flying.farther

George Carlin died yesterday. He had a complex relationship with the church, and sometimes he would seem to take his criticism a bit far — like grouping all Christian faith into something he would critique — but generally I really liked the guy’s standup. He seemed like a complex and generally honest human being, which translated interestingly into his acerbic and “counter-cultural” standup.

Carlin, in the video below, disabuses the audience of a God of the Gaps (fulfilling Bonhoeffer’s projection) and the notion of the state’s benevolence, states of exception and human rights. In such a comedy routine, he tackles rather important issues that aren’t even acknowledged in much of public discourse, and he manages to do so with humor, wit, and small words. Even though I have disagreements, I find him someone worth listening to, because there is at least some truth and genuine life experience behind his observations. I find when I’m thinking over what he says, I’m thinking about a human being, not merely a punch line — as if we’re really just having a conversation. So with this in mind, I have below, a video of Carlin skewering the state and its civil religion.

Warning, Carlin uses four letter words, which may offend some. However, I find that sometimes honesty is a four letter word and in this case, he tends to use them well.

H/T for the video: Jamerica.

A Christian community that situates itself in the world, does so, whether it explicitly acknowledges it or not, through a Christology. The experience of Jesus - in both ontology and praxis - remembered by the community, forms the foundation for an ecclesial politic. To begin to engage, say, torture, we must look back at whom Jesus was. Thus implications for change upon American Christians are vast, because Jesus was and is fundamentally interruptive. Therefore, the community of faith that understands itself primarily around the Christ should likewise understand itself as interruptive.

Theologically, we are bound to a tragic past and we also have a tragic future as well. Save for the interruption of God, we live in evil and its consequences, tragedy. But such an idea does not play well in the state that says it is the agent of peace or the market that claims a monopoly on lifestyle. The state could not be the agent of peace if it did not claim the ability to achieve it, which necessitates power and the moral will to create this “peace.” Likewise the market could not claim the ability to achieve happiness if it could not force humanity into a structure that gains wealth for some. Optimism, of a Deus ex Machina nature – our self-made god by our constructed machine (i.e. social structure, technology, etc.), is a necessity for the state and the market: We will intervene and resurrect ourselves when it seems bleak. Faith in the American experiment is a must, or the false stories die and torture loses its foundation.

The remembrance of 9/11, as remembered by the state and the market, is inherently an American memory and not a Christian memory. Allowing our memory to be altered by the matrix of culture’s identity leads into a vindictive Christology by the Rome of our time, rather than allowing the challenge of Jesus – the scandal of Jesus’ life – to wash over the body of Christ. Because “the image of Jesus…allows us to encounter him as the revelation of God’s open narrative,” as opposed to the closed narrative of the state and market who seek to maintain power and control, quite simply, Jesus, and not the state or market, “can be described as God’s interrupter.”1

The incarnation was an interruption. It validated creation and yet opposed commodities. God came as a human, an impoverished human, and not a dollar sign. Jesus was not to be bought and sold, nor a price tag put on him – it was an evil act that sold him for thirty pieces of silver. Jesus was also born not into Roman citizenship or among the emperor’s family, but into a “lowly” status. Jesus was not a commodity or human royalty, but God interrupting economic anthropologies with God’s own economy of grace.

The preaching of the basileia was an interruption of the Emperor’s rule, in both political and economic forms. The very words of Jesus interrupted the language and stories of the status quo – the basileia had come.2 Jesus accompanied his words with actions, equally interruptive actions as the rule of God.3 To name some praxis: there were healings, caring for the poor, miracles, and upsetting the established economic balance in the temple: “Jesus not only aroused the amazement of the bystanders, but at the same time he summoned the forces behind the hegemonic narratives against him in their defense.”4

