use of his arms and legs) growing up in institutions in mid-twentieth century Russia. Gallego, however, writes with a very beautiful voice and, just to give you a glimpse of that, I thought I would record the preface here:
On Strength and Goodness
People sometimes ask me whether what I write actually happened. Are the heroes of my stories real?
I answer: It did, and they are, more than real. Naturally, my heroes are collective images from the endless kaleidoscope of my endless children’s homes. What I write, though, is the truth.
The sole characteristic of my work that departs from, and at times contradicts, the authenticity of real life is my authorial view, which may be rather sentimental, occasionally breaking into pathos. I purposely avoid writing about anything bad.
I’m convinced that life and literature have more than enough of the dark side. It’s just so happened that I’ve witnessed too much human cruelty and hate. To describe the vileness of man’s fall and bestiality is to multiply the already endless chain of interconnected blasts of evil. That’s not what I want. I write about goodness, triumph, joy, and love.
I write about strength. Spiritual and physical strength. The strength each one of us has inside. Te strength that breaks through all barriers to triumph. Each of the stories is a story of triumph. Even the boy from “The Cutlet,” a rather sad story, triumphs. He triumphs twice. First, when out of the chaotic mess of his useless knowledge, and for lack of a knife, he finds the only three words that have any effect on his adversary. And, second, when he decides to eat the cutlet–that is, to live.
Those whose sole victory is their voluntary departure from life triumph as well. The officer who perishes in the face of a superior opponent, who dies according to regulations, is a victor. I respect such people. All that same, what’s most important about this man are the stuffed toys. I’m convinced that sewing teddy bears and bunny rabbits all your life is much harder than slitting your own throat once. I’m convinced that on humanity’s scales of a child’s delight a new toy vastly outweighs any military victory.
This is a book about my childhood. Cruel and terrible though it was, it was still my childhood. It doesn’t take much for a child to retain his love for the world, to grow up and mature: a bit of lard, a salami sandwich, a handful of figs, a blue sky, a couple of books, a kind word. That’s enough. More than enough.
The heroes of this book are strong, very strong people. All too often a person has to be strong. And good. Not everyone can let himself be good, and not everyone can overcome universal misunderstanding. All too often, goodness is taken for weakness. That’s sad. It’s hard to be a human being, very hard, but altogether possible. And you don’t have to stand on your hind legs to do it. Not at all. I believe that.
Recommended reading.
6. The Vatnsdaela Saga (from the Viking Press collection of Icelandic Sagas… naturally).
When I read heavier literature — authors like Proudhon or Gaddis recently — I like to maintain some balance and also read something simpler (but still high quality). Thus, I continue to work my way through the Icelandic sagas. The Vatnsdaela Saga was fun (but not as fun as Egil’s saga) and I do like how simple prose and a sparsity of words can still communicate a vivid picture and a depth of character. Also, I think it’s funny that hella crazy/fierce/blood-thirsty vikings are scared of ol’ pussy cats.
7. The Bridge of Beyond by Simone Schwarz-Bart.
This is really quite a beautiful story about three generations of women in Guadeloupe. They experience hardship, loss and poverty but maintain (or learn to maintain) a strong sense of dignity, pride, beauty, and strength. It is short but the prose is excellent, as though Schwarz-Bart employs just the right words and finds no need to fill them out or linger with them. Recommended reading.
Eighth Letter
So, some folks I know are running an “Eight Letter” conference in Toronto at the start of next month. Taking the letters to the seven churches in John’s Apocalypse as the point of departure, they have extended an invitation and asked people to pen an “eighth letter” to the contemporary church in North America. Of course, certain high-status people — Shane Claiborne, Pete Rollins, etc. — were contacted as well and will end up dominating the presentations (because, hey, whose going to pay to attend a conference where a bunch of nobodies share their thoughts? However, if you take a few nobodies and then mix them up with a group of somebodies, then you’ll make a profit and look like you’re doing something radical… which will sell more tickets!).
I’ve been thinking about what an eighth letter might look like, and have resisted writing anything because it seems presumptuous to write to “the Church in North America” in the same way that Jesus is said to have dictated letters to the churches in Asia Minor.
