Questioning the Sovereignty of the State: An Argument Against the Death Penalty

I believe it quite easy to assert that in the modern nation-state’s quest to justify its existence, its power lies in the ability (or more to the point, a narrative claiming) to ensure safety and curb alternative forms of violence. The state, however, achieves control by subjecting all violence under its rule (I avoid the use of the term law here because it could to easily be read without the background of “the state of exception”). The state claims rigorous and jealous control over violence. In economics, we call this a monopoly. This monopoly on violence extends beyond simply war making or policing (if you must see a grand difference between the two). It is about determining who lives and who dies.

However, this command over life and (finding an enemy in) death is divine work. In the creator/created distinction, it is the creator that calls life into flourishing and has/will defeat death. The assertion that the state has the ability to banish someone into death is to claim a position above life and death, but to use death to maintain such privilege. This is a theological claim all too reminiscent of the Roman Imperial cult:

Roman power was inescapably religious: the state gods of Rome gave victory to the armies of Rome. So to witness to the kingdom of god as far as the edges of the earth, as Jesus commissioned his apostles to do, was to expose Rome’s aspiration to limitless dominion as blasphemous.

Richard Bauckham, Bible and Mission: Christian Witness in a Postmodern World, 107.

Like the Roman Empire, the modern nation-state makes a theological claim; an idolatrous claim by the modern nation-state — command over who lives and who dies — makes a claim of possessing the position of divine oversight while foregoing the content of the imperial cult. Here William Cavanaugh’s essay on the empty shrine comes to mind.

So what does this have to do with the death penalty? Quite simply, the state does not have the sovereignty, and therefore the authority, to execute people. Its self-asserted theological claim is questionable at best: it uses violence to wield power over others that it has marginalized. The divine work, however, maintains power in a different way: kenotic and cruciform. True divine work does not use death to maintain power over people, rather, the opposite is the case: divine work confronts death for the flourishing of life. The True theological work recognizes the christological form in a seeming precarious position and against death, rather than fall prey to the idolatrous simulacrum of authority and sovereignty ensuring safety and strength.

For Fans of Paul Rowe and William Cavanaugh

Just so you know, in The Review of Politics (vol. 71, iss. 4), Paul Rowe and William Cavanaugh have a paper each. Rowe sets forth a critique titled “Render Unto Caesar… What? Reflections on the Work of William Cavanaugh” and Cavanaugh’s response is titled “If You Render Unto God What Is God’s, What is Left for Caesar?” Go give ‘em a look.

Audio of William Cavanaugh

So the Ekklesia Project annual conference went quite well last weekend: good speakers and great people. Anyways, Chris Smith over at Englewood Review of Books has posted his audio copy of William Cavanaugh’s Friday morning talk. Go get it.

Cavanaugh on Torture at The Other Journal

William Cavanaugh has a piece at The Other Journal on torture. Go check it out! Below are a few quotes:

Torture is both a product of—and helps reinforce—a certain story about who “we” are and who “our” enemies are. Torture helps imagine the world as divided between friends and enemies. To live the Eucharist, on the other hand, is to live inside God’s imagination. The Eucharist is the ritual enactment of the redemptive power of God, rooted in the torture, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. In my book I describe some of the ways that the Church in Chile used the practice of the Eucharist to resist the imagination of terror and torture imposed by the military regime.

…In what follows I will use what I learned about torture from the Chilean experience and relate it to our own context. I will argue that torture is a way of imagining who our enemies are. I will then explore the Eucharist as the Church’s counter-imagination, a way of resisting the state’s creation of enemies.

…In the Eucharistic rite, the commemoration of the passion, death, resurrection, and ascension of Christ spoken after the words of institution is called the anamnesis. This is the Greek word used by the New Testament in rendering Jesus’s command “Do this in remembrance of me” (e.g., Luke 22:19). The Greek word an-amnesis is the opposite of amnesia; it is literally an “unforgetting.” It is an odd term, for how could we forget about God?

Perhaps it is because we are constantly tempted to forget the victims of this world.

…Johann Baptist Metz has written of the passion, death, and resurrection of Christ as a “dangerous memory” that disrupts the forgetfulness of the world, what he sometimes calls the “forgetfulness of the forgotten.” The dangerous memory of Christ’s torture and death at the hands of the powers disrupts the march of the powerful. As Metz says, in this memory

the dominion of God among us is revealed by this, that dominion of men over men has begun to be thrown down, that Jesus declared himself to be on the side of the invisible, the oppressed and exploited, and thus proclaimed the coming dominion of God as the liberating power of an unconditional love.36

The dangerous memory of the anamnesis gives us hope that the way things are is not the way things have to be. To take part in the anamnesis is to live inside God’s imagination, in which, as Jesus tells us, no sparrow is forgotten, and the hairs of each person’s head are counted (Luke 12:6-7).

…Remembering all victims will help us to tell the truth, both about others and about ourselves. If we live inside God’s imagination, we will see that even the people we most demonize as enemies – fundamentalist Muslims, for example – are made in the image of God. Furthermore, they have something to teach us about ourselves. In Roxanne Euben’s phrase, Muslim fundamentalists are the “enemy in the mirror” for the Western world. Our fear of Muslims can tell us what we fear about ourselves. Our charges of irrationality and violence against them can tell us about our own unreasoning fanaticisms and our own violence. Peace will not be achieved by torturing and bombing them into democracy. We have been making terrorists faster than we can kill them. Only by addressing the underlying causes of terrorism honestly is peace possible.

But Christians cannot put too much faith in the nation-state to be peacemaker. To be the Body of Christ means not merely to speak the truth to power, but to live the truth. The Church is the politics of Jesus, and must oppose the politics of the world when it brings death instead of life. We have much to learn from the example of Chile, where the Church eventually realized that the government was not listening, and decided to act more concretely on its own. In our own context, this might mean protest and concrete acts of solidarity with the victims of our violence. It would mean especially that Christians must simply refuse to fight in unjust wars, and refuse to use unjust means.

The world did not change on 9/11; the world changed on 12/25. When the Word of God became incarnate in human history, when he was tortured to death by the powers of this world, and when he rose to give us new life—it was then that everything changed. Christ made friends of us who are enemies of God, and He thus made us capable of loving our enemies as ourselves.