The cross was an interruption – the death of God was and is a scandal. The idea that God would be the tortured and not the torturer, the criminal and not the emperor, and the one who died instead of lived on, was a scandal of the highest magnitude. “A crucified messiah, son of God or God must have seemed a contradiction in terms to anyone…and it will certainly have been thought offensive and foolish.”5 Quite simply, Jesus suffered; Jesus was tortured and executed in political terms at the low social level of a slave and by Jesus’ own admission, forgotten.6 The connection then of the cross, and the torture associated with it, to the oppressor yesterday and today is not a comfortable connection. “[T]he earliest Christian message of the crucified messiah demonstrated the ‘solidarity’ of the love of God with the unspeakable suffering of those who were tortured and put to death by human cruelty.”7 The cross calls us to the margins, where the people are tortured, and not to stay where we are as complicit with the torturer. This interrupts our entire life and lifestyle.

The resurrection was an interruption. The resurrection made clear that no oppressor will win forever and death lost its sting. For the Romans, and by implication, America today, “the suffering of a god soon had to be shown to be mere simulation, rapidly followed by punishment for those humans who had been so wicked to cause it.” Indeed, the cross still ought to be a scandal that informs the body of Christ about those who suffer in society today – the cross was not followed by a war, but a resurrection and hope with solidarity. The resurrection pre-pictured the parousia and added an extra dimension of eschatological hope in the basileia, combined with the suffering of Jesus.

Christian suffering and hope are intertwined and together constitute the climax of Christian interruption, while the state’s continued torture shows the stark contrast between Jesus and the state.9 9/11 Christology leads to blindness, a subsumed racism, pride, (at least) partially undeserved wealth, and oppression – a bourgeois Christianity comfortable in its sloth. Opposite, Jesus forms a communal body that seeks to speak of God’s salvation in the world. “For Christians, professing Christ is then also the interruption par excellence of history.”10

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1. Lieven Boeve, Interrupting Tradition: An Essay on Christian Faith in a Postmodern Context, (Dudley, MA: Peeters Press, 2003), 145.
2. Ibid., 121-124, 127-131.
3. Ibid., 124-127.
4. Ibid., 126-127.
5. Martin Hengel, Crucifixion in the Ancient World and the Folly of the Message of the Cross, trans. John Bowden (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1977), 10.
6. Ibid., 46, 51.
7. Ibid., 88. Also see, “Jesus, the memoria passionis, mortis et resurrectionis Jesu Christi both attest to God’s solidarity with all victims of suffering and oppression and assures the final, still unrealized deliverance of the victims. Christians thereby read history not in affirmation of conquest but in hope for the conquered.” Bruce Morrill, Anamnesis as Dangerous Memory: Political and Liturgical Theology in Dialogue (Collegville, Minnesota: The Liturgical Press, 2000), 36.
8. Hengel, 15.
9. Anthony Kelly, Eschatology and Hope (Maryknoll, New York: Orbis Books, 2006), 88.
10. Lieven Boeve, God Interrupts History: Theology in a Time of Upheaval (New York: Continuum, 2007), 47.

Fundamentally, the myths of innocence, nature, God, chosen, and millennial are stories that alter our identity in favor of a white washed America. It is true we are exceptional – we are exceptionally bad. We have a tragic past, as I have displayed, and a tragic future, as we maintain an innocence of our past. “The American national mythos is messianic; it seeks to tell a story of freedom spread through self-sacrifice, not victories won through the spread of terror. To sustain the myth, Americans need to rewrite history just as surely as did Stalin to sustain his own version of communist orthodoxy.”1 It is incredibly telling that to confront the myths of America, Robert Hughes spoke of the prophetic, Black experience. The implication is, that the American myths are categorically racist; the American hagiographic myths hide the evil past, present injustice and the future of malevolent violence. There is very little in the myths that pushes America forward in a moral way.2 Instead the myths make it possible for America to turn a blind eye to violence, to injustice, to torture and insomuch that Christians take in these myths, they take in the blindness as well. The simulacra of American messianism subverts the real Jesus, and therefore, it unsettles and divides the body of Christ.

