If we wait for the ‘right moment’ to start a revolution, this moment will never come — we have to take the risk, and precipitate ourselves into revolutionary attempt, since it is only through a series of ‘premature’ attempts (and their failure) that that (subjective) conditions for the ‘right’ moment are created.
~ Slavoj Zizek, The Puppet and the Dwarf, 133.
Nevertheless, of course, the cruciform Church will fail, and each of us who aspire to cruciformity will also fail — again and again. Even here, however, the cross is the answer. When we fail, we return to the cross, the symbol and means of forgiveness and reconciliation.
~ Michael Gorman, Cruciformity, 400.
The last six months have been quite difficult.
Just over a year ago, four of us came together to explore an alternate way of living, and we began an ‘intentional Christian community’ in Vancouver’s downtown eastside. I was quite thrilled with what happened in the first six months of our journey into life together — we developed a pattern of praying together; some of us started reading in the park as a way of getting know our neighbours; others of us started walking the streets at night, getting to know the working girls; we (occasionally) invited homeless people to sleep on our couches or in our rooms if some of us were away; we celebrated a ‘community dinner’ once a week that was open to friends, co-workers, people living in our neighbourhood, others who were passing through town, and, really, pretty much anybody (those dinners were delightful and we hosted anywhere from five to twenty-five people per week).
But then, about six months ago, everything started falling apart. One of us moved to Honduras to pursue a teaching job there, and nobody ended up coming to join us to fill the empty spot (it was an odd series of events, as multiple people appeared to be close to joining — or even committed to join — but then backed out at the last minute). Also, unresolved tensions and conflicts between community members piled up, and we realised we had invested too much energy early on into engaging ‘missionally’ with the people around us, instead of taking the time to invest in the relationships that needed to exist amongst the community members. So, we scaled back our ‘missional’ activity and began to spend more time with one another. An important step, but one that took us away from the people around us. Then I began to burn-out physically (I had been working full-time overnights shifts for about three years, while also doing my Masters). I was regularly so exhausted that I had no desire to go out into the community around us. Simultaneously, another community member became so involved in various other commitments that that member was hardly present in the house at all. Likewise, the third member began to burn-out emotionally. Consequently, our times of prayer became more sporadic and we lost our routine of praying together. Our community dinners also suffered and we went for about four or five months without hosting a single dinner. Instead, we found ourselves just inviting friends over for dinner or drinks, and we became something of the ‘host house’ for our friends — but not for people in our neighbourhood. Finally, a few weeks ago, we had a big house meeting to address a lot of these things and we started up our community dinner once again. However, the community is still far from what it could be, or even what it used to be.
Now granted, this community was not intended to be a long-term community. It was only supposed to last for about 18 months — although it looks like it will be drawing to a close in a little less time than that. Realistically, without a fourth member, the rent is too expensive for us to be able to stay here much longer, and we still have one member who is burned-out and another who, despite good intentions, has too many other commitments to be able to fully invest in the community here. Consequently, even though I finally got off of my night shifts a few weeks ago and find myself reinvigorated, I am bracing myself to say goodbye to this place and move into some sort of limbo state until my wife and I can figure out where we are going from here. To make matters worse, the people with whom my wife and I had planned to begin a long-term community, ended up backing out on us.
So, as I look back on the time in this community, I can’t help but feel saddened and ashamed. Saddened because we failed to be what we could have been. Ashamed because I think that many assume that we were what we were not. Whenever a person expresses any sort of admiration for what we do, I cannot help but feel like a poser and a hypocrite.
Of course, even in our lowest moments, there were still good things that happened. Even when we were failing to be a community, we were still there for a friend who needed a safe place to be to ‘come down’ after relapsing, and we were still there for another friend who needed a safe place to be after having a ‘bad date’. The shame of our failure becomes bearable when I remember such moments — but it does not change the fact that we have, by and large, failed to embody much of any sort of real alternate way of sharing life together.
Consequently, as I think about moving on from here (as we plan to do at the end of January/start of February ’08), I do get scared. The idea of moving from here to some sort of apartment (hopefully in this neighbourhood) with just my wife and I, scares me because it holds the potential to be a first step in a trajectory that travels in a very different direction than the way we hope to go. It makes me remember the many voices that have told me that what we hoped to do was a figment of a young and foolish imagination. It makes me worry that those voices were right.
However, there is hope. In our failure, we have learned a great deal about the ways in which a group of people should go about learning to journey together (i.e. we made a lot of mistakes, but such mistakes may prove to be quite useful for future attempts at intentional Christian living). Furthermore, limbo states can be fruitful. The wilderness — the place that intervenes between one’s departure point and one’s destination — although a place of trial and testing, is also a place where one encounters, and is nourished by, God. And so, as I brace myself for the wilderness that is looming on our horizon, I hold onto the hope there there is One who has gone before us, and prepared a way for us, through the dry places and beyond into the land that flows with milk and honey. Milk and honey not just for us, but for all who are hungry, for all who are thirsting, and for all who desperately need a community wherein they can be known as beloved children of God.
Lord, have mercy. On all of us.
Reading Scripture: Scholars, Clergy & Laity
Chris Tilling recently wrote a post in response to my reflections (and the ensuing comments) on the form of hermeneutics espoused by Piper and Co. (cf. http://christilling.de/blog/ctblog.html). It is worth reading what he has to say, and it has prompted me to further explain my approach to reading, understanding, and applying scripture (especially as that reading relates to the laity, as per one of the comments on my original post).
1. Scripture, as a witness to the Word of God that is for all people, should be available to all people.
2. Furthermore, precisely because scripture is a witness to the Word of God, all people should be encouraged to read scripture.
3. Therefore, all Christians — be they scholars, clergy, or laity — should both have access to scripture, and be encouraged to immerse themselves therein.
4. However, scripture also exists as a text, or rather, as a large collection of texts written at various times, by various authors, in various genres, to various audiences, with various purposes in mind.
5. Consequently, we must recognise that scripture, as a whole, is a rather complicated thing and, having made this recognition, we must approach scripture with a great deal of caution.
6. Such caution is also necessary because we ourselves exist within a particular place, time, culture, and moment in history and we have all, to some degree, been conditioned by this context.
7. However, this context is one that is foreign to scripture and so we must be careful that, in our reading of scripture, we do not import foreign concepts, values, paradigms and presuppositions into the text.
8. Indeed, when we become aware of the issues involved in reading, understanding, and applying scripture, may seem so complex that we leave scripture strictly within the hands of the professionals.
9. But this would be a mistake, not only because the scripture is a witness to the Word of God that has been given for all people (see points 1-3), but also because scripture is a witness to other scripture.
10. When I say that scripture is a “witness to other scripture,” I mean that scripture, acting as a witness to the Word of God within a particular text found within the canon, also acts a witness to the Word of God in other texts found within the canon.
11. This means that there is a certain coherence to scripture, a certain storyline that runs from Genesis to Revelation, and certain characters, events, motifs, and injunctions that appear (and develop) throughout the whole.
12. Consequently, by continually relating the parts to one another, and by reading the particular in light of the whole, one is able to comprehend the gist of scripture (even if one does not comprehend every particular or all the details).
13. This understanding could be said to be the understanding that comes from the ‘plain reading’ of scripture.
14. This also reveals that the sort of reading that is required, in order to achieve this sort of understanding, is quite a bit more vigourous and sustained than the type of reading that is practiced by much of the contemporary Christian laity in the West (indeed, it is questionable as to how much of the laity actually reads the scripture with any regularity — although the same critique could, and should, be made of the clergy, and Christian scholars).
15. However, assuming that we actually are reading the scriptures with some regularity, one cannot simply read a chapter per day, or a verse per day (or a random selection of verses found within a daily devotional) and hope to get much that is meaningful or transformative out of scripture (instead, using this method, one will probably discover what one wants to discover, or what one has been culturally-conditioned to discover).
16. Unless, that is, the clergy have provided the sort of foundation that allows such a reading (of, at the very minimum, a chapter per day) to be meaningful.
17. That is to say, the clergy should be the ones providing the laity with the ‘big picture’, with the leitmotifs, and with the paradigm(s) that one finds in scripture. Thus, when I read about Pentecost in my devotions, I should be trained to automatically think of Babel and the call of Abraham, when I read about resurrection I should automatically think of the return from exile, and so on and so forth.
18. Consequently, ‘Sunday School’ (by which I mean the education of both children and adults in church), rather than providing us with a seemingly random sample of stories, should provide us with the story. Thus, when we read one particular part of that story — say the story of the exile of Israel — we will automatically remember earlier parts (the exile of the nations, and the exile imposed upon humanity and the cosmos) and anticipate later parts (the godforsakenness of Jesus on the cross, and to the resurrection of Jesus from the dead coupled with the outpouring of the Spirit).
19. In this way, new light will be shed upon our daily readings of select parts, and our consumption of each bit becomes, in actuality, a re-consumption of the whole. It is precisely this sort of reading that becomes both meaningful and transformative (just as the continual consumption of the body and blood of Christ found in the Eucharist is both meaningful and transformative).
20. It also means that our reading of scripture should be more sustained than it is. We should read daily, we should read sustained units of the story, and we should read in a way that genuinely engages the text at hand. Such a reading, with the requisite foundation, should make the ‘plain reading’ of scripture clear.
21. This, then, raises the question of the role of biblical scholars (and theologians) as they relate to the reading, understanding, and application of scripture within the church.
22. By and large, the role of the scholar is to inform the clergy (who then inform the laity).
23. By making this assertion, I am not seeking to create a hierarchy, or suggest that the scholar is superior to the priest (or the lay person). The scholar may be the minister of the (written) word, but the clergy member is the minister of the sacraments, and the lay person is a minister of the koinonia of those in Christ.
24. No one — scholar, clergy member, or lay person — is greater than the other, but each has his or her own role, and each should defer to the other in their respective areas of ‘expertise’. That means that, when Christian scholars tell the clergy (and the laity) to interpret a particular passage in a particular way, it is the responsibility of the clergy (and the laity) to do so. Or, conversely, when the clergy (and the laity) tell the Christian scholars that their lives need to reflect the content of their studies, it is the responsibility of the scholars to make the necessary changes.
25. Of course, such thinking relies, to a certain extent, upon a consensus within Christian scholarship. Yet, such a consensus is rarely found.
