Elliot Ritzema

Category: Politics

  • I Got Galluped

    A couple of weeks ago I got a call from Gallup, asking me if I wanted to participate in a poll. I am not entirely convinced that poll results should be given the importance that they sometimes are, but I was curious to see what kinds of questions they ask, so I consented.

    The pollster asked me a wide range of questions, from my political views to my income to my optimism or pessimism about the future to my job to my family to the role religion plays in my life. More than once, I had to think for a moment before answering a question because I don’t normally think about some of those things in the way that the question assumed I would. For example, she asked whether I approved or disapproved of the job Barack Obama was doing as president. I didn’t know what to say at first. I wanted to say that we have such outlandish expectations from the office of president that whoever occupies that office is bound to be a disappointment, no matter what our politics are. I knew that my response, whatever it was, would be use to establish approval ratings. In some ways, it would be nice to have a president who has such courage of conviction that he or she doesn’t care about approval ratings, because I don’t think approval ratings matter all that much in the long run. What I said was… well, it doesn’t matter, because I’ve already told you what I think.

    She also asked me which Republican I would be most likely to vote for in the 2012 presidential race. She rattled off a list of about a dozen names. I recognized most of their names, but I knew anything about only half of them. So I named a name, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that I would vote for that person. It just means that I have heard of that person and that I have a generally positive impression of them. I could learn something about any one of those possible candidates tomorrow that would make me decide I would not vote for them.

    At the end of the poll, I was not satisfied. I knew that my answers to the questions would become part of statistics. Those statistics may influence the decisions of people I’ve never met and may never meet. When people see poll results, they won’t know that I didn’t like the premise of some of the questions. They will assume that the results of the poll accurately reflect what I (and thousands of others) think, when in reality that may or may not be the case.

    I used to take poll results with a grain of salt. Now that I have actually been asked the questions in a Gallup poll, that grain just got a whole lot bigger.

  • August 2010: Books Read

    1. Same Kind of Different as Me by Ron Hall and Denver Moore. Reviewed earlier here.

    2. Hannah’s Child: A Theologian’s Memoir by Stanley Hauerwas. Theologian Stanley Hauerwas’s memoir is called Hannah’s Child, but it could easily have been called Things that Didn’t Occur to Me At the Time. Out of the long list of things in his life that he acknowledges he was clueless about, a few are that a person would go to divinity school in order to prepare for ministry, that Protestants would not be allowed to partake in Catholic Mass, or that he would have to get used to the differences between Durham and South Bend when he moved from Notre Dame to Duke.

    Nevertheless, this was a fascinating book. Hauerwas tells his readers exactly what they expect in a theologian’s memoir: how he came to study theology at Yale in the first place, how he was influenced by his professors, how he came to be one of the few Protestants on the theological faculty at Notre Dame, how he was influenced by John Howard Yoder and Alasdair MacIntyre (among others), and how he came to teach at Duke. He also tells us more: specifically, he talks frankly about his marriage to a woman with bipolar disorder. In some ways, this memoir is a paean to friendship, and he tells us all about the many people he has encountered and become friends with along the way.

    The only interactions with him that I have ever had were a letter that he was kind enough to respond to in 2001, and a brief meeting when he came to Vancouver to give the Grenz Lectures in 2009 (he autographed one of his books that I bought for my dad). But at the end of this book, after having him open up so much of his life, I couldn’t help but feel a little bit as if Stanley had become my friend.

    3. William F. Buckley (Christian Encounters Series) by Jeremy Lott. Reviewed earlier here.

    4. Getting It Right: A Novel by William F. Buckley. I read this book because Lott mentioned it in his biography of Buckley. Somehow I had missed that Buckley was a novelist in addition to being conservative pundit, and so I decided to read one of his efforts. I chose this one in particular because it contained Buckley’s critique of Ayn Rand, whose Objectivist philosophy seems to be undergoing something of a renaissance at the moment.

    Besides being a critique of Ayn Rand’s philosophy, it is a fictionalized history of conservatism between 1956 and 1965, beginning with the repressed Hungarian Revolution and ending just after Barry Goldwater’s failed bid for president. In addition to critiquing Ayn Rand, it also contains a critique of the paranoid anti-Communist John Birch Society. Buckley himself makes a cameo, and it is clear by the end of the book that it is his brand of conservatism (rather than that of Rand or the JBS) that ought to win, and in fact did win.

    5. The Richest Man in Babylon by George S. Clason. While Buckley’s book was a fictionalized history of mid-20th-century conservatism, this book was fictionalized financial advice. Clason wrote this book in the 1920s, but in a stroke of genius he set it in Babylon and told it as a set of ancient parables. His advice is nothing new, but striking because it is so seldom followed: save 10% of all you earn. Be conservative rather than greedy in your investments. Seek investment advice, especially in areas you are not familiar with. Not particularly exciting stuff, but this book has had enduring popularity in part because of its brilliant presentation. It’s a story, which is always more interesting than straight advice, and it is presented as wisdom from the ancients. The edition I read was even in King James English, though I believe there is a modern-English version.

