I have been thinking a lot lately about something I have entitled, "The Image of the Institution", which is not a title that I developed but is something which Scripture has developed through the biological process by which God made humans. I believe that God designed humans to be social beings, but our social standing is only determined through our relationship with other humans, institutions, culture, etc. Whatever I follow, I mirror it, which was the original design for creation to follow its Creator and mirror God, i.e reflecting his sustaining presence. Jeremiah 2 was God's call for Israel to return to the covenant faithfulness of Yhwh, but Yhwh had a specific claim against Israel by stating in Jer. 2:5 "...they followed after worthless idols and became worthless themselves."
As I follow a certain structure, that structure shapes and forms my thinking, until it moulds me into its own image. Miroslav Volf, a theologian at Yale has written in Exclusion and Embrace that "violence robs humans of their innocence and will re-make us into the image of violence, creating in us a propensity towards violence". Volf's thoughts are not developed in a laboratory per se, but have culminated in the fighting which he was involved in the Balkan's. My own thoughts concerning violence have also been shaped and formed by attempting to fight violence with force, and thereby being overpowered by the sheer magnitude of that violence, and becoming violent myself.
Consider the concept of race in the U.S. Whenever we say the term, "White", it must always be in relation to "black", since whiteness was a concept constructed in the U.S. to determine for political and social reasons who would be accepted into the elite society which had been developed over against the Africans who had been kidnapped into the U.S. Once this concept developed, there no longer was any thought whatsoever about using these terms, "White or Black". Society developed a term which in turn has created us to think in categories which were constructed because of prejudice. Are we then to simply accept the categories as normal? I believe the answer is yes and no. Yes, we affirm human beings as being those designations, because that is what we now are. But we also say no, because when it perpetuates the racial inequalities, we must stand against that. The problem will be that when we stand, others who have benefited, i.e. white dominant society may stand against those who decry racism. After all, this is what got Jesus killed.
We are created as beings who are transformed into whatever it is that we follow. Christianity should therefore engage the way we think about life, sociology, politics, and our relationships with one another. I think that if reconciliation is not at the core of our theology, something is inherently wrong. If we are not desparately concerned with facilitating opportunities for human beings to participate in the beauty of God's creation, then we may have a theology in a laboratory, not as a missionary. The apostle Paul's theology for the Greek world was developed in the Greek world, therefore, our theology needs to be developed as we engage God's creation. The Platonic thought of the Greek world is alive and well in Western culture, so we as Christians need to develop a theology which engages our hyper-sexualized society, by affirming our dignity as human beings.
Maybe because I moved so much as a child and young adult, I developed an ability to have a fluidity in my understanding the sociological constructs within our culture very well. I understand how environmental factors produce people to think in certain terms and their thinking can definitely be changed, but not unless humans are given the opportunity to connect with those we consider "the other". I have also been wanting to stop forgetting about the power of the Holy Spirit in the conversation of change. God's Spirit empowers humans to stand against oppression, because as I have already found, unless God is moving in our midst, we will be created into oppressive people, even when we are attempting to liberate people from oppression.
