A Theological Answer to the Government Who will not Prosecute Itself

I don’t think there is much that can be done within state politics to get towards some real justice over torture. It is quite clear that, yes, America did it. And yes, torture is illegal. It also seems equally clear that prosecutions will not happen, or at least in the current climate. Quite frankly, the reaction to scandals like Watergate seem like a thing of the past. Instead of torture bringing down Bush’s presidency, it was Clinton who nearly ran aground, but on the rocks of didn’t-keep-his-pants-on. Seems a bit out of proportion? However my argument isn’t with the most recent impeachment trial, it is with the fact that our government ain’t gonna do much.

So what, I ask myself, is the theological answer? It is quite simple: we won’t forget what the ‘powerful’ want us to forget. But first the Christian thought begins with Jesus and so briefly part of the story needs to be retold. By most measures of success, Jesus failed. Indeed, in the passion God seemed to lose. But the story does not end there, and nor did it begin at the cross either. The work of God as we know it began with Creation and the covenants in history. After a time, the person of Christ took on the human story in the kenotic incarnation, and therefore enacting the divine act of drawing humanity up into the divine life and orienting creation towards its proper telos. This conversion or transformation of the broken world was shown through the juxtaposition of the rule of God and broken life. The parables and teachings of Jesus, along with his faithful, divinely incarnated life, broke open the closed system of death. Jesus died because the economy of death, that claims to determine who can live and die, responds with death. Thus in his death, Jesus showed the bare life as impoverished: there is nothing freeing in an economy of death. Jesus in his life, death, and resurrection showed a more powerful economy that focused on flourishing and support: an economy of love and grace (pure-gift).

So what is this story? In one way, this is a memory of someone who lived dangerously as counter to the then established, self-serving order. This is also a memory of someone who was tortured. If rightly done, as Christians we remember this life in a very specific way: this Christological life calls us to identify with those tortured in such a strong way that we look like Christ, the one hung from a tree. This is certainly not a safe life, but it is the good life. This is in a word, solidarity.

So to the government and the self-serving powers who aim to sweep your oppressive work under the rug, we will not forget because God will not forget the browbeaten. And while political vendication may be far off, that is if it ever does occur, here in the now, because we are formed by the Christ-life, we will be the voice for those you have attempted to silence. No more torture! Stop the oppression!

The theological response is not simply strong talk, it also seeks justice: the holistic reconciliation between people. Thus we will love through action: we will seek out and treat those whom you have considered as less than human.

Government, Christianity will seek your redemption through playing partisan politics by caring for the vulnerable, hurt, and needy. Christianity in living the life of love will expose the impoverished life of the powers that be. Quite simply, government, we will prosecute you.

Pacifism in Light of Freedom, Justice, Solidarity, and Peace

I’ve had this post in me for months. Nearly a year actually. This post seeks to re-look at pacifism in light of what freedom, justice, peace, and solidarity are. This is in one way, the next logical step for my study in theological language: a series of definitions. This is to show that the real discussion around violence and non-violence is about how to properly understand the language that shapes us and the categories that constitute the discourse, rather than simply shouting louder or moralizing one’s desires.

So quickly, a refresher. The words I have focused on are freedom, justice, solidarity, and peace. I have sought to give my own definitions elsewhere, but I shall sum them up here:

Freedom: Christian freedom is the space and power provided by the Christian community (and God) to be and do the things your Christian community (and God) needs or asks of you. In short, freedom is not about choice, but the recognition that the subject is constituted by the community and the word freedom encapsulates the desires, goals, or telos that the community calls the member to seek. In Christianity, this is love because the community is formed by, and therefore called to, love. Importantly, this is not a tame love. This love will show itself throughout the rest of this post. It is not safe, but it is good.

Justice: Christian justice seeks to holistically set relationships aright. Justice is to take people and their problematic relationships — out of their imbalance, abuse, and brokenness — and to transform/heal people and their relationships that they may flourish. Justice is redemption work. It is reconciliation work.