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1. Lee Griffith, The War on Terrorism and the Terror of God, (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2002), 38.
2. Richard T. Hughes, Myths America Lives By, (Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2003), 63.

I figured it would be good for readers to be able to see all the posts I’ve done recently on this whole fiasco surrounding Wright and Obama. Heres the list so far in chronological order:

1. Obama, Race, and Theology: A theological analysis of Obama’s speech.

2. Cone on CNN?: A rumor that hasn’t seemed to have panned out unfortunately.

3. A Humble Suggestion: Suggesting a book along the title of Religion Still Matters for Cornel West.

4. Wright’s Sermon: A longer video of Dr. Wright’s sermon where he utters the infamous phrase “God damn America.”

5. Understanding Wright by Understanding Cone: Black Liberation Theology from Cone: A very short introduction to reading Cone.

6. Carter on Obama: Citing J. Kameron Carter’s response to Obama’s speech.

7. Cone Explained: How the Media, Politicos, and Others Like Them are Stupid as a Brick and Got it All Wrong: Explaining the significance of Tillichian symbolism in Cone’s work, how one should rightly understand what Cone does say, and a link to Carter’s critique.

The Silent Torture of the Church by a Democracy

While torture, as Scarry states it, “aspires to the totality of pain,” torture does so with the specific aim for destruction of a human being. It is the literal beating down of a human being into nothing: “Torture is a condensation of the act of ‘overcoming’ the body present in benign forms of power.”1 Torture is the violent, systematic deconstruction of a human being by another human being. “Apart from its ineffectiveness and illegality, torture is one of the cruelest, and most dangerous things that the United Stats can be doing. The claim that torture should somehow be justified is really an attack on the very dignity of humanity. It sinks us all to an inhuman and uncivilized level. It debases the victim and the torturer. In the end, torture destroys everything we value as human beings.”2 The anthropology of torture is thoroughly counter to any conception of humanity by Christianity. In fact, to move Christians in America towards accepting a torturous of vision for humanity is an attack on the Christian story and the community that claims to be the body of Christ.

However, American Christianity seems to care so little about torture. Torture is meant to isolate and break down other human beings and it is done in an incredibly violent and/or coercive manner, as I have argued. Torture results in victims who “are scripted into a different socio-political drama, recreated as abused, bastard children of the regime” and yet comparatively, so little is said about torture.3 Some Christians have no answer when challenged, they are simply indifferent, while others are resolutely pro-torture.4 In my mind, this is a gigantic theological leap from the kerygma; to be indifferent of or for torture is not based on the Christological event of Jesus – the one who was tortured. So how might such a leap be made? What is it that makes these Christians the torturer?

This leap is not theologically acceptable, however, the justification for torture can find less opposition outside of Christianity and a positive perception of torture within society, especially within the powers behind the status quo – the state, with its raison d’état, and the capitalistic market.

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1. Elaine Scarry, The Body in Pain 57.
2. Ratner and Ray, Guantánamo: What the World Should Know, 35.
3. William Cavanaugh, Torture and Eucharist, 42.
4. From a discussion with Randall Balmer. The subject of the discussion can also be found here: http://chronicle.com/free/v52/i42/42b00601.htm. “Following the revelations that the U.S. government exported prisoners to nations that have no scruples about the use of torture, I wrote to several prominent religious-right organizations. Please send me, I asked, a copy of your organization’s position on the administration’s use of torture. … Of the eight religious-right organizations I contacted, only two, the Family Research Council and the Institute on Religion and Democracy, answered my query. Both were eager to defend administration policies.”

I find Obama to be a rather interesting figure. He is incredibly intelligent (he did write this speech on his own), and, as he describes his social location, he embodies much of America. Both in experience and genetics, he is the confluence of white and black America, and, it seems to me, he is a living microcosm of a good America, mostly. Yet, still America. In my mind, Obama is so much closer than others, but still so far. The gap of far, however, is not something that I think will or can ever be closed. The system just does not work that way.

