flying.farther

Thus, the ritual memory of Jesus’ death and resurrection is not Christian unless it is veri-fied in an existential memory whose place is none other than the believers’ bodies… To wash one another’s feet is to live existentially the memory of Christ that the Eucharist makes us live ritually.

It is precisely because the ritual memory sends us to the existential memory that the sacraments in general, and the Eucharist in particular, constitute a “dangerous memory,” in the words of Metz. It is dangerous for the Church and for each believer, not only because the sequela Christi (”following Christ”) leads everyone onto the crucifying path of liberation (as much economic as spiritual, collective as personal), but because this “following of Christ” is “sacramentally” the location where Christ himself continues to carry out through those who invoke him the liberation for which he gave his life. The ritual story at each eucharist, retelling why Jesus handed over his life, sends all Christians back to their own responsibility to take charge of history in his name; and so they become his living memory in the world because he himself is “sacramentally” engaged in the body of humanity they work at building for him.

Louis-Marie Chauvet, Symbol and Sacrament: A Sacramental Reinterpretation of Christian Existence, Translated by Patrick Madigan, S.J., and Madeleine Beaumont, pg. 260-261.

The memory of the past thus makes the present move; it puts back on their feet, in view of a new beginning, those who are prostrate in the silence and oppression of exile.

Of course, there is memory and memory. There is the memory that is nothing but the simple act of the memorization of static events one pulls out from the past the way one takes some yellowed photos out from the back of a drawer. Such a memory, imaginatively idealizing the past as “the good old days when things were so much better,” is counter-productive; instead of mobilizing energies to take on present tasks it plunges one into the lethargy of a dream-past. Shrunk to the size of an anecdote, this past, from which one has washed away whatever there was of suffering, struggle, promise of a future, has no more history: it is a simple memory, as J.-B. Metz has said, that has been robbed of its future.

But there is also the memory that is a living act of commemoration. It is in this act of communal memory a people or a group regenerates itself. The past of its origins is snatched out of its “pastness” to become the living genesis of today. This today is thus received as “present,” as a “gift of grace.” It is thus a process of revivification, where the memory of sufferings experienced, of oppression undergone, and of the fight undertaken to liberate oneself play an essential role: tomorrow will better than yesterday; and the present is full of this living hope. Every project concerning the future seems rooted in the awakening of such a tradition: humanity has a future only because it has a memory. Totalitarian governments know this well; their strongest weapon is rubbing out the collective memories of the groups they oppress, beginning, where this is strategically possible with their language. For a group sees its identity being erased insofar as it loses its collective memory or insofar as this memory is no longer the anticipatory carrier of a possible new future. “Revolutions” show this: whenever it is declared that the future is realized, whenever it is declared that eschatology is fully present, it is urgent to invent a new utopia under pain of dying.

Louis-Marie Chauvet, Symbol and Sacrament: A Sacramental Reinterpretation of Christian Existence, Translated by Patrick Madigan, S.J., and Madeleine Beaumont, pg. 233-234.

Johann Metz constructed his political theology in the aftermath of Auschwitz. As did Jürgen Moltmann and Dorothy Sölle. It seems that today, political theology is reactionary and constructive — reactionary because the church exists in a world that it does not control and constructive because the church must find a way to situate itself within the world. Any theology that does this, no matter how critical it may be, is not sectarian. To be critical of complicity and to try and find our way that lives the basileia is the task of political theology — out of God, theology, and the church, we find our body politic, our social engagement.

With this in mind, I find no shortage of problems that the church must react to, particularly for those of us who are Americans. And yet, the church, or at least the Christians in America, do not seem to see many issues. Consider torture, among the myriad of problems. The National Religious Campaign Against Torture and organizations like it have helped voice opposition to torture. However, I find in some ways that these non-governmental organizations lack a driving force. Simply, they lack the church as they have tried to fit into the state’s categories and therefore lacks the unparalleled force of ecclesial movement. So, how do we respond to this?

R. O. Flyer wanted to see the thesis statement, but I just figured I’d post the introduction. So, whatcha think?

Introduction
Subverting Torture
This thesis first understands itself in relation to torture. While much of the thesis itself may not mention torture explicitly, and in fact could be used as the foundation for a political theology that engages more than just torture, the reader should not forget that each argumentative turn is made with torture in mind. The thesis functions in this unusual way because it attempts to strike at the fundamental logic of torture by the state, instead of getting lost in the mire of case studies that use the threat of immanent danger to justify manipulative violence. Quite simply, I am subverting the whole discussion as I ask again and again, “Why should we torture?”