Solidarity: Christian solidarity is not representative; rather, it is choosing to live with the marginalized and seeking to empower the voice of those who have been silenced. Solidarity is a partisan justice: justice that seeks the good for the hurt and hurt-er alike by propping up the victim while calling into question the victimizer (who is killing them-self as well).

Peace: Christian peace is living out and participating in the continuing redemption by God through grace and love. Peace is not the silencing of parties, instead it is altering the very logic or fabric of life as we know it. The outcome is that swords are turned into plowshares. We live peacefully and hope for true peace at the end of things where everything is made new.

I believe I am right when I say Love is the Movement (of Freedom, Justice, Reconciliation, and Solidarity) because love is the action that knits us back together in the face of rupture. Love exists in a separate economy, with grace, rather than an economy of bargain and the self. In fact, love must exist in its own way because it is clear that the status quo revels in death at its telos and its method. Love brings us out of the cycle of death and into a new way of relating to one another; love brings us into the freedom of the Christian community. Only in love, then, can justice, solidarity, and peace be realized because they exist in a different economy than self-serving power. Thus a crucial characteristic of this love is its universality. It is not selective. It is not exclusive. It demands nothing, but is for all. In this way, love is embodied as a pure gift. It is by its very definition: grace.

Also love inspires hope in the darkest of times. Despite the threat of death, love exposes the negative poverty of death. With love acting as love, rather than converting over to the economy of death, love stays true. With love as the key or method to true, holistic reconciliation, it must embody from where it comes: the kenotic, divine economy. Thus to live out the Christian freedom is to identify with Christ. To live the Christ love is to embody Christ.

So why say all this about subjects that seem to have little affect on why violence is problematic? Violence is problematic because it runs contrary to the Christological-biblical life I have just laid out. Simply, the Christian life is a life of change from one way of life to another, from one economy to another. The new hope we have — the Christological hope we live — is that the past does not have to rule the present, nor does the past have to command the future. Come what may, the Christian life is a work of love that seeks to mend people together, not enable people to make others disappear from sight. The Christian life seeks to make visible all who have been made invisible so that all may live well together.

Thus the Christian life has no room for the actions of violence and war because it has no room for the economy of death. In fact, the Christian life not only says that we will not make you die for our desires, but also that we shall seek to help you and die if necessary in the process because the Christian economy is the Christ love for all.

Love is the Movement (of Freedom, Justice, Reconciliation, and Solidarity)

This post functions in a few ways. It is partly a clarification for a few conversation partners at school. It is also a synthesizing work on the way towards a post on pacifism that I have long promised in light of the previous language work. Without further delay:

We begin our existence with break or rupture. With death. And throughout life relationships of all kinds die: between communities, within communities, or strictly between two people. At one time the relationship is there in a positive way, and in the next following second, it is gone, it is sick or broken or dead. This death is not merely the virtue of not being properly alive, but has taken on its own identity as broken — judged in relationship to how life should be, but toxic in its being.

And yet, the Christian life seeks to live contrary to this. Forgiveness, reconciliation, and the flourishing of life is not only the telos of humanity because of divine interruption, but the future living itself today from the same divine work and the promises therein.

Nevertheless, there exists a gap between life and death. The Christian answer, for the action between the act of death and the act of new life, is the Christological movement into love by way of a sacramental life that remembers Jesus in terms of anamnesis. God looked into the fullness of death and did not choose death. Love was the method — the way of being — instead. Through our active and participatory remembrance, God moves us into life by his love and her grace. In a blink, relationships can now in their time (in their own blink) be restored.

As such, the sacramental life — including the in-breaking of the rule of God — looks death in its face. It refuses to trivialize death. And yet, the rule of God says that in present, the repercussions from the past do not hold sway. Indeed, the toxicity of death is arrested by love in the act of reconciliation. This is justice.

