Jonas (http://blog.bahnhof.se/wb938188) recently asked me this question, based upon my review of Jon Sobrino’s latest book:
Would you like to explain the view of the poor as Christ´s body? Does that mean that the poor [are] incorporated into Jesus, the Messiah, even if they verbally deny him and don´t want to follow him? What would be the biblical base for this teaching?
Here is my response:
Fair question!
I wouldn’t necessarily say that “the poor [are] incorporated into Jesus, the Messiah” but rather that Jesus, the Messiah, incorporated himself into the poor. Therefore, there is now an indissoluble and sacramental link between the poor and Christ. By choosing to identify with the poor, the marginalised, and the damned, Christ revealed to us that these people are priests, administering God’s presence to the world. Not only that, but Christ reveals to us that God has chosen to locate himself in and amongst the poor. Hence, the poor are the people of God — because they are the people with whom God has chosen to identify. Therefore, as Porfirio Miranda reminds us, if we are seeking God, we should go where God has told us he can be found — in and amongst the poor. We are foolish to look elsewhere, when God has already revealed his location!
But let us explore this sacramental connection a little further so that too much is not left in the realm of mystery (which is far too often a refuge for any ideological position).
First of all, the poor reveal to us, in history, the bleeding and suffering of God due to the brokenness of the world. Hence, the poor are the sacramental presence of the body and blood of Christ just as much as (if not more than) the sacramental presence of the body and blood of Christ found in the Eucharist.
Secondly, by bearing our sins — by taking nothing from us while we take everything from them, by taking our hunger while we take their food, by bearing death as we flee from it — that poor also hold the potential to be ministers of salvation to us. They reveal the falsehoods structuring our societies, they make manifest the perverse results of our ideologies, and they expose the hypocrisy that runs through our expressions of piety. Hence, in this regard, the poor are the sacramental presence of the Christ who proclaims, “I am the truth”.
Thirdly, the poor and those amongst them who choose to act non-violently towards the rich and privileged — that is, the majority — are also agents of God’s grace. By choosing to work with us in pursuit of new life together, by refusing to respond to us by taking away our lives, our loved ones, and our daily bread, the poor treat us with a value which we have never ascribed to them. This truly is ‘amazing grace’. However, to be clear, this does not mean that we can simply go on living lives built upon the blood of others. Such an approach would be the worst example of the ‘cheap grace’ that Bonhoeffer despised. The grace shown to us, by the poor, is not an opportunity to go on sinning, it is a call to conversion.
This means that the poor are counted as members of the Church, even if they verbally deny Jesus and assert that they do not want to follow him. For, just as with the confessing members of Christ’s body, they are simul justus et peccator — righteous and, at the same time, sinners. If the sin of a good many of the confessing members of Christ’s body is their refusal to journey into solidarity with the oppressed, then the sin of a good many of the crucified members of Christ’s body is their inability to confess Jesus as Lord (for now anyway). Note, however, even here the sin of the confessing members is greater than the sin of the crucified. Often the crucified have never been truly presented with the gospel, or with individuals or communities who genuinely reflect the liberating news of Jesus’ lordship to them — thus, the Jesus they have rejected is not the historical Jesus and risen Lord. The confessing members, alas, have far less excuses for missing that which is so obvious within Scripture.
As for the biblical basis for this teaching, I would simply point to manifestations of God’s preferential option for the poor contained within Scripture. Think, for example, of the fact that the very poor are left in the land when all of Israel is carried away into exile. In this event, the poor are spared the judgment that is poured out on all, not because they have lived righteously, but because God identifies with the poor and show them preferential treatment because of the ways in which they have been dehumanised by the social powers who act in the service of Sin and Death. Similarly, think of the unconditional proclamation of forgiveness that Jesus offered to the poor, the sick, and the marginalised. To the poor, Jesus said, “You already are forgiven; come, journey with me” — it was only to the comfortable and powerful that Jesus brought harsh warnings of judgment. For a multiplication of examples, I’ll simply refer you to the writings of Gutierrez, Boff, Sobrino, et al. I think I have adequately made my point.
However, let me reaffirm my prior assertion, while switching the emphasis. Yes, the poor are members of the body of Christ, but they are not the only members thereof. This is why I continually speak of both the ‘crucified’ and the ‘confessing’ members of Christ’s body. The key thing is to bring those two halves together so that the body can be whole, and so that the Church can truly manifest the presence of Christ in our world. The goal is for the crucified members to become confessers of Christ, and for the confessing members to become crucified with Christ. The new creation of all things is (proleptically) contained therein.
Eschatology and Ethics (a brief response)
Michael of “Pisteoumen” recently posed a question regarding the possible relationship between eschatology and ethics (cf. http://michaelhalcomb.blogspot.com/2008/08/eschatology-ethics.html).
Not surprisingly, given that so much of my thesis revolves around this relationship, I believe that, from a Christian perspective, eschatology and ethics are intimately, and inextricably, connected. Eschatology is that which provides us with a narrative framework for understanding history, and our own historicity, in a meaningful way. Ethics is then our effort to embody that meaning in our day-to-day actions. The key here is realising that, from a biblical perspective, eschatology is far closer to a praxis-oriented philosophy of history, than it is to a collection of 'end times' doctrines.
Stated another way, we could say that a properly eschatological (and therefore properly Christian) ethics is a way of remembering the past and anticipating the future in order to live meaningfully in the present.
June-July Books (overdue as usual)
[Pardon the typos and grammatical errors, I pounded these off, and haven’t yet had time to proof-read.]
1. The Arrogance of Nations: Reading Romans in the Shadow of Empire by Neil Elliott.
Ever since reading Liberating Paul, I’ve been wondering when Elliott would get around to following the trajectory he laid out in that book (way back in 1994). Of course, I was willing to be patient given that Elliott doesn’t publish as often as some because he is so involved in community-building and justice work. Personally, I think that any New Testament scholar should be doing this sort of thing (otherwise how much have they really understood Paul or Jesus?) but, then again, maybe that’s just my own bias. Or maybe not…
Anyway, when this book was published as the lead volume in the new “Paul in Critical Contexts” Series from Fortress Press (which, by the way, looks like an excellent series), I jumped on it… and I wasn’t disappointed. I mean, really, read this book. Elliott does such a good job of reading Romans in light of empires (both past and present) that I almost gave up on my own research (he makes a lot of connections I was working on, but makes them better than I did).
What Elliott does is engage in a thematic reading of Romans with constant reference to Roman ideology and, in particular, the ways in which the themes in Romans are themes in Roman ideology. Hence, Elliott demonstrates how Paul takes those themes — themes of justice, mercy, piety, and virtue — and radically reworks them in light of Christ.
As he engages in this reading, Elliott builds on the work of James C. Scott (famous in biblical studies for his work on ‘hidden transcripts’) and develops a very useful method for discerning hidden transcripts (lest we simply find ‘hidden transcripts’ everywhere and use this as a way of avoiding what any given text appears to say). Thus, he explores public transcripts, as well as hidden transcripts of both the powerful and the subordinate, so that we can learn to recognise any elements of these within Paul’s letters.
What emerges from all of this is a Paul who is an active and prophetic voice, helping us to discern our way, as Christ-followers, in the shadow of empires dominated by Sin and Death.
2. Apostle to the Conquered: Reimagining Paul’s Mission by Davina C. Lopez.
I found this, the second Paul in the “Paul in Critical Contexts” Series, to be a captivating read. Building on the insights of both empire-critical readings, and the ‘New Perspective’ on Paul, and noting the ways in which proponents of these groups have shed new light on our (increasingly political) understanding of Paul’s use of words like ‘Saviour’, ‘Lord’, ‘gospel’, and ‘parousia’, Lopez argues for a new understanding of Paul’s talk of ‘the Gentiles’ and ‘the nations’ (ta ethnes). In particular, Lopez argues that, rather than seeing Paul as Apostle to the Gentiles (understood primarily in terms of racial divisions), we must see Paul as Apostle to the conquered nations (understood primarily in subversive political terms).
In order to arrive at this conclusion, Lopez surveys the way in which imperial Roman propaganda — in literature, sculptures, coins, architecture, and inscriptions — represented the nations. In this regard, Lopez finds a gender-critial reading of the evidence to be most useful. For the most part, I agree with what she does here, although I sometimes think she overstates her case. However, I don’t think that these overstatements invalidate the force of her argument, I simply think that they might cause her to lose her audience in other, more Conservative, circles (but, then again, perhaps Lopez never had any interest in retaining that audience anyway).
After this survey, Lopez then explores how Paul talks about his mission amongst the nations, using similar imagery and language, but in a counter-imperial manner. Hence, Paul wants to unite members of all the conquered nations — Jews, Greeks, barbarians, Galatians, Spaniards, etc. (i.e. Jews and Gentiles) — within a subversive solidarity movement, intent upon restoring justice, which refuses to accept the hierarchies and divisions encouraged by imperial Roman ideology (I told you this was captivating!).
3. Paul Between Synagogue and State: Christians, Jews, and Civic Authorities in 1 Thessalonians, Romans, and Philippians by Mikael Tellbe.
I have been reading a lot of material on the socio-political context in which Paul lived and worked, but this book really surprised me and stood out more than a good many in this field. For those who are familiar with some of these things, I would compare it, and it’s significance, to Honor, Patronage, Kinship & Purity by David A. deSilva.