Obama is doing what he has to do and in his context, it is commendable. This speech was right to do. Obama is quite candid and honest and I highly appreciate this speech, particularly as he describes so well the systemic problems for the black community. Nevertheless this speech, as much as it addresses his relationship to his pastor, is constructed and argued within the matrix of a presidential run. As much as this speech incorporated theological language, it is not necessarily a Christian theology. This is the theology of the state.

If you have not seen the speech, I highly recommend giving it a watch. In terms of speeches, it felt very presidential and, in many respects, I would be proud to have him as president. If it were in my conscience to vote, Obama would instantly get my vote. However, if he were any more critical or less optimistic, very quickly he would become “unelectable.” In this country, the prophet cannot be the president, nor the president be the prophet – the state’s raison d’état simply does not allow for it.

A Theological Critique
Obama criticized his former Pastor, Dr. Wright, saying that Wright “expressed a profoundly wrong view of this country” and perhaps Obama is correct, however, I strongly disagree. Maybe the remarks by Wright were somewhat unbalanced, then again, he was not blaming other people, but instead was addressing our complicity.

I object to the idea that Wright’s comments were divisive. Prophetic language is inherently critical: “Change from this to this.” Now, what a community does with the message will prove whether the community is divisive. In this case, was it inflamatory language or critical honesty that made America angry? I think the latter. No one wanted to admit that our hands pre-9/11 were bloody, we still do not.

One of the greatest values of prophetic language and Black Liberation theology in particular, is the honesty and truth that it wields against the established status quo. It calls into question our denial and America does not like that. America responds calling such criticism unpatriotic or racist, which ironically proves the point; America’s general response is to silence the prophetic voice. This sounds an awful lot like Rome and the ways each attempt to silence someone are not too different – fear and death; lynchings and crosses; threats and nooses.

I would also argue, when Obama implies that anger from oppression may creep into the sermon and perhaps instigates such “outbursts” displayed by Wright (which Obama seems to call into question as culturally determined), however such an implication is not theologically grounded and is actually a very wrong statement and implication. In fact, there is room for such anger and indeed that if there is no anger, perhaps one’s theology is profoundly lacking. What of Jesus turning over the moneychangers in the temple? Anger, anger for justice, is divine. God throughout the prophets displays it and Jesus himself lets the authorities have it. Christianity has both a fierceness in passion and a sharp edge that confronts. If anger were not allowed in, the cross would cease to be the scandal it is and would cease to confront the black and white churches as a lynching. It will cease to confront the centurion at the foot of the cross – one of the complicit ones, whom I equate with American Christianity. The metaphor of a lynching is not solely for blacks, but also calls into question white churches that historically excluded blacks and created a ghettoization within American Christianity which is still alive and well, although it may not be as consciously constructed any longer by some. Jesus would be angry with us. We should be angry with ourselves. We should be angry with the country we live in, despite how much we love it. To avoid anger is to seek to avoid the inherent racism within America.

While Obama’s narrative of the continued plight of the black community is spot on, in his quest for unity, he glosses over white privilege by supporting the narrative of white immigrants. It is true that white people in America are immigrants and there is an immigrant story behind it all, however, since when were white people immigrants? It has for most been quite some time. In the end, the middle class is just as much a farce as the immigrant story is now. Both stories are linked together – bravely we crossed the ocean, out of nothing seeking freedom, we made our way in the world through work and now we have a modest home with all our needs met. I would be the first to affirm the hard work that my family has done. I fear that I may never live up to such work. However, such stories deny or do not acknowledge that historically, and even today, the system gives whites an advantage towards things like land ownership, loans, etc. Such stories also deny that perceived needs are generally wants, which betrays a greater issue – virtually everyone in America attempts to portray themselves as middle class. Of course some want to wear their wealth, but by and large, the image of America is the middle class. Quite simply put, we are no longer immigrants and while we whites may have worked hard, we are where we are also because of the privilege of our skin. Still. And where is the church in all this? Generally it supports the old stories instead of calling into question the plantation narratives.