However, the forgiveness of today is not exactly retrogressive. While death is stopped, and its eternal sting is indeed taken away in the christological act of redemption, we do not work history backwards. The old covenant of Israel was not dissolved backwards, nor the promises of God renounced to the troublesome humanity; but rather, the curtain between the Holy of Holies and the people was ripped from top to bottom at Jesus’ death — the Christological love in death that looked Death in the face opened the present and future to the continuation of God’s work and plan.

History, and the sufferings within history, leave wounds that linger as scars. We long for the full healing, and at times, we do receive it, but often today, the death in the past still exists. The wounds from the spear and nails were left in the Lamb who will be recognized as the “Lamb who was slain.” Nazi death camps, divorce, parental abandonment, murder, still exist as scars even after the reconciliation between people. But the hope we have is that the past does not have to rule the present, nor does the past have to command the future. Reconciliation today informed by the future eschaton makes the past the past as it confronts the pain and conditions of the past in the present. Rather than simply perpetuating death, love moves us into the freedom to love.

The problems of the past, however, are not left to simply be ignored. But the problems and death of the past is not to be left to memorials, like we do with war memorials. Instead, the past is to be remembered to know who we are and to make sure that we have reconciled today what was in the past that still lives in the present. This is justice formed from the memory of a just God who took pain and healing seriously. This justice is working towards the righting relationships, towards reconciliation.

But how do we live in love towards reconciliation? The death of the past living in the present conflicts with those of us Christologically formed. The answer is yet again Christological, because it is incarnational: a loving solidarity against the perpetuated evils. We are immediately in conflict with the sting of death as it continues today.

After true reconciliation life is able to flourish, relationships are established and strengthened, because swords have become plowshares. This is peace. We see glimpses of it today (and indeed participate in it one hopes) informed by eschatological memory and the small reconciliations that do happen. But while death is rejected in favor of love and reconciliation, death still exists. For now, formed by memory and urged on by hope, we work in love to participate in what divine reconciliation we can.

Solidarity Defined

This is part of a study in theological language, the rest of the posts can be found here.

Solidarity is an important word. It seems most often used in liberative circles, however, it seems to be making some headway in circles focused on the church, particularly those who wonder how to be a church that lives the gospel in a disparate world.

Solidarity should not be understood as synonymous with representative government. In fact, in some ways, it is quite the opposite. Instead of someone being for someone else, we should be with each other. Such a shift is very important, ultimately empowering the disenfranchised to raise their own voices and make choices, rather than by proxy.

However, as solidarity is being with, it is important to note that it excludes, for example, some skewed capitalist or marxist vision that glorifies: poverty for the middle class, or the middle class for the poor and rich, or the upper class that calls itself middle class, or the rich who have nothing to do with the poor. This is also not some middle class, “bohemian” bullshit. Nor is it to tell the poor that they must work into the middle class to be recognized. Solidarity calls these notions of class into question.

Solidarity begins with people treating other people, marginalized people or not-so-marginalized people, as people worthy of their created status. Simply, all people are human and should be recognized as such. White flight to the suburbs is not solidarity. A weekly church gathering is hardly solidarity on its own. Nor is ignoring complicity and privilege the way to achieve solidarity. I cannot act like I am someone who did not finish highschool, I have a graduate degree. Albeit I worked hard, but I was lucky that there was no need for me to stop schooling. I can renounce consumerism/materialism/capitalism all I want, but to act like I live the same existence of people without privilege is insulting. Solidarity recognizes that there differences, even some that are beyond our control no matter how much we dislike them, but ultimately those differences should not hinder us from being together. In fact, solidarity seeks to aim those differences to help one another. Solidarity, in a very simple way, is a dispersal of voice, power, and wealth, because control is not sought. Instead, we are given to each other for the needs of each other.

There is social change in solidarity as alluded to above, but it is fundamentally within the context of the basileia — the rule of God on earth, the church. To live in the world and to say class does not matter is naive at best. However, to reject the basileia when it breaks into the world — the church formed so as to live the basileia, to be the mission of God’s Kingdom — as it establishes itself physically, socially and geographically, is likewise naive at best. It is within the rule of God on earth that the class structure is obliterated as we are baptized into the body of Christ. Outside of the rule of God, say, racial profiling on the highway, solidarity also must meet and engage. After all, the gates of hell is not a defensive position for the church.