While this thesis is chiefly arguing at levels deeper than the specific action of torture, it is both deconstructive and constructive at the same time. I identify and argue against some of the first assumptions, while proposing a re-oriented economy – a different ontology, epistemology, etc. – all first grounded in the identity of a savior who suffered and the community of faith that follows suit. Therefore, the second question driving the argument is, “What should we look like if we are to be a people who refuses torture?”

Consequently, the problem this thesis seeks to address is the American Christians’ quiet acceptance of torture. Despite how little this thesis may actually mention torture, implicit in each move is the subversion of a theology that allows for current American theology to be either apathetic towards or blasé about torture (since most Christians do not seem to explicitly support torture) or, even worse, candidly protorture.

Assumptions
This thesis has many presuppositions, but I shall touch on a few of the most important. I first assume that torture is morally and ethically wrong, and that torture should not be used. This is not a discussion on the justification of torture, for that is a whole other argument worthy of its own time; rather, this thesis understands torture as a form of violent conversion used by the state and, as such, is to be handled with considerable suspicion.

Secondly, I assume, as hinted above, that Christianity is a deeper association than the citizenship in a nation-state or one’s cultural-economic participation. Christianity is cosmically rooted. At the same time, Christians are defined by the culture they live in. Therefore the politics of the body of Christ is a complex mixture of the existential situation in the present and the rule of God. In the end, however, the basileia informs the space and time of the here and now, resituating one’s ontological understanding and praxis within the cultural milieu at hand.

I also assume that Christianity does not naturally merge well with the nation-state or bourgeois market. In fact, Christianity can function as an antagonistic and an interrupting movement: “Christians are bearers of the subversive, dangerous memory of the suffering, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.”1 Therefore, Christianity critiques society through the church’s formative discipleship rooted in the remembrance of Jesus.

Lastly, I assume that political theology, as Johann Baptist Metz asserts, must begin with engaging history, because historical consciousness regularly reforms our current identity and thus allows for the continual, interrupting praxis of solidarity.2 As such, any engagement with or construction of a body politic must address the historical discussion of one’s cultural genesis. In this case, the historical myths America asks its citizens to believe, in contrast to the example of Jesus and the political implications of his life and message, are no longer uncritically assumed canonical stories, but instead are now subject to suspicion. Such critical interrogation will shed light on the negative and oppressive nature of the American story.

I also speak in explicit Christian categories. Quite simply, I champion a way of acting and being for Christians in America; I promote an imagining of the ecclesia in the confluence of subversive communal-being and visible, liberative action-speak. After reviewing what torture actually is, I address deep assumptions, such as memory and willful self-blindness, inherent in the American story that are counter to a Christological ecclesiology.

In light of the basic assumptions, the thesis will also cut both ways, against both theological liberals and conservatives, because I do not fault the Christian Right alone. Rather, I put forth William Cavanaugh’s critique of the nation-state and Eugene McCarraher’s Catholic/Marxist critique of capitalism, who both take aim at the theological complicity and structural compromise of American Christianity as a whole.

Thesis
As stated earlier, this thesis is a writing on torture. More specifically, it develops a political theology which subverts any current American theology that seems apathetic to torture, blasé about torture, or worst of all, resolutely pro-torture. To be more percise, 9/11, as a microcosm of the greater American story, is used by the privatizing nation-state as an identity-forming, eschatological event (a “Christological” event within a larger colonizing context) that supplants the life of Jesus and the cross and resurrection and works with the commodifying market to break down the Christian call and community of Christians in America. And, just as the Christian story of the cross does not end with death, so too the nation-state supplies a hope for a grand future. However, this future is an anthropocentric future, most vividly seen in Ronald Reagan’s hope, which was wrapped around a perverted, humanly controlled and realized salvation of fear, anger, and violence. The state’s story and justification for violence – to ensure “safety” (the status quo) in the face of fear – become the ruling meta-narrative.

