If you are aware about the merchandising phenomenon around Keep Calm and Carry On, then I’ll be brief. In 1939, this poster was developed with the war in mind. Today it has gone somewhat viral, sometimes for irony’s sake (hipsters) and at other times for genuine fear amongst the more obvious corporate types.

Now, this is all back story. Back story for this, one of my favorite shirts that is profoundly incarnational — and therefore in my estimation, very Christmas-y:

So yes. I wore it for Christmas day. When the Angels declare the King of kings has come as an infant, things are upside down. In fact, time is recognized, to quote Hamlet, as “out of joint.” With the incarnation, there is an ultimate measuring stick, that measures all else. To this end, Herod, among others, would indeed panic and freak out — they are not the untouchable, children of gods, or destined be deified. The birth of Jesus is a time of change, of affirmation and denunciation. To this end, it would be right for many to freak out. Little baby Jesus came for you.

In case you are unaware, Edward Schillebeeckx died on December 23rd. On the day of the Christ’s birth, we can see the blessing of Schillebeeckx and not lose heart. He will be missed.

I’ve now completed my third language for the program — the last of my language requirements! I think I shall go celebrate in germanic fashion (’cause that was the language I just ‘completed’), although I’m up in the great white north — way beyond Whistler. Can you tell that my new favorite show is Three Sheets?

… anyone else get nervous when Niebuhrians (you know, Christian realists) talk about morality? This isn’t to say that morality should be ignored by Niebuhrians (in fact they must reckon with it), but just war and morality weren’t exactly fast friends with Niebuhr — he was too pragmatic for that idealism. When Niebuhrians invoke just war and morality, I can’t but wonder how much of that is rhetoric, if not a way of baptizing the realism. The question that drives this is: Where is morality in Niebuhr?

I’ve been busy of late and still one paper left! However, I figured you all would want to check this out:

sigh.

If you didn’t see Colbert last night’s interview of Conservopedia’s Andy Schlafly, that touched on the their infamous, on-going ‘conservative translation’ of the Bible, see here:

Or go see it here: http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/258144/december-08-2009/andy-schlafly.

Some of their ‘guiding principles’ for the ‘translation’ (I doubt it is actually a real translation, ’cause, you know, they would have to consider the original languages):

3. Not Dumbed Down: not dumbing down the reading level, or diluting the intellectual force and logic of Christianity; the NIV is written at only the 7th grade level

…

7. Express Free Market Parables: explaining the numerous economic parables with their full free-market meaning

…

10. Prefer Conciseness over Liberal Wordiness: preferring conciseness to the liberal style of high word-to-substance ratio; avoid compound negatives and unnecessary ambiguities; prefer concise, consistent use of the word “Lord” rather than “Jehovah” or “Yahweh” or “Lord God.”

It is one thing to be theologically ‘conservative’, its entirely different to pull this crap — work for a populist, Americanized politically conservative Bible for politically conservative ends. Who the hell is the best of the public? Who in the public actually knows Hebrew, among other Semitic languages, and Greek?

Keep your God damned caesarpapist, lying hands off my neither liberal, nor conservative Bible. Never mind that your hermeneutics suck. The parables teach free market parables?! Bwuahahahahahah. Under the Roman Empire?! Ahahahahhaah.

And Yahweh is liberal wordiness?! Please tell me how you intend to not ‘dumb down’ the Bible but still remove the divine’s name, and all the heritage within?

Hacks.

I’d like to thank those who raised questions. CTN, you’re answered in the paper, even though it doesn’t show so much here in the conclusion. And Brad, I had to make certain moves, so Israel played a smaller role — very, very small actually — than I wanted. Your concern was one of the many footnotes that I used to give the body of the paper more focus, and I still went over the page limit. Sigh.

My Provisional Conclusion:

I have sought in this essay to provide a politics proceeding from and based on the triune economy of gift. I began with Christian dogma, noting God in action in human history through the incarnation, the Spirit, and the economy of gift. In doing so, I noted that the work of God should be understood as gift, while elaborating on human participation in the response of Mary. I then moved to the inner life of the Trinity by assuming Balthasar’s assertion that the triune God is not hidden, but revealed in the Cross. I elaborated on the dynamism of gift in the inner trinitarian life with the help of Balthasar and Johnson. This step located and defined the economy of grace in the giver of all that is good. Next I moved to the implications of the gifting God working in human history, framing the step in terms of apocalyptic, Christian formation, and liberation. Recent work on the apocalyptic was noted to highlight my own move: the church is not theologically a dispossessed church, but when rightly living, drawn up into the economy of God — in a word, possessed rather than ever a possessor. This gifting church then spreads gift into the surrounding world, hence the recognition of Romero and Church of the Servant King.