New Cavanaugh Book Soon

Mike over at Catholic Anarchy has alerted his readers to a new Cavanaugh book coming out in August from Oxford University Press. It is titled The Myth of Religous Violence Secular Ideology and the Roots of Modern Conflict. Amazon gives the following description:

The idea that religion has a dangerous tendency to promote violence is part of the conventional wisdom of Western societies, and it underlies many of our institutions and policies, from limits on the public role of religion to efforts to promote liberal democracy in the Middle East. William T. Cavanaugh challenges this conventional wisdom by examining how the twin categories of religion and the secular are constructed. A growing body of scholarly work explores how the category ‘religion’ has been constructed in the modern West and in colonial contexts according to specific configurations of political power. Cavanaugh draws on this scholarship to examine how timeless and transcultural categories of ‘religion and ‘the secular’ are used in arguments that religion causes violence. He argues three points: 1) There is no transhistorical and transcultural essence of religion. What counts as religious or secular in any given context is a function of political configurations of power; 2) Such a transhistorical and transcultural concept of religion as non-rational and prone to violence is one of the foundational legitimating myths of Western society; 3) This myth can be and is used to legitimate neo-colonial violence against non-Western others, particularly the Muslim world.

I’m eagerly looking forward to it.

A Video of Cavanaugh on Torture

For all of you who haven’t met the man (including me), but have found his work very informative, heres a video of Cavanaugh interviewed. Nothing particularly new, but fun nevertheless.

H/T to Someday. Some morning. Sometime.

Theologians have fun too.

The Other Journal is apparently where it is at. Seriously. Quickly on the heels of the McCarraher interview is an interview with William Cavanaugh. Woo hoo! If you haven’t already clicked on the link, what is wrong with you? Go read it.

Discussing Constantinianism and More

The last post, On Cornel West, Constantinianism and Adjusting Hauerwas, I had sent to a friend of mine, Adam, a few days ago. We developed an email conversation that I thought clarified well what we were both saying and would work as a continuation post. Also, I have redacted it some to get to the arguments, honest, we’re not that cold.

Adam:
Thanks for sending me this. I would very much like to read both West and Stout someday.

That said, Yoder and Haeurwas are my “dirty dogs,” as they say, and I have to get their backs when I see them criticized. Your critique claims that they need to move to a more “visible”, “radical”, and “public” struggle for justice. In order for you to assert this, however, you have to deal with the fact that their original arguments are made precisely in the context of these essentially Niebuhrian contentions. The Constantinian account of history may not be airtight (myself I think it’s just misnamed), but that does not offer you any ground for saying that they are not visible, radical, or public. You know as well as I do that for Yoder and Hauerwas, the Church simply being the Church is the most radical thing possible, period. And they, and I, would never cede to you that the church is not visible or public. It may not fit your definition of public and visible, but you need to engage with their redefinition (I’m sure you’ve done plenty of thinking on that, and just don’t represent it here). For them, to become visible and public in the sense that (I think) you are hoping for means an inevitably doomed attempt to seek to express Christian truth in a narrative (democracy/liberalism/human rights/etc.) that simply does not have the structural capacity to bear it.

Hoping this conversation can be taken up at the Horse Brass,
Adam

David:
Don’t get me wrong, I like Hauerwas and Yoder. However, I do know – because Hauerwas literally told me so – that “Dorrien’s critique in Soul in Society was excellent” (which does seem similar to West’s critique in this book). He also said that he didn’t speak up much and wouldn’t speak up anymore on race and gender because he didn’t want to co-opt the voice. I’ve also heard it said that Hauerwas thinks Cone has made it very difficult, if not impossible for white people to speak (maybe he has, maybe he hasn’t). However, I have heard Cone tell us in class to speak up, especially white people because it takes both sides to work through this.

My critique here is very much something that is attempting to include liberation theology. Certainly the church already is visible and public. [Intentional community not to be named] is public, open and welcoming. By their very existence they call into question the social order. I include the muslim scholars because they seem to have the commitment to their story, community and not working directly within the nation-state, while at the same time they continue to seek liberation. I also see this in Witness Against Torture who come out of the Catholic Worker. In fact, Hauerwas brings up the Catholic Worker and more specifically Dorothy Day as an exemplar of Resident Aliens.

I deal with Niebuhrian contentions everyday here at Union, especially because Cone is doing a Niebuhr class right now and I’m now on a dorm floor, however, the critique here isn’t so Niebuhrian as much as it is black people telling me that racism matters. I want the church to do more than create a space of the Kingdom because the Kingdom also seeks out the world – this again is not Niebuhr, but a watered down social gospel. That said, I still love the Kingdom ecclesiology and Kingdom ethics that Yoder and Hauerwas talk about, the point here is to instead add on top a verbalizing of the prophetic nature of the church. I’m not calling the church to start voting – I still don’t and don’t plan on it. I want to see the church protesting, I want to see the Ekklesia Project be more than just white people, or at least it was nearly all white people for the summer conference. I want to see us condemn racism, torture and the American dream as Christians. I want to see us reflect that condemnation in our diversity while we talk about it. And of course the modern nation-state has an imperial legacy that dates back to Constantine it seems, however, thats too far back in some senses and doesn’t situate us in the present as well as understand the modern nation-state as it truly is a colonizer of race and religion in a very tangible way. And those of us who don’t see it may be the most co-opted of all. So really, I want to radicalize the church even more in the eyes of the world – while the church being the church is the church being the Kingdom, and so an invasion of this fallen world, I also want to see the Kingdom spreading against structural evils. The crazy thing about this in the eyes of Union people here is that I want the church to be communal to do this, not through Washington.

David

Adam:
I feel like I can get behind everything you’re saying, but again want to insist that it is all accounted for within the Yoder/Hauerwas paradigm. I believe every bit as much as you that the church is called to resist structural injustice. However, (and I feel like maybe you were hinting at this in your last paragraph) structural evils cannot be remedied by individuals operating in the democratic process, but must be contradicted by an alternative structure. And of course that alternative structure is the church, which is already by virtue of its very existence a voice “louder than bombs” – and I would add marches and rallies.

- Adam

David:
I go with the Yoder/Hauerwas paradigm when it comes to the church as an ecclesial body and that alternative structure is necessary. However, quite frankly, their history is kindof flawed. First, my complaints on Constantinianism you’ve already heard. Second, a better history – both when it comes to content and relevance lies in Cavanaugh. Sure Rome was imperial and that maintains certain connotations of stealing land from the peasants, however, the modern nation-state is that and more – a colonizer of lands and people with the use of race and gender. In fact, I think running with Cavanaugh and McCarraher radicalizes the church because it talks explicitly about our relationship with the government and the market right now. This also seems to me to open up the church towards direct action. As Constantinianism is vague on history, that vagueness extends into opposition to evil structures. Simply, Constantinianism doesn’t challenge enough both us and the state. I think if the church is more directly challenged, those who take their Christianity seriously will leave the bourgeois christianity (that Metz dislikes/hates so much) behind and speak louder. Simply put, I think we can retain a solid, communal ecclesiology and speak loudly, visibly (that the black community calls me to do) if we understand better the history/story that we are in. We will not work with the colonizers. Solidarity with the poor and oppressed however can be both in visible action and subversive being.

david

Adam:
I think this most recent email of yours clarifies for me what you were getting at in the revised account of history. That part I can definitely get behind. I think that for the most part, the Y/H construal of history as constantinian has vague (perhaps intentionally) by virtue of its rhetorical role as that which opposes their vision of the church. I do think it works for them initially, but for the church to move and act on their vision, I would definitely aggree that their needs to be a concerted effort to engage with and even appropriate other “independent” critical theories.