    6. The Prodigal God: Recovering the Heart of the Christian Faith by Tim Keller. In this short book, Keller focuses on the familiar parable of the “prodigal son,” but presents it in an unusual way. That difference can be seen in the title: “prodigal” doesn’t mean “lost,” as so many people assume, but rather “recklessly extravagant; having spent everything.” This is why Keller applies the word to God, who as the father in the parable is extravagant both in giving his son his inheritance prematurely and in welcoming him back when he returns.

    Though this book is short, it gave me a lot to chew on. Take this quote: “Mercy and forgiveness must be free and unmerited to the wrongdoer. If the wrongdoer has to do something to merit it, then it isn’t mercy, but forgiveness always comes at a cost to the one granting the forgiveness” (83). Also, his description of the elder brother – and his claim that the elder brother was just as lost as the younger brother, but didn’t know it – struck home. Jesus told this parable so that the Pharisees would understand why he spent time with people they regarded as sinners, and to invite them to lay down their religious moralism and superiority. I was left wondering, How have I been an elder brother?

    The main thing that I will take away from this book is this: Keller makes a sharp distinction between religious moralism and Christianity. This is a distinction that needs to be made sharply in our world, where Christianity (at times deservedly) has the reputation of being the same as religious moralism.

  • Christian First, American Second

    I’ve said before on this blog that I’m not a political junkie, and that I don’t follow politics all that closely. And yet, in recent months, I couldn’t help but write a few posts that dealt with political issues. I think that I owe it to the regular readers of this blog (thanks to all 5 or so of you) to say more about what is behind the statements that I make about politics.

    First, some personal history: I grew up in a Christian home in the South, and my parents tended to vote Democrat. At the same time, I went to a Christian high school, where political issues were often presented in a pro-conservative light. In part because of these different messages that I got from different influences, I registered to vote as an Independent when I turned 18. Since then, I’ve voted for a mix of Republican, Democrat and third-party candidates.

    Over time, as I’ve grown in my Christian faith, I’ve continued to think about how it should affect how I vote, and how I think Christians should conduct themselves in public life. Instead of believing that my faith aligned me completely with one political ideology, I decided that I should make decisions on political matters on a case-by-case, issue-by-issue basis. Whenever it comes time to vote, I take a good look at each candidate’s stances on various issues that are important to me as a Christian (like the environment, war, and the economy, as well as the classic personal morality issues like abortion and gay marriage). Usually, after nearly despairing, I come to a decision and vote for the person I disagree with least.

    Recently, I’ve been having a very negative reaction to associating the Christian faith closely with a particular political point of view, or even with the United States. This goes back at least to the time I was at a service one Fourth of July weekend at a megachurch in southern California in 2001, and they raised a 110-foot American flag to the ceiling at the end of the service, as the big finale. Something seemed wrong about that to me. I think that the fusing together of Christianity with the state has always been dangerous. The reason why I’m troubled by this is that I think, historically, whenever the church and state have been aligned, the church has always suffered. It always fails to preach the gospel the way that it should. The enemies of the state become the enemies of the church, and Jesus’ way of sacrificial love is not followed. In this presidential election cycle, I’ve been bothered by things like Obama’s misinterpreting the Bible in the service of the state, and also by statements like the one made by Sarah Palin that “We see America as the greatest force for good in this world.” (McCain expanded that to say America was the greatest force for good in the history of the world in the final presidential debate.) As a Christian, I think that the gospel of Jesus Christ is the greatest force for good in the world. The impact of America on the world is a mixed one, in my opinion, and I am disappointed that professed Christians like Palin and McCain have made the statements they have. I’m concerned that those who say that their nation is the greatest force for good in the history of the world may not be able to see where their country has made mistakes. Putting America first means putting the kingdom of God second. There is a word for putting the kingdom of God second to something else, and that word is “idolatry.”

    In contrast, I’ve had a positive reaction to the stances on politics articulated by such people as Scot McKnight, a New Testament scholar who teaches at North Park University in Chicago, and Greg Boyd, pastor of Woodland Hills Church in Minnesota. McKnight wrote a post on his blog, JesusCreed, a couple of years ago that argues four things: 1. Churches should educate Christians on what the Bible says and how the Church has thought about various political issues. 2. Christians should remain independent enough to provide a prophetic stance. 3. It’s irresponsible to say that we can be completely apolitical. We need to address political issues, but from an independent stance that allows us to speak prophetically. 4. (and related to 1.) Each person is responsible for where he or she stands politically. Churches should educate, not indoctrinate. If churches say that responsible Christians should only vote a certain way, they end up demonizing the opposing view and contributing to the widespread lack of respect and civility in our culture today. McKnight wrote another post more recently, on October 3 of this year, which asks the question, “Where is our hope?”