The outcome is a breakdown and reversal of relationships and allegiance and the end result is a Christian public polity that is at least indifferent to violence by the state. Accordingly, the body of Christ is no longer forged by the memory and promise of the cross and resurrection, if it indeed continues to exist as a body. The solution to engaging American Christianity against torture, then, is to bring to bear Johann Metz’s idea of “dangerous memory” and an explication on the political implications of church movement – liturgical/sacramental theology. Metz reorients Christians to the identity-forming memory of the Christological life, and it is in liturgy that Christians solidify themselves and act out, resulting in a politically prophetic movement by the church.

This political theology is an attempt to re-narrate the church in America. Such an act will hopefully place the church on the margins, with the marginalized. Christendom of old will not be resurrected, nor will the modernist project continue to hold sway. Instead, both the theologically liberal and theologically conservative will be moved in the direction of a politically liberative praxis championed by a community formed through the remembrance of Christ.

________
1. Lieven Boeve, God Interrupts History: Theology in a Time of Upheaval (New York: Continuum, 2007), 203.

2. Johann Baptist Metz, Faith in History and Society: Toward a Practical Fundamental Theology, translated by J. Matthew Ashley (New York: Herder and Herder, 2007), 150-155.

‘The shortest definition of religion is interruption,’ is an intuition taken from Johan Baptist Metz. He wanted to make clear by this statement that Christian faith can never slip unpunished into a sort of bourgeois religion, seamlessly woven into the prevailing culture and society, nor withdraw itself from or against its context. Such religion seeks a too-facile reconciliation, forgetting in the process the tragic suffering that confronts human existence. For Metz, there can be no Christian faith without tension or turmoil, without danger or menace. After all Christians are bearers of the subversive, dangerous memory of the suffering, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. That is why they actively seek out the boundaries of life and coexistence, moved as they are by the human histories of suffering, that compel them toward a preferential option for the poor, the suffering, and the oppressed. By its very nature, the Christian faith disrupts the histories of conqueror and vanquished, interrupting the ideologies of the powerful and the powerlessness of the victims.

Lieven Boeve, God Interrupts History: Theology in a Time of Upheaval, 203-204.

Translation: We cause problems! We shouldn’t fit in so well. We are to interrupt the established relationships, as Jesus did.

This post is partly a response to Religion, Politics, and the Christian Right: Post-9/11 Powers and American Empire by Mark Lewis Taylor, but it also begins the outlining work for the preface of my MA thesis.

Mark Lewis Taylor quite frankly stated his thesis for the book: “9/11 is best interpreted as a ‘mythic moment’ that temporarily ruptured the great myths of American Greatness by which many U.S. residents live” (xi). But the popping of the American bubbles of innocence and safety is not the end for the scope of the book, Taylor continues on to summarize the American response to such an attack: “groups already steeped in cultures of felt defeat and embattlement [i.e. the Christian Right] have harnessed the fear and patriotism of the post-9/11 moment for their ends” (69). Within this context of perceived violation and violent response, Taylor follows the Christian Right as it powers its way through politics, primarily through yoking with the neocons, the rich of wallstreet, and to whom the rich give money – Bush. Taylor then puts forth a response founded in his conception of prophetic spirit and a spirit that is inclusive for both Christian and non-Christian alike.

I liked this book, but that comes as no surprise since Taylor touched on the foundation for my thesis. On one hand I am actually annoyed someone already put this together in a similar way as I have planned, after all I spent a lot of time and my own thought getting to my position without the aid of Taylor. But on the other hand, it is reassuring to see someone else making similar moves, particularly someone who has a readership, and I realize the differences between Taylor and I can only make my argument stronger.

The first difference I noted was that Taylor hardly, if ever, mentions memory, instead he starts with the myth believed, characterizes it and moves on. I plan to start at deeper assumptions like memory and willful self-blindness. It seems from this distinction alone, that Taylor is writing to a different audience; he is writing about those Christians who believe the myths (interestingly he calls them Constantinian Christians a couple of times) while I will be writing both at and about. Also, without talking about memory, it does not leave him the thematic connection to use Metz and his conception of dangerous memory, which I think functions very well within prophetic spirit. Taylor, I suppose, did not have to talk about memory for his argument to hold, but it does feel less substantial.