As such, the being with is by no means a typical, hierarchical “with.” “With people” means to use what we have for people who have had their voices taken away. The voiceless are the ones who lead their struggle, with the help from those who can stand with them. The voiceless don’t need another voice for them, they need to make their own voice heard. Again, solidarity is not about representation for the voiceless. Solidarity is about empowering the voiceless and the voiceless speaking their voice. In presidential speeches we hear about “such and such poor person who had such tragic circumstances and so elect me to help that person by representing them” is not Christian solidarity, that is governmental politics that are predicated on keeping distance between people.

Solidarity is sharing life, and the life of Christ. It is sharing joy and suffering.

School of Americas Vigil

Today we, Students for Peace and Justice from Union, got back from the School of Americas Vigil. The drive was long, from New York to Columbus, Georgia and back in four days, but it was worth it. I got some pretty good pictures while there. Some are from our overnighting at a campground where the leaves were turning and others from the vigil. I’ve kept some pictures off the net, but I think the pictures I do have would give someone a feel for what it was like, so go check ‘em out here.

I do have some other thoughts about the vigil. I was pretty damn happy to see nuns and old people there. You see, part of the nature of these vigils is that they cultivate hope in those protesting, while they also function as a public shaming. I think that older clergy still hold a special position in society and one that is looked up to, insomuch as they are people who have committed their lives to their work. They’re still trucking, some were even dancing during the giant puppet show, and it was heartwarming to see.

By our group’s estimation, there were 10,000 to 15,000 people there on the Sunday protest. A peaceful and liturgical protest. It was discipleship in action. It was a sacramental protest. Interestingly, the presence of an armed military force was, to put it mildly, overkill. There were plenty of local cops (seemingly for back up), state troopers, at least one K-9 unit, constant surveillance recording, and of course the military presence who seemed to not be hiding all that well in the bushes and those I am sure who were unseen. The protesters – a great many were Roman Catholic – were quite literally boxed-in. Strategically I suppose if the people were to become violent, squashed would be the operative word to describe the result of an uprising. But to respond as such is to entirely misconstrue what the SOA Watch is about and how it acts, and I think the military knows it.

At the beginning of the Sunday vigil, we were informed that 11 people had crossed the line into the base and will probably go three to six months in a federal penitentiary. I have no idea how many people actually did and in fact, I have no idea where the line is. From what I understand, the military has moved the protest, fenced it in and hidden the line from view. Simply the military has attempted to subvert the act of witnessing the civil disobedience by making it look as if it never happened, because we never saw it happen – we couldn’t see it happen. Funny enough, disappearance is part of the idea behind kidnapping and torture that the American government now admits to doing (at least tacitly), while the old tactic of visible, brute force does nothing to the crowd. It would not be able to hem in 10,000 determined people.

We were surrounded? So what? And while it is somewhat irksome that the crossing of the line was happening out of view, it changes nothing. This is still an alternative social body of people, though not entirely Christian anymore, that condemns the idea of war as foreign policy and more specifically stands against America spreading the tools of violence and puppet governments throughout Latin and South America. And the military responds with a propaganda tour through the school, an armed force (though lax, because if we are anything, we’re passionate and nonviolent) and an attempt at subversion. I don’t think they quite get us. Changing the name from SOA to WHINSEC, creating more schools elsewhere and discouragement through overt force won’t stop us. We seek the end of imperial America and for those of us resisting as Christians, we’ve got a longer history and a social body to root ourselves in. Protesting, vigiling, critiquing, prophecy, and sacrifice will not be stopping anytime soon, because there is a greater Kingdom to embody. I don’t believe in destiny. I believe in God’s grace to help some of our decisions and actions to succeed and that kind of empowerment will not be killed or imprisoned. And that is what the military just doesn’t get.