Additionally, I find myself at a loss when it comes to recognizing “the Church” in North America. What is this Church? Is it all those who gather together — in part — because they confess Jesus as Lord and participate in the sacraments? How can this be the case when various factions exist within this Church, and many of those factions are excommunicating, damning, or refusing to be in fellowship with various other factions (or, as in the recent case of one parish in Vancouver, are actually taking each other to court in order to try and possess properties valued around $20,000,000)?
Is it simply those who gather together in a way that I think more truly reflects what it means to follow Jesus (“new monastic” communities and so forth)? Wouldn’t that simply be me engaging in a similar action of excommunication and refusal of fellowship? I refuse to think that I can determine what is or is not the proper form of Christianity. Sure, I have my own beliefs about Christianity, and I openly espouse them and argue them (in part, because I’m willing to be converted), but that doesn’t mean that I think those who believe different things are not members of the people of God.
Is it, instead, the “Church of the poor” whose members apocalypse the crucified body of Christ in our day and age? If that is the case, then who am I — a person neither poor nor crucified — to pen such a letter? Wouldn’t one want to be a member of this Church before presuming to write to it?
Or is it simply the sum total of individuals in our context who are living a life empowered by the Spirit of Jesus? But if that is the case, does it make sense to talk of a “church” — an assembly of people gathered together? Furthermore, how are members of this group even identifiable to us? We can’t know them with any certainty, and the result would be a letter written to a non-existent theoretical audience rather than a letter written to any concrete persons.
Finally, perhaps “the Church” is some combination of all of the above? Would it be better to address a letter “to all those in North America who believe they are members of the body of Christ, as well as all those Scripture identifies as members of the people of God”? However, how can a person hope to write a single letter addressing this massive, disparate body?
At the conference in Toronto, I expect people will simply assume that everybody knows who or what “the Church” is and then will use that to push agendas for which they have already been fighting. There is nothing particularly wrong with that — I expect people like Wendy will speak about sexuality because she believes that “the Church” in North America really does need to address this issue, people like Shane will speak about Empire because he believes that “the Church” really needs to respond to this, and so on and so forth. However, I’m at a complete loss as to what I would say because I don’t know where or what “the Church” in North America actually is.
A little help here?
9/11 (here we go again)
Torture: Obama's business in Bagram
One of the most powerful ways of perpetuating and strengthening any given ideology is to gain control over the calendar and the ways in which people mark the passage of time, remember past events, and celebrate sacred moments. Thus, for example, Christendom took over the sacred days of paganism and converted them to Christian festivals (Christmas, Easter, and so on). Then, in our own time, global capitalism has taken over the sacred days of Christianity and converted them into festivities of consumption and debt accumulation (and has done the same with most of the sacred days of the Nation State as well).
On any day that is marked as sacred — or designated as a moment to remember some past event — it is worth recalling that some things are being remembered, while other things are being forgotten. Certain factions always have a vested interest in shaping our memory in this way, and they also happen to have the influence to impose their narration of history onto us.
Take today. September 11th. 9/11. What momentous event occurred on this day?
Well, the truth is that more than one momentous event has occurred on this date over the course of history. On September 11, 1973, Pinochet’s coup overthrew the democratically elected Chilean government of Salvador Allende. During his subsequent years of rule, between 9,000-30,000 people were murdered or “disappeared”, tens of thousands more were tortured or imprisoned, and hundreds of thousands experienced “situations of extreme trauma.”
Given the massive heart-breaking loss triggered by the events of September 11, 1973, one might think that it would be worth marking every 9/11 with some sort of remembrance ceremony. However, this did not happen, nor will it be remembered in this way. Why? Because Pinochet’s coup was backed by the CIA, his reign was sustained by the American government, his torturers were trained by American officers, and his death-dealing economics (which crushed the people of his nation, in order to sell their resources to outside corporations) was directed by American economists (Milton Friedman personally communicated with Pinochet and encouraged him to stay true to free-market capitalism and not get distracted by the sufferings of the Chilean people).
Therefore, those with the power and resources to direct our public stories and our narrations of history — those who create the special days we mark on our calendars — have ensured that 9/11 remains a day when this event is erased from history. Instead of being a day of remembrance, it is a day of forgetting. Forget Allende. Forget Pinochet. Forget the destruction of democracy in Latin America. Forget the death-dealing ways in which America and the rest of the West have treated the rest of the world. Lord knows, the memory of those things might inspire some folks to fly planes into buildings (although, I should note, I believe they would be wrong to do so).