26. In the absence of consensus, it is the responsibility of both the scholar and the clergy member to inform themselves, as best they can, of the various sides of the argument at hand, before making a decision.
27. When debates get technical, as they often do, the scholar is better equipped for engagement than the clergy member. Therefore, it is the responsibility of the scholar to summarize the various positions, and their strengths and weaknesses, for the clergy member.
28. Therefore, when confronted with a controversial issue, the clergy member, like the scholar, must practice a great deal of patience before presenting a position to the laity and should not succumb to the temptation to give a hasty answer to seemingly urgent questions (hence, the laity must learn to practice patience as well).
29. After all, one cannot simply go with the majority of scholars (majorities are sometimes wrong), nor can one ignore solitary ‘radical’ voices on the fringes of the discussion (such voices are sometimes prophetic), nor can one simply go with the majority of scholars who are affiliated with one’s particular denomination (all denominations are flawed, and hold wrong views on some things), and so negotiating these waters can be extremely difficult.
30. Consequently, in areas that are especially controversial, the best a clergy member can do is to present the range of options to the laity and ask the church, as a congregation, to either: (a) prayerfully and carefully come to a consensus for how they, as a local body, will choose to act (while remaining aware that other local bodies have selected other options); or (b) refuse a consensus and allow for the whole range of options to be visible within one local body.
31. Of course, both (a) and (b) will likely lead to some members leaving the church but a local church cannot make this sort of decision based upon how many members, or which members, choose to stay or leave.
32. In all of this the clergy member, like the scholar, must be careful that he or she is not simply imposing his or her own personal preference upon the church.
33. That said, exercising caution, and recognising the plurality of options available to Christians on some issues, is not the same thing as cheerfully tolerating all positions.
34. Consequently, there are times when Christians must strongly disagree with, and refuse to accept, the positions held by other Christians on some issues (indeed, such disagreements have always been a part of the history of the people of God as the prophetic material in the OT shows us, and the Gospels and the letters of Paul in the NT remind us).
35. However, to refuse to accept a position that is held by another Christian, is not the same thing as refusing to accept that other Christian as a Christian, or as a fellow member of the body of Christ.
36. In extremis, such disagreement may even need to be voiced in the act of excommunication. However, even the act of excommunication does not say that a person is ‘damned’ or has ‘lost their salvation’ or whatever. Rather, it simply asserts that, at the present moment, the excommunicated person’s actions prevent that person from participating in the body and blood of Christ (and it makes no assertion whatsoever about the status that person might attain to after death).
37. Unfortunately, none of this has addressed how one is to discern which issues are the ones that require a person to take this sort of stand… but I have gone on long enough for now.
Pop-Spirituality and the Quest for Self: Just who is becoming like a god?
For those who don't know, there is a fantastic website called postsecret.blogspot.com, run by a fellow named Frank Warren, who had the brilliant idea of asking people to (anonymously) send him postcards that contained secrets — secrets that the senders of the postcards had never told anybody else. The website is updated every Sunday, and today, when I was looking at the new postcards, I was struck by one in particular. It said this:
I am tired of waiting for God to find me. So I'll find myself. I started looking last night.
What struck me was a comment that a reader had posted in response to this postcard. The comment was this:
Once I found myself, I realized God was there all along.
Now, granted, this is all pretty standard pop-spiritual language these days. The whole notion of discovering yourself, and thereby discovering the 'divine spark' (or whatever) that already exists within yourself, is close to being the dominant spirituality in Vancouver.
(Of course, such thinking also has a long history and dates as far back as the pop-spiritual language espoused by the serpent in Genesis 3, when he assures the man and the woman that they will 'be like gods' if they choose to heed his advice. Isn't this contemporary spirituality just another expression of our age-old desire to take the place of God?)
However, I was struck with a particular thought tonight as a few things came together with some clarity. Essentially, my proposition is this:
That which promises us that we will discover the divine within ourselves, is that which hides from us our bondage to other gods.
Let me try to explain what I mean by this by providing some context for this thought. A few years ago, I began to ask myself this question: “who, today, is being worshiped by the members of our society?” For awhile, struck by the dominance of this 'the divine is within me' discourse, I thought that we were worshiping ourselves. As society has becoming increasingly fractured, as the 'rugged individual' has increasingly become the model to emulate, I began to think that we had all become gods in our own eyes and were, thus, actively involved in worshiping ourselves.
I have since grown suspicious of this analysis, and believe that it does not go deep enough.
You see, although society has become fractured, and although the individual appears to have been elevated to sovereignty, there are other Powers at work that are actively involved in fostering the division of society into isolated individuals. Isolated individuals can be told that they are sovereign but, precisely because they are isolated, they are also unable to create any sort of significant change. Consequently, even though society has been fractured, one is able to see a great deal of conformity around key issues — issues of values, of priorities, and of goals. Why is it that, in a society where the individual is supposed to be sovereign, where we are supposed to be fractured from one another, everybody ends up looking and acting almost exactly like everybody else? Because the individual is not sovereign. Because we are not fractured. Granted, we are fractured from one another (from our 'neighbours'), but we are all, one and all, united in our bondage and subservience to Powers greater than ourselves. Indeed, it is these Powers that spread the ideology of finding the divine within ourselves. “Look,” they tell us, “the divine is within you!” and in this way they hide the fact that they have become like gods over us.
(Wasn't this exactly the objective of the Serpent in Genesis, who is later revealed as the Dragon in Revelation? 'You will be like gods,' the Serpent said, but really his goal was to become like a god over the man and the woman. Hence, we see the same thing occurring in the temptation of Jesus in the wilderness. The Satan promises to make Jesus like a god ruling over the earth… if only Jesus will bow down and worship him!)
So who, or what, are these Powers? They are the Powers that Paul speaks of in Ephesians 6.12 when he writes:
For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.
These are the Powers inherent to the form of free market capitalism that has come to embrace all areas of our life together. Stated in an overly simplistic manner, in the borrowed words of Walter Brueggemann, these are the Powers of “therapeutic, technological, consumer militarism.” The truth is we by acting, by consuming, and by living in the way that we do, we are not serving ourselves. No matter how much 'fun' we have along the way, and no matter how much we 'discover' about ourselves, we are actually destroying ourselves (and one another) as we serve someone (or something) that has become like a god over us.
October Books
Good grief, another month come and gone and I’m still buried in a paper that I am writing for a seminar on “Christianity and Capitalism” (it’s a little worrisome that I just finished typing up an 8 page bibliography [I always type my bibliographies first] for a paper that is only supposed to be 20 pages… I might be in trouble).
Anyway, on with my woefully inadequate reviews (hey, at least I’m actually doing reviews this month!):
1. Faith & Wealth: A History of Early Christian Ideas on the Origin, Significance, and Use of Money by Justo L. Gonzalez.
This is a damn good book, and one that is extremely relevant for those of us who have the ‘privilege’ of living within the context of a well-advanced form of global capitalism. Gonzalez traces the writings of the New Testament authors, and the Church Fathers, up until the fourth century, and what he finds is impressive. The issue of wealth was one that was addressed regularly (i.e. Christian reflections on economics need to go back to this period, and not simply begin with the Reformers, like Calvin — who, by the way, broke tradition with all the Church Fathers when he permitted people to lend at interest). What is especially impressive is the way in which Gonzalez shows that the early Christian attitude to property was basically the attitude of the Church described in Acts 2 & 4. Christians were said to hold all things in common with one another and, apart from the bare necessities, they were to sell everything superfluous and give the money to the poor (deserving or not!). I found this book to be very convicting, and I highly recommend it to everybody.
2. Easy Essays by Peter Maurin.
Peter Maurin, along with Dorothy Day, was a co-founder of the Catholic Workers’ Movement (although Day become more of the spokesperson, the impetus and vision were largely Maurin’s). Collected here are a number of his essays, published in short, very readable lines, intended for the working man or woman. It makes for quick reading, but Maurin writes with wit (he refers to Utilitarians as Futilitarians — oh snap!) and his focus on combining cult, culture, and agriculture in communities where the worker learns how to be a scholar and the scholar learns how to be a worker provides much food for thought (especially for those Christian academics who are interested in pursuing intentional community living today).
3. The Consumer Society: Myths and Structures by Jean Baudrillard.
This book was so good, and so full of content, that it is hard to know how to describe it in a few sentences. Essentially, Baudrillard argues that, within the consumer society, signs and images have replaced reality because consumption is increasingly driven by the desire for status and distinction from one’s neighbour, instead of the desire to meet basic needs. Consequently, the consumer society is defined by its deep and “radical” alienation from reality and by its insatiable desires. As he makes this argument, Baudrillard engages in some fascinating studes of consumption, growth, personalization, mass-media, the body, time, solicitude, and affluence. Of course, I’m basically murdering this book in this review, as it is probably the best work of philosophy that I have read this year. I would likely make this required reading for any who are studying capitalism (along with the Gonzalez book, and the Klein book I mention below).
4. Specters of Marx: The State of Debt, the Work of Mourning and the New International by Jacques Derrida.
You know, I’m really beginning to wonder if Derrida is really worth the time it takes me to figure out what the hell he is talking about (an especially frustrating process given that, when I finally do figure out what he’s talking about, the content of what he is saying can usually be massively reduced and stated in much simpler language without much harm being done to anybody). This book was a bit of his shout-out to Marxism, after Marxism had (supposedly) been defeated with the collapse of the USSR (because, you know, he didn’t want to talk about Marx before that, lest he was identified with the wrong kind of Marxism and ended up *gasp* being misunderstood — which really seems to be Derrida’s problem: he’s so afraid of being misunderstood that he spends so much time hedging what he is saying that it takes for-freakin’-ever to understand him!). Anyway, apart from two chapters, one on the underside of capitalism and the atrocities it has wrought, and one on Fukuyama and the neo-evangelists of capitalism, I hardly connected with this piece. I wouldn’t recommend it, and I think it’ll be awhile before I think about reading Derrida again.