Unsuprisingly, given the title, Tellbe explores the tripartite relationship between Christians, Jews, and civic authorites, paying special attention to the Pauline communities in Thessalonica, Rome, and Philippi. Tellbe’s hypothesis is that attaining “socio-political legitimacy” was a pressing need for Christians in Paul’s day. That is to say, if early Christianity could fall under the umbrella of Second Temple Judaism(s), as a religio licita (a legal religion), official condemnation and persecution could be avoided. However, when Jewish communities felt as though Paul — a known troublemaker — was too subversive, they would have seen this as a threat to their (precarious) legal and peaceful status. Consequently, they often sought to distance themselves from Paul and the early Christians, and wanted to demonstrate that this movement was not, in fact, a part of Judaism. Hence, Tellbe argues that Paul’s conflict with ‘the Judaizers’ wasn’t necesarily a conflict between ‘Christians’ and ‘Jews’ but rather a conflict between Paul’s call to subversive and coslty political living, and those Christians who wanted to take on Jewish badges in order to avoid persecution. Thus, on the one hand, Tellbe presents a Paul who is offering an alternative narrative and political vision to that on offer by Rome and, on the other hand, Tellbe presents us with Christian congregations that are (naturally) scared to follow through on Paul’s radical demands, and who, therefore, would rather slide under the radar.
What can I say? I am convinced. This is a damn good book, and I’m surprised I haven’t seen it referenced more often.
4. The Satyricon and The Apocolocyntosis by Petronius and Seneca.
I found this Penguin Classics two-for-one deal at a used book shop near my work, and find both pieces to be amusing and useful. Actually, the fact that I found them to be so amusing concerned me a little — either I’ve become a total nerd, laughing at classical satires, or these authors were genuinely funny… it’s just that I never realised how funny they could be, before spending so much time reading about the Graeco-Roman milieu, during the first century.
Perhaps a rapid summary would be useful. The Satyricon is a fragmentary text notorious for its sexual cotent, and was written by Nero’s “Arbiter of Elegance” and close friend (whom Nero later forced to commit suicide) Gaius Petronius. However, there is a lot more to this text than what might find within the story pages of a dirty magazine. It is a Menippean satire (which were known for mixing prose and verse, humour and philosophy. Hence, it is a commentary on Roman life and morals, but it stands out because it refuses to take any moral stance of its own, and aesthetics, or ‘taste’, constantly undercuts all moral discourse — even as this ‘taste’ itself, is undercut by irony.
However, it is interesting to note that, while Petronius mocks almost all the characters who pass through the pages of his story, he especially targets ‘social climbers’ or those who would be experiencing ‘status dissonance’ — for example, slaves who had been freed and gained a great deal of wealth are especially attacked. Hence, undergirding this text is support of Roman order, piety, and values, for what Petronius regularly mocks is the influence of ‘new money’ over previously established laws and systems of justice and religion (we see this even more in Juvenal, but that will have to wait until my post on August books). Furthermore, there is also an ongoing affirmation of the Roman ideology of (merciful!) conquest running through this text. Hence, we see that even seemingly ‘subversive’ texts, when written by members of the elite, often end up being superficial criticisms the end up affirming the powers-that-be.
Finally, I found two other major points of interest: (1) the extent to which alternative religious gatherings were associated with sexual debauchery (and this prevalent attitude must be significant for Paul’s comments on matters related to sex); and (2) the ongoing significance given to members of the imperial cult (and, just as importantly, the way in which the imperial cult is especially useful to those who are interested in climbing the social ladder — again, this is significant for our understanding of the challenges faced by the early Pauline communities).
Like The Satyricon, Seneca’s Apocolocyntosis is a satire — indeed, it is a satire mocking the recently deceased Claudius, Caesar (‘Apocolocyntosis’ is a play on the word ‘Apotheosis’ and refers to the ‘Pumpkin-ification’ of Claudius, rather than the ‘Deification’ thereof; meaning that Claudius didn’t turn into a god, he turned into a ‘Pumpkin-head’) — but it is written in such a way that it both affirms the glory of Rome, and even of the imperial cult (the deification of Augustus is never questioned). Furthermore, this work would have helped Seneca gain favour with Nero, the new Caesar, as it praises the new regime, while mocking the one that just passed. Hence, we see again that seemingly ‘subversive’ texts, when written by the elite, actually affirm more than they criticise.
5. Six Prayers God Always Answers by Mark Herringshaw and Jennifer Schuchmann (already reviewed).
6. No Salvation Outside the Poor: Prophetic-Utopian Essays by Jon Sobrino.
Of the Latin American liberation theologians, whom I try to engage regularly, Jon Sobrino is rapidly becoming my favourite. This is an outstanding collection of essays and, were I ever to teach a course on liberation theology, I would probably make this required reading (for the basics, I would suggest Introducing Liberation Theology by Boff & Boff, but for sheer excitement, inspiration, and challenge, I would suggest this book).
Within this collection of essays, Sobrino engages in a critical reflection upon the fractured and divided state of our world of late capitalism — a world divided between the rich and poor, between those who live opulently and those who are denied the basic elements of human life, between victimizers and victims — in order to explore how salvation and humanization can be accomplished today. Sobrino’s fundamental assertion — which is reinforced by the voices of his constant dialogue partners, Ignacio Ellacuría and Oscar Romero, dear friends whom Sobrino outlived when he narrowly escaped being assassinated a couple of decades ago — is that salvation, humanization, and our hopes for truth, justice, and new creation, are inexorably connected to the poor and the marginalised. As such, Sobrino’s voice rises like the cry of the wounded, full of hurt and urgency, but — because it is the voice of one who has found salvation amongst the poor — it also resounds with faith, hope, and love for all.
This explains the title of this book, which is an English rendering of Sobrino’s Latin phrase: extra pauperes nulla salus. Of course, this phrase is a play on the classic Christian saying: extra ecclesiam nulla salus (‘no salvation outside the church’). However, far more than being a simple and provocative play on words, Sobrino’s phrase functions as an absolutely crucial corrective and exposition of what we mean when we say that there is ‘no salvation outside the church’. That is to say, the poor, as the crucified members of Christ’s body today, are the people of God today, just as much as the confessing members of Christ’s body (who have traditionally claimed a monopoly regarding the ‘Church’ and ‘the body of Christ’). This point, one that is commonly made by liberation theologians, is one that I now whole-heartedly affirm. However, it took me a couple of years to get to this place, so I’m willing to be patient with others!
For, ultimately, there is know way of knowing the profound truth of Sobrino’s phrase, unless one has decided to journey intimately with the poor, and has opened one’s self to being saved in that process. Thus, Sobrino’s essays function as a challenge to those of us who are comfortably situated amongst the well-off, the powerful, the comfortable, and the victimizers. However, more than being a challenge, Sobrino’s essays function as an invitation. An invitation to salvation, to life lived honestly and passionately, and to communion with our Lord. ‘Come, join us,’ Sobrino might well say, ‘taste and see that the Lord is good.’
7. The Society of the Spectacle by Guy Debord.
You know, when everybody you read (in certain circles) ends up referring to a certain text, it’s probably a good idea to read that text… which is why I sat down to read Society of the Spectacle (it is mentioned pretty much across the board by the ‘continental’ or ‘post-Marxist’ philosophers, and has been called the Das Kapital of the 20th century). I wasn’t disappointed.
It seems to me that Debord traces the social development of capitalism, and notes how our focus has shifted from being, to having, to appearing (the spectacular). The results of this transition are many, and mostly negative. Caught in the realm of the spectacular, we lose our hold upon the historical, leading to a society that is missing historical agents who are capable of engaging in genuine action (i.e. a society totally dominated by the Powers-that-be). However, we frequently are not even aware of this fact because we are so absorded in the Spectacle and in fulfilling the pseudo-desires it plants within us, which drive us to meet the pseudo-needs that are constantly created by the agents of capitalism (for the spectacular, as Debord reminds us, is firmly rooted in the economic). The result of this is that need itself has been turned against life (where life is understood both as the directly lived experience, and as that which is creative, good, just and true).
Consequently, in order to find our way out of this realm of representation, Debord argues that we must combine the theorist with the activist within the class that is capable of dissolving all other classes — the proletariat. That is to say, our hope is found when we combine our thinking with our doing, within a community of those on the margins of society (of course, this then sets the stage for one of the major crises of post-Marxist philosophy: who are the proletariat today? If this class has vanished, what social location, and what social group, hold the keys to our salvation?).
Now, I don’t know how much sense this makes to those who might be unfamiliar with Debord or this stream of philosophy, but I hope it whets the reader’s appetite for more. This book isn’t an easy read, but it is certainly rewarding.
8. What We Say Goes: Conversations on U.S. Power in a Changing World. Interviews with David Barsamian by Noam Chomsky.
It had been awhile since I read any Chomsky, and this book caught my eye in the airport last month so I picked it up and thought I would update myself on some of what is going on around the world (after all, Chomsky’s more recognised works — Manufacturing Consent [with Hermann] and Necssary Illusions — tend to focus on global events that were occuring in the ’70s and ’80s). Not surprisingly, everything is still pretty messed up. That’s the problem with reading authors like Chomsky. It’s like opening up Pandora’s box — once you let this information out, there’s no going back, and the world will never be the same again. So it goes.
Anyway, this book is a collection of interviews conducted in 2006 and 2007, and covering issues related to Latin America, the Middle East, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the ways and means of effectively protesting current practices of power. I found his comments on the Mercosur trade area to be especially interesting, given the significance Naomi Klein gives to this development in The Shock Doctrine. This, I think, is something I will try to follow in more detail. However, the chapter I found most interesting was the one entitled, “The United States Versus the Gospels”. This chapter talks about British and American imperialism in Latin America, and talks about American opposition to liberation theology. Allow me to quote at length:
The crime of liberation theology was that it takes the Gospels seriously. That’s unacceptable. The Gospels are radical pacifist material, if you take a look at them. When the Roman emperor Constantine adopted Christianity, he shifted it froma radical pacifist religion to the religion of the Roman Empire. So the cross, which was the symbol of the suffering of the poor, was put on the shild of the Roman soldiers. Since that time, the Church has been pretty much the church of the rich and powerful–the opposite of the message of the Gospels. Liberation theology, in Brazil particularly, brought the actual Gospels to peasants. They said, let’s read what the Gospels say, and try to act on the principles they describe. That was the major crime that set of the Reagan wars of terror and Vatican oppression. The United States was virtually at war with the Catholic Church in the 1980s. It was a clash of civilizations, if you like: the United States versus the Gospels.