- Adam

On Cornel West, Constantinianism and Adjusting Hauerwas

This post are some thoughts from my reading of Democracy Matters: Winning the Fight Against Imperialism.

I have heard Cornel West speak before from recordings on the internet, and those were certainly engaging if not impressive, but admittedly, this is the first time I have read him. I found West’s writing style to be similarly engaging, smooth and impressive. In fact, his book seemed to function well as a written text, but also was organized in such a way as to stay with the reader long after the audience has left, like an oral presentation. His ability to distill concepts seemed very good on the whole and his thesis of calling for the embodiment of Socratic questioning, prophetic witness and the honest tragicomic hope certainly highlighted both his ability to distill complexities and to communicate well. It seems that the impression of the oral nature of his book, while maintaining the integrity of a text engaging with complex ideas, was in the end due to his ability to categorize the distilled complex issues into threes: three dominating and antidemocratic dogmas, three nihilisms, and three democratic actions of being – Socratic questioning, prophetic witness and tragicomic hope. On the basis of communicator alone, I have a great deal to learn from Cornel West.

I found the chapter “Forging New Jewish and Islamic Democratic Identities” both interesting and informative. While the Jewish section proved to helpful, the Islamic section was certainly the more engaging of the two and with certain reason for it intersected with my Christian-Muslim dialogue class that I am also taking. In fact West quotes from Khaled Abou El-Fadl (West 133-134), who I have previously made a link between him and William Cavanaugh from reading Progressive Muslims: On Justice, Gender, and Pluralism. Khaled Abou El-Fadl writing on the chaos within the Muslim communities, particularly in the Arab world, seems to parallel William Cavanaugh’s theopolitical interpretation of the nation-state (El-Fadl 46). El-Fadl asserts that the jealousness of the state obliterates alternative social space, having “formally dismantled the traditional institutions of civil society, and Muslims witnessed the emergence of highly centralized and despotic, and often corrupt, governments that nationalized the institutions of religious learning and brought the awqaf under state control,” for the state seeks to assert power over its citizens and justify its raison d’etat (El-Fadl 47). El-Fadl also attributes the appearance of the state and its deconstruction of “traditional institutions of religious authority” to the rise of groups like the Taliban and al-Qaeda. The call by the state for the necessity of the state and the need for violence to ensure the state became a self-fulfilling prophecy.

I actually dislike Constantinian history. From afar Constantinian history makes sense and indeed can be supported, however, upon close inspection (which I did in a paper for a McGuckin class) I found that the history is quite literally lacking – there is a void of sources. Before the McGuckin paper I was already sympathetic to Cavanaugh’s understanding of history for numerous reasons and after the paper, along with the theopolitical and theoeconomic conclusions I have found from Khaled Abou El-Fadl and Farid Esack that seem to affirm William Cavanaugh and Eugene McCarraher (“The Enchantments of Mammon: Notes Toward a Theological History of Capitalism” in Modern Theology, July 2005), I am reticent to support a Constantinian history. Not only is Constantinianism vague where clarity is needed, but it also does not speak sharply enough towards today’s evils of the nation-state functioning as savior and the market as an alternative enchantment which then in turn colonize and oppress. Interestingly, El-Fadl and Esack seem to function as liberationists within the Muslim world, however, El-Fadl and Esack criticize liberal Muslims for working within the systems that obliterate religious social space by colonizing their community. However, many liberationists I have encountered here in the states, more specifically at Union, have accepted a great deal of Niebuhr – particularly on the idea of power and the need to attain it. I find it helpful that both Muslims and some specific Christian groups (i.e. Witness Against Torture, which comes from the Catholic Worker) understand the need for liberative salvation, but also seek to pursue that as a faith community, instead from within nation-state channels.

Interestingly, the convergence of Muslim and Christian scholars can occur, not only on the issues of liberation, but also the infusion of liberation within the Cavanaugh historical reading, McCarraher economic reading and the Yoder/Hauerwas communal ecclesiology. Muslim scholars stand against the colonizing system while holding to their identity and not entirely work within the system, but also work towards both public action and social justice. The combination by Muslim scholars seems to show that both communal identity and nonviolent social action can work hand in hand. In fact this combination is already evident in Christianity in groups like Witness Against Torture that are found within the Catholic Worker, although I do anticipate some alteration and tension to occur when entire families become involved in such work, for we now live in a time where simple peace workers and protestors are being put on FBI watch lists.

I find it ironic that my solution to Cornel West’s (and one of Gary Dorrien’s in Soul in Society) critique of Hauerwas – the lack of social justice and visible, loud movement by the church into public sphere (as opposed towards only quietly subversive hospitality, care for the poor, etc.) – is for Hauerwas to leave one of the similarities between him and West which is one of the foundations for Hauerwas, and for Hauerwas to move towards a more radicalizing narrative and outwardly focused critique. In the end, while Hauerwas and West may differ on issues they previously agreed upon, I believe West would welcome the improvement of adding Hauerwas’ voice and the communal church into the visible fight for justice.

On Griffith and Terror

In Review, The War on Terrorism and the Terror of God

The book sustains a well-made argument for nearly 300 pages, ranging from socio-political and historical analysis,1 scriptural interpretation,2 theological conclusions3 and practically proposed solutions.4 While Myths America Lives By was simply written and seemingly half-positive of the American Myths, The War on Terrorism and the Terror of God rips away the entirety of the innocence façade. Through the use of diverse voices Griffith throws no soft punches and deconstructs any sense of righteous innocence and justified anger. For example:

Meanwhile, the shelling of Muslim neighborhoods by the New Jersey did not differentiate between soldiers and civilians. While there were doubtless members of militia groups residing in these neighborhoods, the bombs could not set them apart from the children or the grandparents or the other women and men who were clearly noncombatants. If the defining feature of terrorism is the civilian identity of those who are targeted, then the “terrorists” in Beirut were not those who bombed military barracks but those who lobbed car-sized bombs into city neighborhoods.5

I do not mean to overload on quotes, but reading through this book was like a solid meal with great quotes, particularly in comparison to Hughes’ appetizer book. This is a work of solid scholarship in my mind and speaks the well-supported conclusions without fear:

When we follow the trail and trace the violence back, we do not find God. We find a mad confluence of godlets. We find principalities and power, imperial nation states and barely organized guerilla fronts, all self-exalted, all petty, and all appealing to as much inhumanity as humans can muster. It is called Liberation and martyrdom. it is called defense and justice. Call it what you will. It is Terrorism.6

Any book that says the following would put itself in good stead with me, “In nations in which the majority of believers are Christian, the church must bear the responsibility for the ease with which the name of God has been co-opted into the service of carnage.”7 And so The War on Terrorism and the Terror of God was simply one of my favorite reads of the summer: well argued, excellent conclusions, good quotes and best of all, very helpful for my own purposes.