    Where is our hope? To be sure, I hope our country solves its international conflicts and I hope we resolve poverty and dissolve our educational problems and racism. But where does my hope turn when I think of war or poverty or education or racism? Does it focus on November 4? Does it gain its energy from thinking that if we get the right candidate elected our problems will be dissolved? If so, I submit that our eschatology has become empire-shaped, Constantinian, and political. And it doesn’t matter to me if it is a right-wing evangelical wringing her fingers in hope that a Republican wins, or a left-wing evangelical wringing her fingers in hope that a Democrat wins. Each has a misguided eschatology.

    Four years ago, Greg Boyd preached a sermon series at his church called “The Cross and the Sword.” Later, this turned into a book called “The Myth of a Christian Nation.” I haven’t read the book, but I have listened to the sermon series, and I resonated with what he was saying. What he was saying was that for Christians, the Kingdom of God that Jesus spoke about is central, and it must not be confused with other kingdoms. Here is a quote from Greg Boyd:

    Matthew (a Tax Collector) and Simon (a Zealot) were much farther apart in their views about political issues than (say) a Liberal Democrat and a Conservative Republican would be today. Yet, we never read a word about which view was “better” in the Gospels. And the reason is that their widely different political views are insignificant next to the one thing they are called to do as followers of Jesus: express God’s love for others the sacrificial way God expressed his love for them.

    So, if we’re thinking biblically about the kingdom of God, we have to conclude that it just doesn’t matter whether you’re a conservative “Matthew” or a liberal “Simon.” If you’re a follower of Jesus Christ, committed to building the Jesus-looking Kingdom by sacrificing for others, there’s room in the kingdom for you.

    The kingdom of God is different from the platforms preached by Republicans and Democrats, liberals and conservatives. Of course, Christians should be involved in political issues – because we are commanded to love our neighbor, we should be involved in the lives of our fellow women and men – but the kingdom of God must never be confused with the kingdoms of this world.

    This is why I don’t write a lot about politics on this blog. But when I do, I am highly critical of the longstanding tendency in American politics toward civil religion – blending the kingdom of God with other things. In spite of its long tradition, it amounts to idolatry.

  • Laing Lectures 2008: Walter Brueggemann (3 of 3)

    This is the third in a series of three summaries of the 2008 Laing Lectures given by Walter Brueggemann (part 1 is here, and part 2 is here). Update: the audio of all three lectures is available for purchase here.

    The third in Brueggemann’s series of biblical expositions was called “Receiving Salvation and Doing Justice: From Vision to Imperative in Isaiah.” It was given on Thursday night, and the place was packed. But unlike the first lecture on Wednesday (when I had to sit in overflow seating), I showed up 45 minutes early, got in line until the doors opened, and got a pretty good seat.

    Brueggemann opened with a couple of clarifications about how he was planning to interpret Isaiah. First, he wasn’t going to get into the issue of who wrote so-called 1, 2, or 3 Isaiah. He was going to view it as a whole, the way it was received into the canon. Second, it is popular among Christians to interpret many Isaiah passages Christologically. Brueggemann wanted to avoid interpreting Isaiah with reference to Christ, and attempt to look at it in its context.

    The book of Isaiah, said Brueggemann, is a rumination on the city of Jerusalem according to the dominant ideological claims of the Jerusalem establishment. These ideological claims were vindicated by the miraculous rescue of the city from the Assyrian threat in 701 BC. Some scholars believe that Psalm 46 was written in response to the deliverance of the city. Brueggemann believes that the book of Isaiah both appeals to this Jerusalem tradition, and also calls it into question.

    Brueggemann thinks that Isaiah is really about Jerusalem. The book has an initial harshness toward the city (chapter 1), shifts to promissory tenderness (chapter 40), and ends with ultimate hope (chapters 65-66). However, he suggests that Jerusalem, in Isaiah, represents an instance of a failed urban economy. He wants to extrapolate from this particular failed economy to talk about a failed economy of our own day: the United States, when its temples of the World Trade Center and Pentagon were attacked.

    First, the book of Isaiah is about loss. Chapters 1-39 are about loss as divine judgment.

    Second, the book of Isaiah is about grief. Some scholars, Brueggemann notes, think that we ought to insert the book of Lamentations between Isaiah 39 and 40. Loss that is grieved permits newness, but loss that is denied creates dysfunction and violence. In a failed urban economy in the West, pastors need to think about loss and public grief.

    Third, the book of Isaiah is about hope – but only hope that can happen after grief has been articulated. This is what chapters 40-45 are about. Verse 9 of chapter 40 contains the first intentional theological use of the word “gospel.” 52:7 is the second.

    There is a second aspect to hope: a challenge to imperial reality. Brueggemann here refers to 41:21 and following, where the author imagines a courtroom trial where the Babylonian gods are taunted. Verse 25 begins YHWH’s testimony, where he refers to Cyrus, who would deliver his people.

    The third aspect of hope is the presence of God; 41:13-14, “do not fear, for I am with you.” These words, spoken to exiles, are the most quintessential expression of the gospel.