9. White Noise by Don DeLillo.
I don’t know if my tastes are changing or if DeLillo is better in smaller doses, but I really enjoyed this book (which surprised me because I didn’t enjoy Underworld nearly as much — although I think the mean difference between the two books is that White Noise has a more traditional narrative structure and voice, whereas Underworld is more stream-of-consciousness, and ‘postmodern’). This tells the story of a fairly average American family — Jack, a chair in ‘Hitler Studies’ at a small college, and Babette, his fourth wife, as well as the television and the radio, and various combinations of kids — in a fairly average American small town that, by random chance, happens to undergo an ‘airborne toxic event.’
Now, what I liked about this novel is hard to put into words, precisely because so much of what I liked was in DeLillo’s tone, and in that which lingered unexpressed behind his recitation of lists, or descriptions of events. It seems to me that this book captures our fundamental bewilderment regarding the world in which we find ourselves. Yet this bewilderment is mixed, both with a numbness that covers it, and a sorrow that lies beneath it. Somehow DeLillo manages to capture all of this (and now I understand why one of my English Lit friends kept telling me to read this book!).
10. Hope in Shadows: Stories and Photographs of Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside by Brad Cran and Gillian Jerome.
This booklet is a wonderful collection of photographs taken by, and stories told by, residents of the downtown eastside (DTES). It also contains a brief history of the DTES, written by a local member of parliament, and a history of the PIVOT legal society — which is the society that created this book. Every year, PIVOT gives out cameras to people who live in the DTES and they hold a photography contest. The photos are displayed in an art gallery, and the winning pictures are made into a calendar. It’s a pretty rad idea, and this is a pretty rad book.
Come on, People!
The other day, I had a particular encounter that surprised me — not because of how I responded, but because of how everybody else responded. I was walking down the alley behind my house, heading to the bus stop, when I thought I heard somebody yelling. As I turned the corner out of the alley and onto the sidewalk, I saw an elderly woman holding her neck, slumped over in a bus shelter. She appeared to be street-involved, and was yelling: “Help me! Help me! I'm having a medical emergency!”
However, the thing that really surprised me, was that I observed people walking by her, completely ignoring her — and the other people waiting for the bus were all backing up, and moving away from her. There must have been about 6-8 people within earshot of her, and all of them were keeping the hell away from her.
I'd like to say that I responded to the situation by doing what anybody else would do — i.e. I ran over to the woman, found out what was wrong, called an ambulance, and waited with her until help arrived — but it turns out that nobody else responded in this way.
Actually, that's not entirely true. Shortly after I started talking to the woman, a homeless man came over to help as well. So, I guess you could say that I responded to the situation like any other homeless person would.
Thinking about this scenario, made me remember another event that happened several years ago, when I was living in downtown Toronto. It was the middle of winter, night was falling, and I came across an homeless man who was semi-conscious, lying in a puddle of slush. I didn't have a cell phone, but I knew the number for the Street Help Line, so if I could get ahold of them, I knew that they would come and look after this man. The problem was, I didn't have a quarter to call the Street Help Line from the payphone across the street. No big deal, I thought. There was a crowd of people a few feet away waiting for the street car. I turned and said to them, “Excuse me, there is a man lying here who needs help. Can somebody give me a quarter so I can call the Street Help Line?” To my amazement, every single person in that crowd ignored me (just like they were ignoring the man lying in the slush). This made me angry, and instead of asking nicely, I became aggressive and, in no uncertain terms, I told the people what I thought of them. That worked much better, somebody gave me a quarter, and everything worked out.
Now, I understand that middle-class people are scared of pretty much everything and everybody, but I cannot understand how one can allow such irrational fears to override any loving or helpful actions. I mean, in both of these situations, nobody had even taken out a cell phone and called 911. Bloody hell. Besides, it's not like I never get scared. I do get scared. It's just that I try not to let my fear overpower my identity in Christ.
Capitalism and Homosexuality
In certain Left-leaning Christian circles, it is not uncommon to hear the claim that the current attention being given to homosexuality, is due to the ways in which capitalism impacts our self-perception. Capitalism, so this argument goes, leads us to treat our bodies as yet another commodity. Consequently, forms of sexuality that were previously considered immoral are now treated as amoral markets open for consumers. To quote Žižek once again (a frequent dialogue partner these days), the assertion is made that ‘capitalism tends to replace standard normative heterosexuality with a proliferation of unstable shifting identities and/or orientations’ (In Defense of Lost Causes, 435). Of course, the conclusion that is drawn by the Christians who make this sort of argument is that resisting homosexuality is part and parcel of our resistance to capitalism.
I would like to challenge this argument, for I believe that it is overly simplistic and, therefore, misconstrues the relationship between capitalism and homosexuality.
What is we need in order to understand the relationship between capitalism and homosexuality is a more complex understanding of capitalism itself. Specifically, we need to ensure that we retain the tensions inherent to capitalism that are posited by Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari.
About a year ago, not knowing much about Deleuze and Guattari (except that they were quoted by some of my favourite contemporary theologians), I decided to sit down and work my way through Anti-Oedipus and A Thousand Plateaus (in retrospect, this probably wasn’t the easiest way to become familiar with these authors, and I found a great deal of assistance in Brian Massumi’s ‘user’s guide’ to this series). As I fought to understand what Deleuze and Guattari were talking about, one of the things I struggled with the most was their understanding of capitalism. In some passages, they seemed to speak very highly of it, in other passages they seemed totally opposed to it. It was only after some time that I realised that this was because Deleuze and Guattari were expressing a view of capitalism that was more nuanced that a good many on the left (take Naomi Klein as an example) and a good many on the right (say Friedman and Fukuyama).
Thus, on the one hand, Deleuze and Guattari argue that capitalism is a positive development because it reveals that a good many things that were previously considered ‘natural’ were, in actuality, ideological constructs that were used (amongst other things) to sustain unequal distributions of power within society. Hence, capitalism demystifies a good many of the ‘norms’ we take for granted, and demonstrates that they are exploitative human constructs (what Deleuze and Guattari refer to as ‘overcodings’).
However, on the other hand, Deleuze and Guattari demonstrate the ways in which capitalism betrays itself, and functions as an hegemonic movement, which forcefully inscribes a monetary form of ‘overcoding’ into all aspects of life and transforms desire into a reactive, disciplined force (rather than allowing it to continue on as the productive and creative force that it truly is). Consequently, while noting the positive aspects of capitalism — which demonstrate, in a properly Marxist fashion, that the seeds for the destruction of capitalism are inherent to capitalism itself — Deleuze and Guattari are ultimately interested in moving beyond capitalism (for, as Deleuze once said in an interview on this topic: ‘Capital, or money, is at such a level of insanity that psychiatry has but one clinical equivalent: the terminal stage’).
Now, the significance of this more nuanced understanding of capitalism is that it prevents us from being able to simply relate something to capitalism, and then brush it off as negative, immoral, or perverse. Unfortunately, as mentioned above, many Left-leaning Christians do precisely this (this is especially evident amongst the new-ish Christian Left that is emerging from Evangelicalism). Stated simply, they argue: (1) contemporary homosexuality is connected to capitalism; (2) capitalism is bad; therefore, (3) homosexuality is bad.
However, the counter-argument could be made that homosexuality, and the heightened attention currently being given to this subject, is actually one of the positive outworkings of capitalism. Thus, rather than reading the heightened attention being given to homosexuality as a sign of the commodification of our bodies and the loss of a stable identity, the current attention being given to homosexuality can be read as a manifestation of the ways in which capitalism has revealed the artificial ideological aspect of prior ‘norms’ and judgements regarding that which is said to be ‘natural’. It reveals how prior standards of heterosexuality were simply an exploitative power-play rooted, not in nature, but in the desire to dominate others.
The lesson to be learned in all of this is that those of us who wish to resist capitalism must ensure that we have a properly nuanced understanding thereof, lest we end up rejecting that which we should be affirming, or affirming that which we should be rejecting.
On Failing (an aspect of the 'imago dei'?)
Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.
~ Samuel Beckett, Westward Ho.
For the last several months I have been coming up against many of my own limits, and many of the limits of the communities in which I participate.
Thus, on the personal level, after approximately ten years of going deeper and deeper into relationships with those ‘on the margins’ of society — from going out once a week handing out bag lunches to hosting sex workers in our home for weekly dinners, having wanted criminals sleep on our couch, being a 24/7 contact person for other friends struggling with addictions and suicide, and so on — I appear to have hit a wall of sorts and find that most of the time I’m just… well… tired. The result of this is that I neglect friendships that I have developed, I withdraw from the people and places around me, and I’m not always there for friends in crises — friends who often have nobody else to whom they can turn. Not surprisingly, this leaves me feeling frustrated with myself. I am trying to live a life that is other-focused… no wait… I tell myself that I am trying to live a life that is other-focused, yet I quickly come up against my own limits and I actually don’t seem able to break through them. Of course, this could simply be a stopping point along the way, perhaps as time passes, as I develop further disciplines, as I learn more of how to love (and be loved), I might be able to progress further down this road. For now, however, it is hard to be at this impasse.