For My Research, The War on Terrorism and the Terror of God

The first new concept of importance that greeted me was quite surprising. According to Griffith there is a “lack of definitional agreement [on what a terrorist and terrorism is] among terrorism experts.”8 For a brief second I was surprised and then it occurred to me that terrorist or terrorism is a label, it is propoganda, and so the common use of the term is perspective based. Using the term “terrorist” is name-calling rather than saying a terrorist is someone who inflicts terror as a weapon. And with this use in mind, then the definition by Edmund Burke of a terrorist, “those who are lacking sufficient awe for Father State,” fits perfectly.9

Using “terrorist” as a negative label, instead of neutral and applicable to all, is what Griffith calls demonizing. Demonizing is virtually mandatory for visiting violence on a perceived enemy; the enemy must look bad to justify war, otherwise there is generally no need for violence. Demonizing also creates problems for solving conflict with anything other than violence. In the current political climate, talking to a demon legitimizes the demon and seems to make those talking to the demon as weak “and if the demons will not change their ways (and how could demons be anything other than demonic?), then warfare is foreordained as the only possible form of engagement.”10 With rational dialogue between opposing forces seen as soft and ineffectual, then in the eyes of the world, diplomatic conversation a weak option at best. This is scary. Debate over military intervention is no longer confined to coercive force as necessary with those who just cannot be reasoned with; instead military intervention is the first and last option because dialogue cannot happen.

Demonizing continues to make the situation worse on a life style scale. Dealing with demons, or the fear of the demonic striking at anytime, anywhere, “one can never be too prepared or too strong. This also means that one should never allow oneself to feel secure.”11 The fear of a Russian nuclear attack during America in the 1950s comes to mind, as does this “War on Terror.” The fear of the demonic and perceived the need for military buildup is nothing new and in the eyes of the frightened, this system is strangely comforting: “the nation is innocent and glorious, there is a great and unprovoked evil that desires to do the nation harm, but worry not, our technological advances in military will save us all. The nation will protect you, your money and give you peace.”

This narrative provided by the one’s own nation-state is terribly deceptive, but the theologian to best continue the argument is with William Cavanaugh later. Still, Griffith does touch briefly on the deceptive story that the nation-state tells. Griffith recognizes the illusionary salvific nature of the tale: “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.”12 The implications of such a story does not stop with rewriting history, but it is also liturgically/eschatologically competitive and Griffith touches on this as well when he notes the Reagan idea of a bright dawn occurring in America during the 80s.13

_____
1. “Woven into the very fabric of U.S. origins, terrorism emerged in two forms: (a) in the violent confrontations between cultures on the frontier, and (b) in violent confrontations between the growing consciousness of rural interest and the power elites of the cities.” Griffith, 145.

2. “These are the two sides of the prophetic mission: to announce judgment on the present order and to weep at the consequences the judgment portends. This biblical pattern is so pronounced that it seems fair to suggest that if either side of the mission is lacking, then the word that is being offered is not prophetic.” Griffith, 119.

3. “Violence is a form of proselytism which preaches that there is no God. The preachments of violence are more effective than televangelists, more zealous in winning converts than those who sell religion door to door.” Griffith, 68.

4. “In order to witness to the defeat of terror, churches and other faith communities must also be zones that are free from terror. Rather than peddling fears and threats of damnation, the church is called to witness to the one and only sufficient antidote to terror – the resurrection of Jesus.” Griffith, 251. Also see 268-270.

5. Griffith, 5.

6. Griffith, 6.

7. Griffith, xii.

8. Griffith, 7.

9. Griffith, 12.

10. Griffith, 86.

11. Griffith, 84.

12. Griffith, 38.

13. Griffith, 143.

A Couple of Theological Turns that can Lead to Pacifism

This is for Halden’s Pacifism Series.

I do not want to repeat what others have said in the series, so I do not plan to make an argument for my pacifism, rather, I want to mention a couple of the deciding factors the led to my shift and will also provide a critical reader more concepts to investigate. My pacifism grew out of two movements in my life – one that seems as clear as lightening and the other born out of a slower theological growth.

First, my social location. I was born into conservative Protestantism (which was sometimes evangelical, sometimes fundamentalist and even at times Pentecostal…ish), the Republican party and a family that was more than just a little pro military. One grandfather came back from Korea with sniper pins (or something to that effect), and more in the other family were in World War 2 with stories of sacrifice and danger. To bring the situation more up to date, I have been in discussions where family has said coercive, militaristic force is mandatory for keeping the peace, even on one’s own citizens; that anything goes to maintain the status quo and the perception of safety. None of this I suspect is new to anyone in America, or anywhere for that matter, but it seems socially locating one’s self is necessary for this autobiographical statement. Lastly, I suppose I am a “free church” pacifist which some might find weird in light of what I will soon say.

The first shift I can see clearly in my mind. It was a sunny day in Portland, Oregon at my undergrad school and just past noon. I was sitting on the beat up, orange couch, alone in the shade of my room and reading a small book I had somehow came across – The Wisdom of Tolstoy. There is a specific instance in the book that Tolstoy chronicles a Rabbi stating, something to the effect of, “There is a lot in your New Testament about nonviolence, but you don’t listen.” It was this statement in combination with Tolstoy’s message on the Sermon on the Mount that struck my mind dumb for the next half hour. It was here I realized that taking the text seriously very well might mean non-violence and non-violence is possible. Sure friends of mine were reading Hauerwas and Yoder, but that did not have the effect on me that other people felt, well, not by then it hadn’t. For me, it was Tolstoy. Call him the gateway drug to pacifism.

However, I do not think Tolstoy would have had the effect he did without a simultaneous rising of communal ecclesiology in my theology. I suppose it wasn’t a full on community ecclesiology then, more like an inchoate communality, but I had just written a paper on individualism and community in the church, arguing for the dumping of a mechanistic, individualistic anthropology in favor of the communal, organic body of Christ. As time has progressed and my ecclesiology found root within Christological/Eschatological Kingdom theology, so my pacifism strengthened. By identifying far more within the body of Christ – an extension of the kingdom here but not yet here – than any nation-state, my politics have taken a different turn in thought (which is partly why I hope to do a PhD in the subject of political theology – a response by myself to evils in the world is mandatory, but how ought the church engage?). Also, William Cavanaugh has been very helpful here; through re-examining history, his writings helped me, who was blind to the intrinsic coercive nature of the nation-state, to see where peace and coercion really lay.

