September Books

Surprisingly, given how busy everything has been, September was still a decent month for reading. There are some really good books on this list (in my opinion, anyway!).
1. Rituals and Power: The Roman imperial cult in Asia Minor by S. R. F. Price.
In any political or ’empire-critical’ reading of Paul there are two books that always get mentioned — The Power of Images in the Age of Augustus by Paul Zanker (which I am currently reading) and Rituals and Power by Simon Price.
Upon completing Price’s book it is easy to see why it is so widely referenced and why it created a paradigm shift within studies of the Roman Empire (this is apparent in the reviews offered on the back of the book… I’ve never seen such glowing reviews, wherein scholars confess to having their own minds changed because of the authors arguments).  What Price does is demonstrate the ubiquity and importance of the Roman imperial cult within Asia Minor, thereby making it impossible for modern readers to treat this aspect of Graeco-Roman society as some sort of tangential aside.
Price’s central thesis is that the Roman imperial cult became the means by which cities in Asia Minor where able to accept subjection to an authority external to the traditional structures of the city (hence, the Roman ruler is slotted within the framework of traditional cults of the gods). Thus, we see the imperial cult as a nexus of religion, politics, and power. We also see an important give-and-take dynamic occurring between ‘Greek’ populations, and the Roman rulers, wherein the cult is often initiated and developed by the Greek cities, and only then controlled and routinized by the Roman rulers.
Of course, there is far more detail in Price’s richly rewarding study (of everything from Hellenistic cities, imperial festivals, architecture, images, and rituals) and I would strongly recommend this book to any reader of Paul’s letters. After reading this book, there can be no doubt that the imperial cult was a fundamental aspect of the society in which Paul lived and wrote his letters and must be factored into our readings of him.
2. Philippians: From People to Letter by Peter Oakes.
Thankfully, Peter Oakes is one of those who takes the imperial cult, and the Graeco-Roman context of Philippi, very seriously in his study of Paul’s epistle to the Philippians. As the subtitle implies, Oakes first builds a model of what Philippi might have looked like in Paul’s day, and then he builds on this to try and build a model of what the church in Philippi might have looked like. This then leads to a rewarding and exciting reading of Philippians focused upon a call for unity under economic suffering.
After spending some time tracing the development of Philippi as a city and then as a Roman colony, Oakes argues the composition of the population roughly breaks down in this way:

  1. Service Sector (artisans, bakers, fire wood collectors, and others working at a subsistence level): 37%
  2. Slaves: 20%
  3. Colonist Farmers: 20% (who, being second or third generation by the time of Paul’s writing, wouldn’t necessarily be amongst the elite, although some of them would have been living a little above the subsistence level)
  4. Poor (those living below the subsistence level): 20%
  5. Elite: 3%.

This then breaks down into a population that is 40% Roman and 60% Greek.
From this model, Oakes argues (rather convincingly) that the church of Philippi would then be composed of the following members:

  1. Service: 43%
  2. Slaves: 16%
  3. Colonist Farmers: 15%
  4. Poor: 25%
  5. Elite: 1% (Oakes notes that there is no indication of any elite members at Philippibut he does not want to exclude the possibility of them altogether).

Thus, the church would be 36% Roman and 64% Greek.
From here, Oakes lays out four key elements of life at Philippi: the centrality of agriculture, the relatively modest size of the city, the ethnic and social profile of the city and, most importantly, the ’emphatic Roman domination’ of the colony. This was a colony wherein the Romans owned almost all of the land, monopolising the wealth and the status, while the Greeks were economically dependent on the Romans.
From this model, Oakes then turns to Paul’s letter to the Philippians and argues that it is structured around the themes of suffering and unity. Oakes thesis is that conversion to Christ has caused the Philippians to suffer economically and, given that the largest segment of the church was probably living at the subsistence level, any economic loss would be devastating. However, for the less vulnerable in the congregation, association with Christians, and with Christ, seems to be resulting in a loss of honour… which could rapidly develop into economic loss as well. Therefore, this economic suffering results in a call for increased unity: ‘what the Christians would need to do in order to survive is to enter into a new set of economic and other relationships among themselves’. This would require ‘substantial’ economic rearrangement, which would carry additional risks for the wealthier, more established, parties involved.
Consequently, Paul offers himself as a model to the Philippians, in his surrender of privilege, his willingness to suffer for the sake of the gospel, and his concern for others. Thus, the model Paul offers of himself would probably encourage the lower members of the congregation, and disturb the more well established members.
Of course, Paul’s model of himself is a mirror of the model of Christ offered in Phil 2.5-11.  However, to properly understand this passage Oakes argues that we must first understand the relationship between Christ and the Emperor. Noting the political overtones of language related to ‘citizenship’, ‘salvation’, and power, as well as the political idea of the ruler providing an ethical model to imitate, Oakes argues that the Philippian audience would naturally think of imperial messages when listening to the recitation of this passage. This is strengthened by several other connections: that (a) Christ (like the emperor) is given universal authority; (b) that authority is granted; (c) that authority is granted by a competent body; (d) that authority is granted for a reason; (e) that authority is granted for the same reasons that the emperor was granted authority (demonstrated victories, intimate connections with the rulers or the gods, universal agreement, and moral qualities such as a demonstrated concern for others and a lack of self-interest); (f) universal submission connected to the saving of the world; (g) the granting of high names; (f) the application of the title ‘Lord’; (g) and the role of the leader to define the ethics embodied by the people.
Thus, Paul responds to the issue of suffering and unity in Philippiby offering Christ as a paradigmatic example, over against other examples (like the emperor and the standards he upheld). That is to say, by moving from being like God to being like a slave, Christ went from one extreme of status to another — and so the Philippians should be willing to following in his footsteps out of their concern for each other. In particular, those of higher status, must be willing to provide economic assistance to those of lower status, even if this results in a loss of status. For this, the Philippians will be rewarded because their leader has already been victorious (and so, just as parties aligned with victorious emperors or generals would share in the gains of those victors, so also the Christians are promised a share in the gains of Christ). Thus, Oakes writes:

On both these issues [suffering and unity] the key practical point is likely to be that the Christian has grown up thinking that following society’s imperatives is the right thiing to do and the safe thing to do. Although they will be keen to follow Paul’s calls, the pressure of these social imperatives will be very great. For Paul to present Christ as the one who outdoes the lord of the political and social sphere seems a very appropriate rhetorical strategy…
If Christ has replaced the Emperor as the world’s decisive power then we are no longer in the established Graeco-Roman social world. Instead of a world under the high-status man, whose Roman Empire has commanded the hardening of an already stratified Mediterranean society into stone, the world is under a new lord whose command is [to imitate him] and who enjoins [self-lowering and loss of status]. The lord even exemplifies these things. The whole basis of Graeco-Roman society is done away with.