Obama also criticized Wright for saying “he spoke as if our society is static,” which I do not even feel like debating, this post is getting too long already, but as I am sure everyone noticed, Obama has an anthropological optimism. Instead, theologically, we are bound to a tragic past, we also have a tragic future as well, save for the interruption of God. But that does not play well in the state that says it is the agent of peace. The state could not be the agent of peace if it did not claim the ability to achieve it, which necessitates power and the moral will to create this “peace.” Optimism is a necessity for the state. Faith in the American experiment is a must. Out of all the things Obama said, theologically this is the most obviously incorrect view, which simply does not merge with a Christian anthropology.

Lastly, in relation to Obama’s state salvation narrative, I am concerned about his language. On one hand a great deal of it is very familiar because much of it is theological language, but on the other hand, theological language in the service of the state? I’ve never quite agree with that. I do not agree with Reagan as he did it and nor do I agree with Obama doing it. To talk in gospel terms – to speak in the language of salvation – but to make the state the object is to create another entity, community, and call to allegiance that seeks to co-opt the body of Christ.

I watched Romero today.

It got me thinking, again, on how Romero responded and how we might respond to our circumstances. I imagine something that I call liberative action-speak rooted in the subversive communal-existence of the church.

In today’s crises, the combination of war by the state and economic oppression by Wall Street, we need an Oscar Romero. We need someone who would not stop proclaiming the Christ who saves – the Christ, who incarnated in the Church, stands against the violence of the state and the coercion of the market in a stand-fast love (hesed).

We need another Martin Luther King Jr. who, as an ordained minister, died for both civil rights (or theologically, human dignity) and condemned the war in Vietnam before it was fashionable to do so. In fact, it is easily argued that it wasn’t civil rights that ultimately led to his death, but the standing against evils that America perpetrated; once the “north” saw MLK Jr. as a threat to the powerful in America (not that visible racism isn’t a real, violent power), he was a marked man.

We need a loud prophetic voice and the church to surround such a man or woman. We need an ecclesial movement that moves into the margins. I see the National Religious Campaign Against Torture and a number of other movements started by Christians, but these seem to lack a specific force behind them.

It is quite plain to me that the state forces the stripping of the prophetic tradition in black theology, merely on the basis of electability; the economic forces attempt to absorb the criticizers; and the media, with their own poor understanding and latent racism (not to discount the racist tendencies of the state and market), will call those speaking truth in the church as the church, racist.

The freedom of God is never at the expense of someone else, while American freedom says that others must die. The freedom of God is the rejection of throwing people down. God’s freedom recognizes that the American wealth accumulated is by and large blood money – stolen at the cost of others’ lives and continues to mine people as if they were ore deposits.

This new Romero must stand up in today’s world – in America – and speak for both hurting Americans and those outside of America. While there are numerous domestic issues that desperately need to be addressed, there are equally a multitude of foreign issues as well. What is the common denominator? Xenophobia. The fear of strangers, and more specifically, that these strangers are a threat to future prosperity. Never mind that these economic “gifts” we have “received” are at the cost of other people.

Therefore the new Romero is an international person, with international concerns. No one is a stranger for the new Romero. While there might be people outside of one’s community, an “other” if you will, they are no stranger, nor treated as a stranger. The new Romero is hospitable in a “radical” way, a subversive way that says creation matters first and foremost – the guiding hermeneutic for living in the world is how we treat other humans. This new Romero captures the attention of many people, while he or she regularly condemns the crises at hand. However, this new Romero, as part of the church, follows in the footsteps of Christ that lead to ruin. The church may find itself in “ruin.” It will find itself in death. It will find itself in death.