It seems as one’s ecclesiology strengthens, particularly when it focuses on relationships, pacifism becomes the option. Doing violence to another human being just doesn’t exist, for it is the church who takes in the hurting and criticizes the powerful. The economy of God functions radically different and that is our first allegiance. America is cool and all, but despite what it might think, it isn’t God or the church.

Quotes from Cavanaugh

I finished just hours ago (for at least the second time) Torture and Eucharist: Theology, Politics, and the Body of Christ by William T. Cavanaugh. I cannot recommend the book enough, particularly for anyone thinking about violence, theology and the state, ecclesiology, eucharist or torture, to name a few. The following quotes from the book only begin to touch on the genius. So by George, go get the book and read it.

Torture is not merely an attack on, but the creation of, individuals. In this aspect, torture is homologous with the modern state’s project of usurping powers and responsibilities which formerly resided in the diffuse local bodies of medieval society and establishing a direct relationship between the state and the individual. … ‘The real conflict in modern political history has not been, as is so often stated, between State and individual, but between State and social group.’ – 3

…true resistance to torture depends on the reappearance of social bodies capable of countering the atomizing performance of the state. – 4

[Concerning the historical phrase "Wars of Religions"] Protestants and Catholics often fought on the same sides of the battles, for what was at stake in these wars was not mere doctrinal zealotry but the dominance of the rapidly centralizing sovereign state over the local privileges and customs of the decaying medieval order. – 5 [For reunderstanding the Early Modern wars, and therefore understanding the Enlightenment slandering of Religion, read Cavanaugh's work Theopolitical Imagination]

Much of contemporary Christian thinking on church and state is intent on limiting the power of the state, but in fact adopts Hegel’s soteriology of the state as peacemaker for the conflicts inherent in civil society. – 7

… it can be said that the state defends us from threats which it itself creates. The church buys into this performance by acknowledging the state’s monopoly on coercion, handing over the bodies of Christians to the armed forces, and agreeing to stay out the of the fabricated realm of the ‘political.’ – 9

… I argue conversely that torture is a kind of perverted liturgy, a ritual act which organizes bodies in the society into a collective performance, not of true community, but of an atomized aggregate of mutually suspicious individuals. – 12

Torture may be considered a kind of perverse liturgy, for in torture the body of the victim is the ritual site where the state’s power is manifested in its most awesome form. Torture is liturgy – or, perhaps better said, “anti-liturgy” – because it involves bodies and bodily movements in an enacted drama which both makes real the power of the state and constitutes an act of worship of that mysterious power. – 30

We misunderstand modern torture, however, if we fail to see that enemies of the regime are not so much punished as produced in the torture chamber. Torture does not uncover and penalize a certain type of discourse, but rather creates a discourse of its own and uses it to realize the state’s claims to power over the bodies of its citizens. – 31

Techniques of torment taught by the master torturers place great emphasis on leaving no physical marks behind. And torture never surfaces, but does its work in the shadowy realm of the disappeared, in clandestine dungeons with no address and no escape. – 49

If we are to understand properly the workings of terror and the church’s response, however, we must see the strategies of disappearance and torture as ways to deny martyrs to the church. – 59

It is not the heroism of the individual which is most significant, but rather the naming of the martyr by those who recognize Christ in the martyr’s life and death. Indeed, what makes martyrdom possible is the eschatological belief that nothing depends on the martyr’s continued life; if he dies, nothing is ultimately lost. – 64

Where torture is an anti-liturgy for the realization of the state’s power on the bodies of others, Eucharist is the liturgical realization of Chris’s suffering and redemptive body in the bodies of His followers. Torture creates fearful and isolated bodies, bodies docile to the purposes of the regime; the Eucharist effects the body of Christ, a body marked by resistance to worldly power. Torture creates victims; Eucharist creates witnesses, martyrs. Isolation is overcome in the Eucharist by the building of a communal body which resists the state’s attempts to disappear it. – 206

… the Eucharist is much more than a ritual repetition of the past. It is rather a literal re-membering of Christ’s body, a knitting together of the body of Christ by the participation of many in His sacrifice. – 229

If the church is to resist disappearance, then it must be publicly visible as the body of Christ in the present time, not secreted away in the souls of believers or relegated to the distant historical past or future. It becomes visible through its disciplined practices, but the church’s discipline must not simply mimic that of the state. – 234

Discipline, therefore, is not opposed to forgiveness but is its embodiment. – 239

Excommunicationn, therefore is not the expulsion of the sinner from the church, but a recognition that the sinner has already excluded himself from communion in the body of Christ by his own actions. Excommunication by the community clarifies for the sinner the seriousness of the offense, and, if accompanied by a proper penitential discipline, shows the sinner the way to reconciliation with the body of Christ while shielding the sinner from the adverse effects of continued participation in the Eucharist in the absence of true reconciliation. As an invitation to reconciliation, then, excommunication done well is an act of hospitality, in which the church does not expel the sinner, but says to her, “You are already outside our communion. Here is what you need to do to come back in.” Excommunication does not abandon the sinner to her fate; in fact, precisely the opposite is the case. It is failure to excommunicate the notorious sinner that leaves her to eat and drink her own condemnation. – 243

The discipline of the individual body, however, always has reference to the discipline of the ecclesial body, and can only be understood in this light. The primary concern of the church in this regard is the visibility in history of the true body of Christ. The only point to disciplining the individual sinner is to reconcile her to the body of Christ, for without incorporation into Christ’s body, salvation is jeopardized. Pastoral concern for the individual Christian, therefore, is not opposed to, but is inextricably bound up with, concern for the visibility of the church as it is enacted in the Eucharist. If the church is not itself visible, then it does not witness Christ to the world, and the very salvation of the world is not advanced. – 244

Excommunication is better understood as applicable to those kinds of sin which impugn the identity of the body of Christ. Excommunication, by definition, is for ecclesiological offenses. If, as I have already argued, the excommunicated person puts herself outside the church in the very act of her sin, then the sin itself must be construed as a sin against the body of Christ. – 247

A book list for Lay people from the more “theologically” inclined

A friend of mine some weeks ago asked me for a book list. In fact, he said, “Just give me a list, I don’t care whats on it, I just need to start reading again.” Well, I didn’t take him too literally, but I did come up with a book list for the lay person. These books are generally rather readable and well written, but more importantly, could be interesting instead of boring theology.