No, I won’t go there.

I am missing the American Academy of Religion (AAR) meeting again this year (actually I’ve never made it before, but thats beside the point). Why? Because this year I am going to the Vigil against the School of Americas/WHINSEC held just outside of Fort Benning, Georgia on November 16-18.

If you do not know about the School of Americas, just click on the link above or read The School of the Americas: Military Training and Political Violence in the Americas by Lesley Gill, both are informative.

As a “chair” for the Students for Peace and Justice Caucus at Union, I am involved to one degree or another about the issue of our transportation. If anyone up here in the Northeast needs some help getting down, we might be able to help out with a ride, or at least could point you in the direction of the New York chapter of the SOA/WHINSEC Watch who is also planning their trip.

Also if anyone out there on the net will be at the Vigil and wants to say Hi while down there, it’d be great to see you.

The Church and Race Part 3: Trinitarian Solidarity

I am excited to hear that at my undergrad, Multnomah Bible College, Dr. John Perkins is giving lectures. Coming to Union last semester was dramatically different to say the least (though it was something I was looking for) and in that difference I found myself reading and listening to critiques, some solid and others flimsy. Here following is part three of three responsorial writings to three books I read for Social Ethics as Social Criticism dealing with race, as I presume some of Multnomah is going through too.

Part 3 – The Solidarity of Others in a Divided World: A Postmodern Theology after Postmodernism, by Anselm Min (New York: T&T Clark 2004).

For the most part, I liked this book. Before reading the book, I had never encountered Emmanuel Levinas and only had a decent working knowledge of Jacques Derrida; however, Anselm Min wrote The Solidarity of Others in a Divided World in such a clear and readable fashion that my use of reference materials were minimal. Certainly Min’s language was a bit different than what I am used to, but, after a short time, his language seemed like second nature and in fact, maybe even a better way of describing the universal – totality.

In the past few years, I have discovered Trinitarian theologians, like Colin Gunton, and even more recently, the suffering, Trinitarian Christology of Moltmann. With this in mind, it seems obvious I would like this book, but aside from the prolific use of Moltmann (and critique), I found that the author addressed a topic that has literally been on my mind for years – “the oddity of the Holy Spirit” (109). The social nature of the Trinity is clear, after all the words Father and Son are relational terms of identity; however, the Holy Spirit seems to lack a similar relational name. Min answers well the question with verse after verse from the Bible and finally concluding with the selfless nature of the Spirit and the role the Spirit plays as the one “who actualizes the full potentialities of the model” – a relator for others (118, 121, 125).

I found it a wonderful stroke to ground solidarity as a reflection of the social God and inherently within the Trinitarian framework – to the Christ of God by way of the cohesive Spirit. Granted much of what Min is saying is not necessarily new because he grounds so much in Moltmann, but the way Min says it is new for it is geared towards the first steps of communion – solidarity – as the next step for theology. Also, Min is talking ecclesiology throughout his book when he says solidarity, and that the church, or better said the body of Christ, finds not only unity in the past and future acts of the suffering, resurrected Christ, but also in the now through the Holy Spirit.

Another chapter in the book that delighted me was “Solidarity of Others in the Body of Christ.” I have found this particular metaphor of the body of Christ to be particularly rich and vivid. I was thrilled that Min covered the variety of subjects that the metaphor addresses and I know it will be a reference in the future merely because of its brevity and clarity.

However, I am unsure as to the success that Min achieves when addressing pluralism. I myself am undecided on the extent for Christianity and pluralism. The body of Christ seems a great metaphor for explaining Christianity’s identity in the world where it interacts with religions, but as Min notes, the metaphor is at least partially exclusive (150). I know some classmates will object, but if the church (Christianity) does not draw its identity from Christ, what then makes it Christian? I think Min makes a good point, that within a pluralistic world, being Christian does not mean one does not have boundaries; rather that, Christianity confesses its own boundaries, enters into sensitive dialogue with other religions and finds commonality from which to work together (150, 174, 175).