    The fourth dimension of hope is the location of divine assurance in human agency. If you read this Christologically, it points to Jesus. But before Jesus, you come to Cyrus. 45:1 – Cyrus is God’s anointed. This is extraordinary, in that the poet can imagine that a Gentile can become the savior of the Jews. One can imagine some Jews protesting this, and Brueggemann thinks they do, in verse 9.

    The fifth dimension of hope: there is a contest between YHWH and Babylon. It’s the poet vs. the empire. The writer makes fun of Babylonian gods who have to be carried on the backs of donkeys in chapters 46-47.

    The sixth aspect of hope: a summons to depart from the empire. This can be seen in 51:17, 52:1, 52:11, and 52:12, where, according to critical judgment, 2 Isaiah ends. It is another exodus. Brueggemann suggests that it is the task of the followers of the gospel to depart – not in a physical way, but by imagining oneself in a context where one can obey in joy. These, he says, may be ways to practice evangelical faith in an economy that has failed.

    “So they departed.” Some did, at any rate. Brueggemann calls these who returned to Jerusalem the elite, or the fanatics, who became the principal bearers of Judaism. They left, dancing to the lyrics of 2 Isaiah, but then found Jerusalem in shambles. So when you move to 3 Isaiah, you move from the indicatives of the gospel to imperatives. 3 Isaiah begins in chapter 56 with commands.

    There are five ingredients of the imperatives of 3 Isaiah that are important to us (although I only caught four):

    1. Membership. Who is the pure Jew? Who is included? Those who keep Torah.
    2. Worship. Don’t be pious while oppressing workers. Worship has to do with the practice of neighborliness.
    3. The book of Isaiah imagines a Jubilee economy, as seen in chapter 61.
    4. Engage in a large vision of what is possible.

    Brueggemann concludes by saying that he has taken the leap of taking this as a paradigmatic script for us today. It is not clear that life can be construed beyond the empire. But poets have to try, because they are poets. They never arrive, because poetry would turn into a program if they did. The book of Isaiah is an argument that the old Jerusalem must be relinquished, and the new Jerusalem must be constructed. The poets (that is, the prophets) teach us to embrace the practice of loss, and grief, and hope, and eventually, to act.

    Phil Long characterized his responses in terms of “amens” and “ahems.” He did point out, though, that his responses were based on the printed text of Brueggemann’s lecture, rather than how it was delivered. There were a few things Long mentioned where I was thinking, “Huh? Did Brueggemann talk about that?” But apparently he did in the printed text of his lecture, so I’ll pass on everything that Long mentioned: First, the amens: Long liked Brueggemann’s emphasis on Sabbath rest, on the need to re-think worship (which in many contexts has devolved into self-indulgence), on his fresh reading of Isaiah as presenting Jerusalem as a city with a deep fissure.

    Long’s “ahems” were as follows: First, there was an exegetical point; Long wasn’t sure that the fissure in the center of the Isaiah narrative is in tension with the dynastic promise to David in 2 Sam. 7. The promise foresees just such failures as we see in Isaiah. Second, Long isn’t sure why we need to leave out Christological readings. If Christological readings were good enough for Jesus, they should be good enough for us. Third, Long appeared to be not sure what Brueggemann meant when he called divine wrath a rhetorical strategy. Long’s big question at the end was one Brueggemann did not answer: Where do we go from here? How do we live out our counter-loyalty in the face of empire? But, as Brueggemann said, the poets can only point. Brueggemann responded later with a good story: he had heard a preacher preaching about the exodus not long ago. He said that the water of the Red Sea didn’t open up until Moses had already waded in. We should begin to act now, rather than waiting for a whole program to be revealed.

    Paul Williams, the second respondent, had an observation, a question, and an affirmation. The observation: we need to relinquish the idea of Christendom. We still have the idea that the West is a Christian society gone bad. Instead of trying to regain control, we should embrace exile. We also need to relinquish rank individualism and the culture of therapy, in which Christianity is seen as a means to my own self-fulfillment.

    The Question: What is the basis of our hope? How do we move from indicative to imperative? We need the prophetic imagination, but we don’t only want to follow skillful rhetoric. Hananiah was skilled at rhetoric, but Jeremiah was the true prophet. Brueggemann then responded that in Jerusalem, the hope in YHWH became situated in human institutions, which was a mistake. Martin Luther, against Catholicism, thought the church should be classed along with fallible humanity rather than divine reality. This also applies to misplaced American hope in our Constitution and other institutions.

    The Affirmation: Loved the idea of insterting Lamentations between Isaiah 39 and 40. We’re often detached and separated, but we need to make an extra effort to hear the cries of suffering around us.

  • Laing Lectures 2008: Walter Brueggemann (2 of 3)

    Just like I did last year, I’m writing summaries of this year’s Laing Lectures. Update: The audio of all three lectures is available for purchase here.