Furthermore, the result of this is a new confidence, and a new understanding of status, which ‘de-marginalises’ the Christian community.
Thus, I think that Oakes successfully defends his thesis. This is an exceptional book, and I would highly recommend it.
3. In the Steps of Paul: An Illustrated Guide to the Apostle’s Life and Journeys by Peter Walker (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2008).
A big thanks to Chris Fann from Zondervan for this review copy!
For a long time, I was fairly blind to the importance of visuals for our understanding of Paul. I used to think that books like this one — full of photos — or tours of the cities Paul visited were a bit over the top, reflecting our cultural shift from the word to the image, from the intellect to the experience, and so on.
However, the more I am convinced of the importance of visual elements within Graeco-Roman society (after all, most of the population wasn’t literate!) the more interested I have become in exploring those visual elements (city layouts, architecture, sculptures, coins, inscriptions, and so on). The more one tries to understand a person like Paul, the more important it becomes to immerse oneself, as much as possible, into all areas of Paul’s life. Really, it was a basic act of snobbery to think that books with pictures are for first year students (or non-professionals), whereas books full of text (say even Greek text! Ooooo!) were for the more advanced. Good grief, sometimes I really am embarrassed by myself.
Therefore, I was delighted to receive a review copy of In the Steps of Paul by Peter Walker. Although I may take issue with Walker’s dependence upon Acts, and some of the ways in which Walker presents Paul and his theology, this is a beautiful reference book full of historical and geographical details. The book is structured to follow Paul’s travels chronologically from city to city (although Paul visited some places more than once, so there are some inevitable breaks in this chronology). Each chapter begins by telling the story of Paul within that location, goes on to provide a list of key dates and events related to that location (extending both before and after Paul), and then concludes with a section describing the location as a visitor might encounter it today (a handy guide for those who might actually travel to these places). Personally, I am most grateful for the tables with key dates and events for each city (and for the Roman Empire as a whole) as I was thinking I needed to develop something like that for my own research… so this has saved me a lot of time. I was also grateful for the maps provided for each city (because, you know, city plans are often an important ideological tool). Oh, and the photos are beautiful. All in all, an enjoyable book.
4. Subverting Global Myths: Theology and the Public Issues Shaping our World by Vinoth Ramachandra.
This book has received a lot of high recommendations — both from the international array of scholars represented on the back of the book, and from other bloggers I respect (like Halden and Christian). So, despite my far too long list of ‘books to read’, I decided to bite the bullet and jump into this book.  As the reader might guess, based upon my recent references to Ramachandra, I am very glad that I did so. Subverting Global Myths is impressive in both its readability and its erudition.  It certainly made me want to read Ramachandra’s earlier book, Gods That Fail.
Within Subverting Global Myths, Ramachandra explores six areas of public discourse today — terrorism, religious violence, human rights, multiculturalism, science and postcolonialism (the chapter on myths of postcolonialism alone is worth the price of the book) — and offers a profoundly historically-informed perspective.  For, as Ramachandra reminds the reader, without that historical perspective, we cannot properly understand these things.  Unfortunately, the dominant ethos of contemporary capitalism is profoundly anti-historical, so it is no wonder that so much of what Ramachandra writes might strike the reader as something new.  Thus, for example, those lacking this historical perspective will find themselves shocked by what Ramachandra has to say about events in Afghanistan, whereas those who have been reading the writings of our more historically-informed Marxist or anarchist friends, will find themselves nodding along (the chapter on Afghanistan, and myths of terrorism, reads like a chapter out of something by Chomsky… which is a good thing as far as I’m concerned and, who knows, may even give Chomsky some more credibility in Christian circles).  Consequently, it is no wonder that Ramachandra describes his book as ‘an invitation to journey with the author in heretical subversion of the present reality in order to make way for another.’
What I found especially enjoyable about Ramachandra’s book (apart from the historical perspective already mentioned) is the way in which he doesn’t really appear to have any allegiances to any particular party-lines or movements.  Rather, although he is aware of much that has been written by these various parties (in politics, cultural theory, and theology), he comes across as a thoughtful and sincere person, trying to think and live Christianly within the contemporary global context.  Ramachandrareally doesn’t seem like he his grinding any particular axes in his writing.  Consequently, he is both a refreshing read and a challenge to all others who have drawn their own lines in the sand and have been working on building up the barricades (I might include myself in that group).
5. Jesus for President: Politics for Ordinary Radicals by Shane Claiborne & Chris Haw (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2008).
A big thanks to Chris Fann from Zondervan for this review copy!
This book surprised me.  After The Irresistible Revolution, and given the subtitle of this book, I was expecting a book that mapped out some of the concrete details of the community living practiced by Claiborne and Haw.  I was expecting a more detailed follow-up to some of the things Claiborne mapped out in his previous book.
Instead, what we have in the first two-thirds of Jesus for President is a political and empire-critical reading of the biblical narrative and the experiences of the early Church, with only the final third devoted to an eclectic account of what some ‘ordinary radicals’ are doing in the world today.
Now, there is nothing wrong with this kind of project… I was a little disappointed but that’s only because I came to the book with the wrong expectations.  I was expecting something of a sequel to The Irresistible Revolution and instead I got the prequel — a project focused on ‘renewing the imagination’ instead of a project focused on the details of action.
Of course, I suspect that this sort of prequel is necessary for a good many people.  Many (or most?) North American Christians haven’t ever read or considered Scripture from a perspective that is critical of Empires — many have never read the likes of Walter Brueggemann, Daniel Smith-Christopher, John Crossan, Ched Myers, Warren Carter, Walter Wink, Klaus Wengst, Brian Walsh, and a host of others who have written on this theme — so this sort of introduction to this perspective can be invaluable.  Besides, even for those (like myself) who are familiar with these authors, it is always worthwhile to read a review of the biblical narrative from this perspective (after all, paradigm shifts occur from repeated readings, not just from a first read).
What one gains from this overview of the biblical narrative is a clear and consistent call to a form of Christian politics that sees the Church as an alternative community (think polis), modeling new creation realities to the world in which she finds herself.  Thus, ‘the greatest sin of political imagination’ is ‘thinking there is no other way except the filthy rotten system we have today.’  Again:

A curious politics is emerging here: the early Christians weren’t trying to overthrow or even reform the empire, but they also weren’t going along with it.  They were not reformists offering the world a better Rome.  They offered the dissatisfied masses not a better government but another world altogether.

And, just to be clear on what the authors are saying, this ‘other world’ is not the ‘pie in the sky’ of heaven, but ‘another world’ here and now.
As for as my own interests, I found the last section, although a little disjointed and not entirely helpful (for transitioning the reader from where she is to where she is wanting to go) to be the most interested.  It is in this section that we find a series of ‘snapshots of stories, reflections, and practical expressions of the peculiar politics of Jesus today.’  It is here we read about Christians exploring alternative and clean forms of energy and housing, about Christians who grow their own food and make their own clothes, about Christians living in community with the poor, the sick, the elderly, and the imprisoned, about Christian acts of nonviolence and peacemaking, about Christians sharing economically with one another (check out Christians who help pay for health care, or the notion of the relational title), and so on.  Thus, this section ends with a call to newness in all elements of our life together: we need new celebrations, new language, new rituals, new heroes, new songs, new liturgy, new eyes, and new holidays.
The book itself concludes with a series of appendices illustrating some of these things and also dealing with some problem areas (available on the book’s website).
However, as I stated with my hopes for this book, and implied above, I also found this section a little disappointing.  While it may inspire the imaginations of some readers, it also provides those readers with little assistance in making these transitions in their own lives.  Thus, we may have a bunch of people who love this book, and who feel inspired by it, but who do not know how to proceed and develop in these directions.  The results of this could either be a bunch of pseudo-radicals (i.e. those who feel radical because they read the book… even though nothing changed in their own lives) or a bunch of guilt-ridden well-intentioned Christians (who want to change but don’t know how).
My hope, then, is that those like Claiborne and Haw, or other representatives of the ‘new monasticism’, will go on from here to write a much more practical action-oriented book, mapping out how they themselves made this transition, what lessons they learned along the way, and so on and so forth.
6 & 7. The Becoming of G-d by Ian Mobsby (already reviewed here) and The emerging Church by Bruce Sanguin (already reviewed here).

The Inescapable Subjectivity of Hermeneutics. Part 1: Posing the Problem

In any serious study of the biblical texts, one inevitably comes across many different and even contradictory positions both on (a) what the texts actually say; and (b) what we are to do with those texts.  Pick any number of biblical passages — even passages that many of us assume are obvious or straight-forward — and it is possible to find a great host of very intelligent, well-intentioned people in complete disagreement about what is said and what it might mean (for us today).
Upon first recognising this dilemma, a common reaction is to turn to questions of methodology.  Yet, what one finds is that there are a good many ways of reading Scripture — utilising everything from lectio divina, literary, and canonical approaches, to studies of rhetoric, of redaction, of social sciences, of theology, of narrative, of tradition, of linguistics, and so on — and there is no clarity on which methods to combine with which other methods, or which approaches to privilege above others.  Furthermore, although one may be tempted to try to master all of these approaches (and treat them all equally), one will quickly find that there is so much research to study and so much fruit to be found, in each approach, that one must inevitable choose to focus more in one area, and less in another.
Yet there is no clear or universally compelling criteria for selecting an hermeneutical methodology (if there were, one would not be confronted with this dilemma).  Consequently, no matter how internally consistent and logical any hermeneutical method might be, once one enters into it, one must still make the uncomfortably subjective choice to enter into that method and privilege it.  Thus, those who privilege rhetorical criticism find arguments based upon lexical studies to be compelling, but those who privilege a reading based upon the history of the Christian tradition might find such arguments to be less compelling, and those who privilege a reading in the style of the lectio divina might think such studies are entirely worthless.
Of course, most people will accept some arguments and reject other arguments from each of the methods represented and (despite each person’s protestations to the contrary) this is also a fairly subjective endeavour.  What might appear to be a logical process of selection to one person, will look illogical to another.
Now some might want to suggest that the dilemma I am mapping out is related to the ‘rampant individualism’ of our Western culture.  This, they might say, is what happens when individuals prioritise their own thoughts above the authority of the magisterium or the authority of the Church, or the authority of the early ecumenical councils, or the authority of the Reformers, or the authority of the Church Mothers and Fathers, or the authority of tradition, or… do you see where I am going with this?  Those who raise this sort of objection have made the equally subjective decision to prioritise one (or some combination) of these things as an authoritative guide to hermeneutics.  So, this dilemma is not so easily brushed aside; it is  one that confronts all of us.
Furthermore, this dilemma isn’t subsumed or brushed aside by the (increasingly) standard hermeneutical resolution of the poles of objectivity and subjectivity within ‘critical realism’ (or some derivative thereof).  While this is an handy general approach to recognising both our own internal subjectivity and an historical reality external to us (which we can know, at least, in part) it doesn’t, itself, map out how we gain access to historical knowledge or to what is said and meant by any given text.  ‘Critical realism’ provides those who accept it with some comfort that something can be known about that which we believe exists outside of ourselves, but it doesn’t tell us much about how that something can be known.
If this isn’t bad enough, we are also confronted with the observation that none of us comes to hermeneutics as a blank slate.  We are all inescapably shaped and molded by the people around us, and by the environment into which we are born.  Of course, we are usually blind to the extent of these influences — we tend to think that we are simply following ‘common sense’ and thereby forget that this form of ‘sense’ is only common to certain people in certain places at certain times.
The result of this is that any of our attempts to determine what a text says, and means, is never as objective or logical as we think it is, or want it to be.  More often then not, it is these cultural influences which determine which readings we prioritise, which methods we prefer, and which examples of other methods we accept or reject.
We are, therefore, confronted with the inescapable subjectivity of hermeneutics, and of all of our efforts to read, understand, and apply Scripture.  The question, then, is where we go from here.  Once we accept this, how do we go about determining what Scripture says, and what it means (for us today)?