5. Fascism: what it is and how to fight it by Leon Trotsky.
You know, I imagine that the USSR would have been a very different place if Trotsky had beat out Stalin but, as with any power structure, it seems like the ‘bad guys’ always win (whether that is exemplified in communism in Russia or democracy in America). Regardless, I think that, given the option of choosing how to die, being killed by an ice-pick to the head while living in exile in Mexico would be pretty high on my list. But I’m getting off topic… this book (hardly a book, more like an encyclical) is a combination of selections on fascism pulled from Trotsky’s oeuvre. It was interesting as an historical piece (i.e. especially interesting is his analysis of the rise of fascism in Germany and the way in which he is able to foresee some of the dire consequences before they occur) but I didn’t find it to be all that helpful in exploring the topic of fascism itself. It has, however, whet my appetite for Trotsky and I’m discovering that his books are hard to find.
6. The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism by Naomi Klein.
This very well might end up being the best book I’ve read this year. That is to say, I think that everybody should read this book. Klein engages in a decimating examination of neoclassical economics (i.e. the dominant form of contemporary capitalism) as it has arisen to a state of global dominance. In country after country, from Chile, to Poland to China, to the United States and Iraq, she demonstrates the horrendous human cost of imposing the ‘free market’ ideology that was perpetrated by Milton Friedman and the Chicago School (or, as I like to call them, the MFers). If this book doesn’t make you reconsider your attachments to Western culture, then I think we’re pretty much screwed.
7. Economics Today: A Christian Critique by Donald A. Hay.
Speaking of being screwed, if I really believed that Hay accurately represented the Christian approach to economics, then there is a good chance I’d convert to a violent form of socialism. Hays approach to Scripture, theology, and hermeneutics is shallow and borders on the absurd (when, for example, he quotes Jesus’ reference to divorce being allowed in the OT due to ‘hardness of heart’, as an authoritative text for the pursuit of capitalism as a necessary ‘second best’ option, I don’t know whether to laugh or cry). Not surprisingly, at the end of the day, Hay just ends up proposing a form of economics that looks almost identical to contemporary capitalism — except that everybody is just a little nicer to everybody else. Whoop-dee-doo.
8. Jihad vs. McWorld: How Globalism and Tribalism are Reshaping the World by Benjamin R. Barber.
This book was alright, I suppose. Maybe it’s hard to give it a fair shake after reading Klein’s tour de force. Essentially, Barber argues that both globalisation and violent forms of resistance are opposed to democracy and actually mutually support one another. Hence, the more of globalisation we see, the more of ‘jihad’ we will see, and the less democracy we will have. I think it’s a good point, but I think Barber’s solution (recover the values of civil society as they were first proposed by liberalism in the 18th century) is flawed and too dependent upon the what William Cavanaugh calls ‘the myth of the State as saviour’ (although, in this case, it is a democratic civil society, which is somehow vaguely differentiated from that state, that ends up saving us).
9. Selling Olga: Stories of Human Trafficking and Resistance by Louisa Waugh.
I was a little disappointed in this book. It had its strong points — highlighting trafficking that occurred in migrant workers outside of the sex trade, linking human trafficking to globalisation, and avoiding condescending or romanticised ‘victim’ language in relation to women who are trafficked — but, by and large, it seemed like the book was a document about somebody learning how to write a book about trafficking. It touches upon many of the same issues raised in Victor Malarek’s book (The Natashas) but I think Malarek deals with those issues in more detail. Both books, however, provide a number of handy references to documents that have been released on this issue, and to organisations involved in fighting human trafficking so it is a helpful resource in that regard.
10. The English Patient by Michael Ondaatje.
I enjoy Ondaatje’s voice quite a lot — he reminds me of Timothy Findley (when Findley is at his best) in his ability to write prose that sounds like poetry. Unfortunately, I’m not all that gripped by his content so this story about desert exploration, WWII, a pilot covered in burns, a Canadian nurse, an East Indian sapper, and an Italian thief (sounds like it should be good, right?) didn’t end up griping me all that much. I don’t know what it is, but I can’t really seem to get into Canadian literature (apart from the odd book, like The Wars by Timothy Findley — which is exceptional).
5. What Would You Do?
There is a fellow in my neighbourhood that most everybody knows. He’s a cheerful fellow and he tends to make others feel cheerful as well. He busks for change in the nicer parts of downtown and always has a song, or a joke, or a witty comment at hand. Granted, he’s always hustling, but he tends to make you feel good about being hustled.
Lately, however, I have been learning more about another side that this fellow has. I’ve always suspected that he was a ‘runner’ for some of the drug dealers in the neighbourhood (the roller blades are a bit of a giveaway) and this suspicion was recently confirmed. However, the way in which that information was confirmed bothered me a great deal.
I happen to be friends with a young woman who used to be very actively addicted to crack (thank God, she now has over a year of clean time). When she was jonzing, the fellow whom I have been discussing, would often find her and lead her to his hook-ups so that she could score what she needed. However, on two occasions, instead of leading her to dealers, he led her into traps and handed her over to men who raped her and beat her.
After the first assault, she reported what had happened to the police. The police, seeing that she was addicted to crack, accused her of being a prostitute (which she was not), and told her that sometimes clients got rough (which was not what had happened to her and which, by the way, is not okay anyway), and then they asked her if she was sure that she wasn’t “asking for it.” Needless to say, the cops made her feel like a piece of shit and then took no further action. Of course, she did learn one thing: that cops only deepen the trauma, and so after the second assault she did not file a report.
Anyway, all of that leads to the situation I am in now. Because here’s the thing: this cheerful fellow, who also handed my friend over to be raped, happens to be a fellow that I see on a regular basis. In light of what I now know, how am I to respond to him (especially knowing that the police won’t be any help in this situation)? What would you do? Next time he passes you and wants to talk, or sing a song, or whatever, how do you think you, as a Christian, should respond to him?
Piper & Co. on Hermeneutics (a rant)
My experience [with the New Perspective on Paul] is that people who talk this way do not generally see the meaning of the New Testament as clearly as those who focus their attention not in the extra-biblical literature but in the New Testament texts themselves. For the ordinary layman who wonders what to do when scholars seem to see what you cannot see, I suggest that you stay with what you can see for yourself.
~ John Piper
On this blog, I have, for the most part, deliberately avoided engaging with certain voices from within American Evangelicalism — in particular, I have tried to refrain from commenting on the likes of John Piper, Wayne Grudem, and James MacDonald.
To be honest, I’m at a bit of a loss as to why these fellows are even considered credible, or scholarly, or whatever. Any first year bible college student who has taken ‘Hermeneutics 101’ could easily rip apart most of what they have to say (or, perhaps better stated, that student could easily rip apart most of what is distinct or definitive about their position). Consequently, the thought of actually commenting on what they have to say, leaves me feeling sort of like a schoolyard bully — sure, one could rip apart their arguments… but isn’t that sort of like beating up a person with disabilities? (Indeed, lest this analogy be misunderstood, let me be clear that I think that we would be far, far better off if we invited persons with disabilities into our theological discussions — such people have greater insights than people like Piper & Co., and I’m not afraid to confess that they often have greater insights than I do).
So, when I find people within Evangelicalism deferring to these voices, I end up being rather lost for words and usually end up saying something like: “John Piper? Man, that guy’s a douchebag.” Granted, hardly a contribution to dialogue (and hardly a move away from being a schoolyard bully!), but if somebody is willing to treat such voices as authoritative then I suspect that we’re living on different planets and genuine dialogue is likely next to impossible.
However, I thought I would comment on the quotation from Piper that I included at the opening of this post because I think that the position that he takes towards hermeneutics is a position that extends beyond his inner circle and is quite common in Conservative Christianity more broadly. This is the type of hermeneutics that favours the “plain” reading of Scripture over and against any sort of “scholarly” (or, dare I say, informed) reading.
Of course, Conservatives, and people like Piper and Co., are committed to hermeneutics, but only to a certain extent. All of us, even Conservative Evangelicals, are aware of the importance of “context” for understanding scripture (hence Gordon Fee, and others, argue that the three things necessary for good interpretation are “context, context, and context!”). However, the problem for Conservatives is that the more hermeneutics has developed and grown (and incorporated various historical, literary, and socio-rhetorical criticisms), the more we learn about the context of the biblical texts, the more the Conservative position ends up being ‘boxed out’. That is to say: the more informed our hermeneutics, the more untenable their position.
This is well illustrated in recent developments in New Testament studies. Scholarly consensus is now that the life, ministry, and commitments of Jesus, as displayed within the Gospels, exhibit of sort of socio-political radicality that undermines contemporary Conservative approaches to socio-political realities. The same case is made convincingly for the other major New Testament “narrative” pieces — the book of Acts and the book of Revelation. Consequently, the Conservative has two options. The first option is to impose a new ‘canon within the canon.’ Many flee to Paul and, in particular, the deutero-Pauline epistles (the Pastorals) which then become the interpretive grid for reading what is more commonly recognised as the genuine (and more significant — at least as far as size is concerned) Pauline letters. Paul has become the last bastion for Conservatives who seek to root their position in serious engagement with the New Testament, and the Pastorals become the most authoritative books within the canon. Unfortunately, this Pauline (if one can even call it that) stronghold has faced a vigourous assault in recent years and, IMHO, has now been fundamentally compromised and revealed as false. Paul is not nearly the Conservative that many have assumed him to be, and I suspect that scholarly consensus will, in the next few years, embrace a Paul who is understood to be just as socio-politically radical as Jesus.
This, then, leads us to the second option. Having been effectively ‘boxed out’ of all areas of the New Testament, they can no longer flee to another voice within the New Testament canon. Thus, they simply flee from scholarship. Consequently, you get the utterly moronic advice of Piper: when you disagree with the experts, trust yourself not the scholars! Of course, the beauty of this position is that it is unassailable:
Have you encountered a position that refutes your own? Have you heard arguments that make you uncomfortable? Don’t worry about it. Trust yourself! If they insist on talking to you, just plug your ears and say, “Lalalalala, I can’t hear you!”
If one were to take this advice with other experts, like one’s doctor for example, the results could well be tragic. Indeed, the result of taking Piper’s advice is just as tragic as refusing to listen to one’s doctor when she tells you that you must stop engaging in a certain activity if you want to go on living.