Taylor also seems to collapse the myths that the Christian Right believes, and while I think there is greater value in distinguishing the myths, Taylor in a very short time and in his own way still summarizes the over all effect of the myths and explicitly makes the connection between Reagan’s hope. Despite Taylor’s seemingly simplification of the myths, he still describes the big picture well and so I do not think I can fault him for the simplicity.

I will write a thesis that cuts across both conservative and liberal movements, as opposed to Taylor’s critique of the Christian Right and some Liberalism, then again, I will be speaking in explicit Christian categories, while Taylor was choosing to address a broader audience. My thesis will cut both ways also because I do not plan on making a Constantinian turn in my argument and faulting the Christian Right alone, rather I will put forth William Cavanaugh’s critique of the nation-state and its anthropological implications for both conservatives and liberals. Despite how much I value the prophetic spirit – which I also see as the viable response to the state and culture – still latent within the prophetic spirit, as explicated by Taylor, seems to be an anthropology derived from our individualizing, enlightenment social contract (the constitution) as opposed to a Christian anthropology of organic relationship.

I also noticed that Taylor mentioned next to nothing about American terrorism. I do not think it a coincidence that because Taylor did not address innocence, or lack there of, Taylor did not also address American terrorism. However, Taylor did mention the idea of American righteousness, and this seems to be a move that covers similar ground at a quicker speed. For Taylor’s vision of the book, with a simplified version of American myths, talking of righteousness begins to strike at what innocence covers without all the argumentation. This was a good way to shore up his arguments, but I still wish he had talked about it to fill out both an explication about the Christian Right and his argument.

My last observation is not a compare and contrast, but noting once again that I was struck at how similar 9/11 and the Christological event of the cross function similarly. In fact I would venture to say, within the nation-state’s myth, creed and liturgy, 9/11 functions theologically as Christ’s cross – deaths of the innocent at the hand of this great monolithic, terrorist evil. I would also continue to say that this “messianic vision” subverts the Christian story and the Christian cross (44). 9/11 as used by the nation-state is a theological subversion of Jesus Christ. And as the Christian story of cross does not end with death, so to does the nation-state supply a hope of the grand future – however an anthropocentric future – most vividly seen in Reagan.

I was excited at the beginning of the semester to take a Jürgen Moltmann class, but now at the close, I find that I am more partial to Johann Baptist Metz - the other theologian we read for the class. As I thought about closing out the class, I found a tack that incorporates various positions of Moltmann and Metz and begins to both satisfy and improve my own theological voice. As much as this is a closure paper for a class, it is also a continuation paper and, probably most appropriately, a future looking paper toward fusing my own voice with positions certain from Moltmann and Metz. The following sections on Moltmann and Metz are the highlights of their theologies and the class for me.

Moltmann: Future and Hope in Christ and Basileia
The heart of Moltmann’s use of the term “eschatological,” and subsequently his whole theology of hope, is found in the Christological dialectic of the cross and resurrection.1 That is to say, both the suffering death and the glorious resurrection hold an equal amount of weight as they continually inform each other and push us forward into the promise and hope of the future horizon.2 Simply put, “one could say that Christian eschatology is the study of the tendency of the resurrection and future of Christ.”3

While eschatology finds its specific understanding in the cross and resurrection, we cannot rightly understand the death and resurrection without the greater foundation of the basileia (kingdom).4 It is in the cross and resurrection that the basileia and its promises are fulfilled and proclaimed; the basileia breaks into the current reality in proclamation and action about and through the cross and resurrection, while at the same time speaking of a future in the “mission and love of Christ” through the cross and resurrection.5 To understand the cross and resurrection, particularly as the basis for eschatology and the breaking in of the basileia, it is necessary to understand death and re-life as a theological category, as opposed to an andocentric idea. Fundamentally, the cross and resurrection are not existential (Bultmann) or historical (Schweitzer); rather, they are an action that makes our history and locating us within a promise and identity, while pushing us toward the eschaton.6

History is best understood through promise – specifically, God’s revelatory and eschatological promises. History understood this way is history in flux, which is to say history is dynamic and driven by hope rooted in promise.7 The promises themselves and their fulfillment continue throughout history, and this “overspill” changes history from merely event oriented to an ongoing fulfillment and revelation of promise.8 Therefore the active story that history tells, framed by promises, is re-imagined at every fulfillment; the promises become larger and larger as the fulfillments continue and increase.9 Thus history, or the representation of the past, continually changes in light of the revelation of promise/fulfillment. It “will lead us to open ourselves and our present to that same future,” while still mired in present circumstances.10