However, nine years ago, some people did fly planes into buildings and this is what we are commanded to remember today. This is a much better option — America, the innocent victim is born! Yet, rising above the ash, she is still willing to sacrifice of herself in order to graciously bring freedom and wisdom (McDonald’s and Coca-Cola) to the rest of the world. America, the long-suffering hero. America, our Dark Knight.
What is interesting, is that the year when all this went down is usually removed from the vocabulary. Thus, people refer to “September 11th” or “9/11” instead of referring to “September 11th, 2001” or “9/11/01”. In this way, the events of that day gain a sort of timelessness and enter into a process of eternal recurrence. The removal of the year, brings the events closer to us and it makes it feel as though those events just happened a moment ago. Not only does this heighten the emotional manipulation that spectacles of remembrance produce, it also conveniently helps us to forget everything that has happened since then. In this way, we remember the American who unjustly suffered and die. We remember the heroism of the NYFD.
What we don’t remember are the 97,767 to 106,703 civilians who have died violent deaths in Iraq since the Americans invaded. Nor do we remember the 14,000 to 35,000 civilians who have died thus far in Afghanistan (not to mention the untold numbers left wounded, disabled, childless, orphaned, or traumatized in both those nations). We also don’t remember that countless number of innocent people kidnapped and tortured by American soldiers since 9/11 — in Bush’s Abu Ghraib and Guatanamo, and in Obama’s “super-Guatanamo” prison at the airforce base in Bagram (the picture above is not take from Abu Ghraib under Bush, it is taken from Bagram under Obama).
What we don’t remember is that the American government has invested $1,078,552,000,000 (and counting) into these wars. This is tax-payers’ money, but we don’t remember how much these wars are contributing to the economic crisis in America, to budget cuts in everything from affordable housing, publicly-funded school systems, roads, street lighting and social services. What we don’t remember is that the Bush administration lied to start these wars and the Obama administration has lied about ending them.
So, today we will be reminded to “never forget” the events that happened nine years ago. However, the command to remember certain events in certain ways, to the exclusion of all else, is actually a very powerful way of producing mass forgetfulness.
8. What Would You Do?
Continuing this sporadic blog experiment:
The other night, I got off work a little after midnight and was walking home from the transit station. I was about to cut into an alleyway (alleyways are always so much more interesting to walk than streets), when I noticed a small woman and a large man shouting at each other about a block away from me (I think they were both somewhat drunk). I decided to skip the alley, and as I got closer I heard the woman yell:
I don’t want to take you fucking home with me! Not now, you’re fucking crazy!
The man was speaking and posturing aggressively (did I mention that he was quite large? tall and broad-shouldered). I also noticed that the woman had her cell phone in her hand. Nobody else was around and no traffic was going by.
So, what would you do if you were me, and found yourself in that situation? Don’t default to what you think the “right” thing to do would be, and don’t bother with what you would want to do, what do you think you would actually do?
August Books
Well, due to some weeks of disrupted sleep, I was able to finish off a number of books that I’ve had on the go for awhile. I’ve also posted my reflection on Russel Hoban’s Kleinzeit over at AUFS, for those who might be interested in something a little different (although what I’m doing in that post probably won’t make a ton of sense to anybody who hasn’t first read the book).
1. Paul Unbound: Other Perspectives on the Apostle edited by Mark D. Given.
This book is a good introduction to a number of hot topics in contemporary Pauline scholarship, granting snapshots into such subjects as Paul’s relationship to political, economic, Jewish, gender, rhetorical and other issues. F or a person new to these conversations, this would be a really good resource. For those already up to speed on the issues, there isn’t going to be much that is new here. For myself, I found Warren Carter’s overview of counter-imperial readings of Paul to be a surprising disappointment, but I found Stephen Friesen’s analysis of the economic location of the members of the early assemblies of Jesus to be particularly good.