I find the position of Piper & Co. to by mystifying, not only because it chooses to remain ignorant about the context of the biblical texts, but because it reveals a shocking ignorance about the way in which one’s own context impacts the way in which one reads the bible (of course, this criticism is one that extends beyond the position held by Conservatives, and could be applied to representatives of all camps). An accurate reading of the bible requires us to be continually learning about the context of the biblical texts, and the context in which we find ourselves. To pursue one, without pursuing the other, is dangerous and irresponsible. To refuse to pursue either, while simultaneously refusing to listen to those who do engage in those pursuits (à la Piper), is so stupid that I’m amazed that anybody would listen to people who propose such things.
"Badges of Membership": Part V & VI
V. RELATIONAL BADGES: CRUCIFORM LOVE AND DIVISIVE VIOLENCE
The place in which Paul’s discussion of badges reaches its climax is in the context of internal and external relations. Over against the internal divisions and external violence of the pagans under the control of the powers, and the Jews controlled by their commitment to nationalism, Paul’s communities are united in Christ and committed to cruciform love.
That Paul sees the pagan world as under the governance of overwhelming powers is well documented in his letters.[74] Furthermore, Paul believes that all these rulers, gods, demons, elementals, and principalities, are ultimately under the lordship of two great powers: sin and death.[75] Walter Wink captures something of the all-encompassing power of these lords when he describes pagan life as “dominated existence” under the “Domination System” during the “Domination Epoch.”[76] Within this dominated existence, each person lives to satisfy his or her desires, regardless of the wellbeing of others. This is, for Paul, an ongoing embodiment of the primal sin of Adam: covetousness. Thus, Adamic, fleshy, humanity, lived under the powers, bears covetousness as a badge.[77]
This covetousness is expressed in divisiveness.[78] Paul continually identifies strife, discord, enmity, envy, gossip, and dissensions as essential attributes of the pagan communities and all of these attributes fracture community.[79] This divisive coveting leads inevitably to violence and so, with Adam (the first coveter) lingering behind Ro 7.7-12, it is quite possible that Cain (the first murderer) lingers behind Paul’s argument in Ro 7.13-20.[80] Thus, if Adamic humanity, under the powers of sin and death, is marked by divisiveness, Cainic humanity is marked by violence.
Furthermore, the powers, in Paul’s age, were never imagined to be strictly disembodied spirits; rather, they were always incarnate “in cellulose, or cement, or skin and bones, or an empire, or its mercenary armies.”[81] Thus, by emphasizing the divisiveness and violence of pagan existence, Paul is engaging in a subversive critique of the Roman Empire and its violent conquests. Although Rome claimed that she possessed the “good news” of peace, freedom, justice, and salvation, although the Emperor was viewed as “Lord,” “Savior,” and “Prince of Peace,” Paul reveals the intrinsic violence of Rome by subverting her rhetoric.[82] Over against imperial claims, Paul makes the claim that Caesar’s conquests have only heightened the divisiveness and violence of pagan existence.[83] Thus, just as Adamic humanity is marked by an animalistic existence, the pagan powers are revealed to be horrible, death-dealing beasts.
In making this judgment of life lived under the pagan powers, Paul is well within the critiques established by Judaism. However, Paul then turns the tables on Judaism and argues that Jewish commitments to the ethnic nation of Israel have, in essence, given birth to another divisive death-dealing beast. This point becomes clear in the passages where Paul describes his former way of life under Judaism.[84] Especially worth noting is Paul’s use of the words “Judaism,” “Pharisee,” and “zeal.” “Judaism” is a term coined to express opposition to “Hellenism” and it highlights Jewish separation from the other nations.[85] The word “Pharisees” is rooted in the Aramaic word “perisayya” which means “the separated ones.”[86] Further, as a Pharisee, Paul emulated the “heroes of zeal” who exhibited an unconditional commitment to maintain Israel’s distinctiveness, a readiness to use violence, and a willingness to even use violence against other Jews.[87]
Consequently, Paul’s zeal was “something you did with a knife” against both pagans and “compromised” Jews –- like the early Christian communities.[88] Therefore, the house of Israel was not only divided from the pagan nations, it was a house divided against itself, and violence and death –- although performed for the sake of self-defense and not for the sake of covetous conquest –- reigned just as much in Israel as in the pagan nations. The nation of Israel (precisely in her violent opposition to Rome!) had become a miniature version of Rome, a beastly power in the service of division and death.
Over against the divisive covetous violence of the pagans, and the divisive defensive violence of the Jews, those who are in Christ bear love as their primary relational badge. It is this badge that climactically identifies the Christian community; for, in the praxis of love both the freedom of those who are motivated by the Spirit, and the glory of God’s true children, come to their fullest expression. Love is that which ensures that the other badges of membership in Paul’s communities do not simply deteriorate into “little lapel buttons.”[89]
For this reason, love could have been explored in prior sections.[90] However, because being “in Christ” or “with Christ” is the most frequent title Paul uses to describe the status of his community members, and because love is the most common badge that Paul applies to his community members, it is best to tie love and being in Christ closely together.[91] Furthermore, this connection is strengthened because, for Paul, love is always a Christlike form of love. Therefore, it is the type of love exhibited by those in Christ that most radically distinguishes Paul’s communities from both pagans and Jews.[92]
This is why Michael Gorman is essentially correct in reading Phil 2.5-11 as “Paul’s master story.”[93] In Phil 2, Paul contrasts the covetous self-exaltation of Adam with the self-giving love of Jesus, and emphasizes that it is this form of love that reveals Jesus’ equality with God.[94] Therefore, those who live as God’s restored image-bearers must also bear this badge for, as Wright says, “as God endorses Jesus’ interpretation of what equality with God meant in practice, so he will recognize self-giving love as the true mark of the life of the Spirit.”[95]
Because this love is an embodiment of Christ’s love, it is further demarcated by two essential attributes: its suffering and its redemptive impact. That the love Christ exhibited was a suffering love is most fully revealed on the cross. Therefore, Christian existence, which is lived by those who (continually) die with Christ, is expressed in cruciform love – in suffering.[96] Indeed, this suffering, which might appear to be weakness, becomes, for Paul, the fullest expression of the glory possessed by God’s renewed humanity. Thus, Paul boasts (i.e. finds glory) in his weakness and his sufferings because they mark him as a member of those in Christ.[97] Of course, for Paul this is not simply the glorification of suffering qua suffering; suffering becomes a manifestation of glory because it becomes the means by which the victory won by Christ becomes effective within the world. As Rudolph Bultmann argues, to simply limit suffering to “an affliction that will one day be followed by happiness… deprives suffering of its existentiall [sic] meaning.”[98] Suffering is the means by which the benefits of Christ’s death are extended to others.[99] Therefore, Paul’s communities are marked by the willingness to “bear the pain and the shame of the world in its own body, that the world may be healed.”[100]
Consequently, this redemptive suffering love is expressed in the peaceable nature of Paul’s communities. God is, for Paul, the “God of peace,” Paul opens all of his letters wishing peace upon the recipients, and he consistently exhorts his communities to be defined by peace.[101] Inwardly, this peaceable love is expressed through unity. Over against the internal divisions of both pagans and Jews, Paul is adamant that his communities must be marked by an all-embracing unity and the absence of divisions.[102] Although Paul most commonly speaks of this as the unity of Jews and Gentiles, he is also clear that this is a unity that spans social boundaries between slaves and free, economic boundaries between the poor and the rich, and gender boundaries between men and women. Indeed, it is this unity that proclaims to the powers that Jesus is the true Saviour and Lord.[103] Furthermore, it is this emphasis upon unity that reveals that Christian freedom is also cruciform –- it is the freedom to serve and love all of those who are in Christ.[104]
However, the outward expression of Paul’s call to peaceable love is even more radical. Over against pagans who are marked by violent conquests, and Jews who are marked by violent self-defense, Christians are to be identified by their nonviolent love of enemies. These, “enemies” are those -– both pagans and Jews –- who violently persecute Paul and his communities.[105] In response to these enemies, Paul regularly asserts that his communities must love their enemies, and thereby suffer violence without returning violence. The response to violence, which identifies Paul’s community, is, negatively, a refusal to repay evil for evil or to enact vengeance, and, positively, a willingness to bless instead curse, to return good for evil, to conciliate, to persevere, and to forgive.[106] Here a radical shift has occurred as Saul the Pharisee has been transformed into Paul the Apostle. Paul’s prior zeal, which manifested itself in violent self-defense, has now been transformed into the zeal of “agape-love,” and his zeal to kill has become a zeal to die.[107] In this way, Paul thoroughly dethrones all attempts to justify sacred violence, as he elevates love, which comes to its most glorious expression in the love of enemies.[108] Further, as Wink suggests, it must be noted that the very unity of Paul’s communities, as Jews and Gentiles together, points to a radical outworking of this love of enemies.[109] Having begun with this unity, Paul’s communities must persevere and continue to show love to those who still persecute them.
Therefore, over against the pagans, whose service of the powers is identified by their covetous divisiveness and violence, and over against the Jews, who have turned the nation of Israel into another beastly power through their internal divisions and violent self-defense, the communities of those who are in Christ are identified by the praxis of cruciform love, which is expressed in peaceful unity and the nonviolent love of enemies.
VI. CONCLUSION
Rudolph Bultmann once asserted that Paul describes no unmistakably distinguishable Christian action; rather, he argued, Paul simply adopted the ethics of “popular philosophy” and “bourgeois morality.”[110] This paper, having demonstrated that Paul provides clear distinguishing identity-markers between Christians, pagans, and Jews, at the levels of worship, inspiration, ontology, and relationship, can only conclude that Paul would be shocked by such an assertion. Perhaps, when divided and taken individually, evidence of these badges can be found in other communities. However, Paul is clear that it is only the Christian community that exhibits these badges in toto. Furthermore, Paul is adamant that the Christian community must exhibit these badges in toto. The contemporary Church would do well to reflect upon these things as she continues to engage in Paul’s mission amongst both Gentiles and Jews.
________
[74] 1 Cor 10.20; 15.26; 2 Cor 4.4; Gal 4.8-9; Eph 6.12; Col 1.13; 2.15, 20. On the language of the powers in the New Testament cf. Walter Wink Naming the Powers: The Language of Power in the New Testament (The Powers Series Vol 1; Philadelphia: Fortress, 1984), 13-96, 151-65; Unmasking the Powers (The Powers Series Vol 2; Philadelphia: Fortress, 1986), passim.