The 'Emerging Church': Listening on the Conversation (2 of 2)

Having completed the review of Mobsby, I will now review and reflect upon The emerging Church by Bruce Sanguin.  I will then conclude with some comments upon the ’emerging church’ movement more broadly.
Review of Sanguin
Sanguin’s book has a different objective than Mobsby’s.  While Mobsby was primarily interested in applying a form of social trinitarianism to Christian living, Sanguin is interested in helping pastors to engage in a culture-shift in order to find the abundant life promised by Jesus.  Thus, Sanguin wishes to see traditional mainline churches evolve  in centres of Spirit-animated creativity within the culture of postmodernity.
The language of ‘evolving’ is important to Sanguin, because he bases his understanding of ‘creative emergence’ upon the evolutionary model of nature.  So, he writes, ‘We are meant to evolve.  If the Spirit is involved in the evolutionary process — as I believe is the case — then we need to start thinking about our lives in Christ through an evolutionary lens’.  Thus Sanguin wishes to find churches meeting the challenges of postmodernity by shifting from a ‘redemption-centred theological model’ to a ‘creation-centred, evolutionary Christian theology’.  This is accomplished  by embracing the evolutionary principles of novelty, self-organisation, and a combination of transcendence and inclusion (by which Sanguin means that the new transcends the old, but includes everything that was good in the old — ‘everything that has worked in the past is brought forward’).  Hence, embracing an evolution and engaging in culture-shift is the way in which be become more truly our own selves.
Key to this shift is a movement from a ‘redemption-centred theological model’, which leaves people as passive recipients of otherworldly salvation, to a ‘creation-centred, evolutionary Christian theology’, which emphasises the grace found in nature, and emphasises our role as creative actors within the world.  From within this model, redemption is understood as that which liberates us to becomes ‘centres of creative emergence’, for ‘our problem is not innate sinfulness.  It’s foolishness.  We’ve lost our way… What we need is spiritual wisdom, not the removal of original sin.’
Okay, that takes us to the end of Chapter One.  I will spend less time on the other chapters because the key principles are laid out at the beginning, and the following chapters go on to function as a road map for those engaging in a culture shift.  Thus, Chapter Two speaks of the importance of hand-picking a ‘think tank’ to initiate this process, Chapter Three speaks of establishing non-negotiables , Chapter Four he speaks of engaging in self-definition by establishing a vision and a mission, Chapter Five speaks of establishing a value statement to guide the ethos of the congregation, and Chapter Six speaks of understanding the various ways in which people in your congregation understand Christ.
Chapter Seven is definitely the oddest chapter, and it speaks of ‘morphic fields’ which cause space to function as a ‘generative matrix’ for our own becoming.  Our own congregational morphic field is understood as the corporate personality of the congregation, or, as Sanguin also calls it, ‘the angle’ of the congregation.
Chapter Eight then lays out the psychological foundation for leadership stressing the importance of counseling psychology, and personal therapy, in order to develop four key interior conditions: self-definition, connections across differences, emotional intelligence, and an awareness of our (Jungian) ‘shadow’ side.  From the psychological, Sanguin moves to spiritual foundations for leadership in Chapter Nine, stressing the importance of stillness, theological reflection, compassion, and creativity.
From foundations for leaders, Sanguin moves to pitfalls for leaders in Chapter 10, and especially criticises models that require the pastor to be the care-giver for the entire congregation.  Noting that most people can only effectively care for ten to twelve people, Sanguin argues that the pastor should be more of a spiritual leader than a personal caregiver, and that other networks of care should be affirmed and developed within the congregation  Chapter Eleven then goes on to speak of how to care for those external to the congregation, like new comers.  He speaks of the importance of having good music, exciting and encouraging sermons, employing various forms of media and so on.
Finally, in Chapter Twelve Sanguin speaks of how to establish a board.  He then concludes by stressing the importance of approaching congregations as centres of creative emergence, and includes a postscript mapping out some of the mistakes he has made along the way.
This, then, is how Sanguin summarises what he is trying to do:

culture-shifting — moving from a membership paradigm to a discipleship paradigm; from a redemption focus to a creation-centred focus; from a pastoral care model that demands that clergy function as personal chaplains to a model based on small group ministry; from seeing the role of the laity as helping out the minister to implementing the spiritual principle of ministry anywhere, anytime, by anybody; from asking people to serve on committees, to inviting them to participate in spiritual-gifts-based ministry; from a bureaucracy of mistrust to a bureaucracy of trust.

Reflection
Again, as with Mobsby, I am glad to see Sanguin seeking a living, vibrant expression of faith that engages with the world in which we live.  However, I do have a number of concerns.
First of all, Sanguin’s evolutionary model strikes me as naively optimistic.  Stated simply, it appears to assert that ‘every day in every way we are getting better and better’ (to quote Coué ).  Yet this fails to account for how evolution actually plays out in nature.  Evolution has been a violent process — survival of the fittest — wherein the strong prey on the weak, the healthy devour the sick, and where the strengths of the defeated are not necessarily taken over and further developed by the victors.  Thus, to use a social development example (since Sanguin’s evolutionary model applies to these situations), perhaps the Romans in the late Empire thought that they were the most evolved of all Romans… yet they were overwhelmed by the Goths and Europe was plunged into the ‘dark ages’ as many of the insights of Antiquity were lost for hundreds of years.  Consequently, I don’t think we can be as certain as Sanguin that all development is good development.  Instead, we need some sort of criteria to guide our development, but these criteria seem to be most absent in Sanguin’s book, since he simply asserts that our process of development is guided by Spirit, whom we can trust to take us where we need to go.
Furthermore, I found this evolutionary model to be an odd starting place for what Sanguin wants to do.  However, I think (but am not sure) that Sanguin starts here because he is operating from a paradigm that prioritises nature, and wishes to see us as all connected, and as all part of one big process.
This leads me to my second point.  I have some questions about the Christ affirmed by Sanguin.  Sanguin posits that people at various stages of their own evolutionary development understand Christ in different ways.  Thus, those on the lower levels understand Christ as a warrior.  Move a little higher and we have the traditional Christ as a divine scapegoat, a little higher still and we get the demythologised Christ as a CEO.  Then, in the upper stages of evolutionary development, we have people who affirm an egalitarian postmodern Christ, an ecological cosmic Christ and, ultimately, ‘the Mystical Christ.’  This is how Sanguin describes those at this most recent stage:

At this level, the world is experienced — not merely conceptualized — as one.  A follower of Christ does not merely perceive this universe as an integrated whole.  She knows herself to be a form of the integrated whole, the part in whom the whole is manifest.  The great diversity of life is also an expression of the Holy One.