Yet this folly or foolishness is the cross, with the trust that the body of Christ will never really die forever. Our political act is to walk forward and to not expect safety, for no disciple is greater than the master. Our freedom in God is to die and know that God will redeem despite of the evil done.

We need a new Romero. Perhaps Christians in America – maybe even the church as a whole – will collectively be this Romero and answer its call. I pray it does. For what other hope do victims have?

I have to admit, I’m disappointed in Obama and the whole political process, but the latter doesn’t surprise me. Neither did Rush Limbaugh’s categorically false and woefully misinformed response: calling Mr. Wright “a race-baiter and a hatemonger.”

It is also safe to say that the media gets absolutely none of this as it did with the Williams row, or what the Pastor Wright really drives at. They should be ashamed of themselves – just as white as part of the church in America. Again, no surprise.

One aspect about theological study and discourse is that it is fundamentally dialogical. It is conversational, which is why I have no qualms about what I’ve done to follow in this post (other than that this may seem rather arrogant - Posting your own conversation? Well, I’m not going to post someone else’s am I?). I had a conversation with Chris Layton, a friend of mine, and it went something like this:

Me: None of this is good, as far as I can see right now. The first black president we might have and he’ll go with American innocence other than slavery? Publically, as far as I have seen, he hasn’t brought up slavery much, or the effects that still strongly linger today and doesn’t extend that critique beyond the “black experience” like most black liberation theology does. However, it was the potential to do so that was the most interesting things about Obama, him coming from a black liberation church and embodying the critique. I was quite excited to see it and how his presidency would turn out. I suspect it’d be rather Niebuhrian, but still, better than other stuff.

My “politics” or favorite candidate are quite different than Obama, I’m more of a Kucinich person if anything (but not really a Kucinich person either), but I figured some black liberation from the presidency would do this country a lot of good. Now I’m not sure it’ll actually be that; now he’s kind of like Clinton, Hillary that is, and what good is that?

Chris: I think that the nation-state is not the route by which justice will be enacted.

Me: I suppose there is an upside, there isn’t the bastardizing of Christian hope by making it American hope (although I do admit I haven’t read the book, but it still strikes me as Reagan-esque). As for justice enacted by the nation-state? Sure, it won’t fully, but if there can be some change in the state, peacefully, it’ll at least begin a discussion. Having a Christian in the presidency actually bringing up issues that the church needs to deal with, I could live with that. There are other aspects I object to, but at least he’d do things I don’t see Hillary or McCain doing, but now, in some respects, I’m not so sure.

Chris: I don’t know that someone who occupies that office can speak to the church about churchly affairs. Its a kind of idolatry.

Me: Oh no, I’m not saying he could speak to the church, however, if the society is talking about it, it makes it an easier issue to raise in the church.

Chris: I think it makes it harder. If society talks about it, it will be too easy to let society set the terms of the conversation. For us to talk about these things we have to be free to choose the vocabulary. We have a habit of letting the terms of a social debate be handed to us

Me: True, but we’re always free to choose the vocabulary, just sometimes we don’t.

Chris: I think the times we do are in fact really rare.

Me: That is our problem though, that is not a problem with the debate per se. We need to be that Christian body in the debate.

Chris: Its an endemic problem for us, though. I think wishing for the circumstances that perpetuate the problem is … not good.

Me: I’m wishing for the debate, otherwise some people won’t even talk about it no matter how much we say anything. Its our task to make our voice heard and how we understand such a debate to take place.

Chris: To have a Christian in the white house, no matter how much we hope for him/her, we invite the sorts of mistakes we have been making these past decades - mistaking America’s interests for Christ’s. I would rather a non-Christian in the white house, so we are not tempted to displace our political responsibilities onto the nation-state.

Me: Yes, this is true. I have the same criticism of Huckabee, as I would of Obama. I certainly object to a lot, but I think it would be helpful to have black liberation spoken from the presidency, insomuch that it would bring up a discussion about white America - instead we just assume whiteness isn’t racialized itself.