2. Unveiling Empire: Reading Revelation Then and Now by Wes Howard-Brook and Anthony Gwyther.
It is rare to find authors who are a combination of (a) genuine biblical scholars, who (b) explicitly connect their scholarship to exegeting our contemporary context and who then (c) actually get involved in living out those convictions “on the ground”. Howard-Brook and Gwyther combine all these elements. They engage John’s Apocalypse with an obvious awareness of the scholarly material around it, and they engage in this reading from within communities that are seeking to live as faithful followers of Jesus (“intentional Christian communities” of the New Monastic variety… although they precede New Monasticism… which was never really “new”… but I digress). However, their greatest strength is their willingness to apply the same level of sustained exegesis to our contemporary context as they do to the biblical text. Sadly, biblical scholar almost universally fail on this point. Such scholars tend to think that they already know our contemporary context (perhaps because they are a part of it?) and so their points of application tend to be obvious, superficial, misleading, or boring (perhaps this is also because said scholars don’t often belong to communities that facilitate such readings of our present moment). Therefore, because of their combination of these three elements, Howard-Brook and Gwyther have produced a highly recommended text — one that reads John’s Apocalypse in light of both the past Empire of Rome and the present Empire of global capitalism.
3. Res Gestae Divi Augusti: The Achievements of the Divine Augustus edited by P. A. Brunt and J. M. Moore.
The Res Gestae is a text composed by Augustus Caesar and circulated widely throughout the Roman Empire after his death. In it, Augustus records his great acts and achievements and demonstrates why (in his opinion) he was deserving of the praise, titles, and authority given to him. Hence, for the contemporary reader it is a great little glimpse into imperial Roman ideology and into the practice of patronage (and the ways in which charity — then as now — was actually a key element of maintaining and strengthening the gap between those with more and those with less). It’s a short text but, for me, an important one as I continue to learn about the context in which Paul lived.
4. Church Dogmatics III.1: The Doctrine of Creation by Karl Barth.
Man, this book was a rough go. It started off well (with a section exploring the relationship between revelation and history) and ended well (with a section on creation as benefit and as justification) but most of it was a theological reading of Genesis 1 & 2, which I found to be very boring. Half a dozen years ago I became interested in the primordial history related in Gen 1-11 and I read a bunch of the big names on that subject (Wenham, Brueggemann, etc.). Since then I haven’t really come across anything interesting written about the creation narrative (including the material in Goldingay’s OT theology series, which I started into a few months ago). I feel like I’ve pretty much gotten what I’m going to get out of that section of the bible, and reading several hundred pages from Barth on the subject only confirmed me in this way of thinking.
However, I’m glad that I continue to pursue my goal of reading one volume of the Barth’s dogmatics per year until I finish. It’s nice not to be rushing to finish off in December.
5. The Guermantes Way (In Search of Lost Time, Vol 3) by Marcel Proust.
Well, I’m now halfway through In Search of Lost Time, and still very much enjoying it. I find that Proust’s form of prose is hypnotic. Walter Benjamin really sums things up quite well: “There has never been anyone else with Proust’s ability to show us things; Proust’s pointing finger is unequaled.” Here are a few choice passages:
a person does not, as I had imagined, stand motionless and clear before our eyes with his merits, his defects, his plans, his intentions with regard to ourselves (like a garden at which we gaze through a railing with all its borders spread out before us), but is a shadow which we can never penetrate, of which there can be no such thing as direct knowledge, with respect to which we form countless beliefs, based upon words and sometimes actions, neither of which can give us anything but inadequate and as it proves contradictory information–a shadow behind which we can alternately imagine, with equal justification, that there burns the flame of hatred and of love.
~
I realised then how much a human imagination can put behind a little scrap of a face, as this woman’s was, if it is the imagination that has come to know it first; and conversely into what wretched elements, crudely material and utterly valueless, something that had been the inspiration of countless dreams might be decomposed if, on the contrary, it had been perceived in the opposite manner, by the most casual and trivial acquaintance. I saw that what had appeared to me to be not worth twenty francs when it had been offered to me for twenty francs in the brothel, where it was then for me simply a woman desirous of earning twenty francs, might be worth more than a million, more than family affection, more than all that most coveted positions in life, if one had begun by imagining her as a mysterious being, interesting to know, difficult to seize and to hold.
~
Being a great lady means playing the great lady, that is to say, to a certain extent, playing at simplicity. It is a pastime which costs a great deal of money, all the more because simplicity charms people only on condition that they know that you are capable of not living simply, that is to say that you are very rich.