On the communal level, I have twice tried, and failed, to establish an ‘intentional Christian community’ rooted in the inner-city. The first one I tried lasted for a year and an half and then fell apart. The second one fell apart before it even got off the ground. A third effort might be in the works, but everything is so vague and tentative that I’m not holding my breath. I lot of people like to talk about this sort of endeavour (after all, ‘new monasticism’ is an hot topic in Christian circles these days) but not a whole lot of people actually like to take the dive and commit to something serious or even a little bit daring. This especially frustrates me. It seems to me that — if the Church truly is possessed by the Spirit of life, and holds the potential to be an agent of new creation within our present world — a lot of my hopes depend upon the Church actually living as the Church. The problem is, I can’t seem to find this Church. Sure, some churches are taking good steps in this or that direction… but if I look for a community of disciples that looks anything like the community Jesus gathered (and the community reflected in Acts) I’m hard-pressed to come up with (m)any local examples. So, I look to the Church for salvation… but I’ve given up on holding my breath.
On another communal level, I have gotten to know the social services field fairly well over the last ten years, and have mostly found social service agencies to be amazing in their inability to live up to their inherent potential. It is sad, but no longer surprising, to discover how quickly agencies devolve into corporate entities more interested in building their own brand-status and meeting the expectations of their donors, rather than being entities that genuinely act in the interest of the people whom they claim to serve. What was surprising (at first) was the observation that this is so widespread in social service agencies. So, I’m not saying people should avoid this field (I work in it myself), I’m just saying that one shouldn’t be surprised if the largest obstacles one encounters in working with street-involved people, end up coming from the social service agencies themselves.
So, what am I left with? Personal failures, a failed Church, and failed social service agencies.
However, the only way I know how to respond to these many failures is by pressing on and continuing to fail. For some odd reason, although this failure is difficult, I don’t find it entirely unexpected. You see, that ‘odd reason’ is that both Jesus and Paul provide us with prototypes of our own Christian lives — and they, like so many other saints, were remarkable failures (and don’t even get me started on the prophets). Paul, despite his talk of living life in the power of the Spirit, and despite his desperate and pleading letters, seems to have failed to develop many communities that lived up to (or anywhere close to) his expectations. In fact, it seems like a lot of his communities got away from him. It wasn’t until after Paul’s death that his true impact was felt. In life, however, Paul was likely regarded by many — and perhaps even himself — as a failure (just take a read through 2 Corinthians, and you’ll see what I’m talking about).
Similarly, Jesus also failed. Despite his efforts to bring the good news to the people he loved, despite his efforts to unite the ‘healthy’ and the ‘sick’, the ‘righteous’ and the ‘sinners’, the ‘privileged’ with the ‘marginalised’, despite his efforts to show a ‘way of peace’ to a people heading down the road of self-destruction, he found that, by and large, people refused to listen, refused to act, refused to follow. And so he, too, died, forsaken by God, and abandoned by all except a few faithful women. Like Paul, his true impact wasn’t felt until after his death — because it was the resurrection that changed everything. It was the vindication of the Son of Man, that transformed a failed messianic pretender into the risen Lord.
But we can, perhaps, take things one step further. With a great deal of hesitation, could we not also argue that the history of God’s engagement with creation, is also an history of failure? Let’s sketch out some of the broader points:
(1) God creates a good and pleasing world and places the man and the woman in a good place… but this fails to work as intended, the man and the woman are expelled from the garden, and death enters the world;
(2) therefore, God becomes tired of watching death develop into murder and rapacious living and so he tries to start anew — flooding the world, so that only one righteous man, and his family, survive… but this fails as this man, Noah, goes astray, and once again things begin to fall apart;
(3) thus, noting that ‘final solutions’ don’t end up being so final, God decides to choose another two people — Abraham and Sarah — to parent a nation that is called to be a blessing to all the other nations of the world… but this also fails as this nation, Israel, goes astray and, rather then serving others, seeks to become like the others in power and domination;
(4) therefore, running out of options, God chooses to become flesh and become a member of this nation, so that their destiny can be fulfilled, and so that a new people, possessed by God’s own Spirit, can go forth and be agents of new creation in the world… but this Spirit-empowered people also ends up losing its way. And we find ourselves where we are today.
What is the history of God’s engagement with the world? Try again. Fail again. Fail better.
So, given that humanity is created in the image of God, perhaps this means that it is in our failing that we are most like God. What is our calling as Christians? Try again. Fail again. Fail better.
Because, and here we find ourselves in the realm of mystery, I think that it might be through our failures that we come to the place where we triumph. Here, apart from the way in which this seems to be the model provided for us by Jesus and Paul (who, through a series of failures, end up overcoming far many than any expected or imagined), I am reminded of the words of Žižek. When speaking of previous (failed) revolutions, Žižek emphasises the fact that, if we wait for the revolution to arrive (so that we can join in), it will never arrive. Rather, he argues, the revolution only arrives after a series of failed attempts. Hence, Žižek argues, the revolutionary must have the patience of losing (the battles) in order to win (the final fight). Thus, he concludes:
These past defeats accumulate the utopian energy which will explode in the final battle: “maturation” is not waiting for “objective” circumstances to reach maturity, but the accumulation of defeats (cf. In Defense of Lost Causes, 392).
This is why Žižek continually cites the quotation from Beckett that has served as the conerstone of this post. I can only hope that what he says is true. Because if it is not… then what are we left with?
What do we do with Acts and the Deutero-Pauline epistles?
A good many New Testament (NT) scholars have demonstrated the value of reading the NT in light of extra biblical sources — be those sources literary, epigraphic, numismatic, or archaeological. Hence, the NT scholar finds it necessary to explore the Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, Greek and Latin classics, public inscriptions, images on coins, and the city plans and buildings found within the NT era. All of this leads us to a fuller, and more accurate, understanding of the content of the NT scriptures.
However, where this becomes curious (at least in my own particular area of study) is the way in which the genuine Pauline letters are still, by and large, studied without serious regard given to The Acts of the Apostles or, more especially, the Deutero-Pauline epistles. Why is it, for example, authors like Virgil, Tacitus, and Suetonius are given so much weight in our readings of Paul, while Luke's narrative account of parts of Paul's life is given less weight? Or, to take another example, why is an author like Juvenal considered an useful resource (even though he wrote after Paul did) when the Deutero-Pauline epistles are not (even though they were likely written earlier than much of Juvenal)? Or, to mention an even later work, on what basis can we refer to The Acts of Paul and Thecla while simultaneously ignoring 1 & 2 Timothy?
It seems to me that, given the tensions (and, perhaps, even contradictions) that exist between the genuine letters of Paul and the Deutero-Pauline epistles (especially the later pastorals), it is easier for us to ignore the epistles and find extra-biblical sources that verify what we want to find in Paul. The problem is that the Deutero-Pauline epistles might be closer to Paul than a good many of these other sources.
Perhaps another reason to ignore these epistles is the bulk of material a person would have to address. Academic specialisation leads to narrow foci within scholarship, and it is probably easier to, for example, read Paul in light of Virgil (a relatively unexplored realm, which also makes this more excited work — and work that is more likely to gain recognition) than it is to read Paul in light of the Deutero-Pauline letters.
Of course, there are scholars who continue to view these Deutero-Pauline epistles as genuine letters of Paul, but, IMO, this is an oversimplification. Rather, what I think we should be asking is 'how was it that these epistles developed out of Pauline communities, and in what ways are they faithful and unfaithful to Paul?'
Consequently, given all the appeals currently being made to extra-biblical sources, I am somewhat baffled that The Acts of the Apostles and, more particularly, the Deutero-Pauline letters are still largely neglected in Pauline scholarship. Indeed, those scholars who engage in 'counter-imperial' readings of Paul (i.e. the scholars I have been reading a lot) should be especially ocncerned with addressing the questions listed above. Rather than brushing aside Acts and the Deutero-Pauline epistles simply because they were not authored by Paul, they need to explore how communities that begin with such a radical founder can devolve into communities that embrace the dominant sensibilities of the empire (if, indeed, the Acts and the Deutero-Pauline epistles do this).
Are There Prayers God Always Answers? A Book Review.
[Okay, I know this review is far, far too long, but I guess this book struck a few chords with me. Besides nobody said that anybody had to read all of this. Gosh!]
Introduction
To my delight, I was recently approached by Mike Morell from http://theOoze.com. Mike offered to send me a few free books every month, so long as I would be open to (honestly) commenting on those books on my blog. I agreed to this arrangement for three reasons:
(1) Given that ‘the Ooze’ is known as an ’emergent’ website, I thought that this would give me some further insight into the so-called ’emergent conversation’. That is to say, I am suspicious of much that goes by the name ’emergent’ but I have read little that has been written (or supported) by those who belong to that conversation, and I saw this as an opportunity to change all that.
(2) Similarly, I thought that this would provide me with the opportunity to see what sort of books are being read and written at the popular Christian level. Until recently, I had no interest in reading any popular Christian writing. However, I was challenged in this regard by the ways in which Žižek and Lacan handle Freud. Freud, as we all know, was pretty much completely wrong about everything (if you think otherwise, spend some time reading his books and essays). However, Žižek and Lacan read Freud and come to some brilliant and stimulating conclusions. Perhaps, I said to myself, what we do or do not take from a book is more limited by our own intelligence, rather than the intelligence of the author. So, with this thought in mind, I felt ready to attempt some readings in popular Christianity. Besides, it is always a grounding experience to recall what it is that so many Christians think and believe in America today (although quite frequently that grounding feels more like Icarus falling into the ocean, than it feels like an airplane coming in for a smooth landing!)
(3) Who can say ‘no’ to free books?
Therefore, the first book, from Mike, that I have chosen to review, is Six Prayers God Always Answers by Mark Herringshaw & Jennifer Schuchmann (Carol Stream, Illinois: Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., 2008). I will begin by summarising the book and will then conclude with some points of critical reflection.