This perspective is then supported by appeals to the Christ of John’s Gospel (who prays that we may be one, etc.) and to Paul’s understanding of our being ‘in Christ’.
Now, apart from the fact that Sanguin is doing violence to the texts at hand (more on that in a minute), what this actually looks like is a Christian gloss over an amalgamation of New Age spirituality, pantheism, and Westernised Buddhism.  What we have here is actually an affirmation of unity-within-diversity that puts an end to any real (or metaphysical) difference.  Now, this may work in some religious traditions, but to some how connect this thinking to Christianity (even in an ‘evolved’ form) suggests to me that this evolved form of Christianity is so different than that which came before, that perhaps it is best not to call this Christianity at all.  Maybe that just confuses the issue.  (But, then again, this raises the question of who has the right to define what is truly ‘Christian’ so maybe I’d rather not open up that can of worms.)
However, it is worth pointing out that this abolition of any real difference then leads to a negation of difference between religious systems.  Thus, for example, Sanguin speaks of how his church is populated by progressive Muslims as Muslims, Sikhs as Sikhs, Christians as Christians, Buddhists as Buddhists, and so on.  Sanguin sees this as a practice of ‘radical hospitality’ (which is why he also continually stresses that pastors should only speak ‘good news’ from the pulpit) and which, I suspect, is why Sanguin’s favourite name for God is Spirit.  The term is sufficiently vague and broad for Sanguin’s purposes.  Unfortunately, I do have questions about this type of hospitality.  To begin with, I think that it is self-defeating.  As Vinoth Ramachandra has noted recently, communities that downplay difference are often more traumatised, and react more violently, when something truly different appears; whereas communities that recognise the genuine depth of differences are more likely to respond peaceably to traumatic situations.  Furthermore, I question the liberating potential of this approach as it seems to be one that staunchly affirms the status quo.  While it may welcome slaves as slaves (without requiring them to change), it also appears to welcome Pharaoh as Pharaoh (without requiring him to change).  Thus, I think we need to listen to those like Miroslav Volf who remind us that sometimes exclusion must precede embrace.
Third, as I mentioned above, I have some concerns about how Sanguin reads Scripture.  Although Sanguin affirms ‘the whole of Scripture’ as a part of his non-negotiables, he continually stresses a metaphorical reading of the texts… which basically allows him to do what he wants with whatever he reads.  Thus, we have the ‘Mystical Christ’ of John and Paul, we have Jesus’ temptation in the wilderness understood as an internal psychological struggle (‘Satan’ being Jesus’ own internal ‘shadow’ side), and we have a reading of Lk 9.62 which suggests Jesus’ homelessness isn’t so much real as a metaphor for how he is ‘caught up in an evolutionary momentum’.  All of these readings simply slot Scripture into a previously established paradigm, which it then affirms.  What is lost is the truly transformative potential of Scripture, for Scripture is denied the ability to challenge our paradigms or, for that matter, to confront us with things that we do not wish to hear.
Conclusion
Bruce Sanguin and the place where he serves (Canadian Memorial Church & Centre for Peace), are located in a fairly wealthy and especially trendy neighbourhood in Vancouver (the city in which I live).  So, if Mobsby’s target audience appeared to be the hipsters, Sanguin neighbourhood is mostly composed of young business professionals — ‘yuppies’ who wear yoga pants, and spend a lot of time doing their hair before they go to the beach, the gym, or the spa.  So, if Mobsby is writing on behalf of the bohemian bourgeoisie, Sanguin is writing on behalf of the bohemian bourgeoisie.
However, let me add two provisos to this last comment.  First of all, I don’t think that this is anything wrong with ministering to, and with, hipsters or yuppies — far from it, all people should be invited to embody the good news of the lordship of Jesus Christ.  So my reason for raising this point is not to invalidate ministries to these populations.  Instead, I mention this because I believe that there is nothing particularly ‘radical’ about what Mobsby and Sanguin are doing.  It seems to me that they are both seeking ways of living as Christians and as members of the dominant culture in which they find themselves.  Ironically, this means that both Mobsby and Sanguin are participating in the same process that their predecessors did in the early to mid twentieth century.  That ‘traditional church’, against which both Mobsby and Sanguin are reacting, was simply the type of church that fit well with ‘modern’ culture.  Now, the ’emerging church’ is simply the type of church that fits well with ‘postmodern’ culture.  So, for all their talk about being ‘radical’ or ‘subversive’ the main thing that Mobsby and Sanguin are subverting is the culturally conditioned church of modernity.  This strikes me as a rather superficial form of subversion which fails to account for the power structures that have emerged or evolved in postmodernity itself.  So, given another forty or so years, I wouldn’t be surprised if these models of ’emergence’ pass away, along with this stage of postmodernity.
Secondly, by comparing Mobsby and Sanguin in this way, it is not my intention to say that they are approaching God, the church, and society in the same way.  As I noted in my introduction, there are major differences between their approaches.  Indeed, given Mobsby’s emphasis upon the Trinity, and Sanguin’s emphasis upon Spirit, I wouldn’t be too surprised if they had fairly negative reactions to each other.  (But, then again, hipsters and yuppies have always had fairly negative reactions to each other — even though they both perpetuate the system as it is.)
Now, by raising these criticisms, I am not saying that there is nothing good or admirable in the approaches taken by these authors.  Far from it, both should be commended for their focus upon valuing all of creation, engaging in acts of social justice, and welcoming those who are on the margins.  Sometimes I take these things so much for granted that I forget that a good many Christians need to hear about how important these things are, and how integral they are for Christian living.  But, yet again, I do get concerned that the forms of charity they represent are simply part of the means of ensuring that things continue to run as they are.  However, this need not be the case.  I reckon all of us began our charitable endeavours in fairly superficial ways — giving money at church, handing out bag lunches, buy a Christmas turkey for a poor family, etc. — so it’s just a question of following this trajectory and not just setting up camp at the place where we already are.  So, in this regard, let’s hope that the emergent folk continue to emerge and evolve!

The 'Emerging Church': Listening in on the Conversation (1 of 2)

Books discussed in this series:
Mobsby, Ian. The Becoming of G-d: What the Trinitarian nature of God has to do with Church and a deep Spirituality for the Twenty First Century. Monograph Series. North Essex: YTC Press, 2008.
Sanguin, Bruce. The emerging Church: A Model for Change & a Map for Renewal. Kelowna: CopperHouse, 2008.

Introduction
In any area of study, it is important to listen to the voices of those who actually partcipate within, or embody, the particular topic being studied. Thus, for example, when engaging in liberation theology, it is important to actually listen to ‘the Poor’ rather than simply listening to those who claim to represent the poor; or, to provide another example, when engaging in theological reflections related to ‘disabilities’, it is important to listen to those who called ‘disabled’, rather than simply listening to those who claim to present the disabled; and so on and so forth.
Therefore, given the hype, controversy, affirmations, and allegations that have swirled around the emerging church ‘conversation’, I figured it was about time that I actually spent some time listening to the voices of some of those who claim to speak from within this movement. Consequently, I am very grateful to Mike Morrell from the Ooze for providing me with review copies of The Becoming of G-d by Ian Mobsby and The emerging Church by Bruce Sanguin.
As with most large movements, the title of the movement is one that is claimed by many diverse people and groups. Hence, many things come under the name of the ’emerging church’. Really, the title might be best understood as that which is claimed by an organism in the process of developing rhizomatically (to use the language of Deleuze and Guattari). This, then, explains the consistent backlash against those who raise criticisms against the ’emerging church’. It is hard to criticise (or praise) something so diverse and when one criticises those on one end of many spectra, those on the other ends inevitably cry out. Consequently, having experienced or seen something of the ’emerging church’, one should be careful about applying one’s own experiences of a part, to the whole.
This divergence (perhaps the movement could also be called diverging church?) is well-illustrated by reading these two books back-to-back. The respective authors, Mobsby and Sanguin, take markedly different approaches to most things — their foci, their talk of God, their ecclesiastical models, their hermeneutics, and so on. However, there appear to be some things that they do have in common — and it is, perhaps, these commonalities that might be aspects of the emerging church more broadly. Therefore, in this post I will critically review Mobsby’s book, in the next post, I will do the same with Sanguin’s book, and then I will conclude with some tentative comments about the emerging church movement (in general) as that movement is represented by these two authors.
Review of Mobsby
As the subtitle makes clear, Mobsby’s book is focused upon developing an ecclesiology and a concomitant spirituality rooted within a trinitarian understanding of God. The central contention of the book, stated overtly in the preface, is that ‘God is seeking to draw us into deeper forms of spiritual community and relationality through God’s own, experientially revealed nature.’
In the first three chapters, Mobsby details a trinitarian understanding of God. Chapter One focuses upon the historical experiences of God (with a particular focus upon experiences related in Scripture, and the influence of the Cappadocian Mothers and and Fathers), which lead people to speak of God in this way. Mobsby then concludes that rooting our talk of God in our experiences of God is one of the strengths of the emerging church which ‘counters the superficial drive for objective certainty that boxes God in’ and which ‘seek[s] a reawakening of the Christian faith as an orientation of the heart’.
In Chapter Two, Mobsby focuses upon the Spirit, also known as ‘The Sustainer’, as an active and significant member of the Trinity, in order to counter current ‘impoverished’ views of the Spirit found within Western churches. Mobsby contends that one of the benefits of restoring the Spirit to the Spirit’s proper place is that the Trinity becomes a proper model of unity in diversity as, for example, the Spirit contains many attributes commonly considered as ‘feminine’ and so, inclusion of the Spirit in the ‘Godhead’ helps to de-gender God. Furthermore, this focus upon the Spirit leads to more passionate worship, and more innovative Christian living.
In Chapter Three, Mobsby then further explores the nature of the Redeemer and the Creator (titles Mobsby prefers to the more androcentric titles of ‘Son’ and ‘Father’). When speaking of the Redeemer, Mobsby emphasises the dual nature of Jesus, which he argues leads to a focus upon ‘incarnational theology’ (which focuses upon Jesus as a human servant and as a lover of the poor, and which, therefore, leads Christians to live in a similar way) and upon ‘redemptive theology’ (which focuses upon Jesus as divine and leads to an emphasis upon repentance and discipleship). When speaking of the Creator, Mobsby affirms a panentheistic theology which affirms God and his ongoing work, as that which grounds and sustains all of creation (which then leads to a focus on environmentalism and good stewardship).
In chapters Four to Seven, Mobsby then further applies this trinitarianism to Christian living. Chapter Four, focuses on the models and lessons provided by the emerging church. In particular, Mobsby highlights nine core values that appear to be (providentially) common to emergent congregations, all of which Mobsby believes are shaped by a trinatarian approach to perichoresis and kenosis. Thus, Mobsby identifies emergent congregations as those who: (1) Take the life of Jesus as a model to live; (2) and who transform the secular realm. (3) As they live highly communal lives. (4) Welcome those who are outsiders. (5) Share Generously. (6) Participate. (7) Create. (8) Lead without control. (9) And function together in spiritual activities.
Thus, drawing from Avery Dulles’ book, Models of the Church, Mobsby argues that the emergent church is a combination of the ‘Mystical Communion Model’ and the ‘Sacramental Model’, while also stressing the idea of the church as an alternative community. By this, Mobsby does not mean a church withdrawn from society, but a church that includes the excluded. Therefore, he stresses both the need for some sort of internal ‘rule’ or ‘rhythm of life’, while also stressing the need for mission and creative engagement with contemporary culture.
In Chapter Five, Mobsby points out the contemporary resurgence of interest in ‘spirituality’ and ‘spiritual experiences’ and how, when connected with recent technological developments, this leads to a new form of transcendence and the birth of the ‘hyper-real’. It is this hyper-real realm of ‘techgnosis’ that he wishes to transform (or modify) by combining it with ancient forms of mysticism and liturgy (hence the name ‘Ancient:Future’). Thus, whilst we must be careful about the dangers of ‘spiritual tourism’ and a ‘pick and choose’ spirituality, Mobsby states that:

Rather than spelling the end of religion, the concept of techgnosis gives me even greater faith in God’s presence, and it encourages my belief in the impossible… Personally I do believe that God, through the person of the Holy Spirit, is beckoning us through the joint effects of consumerism and techgnosis.