~
What troubled me now was the discovery that almost every house sheltered some unhappy person. In one the wife was always in tears because her husband was unfaithful to her. In the next it was the other way about. In another a hard-working mother, beaten black and blue by a drunkard son, tried to conceal her sufferings from the eyes of the neighbours. Quite half the human race was in tears. And when I came to know it I saw that it was so exasperating that I wondered whether it might not be the adulterous husband and wife (who were unfaithful only because their lawful happiness had been denied them, and showed themselves charming and loyal to everyone but their respective spouses) who were in the right.
~
Perhaps that will whet the appetite of some.
6. The Orchard Keeper by Cormac McCarthy.
This is the first novel McCarthy published and, well, you can tell. Although it does have its moments, it’s not as polished as his later writings. McCarthy has a way of writing — one that leaves it up to the discerning reader to figure out who is speaking, or what event is being referred to, or where each event falls within a sequence of events — that he usually employs quite skillfully so that one does not feel that figuring things out is a chore or a bore (as with other writers who favour a ‘stream of consciousness’ approach). Unfortunately, The Orchard Keeper does not quite yet capture McCarthy’s gift in this regard and the novel — a story of a bootlegger, a poor child, and an old man who all live in the mountains — suffers because of that. Now, don’t get me wrong, everything McCarthy writes is pretty incredible… this just isn’t his best.
7. Super Sad True Love Story by Gary Shteyngart.
Well, this book was generating a lot of buzz in certain literary circles and so I thought I would check it out, since I rarely read newly published novels. I was disappointed (I’m so often puzzled by what passes for ‘good literature’… but then I have similar feelings about a lot of ‘good art’ or ‘good music’… my tastes are weird). I found that the dominant themes (fear of death, the transformation of humanity by technology, American militarism, shifts in global power) were explored in a pretty uncreative manner. Further, while the teenage sexually-charged slang used by some characters may strike some readers as creative (I’m trying to imagine what might make this book work for others), this is probably only a conclusion drawn by those who are removed from contemporary teen cultures. Despite the hype, I don’t think I’ll be bothering with Shteyngart’s other works.
The War in Iraq ended… kinda… sorta… who cares?
[T]he American combat mission in Iraq has ended. Operation Iraqi Freedom is over and the Iraqi people now have lead responsibility for the security of their country…
Our combat mission in ending but our commitment to Iraq’s future is not. Going forward, a transitional force of U.S. troops will remain…
We have met our responsibilities. Now it’s time to turn the page. As we do so, I’m mindful that the Iraqi war has been a contentious issue at home. Here too, it’s time to turn the page.
~Barack Obama in a speech delivered August 31, 2010.
This war [in Iraq] was unwise, which is why I opposed it… that is why I will bring it to an end… I will bring this war to an end.
~Barack Obama in a speech delivered March 7, 2008.
Yesterday evening, Barack Obama and the American government formally ended Operation Iraqi Freedom and have claimed that Obama faithfully followed through on his campaign pledge to end the war in Iraq. You might have missed this — it didn’t attract a lot of media attention and it was presented in a fairly low-key manner (compare both points to the attention and production work that went into George Bush’s “Mission Accomplished” speech delivered May 1, 2003, and you’ll see what I’m talking about). However, as far as I can tell, this lack of attention an interest is fine with Obama. It’s all a part of putting these things behind us and looking ahead to the future.
This forgetting and moving on is important because we might remember that the Iraq war is nowhere near to be over. This is why Obama is careful to never declare an end to the war. Instead, he repeatedly states that the “combat mission” is over, “combat brigades” have been removed and Operation Iraqi Freedom is now ended. What he did not say is that Operation New Dawn has now started and that 50,000 of the troops still in Iraq have simply been reclassified — instead of being called “combat troops” that are now called “advise-and-assist brigades” (clever, right?). Thus, although Obama wants us to “turn the page” on American combat in Iraq, the truth is that nothing is really being changed — as he also stated: “violence will not end with [the end of] our combat mission” (of course, he was referring to the violence of foreign “extremists” and “terrorists” but the statement applies just as much to what we can expect from Operation New Dawn).