Thursday, January 31, 2008
Tuesday, January 15, 2008
Why We Fight
So, I watched another amazing documentary last night, probably the BEST documentary I have ever seen, entitled Why We Fight. It takes place during the Iraq War (Oh wait, that war is still going on) and it traces the history of the past fifty years involving military conflicts in foreign nations and why we have been involved. It shows also a dramatic "conversion" of a man, a former NYPD Sgt. and also a Vietnam Veteran, who lost his son in the 9/11 attacks. Throughout the documentary it showed how he supported the Iraq War, even to the point of having the Marine Corp place his son's name on a bomb which was dropped in Iraq on April 1, 2003. This man supported the troops, until one day he was watching the news and they showed President Bush at a Cabinet Meeting, where he stated, "The 9/11 attacks and the Iraq War do not have anything to do with one another." The problem with that statement was the fact that Vice President Cheney had drawn a definitive link approximately one year before between 9/11, Al-Qaeda, and Iraq's "Weapons of Mass Destruction." The man who lost his son said that he was so enraged about his son's death that he simply wanted vengeance, he wanted as many dead bodies as possible, and if Iraq was the culprit, we needed to "kill them!" His attitude and heart were turned by the end of the documentary to feelings of sorrow over his "blind" support for the war. He said that he is from the "old school", which in my opinion means unquestioning allegiance to the state, which promises to secure safety, as violently as necessary. Don't worry, Rome did the same thing. (Oh, wait, they don't exist anymore.) In theological terms we might call those who seem so different from us "the other". Today it may be Iraqi's and how does God interact with "the other", i.e. those who do not claim allegiance to our God? I believe God calls out to them and desires that our's and their vengeance, anger, and acts of violence be expressed in a language to him. He is continually seeking those who will cry out to him in times of fear and anger, those are "the other".
These feelings are normal for an act of aggression, such as the 9/11 attacks. People are confused, scared, and unsure why anyone would hate us, and they wanted answers. The problem is they were not spoken to with compassion, but were told, "This is why people hate us, because we are free and you are not." I had to research the history myself in order to understand the violence in this country.
This documentary (biased, as all documentaries are) traces the history of our interaction with Iraq and it's massive oil reserves from the 1950's onward. It showed how we used Saddam Hussein and showed Donald Rumsfeld meeting with Saddam in the 80's, shaking his hand when he was our friend, over against our enemy; "Iran". This documentary even showed a clip from Osama Bin Laden who said that he did not like Saudi Arabia "using" the U.S. to maintain power against Iraq, during the time period when Iraq attacked Kuwait in Operation Desert Storm. Osama either felt as if the U.S. was being inevitably drawn into a conflict in the Middle East, or he thought that Saudi Arabia as a Muslim Nation should not be making deals with the U.S. (It was not explained either way in the documentary)
Saddam became enemy #1 when he attacked Kuwait, because he was one step closer to possibly taking over Saudi Arabia and therefore controlling the Middle East's two largest Oil Reserves.
How does any of this have to do with "freedom". Well, it actually does. We as Americans define freedom as security, i.e. security as defined over the last forty-five years as the U.S.'s "Industrial Military Complex", which was a phrase coined by Eisenhower at the end of his term in office. In order to continue to secure our own freedom, we must establish our imperial agenda in countries where we know we can dominate. The "no standing armies" from our Constitution was also mentioned, which having "standing armies" in foreign nations would violate our own Constitution.
We never "attacked" the Soviet Union or East Germany during the Cold War years, because it would not benefit us to attack a nation which has the power to fight back. Cheney was quoted as saying in this movie that at the end of the Cold War era, the U.S. is now has the foremost power in the world and we must preserve that power.
There is a theme which dominates the discussion, even today, and that is of "power". If we have all this power, will it ever affect another nation? If it does affect another nation, are we concerned about their freedom? We as a nation have accepted the bloody revolutions fought over how this country would be governed as perfectly normal. If we have so easily accepted this premise, then it becomes very easy for us to #1, make sure we as a nation never again experience those revolutions, and #2 believe that other nations must experience blood before they can be "free."
These feelings are normal for an act of aggression, such as the 9/11 attacks. People are confused, scared, and unsure why anyone would hate us, and they wanted answers. The problem is they were not spoken to with compassion, but were told, "This is why people hate us, because we are free and you are not." I had to research the history myself in order to understand the violence in this country.