1. Risks of Faith by James Cone. This book is from a prof here at Union and is actually my go-to book for exposing someone to black theology or maybe even liberation theology in general. Its very readable, and spans Cone’s career as it is a selection of essays, but the text also hits at what Cone is known for, starting “Black Liberation” theology. The work will get you/or keep you thinking on race, gender, poverty – you know, the important things.

2. Myths America Lives By by Richard T. Hughes. While at times I do have some criticisms about the work on certain points (and I may or may not agree entirely with his conclusion, hint, probably not), this book is very readable and hits at the general heart of what the hell really is going on with what we believe as American Christians. Once thats all sorted out, we can finally address if we really should be believing any/some/all the myths.

3. Theopolitical Imagination by William T. Cavanaugh. This book is short and expensive (read here, the publisher is being a jerk), but damn worth it if you can keep up. I would recommend Torture and Eucharist by Cavanaugh, but thats denser and bigger. Theopolitical Imagination may be one of the biggest stretches in terms of reading accessibility on the list, but in this case, that shouldn’t matter – struggle through this book five times if you have to (though I don’t see it being nearly that hard to understand, I think most people could understand it well enough with one reading and some discussion) – just read the damn book. It changed me in such a fashion that my whole theological world-view will never be the same. Ever.

4. God Is Not: Religious, Nice, One of Us, An American, A Capitalist edited by Brent Laytham. This collection has a good spread of essays on negative theology (negative theology is saying what we know God not to be) which in this case strikes at the very nature of what we assume God to be, and sometimes, we assume wrongly. Hence this book.

5. Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ’s Childhood Pal by Christopher Moore. Possibly one of the funniest books I’ve ever read and I would often times find my self laughing out loud quite often, but also at times is incredibly well researched, in fact if I were teaching a Gospels class or intro to New Testament, I would use excerpts from this book.

6. Dracula by Bram Stroker. The book is riveting and I love the style, but also it is incredibly mature in how it deals with corruption and death. Rather astute I think. One of the most interesting things of note is what happens when a vampire dies – they sigh in peace, in fact, its not a horrible death at all. The vampires are finally allowed to rest and the evil is purged – they become people again in a very real sense. Perhaps we should look at our enemies like this – that there are people underneath all that evil, except we don’t need to use the violence. I used to not be a vampire fan, and I’m still not really, but this book I really like and it seems to have all sorts of theological ideas.

7. Anything by Dorthy L. Sayers, particularly the Lord Peter Wimsy Stories, they’re good mysteries.

8. Here I Stand: A Life of Martin Luther by Roland H. Bainton. This work is one of the definitive biographies on Luther by a very respected historian, but it is also incredibly readable and personal. In fact, any good reformation class in college that I’ve seen uses this book as one of the major texts. Its just that good.

9. Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business by Neil Postman. Brilliant, just brilliant and it was written in 1984…ish.

10. The Kingdom of God is Within You by Leo Tolstoy. Something to get ya thinking about pacifism, it certainly did me, and it should also be noted that this book had a large impact on Martin Luther King Jr. and Ghandi. You know, some of the real, successful people.

11. The Orthodox Way by Bishop Kallistos Ware. Here is a well written introduction to Eastern Orthodox Theology, well, some of Eastern Orthodox Theology. I’m not sure they’re quite as unified as they say they are. Nevertheless, Ware puts forth clearly certain Eastern Orthodox views that I found rather valuable during my freshman year in college.

12. Sexism and God-Talk: Toward a Feminist Theology by Rosemary Radford Ruether. If you want to put your toe into feminist theology, this would be one of the works to start with. Apparently it is also still one of, if not the only, feminist systematic theology text written (this means that the book deals with the typical categories of theology – the nature of the text, method, language, humanity, Christ, evil, eschatology and a few others that are brought up by feminists). Even if you don’t agree with a large majority of feminism, or are even someone who reacts to feminism negatively, if you haven’t read this book, you can shut up or give this book your open mind. Why? Because this is one of the biggest voices for the past 20 years and this is one of the texts for theological feminism.

Looking for the Puppeteer: Constantine, Housio of Cordoba, Imperial Power, Doctrinal Formation, Theologians and Historians

I have a warning. This post is long, but it really in no way lends itself to a shorter or more conversational post. It is already fairly conversational, despite that it turns out to be a paper on historiography. Also, shortening more than it already is would weaken the integrity of the argument and I certainly do not want to do that, for this could fly in the face of a number of my theological friends and I want to be careful with what I say and how it is backed up.

This post calls into question Stanley Hauerwas’ history of “Constantinianism.” I still like a lot of what Hauerwas says (he is far more experienced and smarter than I’ll ever be and I do not mean to be presumptious), but I think his use of history, particularly the reliance on a couple of events around Constantine is shaky ground. I think if we are going to run with a political theology (rooted in history, or memory if we want to be Metzian) about interaction between the church and the modern nation-state, then William Cavanaugh presents a very good interpretation of the historical landscape beginning with the European early modern period (in Theopolitical Imagination). Anyways, I do not get into Cavanaugh in the post, perhaps later, but I do end with a construction about what I think Hauerwas really can or should say.

Approaching Critically the Past and Present

As I have grown as a theologian and become increasingly aware of theological conversations, the controversial issue of imperial power and early Christian formation has come to the forefront in my life so to speak. First there is Stanley Hauerwas’ assertion about the Constantinian shift (Constantianism).1 While the Hauerwas’ condemnation of Constantinianism is nothing particularly new, per se, my exposure to Hauerwas’ work is relatively recent, as my first exposure was around four years ago. Soon to follow on the heels of Hauerwas, at least in my life, was the popular Da Vinci Code. While the Da Vinci Code itself was nothing scholarly, and largely inaccurate even when it did claim to be correct, I did begin to see a deeper question developing: How much influence did secular power have in the formation of Christianity? And more importantly, was the imperial power corrupting?

However, as I researched I realized that answering these two questions are exceedingly complex and possibly not entirely answerable, or at least directly, for the following reasons:

Little Documentation
We have very little documentation for what is seen as this history changing event. There is nothing from left from the Council of Nicaea – there are no surviving writings from during the Council, not even the creed, and the reason we have it now is because it was later saved on paper in a following council that revised the Nicene creed.2 In fact, “Within twenty-five years a leading participant in the council wrote a book about it and had to rely on his memory for an account of what went on.”3 For such an important council, that seems to some to have determined the fate of Christianity with some sort of finality (Hauerwas and the Da Vinci Code), it is rather telling to have only minute information about it from sources written years later.

With such a skewed vision of what happened, or simply a lack of knowledge, the imagination of anyone can pervade the events to their liking; something outlandish can appear to be reality and the only response is, “Perhaps, but probably not because we just do not know.”