Summary
It seems to me that Mark Herringshaw and Jennifer Schuchmann have three primary hortatory reasons for writing this book. First, they want to encourage their readers to approach prayer as a conversation that occurs within a genuine relationship with God (rather than approaching prayer as a technique or formula). Second, they want to reassure their readers that God always answers prayers. Third, the authors want to remind the reader that, although God always answers our prayers, God doesn’t always answer them in the ways we might expect (the book jacket tips the reader off to this point; Six Prayers God Always Answers is followed by an asterisk, and a smaller font, below the title, reads as follows: *Results may vary).
Therefore, after an initial chapter which emphasises that prayer is (1) authentic conversation with God; (2) instinctual and something that all people engage in at some point; and (3) effective, the authors move into their discussion of the six prayers God always answers: bargaining prayers (Chpt 2), questions prayers (Chpt 3), prayers for justice (Chpt 5), desperate prayers (Chpt 6), audacious prayers (Chpt 8), and prayers for beauty and happiness (Chpt 9). Interspersed throughout these chapters, are three further prayers: “why” prayers, or prayers ‘God rarely answers’ (Chpt 4), inauthentic prayers, or prayers that ‘God doesn’t want to hear’ (Chpt 10), and prayers for independence from God, or prayers ‘God hates to answer–but will’ (Chpt 10). In the concluding chapter, the authors return to their point about the significance of prayer being a relationship, for it is through this relationship that prayers are answered (for it is God, not prayer, that ‘works’), and through this relationship that we come to see how prayers are answered.
So, let’s explore these in a little more detail. The first type of prayer that God always answers is ‘bargaining’ or ‘haggling’ prayers. All of us, the authors argue, have tried to bargain with God at some time or another, and God, out of his grace, puts up with our haggling and answers these prayers. Yet God desires that we come to a place where we simply ask and receive from him. So why does God tolerate our bagaining? Well, the authors suggest, perhaps it is through this bargaining process that we will be led to the place where we are willing to trade ‘our all for God’s all’.
That said, the authors also suggest that there are some ‘rules of bartering in God’s kingdom’: sometimes we get more than we ask for, sometimes others get more than we ask for, and sometimes God doesn’t hold us to our end of the bargain. All of this demonstrates that God’s generosity is greater than our ability to ask, and it should, lead us to the place where we simply ask and receive (rather than leaving us jaded by the observation that God seems to have made better deals with other people).
The second type of prayer that God always answers is ‘questioning’ prayers. Questions, the authors assert, function like a ‘spiritual sonar’ in our search for belonging, love, and meaning. Thus, in addition to understanding our own motives in asking questioning prayers, it is important to make sure that we are asking the right questions and understanding the answers that we (always) receive. For example, that authors assert that asking the question, ‘Is there a God?’ is asking the wrong kind of question, because, in order to answer that question, we would require a proof of existence that always eludes us. Instead, they suggest that we are better served by asking, ‘Are you there, God?’ because this requires a proof of presence, which can be found in our experiences. Furthermore, this second question ‘raises the stakes’ because how it is answered could significantly impact our daily living, rather than simply being a topic in an abstract philosophical discussion.
However, the authors then note that we frequently don’t seem to experience God, or find God’s presence as much as we would like. This, they suggest, is because God is ‘flirting’ with us. God is ‘courting’ us and trying to draw us into deeper intimacy, because he is a ‘master romantic’. ‘After all,’ the authors suggest, ‘if we were not separate from God, how could we come to love him, and how could he come to love us?’ They then go on to suggest that ‘maybe God’s elusive nature and our unquenchable yearning for him are themselves the biggest proof of his presence.’
The third type of prayer that God always answers is justice-oriented prayers. Noting that an awareness of in/justice is ingrained in all of us, the authors suggest that our prayers for justice are a sign of our moral health and of our movement towards God. The problem is that our prayers for justice are often ‘shortsighted’, ‘mean-spirited’, and blind to our own guilt. This is why God does not answer our prayers for justice in the ways in which we desire. Consequently, we must ‘leave room for the wrath of God’ and wait in faith to see justice enacted, even if we have to wait ‘all the way to eternity.’
However, there is more to this. Because God also suffers and mourns the injustices of the world, when we cry out for justice we come closer to God, and this ‘partnership in pain’ is itself ‘a form of answer to our prayer.’ Therefore, the authors conclude, God’s answer is his ‘intimate tear-laden friendship’.
The fourth type of prayer that God always answers is desperate prayers, which arise from our location in a broken world, full of danger and unintended harmful consequences. In this regard, the authors suggest that God seems to work by allowing things to get desperate, so that we will call out to him. Thus, God uses evil (although he doesn’t cause it) in a pragmatic way, in order to lead us to ‘the end of ourselves and the beginning of him’. Here, again, the role of faith is important for it is faith that allows us to believe that God answers our desperate prayers, if not now then in the hereafter. Thus, the authors conclude:
God always answers desperate prayers.
We have to believe that. Not just to get the answers, but to believe that God has answered—that he has responded in some way… faith helps us to see answers that are beyond an immediate yes…
If not here and now, then in a not-so distant Tomorrowland.
The fifth type of prayer that God always answers is audacious or selfish prayers. This may seem confusing to the reader, but the authors say that is is natural for us to desire something more, or something better, than what we have now. That is to say, ‘[m]aybe being selfish isn’t a part of our sinful nature, but rather comes embedded as original hardware’. Indeed, if we track characters from the biblical stories, we notice that those who go to God the most, and who demand results from God, tend to get what they want more than others. So, why does God reward this sort of ‘persistance’? Because, once again, it lays the foundation for a deeper relationship. Thus, the authors argue, the fact that we bring these desires to God is a sign of our dependence upon him. This, then, leads to the conclusion that ‘[o]ur most selfish prayers are our truest form of humility.’ Using their own aspirations as an example, the authors show how praying to be best-selling authors would bring benefits to many others — the charities they support would gain more recognition, they could increase the fortunes of those around them, they would aid in the employment of those in the book industry and so on and so forth — and so they ask: ‘When looked at from this perspective, could it be that asking for riches and fame is a noble prayer after all?’
Additionally, the fact that the act of prayer is, itself, beneficial to the pray-er should make us feel less discomfort with selfish prayers. Highlighting the (utilitarian) perspective of J. S. Mill, the authors argue that even our most altruistic prayers can be described as selfish — Mother Teresa found pleasure in seeing prayers answered for the sick people with whom she worked and so, yes, even those prayers could be termed as selfish. Ultimately, the authors conclude, this should lead us to demand nothing less than what God made us for (and so we also shouldn’t be surprised if God gives us something even greater than that for which we asked).
Finally, the sixth type of prayer that God always answers is beauty and happiness-oriented prayers. These are the prayers which arise from our encounters with breath-taking, wonderful moments. Generally, the authors argue, our instinctive reaction is to say something like, ‘Thank you!’ quickly followed by a prayer for ‘more!’ It is this prayer for more that God always answers — not by repeating the wondrous event (for that would pervert the event, and end up taking away from its beauty) and not be completely satisfying our demands (for that might lead to idolatry) but by continuing to provide us with hints and glimpses of beauty and wonder throughout the world. Ultimately, the authors argue, God works through these hints in order to ‘ruin us from ever being content with life here on earth’ so that we will only be satisfied in our future life with God.
So, what then of the other three prayers: the prayer God rarely answers, the prayer God doesn’t want to hear, and the prayer God hates to answer–but will?
Accoring to the authors, asking God ‘why?’ is a prayer that is rarely answered. The reason for this is that ‘why’ is a ‘bottomless pit’ and would require an answer too long, and too complex for our human comprehension. Besides, the authors say, asking why is frequently not a question at all; rather, it is our passive-aggressive way of scolding God. More significantly, they assert that knowing why doesn’t really change anything. Instead, the authors suggest, it is better to ask: ‘How?’ That is to say, rather than asking why there is evil and trouble in the world, it is better to ask how we can act to change those things (indeed, the authors suggest that this is the approach Jesus takes — in Luke 4, Jesus doesn’t ask why people are sick, imprisoned, poor, and oppressed, instead he changes those circumstances). However, despite all that, the authors say that we can continue to ask why (although earlier in the chapter they had ‘Don’t Ask Why!’ as a subheading) because this process of asking can bring us closer to God (even if God doesn’t answer).
According to the authors, posed prayer, prayer performed with ulterior motives, prayer that is inauthentic, is the sort of prayer that God doesn’t want to hear. This is so because such artificial prayer ‘isn’t prayer at all’. True prayer, and the prayer God wants to hear, is that which is earnest, authentic and genuine. However, the authors also remind us that only God can be the judge of what constitutes authentic prayer (while also reminding us that authentic prayer is usually accompanied by authentic action).
Finally, the prayer God ‘hates to answer–but will’ is our own prayer for independence (from God). Because, as the authors argue, free will is the greatest gift God has given us, and because God answers all of our genuine prayers, God also grants prayers that lead us away from him. God seeks genuine love relationships with us, and choice must be a part of that. Therefore, the authors conclude, God leave that choice in our hands and will allow us to be separated from him (even for eternity) should we so choose. Thus: ‘God hates our prayers for independence, but he loves us enough to answer them.’
Critical Reflection
What, then, are we to make of all this? Positively, I believe that the authors should be commended for highlighting the importance of pursuing a relationship with God through prayer. Although they neglect some of the positive aspects of more formulaic and ritualistic approaches to prayer (which understand prayer as a discipline that develops virtue within the character of the praying community), they are correct (although not particularly original) to highlight some of the risks involved with formulaic approaches to prayer. Secondly, without wanting to read too much into the authors intentions, I believe that they are trying to do a good thing — they are trying to encourage and affirm the faith of everyday Christians who struggle to communicate with God, and who are trying to understand the importance or relevance of prayer. This, too, is commendable. Thirdly, in engaging in this process, they do raise some tough questions — questions concerning justice, desperation, (apparently) unanswered prayer, and so on. This is important for it is these tough questions which we must confront if we are to have a living faith in Jesus — or an intimate relationship with God — in today’s world.