This documentary (biased, as all documentaries are) traces the history of our interaction with Iraq and it's massive oil reserves from the 1950's onward. It showed how we used Saddam Hussein and showed Donald Rumsfeld meeting with Saddam in the 80's, shaking his hand when he was our friend, over against our enemy; "Iran". This documentary even showed a clip from Osama Bin Laden who said that he did not like Saudi Arabia "using" the U.S. to maintain power against Iraq, during the time period when Iraq attacked Kuwait in Operation Desert Storm. Osama either felt as if the U.S. was being inevitably drawn into a conflict in the Middle East, or he thought that Saudi Arabia as a Muslim Nation should not be making deals with the U.S. (It was not explained either way in the documentary)
Saddam became enemy #1 when he attacked Kuwait, because he was one step closer to possibly taking over Saudi Arabia and therefore controlling the Middle East's two largest Oil Reserves.
How does any of this have to do with "freedom". Well, it actually does. We as Americans define freedom as security, i.e. security as defined over the last forty-five years as the U.S.'s "Industrial Military Complex", which was a phrase coined by Eisenhower at the end of his term in office. In order to continue to secure our own freedom, we must establish our imperial agenda in countries where we know we can dominate. The "no standing armies" from our Constitution was also mentioned, which having "standing armies" in foreign nations would violate our own Constitution.
We never "attacked" the Soviet Union or East Germany during the Cold War years, because it would not benefit us to attack a nation which has the power to fight back. Cheney was quoted as saying in this movie that at the end of the Cold War era, the U.S. is now has the foremost power in the world and we must preserve that power.
There is a theme which dominates the discussion, even today, and that is of "power". If we have all this power, will it ever affect another nation? If it does affect another nation, are we concerned about their freedom? We as a nation have accepted the bloody revolutions fought over how this country would be governed as perfectly normal. If we have so easily accepted this premise, then it becomes very easy for us to #1, make sure we as a nation never again experience those revolutions, and #2 believe that other nations must experience blood before they can be "free."
Wednesday, January 2, 2008
We should not fear.
So, I listen to talk radio sometimes. Not Rush Limbaugh or Michael Medved, but Calvary Chapel. I do it mainly because I am naturally a curious person, but sometimes I do not agree with what I hear on the radio from Calvary Chapel. I know that sounds harsh, but hearing about how angry God is with creation simply makes me squirm. When Calvary Chapel initially was founded it was to attract hippies and outcast's to Jesus Christ, but I do not hear that message from them anymore. I was listening to a sermon today from Calvary Chapel, Pasadena and I only heard the end in which the preacher said, "...and the reason that heresy entered into the church was a direct result of women..." What about Marcion, the Gnostics, Pelagius, none of them were women and they were the causes of great amounts of heretical teachings in the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th centuries?
I am making a judgment call because I did not hear the context of what he was saying, but in all actuality should it really matter that I didn't hear the context, I mean are you kidding? The preacher then reiterated the I Timothy passage which prohibits women from teaching and says that the context does not matter, i.e. I Timothy was a letter written about Ephesus issues with the temple goddesses and the goddess Diana, but simply that the Bible is the Word of God and it does not change. For more on those issues, N.T. Wright has written about them, and if you only want to read the I Timothy section, scroll down to point # five: click here to read.
The Calvary Chapel Pastor then said, "Men today need to stop being afraid and speak the truth, because it is the Women's Liberation movement which has caused most of the problems today." I also named this blog, "We should not fear", because in my humble opinion fear drives people to preach these sermons. They probably are truly afraid that if they do not hold to what they believe in a strict, literal, interpretation of Scripture as the Word of God, people will fall away from God. I think that if people obey God, NOT out of love for him and all the amazing actions which God has initiated in creation, but instead through an obedience, derived out of fear of "losing control"; life will eventually overwhelm people and the control which they believed they possessed will overcome them. So, the main issue is control, i.e dominance. I hope this makes sense.
What I hear this pastor preaching is that, 'These are simply the Absolute Truths of Scripture, never to change, never to be contextualized within our world, but applied in strict obedience, because God is concerned with obedience.' Of course I am being somewhat facetious in my above mentioned statements, but I still find it perplexing how the concern in churches is not to proclaim the gospel, that our God assumed the flesh of humanity in the life of the Lord Jesus the Christ, then absorbed into his own body the violence of humanity exhibited towards God, died the death of a criminal on a cross, forsaken by humanity, and through the resurrection from the dead was vindicated by God, proclaiming that death has no power over God.
