flying.farther

There was a decent summary piece on Black Liberation Theology in the New York Times yesterday. It attempts to locate Dr. Wright within the historical movement of Black Liberation Theology, and in order to do so, James Cone and Gary Dorrien, both professors at Union, are interviewed. Its worth a quick read and it is certainly better than much of what the media has put out so far.

Interestingly, the article covers two specific subjects that I want to make sure are addressed — one normally ignored, and the other, a focal point for controversy. The first is the acknowledgement of Catholic Liberation theology in the discussion of Black Liberation theology:

Even as Dr. Cone and others such as the Rev. William A. Jones at Bethany Baptist in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, crafted a theology of black liberation, Catholic theologians in Central and South America crafted their own liberation theology, arguing that God placed the impoverished peasants closest to his heart.

There is little evidence that one liberationist talked to another; rather, these were cornstalks rising in a fertile and revolutionary field. “These were remarkable similar arguments, that oppressed people have their own way of hearing the Gospel,” said Dr. Dorrien of the Union Theological Seminary.

On this note, I’ve got a copied picture of Dorothy Sölle, Jürgen Moltmann, Gustavo Guitérrez, James Cone, and Christopher Morse from years ago taken here at Union - Cone still had his fro and some were wearing plaid. And after seeing this picture last year, I asked Dorrien, since Guitérrez spent a year at Union in the early 70s (hence the picture), if there was much talk then between Guitérrez and Cone, and Dorrien said the same thing then as he was quoted in the article, “there seemed to have been little talk, if at all.” I suppose this shows how far Liberation theology has come today, where there seems to be a lot of conversation. However, I am also wary that the article does not spend enough time on the Marxist aside. It seems that still today Marxism is a loaded term and to have such a small mention might have been irresponsible.

The second issue addressed in the article are Wright’s comments concerning AIDS as understood by Cone:

Dr. Cone, the black liberation theology theorist, has known Mr. Wright for decades and says he much admires his provocations. But when Mr. Wright opined recently that the United States government may have used AIDS as a form of biological warfare against black people (Mr. Wright notes, correctly, that the United States has tried biological warfare on foreign nations), Dr. Cone winced.

“I don’t believe that,” Dr. Cone says. “But I will say that when blacks look at what government has done to black people, the eugenics and the syphilis, it’s easy to get angry.”

I’ve said it before and I’ll keep saying it: I hope our government didn’t introduce AIDS, but its not like the United States has a track record that says the contrary. I don’t want to believe it happened, but that doesn’t mean we can ignore the other abuses that the United State pulled, which was so similar to the Nazi doctors in concentration camps. With all this in mind, no wonder liberation theology operates through a hermeneutic of suspicion.

A negative theology is to say what something is not. Generally understood, negative theology applies towards stating what God is not. Below is a negative theology of Dr. Wright. He isn’t a crazy person, a man with “issues”, or a reverse racist.

Last night Bill Moyers reflected on Dr. Wright, conservative preachers, and the whole continuing media debacle on race. Well done sir.

It is quite telling that every time there is a public discussion on Wright - or even a private discussion on race - we must begin with a reflection on the history of slavery. Indeed we ought to begin with an honest history, however, the reason we must today is because the grand story of America refuses to listen to horrors that America has committed. In such a refusal, the ideas that Wright is a crazy person, a black man with issues, or a reverse racist find their genesis.

Dr. Wright is angry. Yes. Or rather, can be angry, but there is nothing wrong with that. I suspect God has been as angry as Wright, and so were the prophets and Jesus. White people might find anger threatening, but Dr. Wright hasn’t lost his ability to speak in his anger. His story is still voiced and that is more threatening. However, those who refuse to hear his words at all, call him a crazy person. They make an appeal that he is out of his mind, that he is merely emotional. This simply isn’t true, rather the opposite is correct. One must simply listen to what Wright says to see this. He is too coherent to be crazy.

Others seem to think Wright has “issues.” Anne Lamott does. Thankfully she admits she isn’t a theologian (and it shows). To put it mildly, yes, Wright has issues, but not in the way we say it. In fact there is still the large issue of race that we refuse to adequately engage (hell, we haven’t even got to other forms of racism directed toward immigrants, etc.). This weighs hard of the black community, while the white community refuses to acknowledge systemic problems (to speak in broad terms - really its the black and white stories that are at odds, one more honest than the other). Of course Wright would have a few problems to shout about, because by and large America is still racist.