Unfortunately, I think that the authors, after posing these tough issues, take the easy way out and refuse to fully confront them. Rather than pursuing their confrontation with reality through to its end (wherever that may be) they retreat from the crises reality poses, and flee into mystifications, and spiritual explanations based upon ‘faith’, which is understood as that which affirms things that cannot be affirmed by any of our other senses. This is most evident in the ways in which the authors continually assert that God can, does, will, and must answer all of these prayers.
The problem is that I am not convinced that God does answer all of our prayers, be they bargaining, questioning, justice-oriented, desperate, audacious, or beauty-oriented. In fact, I am quite certain that God frequently does not answer these prayers, but before I get into that, let me demonstrate how the authors pose non-answers to prayer, as though they were genuine answers (and thereby avoid fully confronting the issues raised).
First, the authors note in passing that ‘no’ can constitute a real answer to prayer. This is an handy way to get around the issue, but leaves the fundamental problem unsolved. A ‘no’ results in exactly the same situation as an unanswered prayer so, from the perspective of material events and their outcomes, positing a ‘no’ simply avoids the issue (and it reminds me of an article from ‘The Onion’ which shows how absurd this sort of reasoning can be; cf. http://www.theonion.com/content/node/28812). Besides, how do we know when God says ‘no’ to our prayers? Is it when they appear unanswered? Or is that God just flirting with us? Or has God answered the prayer already in some other way we do not yet recognise? However, the authors don’t spend much time on this type of answer (it is mentioned briefly once) so we will press on.
Secondly, the authors posit that ‘partial’ answers constitute real answers to prayer. Unfortunately this is also only briefly mentioned, and so I’m not exactly sure how this works. So, let’s try to ground this in reality and walk it out. When he was very young, my oldest brother was diagnosed with a chronic and painful illness. Throughout his teens and early twenties, my brother’s illness got progressively worse until he was emaciated and, despite his prescription painkillers, unable to eat or sleep due to the pain. At that time, a good many of us were praying for my brother to be healed. Instead, my brother had an emergency surgery that momentarily reduced the severity of his illness and saved him from imminent death. However, my brother is still ill, and it appears as though the pain has been returning with more frequency recently. Is this the ‘partial’ answer to prayer that the authors or talking about? Is this the ‘answer’ to our prayers for my brother’s healing? Am I supposed to be satisfied with this? Unfortunately, the authors don’t tell me.
Thirdly, the authors emphasise that God frequently answers our prayers by giving us something greater than that for which we asked. Now this is easy to accept in some scenarios — say we pray for a Nissan but end up with a Porsche, or something like that. But it is more difficult to understand when it comes to other scenarios. Take Job’s experiences as an example. Job, as a faithful and religious sort of fellow, likely prayed for the well-being of his children. But his children all died. Of course, at the end of the story, Job seems to receive new and improved children… does that mean he got something better than what he originally asked for? I don’t think so.
You see, I believe that there are situations wherein there is nothing better than that for which we are praying. The best thing for my brother would have been for him to be healed. Granted, he didn’t die, but can his added years of life, and his ongoing battle with his illness, be termed something better than a complete healing from his illness? Not in my books. So maybe we get ‘something better’ when it comes to inconsequential prayers related to ‘stuff’ but the idea doesn’t seem to carry much relevance when it comes to life or death issues. Of course, the authors tend to focus a lot on the idea of praying for (more) stuff, so that may be part of the reason why they miss this point. (Actually, related to this point, I found myself frequently thinking that the book reflected a great deal of the middle-class, bourgeois environment of the authors.) Not all of us are just praying for more and nicer things, you know? Some of us are praying for freedom from addictions, healing from illnesses, liberation from bondage to the powers of Sin and Death, and the new creation of all things. I can’t think of anything better than that, so when those prayers go unanswered, I’m not saying it’s because God gave us ‘something better.’ Tell me God has given me something better than the new life that I wish for my friends, and I’ll tell you that you are blindly propogating religious ideology (or, if I know you a little better, I’d just call bullshit).
Fourthly, and most frequently, the authors emphasise that God does answer prayer, but that God’s answer usually looks a lot different than we imagined it would. Hence that following string of quotations:
If God always answers our prayers for justice, it must be that he answers them differently than we expect or desire…
A prayer that appears to be so obviously ignored is granted in some way that we can’t see here and now…
If we feel like our prayers aren’t being answered, perhaps it is because we don’t see the answers. We don’t recognize God’s responses. The way to correct that is not learn better techniques, but to learn more about God…
[F]aith helps us to see answers that are beyond an immediate yes… If not here and now, then in a not-so distant Tomorrowland.
The problem for these authors arises from the fact that the assertion that God always answers these prayers is not a conclusion, but an a priori assumption that they then must go on and affirm in every given situation. Hence the quotation I provided in my summary above:
God always answers desperate prayers.
We have to believe that.
Actually, we don’t have to believe that. But, the authors seem to be unable to believe in a God who does not answer desperate (or many other) prayers, and that is why they take the easy way out and argue that God always answers all these prayers (regardless of what the evidence tells us). Look, then, at the lengths to which they go, in order to try and cling to this idea. In their exposition of the ways in which God always answers questioning prayers, specifically, the question “Are you there, God?” they argue that God’s elusiveness is the proof of his presence. Essentially they are saying that, if we pray “Are you there, God?” and don’t experience God’s nearness to us, precisely this is the sign of God’s presence! Thus, the feeling of separation from God is converted into a sign of intimacy, and that we don’t feel closer to God shows that our prayer has been answered!
The authors refer to this as ‘flirting’, ‘courting’, and signs of God as a ‘master romantic’, but this needs to be challenged. Again, let’s bring it down to earth. Some tease, some distance, something of the unknown, all of these things can be exciting in a relationship. But there is a time and place for these things. For example, if I was married to a lover who didn’t answer me, who chose not to come (tangibly) closer to me, when I was going through a terribly rough moment in life, I wouldn’t call her a ‘master romantic’, I would call her an asshole! Similarly, if God tells me he stayed away from me, and those I know, when we were going through our hardest times, because he was ‘flirting’ with us, I’ll probably call him an asshole as well. Because that, my friends, is not a a part of an healthy love relationship; in the real world, we call that abusive (if it’s deliberate), or sick (if it stems from a mental health problem). Further, although there is some romantic truth in the idea that absence ‘makes the heart grow fonder’ ( or, as the authors ask,’if we were not separate from God, how could we come to love him, and how could he come to love us?’), the truth is that if all one has in a relationship is seperation and absence, the result isn’t deeper love, the result is a nonexistent or fictional relationship.
Therefore, pace Herringshaw and Schuchmann, I believe that the true challenge for believers, and the place where faith is truly born, is in the recognition that God does not always answer these prayers. Faith is not that which we cling to for answers that we cannot see in the material here-and-now of life; rather faith truly comes into its own as faithfulness when we choose to continue to follow Jesus Christ, even when our prayers go unanswered, and even when we are abandoned by God.
Thus, my most fundamental objection to the authors is to their assertion that God always answers the prayers listed above. Maybe Harringshaw, as a well-situated pastor of a 7000 member church, and Schuchmann, as a well-established writer, simply haven’t seen enough of the real world. Maybe their places of privilege and comfort have blinded them to what goes on in the lives of so many. Because I can tell story after story of men, women, boys, and girls who have had these sort of prayers — desperate, questioning, prayers for justice — go unanswered.
Let me provide just one real life example. Surely the nineteen year old girl crying for help while she is being sexually assaulted is praying a desperate prayer for justice.
It goes unanswered.
Or did God just say ‘no’?
Or did he ‘partially’ answer her prayer by keeping her alive?
Or did God have something ‘better’ planned, and that’s why he didn’t intervene? Not after the first guy. Not after the second. Not even after the third. Boy, God sure must have something real good planned.
Or, wait, maybe God did answer the prayer but not in a way that is obvious? Like… um… you know… um… how exactly?
Get my point? Offer any of these ‘answers’ to this girl and all you will do is alienate her, and, more often than not, drive her away from Christianity. Indeed, if anybody even considered offering these answers to this girl, that would simply demonstrate how incapable they are of moving from suburbia to the inner-city — from places where people pray for more ‘stuff’ to places where people pray for life to conquer death.
Which leads me to my second major objection to this book — the way in which ‘prayers for justice’ are treated by the authors. You see, the authors continually assume that our prayers for justice are punitive prayers for vengeance. They align prayers for justice with punitive prayers oriented around the fate of the one who has caused harm (i.e. ‘God punish this evil-doer’, that sort of thing). What they altogether fail to consider are prayers for justice, on behalf of victims and survivors. Praying for a traumatised person to stop having nightmares has nothing to do with ‘spewing vengeance’; praying for an abused child to develop a sense of self-worth has nothing ‘shortsighted’ or ‘mean-spirited’ about it; praying for a person dominated by the powers of Death to break free into new life in Christ isn’t at all punitive. Therefore, when one prays for justice in this way, and those prayers go unanswered, we cannot simply say, ‘well, our understanding of justice is perverse’ so we’ve got to ‘leave room for God’s wrath’ or whatever. That sort of thinking doesn’t apply here. Unfortunately, the authors appear incapable of, or unwilling to, imagine a person praying for justice in the ways I have described and so the fact that so many of these prayers (appear to?) go unanswered is unaddressed.
My third major objection to this book is related to the comments the authors make about God answering audacious and selfish prayers. Here, especially, the middle-class — dare I say ‘health-and-wealth’? — sentiments of the authors come through. After all, selfish prayers are said to be the ‘truest form of humility’ and considering the good we can do with money, ‘asking for riches and fame is a noble prayer’. Further, an utilitarian perspective is adopted, wherein all our good actions are seen as expressions of selfishness, and selfishness itself is posited as part of our original good human status.