Councils are not Quick or Alone
Little documentation concerning Nicaea takes on an even greater importance than it ought to when Nicaea becomes one of the privileged moments in history. When Nicaea becomes a larger than life event, the event then incorrectly eclipses the surrounding context – a context of continuous creed making and argument. The problems concerning Christology were never totally finished in Nicaea, but to say the contrary, or to view Nicaea alone as the starting or ending point, is to misunderstand Nicaea in relation to not only the Arian conflict, but also to the other great creeds, like Constantinople I, Ephesus and others, that followed in an attempt to reform and improve the Christological understanding.

We cannot ignore the continuation of the Arian conflict, in which emperors continued to weigh in on. When we say “Constantinianism”, rather we must understand any “Constantinianism” as at least a process that continued long beyond the death of Constantine to at least Constantinople I to find fruition in Theodosius I’s raising Christianity to officially the state religion, if we are not reaching farther to Chalcedon. This is if one is to use the term “Constantinianism” at all. A sweeping change of status and power was not achievable by one ruler (there were sons and successive emperors necessary to carry on the work), as nor was Christianity unified by one Council.

Everything in a Word
As much of a problem it is to focus on one council, particularly one we know through second hand histories, it is even more problematic to base one’s idea of how the induction of one word occurred. It seems that often Homoousion becomes a microcosm for the whole discussion of imperial power in the church and the point where one stakes a claim on the imperial intervention, despite the fact that the emperor did not have the right to vote, but only to confirm and pronounce the vote as an edict and was also barred from the Eucharist and membership in the church since we was not baptized.4 Of course we have writings that say that Constantine brought up the word itself, but was it in exasperation or was it part of a grand conspiracy or was it something in between? The sources do not tell us if it was a suggestion or a heavy-handed order from the emperor. We know Constantine desired to unify his empire and wanted to use Christianity to that end, however, that still tells us preciously little about the back-story of presenting the word.

Also, something rarely taken into account by anyone other than the professional historians, is the influence Christians had on Constantine about presenting Homoousion. It is entirely possible that Housio (or Ossius) of Cordoba, the adviser to Constantine, prompted Constantine to suggest the word. And likewise a similar circumstance occurred with the Donatist controversy.5 Perhaps the puppet was the emperor himself.6 It seems tenuous at best to rely heavily on one council to define an outlook, much less the introduction of one word and the little we know about the atmosphere in which it was birthed, other than that the Arians objected, but still signed.

Constantine Scrubbed Clean
Constantine seems scrubbed clean by many Christians and some historians, both past and current.7 The texts passed down that “chronicled” the greatness of Constantine were explicitly meant to influence how we understand “Constantine the Great” and in there seems to be little account as to the moral diversity of actions committed by him. There is the assumption that Constantine was the first Christian emperor, and a glorious one at that, rather than an emperor who had a vision of Apollo and seemed to have continued to continue pagan practices with his so called Christianity.8

Many texts also gloss over theopolitical developments around the time of Constantine and the affects of Caesarpapistic Christologies, as both Nicene and Arian contended for, for a time.9 At least one view held that the emperor is “not the ruler of one people, class or religion: he is the just ruler and saviour (sic) of all. The emperor is to be like God in all respects, a heavenly being, … he is most like God, [in] is his philanthropia [love of humankind]. His mind intent upon heaven, he strives to be the image of God…the imitation of God’s fatherhood.”10 In this sense, the emperor becomes a manifestation of God – the image of the Logos – an avatar, an incarnation, or theophany if you will.11 As the emperor is the avatar, the “authority of the emperor stems not from the people or the army but from God” and the word of the emperor “may be taken for a canon.”12

Combining this development of theopolitical identity with the previous identity of emperors, largely manifested in the cultic worship of a human who will die and become divine, the office of emperor becomes an interestingly tricky and problematic place for Christians theologically and politically. As the emperor assumes divine-like closeness, Christians and historians of the past and today, possibly incorrectly, call the relationship apostleship or “sanctification of the temporal order”, instead of an imperial grab for equal status with Christ.13 Dr. McGuckin asserts that this move towards closeness was the attempt by Constantine to assert himself as both Christ and the Unconquered Sun of Apollo, which he seemed to have dialectically maintained through his life and even into death.14 Thus, to call an emperor – Constantine – solely Christian, who interestingly seemed to reflect the modern evangelical concept of radical conversion, by later Christians results in the historical bleaching of the emperor identity and acceptance of Christian history, or propaganda, as truth. While the Nicenes eventually pulled away from Caesarpapism, but only when Constanius, an Arian, rose to power; nevertheless, to act or write as if there was little complexity in the conflicting debates is disingenuous at best.15

Also, with a Constantine scrubbed clean, there is little way of showing how the Nicene faction began to assert ecclesial independence and reaction against any attempts by Constantine to assert an emperor cult within Christianity or Constantine’s movement towards Arianism through Eusebius of Nicomedia.16 The assertion of ecclesial independence and its Caesarpapism is vital to the understanding of Church and State relationship in centuries to follow, particularly within the fourth century where the Arian crisis continued unabated for years.

These are Modern Questions
On a final note, these questions are fundamentally modern questions; these questions are not, it seems, what the early Christians would be asking about Church and State. We ought to proceed carefully so as to not project the idea of the modern nation-state onto the past, and also not to assume that there was some form of separation of Church and State. “There was no place in the thought of Eusebius (or the Arian Reviser) for two related but distinct societies, the church and the Christianized State, each with its special task under Christ as Basileus kai Hiereus, but rather one God, one emperor, one religion, and a single-minded dutiful episcopate.”17 Thus, to lie on top of the historical narrative our own political and theological assumptions would entirely miss the assumptions and beliefs of the past for they seem radically different, if not merely pre-modern.

Constructing the Past

The entire narrative is complex to begin with and made far more complex with the lack of sources, not to mention that there is rarely a broad consensus between current historians about what actually happened.18 And as a complex issue, the eventual and correct answer from a historical understanding for the original questions about the influence of imperial power is: yes, no and kind of; which is to say, we are dealing largely with probability, similar to Constantine’s conversion, whenever that really was.19 The over arching answer simply put is: everyone is attempting to use everyone else. It seems that at the time, Christians are attempting to use imperial power, as imperial power is attempting to use Christians, all the while we have second hand texts that attempt to denounce or elevate party lines and individuals within along the lines of the bias within the text.