Eschatology is inherently participatory and political: we proclaim the hope of Christ as the Christ who proclaimed the basileia, while at the same time we imbue the missional idea with Christ-like suffering and solidarity in faith.11 Thus it is hope that fuels our human faith; faith, our belief in the divine, “hopes in order to know what it believes” and it is hope, from our faith, that drives our vitality so necessary to faith.12 Consequently faith and the hope of the future brings the future into the present resulting in church participation in funneling the vision of the future – “righteousness, freedom and humanity” – into the current events of today.13

Metz: Hoping Rightly, Remembering Dangerously, and Solidarity with the Dead
A Christian historical consciousness is radically and diametrically opposed to a “purely historical relationship with the past that not only presupposes that the past is past; it also works actively to strengthen the fact that what has been is not present.”14 Rather Christian historical consciousness – remembering – is a reforming experience; it brings an idea of change, pushing Christians to change not only themselves, but also the surrounding world. “Identity is formed when memories are aroused” and likewise narrative achieves the same ends – we are given a vision of a great past and a brilliant future.15 This idea of a tangible past changes who we are in the present and gives hope to move our current present towards the eschatological hope. Thus the Christian vision of dangerous memory interrupts our conception of the present, by giving an alternate vision of history; we are re-contextualized within a different story, an informative and liberating story. This new and biblical story, informs us on who we are, gives a new identity – practitioners of a social, Christian praxis.

Simply put, envisioning the Christian mission through memories is the beginning of solidarity with the dead. We are made responsive to past suffering through anamnesis, for it is the nature of Christianity to imitate the suffering Christ, as it is also a religion of the oppressed.16 Thus the Christian praxis, attuned to suffering, consistently interrupts the apathetic world through solidarity for and with the helpless and suffering, in the present.17

However, we have lost the “messianic praxis” of “discipleship, conversion, love, and suffering”, because we have accepted the secularized notion of a nationalistic anthropology and hope (both espousing the ideology that humanity will overcome, thrive, and conquer future frontiers).18 With secularized theologies and the forgetting of Christian suffering, the church does not act in its prophetic role to the world; instead of liberating, the ideology holds the globe within Americana’s oppressive custody.19 The secularization of the church through a form of secular hominization has caused us to lose not only the idea of suffering with and for others, but we have also lost ourselves. Thus the American church has ceased remembering the atrocities of Auschwitz, or cannot respond well to current genocides, by accepting the hope of American promises.

Metz: Bourgeois religion and Privatization
A Bourgeois religion is dependent on privatization; in order to envision the Messianic nature of Christianity, we must first understand who we are.20 How we see ourselves is less universally governed by the church’s direction or definition, rather, as American’s our most universal understanding as to who we are is fundamentally through individual and nation-state interaction – a privatizing, enlightenment document we call the Constitution. The American Christians needs to realize the influences of the Constitution and understand how the idea of a church is fundamentally a contrary social institution – the body of Christ.21 We can only get to the Christian call when we get past the American Dream and its hopes.22

Moltmann, Metz, and I in Agreement
As a person “the Christian has the responsibility to develop his faith’s relationship to the world as a relationship of hope, and to explicate his theology as eschatology.”23 All of Christianity, not just single Christians, is to be grounded in a “horizon of eschatology,” and more specifically in an eschatological foundation that is primarily a creative and militant.24 Thus the church reveals the Christian forward-looking hope to the world. This revealing is inherently political, as it forms the church according the mission of Christ and moves the church toward declaring the eschatological hope of the kingdom to the world.25

It is the church that stands within the kingdom, as the kingdom’s mission; it is the church that continually interrupts the world’s attempts at self-redemption or self-production through love, sacrifice and solidarity.26 The church is the breaking of the kingdom into the now by visibly crystallizing the intensifying nature of the Christological sacrifice on the cross.27 Thus the church points for the world from the suffering and resurrected past to the future and its hope. Fundamentally, the church interrupts the world, by proclaiming the hope of the future in a revolutionary and imaginative way; the center of Christian life is rooted in the forward-looking, eschatological hope that places Christianity within the kingdom within the world.