In Chapter Six, Mobsby connects ‘orthpraxis’ and ‘sacramentality’ in order to affirm our engagement in contemporary culture (‘Rather than fear culture and difference, we are called to trust that God is very much present in our world and in our culture’), and in order to especially affirm our engagement in political, environmental, and social circumstances by utilising ‘godly play’ and the means of ‘lectio divina’. In particular, Mobsby asserts that we need to engage with those whom we consider threatening (for himself, Mobsby includes the following as his ‘top six hates’: ‘aggressive and abusive homeless people, alcoholics, rascists, Islamic, Hundi, Jewish and Christian fundamentalists, those who demean women, and those who are homophobic’).
In Chapter Seven, Mobsby addresses the challenges facing this sort of human community within our current culture of individualism. In particular, Mobsby stresses that each of us, as individuals, are lessened when we are divorced from community — ‘community becomes an important environment for the realisation of our unique potential.’ Again and again Mobsby stresses this point: community is where we can each achieve our individual potential, health, and wellness (thus, Mobsby also stresses the connection between church communities and ‘therepeutic communities’). Key to all of this is the pursuit of an ‘authentic spirituality’, which is understood as a spirituality that ‘works’. Thus, in this and other ways, Mobsby notes that many in the emergent church are reacting to their up backgrounds in fundamentalist circles. Therefore, over against this background, and over against the culture of individualism, Mobsby concludes by stressing the becoming of community (through sharing and inter-dependency), of belonging (through openness and honesty), of forgiveness (through mentoring), of hope (through ‘healthy, culturally relevant expressions of worship, mission and community’) and of justice (through shifting from consumption to production and from taking to giving).
Finally, in Chapter 8, Mobsby concludes by stressing the importance of unity in diversity, and once again stresses the importance of trintiarian thinking and the approach of the emerging church. Chapter Nine functions as a postscript and contains a collection of poetic trinitarian devotions.
Reflection
What, then, are we to make of all these things? On the one hand, I am glad to see Mobsby diving into some of the unique aspects of Christianity — say the Trinity and the Sacraments — in order to try and live out a vibrant faith of mission and discipleship within today’s world. I also appreciate Mobsby’s emphasis that the ‘new monasticism’ seems to hold the best way forward for the emerging church (Mobsby appears to include ‘new monasticism’ within the emerging movement — and I think he considers his church to be a new monastic movement — but I would actually see these as two different movements).
On the other hand, I actually find it quite difficult to know what to make of Mobsby approach to Christian living. That is to say, his work is so full of hot contemporary theological catch-phrases — perichoresis, kenosis, trinitarian, incarnational, play, orthopraxis, sacramentality, etc. — that I’m left wondering what exactly all of this looks like in the day to day life of Mobsby’s Moot Community in the UK. My concerns is that this sort of language simply ends up functioning as an ideological gloss for positions arrived at by other means. Or, to put that another way, my concern is that Mobsby makes Christianity, and trinitarianism, relevant by taking themes that are already trendy within our contemporary Western world, and adding a layer of Christian overcoding to that discourse.
This, then, leads me to what is probably my biggest concern with Mobsby’s approach — his emphasis upon relevance. Again, another word fraught with ideological implications, I think we need to carefully define what we mean by ‘relevance’ or ‘irrelevance’ (something that I don’t think people on either side of this discussion have spent enough time doing). However, it seems to me that ‘relevance’ for Mobsby, means taking things that are currently hot within our contemporary society, and putting a Christian spin on those things — thus, within the Club scene, Mobsby speaks of Christian DJs putting on better shows than others, within the hipster scene Mobsby speaks of Christian churches structured like cafes, which act as hubs of their communities (actually, this seems to be the type of church that Mobsby likes the most, as he speaks highly of it on multiple occasions), and so on. Mobsby’s justification for this approach is that God is always present and active within our world, and so by embracing these things, we are simply embracing the work God is already doing amongst us.
The result of this is a largely acritical approach to contemporary culture, which fails to consider that (a) God might not be as present as we would like God to be; and (b) other forces are also operating within our culture, and these forces are acting in the service of Sin and of Death. What is needed, but absent, in Mobsby’s approach, is a much more careful analysis of the various things he embraces. For example, Mobsby’s love of technology (‘techgnosis’) fails to account for all the warnings we have received about technology from people as diverse as Jacques Ellul, Martin Heidegger, George Grant, Neil Postman, and Slavoj Žižek. My fear is that this approach to church becomes little more than a cry that ‘Hey! Christians can be cool too!’ Further, given the reactive nature of much of the emergent church (as Mobsby notes, many members are reacting to their own conservative backgrounds) this wouldn’t be surprising but it isn’t particularly commendable. Indeed, given that so much of this is reactive, I would want to be a little more careful about crediting so much of what is done to the creative workings of the Spirit. Not that there is really anything wrong with having Christian raves and coffee shops — it’s just that the Spirit’s creative work might look like a little more than that.
This connects to the second thing that bothered me about Mobsby’s approach. Although Mobsby stressed justice issues, and spoke about the need of journeying in company with the excluded, I found that his approach, and his target audience, seems to be more about embracing hipsters than it is about embracing, and being embraced by, the Poor. Again, I would have to see how all of this actually plays out in Mobsby’s community, but my fear is that we, once again, have a lot of trendy rhetoric about social justice but very little real action or, most importantly, solidarity. Hence, when one reads Mobsby’s list of his ‘top six hates’, we notice that street-involved people are well-represented within that group (and that the list looks like a who’s who of the people hated by most ‘left-leaning’ folks today). So, Mobsby hates ‘aggressive and abusive homeless people’ but he doesn’t say anything about the people and structures that dehumanise and abuse the homeless, thereby driving them towards aggressive and abusive patterns of survival; Mobsby hates ‘alcoholics’ but he doesn’t say anything about the patterns of abuse and generational sin that perpetuate alcoholism; and so on. For someone who wants to talk about justice as much as Mobsby does, this is unacceptable — and really does make me wonder if he is just spouting a lot of hot air.
Finally, my third concern with Mobsby’s book is his pragmatic approach to spirituality — his emphasis upon needing a ‘spirituality which “works”‘. Again, on the one hand, I agree that we should be experiencing God in our Christian life together, but to focus so heavily upon a spirituality that constantly produces positive emotions, or some sort of ‘genuine’ experience, or whatever, seems to reflect Western pragmatism and impatience (i.e. we only pursue that which produces results, and only that which produces results now). The risk here is that of an overly realised eschatology. There doesn’t seem to be much room for experiences of godforsakenness, for the ‘dark night of the soul’, for the ‘not-yet’, or for stubbornly doing, and redoing things, not because of the results they produce, but because of our call to the faithful.
So, all in all, I am glad to have read Mobsby’s book, it is a useful glimpse into the emerging church, but I am left with a number of concerns and unanswered questions.

The Priority of the Antagonism between the Excluded and the Included

In ‘Unbehagen in der Natur’, the final chapter of In Defense of Lost Causes, Slavoj Žižek begins by pointing to the contemporary crisis related to classical Marxism.  He then highlights some of the antagonisms inherent to contemporary global capitalism, and suggests that our way forward is found within these antagonisms, especially if all of those antagonisms remain rooted within the central struggle between the Excluded and the Included.
In this post I wish to explain, and expound upon, this argument in a little more detail as I find it intriguing and would be very interested in hearing what others think of it.
Žižek opens ‘Unbehagen in der Natur’ (‘Uneasiness in Nature’) with Gerald A. Cohen’s cogent presentation of the classical Marxist understanding of the ‘working class’.  Cohen argues that this working class is defined by four features which, when combined together, produce an additional two features.  These features are as follows.  The working class:

  1. constitutes the majority of society;
  2. produces the wealth of society;
  3. consists of the exploited members of society;
  4. and its members are the needy people in society.
  5. Therefore, the working class has nothing to lose from revolution;
  6. and it can and will engage in a revolutionary transformation of society.

The problem, Žižek notes, is that none of the first four features apply to the contemporary working class, and so features five and six cannot be generated.  Further, even when these elements are present, they are no longer united in a single agent — the needy are no longer the workers and so on.
Therefore, Žižek goes on to ask one of the pivotal questions undergirding much post-Marxist research today:

The underlying problem is: how are we to think the singular universality of the emancipatory subject as not purely formal, that is, as objectively-materially determined, but without the working class as its substantial base?

That is to say, given that the working class was the basis of salvation within classical Marxism, where can salvation be found now that the working class is gone?  Žižek answers this question in the following way:

The solution is a negative one: it is capitalism itself which offers a negative substantial determination, for the global capitalist system is the substantial “base” which mediates and generates excesses (slums, ecological threats, and so on) that open up sites of resistance.