This is also why Obama reframed his campaign pledges in his speech last night. When campaigning for the presidency he spoke of “ending the war,” but as president he speaks of “ending combat missions” and claims that this is a fulfillment of his original commitment. Thus, he studiously avoids making any sort of “the war is over, mission accomplished” statement. The one and only time he uses that sort of language in the speech last night is in an open-ended statement: “Ending this war is not only in Iraq’s interest–it’s in our own”. Here, Obama is actually making it known that the war is still happening, despite the alleged fulfillment of his promises.
However, what I find interesting about all this is the observation that no one really seems to give a shit about this anyway. Unlike the outcry that came in response to Bush’s “Mission Accomplished,” there is no rush to explore if what Obama is saying is true or to test him in the same way Bush was tested (same applies to Obama’s equally false declaration of the end of the oil spill crisis in the Gulf this year, especially when compared to how reporting on Katrina impacted the Bush administration).* As far as I can tell, this lack of interest could be motivated by a few things. First, there’s a good chance that most people don’t really care about the war in Iraq in any sort of meaningful way. Second, there’s the possibility that nobody actually believes what Obama is saying (including Obama himself). Instead, everybody has resigned themselves to the belief that the war will continue endlessly, regardless of what anybody says. Third, there’s also the chance that people are now so confused by the ever-changing rhetoric employed over the last ten years that they don’t know if they are or are not “at war,” let alone knowing what being “at war” does and does not mean.
Regardless, members of all three of these possible parties are likely more than happy to obey Obama and turn the page and, while doing so, carefully rewrite that which came before.
__________
*Lest this makes me sound like a Bush sympathizer, I should clarify that I am not. I just think Obama and Bush are two sides of the same coin.
Jimmy and Charlie
Last week I got out of work a little after midnight and was heading to the SkyTrain station when something caught my eye. I was coming out of an alley when I noticed a teenager ringing the buzzers of a building across the street and then running away. The fellow wasn’t very well dressed — red shorts and a red Wendy’s t-shirt — and I thought maybe he was high and fucking around. This would not be an irrational conclusion given that my work borders on the “poorest postal code in Canada” (Vancouver’s downtown eastside).
I didn’t look to closely at the young man but I did realize that we were going to cross paths. When we did so, he was running to try and catch a bus up the street from us and I immediately noticed two things: first, he was barefoot and limping; second, I realized that he had Down Syndrome.
This immediately changed the way in which I was viewing things, “what was a handicapped kid doing running around the downtown eastside with no shoes on after midnight?”
The kid ended up missing the bus and I asked him if he needed help. He said, yes, he was lost and was trying to get back home. One of his feet was sore and, after he showed it to me, I saw that it was bleeding (it looked like he had stepped on broken glass?). I was able to call 911 with him and we waited and chatted together until the emergency help arrived in order to take him home.
I’m not sure how this fellow ended up downtown or what he had with him when he arrived. I hate to think it, but there’s a good chance that somebody stole his shoes from him. I hope he didn’t have a wallet, because all he had when I talked to him were his shorts, his Wendy’s t-shirt and an expired bus ticket that he was hoping to use.
There were other people on the street, but nobody stopped to help him. I wonder how long he was running around looking for help. I think that’s why he was ringing the buzzers on the building across the street from me when I first saw him. He was trying to get help.
This sort of thing drives me mental. Living in a world where nobody stops to assist the handicapped sixteen year old who got lost in a sketchy neighbourhood after midnight. Fuck me. Would anybody stop and help if my boy was lost and alone at night? Or would it only be the vultures and the jackals who stopped to talk with him and see what they could get from him?
I had a number of reasons for stopping to help this fellow find his way home. For me, it was a given. It’s what it means to be human. However, for me it was also a part of my refusal to accept the world as it is. I want to be a part of making the world into a place where people do things like help lost children find their way again.
Even more than that, I want to give that change in the world as a gift to my son. As I’ve said before, I’ve thrown Charlie into a pretty fucked up place. If I love him, if I want the best for him, then I’ve got to do what I can to make this place a little less fucked up, in whatever way I can.
This is what people fail to appreciate when they accuse me of making “causes” or “ideals” more important than my little man. What they don’t understand is that my commitment to my “causes” and my commitment to my son are one and the same thing. Thus, to pick just one of many possible examples, I want there to be affordable housing, not only so that all people can have a safe place to live, but also so that my son can live in the sort of world where everybody has a home. Further, by pursuing this goal in some possibly less orthodox ways, I want to show my son another lesson we desperately need to learn. That lesson is this: if we are willing to take risks and pay a price, we can create change in our world. We can make the world a better place. This, I think, is amongst the greatest gifts a father could give to his child.
