Social Reconciliation

This picture is from the Iraq Study Group! Scary to "think".

These three men are making universal policy in regard to Iraq, yet none of them speak any dialect of Arabic, nor are any of them Iraqi, and I am only assuming, but I am probably confident that they do not have a firm grasp of Iraqi or Muslim history. How can we in the church learn from these three men? Hopefully, in many ways.

I haven't posted in a while, but it does not mean that I am not attempting to "think through"(Oh, the wonderful Enlightenment) various theologies and existential realities, which deeply affect the elite classes who already possess the means and wealth to be able to determine their destinies. In case you were wondering, my theology will not challenge what the dominant culture has always thought, because I still think that we should continue to build upon the foundation that those who have, should be given more, and if they are not given more, we should develop new ways by which they can gain more. We have continued to sustain the already existent systems through new theologies which have perpetuated the elite to travel and speak and teach, because as long as we are not developing ways by which those who have never had anything, will maybe have these same opportunities to participate in the social systems, we have to believe simply that, "Hard work pays!" This means that after all is said and done, we believe that humans either make "good or bad" personal choices and their lives reflect either of these choices. We in Seminary want to "have our cake and eat it too" because if poor humans are not gaining opportunities through what we are preaching, then are we simply preaching to the elite? Dietrich Bonhoeffer said that the German church was a "Bourgeois church", and has systematically pushed the poor and working class out and was full of the artisans and elite classes. If we had a board meeting in our church, would the faces around the table look the same as the one pictured above? If they do, then how the hell can we look down our noses at others, when we are doing the same thing?!

After all Jesus did say in Matthew 25:29, "For everyone who has will be given more, and he will have an abundance. Whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken from him. I love to proof-text, it always works out well for me. In this verse, Jesus meant the rich and powerful of course, because like us they valued "hard work" and the poor will have even what they have taken away from them, since having abundance is a sign of God's blessing and provision, based upon that hard work, right?

If Jesus was around today, oh wait, the resurrection of Jesus and the giving of the Spirit, means that the ministry of Christ is being brought forth in the earth today, right? Who would Jesus address in terms of people putting burdens on other people today? Those darn fundamentalists from the Bible Belt, those darn Dispensationalists, those darn patriarchal perpetrators of male dominance! Isn't fundamentalism developing doctrines, which we believe are "fundamental" to our faith, then promoting them universally? Aren't we all fundamentalists, then? If I do not hold any of the above mentioned gross distortions of theology, then I am safe from God's judgment, because of course Jesus doesn't mean me, he always means them, when he addressed the religious leaders, because I possess a theology of intelligence, a theology which promotes equality, (as long as I am the one promoting the so-called equality), but the point of this entire blog is to demonstrate that if we hold an elite theology, then we are perpetuating the system of inequality all over again, because without developing theology to address the past injustices in which theology was developed to maintain power and control over other people, how can we in Seminary look at anyone else and think we are "right and they are wrong". We who say, "But my theology which has come down through the generations and is a theology of tradition, and please never forget, "It is a theology of Northern Europe!" Can I get some whiteness, oops I mean witness." I actually had a professor at Fuller say, "I don't know why God chose to reveal theology to Europe, but that is what he did!"

When we look around our churches, I sometimes think that the people who maintain power and control in these churches are the same people who would have been powerful outside of the church, which scares me. I believe that we need to seriously deconstruct the fact that our churches and theologies are not developing us to care for others through service, to lay aside power, and participate with the reconciliation of people with opportunities which they have never had before. Wouldn't it be great to see the poor get educated through scholarships which churches provide, instead of building large buildings. Instead of adding a "Wing to the already large Library", we develop a program whereby poor students obtain opportunities to go to college, get free tutoring from graduate students, and this program is also integrated into the School of Theology and Psychology, so that these students and their families can receive free counseling. Just a thought.