    Brueggemann’s second lecture was called “Boasting in Power or Boasting in God? Jeremiah’s Either/Or of Public Faith.” In this lecture, Brueggemann continued his concern for the common good, and began to speak in threes.

    He said that in the Old Testament, Deuteronomy organized and institutionalized the concern for the common good into a social ethic: practice hospitality to runaway slaves, no withholding wages, no injustice to immigrants, and practice gleanings (Deut 24) – that is, don’t harvest all of your field, but leave parts of it for the widow, orphan and immigrant. This commandment names three money crops – grain, oil, and grapes – and juxtaposes them with the second triad of the widow, orphan and immigrant. This command, Brueggemann says, seeks to break down separation between commodity and consumer, and to situate the economy of Israel into the neighborhood.

    But the Israelites reject this vision. Moses urges them in Deuteronomy 15 to give liberally and ungrudgingly. Brueggemann pointed out that this passes has five unlimited infinitives, and is the only place in scripture that he knows of that has that. He didn’t explain exactly what this meant, aside from saying that it meant Moses was really serious. Moses connects this command to the fact that the Israelites were themselves slaves in Egypt. He never gets tired of saying it (Deut. 15:15, 16:12, 24:18, 24:22).

    The text, Brueggemann said, makes a connection between God (YHWH) and neighbor. However, there is a powerful counter-narrative that resists this connection, because the world of Pharaoh is powerful for all of us. This counter-narrative consists in three things:

    1. An imagined nostalgia for the “good old days.” The Israelites wanted to go back to Egypt, even though they were slaves there (Numbers 14).

    2. Graded holiness. Brueggemann claims that there came to be three levels of holiness in the tabernacle, and later the temple, because of the concern of the powerful to differentiate themselves from the less powerful. He compared this to the three divisions of people on a commercial airline. This differentiation in holiness concerns health care, moral ratings and economic possibility. The resistance to the common good, Brueggemann said, has cultic, moral and economic domensions.

    3. King Solomon stands at the center of the counter-narrative. In his life, there is a fresh enthrallment with Egypt and graded holiness. Egypt itself practiced graded holiness. Solomon himself is married to Pharaoh’s daughter and clearly wants to emulate his father-in-law.

    There are, not surprisingly, three aspects of this narrative of the royal regime.

    First, it is clear that Solomon is committed to the accumulation of wealth: both money and women (700 wives and 300 concubines).

    Second, it is clear that Solomon is committed to power. He was an arms dealer, importing horses and chariots. This wasn’t connected to a particular policy; just finance. He had, in Brueggemann’s words, created a national security state.

    Third, Solomon became a great practitioner of wisdom. It may just be a personal achievement, but Brueggemann says it was probably a celebration of Solomon’s patronage of the arts that enhanced his regime. It also could be seen as an accumulation of data so that the elite would have a monopoly on knowledge. Solomon may have been celebrated for his worldly awareness, but Brueggemann compares him to the Wise Men of the Vietnam era who didn’t know what to do.

    Brueggemann then continued to elaborate on Solomon. When David hands over power to Solomon (I Kings 2), he says, “Keep the Torah and you’ll be fine.” Then he proceeds to give Solomon a hit list. It is, Brueggemann said, like something out of The Godfather. Solomon would like to kill the high priest Abiathar, but can’t, so he banishes him to his home village of Anathoth (I Kings 2:26). Solomon’s perspective came to dominate urban Israel in an act of resistance to the neighborly demands of the law given at Sinai. The Jerusalem enterprise saw itself as entitled to privilege and security. This Brueggemann explicitly links to what we now call “civil religion.” Sinai, however, continues to have its advocates: the prophets.

    Jeremiah presided over the great crisis of his day (Brueggemann compares it to 9/11), the conquering of Jerusalem in 587 BC. Interestingly, Brueggemann points out that Jeremiah was from Anathoth, the very same village to which the high priest Abiathar was banished 400 years before. The text at the center of Brueggemann’s lecture is Jeremiah 9:23-24:

    “Thus says the LORD: Do not let the wise boast in their wisdom, do not let the mighty boast in their might, do not let the wealthy boast in their wealth; but let those who boast boast in this, that they understand and know me, that I am the LORD; I act with steadfast love, justice and righteousness in the earth, for in these things I delight, says the LORD.”

    Brueggemann calls wisdom, might and wealth the “royal triad,” against which YHWH sets his own triad of steadfast love (hesed in Hebrew), justice (mishpat) and righteousness (tsedaqah). One is a triad of death, and the other is a triad of life. The village voice from Anathoth, Jeremiah, was able to trace right from Solomon Jerusalem’s way of ignoring YHWH.

    Brueggemann then made four extrapolations:

    1. Brueggemann thinks that Paul has this passage in mind in 1 Corinthians 13. Paul understands that the way of the cross is an extension of the same contest between these two triads.

    2. In the United States since Teddy Roosevelt, we have been posturing as an empire. The national security state thrives on wisdom, might and wealth. In this passage, there is a clear summons for the people of God to be in tension with the theological claims of the national security state.