Moltmann and Metz in Contrasting Ecclesiology
Despite their many similarities, Moltmann and Metz have divergent approaches to ecclesiology. This is especially clear when Moltmann asserts that the church ought not “claim any direct power in secular matters,” specifically in economics, politics and culture.28 Metz disparages bourgeois Christianity in favor of a messianic Christianity that requires the de-privatization of Christianity. In contrast, while Moltmann supports liberation, he does so by way of individual Christian action in the political, economic, and cultural sphere that results in the ethical actions of the church carried out through the privatized social contracts between citizens and government.29 For instance, when Moltmann talks about a Christian opposition to immoral ethical systems, he does not appeal for collective church action such as withdrawal or criticism – instead he uses the word “Christians,” which connotes individual movements.30

Metz calls for the church to be the relational model that answers the Christian call by continually critiquing both the church and the world. It is through this that the church becomes a vision for the world to understand right relationships through the basileia of God. However, Moltmann distinguishes himself from this – the church does not become the agitator for resistance or representation, nor is the church supposed to be envisioning and displaying right relationships concerning racialism, sexism, or valuing the handicapped; instead, the social problems are confronted by a reformationist idea of justification and the I-identity.31

I much prefer Metz’s ecclesiology over Moltmann’s. Moltmann leaves his theology, and subsequently the church, open to a modernist individualism when he calls for the church not to involve itself in economics, politics, or culture. The church ceases to become a holistic, alternative reality and critique to the secularized world when individualism governs the church’s dialogue with the world, and thus the church lacks greater strength engage structural evils.

Blending Metz and Moltmann
I highly value Moltmann’s emphasis on faith, hope, dialectical Christology, and basileia. Not only are they decidedly Christian categories, but they also work well as a foundation upon which to build a political theology. Likewise with Metz, I am heavily indebted to his formulations of solidarity with the dead and dangerous memories, along with his critiques of secularization (as apposed to hoping rightly), Bourgeois religion, and privatization. The merging of Moltmann and Metz in both their agreements and understanding their disagreements is very fertile ground. I am grateful for the strong foundation they offer as I begin to construct my own theopolitical voice.

________
1. Jürgen Moltmann, Theology of Hope, (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1993) 200.
2. Ibid., 211.
3. Ibid., 195.
4. Ibid., 216.
5. Ibid., 210-211, 220.
6. Ibid., 165, 181.
7. Ibid., 18.
8.Ibid., 107-108.
9. Ibid., 105.
10. Ibid., 108.
11. Ibid., 211, 212, 219, 224.
12. Ibid., 33.
13. Ibid., 22.
14. Johann Baptist Metz, Faith in History and Society: Toward a Foundational Political Theology, (New York: Seabury Press, 1979) 190.
15. Ibid., 66, 188.
16. Ibid., 52, 71.
17. Ibid., 57-58, 229.
18. Johann Baptist Metz, The Emergent Church: The Future of Christianity in a Postbourgeois World, (New York: Crossroad, 1981) 27 and Theology of the World, (New York: Herder and Herder, 1969) 68.
19. Johann Baptist Metz, Faith and the Future, (Maryknoll, N.Y.; Orbis Books, 1995) 55.
20. The Emergent Church, 12.
21. Theology of the World, 133.
22. Ibid., 146.
23. Ibid., 90.
24. Ibid., 90, 94.
25. Theology of Hope 330, 337, 338.
26. Ibid., 338; Metz, Faith in History and Society, 171.
27. Faith in History and Society, 89.
28. Jürgen Moltmann, The Church in the Power of the Spirit, (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1993) 167.
29. Ibid., 164.
30. Ibid., 174.
31. Ibid., 194, 182-186, 189.

The Question: Granting the analogy between the ecclesiologies of Metz and Moltmann on the fundamental level, do you find Moltmann’s X substantially differentiates his ecclesiology from Metz’s or is Moltmann’s ecclesiology sustantially the same as Metz’s?

Moltmann and Metz share many similarities, nevertheless, Moltmann’s tendency to privatize Christianity diverges from Metz.