[75] Cf. Ro 5.4, 17, 21-6.23; 7.7-8.11, 38; 1 Cor 15.54-56; Dunn, Christian Liberty, 56; Ridderbos, 95-99.
[76] Wink substitutes these phrases for Paul’s usage of “sarx,” “kosmos,” and “aion” in order to engage in some rather provocative exegesis; cf. Engaging the Powers: Discernment and Resistance in a World of Domination (The Powers Series Vol 3; Minneapolis: Fortress, 1992), 52-62.
[77] Ro 7.7-8; 13.9; 1 Cor 5.10-11; 6.10; 2 Cor 9.5; Eph 5.5.
[78] Dunn, The Theology of Paul the Apostle, 635-36; Marshall, 288-90; Wright, What Saint Paul Really Said, 29.
[79] Ro 1.29-30; 1 Cor 5.9-11; 6.9-10; 2 Cor 12.20; Gal 5.20-21; Col 3.5-8.
[80] Cf. Wright, The Climax of the Covenant, 226-30.
[81] Wink, Unmasking the Powers, 5.
[82] Cf. Neil Elliott, Liberating Paul: The Justice of God and the Politics of the Apostle (The Bible and Liberation Series; Maryknoll: Orbis, 1994), 189-90; Wright, Paul, 63, 74; What Saint Paul Really Said, 88; “Paul and Caesar: A New Reading of Romans” in A Royal Priesthood? The Use of the Bible Ethically and Politically: A Dialogue with Oliver O’Donovan (Scripture and Hermeneutics Series Vol 3; Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2002), 173-93.
[83] For two commentaries that develop this theme in some detail cf. Peter Oakes, Philippians: From People to Letter (Society for New Testament Studies Monograph Series; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001); Brian J. Walsh & Sylvia C. Keesmat, Colossians Remixed: Subverting the Empire (Downers Grove: IVP, 2004).
[84] Cf. Ro 10.2-3; 1 Cor 15.9; Gal 1.13-14; Phil 3.4-6.
[85] Dunn, The Theology of Paul the Apostle, 147-48.
[86] Bruce, 46.
[87] Bornkamm, 12-15; Bruce, 45-48; Donaldson, 285-86; Dunn, The Theology of Paul the Apostle, 350-53; Gorman, Apostle of the Crucified Lord, 53-54; Hurtado, 94; Willi Marxsen, New Testament Foundations for Christian Ethics (trans. O. C. Dean, Jr.; Minneapolis: Fortress, 1993), 147-49; Matera, 181-82; Wright, What Saint Paul Really Said, 26-27. The divisions within Second Temple Judaism (divisions between, for examples, Pharisees, Sadducees, Essenes, Zealots, Diaspora Jews, and the “people of the land”) have been well documented and have led some to speak of Second Temple “Judaisms” and others to speak of “variegated” nomism.
[88] Wright, What Saint Paul Really Said, 27.
[89] Cf. Krister Stendahl, Paul Among Jews and Gentiles and Other Essays (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1976), 55-56.
[90] Indeed, a neatly systematized theology would not reflect Paul’s theology which is occasional and not systematic. Thus, the categories employed in this article are, inevitably, somewhat arbitrary.
[91] Taken together “in Christ” and “with Christ” are used over 90 times in Paul’s epistles, and “love” is referenced just as many times.
[92] Cf. Dewar, 127, 133; Dunn, The Theology of Paul the Apostle, 495, 653-57; Gorman, Cruciformity, 156-57; Matera, 142-43; Ridderbos, 293-301; Schrage, 212; Schweitzer, 307. Some have argued that being in Christ is an essential badge of membership in Paul’s letters (cf. Donaldson, 236-48, 171-73, 284; Matera, 166, 175-83; Schweitzer, 123; Wright, The Climax of the Covenant, 196-97); however, it is the contention of this article that it is the love exhibited by those in Christ that functions as a badge in Paul’s communities.
[93] Gorman, Cruciformity, 164-68. Gorman argues that Phil 2.5-11 is the story that underpins all of Paul’s theology: “[t]he narrative of the crucified and exalted Christ is the normative life-narrative within which the community’s own life-narrative takes place and by which it is shaped” (44, emph removed); cf. Hays, 27; William S. Kurz, S. J., “Kenotic Imitation of Paul and Christ in Philippians 2 and 3” in Discipleship in the New Testament (Ed. Fernando F. Segovia; Philadelphia: Fortress, 1985), 103-26.
[94] Wright, The Climax of the Covenant, 58-88.
[95] Ibid., 87.
[96] Cf. Ro 5.3; 6.3-8; 8.17-38; 1 Cor 4.9-16; 12.26; 13.5; 2 Cor 1.3-7; 4.7-18; 6.3-13; 7.4; 8.2; 11.18-33; Gal 2.19-20; 3.4; 5.11, 24; 6.12-14. 17; Phil 1.7; 3.8, 10; 4.12, 14; Col 1.24; 2.20; 3.3; 1 Thes 2.2, 14; 3.3-4, 7; 2 Thes 1.4-6. Therefore, Bornkamm concludes that suffering, for Paul, “was not exceptional but exemplified what life in Christ meant” (172); cf. Schweitzer, 141-54.
[97] Cf. Ro 8; 1 Cor 1.26-28; 2 Cor 4.7-18; 6.3-10; 11.18-33; Becker, 278-83; Bornkamm, 169-70, 181; Dunn, The Theology of Paul the Apostle, 438; Gorman, Cruciformity, 301; Hays, 25-26; Wright, The Climax of the Covenant, 190; What Saint Paul Really Said, 143-45. Thus, Kasemann concludes that, “[w]e cannot share in Christ’s glory except by bearing his cross after him on earth” (Jesus Means Freedom [trans. Frank Clarke; Philadelphia: Fortress, 1968], 71) and Gorman concludes that “the very thing (suffering) that suggest that glory is distant is, in fact, the proof of its proximity” (Cruciformity, 347; emph removed).
[98] Rudolph Bultmann, “Man Between the Times According to the New Testament” in Existence and Faith: Shorter Writings of Rudolph Bultmann (Ed & trans. Schubert M. Odgen; The Fontana Library of Theology and Philosophy 10/6; London: Collins Clear-Type Press, 1964), 315.
[99] Gorman, Cruciformity, 203.
[100] Wright, The Climax of the Covenant, 256.
[101] On the God “of peace” cf. Ro 15.33; 16.20; 1 Cor 14.33; 2 Cor 13.11; Eph 2.14; Phil 4.9; Col 1.20; 1 Thes 5.23; 2 Thes 3.16. For Paul’s openings cf. Ro 1.7; 1 Cor 1.3; 2 Cor 1.2; Gal 1.3; Eph 1.2; Phil 1.2; Col 1.2; 1 Thes 1.1; 2 Thes 1.2; and on Paul’s more general references to peace as an essential element of his communities cf. Ro 2.10; 3.17; 5.1; 8.6; 12.18; 14.17, 19; 15.12; 1 Cor 7.13; 2 Cor 13.11; Gal 5.22; Eph 2.15, 17; 4.3; 6.15, 23 Phil 4.7; Col 3.15; 1 Thes 5.13.
[102] Cf. Ro 3.29-30; 12.4-5, 10, 16; 14.1-15.7; 1 Cor 1.10; 3; 6.1-11, 17; 8-10; 11.23-34; 12-14; Gal 3.26-29; 5.13-15; 6.2, 10; Eph 2.11-22; 4.1-6, 14-16, 31-32; 5.21; Phil 1.27; 2.1-5; Col 3.8-15; 1 Thes 3.12; 4.9; 5.11-15; 2 Thes 2.3; Philem. To fracture unity is to move outside of those who are in Christ, which is why, in 1 Cor 11, Paul argues that those who have done so are falling ill and dying. To be divided is to come, once again, under the power of death.
[103] Wright, What Saint Paul Really Said, 146; cf. Donaldson, 82-86.
[104] Cf. Dunn, The Theology of Paul the Apostle, 159-60; Kasemann, Jesus Means Freedom, 66, 73, 80; Stendahl, 61.
[105] Cf. Ro 8.35-36; 12.10; 2 Cor 6.4-5; 11.23-27; 12.10; Phil 1.29-30; 1 Thes 1.6; 2.14; 2 Thes 1.4; Wright, The New Testament and the People of God, 449.
[106] Cf. Ro 12.14-21; 1 Cor 4.12-13; 13.4-7; 2 Cor 6.4, 6; 11.19-20; Gal 5.20-22; Phil 4.5; Col 3.22-25; 1 Thes 5.15. Gordon Zerbe traces these themes in Paul’s letters and concludes that Paul upholds an “ethic of nonretaliation and peace” (“Paul’s Ethic of Nonretaliation and Peace” in The Love of Enemy and Nonretaliation in the New Testament [Ed. Willard M. Swartley; Louisville: WJKP, 1992], 179-80).
[107] Cf. Wright, What Saint Paul Really Said, 135; Gorman, Cruciformity, 27-28. This then makes good sense of the passages where Paul speaks positively of zeal; cf. Ro 10.2; 12.11; 1 Cor 14.12; 2 Cor 7.7, 11; 8.22; 9.2; Gal 4.18.
[108] Cf. Elliot, 169-74; Schrage, 213.
[109] Wink, Engaging the Powers, 117. Wink is commenting on Eph 2.15.
[110] Rudolph Bultmann, Theology of the New Testament: Volume 2 (trans. Kendrick Grobel; London: SCM Press, 1955), 225-26. Others, like Willi Marxsen, have continued the trajectory of Bultmann’s thought and insist that “we can speak of authentic Christian action only when it is performed by authentic Christians (Marxsen, 225).
"Badges of Membership": Part IV
IV. ONTOLOGICAL BADGES: CHILDREN OF GOD, OF ADAM, AND OF ABRAHAM (ACCORDING TO THE FLESH)
The Spirit does not only provide a new inspiration for Paul’s communities, the Spirit also creates a fundamental transformation within the nature of the people who inhabit Paul’s communities. Indeed, Paul believes that his communities are marked by an ontological status that is notably different than the status of both pagans and Jews. Christians are, according to Paul, God’s true renewed humanity, whereas pagans are those who have lost their humanity, and Jews are those who have failed to mature as humans. Each of these groups is granted its own unique status because Paul traces a very different lineage for each group: Christians are children of God, pagans are children of Adam, and Jews are children of Abraham (according to the flesh).