Why is that not the message which we proclaim in our churches. Why are we not talking about living intentionally as the community of faith: sharing, loving, learning to trust each other, and learning to trust in the grace which God has given to us for each day. I heard another person on Christian radio question a caller when the caller talked about how consumerism has created us to believe that we can purchase anything we desire. The Christian radio announcer did not think that being able to buy anything we want is NOT a Christian principle.
In reference to speaking though about the Absolutes of Scripture, I believe we must focus on the particularities before we focus on the universal. It is important to God that our unique qualities which are created by our world be affirmed in Christ. I do think that the dismantling of our worldview needs to take place so that we do not interpret Scripture based upon my own sinful humanity, but we interpret in light of the community of faith. Stanley Hauerwas has a quote which my friend Michael DeFazio quoted on his blog, which says, "In Hauerwas' book "Unleashing the Scripture", where he argues that the first task of the church in America is to get the Bible out of the hands of individual North American Christians. This is admittedly hyperbolic, but his point stands: people are not capable of rightly hearing Scripture on their own - none of us are, "scholars" and "laypeople" alike - not least because we need each other to discipline our sinful tendency to see what we want to see, what will confirm our present convictions, what will prove our arguments."
This is why I enjoy the teachings concerning "The Historical Jesus", because understanding the history of Jesus enables us to understand how deeply affected God is by our world, "good and evil".
"The historical Jesus and the kerygmatic Christ (kerygmatic, meaning New Testament proclamation) must once again be brought into unity." (James Dunn) I will close with one last comment by Jurgen Moltmann in "The Crucified God" which I have been reading and enjoying immensely.
"His preaching was literally the same as that of John: "The kingdom of God is at hand", but the content of his preaching of this imminent kingdom was different. The kingdom does not come as judgment, so that one must anticipate it in one's self through repentance in order to endure. Rather, anticipated by the word of the gospel which Jesus preached and his living offering of himself to the poor, the sinners, the tax-collectors, it comes as the unconditional and free grace of God, by which the lost are sought out and those without rights, and the unrighteous, are accepted. It is this different and new righteousness of God promised and demonstrated by Jesus which separates him from John the Baptist and his repentance movement in Israel."
Moltmann, Jurgen: The Crucified God: The Historical Trial of Jesus: page 130: Fortress Press: MN: 1993.
Therefore, our proclamation of his resurrection must be stated from the "I"- "Thou" encounter, which means that we do not say, "He said...", since we would only speak of someone who was dead in that manner, but we proclaim the life of Jesus in the present. Jesus saw the past, present, and future in his own life. This is why we believe that Jesus opened the kingdom of God here and now. Anyways, I do not think that the pastor at Calvary Chapel is intentionally preaching something which he does not believe, but his "belief in belief in God" has transcended the present day call to embody the life of Jesus. "The only way to live with the hope in the present is to believe that God will justify in the future." (Miroslav Volf)
I am making a judgment call because I did not hear the context of what he was saying, but in all actuality should it really matter that I didn't hear the context, I mean are you kidding? The preacher then reiterated the I Timothy passage which prohibits women from teaching and says that the context does not matter, i.e. I Timothy was a letter written about Ephesus issues with the temple goddesses and the goddess Diana, but simply that the Bible is the Word of God and it does not change. For more on those issues, N.T. Wright has written about them, and if you only want to read the I Timothy section, scroll down to point # five: click here to read.