Moltmann and Metz share a great deal in common. In the preface to the paper back edition (1990), Moltmann calls for a move towards a small ecclesial community, similar to Metz (xiii). Also in the readings, Metz is footnoted twice (17, 276), particularly concerning the political nature of Christianity. Despite these and other similarities, Moltmann stands in contrast to Metz when Moltmann asserts that the church ought not “claim any direct power in secular matters,” specifically in economics, politics and culture (167).

Metz continually rails against a bourgeois Christianity in favor of a messianic Christianity and to do so requires the de-privatization of Christianity. In contrast, while Moltmann calls for liberation, he does so by way of individual Christian action in the political, economic, and cultural sphere that results in the ethical actions of the church carried out through the privatized social contracts between citizens and government (164). For instance, when Moltmann talks about a Christian opposition to immoral ethical systems or actions, he does not call for the church to break away or criticize in some fashion, rather he uses the word “Christians” which connotes an individual’s movements, rather than the movement of the body of Christ (174).

It seems that Metz calls for the church to be the relational model that answers the Christian call, a model that both continually critiques the church and the world. It is through this that the church becomes a vision for the world to understand right relationships through the basileia of God. However, Moltmann distinguishes himself from this – the church does not become the agitator for resistance or representation (194), nor is the church supposed to be envisioning and displaying right relationships concerning racialism, sexism, or valuing the handicapped (182-186); instead, the social problems are confronted by a reformationist idea of justification and the I-identity (189).

_______
Text quoted is: The Church in the Power of the Spirit. However, the pages we did read were not the entire book so as to find some congruence with Metz’s more systematic approach. It seems possible that my critique is off base, but after reading Prof. Haight’s comments, I think I do have a point that is not dealt with elsewhere in the text and therefore can stand.

What is the most fundamental element or key insight that would have to be internalized before [Metz's ecclesiology] would become convincing to the congregation?

The American Christians must realize their social relationships and leave privatization before they can accept the whole of Metz’s ecclesiology.

A Bourgeois religion is dependent on privatization; in order to envision the Messianic nature of Christianity (MBR 12), we must first understand who we are. How we see ourselves is less universally governed by the church’s direction or definition, rather, as American’s our most universal understanding as to who we are is fundamentally through individual and nation-state interaction.

The American social contract – our constitution – is an enlightenment document that privatizes citizens; this country’s foundational anthropological lens is a privatized lens. The state converses, or coerces, the individual and vice versa, however, it is really only a two-person discussion: the individual and the state. There is no room for social organizations within the Constitution, even corporations are viewed in the eyes of the law as individual persons.

The American Christians needs to realize the influences of the Constitution and understand how the idea of a church is fundamentally a contrary social institution – the body of Christ (CWLPT 133). We can only get to the Christian call when we get past the American Dream and its hope (CR 146).

In the end, I am not calling for the burning of the Constitution or total anarchy, however, I am calling for the awakening of conscience in the American church to understand that the relationship with the government has been unhealthy for the body of Christ; the government defines us, instead of us finding definition amongst ourselves as the body of Christ, and we must first realize that the anthropology given to us by the government is not a Christian anthropology. We can still deal with the government, however, we should realize how that interaction changes us and from that understanding, we can begin to find freedom in relationship within the body.
________
Metz’s cited texts:

“Messianic or ‘Bourgeois’ Religion” (MBR)
“The Church and the World in the light of ‘Political Theology’” (CWLPT)
“Christian Responsiblity for Planning the Future in a Secular World” (CR)

Note: I know earlier I said I was done reposting from myspace, but I realized that the theses I put up would probably do a lot better on blogger than on myspace.

I am taking a class from Professor Haight on Jürgen Moltmann and Johann Baptist Metz. And in the class we present weekly papers. The parameters for the paper are rather specific: a short thesis at the beginning, interact with the readings, address one of the themes, answer the question posed by Haight, and prove/display your thesis in 300 words or less. So here reposted are three theses.

Part 1

Thesis: The memory of Auschwitz has been supplanted within the church by the secularized American hope to the detriment of the church.