In short, I have sought to draw a line from the inner life of God directly to our action in the world. I have done this through political theology, because, as I understand the recent turn in missiology, there is much overlap between the two. I have re-framed everything underneath gift because that is fundamentally how the divine works with the cosmos and within human history. Thus, from gift, we can re-understand the apocalyptic work of God and therefore, the church’s purpose in the world: to live the gift economy of God for the sake of creation.

Hamlet or Hecuba: The Intrusion of the Time into the Play
by Carl Schmitt and translated by David Pan and Jennifer R. Rust

Description:
Though Carl Schmitt is best known for his legal and political theory, his 1956 Hamlet or Hecuba provides an innovative and insightful analysis of Shakespeare’s tragedy in terms of the historical situation of its creation. Schmitt argues that the significance of Shakespeare’s work hinges on its ability to integrate history in the form of the taboo of the queen and the deformation of the figure of the avenger. He uses this interpretation to develop a theory of myth and politics that serves as a cultural foundation for his concept of political representation. More than literary criticism or historical analysis, Schmitt’s book lays out a comprehensive theory of the relationship between aesthetics and politics that responds to alternative ideas developed by Walter Benjamin and Theodor W. Adorno. Jennifer R. Rust and Julia Reinhard Lupton’s introduction places Schmitt’s work in the context of contemporary Renaissance studies, and David Pan’s afterword analyzes the links to Schmitt’s political theory. Presented in its entirety in an authorized translation, Hamlet or Hecuba is essential reading for scholars of Shakespeare and Schmitt alike.

For more, see Telos.

Michael over at Catholic Anarchy has a great post concerning this national holiday we call thanksgiving: “Are you pro-life? Resist or subvert Thanksgiving.” He starts with:

I don’t go so far as to think that the only good Indians are dead Indians, but I believe nine out of ten are, and I shouldn’t like to inquire too closely into the case of the tenth. – Theodore Roosevelt

[W]e shall destroy all of them. – Thomas Jefferson, referring to Native peoples

How does a country deal with the fact that some of its most revered historical figures had certain moral values and political views virtually identical to Nazis? – Robert Jensen

and ends with:

Pro-life Christians who choose to be thoughtful about such things should be deeply troubled by the reality of Thanksgiving. Indeed, it is perhaps the holi-day par excellence of the culture of death. Of course, the best option for Christians would be simply not celebrating Thanksgiving at all. After all, Christians have their own thanksgiving, only we use its Greek name, eucharist. It is a celebration of liberation and resurrection, not invasion and extermination. It is a celebration that embodies new familial relationships not based on blood or nationality but our common life in Christ. It is a celebration whose purpose is not to say “thank you for all the stuff we have when others are not so fortunate,” but rather “thank you for inviting all of us to this table.” And of course, the one we thank is the Author of Life, the One who is not to be replaced by sentimentalism or the idols of state, of “freedom,” of “choice” and the like. No wonder Jesus made the eucharist a vegetarian feast, a true foretaste of the banquet of the Kingdom of God.

Of course, for most of us, myself included, not celebrating Thanksgiving is simply not realistic. With a one-year old child and having just moved back to the u.s. from Canada after over three years away from family and friends, I am not about to be so politically smug that I would simply refuse to participate in my own family’s traditions. On the other hand, I’m not sure that Thanksgiving can truly ever be redeemed unless it includes attention to the reality behind it, perhaps through the observance of a National Day of Atonement. A “let’s just look at the bright side” approach to Thanksgiving, an approach historically-conscious liberal american Christians tend to choose, simply will not cut it.

If anything, I am suggesting that Christians should bear the above realities in mind during this holi-day, and should, in some significant and deliberate way, make their celebration of american Thanksgiving different somehow this year, and every year. Christians, if they are to celebrate this dangerous holi-day, should in doing so make clear that they are citizens of a different empire, the Empire of God, and that this empire has its own story that exposes the lies of the earthly kingdoms’ mythologies, especially those of the united states of america. Exposing the lies of the american myth of Thanksgiving, in one way or another, must be a part of any serious pro-life celebration of the holi-day. Anything less would mean participation in an ideological cover-up which silences the historical and present-day victims of american empire. As “resident aliens” within the american empire, any eucharist that the People of God celebrates should look very different from the eucharist of the empire.

Go give the whole thing a read ’cause I couldn’t in good conscience quote the whole thing. It is worth it.

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.