On this point, it is important to distinguish ‘desire’ from ‘selfishness’ (something the authors never do). Certainly God has created us with desires, and in such a way that we only find our sustenance and fulfillment in things and beings outside ourselves. However, affirming the goodness of desire, is a far different thing than affirming selfishness or Mill’s utilitarian perspective. For example, here are the first two entries found under ‘selfish’ in the Merriam-Webster dictionary:
(1) concerned excessively or exclusively with oneself : seeking or concentrating on one’s own advantage, pleasure, or well-being without regard for others;
(2) arising from concern with one’s own welfare or advantage in disregard of others.
If anything, Christianity teaches us the opposite of this way of behaving. Granted, we are aware that our own well-being is caught up in the well-being of others, but this leads us to concentrate ‘excessively’ on others, not ourselves. It even leads us to disregard ourselves out of concern for the ‘welfare and advantage’ of others. I know that this is a hard thing for suburban Christians to hear, but it is an unavoidable point made, time and again, within the bibles read by those Christians.
However, we also need to recognise that even our desires have been perverted — some would say by original sin, others would say by socio-cultural influences, but I don’t think we need to distinguish between the two — and so we cannot adopt an utilitarian perspective. Our desires need to be disciplined, so that we learn to want to do that which we should be doing. Consequently, there are times when we do what we would rather not do because, rather than seeking our own happiness, we are seeking to be faithful disciples of Jesus Christ. This, after all, is the fundamental tension of the Christian life. God offer us new life, and life in abundance, in his world, through his Church, in the power of the holy Spirit… but that new life in abundance is only encountered by taking up our crosses and traveling the via dolorosa. The authors of this book seem to want to affirm the first part of that sentence, while ignoring the second half. But, hey, don’t we all? That’s why we need pastors and writers who, unlike Herringshaw and Schuchmann, continue to challenge and remind us of the cost of disciple.
These then are my three major objections to this book: (1) God does not answer all these prayers; (2) the authors never address prayers for justice that focus on new creation and redemption; and (3) the authors are mistaken to affirm selfishness in life and in prayer.
Apart from these, I have six other objections to this book. First, I challenge the extent to which God really does answer ‘questioning prayers’ according to the authors — they essentially narrow all questioning prayers down to the question ‘Are you there, God?’ Further, given that most of our (or at least my) questioning prayers are ‘why’ questions — ‘Why didn’t you stop Steve from overdosing?’ ‘Why didn’t you stop Nancy from jumping in front of that train?’ ‘Why didn’t you stop Jackie from being assaulted?’ ‘Why don’t you come for your shattered, broken, children, children who are longing for you, and make them new?’ — it is rather convenient for the authors to bracket out these questions. Really, in saying that God answers ‘questioning prayers’ they only asserted that God answers the question ‘Are you there, God?’ and, as mentioned above, sometimes God even ‘answers’ that prayer by not showing up!
Thus, implicitly, there are a whole load of other questioning prayers that God doesn’t answer — although the authors simply seem to suggest that God doesn’t answer these because we’re asking the wrong questions. This seems to start pushing prayer back into the ‘technique’ approach the authors seem to dislike so much — God only answers questioning prayers, if we ask the right questions? That sounds rather formulaic. Oh, and it also sounds like ideology.
Second, while I find myself in agreement with the authors when they assert that God rarely answers ‘why’ prayers, I find myself in disagreement with them regarding why this is the case. The authors assert that answers to ‘why’ prayers don’t really change anything, and they argue that it is better for us to focus on ‘how’ issues. Simply put, rather than asking why something went wrong, it is better for us to figure out how to fix the problem. Indeed, the authors quote Luke 4 in order to argue that this was precisely the approach that Jesus took.
Unfortunately, what the authors miss is that the ‘why’ of an issue can be crucial to the ‘how’ of our response. Take another real world example. I meet a lot of homeless young men with missing teeth. Now, granted, I can refer those men to dentists who will fix their mouths for free, or for a reduced rate… but what if I want to try and stop homeless young men from losing their teeth? Then I need to ask why those young men are missing their teeth. To know how to solve the problem, I need to know why the problem keeps showing up. Consequently, when I discover that the police who work in downtown Vancouver (and Toronto) like to zip-tie young homeless men, take them to a secluded area, and beat them up (thereby knocking their teeth out), I also learn that, to address this problem, I need to address the systemic and consistent abuse of power exercised by police officers. Thus, the ‘how’ that I end up practicing — speaking out against police corruption and sending the young men to caring dentists — becomes far more useful and significant than simply approaching a problem from the more superficial perspective taken by the authors of this book.
Indeed, I would suggest that the approach Jesus takes is much more in line with the example which I have provided. Jesus didn’t ignore ‘why’ questions after his Luke 4 manifesto, when he went about engaging in acts of healing, liberation, and solidarity. Rather, Jesus spoke out against the corrupt socio-political and religious structures that perpetuated abusive cycles of illness, bondage, and marginalisation. This, after all, is why Jesus was put to death. The people who killed Jesus, didn’t do so to save the world from sin (although that may have been an unintended consequence). They killed Jesus because his ‘how’ of liberating communal activity, was intimately connected to a ‘why’ which highlighted the corruption and violence of the powers-that-be.
Of course, when authors are comfortably situated in proximity to the powers-that-be, rather than in proximity to those who suffer under those powers, it is easy to forget, or overlook, this point. Asking ‘why’ questions lead to searching for systemic sources of problems, and might end up challenging the very position in which they find themselves, so it is only natural that they would rather focus on other things.
Third, I would also like to register my disagreement with the point that the authors make about free will being the greatest gift God has given us. The authors write the following:
Christians might argue that the greatest gift we received from God was the gift of his Son, who died on a cross to save us from our sins. But perhaps that wasn’t the greatest gift.
To accept the Cross as the greatest gift, to be the recipient of salvation, one has to choose to believe in the saving power of Jesus at the Cross. Without making the choice, it is an unopened gift.
Perhaps the greatest gift God has given us isn’t the Cross. It could be that the greatest gift is free will.
If, as the authors assert, our salvation really does come down to the decision that we choose to make, then perhaps free will is the greatest gift (and greatest curse!) of all. However, I continue to think that those who would base our salvation upon our decisions have fallen into a popular and persistent form of Pelagianism. If we wish to affirm a God of grace, and a God who has overcome all the powers of Sin and Death, then that which is revealed upon the cross truly is the greatest gift given to us — for is shows us a God who refuses to allow us to damn ourselves to hell. The cross shows us a God who descends into hell, and in his solidarity with the damned and the godforsaken, bursts the gates of hell and sets the catives free. Of course, this then leads us into discussion regarding ‘universalism’ so I’ll simply refer the authors to the writings of Hans Urs von Balthasar, Jürgen Moltmann and Gregorgy MacDonald.
Fourth, I was also disconcerted by the naïveté the authors exhibited in relationship to themes of American and British patriotism and military conquests. I counted ten different examples of this — from speaking of the role prayer played in the formation of the American constitution, to speaking of prayer in American after Sept 11, 2001, to speaking of the prayers of American marines in Iraq (a particularly interesting passage: ‘Paul [the marine] gave up wussy prayer, and when he prayed selfishly, he bound out God was strong enough to hold his own’), to speaking of how patriotic music makes the authors ‘weep for God and country’, to speaking of how God heard the prayers of Protestant England, and destroyed the Catholic Spanish Armada, to speaking of how God heard the prayers of Columbus and allowed him to fulfill his destiny and take ‘the gospel of Christendom to heathen ports around the world’ — all of these show a shocking degree of historical and political naïveté — or just plain, good old ideological blindness (after all, one can only assume that God answers the prayers of Protestant England in the 16th century, if one also assumes that God did not answer the prayers of Catholic Spain… because, you know, Catholics are bad or something). If one is even a little critical of America and Europe’s, military conquests, if one has even a little familiarity with post-colonial studies, then one would likely speak differently about these subjects. Of course, that comfortable, middle-class American authors fail to see the importance of these things is not surprising, but it is unfortunate.
Fifth, although I am glad to see the authors pressing the point that prayer should take place within the context of a genuine relationship, I sometimes think that the authors overstate, or misrepresent, this point. In particular, I was bothered by their assertion that relationship with God ‘ensures special consideration’ of our prayers. I was equally bothered by the way in which they illustrated this point: ‘Prayer is the equivalent of having a few drinks with the boss after work. It doesn’t ensure favor, but it ensures face time.’
What exactly is it that they are saying here? On the one hand, they appear to be saying that God does privilege the prayers of those who have a relationship with God (a point I must disagree with — it smacks too much of elitism, and neglects the fact that God is Lord over all creation and all people), but on the other hand they seem to suggest that relationship doesn’t ensure favour… so what’s going on? It seems to me that what they are really saying is this: God doesn’t show special favour to those who believe in God the way that we do, but those who believe in God the way that we do will be better equipped to see how God answers prayer (this, I think, is what they mean by ‘face time’). This, then, leads us full circle to my first major objection.
Oh, and prayer is much, much more than face time with the boss over a few drinks. Prayer is also a process of individual and communal discipline and formation. And the communal emphasis is important. Prayer is something Christians are to do together. Unfortunately, when the authors talk about prayer, they only seem to talk about an individual talking with God.
Sixth, and finally, the authors display an odd reliance upon popular psychology — and child psychology in particular. Hence, when speaking of the six prayers God always answers, they always try to argue that these prayers — like prayer itself — are somehow instinctual and grounded in our psychological make-up as humans. Of course, this leads to some interesting problems for them. For example, when speaking of ‘why’ prayers, they suggest that although asking ‘why’ appears to be instinctual, in actuality it is a learned behaviour (besides, they go on to say, child psychology teaches us that kids who ask ‘why’ are just looking for attention, and not for an answer — so, of course, this lets God off the hook for not answering our ‘why’ prayers!). Essentially, I am at a loss as to why the authors display such a dependence upon popular psychology. Personally, I would hope that Christian pastors and writers were a little more informed by theology, biblical studies, or social theory… but maybe that’s just me.