Chris: We need first to take up those responsibilities before we can “enter the debate” but its so much easier to say “that guy is a Christian and an American and the leader of the free world.” We need to be marginal before we can summon the energy to speak in a way that will reflect the values of the church. See - I am not completely ignorant of liberation theology!

Me: True, but I wasn’t originally talking about our responsibilities, I was talking about the opportunity of Obama could’ve brought, while at the same time living the downsides as well. I figured out of the three, Obama was the most interesting and helpful, but now he really is starting to sound like the other two.

Chris: That may be true, but I remain very doubtful of any move to place hopes in a person who is aiming at such a position.

Me: The other two seem to look like typical presidential contenders and will simply use Christian language to pull from a niche for votes. I wasn’t placing much hope, especially now. It wasn’t like I was gunning for him from the beginning, more than wanting to see a black president. I didn’t think even then, that would bring salvation or make the country un-racist. Its just that Obama would be the healthiest of the three and by that virtue alone, the most interesting. Perhaps he still is, although I don’t follow everything that closely, but when he severs ties with something I know a bit of, I’m seeing something that disappoints me.

Me: And then I think, we’re screwed no matter what, and really that’s the whole idea of the church. We can’t really control the machinations of the world - like violence brought upon ourselves - instead we react strongly as Jesus for the hurting as the church no matter the consequences. I think again, as I am often reminded, of Oscar Romero and martyrdom.

Chris: This is better, methinks, those last two, not being able to control the machinations of the world and so on. If we vote, it is as a subversive.

Me: Yeah, a lot of liberation theologians may only like part of that.

Chris: Well, I’m not much of a liberation theologian.

Me: Cone, as a Niebuhrian (or taking a lot from Niebuhr), is okay with seeking power. While Niebuhr’s conception of power is complex, it still is rooted in the idea of not letting the oppressor oppress. Of course I’m simplifying it, but that is the general gist. So he might half like what I said, but certainly not all of it, as I’m so critical of the “liberal” project of working in the state (ironically, a great deal of conservatives/evangelicals/fundamentalists buy into the “liberal” project, but deny its affects). While I think he would like the idea that the white church would have to give up its privilege to do what I described: to be with, rather than “speak for” the hurting (thats an incredibly incredibly important distinction). I’m not a fan of some ways we speak of in empowerment here at Union, but if we are empowering when we chose to live with and support the poor as they speak, then I’m all for that. None of this representation crap, that so many people advocate – it keeps people in the same position and does little to change the systemic problems.

And then we digress.

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.

For a long time I’ve had a soft spot for Quakers. I even did my undergrad history thesis on Quakers and Puritans fighting it out in Boston during the 1650s and 1660s. By the way, its a pretty interesting story and I suppose wikipedia would work as a beginning introduction for those who want to know.

Anyways, thats all to say, I like the Quakers, especially when they get fired for not signing loyalty oaths unamended. Ms. Kearney-Brown chose, again for the third time according to the news article, to amend the loyalty oath required of her to work in the state school system:

Each time, when asked to “swear (or affirm)” that she would “support and defend” the U.S. and state Constitutions “against all enemies, foreign and domestic,” Kearney-Brown inserted revisions: She wrote “nonviolently” in front of the word “support,” crossed out “swear,” and circled “affirm.” All were to conform with her Quaker beliefs, she said.

However, this time the end result is Ms. Kearney-Brown getting fired and California State University East Bay losing what sounds like is a good teacher:

“I was kind of stunned,” said Kearney-Brown, who is pursuing her master’s degree in math to earn the credentials to do exactly the job she is being fired from.

“I was born to do this,” she said. “I teach developmental math, the lowest level. The kids who are conditionally accepted to the university. Give me the kids who hate math - that’s what I want.”

Go Quakers!

On a related subject, since when were loyalty oaths required? Doesn’t this strike one as reminiscent of some totalitarian regime, or is it time Christians woke up and smelled the compromise?