Dr. Wright is also not a reverse racist. This is not to say that a black person cannot be racist, however, what Newt Gingrich purports assumes that racism does not continue to exist in any large way. Yet, if what Wright does say is true, understood within a racist culture at large, than it merely rings true. However, Wright is not engaged by others at the level of his and his community’s experience. Instead, Wright’s words are taken from his mouth - from his black body and black context - and put into a white person’s body and context. In some senses, it seems that even Wright speaking cannot be understood as a black person speaking; rather, culture at large must think of him as a white person. How is that not itself racist, stripping him of his own humanity? Sure, maybe if we took Wright’s words and gave them to an oppressive people, the content of the words might sound racist, because they would be coming from the oppressive people’s lips. The body and context from whom the words come from are infinitely important. To call Wright a reverse racist merely on the basis of what he said in his speeches, based on forgetting the black community’s story and acting like he is a white man, is bullshit. This is just another way to marginalize a black man speaking prophetic truth.

With all this in mind, no wonder liberation theology operates through hermeneutic of suspicion.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I just opened the latest Newsweek issue to find an article interviewing N. T. Wright. Needless to say, I was a bit surprised. Happily surprised, but surprised, particularly because earlier in the magazine, it had this to say of Dr. Jeremiah Wright, “Talks to St. Moyers, seems reasonable if unrepentant. Now go away.”

Anyways, here is a bit of what is said about N. T. Wright’s latest book, Surprised by Hope:

It should come as no surprise that N. T. Wright believes that the resurrection really happened. As the Anglican bishop of Durham, a commitment to the idea of a risen Jesus would seem to be part of the job description. Among many Western Christians, however, the word “resurrection” means something else: a supernatural event, a spiritual ascent, a poetic metaphor. In his new book “Surprised by Hope,” Wright explains why he believes in a material resurrection—as well as how that belief should inform a Christian life. He spoke with Jon Meacham and Lisa Miller.

NEWSWEEK: When you talk about the resurrection, are you telling people something they haven’t heard before?

N. T. Wright: Usually, yes. People have been told so often that resurrection is just a metaphor, and means Jesus died and was glorified—in other words, he went to heaven, whatever that means. And they’ve never realized that the word resurrection simply didn’t mean that. If people [in the first century] had wanted to say he died and went to heaven, they had perfectly good ways of saying that.

Are people receptive to this message?
Yes and no. I think people are fascinated, but then the imaginative leap required is so huge that for many people it’s like describing life on Mars: “Well, that may be fine, I may believe you in theory, but I don’t think I’m ever going there myself.”

What does the resurrected body look like?
Obviously, we don’t know. But it will be probably much, much more like our present bodies than we dare to imagine. The analogy that I use is this: if you are with somebody who is very sick, you say, “Poor old so-and-so, he’s just a shadow of his former self.” He’s still recognizable as the same person. Who we are at the moment is just a shadow of our future selves. There’s a real you, a real me, which will one day be there and we’ll say, “My goodness, you’re looking well.” There’s a sense of “like but more than.”

How do you reconcile your orthodox theology with your progressive politics?
The task of government in the present is to anticipate the eventual sorting out of all things, and the task of the church in the present is to remind governments that that is their job. The resurrection gives you a sense of what God wants to do for the whole world, and it gives the church the courage to say, “God’s new world has actually begun already.” The church can then say to the powers that be, whether it’s George W. Bush or Gordon Brown or the United Nations, “We are urging you to do justice, and we’re going to hold your feet to the fire and go on reminding you when you’re getting it wrong and congratulating you when you’re getting it right.”