Thus, Žižek reworks the classical Marxist thesis that the negation of capitalism is inherent to capitalism itself.  However, this negation does not occur by means of the (now absent) working class; rather, it occurs be means of four antagonisms that Žižek sees within contemporary global capitalism.  These antagonisms are related to:

  1. Ecology: Although capitalism treats ecology as a field of investment and competition, a looming ecological catastrophe threatens to bring radical change.
  2. The inadequacy of private property: Although the concept of private property may have functioned well at earlier stages of capitalism, this notion is no longer sufficient to address the increasing importance of ‘intellectual property’–knowledge.  This new form of property increasingly challenges the old boundaries of capitalism.
  3. The socio-ethical implications of new techno-scientific developments: New developments, especially in the realm of biogenetics, hold the potential to create significant changes within human nature itself, which could result in a genuine Novum, the results of which are difficult to anticipate, but which likely would not fit within the world-as-it-is.
  4. New forms of apartheid: Even though some old boundaries are collapsing, some new boundaries are being created.  This is most evident in the rise of new and massive slums within the megalopolises of the world.  Hence, ‘the new proletarian position is that of the inhabitants of slums’; but note that the primary form of exploitation experienced by these slum dwellers is no longer economic, but socio-political (i.e. it is not that they generate a surplus that is appropriated by the powerful, rather they themselves are a surplus that is accorded no place within the world).

Now, in a particular interesting move, Žižek maps the four features of the classical Marxist understanding of the working class, onto these four antagonisms:

the “majority” principle appears as ecology, a topic which concerns us all; “poverty” characterizes those who are excluded and live in slums; “wealth production” is more and more something which depends on scientific and technological developments like biogenetics; and, finally, “exploitation” reappears in the impasses of intellectual property, where the owner exploits the result of collective labor.

However, and this is where we get to the core of the matter, Žižek argues that, within these antagonisms, we must privilege the proletarian position — ‘the position of the “part of no-part”‘.  Hence, he asserts:

it is the antagonism between the Excluded and the Included which is the zero-level antagonism, coloring the entire terrain of struggle… [It is] the point of reference for the others; without it, all others lose their subversive edge: ecology turns into a “problem of sustainable development,” intellectual property into a “complex legal challenge,” biogenetics into an “ethical” issue.  One can sincerely fight for ecology, defend a broader notion of intellectual property, oppose the copyrighting of genes, while not questioning the antagonism between the Included and the Excluded — what is more, one can even formulate some of these struggles in terms of the Included threatened by the polluting Excluded… Corporations such as Whole Foods and Starbucks continue to enjoy favor among liberals even though they both engage in anti-union activities; the trick is that they sell products that claim to be politically progressive acts in and of themselves… Political action and consumption become fully merged.  In short, without the antagonism between the Included and the Excluded, we may well find ourselves in a world in which Bill Gates is the greatest humanitarian fighting against poverty and diseases, and Rupert Murdoch the greatest environmentalist mobilizing hundreds of millions through his media empire.

And, might be quick to add the likes of Oprah, Bono, and the ‘Red’ campaign, to this list.  Or, for that matter, the pursuits of most of the so-called ‘counter-cultural,’ ‘eco-friendly,’ ‘radicals’ found within the Church and the world today.  Žižek reminds us that these pursuits — from ‘going Green’ to buying fair trade coffee, to paying attention to where and how one’s clothes are manufactured — are largely impotent pseudo-acts, which simply ease the conscience of consumers, rather than bringing about any significant social change.  These actions only gain force and meaning, when they are related to the central antagonism between the Excluded and the Included.  Thus, for example, I as a member of the Included, can afford to pay $5 for a fair trade coffee, and I can afford to shop at local food markets… but these actions, in and of themselves, do nothing for members of the Excluded who can only afford cheap coffee and fast food.  I as a member of the Included, can afford to buy clothes that are made without violence, and I can afford to pay what those articles of clothing are worth… but this does nothing for families of the Excluded who rely on places like Wal-Mart for affordable clothing.  Finally, I as a member of the Included, can contribute to the multi-million dollar building campaign that recently occurred at my school.  Yet the result of this was an environmentally friendly wind-tower that helps our school ‘go Green’… but also new, smaller, and less comfortable couches intended to discourage homeless people from coming in and sleeping in our Atrium.
Consequently, if we are genuinely pursuing social change, and not simply embracing ‘virtue’ or ‘righteousness’ as an aspect of our privilege, we must bring these divided elements into relationship with one another.  We may be wealthy enough to live morally (or at least to gain the moral approval of our society) but this does nothing for those who are not wealthy enough to live this way and it does nothing to change society itself.
Therefore, in agreement with Žižek, I think that most of our ‘counter-cultural,’ ‘eco-friendly,’ and ‘radical’ acts, are self-serving and impotent unless they are related to the central antagonism between the Excluded and the Included.  When we not only buy fair trade coffee, but also feed the hungry, when we not only buy local-made clothes, but also clothe the naked; when we not only ‘Green’ our homes, but also invite the homeless into our homes, then we will be getting somewhere.

After Auschwitz

Theodor Adorno once argued that ‘writing poetry after Auschwitz is barbaric’ and this line of thought has profoundly marked many — how can we sing, how can we compose, how can we engage in art, or the performance of beauty, after something so terrible, so dark, so full of death?  This type of thought has not only challenged the humanities and the more ‘artistic’ expressions of human creativity, it has also challenged our core beliefs: belief in God after Auschwitz is barbaric.  Or so the saying goes.
Now, personally, I have always found it a little odd that Auschwitz should challenge us to this degree.  After all, death-dealing tragedies, even massive genocides that claim millions of lives, are nothing new.  Therefore, to assert that Auschwitz overthrows all of our faith in beauty or goodness or a god who is both beautiful and God, suggests to me that we never truly confronted the issue of suffering and death.  This is further verified by the observation that those who have encountered terrible sufferings are often some of the most artistic and faith-filled people in the world.
Be that as it may, I want to go somewhere else with this post.  Keeping in mind the words from Adorno, read the following quotation from Vinoth Ramachandra’s book, Subverting Global Myths.  While discussing the flight to science — chemistry and physics — practiced by Primo Levi and others who were seeking an escape from the ideology of fascism (circa WWII), Ramachandra writes the following:

what Levi and his friends underestimated was the power of fascism and other political ideologies to co-opt the “clear, distinct and verifiable” methods of chemistry and physics.  Scientists played a leading part in the initiation, administration and execution of Nazi racial policy.  The Wannsee Conference, which decided the final solution of the Jewish problem, was attended by many scientists, and the extermination of Jews in the death camps was largely carried out by medically trained personnel.
Consequently, perceptive writers such as George Orwell sharply criticized the fashionable postwar denigration of the arts and humanities in favor of a “scientific education”.

Therefore, it seems to me that, after Auschwitz, WWII, and the rest of the 20th-century, the question we must ask ourselves is strictly related to the value of science.  On the German side, WWII gave us the scientific and medical technology necessary to wipe out an entire category of people.  On the American side, WWII gave us the scientific and military technology necessary to wipe out life as we know it.
If anything, Auschwitz teaches us the importance of faith, poetry, and art, because it reveals to us the result of an unchecked scientific mentality.  Odd, then, that references to Auschwitz should be used to challenge our faith in God, when Auschwitz itself was the result of a techno-scientific paradigm.
Consequently, we should be a little more than cautious around those who wish to argue that scientific advance holds the way out of our current sufferings.  We have seen the end result of this struggle (Kampf), and should have no desire to replicate it.

Must it get worse? And if it must, what then?

And when the fascists lock the city down
And the riot police gather all around
Will we laugh, will we laugh, will we laugh?
That once we romanticized
And we practically fucking fantasized
About the downfall of a city