By way of conclusion, let me say that I am happy to have read this book. This is not because I find myself agreeing with much of what the authors say. Rather, it is because it has given me a glimpse into popular Christianity and allowed me to formulate my own responses to some of the issues being presented there.
Jesus Saves (a prayer of sorts)
You know, it's all well and good that Jesus saves us from the consequences of our own sins, but I'd much rather he spent more time saving us from the consequences of the sins of others — or, for that matter, saving others from the consequences of our own sins. In particular, it would be nice if he spent a little more time saving the dis-empowered and vulnerable from the sins of the powerful and predatory. Yep. That would be really great.
America: Our 'Dark Knight'? Watching Batman with Zizek
In contrast to the simplistic opposition of good guys and bad guys, spy thrilers with artistic pretensions display all the “realistic psychological complexity” of the characters from “our” side. Far from signaling a balanced view, however, this “honest” acknowledgement of our own “dark side” stands for its very opposite, for the hidden assertion of our supremacy: we are “psychologically complex,” full of doubts, while the opponents are one dimensional fanatical killing machines.
~ Slavoj Zizek, In Defense of Lost Causes
The same, I think, could be said of superhero movies with artistic pretensions. Take The Dark Knight. Batman’s psychological complexity, his struggle with the moral ambiguity related his own actions, and his status as a “Dark Knight”, do not level the playing field between Batman and the evil he resists. For the Joker is, in his own words, “a dog chasing cars”, he is evil and violent, simply for the sake of being evil and violent. He promotes chaos for the sake of chaos. The Joker has no psychological complexity, no internal moral struggle, he is a “fanatical killing machine”. He is thus completely, and utterly, insane. Hence, Batman’s inner turmoil functions as a sign of his supremacy over the forces he resists, personified in the Joker.
Of course, many people have noted that this moves Batman from the realm of the heroic, into the realm of the anti-hero, and that’s all well and good (i.e. that’s where Batman has always belonged), but it doesn’t take us very far.
You see, Zizek’s remarks about “our side” refer to the ideology of the liberal democratic West, and the United States in particular. The Dark Knight functions as a powerful spectacular (think Debord) defense of that ideology.
In today’s world, America can no longer hold on to her heroic pretensions. It is clear that she is waging an illegal war, breaking UN Charters, and refusing to respect decisions made by the World Court. America can no longer be sustained with stories of innocence, and heroism, and fictions about cowboys and savages. That innocence has been lost, and many of the actions America has engaged in appear morally ambiguous (at best — in reality they only appear morally ambiguous to Americans and their allies, the rest of the world is aware that those actions are morally deplorable!). Thus, according to contemporary American ideology, things go like this: aware of the ways in which she will be (unjustly) villified, America still shoulders the burden of engaging in necessary violent actions for the sake of others (like going to war to save the world from terror), even if those others go on to condemn her for those very salvific actions!
Thus, America has become an anti-hero. She is a vigilante, engaging in actions that others condemn, actions that are illegal, for the sake of the greater good. Like Batman. And The Dark Knight ennobles this ideological (but utterly false) vision of America. Batman represents America and her allies, while the Joker represents all the forces of terror that America is fighting. Not only does this become clear through moments in the film — say when Batman is standing at the site of an explosion, a scene that looks a lot like Batman imposed upon ‘ground zero’ in New York, or when Batman decides to covertly use communication technology to spy on others (an act like phone-tapping), a deplorable but necessary act given the Joker as the creator of ‘the state of exception — it is also clear in the way in which the film was marketed. On one of the posters advertising The Dark Knight, we see Batman standing below an office building. Some of the windows of the building have been blown out, and a fire is burning inside. It is up to the reader to decide whether or not the shape created looks more like a bat-symbol, or more like the gap created by a plane flying into a building (cf. http://blog.ugo.com/images/uploads/DrakKnightPoster-4-24-08.jpg). Significantly, this scene never appears in the movie.
Note, then, some of the things that are masked by this ideology, and its recent spectacular defense in The Dark Knight.
(1) Bruce Wayne, Batman in ‘real life’, is portrayed as one of the wealthiest men in the world. This is significant, not only because it allows Batman to have the best technology for his suits and other toys, but because it portrays Batman as a person without any needs. This, then, highlights the altruistic nature of his character. Wayne acts, not for his own sake, or in his own defense, but in defense of others — especially those who cannot defend themselves. Now, when Batman is used as a stand-in for America, we receive the myth of an altruistic America, acting solely out of her desire to see others living free and democratic lives.
This is a complete reversal of the reality well expressed by Henry Kissinger: “America doesn’t have friends. America only has interests.” Granted, like Bruce Wayne, America is one of the wealthiest powers out there today. But, unlike Bruce Wayne, she is not independently wealthy. She is wealthy because she has been plundering other nations for decades — all the while posing as if she had those other nations’ best interests in mind!
Therefore, although the altruistic Batman is unjustly reviled, and becomes something of a martyr for the sake of the masses he loves so much (or so the story goes), we must not be so foolish as to draw the same conclusion about America’s actions on the world stage today. America is reviled because she is plundering and killing the innocent and those who are without defense against her power, so let us be careful that Hollywood doesn’t confuse us on this point.
(2) As America cannot be equated with the altruistic Batman, so also those who struggle violently against America and her interests — notably groups that are labeled ‘fanatical Jihadists’ or something like that — cannot be equated with the Joker. On this point, let me mention another passage from Zizek’s In Defense of Lost Causes. In discussing the ways in which our society forces certain perspectives and presuppositions upon us, Zizek mentions the Serbsky Institute that existed in Soviet Moscow. This institute existed to torture any who internally opposed the Soviet Union, for “[t]he overriding belief was that a person had to be insane to be opposed to Communism.” Zizek then argues that the same sort of attitude was operative in response to Mel Gibson’s drunken anti-Semitic outburst in 2006. With all the talk of Gibson’s need for rehabilitation and counselling, Zizek argues that our society tells us that “a person has to be insane to be anti-Semitic”. He then draws this conclusion:
This easy way out enables us to avoid the key issue: that, precisely, anti-Semitism in our Western societies was — and is — not an ideology displayed by the deranged, but an ingredient of spontaneous ideological attitudes of perfectly sane people, of our ideological sanity itself. (To be clear: Zizek isn’t defending anti-Semitism in this passage or elsewhere — he believes that Gibson’s attitude, and the popular response to that attitude, are both problematical.)
What I think Zizek is doing in this pasage, is arguing for the importance of exploring the ideological beliefs that inspire and sustain the actions that we perform. He wants to expose those ideologies, and he wants to ask, “why is this particular ideology appealing to this person? Is there, perhaps, some good or understandable reason why this person holds to this belief (say, for example, the person who resists Communism)?” and so on and so forth.
However, this is precisely the sort of discussion that America does not want to engage in. Hence, it promotes the view that terrorists are insane, that they are lovers of death and chaos, operating strictly out of madness and inexplicable hatred. Thus, the Joker perfectly represents the ‘enemy’ as America wishes us to perceive that ‘enemy.’
However, the truth is that most of our ‘enemies’, most ‘terrorists’, are quite intelligent and are perfectly sane. Consequently, we must engage in precisely the sort of discussion that Zizek recomends. Yet, this quickly reveals that some people actually have understandable reasons for becoming militant fundamentalists — American businesses stole our land, and led my family into starvation and poverty; American planes fire-bombed my village; American companies sold weapons to the people who shot my family; and so on and so forth. This, then, is part of the reason why some people would be drawn toward a militant form of fundamentalism, but it is precisely this sort of thing that America must repress. Better to represent the enemy as a Joker. A mad dog chasing cars.
(3) Notice, also, the way in which political acts of lying and deception are justified. Apart from one moment, The Dark Knight portrays the people as always on the verge of hopelessness that quickly turns into anarchic violence and self-destructive chaos. Therefore, the people must be presented with a fictional “White Knight” in order to provide them with hope, and so that order can be sustained. Thus, continuing with Zizek’s comments in In Defense of Lost Causes, the only way to sustain Order is, paradoxically, by transgressing that Order (Agamben’s state of exception, again). But this comes with a price: “The price we pay for this is that the Order which thus survives is a mockery of itself, a blasphemous imitation of Order.”
Unfortunately, what The Dark Knight offers is a noble vision of this transgression. Sure, it may not be presented as ideal, but it certainly is presented as the best possible option for us — and it’s hella cool. Thus, how can we not agree when Dick Cheney tells us that “we also have to work… sort of the dark side… A lot of what needs to be done here will have to be done quietly, without any discussion.” We become incapable of seeing that this sort of Order is actually Disorder, and that this sort of structure is only the systematisation of chaos — the very thing it claims to counteract, it perpetuates (which is why America is always a nation at war, or encouraging, supplying, and funding wars elsewhere).
However, we the people — or, rather, the multitude (which Hardt and Negri carefully distinguish from the concept of ‘the people’) — should take offense at such portrayals of the public. The violence that runs just beneath the surface of us is not a self-destructive, insane expression of chaos. Rather, it is a violence that we wish to direct towards the powers-that-be, towards the political persons who lie to us and deceive us. As such, it is an expression of hope, not hopelessness. America, and The Dark Knight, would have us believe that we need to be saved from ourselves, but in reality it is the powers-that-be who know that they are the ones who may need to be saved from us. Consequently, they portray themselves as our saviours, and in this act, they continue to hold sway over us. In reality, we have nothing to lose but our chains, and the blood of others — our brothers and sisters around the world — that has been poured out over our hands, staining our clothes, the fuel we consume, and the food that we eat.