And for the best quote yet:

Just as empirical writing is the phenomenal manifestation of an arch-writing that constitutes language as the place where the human subject comes into being, so the sacraments can be appreciated as the empirical manifestation of the “arch-sacramentality” that constitutes the language of faith, which is the place where the believing subject comes into being. this arch-sacramentality is a transcendental condition for christian existence. It indicates that there is no faith unless somewhere inscribed, inscribed in a body — a body from a specific culture, a body with a concrete history, a body of desire. Baptism, the first sacrament of the faith, shows this well: the plunge into water, together with this “precipitate” of the Christian Scriptures, which is the mention of the names of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, is a metaphor for being plunged into the body of signifiers — material, institutional, cultural, and traditional — of the Church: assembly, ordained minister, sign of the cross on the forehead, book of the Scriptures, confession of faith, remembrance of Jesu Christ and invocation of the Spirit, paschal candle… All these are symbolic elements that are inscribed on the body of every baptized person, his or her scriptural body on which they are bestowed as a testament. One becomes a christian only by entering an institution and in lettering this institution stamp its “trademark,” its “character,” on one’s body.

The faith thus appears to us as “sacramental” in its constitution, and not simply by derivation. Our existence is Christian insofar as it is always-already structured by sacramentality, better still, as it is always-already inscribed in the order of the sacramental. It is thus impossible to conceive of the faith outside of the body.

Louis-Marie Chauvet, Symbol and Sacrament: A Sacramental Reinterpretation of Christian Existence, Translated by Patrick Madigan, S.J., and Madeleine Beaumont, pg. 154-155.

But these two poles in dialectic tension belong to two different levels of exchange. The logic of the marketplace (under the form of barter or money) is that of value; it belongs to the regime of need which seeks to satisfy itself immediately through the possession of objects. The logic of symbolic exchange is of another order. For what is being exchanged through yams, shells, or spears, as through a rose of a book offered as gifts in our own culture, is more and other than what they are worth on the open market or what they may be useful for. It is more and other than what the objects are in themselves. One is here outside or beyond the regime of usefulness and immediacy. Rather, the principle which rules here is one of super-abundance. The true objects being exchanged are the subjects themselves.

… Therefore, theologically, grace requires not only this initial gratuitousness on which everything else depends but also on the graciousness of the whole circuit, and especially of the return-gift. This graciousness qualifies the return-gift as beyond-price, without calculation — in short, as a response of love. Even the return-gift of our human response thus belongs to the theoligcally Christian concept of “grace.”

… Grace must be treated as something outside the boundaries of value, according to the symbolic mode of communication, and in the first place communication of the word. Rather than being represented as an object-value that one would “refine” through analogy, the “treasure” is really not separable from the symbolic labor by which the subject itself bears fruit by becoming a believer.

Louis-Marie Chauvet, Symbol and Sacrament: A Sacramental Reinterpretation of Christian Existence, Translated by Patrick Madigan, S.J., and Madeleine Beaumont, pg. 106, 108, 109.

Dr. Wright was on Moyers Journal tonight. Personally, I think Wright did an excellent job. Moyers as well. Well done sirs. Watch it here.

You can also here it on Youtube:

Part 1:

Part 2:

Part 3:

Part 4:

With this whole hoopla around Dr. Jeremiah Wright, perhaps the most frustrating part, besides the airing of an out-of-context, five-second clip over and over, was that virtually no one talked to Wright himself. Well, thats going to change tonight. I’d heard some rumors this past week, but now even CNN is reporting that Wright will be on Moyers tonight, so I figured I would mention it as well. Moyers, 9 PM on the east coast on PBS.

I’ll post links later when the interview is up on the Moyers website. In the mean time, for those who still feel they need a first time introduction to black liberation theology, or a re-fresher course, watch Cone interview on Bill Moyer’s Journal here.

In its role as hermeneutics, theology has the job, not of retrieving an original meaning, but on the contrary, of producing, starting especially from the text of the Scriptures, new texts, that is, new practices which foster the emergence of a new world. Its truth is always to be made; it resides in a future constantly happening. “Thus, the Christian truth is not,” Geffré emphasizes, “an invariant core that is passed on from century to century in the form of a frozen deposit. It resides in a continual advent exposed to the risks of history and of the Church’s interpretative freedom under the Spirit’s inspiration. In regard to the content of the faith, it is manifestly inadequate to always speak of a rapport between some invariant core and variable cultural expressions. One must guard against the illusion of a semantic invariability which somehow subsists beyond all contingencies of expression; to believe this is to retain an instrumental and vehicular conception of language. Rather, one must speak of a relation of relations.

Louis-Marie Chauvet, Symbol and Sacrament: A Sacramental Reinterpretation of Christian Existence, Translated by Patrick Madigan, S.J., and Madeleine Beaumont, pg. 69.