Our culture, as Metz shows, has become increasingly hominized (The Future of Faith 57). While it seems we may be shifting back towards a more cosmological idea due to scientific discoveries, these breakthroughs have had little effect on some aspects of secularization, namely an ideological, secularized hope – a hope that clings to the idea that humanity will overcome, thrive, and conquer future frontiers. It is the secularized and nationalistic hope provided by Reagan (one of many proponents) that has become a controlling ideology that Metz warned against (The Future of Faith 68). This ideology of hope has taken hold of even the American church by mimicking the eschatological Christian hope and, instead of liberating, the ideology holds the globe within Americana’s oppressive custody (Theology in Struggle 55). Thus the American church has ceased remembering the atrocities of Auschwitz for the hope of American promises.

It is no wonder that the church has largely ignored Darfur, for the American church has found its hope in the bright, anthropological destiny preached by Reagan. Consequently the church has held to theologies that remain unchanged and unresponsive in the face of Darfur, much less other civil wars, starvation, and drought. We have in turn lost the “messianic praxis” of “discipleship, conversion, love, and suffering”, because we have accepted the secularized notion of a nationalistic hope (Christians and Jews 27). With unchanged theologies and the forgetting of Christian suffering, the church does not act in its prophetic role to the world. The secularization of the church through a form of secular hominization has caused us to lose not only the idea of suffering with and for others, but we have also lost ourselves.

Summary for the net: when the church here rejects the Christological hope of the cross and the future for the nationalistic hope of america (we accept the secular hope), we lose our ability to reach out for those who are oppressed — this acceptance of the American dream (and American “Manifest Destiny) by the church is killing our ability to be the church.

Part 2

Thesis: Moltmann’s vision consists of hopeful promises revealed in dynamic history finding their culmination in the now, future and ultimate horizon.

The foundation of Moltmann’s vision (hope) comes from the revelatory promises of God; hope, driving theology, is rooted in promise, and therefore, capable of standing in “contradiction to the reality” of present experience (18). These promises come in the midst of history, but at the same time orient a believer from the “dawn” of the day, looking forward with expectation although still mired in one’s circumstances (31).

Since history is framed by promise, history is in flux, which is to say, that history is dynamic. The fulfillment of promise continues throughout history, and this “overspill” changes history from merely singularly event oriented to a continual fulfillment or revelation of the promise (107-108). Thus the active story that history tells, framed by promises, is re-imagined at every fulfillment; the promises become larger and larger as the fulfillments become bigger and bigger (105). Thus history, or the representation of the past, is changed continually in light of the revelation of promise/fulfillment and in turn “will lead us to open ourselves and our present to that same future” (108).

However, hope is not merely related to promises, but also fuels our human faith, in fact, hope and faith are inextricably linked. Faith, our belief in the divine, “hopes in order to know what it believes”; it is hope, from our faith, that drives our vitality so necessary to faith (33). Thus faith and the hope of the future explodes the future into the present and the future to come, resulting in church engagement with the world funneling the vision of the future – “righteousness, freedom and humanity” – into the current events of today (22).

Part 3

Thesis: Moltmann’s term “eschatological” is defined by a forward-looking, Christological dialectic between the cross and resurrection within the kingdom of God.

To understand the cross and resurrection, particularly as the basis for eschatology and the breaking in of the kingdom, it is necessary to understand death and re-life as a theological category, as opposed to an andocentric idea; cross and resurrection is fundamentally not existential (Bultmann) or historical (Schweitzer), but rather an action that makes our history and locating us within a promise and identity, while pushing us toward the eschaton (165, 181).

The heart of Moltmann’s use of the term “eschatological” is found in the Christological dialectic of the cross and resurrection (200), this is to say, that both the suffering death and glorious resurrection retain an equal amount of weight and continually informing the other, all the while, both push us forward into the promise and hope of the future horizon (211). Simply put, “one could say that Christian eschatology is the study of the tendency of the resurrection and future of Christ” (195).

While eschatology finds its specific understanding in the cross and resurrection, we cannot rightly understand the death and resurrection without the greater foundation of the kingdom of God (216). It is in the cross and resurrection that the kingdom and its promises are fulfilled and proclaimed; the kingdom breaks into the current reality in proclamation and action about and through the cross and resurrection (the conquering of death, 210-211), and at the same time speaking of a future through the “mission and love of Christ” through cross and resurrection (220).

Eschatological also has another aspect that is inherently participatory; we proclaim Christ as the Christ who proclaimed the kingdom (219), while at the same time we imbue the missional idea in Christ-like suffering and solidarity (211, 212, 224).