The pagans are those whose humanity is rooted in the fallen nature of their forefather Adam.[46] Just like their forefather, the pagans have lost their humanity because, instead of reigning over creation, they have allowed creation to reign over them. Thus, they become like the animals and lose their true human identity. Nowhere is this more evident in Paul’s writings than in Ro 1.22-23, 25. Of course, Paul is well rooted in Jewish critiques of paganism when he writes this passage. The prophets continually warned Israel that those who worship animals become like animals, and those who worship worthless idols become worthless like the idols.[47]
Therefore, Adamic humanity is identified by its loss of “glory.”[48] Humanity’s “glory,” according to Paul, is that it bears the image of God. However, humanity loses this glory when it reworks itself in the image of animals. After Adam, humans have become “broken but not shattered mirrors,” no longer fully reflecting God’s image.[49] This loss of glory is most explicitly expressed in the sexual immorality practiced by pagans.[50] Thus, immediately after describing the status of Adamic humanity, Paul goes on to describe the sexual practices of pagans in Ro 1.24, 26-27.[51] Ironically, it is in these things that the pagans glory, for they boast of their immorality.[52] This is why, in 1 Cor 5.1-8, Paul is horrified to discover that his community is boasting and glorying in an act of immorality that does not even exist among the pagans. It is Paul’s desire that the perpetrator be removed from his community, because he is exhibiting the wrong badge – his sexual practices denote a loss of glory and mark him as a member of the pagan communities.[53] Therefore, Adamic status, the loss of glory, and sexual immorality, all function together as a badge of membership within pagan communities.[54]
The Jews, however, are not primarily defined as descendants of Adam; they are identified as children of Abraham, according to the flesh. That Paul sees the Jews as related to Abraham strictly through the flesh is rather telling. Once again, Paul is arguing that Jewish status has become united with pagan status. Thus, after critiquing the pagans in Ro 1, Paul offers a similarly damning critique of the Jews in Ro 2, and then concludes in Ro 3.23 that “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” Just like the pagans, those who are descendants of Abraham according to the flesh are also demarcated by the loss of glory. However, this Jewish loss of glory is primarily exhibited in a different way than the way in which the pagan loss of glory is exhibited.[55] The Jewish loss of glory is exhibited in their boasting (i.e. glorying) in the flesh – in their ethnicity. Once again, the irony is that their glory is, in fact, their shame.[56] Thus, in Ro 5.12-21 and 7.7-13, the Jews are put on the side of Adamic humanity.[57] Consequently, in Ro 9.6-8, Paul concludes that “they are not all Israel who are descended from Israel… it is not the children of the flesh who are children of God.”
Paul is able to see that glorying in Jewish ethnicity and “works of the law” no longer relates to the glory of God’s image bearers, because he believes that something new has been inaugurated by Jesus and the Spirit. In Gal 3-4, Paul makes it clear that the Jewish badges were useful for a humanity not yet come of age but, now that the time has come to mature, to remain under such things is to remain as immature, not fully developed humans.[58] Thus, in 2 Cor 3, Paul argues that the (veiled) glory that was present to the Jews, has now faded altogether and been superseded by a far greater (unveiled) glory. Consequently, the Jewish status as immature humans (that end up being like Adam) is exhibited in Jewish glorying in their ethnicity.
In contrast to both the pagans and the Jews, Paul argues that his communities are defined as God’s true, renewed humanity, and it is they who are called the “children of God.” This is so because Christ is the second Adam.[59] As the second Adam, Christ becomes the truly human one, the one who is the lasting image and glory of God.[60] Thus, all who are in the community of Christ are adopted as God’s children and heirs.[61] Consequently, God becomes the Father of all believers, and not just the Father of Jesus.[62] Furthermore, being adopted as God’s children causes a radical ontological transformation to occur –- believers become “new creations” and are restored to a truly human identity.[63] Thus, genuine humanness results from worship of the one true God, and thus the prayers of Paul’s communities are addressed to “Abba, Father.”[64]
This true humanity bears glory as its outward expression.[65] This is the glory of God’s restored image bearers, who are remade in the image of Christ, the Lord of glory.[66] Furthermore, the Shekinah –- the Spirit of God’s glory –- now resides in believers and transforms them into God’s glorious temple.[67] Thus, when Paul calls his community members “children of light” or “lights in the world,” he is speaking of the manifest glory of God’s children, over against the pagans who are “of darkness” and practice the “deeds of darkness” –- and over against the Jews, whose glory has faded away into darkness.[68] Nowhere is Paul more adamant that his communities are marked by glory than in 2 Cor 3.7-18.[69] The members of Paul’s communities are mirrors reflecting the image of the Lord, as they are transformed from glory to glory.
That the children of God bear the glory of God’s image as an outward visible badge is clear from Paul’s letters. What, then, are the characteristics that serve to identify this glory? The first characteristic, which has already been mentioned, is holiness. Temple language is holiness language, and, just as membership within pagan communities is marked by sexual immorality, membership in Paul’s communities is marked by sexual purity, self-control, and abstinence from immorality.[70] Secondly, over against the immaturity that marks the Jewish communities, Paul’s communities are marked by their maturity, which is manifested in their renewed minds, their knowledge of God’s will and their awareness of revealed mysteries.[71] Thirdly, because Paul’s communities exist within an age of eschatological tension, the glory of believers finds expression in hope. Although the Spirit provides a down-payment of glory, the members of Paul’s communities “exult in hope of the glory of God” and “hope for what [they] do not see.”[72] This hope distinguishes Paul’s communities from the pagans who have “no hope” and from the Jews who maintain a false hope.[73]
Therefore, over against the pagans who are children of Adam marked by the loss of glory which finds expression in sexual immorality, and over against the Jews who are fleshy children of Abraham marked by a faded glory which finds expression in immaturity, Paul’s communities are children of God marked by glory which finds expression in holiness, wisdom, and hope.
________
[46] Ro 5.12-21; 1 Cor 15.20-22; cf. Dunn, The Theology of Paul the Apostle, 80-101.
[47] Cf. 1 Sa 12.21; 2 Ki 17.15; Jer 2.5; 10.8; Hab 2.18-19; Zech 10.2. Consequently, Wright is quite correct to conclude that “idolatry is… seriously bad for the health of your humanity” (What Said Paul Really Said, 138).
[48] This also continues the Jewish prophetic critique of the nations; cf. Ps 106.20; Jer 2.11.
[49] Ben Witherington III, Paul’s Narrative Thought World: The Tapestry of Tragedy and Triumph (Louisville: WJKP, 1994), 10-15.
[50] Matera, 131, 144-45.
[51] In other passages, Paul regularly highlights immorality as a badge of pagan membership, and often sexual immorality is given the place of priority, cf. 1 Cor 5.9-11; 6.9; Gal 5.19-20; Eph 5.5; Col 3.5.
[52] Cf. Ro 1.30.
[53] Thus, Paul goes on to say, in 1 Cor 6.15-20, that one cannot be joined both to a prostitute and to Christ. If one is joined to a prostitute one becomes a member of the pagan communities.
[54] The connection of these three elements is also a part of the Jewish prophetic critique of the pagans. Cf. esp. Ez 16.17 et passim.
[55] However, in Ro 2, Paul certainly seems to think that something of the pagan sexual immorality is also present among the Jews. This also follows the pattern set by Ezekiel, who accuses the Jews of following precisely the same pattern as the pagans; cf. Ez 23.17 et passim.
[56] Phil 3.19; cf. Ro 2.23; Gal 6.13; Eph 2.9.
[57] Cf. Dunn, The Theology of Paul the Apostle, 97-99, 115-18; Wright, The Climax of the Covenant, 37, 237.
[58] Cf. Dunn, The Theology of Paul the Apostle, 143-50, 388.
[59] Cf. Ro 5.12-21; 1 Cor 15.20-22; W. D. Davies, Paul and Rabbinic Judaism: Some Elements in Pauline Theology (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1980), 41, 49; Dunn, The Theology of Paul the Apostle, 200-202, 241-42; Ridderbos, 65-61; Witherington, 141-46.
[60] Cf. Phil 2.5-11; Col 1.15.
[61] Cf. Ro 8.14-17, 19, 21; 9.26; 2 Cor 6.18; Gal 3.26, 4.1-7; Eph 5.1; Phil 2.15.
[62] Cf. Ro 1.7; 15.6; 1 Cor 1.3; 8.6; 15.24; 2 Cor 1.2-3; 11.31; Gal 1.1-4; 4.6; Eph 1.2-3, 17; 4.6; Eph 1.2-3, 17; 4.6; 5.20; 6.23; Phil 2.1; 2.11; 4.20; Col 1.2; 1 Thes 1.1-3; 3.11, 13; 2 Thes 1.1-2; 2.16. In this regard Hays is correct to note that Paul never refers to all humanity as “children of God”; rather, all are God’s creatures, but only those who belong to the Christian community are marked as God’s children (58 n48).
[63] Cf. 1 Cor 2.16-17; 2 Cor 5.17; Gal 6.15; Eph 2.10, 15; 4.24; Col 3.10.
[64] Cf. Ro 8.15; Gal 4.6; Becker, 270; Dunn, The Theology of Paul the Apostle, 437; Fee, Paul, the Spirit and the People of God, 89-90; Michael Gorman, Apostle of the Crucified Lord: A Theological Introduction to Paul & His Letters (Grand Rapids Eerdmans, 2004), 119; Meeks, 169; Wright, What Saint Paul Really Said, 139-40.
[65] Gorman, Cruciformity, 335; Kasemann, Perspectives on Paul, 125; Ridderbos; Witherington, 247, 272-78.
[66] Cf. 1 Cor 2.6-7; 2 Cor 1.20; 4.4, 6; 8.23; Eph 1.5-6, 18; 5.27; Phil 3.3, 21; 1 Thes 2.12, 20; 2 Thes 2.14.
[67] Cf. 1 Cor 3.16-17; 6.19-20; 2 Cor 6.16-18; Eph 2.19-22.
[68] Cf. Ro 13.12; 2 Cor 3.7-18; 4.6; 6.14; Eph 5.8-9; Phil 2.15; Col 1.12; 1 Thes 5.5.
