Conservative or Revolutionary??

This is a section of an article taken from Jurgen Moltmann's, The Crucified God and his critique from both sides, i.e. the Conservative and Revolutionary sides, whereby I identify with the second. His critique from both sides is what we in the church need to hear, since both sides have so closely identified with the structures of power, which makes and re-makes God into our image of strength, which will in turn suppress the qualities of Christianity which we perceive as weak, but are imperative to being a Christian.

Whether we are conservative or revolutionary, whether we are satisfied with our society or want to transform it, we all believe at bottom in action and success. We are convinced that we can solve all problems through right programs and actions. As Sidney Hook observes, western society is an officially optimistic society. The built-in values of our life and our system condemn us to activity, success, profit, and progress. If we experience failure, if we are frustrated, then we move on to another place, "where the action is." "What can, what must, we do? What next?" Those are our only questions, for we hate to admit and reflect upon what misery our optimism and our programs of action have inflicted upon other persons and upon nature. The conservatives are proud of the successes which they and their fathers have brought to pass. The revolutionaries want to see different and new successes. They look for "God's activity in history" and want to be "where things are happening most dynamically."
Both stem from the same stock and sit in the same boat. Who is their God? He is the God of action, the strong God ever on the side of the stronger battalions, the God who wins battles and leads his own to victory. He is the idol of mankind's "history of success." This God is power, and only successful faith makes an impression. What follows from the divinity of this God for the humanity of life? Life then means only acting and producing, making and prevailing. This one-sided orientation toward action and success, however, makes men inhuman and represses the other weaker and more sensitive side of life. From this perspective, those who suffer are sick; those who weep and mourn show no stamina. The world has nothing more to say to us. It does not touch us. One can do with the world what one wants. No despair need tear at our hearts. We become hard in the give and take of life. The suffering of others makes no impression on us. Love is no longer a passion, but only a sexual act.
The man of success does not weep, and he keeps smiling only out of courtesy. Coldness is his style. That which his activity demands he calls "good"; that which hinders his success is "bad." The other man is simply his competitor in the struggle for existence. "Survival of the fittest" is his eschatology. Just as he wants to control the world, so also he holds himself under self-control. In short, he who believes in the God of action and success becomes an apathetic man. He takes no more notice of the world, of other men, or of his emotions. He remains oblivious to the suffering his actions cause. He does not want to know about that and represses crucifying experiences from his life.
The God of success and the apathetic man of action completely contradict what we find at the core of Christianity: the suffering God and the loving, vulnerable man. On the other hand, the crucified God contradicts the God of success and his idol-worshippers all the more totally. He contradicts the officially optimistic society. He also contradicts the revolutionary activism of the sons of the old establishment. "The old rugged cross" contradicts the old and the new triumphal theology (theologia gloria) which we produce in the churches in order to keep pace with the transformations of an activistic and rapidly changing society.
We, too, find the memory of the crucified God discomforting. We gladly falsify it by changing the cross into an idol of our driving practical optimism in various crusades. As Douglas Hall has written: "The greatest misfortune would be if Christians used the Theology of Hope as just another religious aid for avoiding the experience of the cross that many in our sector of the battlefield can no longer avoid."In fact, there is no true theology of hope which is not first of all a theology of the cross. There will be no new hope for humanity, if it does not arise from the destruction of the apathetic "man of action" through a recognition of the suffering that he causes. Apathetic existence must be changed into its opposite: an existence of pathos leading to sympathy, sensitivity, and love. There will be no Christian, that is, no liberating theology without the life giving memory of the suffering of God on the cross.
Two hundred years ago, European society was already travelling the optimistic and erroneous path of active world improvement. For the Enlightenment period, the world of nature, principles, and ideas was a reflection of the power and glory of God. If man would only correspond morally to this glorious world of God, then the kingdom of God would be realized! Then in 1755 came the famous Lisbon earthquake, and optimism collapsed, reverting into pessimism and even nihilism.
The corresponding "earthquakes" of our time are not found in nature and physical evil, but rather in history and in inhuman evil. For my people, as executioners, and for the Jews, as victims, it is Auschwitz. As a German I do not have the right to say it, but for the American people, as executioners, and for the Vietnamese, as victims, it may be called Vietnam, not to mention the sad history of slavery between white and black in western civilization. For us who are white, rich, and dominant, it is the cry of the starving, oppressed, and racially victimized masses. For our technocratic society, it may become the silent death of nature, carrying us to destruction. At this point, too, our optimism collapses. What will take its place? Cynicism and apathy?
Allow me to become personal here for a moment. Ten years ago, I went through the remains of the concentration camp at Maidanek in Poland. With each step it became physically more difficult to go further and look at the thousands of children's shoes, clothing remnants, collected hair, and gold teeth. At that moment I would have preferred from shame to be swallowed up by the earth, if I had not believed: "God is with them. They will rise again." Later, I found in the visitors' book the inscriptions of others: "Never again can this be allowed to happen. We will fight to see that this never again comes to pass." I respect this answer, but it does not help the murdered ones. I also respect my own answer, which I gave at that time. But it is not sufficient.
How is faith in God, how is being human, possible after Auschwitz? I don't know. But it helps me to remember the story that Elie Wiesel reports in his book on Auschwitz called Night. Two Jewish men and a child were hanged. The prisoners were forced to watch. The men died quickly. The boy lived on in torture for a long while. "Then someone behind me said: "Where is God?' and I was silent. After half an hour he cried out again: 'Where is God? Where is he? And a voice in me answered: 'Where is God?. . . he hangs there from the gallows…. (Jurgen Moltmann: The Crucified God) Full article can be found on the blog face page.