July Books
Well, managed to finish off a few… not the ones I expected to finish (damn you, Barth!) but still a couple of good reads.
1. Galatians Re-Imagined: Reading with the Eyes of the Vanquished by Brigitte Kahl.
This is an exceptional book. Over the last half dozen years, I have spent an ever increasing amount of time following the discussion that has revolved around counter-imperial readings of Paul’s life and letters. This recent contribution from Brigitte Kahl (published by Fortress Press in the excellent “Paul in Critical Contexts” series) is amongst the very best. There are several things that make this an important work.
First, Kahl’s focus upon the letter to the Galatians is exciting because this letter tends to receive much less attention from those invested in counter-imperial readings of Paul and much more attention from those who are apathetic about or critical of those same readings (Justin K. Hardin’s important work on Galatians and the imperial cult is a significant exception here). Thus, through her rigourous contextualization of Galatians, Kahl amply demonstrates how fully this epistle fits into the broader counter-imperial project of Paul (and some of his interpreters).
Second, Kahl engages in the necessary exegetical work required to sustain assertions that have been made by others regarding the central issue of Paul and the law. Before her, scholars like Neil Elliott had tentatively asserted that Paul’s assault on the law was an attack against the Roman law (and not the Jewish law). Similarly, Theodore Jennings had made this argument about Paul and the law in general while reading Paul in relation to Derrida. However, Elliott never really backed up his claims, and Jennings wrote in a way that may convince philosophers but was likely to leave biblical scholars, or the wider Christian audience, saying “prove it [based on the texts]!” Well, this is precisely what Kahl does. Better than any other, Kahl demonstrates the total opposition of Paul’s gospel to the law and order of Rome.
But, really, this is just the tip of the iceberg. This book is exciting and full of insight about the context of the Galatians, the ideology of Rome, and the (embodied) theology of Paul. If you read one book about Paul this year, read this one.
For another glowing review, published in the Review of Biblical Literature, see here.
2. Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Márquez.
I loved everything about this book except the beginning and the end. The beginning was very well written, and drew me into the story but it creates a plot thread that is never resolved. It’s almost as if Márquez began by writing about one character, got interested in the others and forgot about the first. But this is more of a minor quibble. The same goes for my thoughts on the ending. I thought it was too happy of an ending and didn’t do justice to the wonderful path Márquez explored between joy and sorrow, love and loss, life and death, throughout the rest of the book.
That said, Márquez writes like a poet (and like one of the very few poets whom I enjoy reading). He does a fine job of speaking about love in a way that captures its beauty and glory, without losing track of the realities of daily life and the multitude of disappointments we experience (in relation to ourselves and our lovers). Recommended reading.
3. Kleinzeit by Russel Hoban.
I am writing a lengthier post responding to this book as a part of a discussion group over at AUFS so if anybody is interested in my thoughts, you can follow the discussion there. In short: a decent enough book, but written in a style I struggle to appreciate. Probably a lot more fun to write than to read.
4. John Dies at the End by David Wong.
Still searching for something well-written within the horror genre, I noticed that John Dies at the End was billed as a mixture of Douglas Adams and Stephen King. It was also said to be a genuinely scary book. Oh, and I liked the title… thought it had potential and all that.
Unfortunately, while it is comparable to King (who has a good imagination but writes very poorly), it did not remind me of anything close to what Douglas Adams wrote (specifically, the “trilogy in five parts” which I enjoyed quite a bit back in the day). Furthermore, the book wasn’t scary. Actually, I’m beginning to wonder if horror novels can ever be scary, after a person has been exposed to horror films. Some writing, like this article on Monsanto, can be very scary but that’s a different sort of scary than the effect that horror is supposed to create. Oh, and the title is a damn lie. Sorry to spoil things, folks, but John does not die at the end. Wong decides that he wants to make a sequel/brand/series/more money out of this venture, so John is very much alive and well at the end of this book.
Anyway, I think I’m going to give up on this genre for now. Maybe I’ll try to flirt with it again at some point down the road, but for now I’ve got some other titles calling my name.