[69] Cf. Wright, The Climax of the Covenant, 175-85; What Saint Paul Really Said, 123.
[70] Cf. Ro 13.13; 1 Cor 5.1-8; 6.13, 15-20; 7.5, 9; 9.25; 2 Cor 6.6; 11.2-3; 12.21; Gal 5.23; Eph 5.3; Phil 4.8; Col 3.5; 1 Thes 4.3.
[71] Cf. Ro 8.6, 27; 11.25, 33-34; 12.1-2; 16.19, 25; 1 Cor 1.17-31; 2.5-16; 4.10; 15.51; Gal 1.4; Eph 1.5-11, 17-18; 3.3-10; 5.15, 17, 32; 6.6; Co 1.9, 26-28; 2.2-3; 3.16; 4.3; 1 Thes 4.3; 5.18; contrast Ro 1.22, 28; 2.18; 7.23, 25; 1 Cor 3.18-21; 2 Cor 1.12; Phil 3.19; Col 2.18, 23.
[72] Ro 5.1-5; 8.24-25; cf. Ro 12.12; 15.13; 1 Cor 13.7, 13; 15.19; 2 Cor 1.7, 10; 3.12; Gal 5.5; Eph 1.18; 4.4; Phil 1.19-20; Col 1.5, 23, 27; 1 Thes 5.8; 2 Thes 2.16.
[73] Cf. Eph 2.12; 1 Thes 4.13; Ro 2.1-3.
"Badges of Membership": Part III
III. INSPIRATIONAL BADGES: SPIRIT, FLESH, LAW
The Spirit does not simply inspire Christian confession. Rather, the Spirit becomes a fundamental identity marker of Paul’s communities in its own right because it inspires all areas of Christian life and faith.[21] Hence, Christian existence is lived according to the Spirit and is distinguished from pagan life which is lived according to the flesh, and Jewish life which is lived according to the law.[22] Consequently, the outward signs that demarcate membership within each of these communities are the fruit of the Spirit, the works of the flesh, and the works of the law.
Pagan existence, according to Paul, is lived according to the flesh.[23] Therefore, the flesh becomes the motivating force behind the actions of the pagans. Life in the flesh is lived in accordance to the flesh and is defined by works of the flesh. This, then, inspires a new perspective on Gal 5.12-21. Immediately following his critique of Jewish badges of membership, Paul turns the discussion to “works of the flesh.” At this point of his argument, Paul has not drifted into a tangential pastoral aside. Rather, Paul has moved naturally from discussing Jewish badges (“works of the law”) to discussing pagan badges (“works of the flesh”). Indeed, the so-called “vice lists” that recur throughout Paul’s letters should be read not as ethical asides but as references to pagan badges of identity.[24] When these lists are studied, three works stand out in particular: idolatry, sexual immorality, and covetousness.[25] Pagan existence according to the flesh is thus defined by lawlessness – pagans are those “without the law.”[26] As such, the pagans are identified as licentious “sinners,” “rebels,” and “enemies of God.”[27]
Over against the pagans, members of the Jewish communities are those who live according to the law and are thus demarcated by “works of the law.”[28] The “works of the law” are an essential badge of Jewish identity, and one that reinforces the separation of ethnic Israel from the pagan nations.[29] As with the “works of the flesh,” there are three works that are especially visible expressions of this badge: circumcision, food laws, and the Jewish calendar.[30]
However, just as Paul argues that Jewish worship has become compromised with idolatry, so also Paul argues that Jewish “works of the law” have become compromised with “works of the flesh.”[31] Consequently, life that is lived according to the law is, for Paul, just as unacceptable as life lived according to the flesh. Therefore, clinging to “works of the law” as a fundamental badge of one’s identity is a grave mistake; to try and live this way, after Jesus and the Spirit, would be to reduce one’s lived existence to the level of paganism.[32]
Over against life lived according to the flesh or the law, Paul argues that Christians are defined by life according to the Spirit. This life is identified by the “fruit of the Spirit” and the “works of faith,” which contrast both the works of the flesh and the works of the law.[33] Once again, there are three outward expressions of this lifestyle: freedom, fruit, and faith(fullness).
Over against the pagans who are enslaved to sin and death, and over against the Jews who are enslaved to the law and its punishments, Christians are defined by their freedom from sin, death, the law, and the condemnation of the law.[34] Freedom is an essential mark of Christian existence as Paul makes clear in 2 Cor 7.23: “where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.”[35]
This Christian freedom is distinct from both pagan lawlessness and Jewish lawfulness; life lived according to the Spirit is lived as the third alternative to licentiousness and legalism.[36] This becomes clear when the fruit of the Spirit is seen as another essential expression of the badge of the Spirit. In Gal 5.22-23, after describing Jewish and pagan badges, Paul goes on to describe a Christian badge: the fruit of the Spirit, which is love.[37] Through the Spirit, Christians are freed to love, which is what it means to fulfill the “law of Christ.”[38] However, while Paul gives priority to love there are at least two more expressions of the Spirit-badge within Christians: faith(fullness) and hope.[39]
Dunn, Wright, and others, have correctly emphasized that Paul’s references to faith generally belong within Paul’s discussion of Christian badges.[40] Of course, it is only the Spirit that produces this faith (just as the Spirit produces the confession of faith), and it is this faith that defines, and unites, the people of God as one people.[41] However, this faith is not only expressed through public confession, it is also expressed through public action. Hence, the praxis of faithfulness cannot be divorced from the profession of faith. This is why, in 1 Cor 12.5, Paul demands that the Corinthians prove whether they are indeed in the faith.[42] Thus, Christian freedom is not only expressed in love, it is also expressed in obedience to God.[43] Life in the Holy Spirit is demarcated by holy living.[44] This separates the Christians from pagan disobedience and rebellion, but it also separates Christians from Jewish compromised obedience. This is so because the Spirit accomplishes the circumcision of the heart which enables the fulfillment of the law, and Jewish circumcision becomes an expression of life lived in the flesh.[45]
Therefore, over against the pagans who bear the badge of the flesh, which is expressed through idolatry, covetousness and sexual immorality, and over against the Jews who bear the badge of the law, which is expressed through circumcision, food laws, and the Jewish calendar, Christians bear the badge of the Spirit, which is expressed through freedom, fruit, and faith(fullness).
________
[21] Dunn, The Theology of Paul the Apostle, 425; Fee, Paul, the Spirit and the People of God, 87-89, 103; Ernst Kasemann, Perspectives on Paul (The New Testament Library Series; London: SCM Press, 1971), 122; Wolfgang Schrage, The Ethics of the New Testament (trans. David E. Green; Philadelphia: Fortress, 1988), 178.
[22] Cf. Ro 8.1-13.
[23] F. F. Bruce, Paul: Apostle of the Heart Set Free (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1977), 203-206; Gordon D. Fee, God’s Empowering Presence: The Holy Spirit in the Letters of Paul (Peabody: Hendrickson, 1994), 817.
[24] Cf. Ro 1.21-31; 13.12-14; 1 Cor 5.11; 6.9-10; 2 Cor 12.2; Eph 4.31; 5.3; Col 3.5-8. Also significant in this regard is the way in which Paul uses the expression “works of the darkness” in Ro 13.12 in a parallel way to his usage of “works of the flesh” in Gal 5.19.
[25] On Paul’s focus on these three works in particular cf. Lindsay Dewar, An Outline of New Testament Ethics (London: University of London Press, 1949), 147-49; Frank J. Matera, New Testament Ethics: The Legacies of Jesus and Paul (Louisville: WJKP, 1996), 148-50. Idolatry was studied in Section II of this article. Sexual immorality and covetousness will be explored in more detail in Sections IV and V respectively.
[26] Cf. Ro 2.12, 14.
[27] Cf. Ro 1.21-31; 5.8, 10; 2 Cor 5.18-19; Eph 2.3; Col 1.21.
[28] The contested passages on “works of the law” are Ro 3.20, 27-30; 4; 9.11, 30-10.4; 11.6; Gal 2.16; 3.2, 5, 10-20.
[29] Cf. Terence L. Donaldson, Paul and the Gentiles: Remapping the Apostle’s Convictional World (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1997), 120-31; Dunn, The Theology of Paul the Apostle, 355-63; Richard B. Hays, The Moral Vision of the New Testament: Community, Cross, New Creation. A Contemporary Introduction to New Testament Ethics (San Francisco: HarpersSanFrancisco, 1996), 33; N. T. Wright, The New Testament and the People of God (Christian Origins and the Question of God Series Vol 1; Minneapolis: Fortress, 1992), 237-38; The Climax of the Covenant, 150, 163-65, 173; What Saint Paul Really Said, 112; Matera, 156.
[30] On circumcision cf. Ro 2.25-29; 4; 1 Cor 7-18-19; Gal 2.3-4, 11-16; 5.1-16; 6.12;-13; Eph 2.10-13; Phil 3.2-3; Col 2.11; on calendar cf. Ro 14.5-6; Gal 2.11-16; 4.9-11; Col 216; on food cf. Ro 14.14-15; 1 Cor 8-10; Gal 2.11-16; Col 2.16.
[31] Cf. Ro 2; 7.5-8.13; Gal 2.16; 6.13.
[32] Wright, What Saint Paul Really Said, 144; cf. Dunn, The Theology of Paul the Apostle, 143-59.
[33] Cf. Gal 5.22-23; 1 Thes 1.3.
[34] Cf. Ro 2.28-29; 6.12-23; 8; 1 Cor 7.23; 2 Cor 3.17; Gal 2.4; Gal 4.1-11, 22-5.1; Phil 3; Rudolph Bultmann, Theology of the New Testament: Volume 1 (trans. Kendrick Grobel; London: SCM Press, 1955), 330-52; James D. G. Dunn, Christian Liberty: A New Testament Perspective (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1993), 66, 71-73 et passim; The Theology of Paul the Apostle, 388, 434-35.
[35] Cf. Gal 5.1. Thus, Allen Verhey concludes that, for Paul freedom is probably the “most fundamental” of Christian values (The Great Reversal: Ethics in the New Testament [Vancouver: Regent College Publishing, 1984], 107-108). While the language of values is useful, this article argues that it is better to define freedom as one of the badges of Christian identity.