    3. Being out of sync with God’s holy agency is lethal. God’s holiness forms an alliance with pain. The alliance of holiness with pain generates truthfulness. The bodily performance of truth, Brueggemann says, is up to the people of God.

    4. As Jesus says, no one can serve two masters. Brueggemann points out how interesting it is that Solomon’s name is on Jesus’ lips in Matthew 6 (and its parallel in Luke 12) when he teaches his disciples to not be anxious.

    After Brueggemann’s lecture came the two responses, which I’ll mention briefly because this post is already too long.

    Phil Long said, positively, that Brueggemann has helped us hear with fresh ears the biblical call to stop worrying and trust God, who delights in being called “Father.” He also agreed with Brueggemann’s reading of Solomon. Negatively, though, he calls into question Brueggemann’s negative construal of sacred space. Even if sacred space eventually came to act in a discriminative way, laws about sacred space were not originally intended to function that way. The initiative came from YHWH to construct the temple, and also to set some men apart as priests. And priests were allowed to enter the holy place not because they were better, but because they were consecrated and represented Israel. Further, YHWH not only commissioned the tabernacle but validated it by visiting it after its completion. Brueggemann responded that while the text did say that, he had a hermeneutic of suspicion about those texts – implying, of course, that these texts were changed by those in power to validate their power.

    Paul Williams took up Brueggemann’s call to choose between two triads, and questioned whether our choice is as free as we assume. Isn’t our problem not that we make bad choices, but that we want bad things and keep wanting to get them? We can’t get out of this dead end on our own; we need to be rescued. Brueggemann responded that when he emphasized the choice between two triads, he had in mind the OT calls to Israel to choose (Josh. 24:15). Williams affirmed Brueggemann’s thoughts on the political nature of the church. It is only as the church that we can position ourselves vis-a-vis the nationalist state, and this can only happen if Christ is our head. Boiling things down to principles of neighborliness won’t work. This is how the Bible and the flag end up on the same platform. Williams then illustrated this with the religious history of Britain since World War I, beginning with close ties between religion and nationalism, and ending with hostility toward the church because of its association with the modern project. Williams can’t help but wonder if the current situation isn’t healthier, and hopes that the church in America will separate itself from nationalism sooner rather than later.

  • Laing Lectures 2008: Walter Brueggemann (1 of 3)

    Old Testament scholar Walter Brueggemann came to Regent College to give the Laing Lectures on October 8 and 9. I graduated from Regent in the spring, but currently I don’t live too far away, so I decided to hoof it up to Vancouver to see friends and listen to some good lectures.

    The lecture series was titled, “The Church in Joyous Obedience: Biblical Expositions.” Brueggemann lectured for about 50 minutes each time. Then he was responded to by Phil Long, who teaches Old Testament at Regent, and by Paul Williams, who teaches Marketplace Theology at Regent and is trained as an economist.

    The first lecture was titled “From Exodus to Sinai: The Journey to the Common Good.” I’m going to summarize the lecture here, but be warned: I’m working from my notes rather than a transcript, so I may not present Brueggemann’s, Long’s, or Williams’ ideas quite the way they would. But I’ll do my best. Update: The audio of all three lectures is available for purchase from Regent Audio here.

    Brueggemann began by saying that the great crisis among us is the crisis of the common good. The journey that we must make is the journey out of our selfishness to the common good. He then proceeded, in the first part of his lecture, to look at one impediment to the common good in the Old Testament: Pharaoh’s Egypt.

    Pharaoh’s Egypt, Brueggemann says, is the paradigmatic example of a threat to the common good. He begins looking at Egypt in the latter portion of Genesis, when Pharaoh has a nightmare about a coming famine (chapter 41). Joseph then interprets the dream and becomes Pharaoh’s second-in-command. He proceeds to create a food monopoly that makes Pharaoh wealthy and, by Gen. 47:25, creates a nation of slaves who are grateful to be slaves. We know of Exodus deliverance, but we don’t acknowledge that slavery to begin with was a result of manipulation in the interest of power. By the beginning of Exodus, everyone is anxious: the slaves, who have submitted themselves to the state monopoly, and Pharaoh, who is scared to death of his own workforce. This anxiety, Brueggemann says, produces insanity in policy. The anxiety system of Pharaoh precluded the common good.

    But then, he goes on, suffering comes to speech. There is a cry, a prayer, declaring publicly that the social system has failed. This cry reaches the ears of YHWH, whose ears are a magnet for the cries of the abused. YHWH then sends Moses, a human agent who can dream outside the imperial reality. There is a juxtaposition between Pharaoh’s nightmare of scarcity and Moses’ dream of liberation.