We know of Constantine as a consensus builder, or said in another way, a man in both camps and attempted to balance them in co-existence, although tolerance seemed to be his last resort.20 He raised up a statue that could be interpreted favorably by pagans and Christians alike and he gave the church money and property, but did not give up his title Pontifex Maximus or cease the financial contributions to the pagan cults.21 Likewise, along the same lines, the council itself was a “joint result of an episcopal and imperial decision.”22 It seems that one can solidly say, that in Constantine’s attempt to unify his empire, he became a friend to all sides and a proper politician.

At the same time, as mentioned earlier, the church both welcomed Caesarpapism and eventually, other factions found the imperial power disconcerting and responded towards independence to some degree. Nevertheless, there was always some sort of relation between Church and State, be it a bishop as imperial legate or Constantine himself.23

It is clear that Constantine called the Council, seeking unity, but it is also true that Constantine did not have direct access to controlling the Council itself; both Constantine and the bishops kept him distanced from control, as he could not vote and he treated the bishops with respect in their own council.24 Perhaps there was subterfuge somewhere or the emperor attempted to script part of the council, but this is all conjecture and unknowable. Likewise, the puppeteer who originally suggested Homoousion, be it Constantine, Housio or someone else, we will probably never know short of finding new documents.

Addressing History Correctly as a Theologian
History can only speak to the facts, rarely to conjecture even with a large caveat, and never to a “what if” question. Facts in this case are relatively low in number and disinformation is high. Thus, what we can begin to judge is whether or not calling the councils, through imperial means, did harm to the church. Did the church lose itself as it began to grow or did it adapt to the opportunities at hand? This is ultimately the question that Hauerwas seeks to answer and he can begin to answer this without resorting to leaning on conjecture or assumptions that because the emperor suggested something it is tainted or an attempt to control.

Thus, in order for Hauerwas to rightly begin to speak about “Constantianism” as a Christian shift towards combining with secular, and possibly evil, power structures, he ought to look later where synchronization seems in full swing and the examples are blatant and plentiful, rather than shrouded in mystery.

Perhaps also, Hauerwas would do well to look at where the Church seems to be reneging its Christian call as he defines it, rather than looking specifically for the imperial power subjecting the church to the secular. Ultimately, no matter what the secular power attempts to do, be it Theodosius I or Diocletian’s persecution, it is the church that allows or rejects the intrusion and thus, the church is responsible for its own secularization. It seems that Hauerwas would do better to focus on the church allowing the emperor who has retained the title Pontifex Maximus to sit in the council and speak, rather than basing a great deal on the Edict of Milan and Homoousion.25

________
1. Stanley Hauerwas and William Willimon, Resident Aliens: Life in a Christian Colony (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1992) and The Hauerwas Reader edited by John Berkman and Michael Cartwright (Durham: Duke University Press, 2001).

2. Robert Grant, “Religion and Politics at the Council of Nicaea” The Journal of Religion, 55 (Jan., 1975), 1.

3. Ibid., 1.

4. Johannes Straub, “Constantine as ###### ######### Tradition and Innovation in the Representation of the First Christian Emperor’s Majesty” Dumbarton Oaks Papers, 21 (1967), 48-49.

5. Ibid., 47-48.

6. Victor C. De Clercq, Ossius of Cordova (Washington D.C.: Catholic University Press, 1954), 218-281. Francis Dvornik, “Emperors, Popes, and General Councils” Dumbarton Oaks Papers, 6 (1951), 10. John McGuckin, The Westminster Handbook to Patristic Theology (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2004), 74, 172-173. Though some think it improbable that Ossius suggested the word, nevertheless, Hanson states it is also improbably that the word originated from Constantine. RPC Hanson, The Search for the Christian Doctrine of God: The Arian Controversy (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1988), 201-202.

7. “Eusebius, Lactantius and others….” “The bulk of the written material is by Christians about christiainity, thus strongly illuminating one side of Constantine’s character and life but leaving another in deep shadow. Modern scholars usually submit to this balance of light, rightly if they are studying the reign as an important episode in the history of the Church, wrongly if they are studying it on its own terms and for its own sake.” Ramsay MacMullen, Constantine (New York: Croom Helm, 1987), 243-244.

8. Emperor as Pontifex Maximus in Colm Luibhéid, The Council of Nicaea (Ireland: Galway University Press, 1982), 12-16.

9. George Huntston Williams, “Christology and Church-State Relations” Church History, 20 (1951), 8-10.

10. Ibid., 22.

11. Johannes Roldanus, The Church in the Age of Constantine: The Theological Challenges (New York: Routledge, 2006), 60-61. Williams, 6-8. Massey H. Shepard, Jr., “Liturgical Expressions of the Constantinian Triumph” Dumbarton Oaks Papers, 21 (1967), 78.

12. Williams, 22-23.

13. Shepard, 74-75.

14. From discussion with Professor McGuckin and also in McGuckin, 74-75.

15. Williams, 9-10.

16. McGuckin, 74-75. Dale Irvin and Scott Sunquist, History of the World Christian Movement Volume 1: Earliest Christianity to 1453 (New York: Orbist Books, 2006), 177.

17. Williams, 19.

18. I have even come across at least three different dates for the beginning of the Council of Nicaea, and this speaks to the lack of consensus between historians on the small details, much less the more important subjects.

19. T. G. Elliott, “Constantine’s Conversion: Do We Really Need It?” Pheonix, 41 (1987), 420.

20. Grant, 2.

21. Straub, 44, 46-47.

22. Francis Dvornik, “Emperors, Popes, and General Councils” Dumbarton Oaks Papers, 6 (1951), 9.

23. Grant, 5.

24. Ibid., 7.

25. Resident Aliens, 17.

Works Consulted but not Cited
Barnes, Timothy. Constantine and Eusebius. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1981.

Drake, H. A. Constantine and the Bishops: The Politics of Intolerance. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000.

_____, and Eusebius. In Praise of Constantine. Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1975.

Meyendorff, John. Imperial Unity and Christian Divisions: The Church 450-680 A.D. Crestwood, New York: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1989.

Young, Frances. From Nicaea to Chalcedon: A Guide to the Literature and its Background. Philedelphia: Fortress Press, 1983.

Torture and Class – as if they’re different…

Alright theoblogosphere, I’ve got a little challenge of my own (however it is not nearly as demanding as Halden’s recent one). I’m looking at taking a few classes here at school over the summer – primarily reading classes, and I get to pick the topics. Well, I’m going to address torture for my social ethics MA thesis (or at least I’m planning on it right now and it might look a little something like this: I. Why American Christianity is inclined to accept torture; II. Critique American Christianity; and III. Produce a better theology which A. Fills the holes in the church and B. Talks about what a healthy church can do to respond). With that in mind I’m hoping to use one of these reading classes to help me get a leg up on research and forming a better outline. So, does anyone have any good books to recommend other than William Cavanaugh’s Torture and Eucharist for me to read this summer?