[36] Cf Bornkamm, 185-86. Bornkamm calls Christian freedom “the middle ground” between legalism and licentiousness, but it is better to understand Christian freedom as an altogether distinct alternative, and not as some sort of mediating position. This is so, in part, because this article understands “legalism” to be a lifestyle that is law-inspired (as opposed to understanding “legalism” as a form of works’ righteousness).
[37] It is significant that the word “fruit” is singular. Paul is not talking about the “fruits” of the Spirit, but the singular fruit of love, which finds expression in the other attributes mentioned in this passage (hence, Gal 5.22-23 is comparable to 1 Cor 13, in that they both explain what love is). It should be noted that the reading of Gal 5 provided in this article drastically contradicts the conclusions of those who assert that Paul’s paraenetic material in Gal (and in Paul’s epistles in general) has little or nothing to do with Paul’s theology (cf. Hans Dieter Betz, Galatians: A Commentary on Paul’s Letter to the Churches in Galatia [Hermeneia Series; Philadelphia: Fortress, 1979], 254, 292; Martin Dibelius, A Fresh Approach to the New Testament and Early Christian Literature [The International Library of Christian Knowledge; London: Ivor Nicholson and Watson, 1949], 217-20).
[38] Cf. Ro 8; 1 Cor 9.21; Gal 6.2; J. Christiaan Becker, Paul the Apostle: The Triumph of God in Life and Thought (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1980), 270; Bruce, 210-11; Gorman, Cruciformity, 55; Albert Schweitzer, The Mysticism of Paul the Apostle (trans. William Montgomery; New York: Henry Holt & Co., 1931), 298-99, 303; Verhey, 108.
[39] Faith, hope, and love are repeatedly mentioned together in Paul’s epistles; cf. Ro 5.1-5; 1 Cor 13.2, 13; 2 Cor 8.7; Gal 2.20; 5.5-6, 22-23; Eph 1.15; 3.16-19; 6.23; Col 1.4-5; 1 Thes 1.3; 3.6, 13; 5.8, 32-33; 2 Thes 2.16-17. On hope see Section IV; for a further exposition on love see Section V.
[40] Cf. Donaldson, 162; Dunn, The Theology of Paul the Apostle, 371-72; Fee, God’s Empowering Presence, 815-15; Wright, The Climax of the Covenant, 3, 36, 156; “Putting Paul Together Again: Towards a Synthesis of Pauline Theology (1 and 2 Thessalonians, Philippians, and Philemon)” in Pauline Theology Vol 1: Thessalonians, Philippians, Galatians, Philemon. Ed. Jouette M. Bassler (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1991) 185, 195; What Saint Paul Really Said, 113-33; Paul, 30-32.
[41] Cf. Dunn, The Theology of Paul the Apostle, 635-38; Fee, Paul, the Spirit and the People of God, 86.
[42] Herman Ridderbos, Paul: An Outline of his Theology (trans. John Richard De Witt; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1975), 232.
[43] As Schrage says, “those who are free are those who are obedient, and those who are obedient are those who are free” (176).
[44] Cf. Dewar, 99-101; Dunn, The Theology of Paul the Apostle, 634-58; Fee, Paul, the Spirit and the People of God, 105, 108-109; God’s Empowering Presence, 880-81; Gorman, Cruciformity, 102; Kasemann, Perspectives on Paul, 124; Marshall, 270; Matera, 141; Ridderbos 237; Wright, What Saint Paul Really Said, 143-44, 160; Paul, 124. This, then, makes good sense of the places where Paul speak quite positively of good works, cf. Ro 2.6-7; 1 Cor 3.13-15; 15.58; 2 Cor 9.8; 11.15; Gal 6.4; Eph 2.10; 2 Thes 2.17.
[45] Cf. Deut 10.16; Jer 4.4, 9.25f, Ez 44.9; Ro 2.28-29; 5.5; 2 Cor 1.22; 3.3, 6; 4.6; Gal 4.6; Eph 1.18; 3.17; Phil 4.7; Col 3.15; 1 Thes 3.13; 2 Thes 3.5.
"Badges of Membership": Part II
II. THE FOUNDATIONAL BADGE: THE OBJECT OF WORSHIP
The object of worship is, for Paul, the most foundational distinguishing badge between his Christian communities and pagan communities, on the one hand, and Jewish communities, on the other. The God who is the object of Christian belief and confession is a markedly different God than the God confessed by both Jews and pagans, and the worship of this Christian God serves as an “identity-marker,” as a badge of those who belong within Paul’s communities.
Over against the polytheism or pantheism of the pagan religions, Paul maintains a Jewish emphasis upon monotheism.[5] Thus, in 1 Cor 8.4, he argues that the idols count as nothing because “there is no God but one.”[6] Furthermore, this Pauline monotheism also stands in stark distinction from certain Hellenistic philosophies that embrace monotheism as a means of advancing syncretism and tolerance within a pluralistic society.[7] Within his Gentile mission, Paul embraces exclusionary monotheism as a badge that defines his communities over and against the pagan communities, who carry “idolatry” as a fundamental badge of their identity.[8]
However, the monotheistic worship of Paul’s communities is also to be distinguished from the equally exclusive monotheism of Judaism. This is so because the Christ-event and Pentecost cause Paul to rework his understanding of monotheism in three significant ways. First, in Paul’s epistles, “we see a remarkable ‘overlap’ in functions between God and Jesus, and also in the honorific rhetoric used to refer to them both.”[9] Thus, “[t]he story of Jesus is not a mere illustration of the divine identity; Jesus himself and his story are intrinsic to the divine identity.”[10] Therefore, passages like Col 1.15-20 and Phil 2.5-11 ascribe to Jesus attributes and roles that, within Judaism, are reserved for the one God alone. Indeed, in 1 Cor 8.6, Paul goes so far as to rework the Shema, the ultimate Jewish profession of the oneness of God, in order to include Jesus within that oneness.[11] This, then, relates to the second point: YHWH is now redefined as the Father of Jesus, who raised Jesus from the dead.[12] This transformation of God’s identity in light of the sonship, cross, and resurrection of Jesus causes “a structural shift in [Paul’s] whole pattern of beliefs.”[13] Third, and finally, one must note the ways in which Paul incorporates the Spirit into the character of God.[14] Thus, we can conclude that Christ and the Spirit redefine both the people of God and the one true God.[15]
Therefore, over against the worship of the Jews, which Paul sees as fundamentally marked by the rejection of Jesus as the Christ, Paul’s communities embrace Jesus as Lord.[16] Indeed, because true worship has been rethought in light of Jesus and the Spirit, we discover that the worship practiced by Judaism is, according to Paul, “compromised with paganism.”[17] Thus, in Gal 4.1-11, Jewish worship becomes a means by which one is enslaved under the old gods, and it ceases to be a badge of those who know, and are known by, the one true God.
The fundamental outward expression of this badge within Paul’s community is confession. As Wayne Meeks asserts, it is confession of Jesus as Lord that is the “absolute boundary marker” between Christians and pagans, and it is the “distinctive boundary marker” between Christians and Jews.[18] Those who belong to Paul’s communities are most fundamentally demarcated by the confession that “Jesus is Lord.”[19] While the pagans are marked by idolatry and the worship of “many gods” and “many lords,” and while the worship of the Jews is fatally compromised because it rejects the Lordship of Jesus, Paul’s communities are marked by worship of one God, the Father, and one Lord, Jesus, and they make this confession by the power of the one Spirit.[20]
________
[5] N. T. Wright, The Climax of the Covenant: Christ and the Law in Pauline Theology (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1993), 2; What Saint Paul Really Said, 59, 65-67; Paul, 91-101.
[6] For other explicitly monotheistic statements in Paul cf. esp. Ro 3.30; 1 Cor 8.6; Gal 3.20; 1 Thes 1.9.
[7] Cf. Wayne A. Meeks, The First Urban Christians: The Social World of the Apostle Paul (New Haven: Yale University Press), 165.
[8] It is almost redundant to identify “pagans” as “idolaters” but the point must be made because it has often been overlooked that this idolatry is, from Paul’s perspective, a fundamental identity-marker of a particular (i.e. pagan) community. Cf. 1 Cor 5.9-11; 6.9-10; 12.2; 2 Cor 6.16; Gal 5.19-20; Eph 5.5; Col 3.5; 1 Thes 1.9. A number of these references occur in so-called “vice lists” which will be further evaluated in Section III.
[9] Larry W. Hurtado, Lord Jesus Christ: Devotion to Jesus in Earliest Christianity (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2003), 234; cf. 234-53.
[10] Richard Bauckham, God Crucified: Monotheism and Christology in the New Testament (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998), 69 et passim.
[11] Wright, The Climax of the Covenant, 125-29.
[12] Cf. Ro 4.24; 2 Cor 4.14; 2 Cor 1.9; Gal 1.1; Col 2.2; 1 Thes 1.10.
[13] Meeks, 180; cf. Wright, The Climax of the Covenant, 89; Michael Gorman, Cruciformity: Paul’s Narrative Spirituality of the Cross (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2004), 18.
[14] Cf. esp. 1 Cor 12.14-6; Gal 4.4-6; Eph 4.4-6.
[15] Wright, What Saint Paul Really Said, 73-74; cf. Bauckham, 76-77.
[16] On Paul’s understanding of the rejection of Christ as an identity marker of Judaism cf. Ro 9.32-33; 1 Cor 1.23.
[17] Wright, What Saint Paul Really Said, 137.
[18] Meeks, 164-80; cf. Rudolph Schnackenburg, The Church in the New Testament (trans. W. J. O’Hara; London: Burns & Oates, 1965), 130; Judith M. Gundry Volf, Paul & Perseverance: Staying In and Falling Away (Louisville: WJKP, 1990), 156.
[19] Cf. Ro 10.9-10; 1 Cor 12.3.
[20] Cf. 1 Cor 12.3; Gunther Bornkamm, Paul (trans. D. M. G. Stalker; New York: Harper & Row, 1971), 180; Gordon D. Fee, Paul, the Spirit, and the People of God (Peabody: Hendrickson, 1996), 88. This is also the point at which one should explore the role of the sacraments as further expressions, alongside of confession, of the Christian badge of worship. However, given the complexities of the debate about the role of the sacraments in Paul’s theology, and given the limited scope of this article, we must leave that point aside.