About the downfall of a country
About the downfall of a lifetime

~ Hawksley Workman, Ilfracombe
Lately, I’ve been thinking about Marxist and other Left-leaning criticisms of capitalism. A common theme within many of these criticisms, is that capitalism must get worse before our situation can get better. Stated in a little more detail, this assertion is based upon the observation that, although capitalism is already causing horrendous amounts of damage to people and places around the globe, that damage (and the unredeemable nature of the capitalist system which causes the damage) is not yet apparent, or directly and overtly experienced as violence by enough people. This then is a part of the reason why ‘the workers’ (certainly a contested category today!) have not yet thrown off their chains and risen up, en masse, to overthrow their masters.
Consequently, what you then find in some Marxist-inspired thinking, is the suggestion that we should accelerate the worsening of capitalism, rather than prematurely attempting to resist capitalism — for all too frequently our efforts to resist capitalism simply end up becoming a necessary part of the sustenance thereof (I believe that I have come across this idea in the writings of Jean Baudrillard and of Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, although I may have forgotten some others who discuss it).
Now, what I have not seen is many (or any?) suggestions on how we actually go about participating in the worsening of capitalism. However, it seems to me that, in general, the notion that things must get worse before they can get better functions as something of an implicit justification of the affluence and privilege granted to ‘radical’ intellectuals. Thus, the radical thinker, the one who criticises capitalism and calls for its exorcism, is also able to be centred in places of power and comfort and enjoy all the benefits that capitalism has to offer.  Such a thought can be used to justify or even promote the passivity of the radical intellectual — ‘I am helping things get worse (by remaining in my place of power and privilege), that that things can get better’ and so on.
However, in actuality, it seems to me that this (rather common) line of thinking actually serves as a powerful justification for the violent actions performed by people like Timothy McVeigh or Mohamed Atta.
After all, Timothy McVeigh was a veteran of the first American invasion of Iraq.  Horrified by what he say — the senseless deaths of civilians, women and children — McVeigh tried to bring that horror closer to home so that America would realise that true nature of her acts, repent, and change her ways.  Surely this is a classic example of a person deliberately worsening a situation in order to try and improve it.  Unfortunately, things didn’t quite work out the way McVeigh desired.
The same line of thinking applies to Mohamed Atta and the other hijackers involved in the events that occurred in the United States on September 11, 2001.  Again, we have a violent act performed on behalf of the oppressed, and performed against a powerful symbol of American imperial and economic power.  However — setting aside the fact that civilians were attacked (while duly noting that civilians are always attacked in wars, and are always the ones who suffer the most when any major military operations occur) — this attack has often been condemned, even by others who resist imperialism and economic brutality, because of the fruit which it bore.  Rather than causing America to withdraw its forces from military bases around the world (like those in Saudi Arabia), that events of September 11, 2001 caused America to increase her military presence around the world (and caused other brutal powers to do the same, using ‘the war on terror’ as a handy ideological tool to strike at old enemies and rivalries).
Therefore, many on the post-Marxist Left have eschewed this form of violent resistance precisely because it produces this sort of result.  Yet this strikes me as a fundamental inconsistency in their thinking.  If things must get worse before they get better, than it seems to me that this is exactly the sort of action that the Left should be encouraging.  Yes, there are brutal consequences to be suffered — especially by the poor and powerless — but the demon of capitalism must be drawn out of its hiding place and revealed in its full brutality before the people will rise up to overthrow it.  If things must get worse, before they get better, than we must race to the bottom so that we can rise to the top.
Now, thank God, I don’t actually agree with this way of thinking.  There are a few good historical reasons for rejecting this way of thinking: (1) looking back, I think that capitalism has shown us that is incredibly good at gaining strength as it worsens; and (2) looking forward, should some major crisis occur within capitalism — say the collapse of the global market — leading to the downfall of capitalism, the future seems to promise some sort of renewed feudalism or imperium, and not anything more hopeful or ideal than that which we had with capitalism.  Consequently, I think that when we commit to worsening a situation (in order to make things better in the future), the end result is actually just a worsened situation.  Full stop.  (This is why I included the lyrics from Hawksley Workman at the beginning of this post — we fantasize about the downfall of capitalism and its power brokers, but when that downfall occurs, we might still be in bondage to oppressive powers.)
A good example of how this works out is found in Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s participation in the attempt to assassinate Hitler.  Bonhoeffer penitently committed to perform evil, with the hopes that good would come… but the plot failed and the result was that Hitler became even more certain that he was sheltered by divine protection.  Thus, rather then heeding the advice of his generals, backing off, and cutting German (and other) losses, Hitler pressed on to total devastation (as did the Allies, for example when they needlessly fire-bombed Dresden, not to mention the fire-bombing of Tokyo and other civilian targets in Japan… bit I digress).
Similarly, I believe that the cycle of violence is endless.  Violence, even when employed with good intentions, always begets more violence.  There is no hope for salvation found within that cycle.
What, then, are we to do?  If we are to heed the warning that our current efforts to ‘resist’ capitalism, simply end up affirming it (this, I think, is often a true criticism of both ‘counter-cultural’ and ‘charitable’ efforts) but if we are not to accelerate the worsening of capitalism, what options do we have?
I would say that we have two mutually complimentary options.  The first is to genuinely participate in the groanings of creation, and the cries of the oppressed.  In particular, we are to enter into those cries, so that we also know what it is that causes the poor to cry out, and we are then to direct those cries to heaven, so that God can hear our groanings, look upon our sufferings, remember his covenant with us, and come down to act on our behalf (cf. Ex 2.23-25 and what follows for an exposition of this).  Ultimately, our hopes for liberation — from capitalism, from its power brokers, and from all other historical powers operating in the service of Sin and of Death — are totally dependent upon the action of God.  So we cry out to God and we long for an apocalyptic event — the in-breaking of God’s Sprit of Life into history.
Second, I think that we heed the advice of Žižek  and, to the best of our abilities, attempt to embody, or bring about, the change that we seek — even now when that change is impossible.  This is not something we do  acritically.  We must be aware of the impotency of most traditional avenues of change (say voting), and of most traditional counter-cultural avenues of change (say protesting),  but our awareness of these things — and of our own hopelessness — should not prevent us from attempting to act creatively or from experimenting with new modes of resistance.   After all, these actions are a part  of our groanings — they are the embodiment thereof.  The function as something of a liturgical dance, putting action and motion and even some sort of beauty into the groans we can articulate in no other ways.  Or, to use another example, this is how we finger death, even as it kills us.
Perhaps, then, it is up to us to try and fail, until the time when God takes heed of us, of our brokenness and of all our failed efforts, and comes down to save us.  It is our role to fail so that those who come after us can taste the salvation of God.  Should we shirk this role, perhaps that salvation will not come.
Maranatha.  Our Lord, come.

Fear, Idolatry, and Late Capitalism

What frightens a people serves as a reliable guide to their idolatries.

~ Vinoth Ramachandra, Subverting Global Myths
About half a dozen years ago, I spent a few weeks holding cardboard signs outside of the commuter-hub of downtown Toronto–Union Station.  All of the suburban business people would take the bus or, more usually, the train into the core of downtown and head from there to work in office buildings, banks, skyscrapers, and the Toronto Stock Exchange.  It’s an interesting contrast — by day the streets are filled with suits, and the buildings full of some of the most over-paid people in Canada; by night the streets are littered with homeless people sleeping on grates, and the buildings are full of some of the most under-paid people in Canada (the overnight cleaning staff).  The very rich and the very poor occupy the same space… yet rarely do they genuinely encounter one another.  Odd, perhaps, but not accidental.
Anyway, for about two weeks, I would stand outside of Union Station during the commuter rush, and hold up a cardboard sign containing a single question.  ‘What do you hope for?’ or ‘Are you free?’ or ‘What are you sure of?’ that sort of thing.  I also held up a few statements.  Specifically: ‘Stop trying so hard!’ and ‘Don’t be so afraid!’
It was a wonderful experience — some people poured out their lives to me, others brought me gifts (coffee, food, poetry), others heckled me, and still others tried to give me money (and were usually offended when I refused it; so I started writing ‘No money, please’ on my signs).  I would hear strangers talking to one another in the crowd about the signs; others told me that they went home and discussed the questions at dinner with their families.  In fact, of the various things I have done in my life, this ranks amongst my favourites (and, it should be noted, it is fairly easy to replicate in any major city around the world, should anybody else want to give this a shot!).  
It was also interesting to note the different reactions I got to different questions.  Some questions were certainly more popular than others (‘Are you free?’ being the one that actually got the most vocal positive and negative reactions), some statement were universally well received (‘Stop trying so hard!’ was much appreciated… after all, I did hold it up on a Friday) but ‘Don’t be so afraid!’ appeared to be the sign that people liked (or perhaps understood?) the least.
The topic of fear is one of the themes that has always been dominant in my life.  This is so for at least three reasons.  First of all, my own life was totally dominated by fear, up until about the age of 17.  I reckon that this was due to a combination of the environment in the home in which I was raised and my own personality.  Regardless, I was terrified of pretty much everything.  I could barely speak in the presence of strangers, and I frequently cried because I was scared (hell, I remember bawling my eyes out when I got dropped off for Sunday school, which is basically the most harmless environment out there!).
As I went through my teenage years, I became increasingly aware of the hold that fear had on my life, and I began to take deliberate action to overcome it.  I would go for walks in the woods at night, I would spend time in sketchy neighbourhoods downtown and I would spend time with people, and in social circles, that I found intimidating.  Needless to say, I was scared out of my mind while doing these things… but I chose to keep doing them.  Gradually, as I have noted elsewhere, my experiences of these people and places began to change.  Gradually, I began to learn that the Spririt that haunts these people and places is the Spirit of God.  Gradually my time with these people and places became a time of worship and, to my surprise, renewal
So, yes, sometimes I still do get afraid by events I encounter (although this has grown less and less over the years), but fear no longer determines how I act or respond to that which I encounter (for example, I was initially afraid to hold up signs outside of Union Station, but that fear rapidly faded).  This, by the way, is why I always find it somewhat amusing when people say that it ‘takes a special kind of person’ to do what I do — because I never was that person.  If I have become something of that ‘special kind of person’ it is only because I have been converted and transformed in the process of this journey.  The same goes for any of us.  It is only after we commit to these things that we become that which is required (of course, that people persist to think and talk about ‘special kinds of people’, simply reveals how we use this line as an out for ourselves).
Which leads me to the second reason why fear is a frequent theme in my thinking.  Gradually, as I encounter popular and Christian resistance to journeying in relationships of mutual love with the marginalised, I am increasingly aware that it is fear which motivates this resistance.  Cut through all the arguments and the rationalisations (‘I’m not that special kind of person’ or ‘I’d just be enabling an addict if I give her money’ or whatever) and what you will find is a fear of engaging that which is Other than one’s self — and that which is, therefore, perceived as threatening. 
The irony is that the threat perceived is often greatly over-inflated or illusory.  ‘Dangerous’ neighbourhoods and people are never as dangerous as we imagine, and ‘safe’ neighbourhoods and people, are never as safe as we imagine.  I learned this lesson well while working at a camp for rich Christian kids.  I have known many young men and women who have suffered terrible physical and sexual abuses in the ghetto… but I have known nearly as many young men and women who have suffered the same terrible physical and sexual abuses in suburban Christian families.  That this is usually forgotten in discourse related to ‘what should be done’ with pockets of urban poverty, simply demonstrates the ways in which fears are created and manipulated for the financial gain of the powers that be.
By the way, as we will see, financial gain is an important factor in all of this.  I say that fear is a major obstacle to our journey with the marginalised, but the second great obstacle is greed.  Should we overcome these two things, then we will be well on our way as disciples of Jesus.
Therefore, try as I might to encourage Christians to journey into deeper intimacy with the poor and the abandoned, I find that generally well-intentioned people are too dominated by fear to be able to respond with much more than a donation to a local charity (which, in itself, isn’t a bad thing, but is a far cry from both what is needed and what Christ calls us to do).
Thirdly, a couple years back, I read a passage in one of N. T. Wright’s sermons, which mentioned that the command ‘Do not be afraid!’ or ‘Fear not!’ is thesingle most repeated command in the bible.  This suggests to me that I’m not alone in thinking that fear is one of the great obstacles to discipleship (i.e. God and God’s messengers might think the same).
Now, it is in light of these things that I read the quote from Vinoth Ramachandra, which I used at the opening of this (rambling) post.  This provides another interesting angle on things.  In my own thoughts I had considered fear to be evidence of a lack of faith in God (i.e. we say that we have faith in God but, when push comes to shove, we do everything we can to avoid situations that require us to actually, and tangibly, rely on God) but Ramachandra carries this thought through to its conclusion: if our faith is not in God, it is in somebody or something else, and when somebody or something else replaces God, this is called idolatry.
Who then, I asked myself, are we worshipping when we are too afraid to love and help our neighbours in need?  Perhaps it is the money we work so hard to gain.  Perhaps it is the families for whom we work so hard.  Perhaps it is simply the final out-working of the individualism that our society forces upon us; that is to say, perhaps our fear of Others is simply a manifestation of self-worship, and the ultimate expression of our primordial desire to ‘become like gods’.  Perhaps.
However, there is more to this.  As I mentioned above, our fear is often something created, manipulated, or exacerbated by other forces.  In particular, our fears are driven by the ethos that is maintained by the power brokers of late capitalism.  Perhaps, therefore, the influence of fear over our lives is simply a sign that we have allowed these power brokers to become as gods before us (which really shouldn’t be too surprising as many of the world’s cultures — from Egypt, to Babylon, to Rome — have treated the rulers as deities).  In this regard, we must recall that who or what we worship isn’t so much determined by what we say, as by what we do.  After all, who was it that said, ‘These people come near me with their mouth and honour me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me’?
Still, I would be curious to hear what others might think.  If fear is a guide to idolatry, what do our contemporary fears betray about who or what we worship?