The Calvary Chapel Pastor then said, "Men today need to stop being afraid and speak the truth, because it is the Women's Liberation movement which has caused most of the problems today." I also named this blog, "We should not fear", because in my humble opinion fear drives people to preach these sermons. They probably are truly afraid that if they do not hold to what they believe in a strict, literal, interpretation of Scripture as the Word of God, people will fall away from God. I think that if people obey God, NOT out of love for him and all the amazing actions which God has initiated in creation, but instead through an obedience, derived out of fear of "losing control"; life will eventually overwhelm people and the control which they believed they possessed will overcome them. So, the main issue is control, i.e dominance. I hope this makes sense.
What I hear this pastor preaching is that, 'These are simply the Absolute Truths of Scripture, never to change, never to be contextualized within our world, but applied in strict obedience, because God is concerned with obedience.' Of course I am being somewhat facetious in my above mentioned statements, but I still find it perplexing how the concern in churches is not to proclaim the gospel, that our God assumed the flesh of humanity in the life of the Lord Jesus the Christ, then absorbed into his own body the violence of humanity exhibited towards God, died the death of a criminal on a cross, forsaken by humanity, and through the resurrection from the dead was vindicated by God, proclaiming that death has no power over God.
Why is that not the message which we proclaim in our churches. Why are we not talking about living intentionally as the community of faith: sharing, loving, learning to trust each other, and learning to trust in the grace which God has given to us for each day. I heard another person on Christian radio question a caller when the caller talked about how consumerism has created us to believe that we can purchase anything we desire. The Christian radio announcer did not think that being able to buy anything we want is NOT a Christian principle.
In reference to speaking though about the Absolutes of Scripture, I believe we must focus on the particularities before we focus on the universal. It is important to God that our unique qualities which are created by our world be affirmed in Christ. I do think that the dismantling of our worldview needs to take place so that we do not interpret Scripture based upon my own sinful humanity, but we interpret in light of the community of faith. Stanley Hauerwas has a quote which my friend Michael DeFazio quoted on his blog, which says, "In Hauerwas' book "Unleashing the Scripture", where he argues that the first task of the church in America is to get the Bible out of the hands of individual North American Christians. This is admittedly hyperbolic, but his point stands: people are not capable of rightly hearing Scripture on their own - none of us are, "scholars" and "laypeople" alike - not least because we need each other to discipline our sinful tendency to see what we want to see, what will confirm our present convictions, what will prove our arguments."
This is why I enjoy the teachings concerning "The Historical Jesus", because understanding the history of Jesus enables us to understand how deeply affected God is by our world, "good and evil".
"The historical Jesus and the kerygmatic Christ (kerygmatic, meaning New Testament proclamation) must once again be brought into unity." (James Dunn) I will close with one last comment by Jurgen Moltmann in "The Crucified God" which I have been reading and enjoying immensely.
"His preaching was literally the same as that of John: "The kingdom of God is at hand", but the content of his preaching of this imminent kingdom was different. The kingdom does not come as judgment, so that one must anticipate it in one's self through repentance in order to endure. Rather, anticipated by the word of the gospel which Jesus preached and his living offering of himself to the poor, the sinners, the tax-collectors, it comes as the unconditional and free grace of God, by which the lost are sought out and those without rights, and the unrighteous, are accepted. It is this different and new righteousness of God promised and demonstrated by Jesus which separates him from John the Baptist and his repentance movement in Israel."
Moltmann, Jurgen: The Crucified God: The Historical Trial of Jesus: page 130: Fortress Press: MN: 1993.
Therefore, our proclamation of his resurrection must be stated from the "I"- "Thou" encounter, which means that we do not say, "He said...", since we would only speak of someone who was dead in that manner, but we proclaim the life of Jesus in the present. Jesus saw the past, present, and future in his own life. This is why we believe that Jesus opened the kingdom of God here and now. Anyways, I do not think that the pastor at Calvary Chapel is intentionally preaching something which he does not believe, but his "belief in belief in God" has transcended the present day call to embody the life of Jesus. "The only way to live with the hope in the present is to believe that God will justify in the future." (Miroslav Volf)
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