    The second part of the lecture has to do with God’s abundant provision. The plagues come, the Israelites are freed, but by Exodus 16 they want to go back. They are still living under Pharaoh’s terms of anxiety. God provides them with quail and manna, and in Brueggemann’s words, “they wondered what it was, and it turned out this wonderbread did not fit their categories.” Manna, Brueggemann says, “is a show of YHWH’s inestimable generosity that stands in contrast to Pharaoh’s nightmare of anxiety about scarcity.” In fact, bread is a recurring sign in the Old Testament of divine generosity: 2 Kings 4:42-44, Isaiah 55.

    All empires, says Brueggemann, act according to the principle of scarcity. All are anxious and think they need more, whether it be manpower, bread, oil, land, etc. But the quotas of the empire can never be met. So he asks, “Why do you bust your ass to serve the empire?” Why are baptized people in the rat race? The text issues a summons away from the ideology of scarcity.

    The third part of the lecture deals with God’s act of generosity breaking the anxiety of scarcity. The 10 Commandments, Brueggemann maintains, are about an alternative grounded in generosity. Commandments 5-9, for example, tell us that all kinds of neighbors are not to be exploited as they are in Egypt. Commandment 10 condemns predatory practices that make the little guy vulnerable to the big guy. This Brueggemann related directly to the recent economic collapse. Commandment 4 encourages the Israelites to undertake community enhancement and activities that have no production value.

    Brueggemann concluded his lecture with a few points of instruction: first, people who live in anxiety and fear have no time or energy for the common good. Second, it takes an immense act of generosity to break the grip of anxiety. Third, those who receive generosity can care about their neighbors. You can’t just preach to those wrapped up in the ideology of anxiety; they must be able to receive generosity.

    He also pointed out some applications: First, Pharaoh’s kingdom of anxiety is alive and well today. Second, there is an alternative to the kingdom of scarcity. Theological education is learning the act of departure from this kingdom. Third, the journey from scarcity to abundance to neighborliness is a journey that all must take. Fourth, this journey is entrusted to the church and its allies. Brueggemann referred here to the New Testament feedings of the 5000 and 4000. With these signs, Jesus says that wherever he is, the world of scarcity is transformed into the world of overwhelming abundance. In Mark 8:14-21, the disciples didn’t understand because their hearts were hardened – just like Pharaoh. But those who receive the bread of abundance, Brueggemann says, have energy beyond themselves for the sake of the world.

    After the lecture, Phil Long was given the chance to respond. Here are just a couple of things he pointed out, or asked questions about: first, was Pharaoh’s dream just a nightmare, or was it also a providential dream? Second, how do we understand the phrase “common good”? Even the builders of the Tower of Babel were working for their understanding of the common good. Third, how do we understand “abundance”? Is it to be seen in socioeconomic terms? Long hinted that he thought a good understanding of abundance is connected to the word “Shalom” in the Old Testament. This is deeper, and can exist even in socioeconomic adversity.

    Paul Williams had more things to say, but as with Long, I wasn’t able to write them down quickly. He asked whether it was the case that the crisis we’re in is that we’ve reached an ideological dead end, with multiple competing definitions of what the common good is. We should not just appeal to a vague common good, but to a particular good, and a particular God. Williams commended Brueggemann for using the phrase “consumer militarism,” rather than “consumer sovereignty.” Brueggemann responded that he came up with the phrase because of his observation that, in the United States, you can’t maintain our level of consumption without a strong military that wrests resources away from others. Finally, Williams also expressed surprise that Brueggemann had not mentioned the notion of Jubilee from the Old Testament as a way of further defining what the “common good” was.

  • Colbert Report: Washington’s 2nd District

    This post goes out to all my family and friends who don’t know much about Bellingham, the city where I now live.

    Washington’s 2nd District on the Colbert Report

  • Obama the Bible Scholar

    Like a lot of people, I watched Barack Obama’s nomination acceptance speech last night. I don’t have the time or inclination to go over the whole thing and say what I liked and what I didn’t, but I will tell you what stuck out to me the most: his use of scripture at the end.

    What he said was this, according to a transcript of his speech at ABC News:

    Instead, it is that American spirit – that American promise – that pushes us forward even when the path is uncertain; that binds us together in spite of our differences; that makes us fix our eye not on what is seen, but what is unseen, that better place around the bend.

    A couple of paragraphs later, he said:

    America, we cannot turn back. Not with so much work to be done. Not with so many children to educate, and so many veterans to care for. Not with an economy to fix and cities to rebuild and farms to save. Not with so many families to protect and so many lives to mend. America, we cannot turn back. We cannot walk alone. At this moment, in this election, we must pledge once more to march into the future. Let us keep that promise – that American promise – and in the words of Scripture hold firmly, without wavering, to the hope that we confess.

    What he is quoting here appears to be 2 Corinthians 4:17-18, and Hebrews 10:23. Here they are, in context (NRSV and ESV):

    For this slight momentary affliction is preparing us for an eternal weight of glory beyond all measure, because we look not at what can be seen but at what cannot be seen; for what can be seen is temporary, but what cannot be seen is eternal.

    Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain, that is, through his flesh, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful.