John 12.8: What does it mean to 'always have the poor with us'?

In Jn 12.1-8, we read a short story regarding Jesus’ stay at Bethany.  This occurs in-between the time when he raised Lazarus from the dead, and his parody of a ‘triumphal’ entry into Jerusalem.  From a literary perspective, this pericope heightens the sense of doom that is now beginning to engulf Jesus.  Thus, in Jn 11, after raising Lazarus, the politico-religious leaders begin to plan how to kill Jesus — and Jesus is driven into hiding.  Then, in Jn 12.1-8, Mary (likely the sister of Martha and Lazarus) anoints Jesus with a costly perfume — which Jesus tells us was reserved for the day of his burial (cue ominous theme music).  Things only get worse in 12.9-10 where we read of the plot to kill Lazarus, in 12.19 where the plot to kill Jesus is confirmed, and again in 12.27-36 wherein Jesus speaks of his imminent death.
However, literary approaches aside, the focus of most popular readings of Jn 12.1-8 is upon Jesus’ rebuke of Judas.  When Judas accosts Mary for wasting an expensive perfume on Jesus (‘Why was this perfume not sold for three hundred denarii and the money given to the poor?’),  Jesus responds by saying:

Leave her alone… You always have the poor with you, but you do not always have me.

Now, it seems to me that contemporary Western readers of this text almost universally interpret it in the following way: Jesus is telling us that we will never ‘solve’ the ‘problem of poverty’, so we shouldn’t get too caught up in trying to give everything away for the sake of the poor (thank God we have this passage to balance out what Jesus says to the ‘rich young ruler’!).  Instead we should realise that we are entitled to live comfortably ourselves.  Thus, if anyone tries to tell us to sell our nice things (like the expensive perfume Mary bought for Jesus) we should rebuke that person just as Jesus rebuked Judas.
It is my contention that this is exactly the opposite of what this text actually says.  Let me explain why.
First of all, when Jesus says, ‘you always have the poor with you’, he is actually quoting from Deut 15.11 — from a chapter explaining the outworkings of the Sabbatical year, marked by its concern for the poor.  Thus, Deut 15 begins by talking about the remission of debts, and based upon this principle it asserts: that ‘there will be no poor among you.’  However, it then goes on to say the following:
If there is among you anyone in need, a member of your community in any of your towns within the land that the LORD your God is giving you, do not be hard-hearted or tight-fisted toward your needy neighbour.  You should rather open your hand, willingly lending enough to meet the need, whatever it may be… Give liberally and be ungrudging when you do so… For the poor will never cease to be in the land; therefore, I command you saying, ‘Open your hand to the poor and needy neighbour in your land (I’m combining readings from the NRSV and the NASB).
Now this puts an entirely different spin on Jesus words that ‘you will always have the poor with you’.  Our popular reading of these words is used to justify hard-hearted and tight-fisted behaviour towards the poor, but Deut 15 would suggest that Jesus means precisely the opposite.  So, what then does it mean to say that the poor will always be with us?  Well, according to Deut 15, that the poor will always be with us, means that we should be sure to give openly and generously to the poor.  Assuming that the people of God are actually taking seriously their talk of God’s ‘provision’ and ‘abundance’ (instead of just affirming this in some superficial way), this shouldn’t be a problem.
Second, how does this understanding of these words fit with the passage in Jn?  Easy.  It fits because Jesus himself was poor.  Jesus was a vagrant (cf. Mt 8.20), dependent upon the charity of others (in the passage at hand, Jesus is living off of the charity of Lazarus and staying at his home) or the abundance of God (cf. Mt 17.24-27).  Thus, anointing Jesus for burial with an expensive perfume, is a perfect illustration of what Deut 15 requires because Jesus is a poor man on the way to his death (not surprisingly, at the hands of the wealthy and powerful).
In this way, Jesus continues to demonstrate his mastery of rhetorical battles.  We are all aware of the various ways that Jesus overcomes the scribes and teachers of the law, by speaking subvesive truths while also not explicitly implicating himself (Mt 22.21 is a fine example of this).  However, it is far less frequently noted that Jesus has achieved the same thing here (actually I don’t know if this is noted anywhere because it has been a long time since I’ve read any commentaries on Jn).  Here is what has happened: Judas, out of his greed to steal from the money made by selling the perfume, masks his greed by pretending to be concerned for the poor (or so the author of Jn tells us).  In response, Jesus affirms a genuine commitment to the poor, while challenging Judas’ greed (he really was that good!).
Third, and finally, the specificity of this event needs to be noted.  Part of the reason for Jesus’ rebuttal of Judas is that he, the eternal Word (according to the author in Jn 1.1-18) and the great ‘I Am’ (Jn 8.58), is on his way to his death, and will soon no longer be with the disciples.  Hence, the second half of his sentence: ‘You always have the poor with you, but you do not always have me.’
Consequently, from this perspective, Mary’s act can be perceived as an act of worship — of giving generously to God.  However, this perspective does not contradict the thoughts I have developed above.  Rather, it confirms those thoughts because giving to God, and giving to the poor are not mutually exclusive acts.  This is evident all throughout Scripture, but one of the most cited passages on the interconnection of worship and generosity to the poor is Is 58.6-12.  Through the prophet the LORD proclaims:

Is this not the fast that I choose: to loose the bonds of injustice, to undo the thongs of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke?  Is it not to share your bread with the hungry, and bring the homeless poor into your house; when you see the naked, to cover them, and not to hide yourself from your own kin?  … Then you shall call, and the LORD will answer; you shall cry for help, and he will say, Here I am.
If you remove the yoke from among you, the pointing of the finger, the speaking of evil, if you offer your food to the hungry and satisfy the needs of the afflicted, then your ight shall rise in the darkness and your gloom be like the noonday…

Thus, although the person of Jesus is no longer physically with us, we can continue to engage in the form of worship demonstrated in this passage by giving generously to the poor amongst us.
In conclusion, I hope that I have adequately demonstrated the false nature of popular understandings of Jn 12.8.  Jesus is most certainly not telling us to relax because the problem of poverty will be resolved.  Rather, he is telling us to give generously to the poor in our midst.  So, the next time you’re talking about solidarity with the marginalised, and somebody throws this passage at you (as they inevitably will), you will at least have a response prepared!