    In the first Bible quotation, the thing that is “unseen” is eternal glory, not the “better place around the bend” that Mr. Obama refers to (though it should be said that he didn’t refer to the Bible explicitly. This could perhaps be excused as simply a verbal allusion). In the second quotation, the hope we confess is the hope that we can appear without guilt before God through the intervention of our high priest, Jesus. I’m not sure what hope Mr. Obama was talking about. Presumably, it was not that.

    Lest you think that I’m just being hard on Mr. Obama, I am not. I think that it is unfortunate whenever any political figures take the Bible out of context and use it for their own ends. This has a very long history, but in recent memory, the national political figures who have earned the most notoriety for doing this have been Republicans. Here is a quote from a speech given by President Bush in 2002:

    “And the light has shone in the darkness, and the darkness will not overcome it.”

    This is a quote (sort of) from John 1:5 (NIV): “The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it.” In context, the “light” is the light that Jesus provides. In President Bush’s use, the light appears to be the United States, the darkness appears to be the enemies of the United States, and overcoming appears to refer to the triumph of the United States over its enemies.

    Ronald Reagan is also well known for his references to the United States as a “city upon a hill,” which was a reference to Matthew 5:14, in which Jesus says to his followers (NIV): “You are the light of the world. A city on a hill cannot be hidden.” When he referred to this in his speeches, though, he made clear that he got it not straight from the Bible, but from Puritan John Winthrop. It was Winthrop’s idea to apply this scripture to his group of Puritan immigrants to America; Reagan went further and applied it to the United States as a whole.

    Mr. Obama is also continuing a tradition of quoting the Bible in the service of American political ideas, and I wish that he had decided not to. This is troubling to me as a Christian and an American because it does two things: 1) it quotes the Bible out of context and contributes to popular misunderstandings about what the Bible says. It takes words like “hope,” which have definite meanings in biblical context, and uses them to signify something else, often something more vague. 2) It tends to identify the Bible, the church, and Christianity with one particular party, platform or nation.

    One of the many detrimental effects of this idolatrous civil religion is the perception of the United States abroad. If our leaders quote the Bible in public, and justify our actions as a nation using biblical passages, then people abroad will tend to think of us as Christians and will tend to associate Christianity with everything about American culture, including those things that Christianity condemns about American culture. The gospel is already scandalous to the world. I don’t want to put more stumbling blocks than necessary in the way of people accepting it.

    In the end I think, with Abraham Lincoln (whose biblical allusions were in general more measured and helpful than many of his successors), that we should be concerned not whether God is on our side, but whether we are on God’s side. When we quote the Bible out of context, applying the language of God’s people to the United States, we pay lip service to God while refusing to come face-to-face with him. It seems to me there is a verse I could quote about that, and I hope I don’t quote it out of context:

    The Lord says:
    These people come near to me with their mouth
    and honor me with their lips,
    but their hearts are far from me. —Isaiah 29:13 (NIV)

  • An Evangelical Manifesto

    Last week, a document called the “Evangelical Manifesto” was released (you can read it here). It is, as the Web site states, an “open declaration of who Evangelicals are and what they stand for.” The Steering Committee for the manifesto includes Timothy George, Os Guinness, Richard Mouw and David Neff. Signatories include Leith Anderson (president of the National Association of Evangelicals), Stuart Briscoe, Leighton Ford, Justo Gonzalez, Max Lucado, Mark Noll, Alvin Plantinga, Ron Sider, Kevin Vanhoozer, Miroslav Volf, and lots of other Evangelicals you may or may not have heard of.

    There are three headings to the document: We Must Reaffirm Our Identity, We Must Reform Our Own Behavior, and We Must Rethink Our Place in Public Life. Each section contains some things that are, to my mind, both controversial and uncontroversial. An example of the uncontroversial, from the first section, is: “Evangelicals are Christians who define themselves, their faith, and their lives according to the Good News Jesus of Nazareth.” All right. But then, the document continues:

    Evangelicalism must be defined theologically and not politically; confessionally and not culturally. Above all else, it is a commitment and devotion to the person and work of Jesus Christ, his teaching and way of life, and an enduring dedication to his lordship above all other earthly powers, allegiances and loyalties. As such, it should not be limited to tribal or national boundaries, or be confused with, or reduced to political categories such as “conservative” and “liberal,” or to psychological categories such as “reactionary” or “progressive.”

    (more…)

  • Christianity and the American Revolution

    I know I shared a quote from this book yesterday, but I couldn’t resist sharing another juicy one:

    … the American Revolution became imbued with a religious cast not because Christians of that era were especially adept at applying Christianity to politics, but because so many people of religious fervor came to consider the political order of as much ultimate concern as the church itself. The same kind of intensity that Jonathan Edwards used in proclaiming the need for repentance and faith, John and Samuel Adams displayed in declaring the need for political liberty. In this sense the American Revolution represents more the product of a residual Christianity, its base deeply eroded, than it does the infusion of genuine Christian principles into politics.

    from The Search for Christian America, 153-154