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Concerns About Critical Theory

Concern About Critical Theory

Not everyone is thrilled about the presence and work of Critical Theory and specifically Critical Race Theory. And I get it. I have said many times that CRT is not for everyone.

Having said that, it is important to distinguish between two very different groups who are concerned about CRT. The first is people who actually understand Critical Race Theory and have a fundamental or philosophical objection to it. The second group is people who don’t really know what it is, or have not taken the time to look into it, but take exception to its posture or tone on a surface level.

I think that both groups have a legitimate gripe – but they are very different from each other and so I want to look at their actually concerns. I have talked before about The Beauty of Critical Theory, the Upside of Critical Theory, and how it is our salvation from bad religion. Today I want to look at the concerns about Critical Theory.

The first group actually knows what CRT is and is up to and objects to the foundational premise that bases its address in oppression. Critics bemoan that initial division between oppressed and oppressor and say, “Why would begin there? What a terrible place to start. You will divide people up in hurtful ways and you make primary someone’s group identity as a victim when that only feeds their feeling of victimization and marginalization.” It seems to this educated group that you will never build anything healthy or helpful for prioritizing and highlighting someone or a groups disadvantage and alienation. That is not a constructive way to proceed to these critics and they argue that it will never deliver you to a place of empowerment or productivity if you are perpetually deconstructing the very systems or institutions that you feel excluded from or want to participate in. ‘Playing the victim card’ is a bad hand and will never help you win the game.

That is a legitimate concern. Participating in the ‘Oppression Olympics’ is a recipe for continued victim mentality and ongoing marginalization. The mentality behind CRT is feeding yourself on the negative according to these studied critics. If you want a better life, to improve your community, and to have a seat at the table there are better ways to do that than focusing on the deficit and highlighting the deficiencies of the system.

Which brings us to the second group of critics: those who just don’t like the tone and posture. This popular, and growing, concern is with the general mentality or  big-picture approach of CRT. This group doesn’t really understand Critical Theory but just doesn’t like its attitude. “Are things perfect? No. But are they getting better? Yes. So let’s focus on that and continue to progress together instead of causing more division and animosity.”

These less-knowledgeable opponents have a core objection to Critical Theory’s obsession with rummaging through the past to find injustice and even atrocities. They see history as “a long arc that bends toward justice”. They love the hallmark version of MLK and fundamentally object to viewing history as a problem and a limitation. We can’t, they argue, “go back and fix the past now – so let’s just move on and make things better now.”

This is a legitimate concern because Critical Theory really does begin with the conviction that something is deeply wrong and a problem to be addressed. It is not fun or cheery or optimistic. It is critical and pessimistic in its tone and posture. One of its founding members, Walter Benjamin, viewed history as an accumulating series of atrocities that piled up at the feet of the Angel of History who was facing backward trying desperately to resist the accumulating pile of these catastrophic events which Critical Theory then sorts through in order to account for, catalogue, and attend to their consequences. This is not a fun way to look at the past and it is not a cheery way to talk about how we got here or where we have arrived at.

Now, having said that, there is an important distinction to be made at this point: those who don’t like Critical Theory also have a pre-existing condition of being generally against Social Justice Warriors (SJWs), liberals in general, poor-me-ism, playing the victim, snowflake culture and ‘every kid gets a participation trophy’ in general. I became very aware of this cynicism in 2015 and 2016 as I got to travel the country and speak with different audiences. There was an across-the-board general sense of disdain for those on ‘the other’ side of the aisle.

So I just wanted to acknowledge that there is an actual disagreement about Critical Theory and Critical Race Theory. It is not just a matter of educating the masses or listening to the other-sides’ perspective. These are fundamental differences about foundational assumptions. Not all of Critical Theory’s critics can articulate what CRT actually wants and may not even be open to hear what its practioners are saying.

They reject the premise outright and object out-of-hand to the presumptions and assumptions that Critical Theory is based on. They refuse to concede the initial point of viewing some groups as oppressed and blaming the oppressors. They take exception to both its goals and its initial starting point and I get that. I always begin by saying that Critical Theory is not for everyone. I don’t think that everyone should do it or that it should be the predominate view.

Here is an computer analogy that might help. Critical Theory is not an operating system that can run the whole machine. It is a diagnostic tool – like a program that looks for viruses and debugs the system. It is not the game it is a referee.  it is an internal affairs task-force that is looking for corruption. It is not the business or the bank, it is an auditor. If you are expecting it be the whole thing then you have misunderstood what it is up to. But by the same token, its critics and despisers are like a King who objects to the presence of the Jester in the court. That is the entire point of the Jester – to mock, to point out inconsistencies, to level the playing field, and to expose the ridiculous elephant in the room and to help people see that the King has no clothes on! Is it objectionable? Sure. Is it uncomfortable? Absolutely. Is it needed? Yes.

So when critics object and try to defend the status quo and tell Critical Theorist to back off, get in line, knock it off, and settle down – they are doing exactly what you would expect from people who benefit from the system as it is currently configured and who profit from the as-is nature of the structures and institutions as they currently exist. All they are saying is that, “I don’t like when you name the dysfunction, expose the hidden assumptions, point out the inconsistency of my behaviors, doubt my motives, and call into question my underlying values or priorities. It makes me uncomfortable and even angry.”

That, however, is exactly the point of Critical Theory – to make visible the invisible … or as Critical Theory refers to: ideology. The goal of Critical Theory is 3-fold: to examine, to expose, and to advocate for change. The point of Critical Theory, after all, is not just to explain the world but change it toward a more equitable, just, and beneficial system for those who have been historically marginalized and disadvantaged. It makes total sense why those in the King’s court would object to that. Resisting the agenda of Critical Theory is a no-brainer as they say.

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H is for Hermeneutics

We humans are gifted at interpreting. We are constantly interpreting signs and symbols everywhere we go and in everything that we do. We are so comfortable interpreting that we may not even know that we are doing it.

Interpreting comes to most of us almost as second nature. We pick it up as child in the same way that we learn language and so many other things from imitating adults and our peers. We are conditioned in powerful ways that influence our opinions, convictions, prejudices, and even our desires.

We are constantly interpreting.

We almost instinctively know how to read different facial expressions, body language, gestures, moods, words, tone of voice, intensity, sincerity, pace, volume, etc. We even interpret things like gender, body style, and clothing. We interpret everything from human interactions, to sacred texts – from the clouds in the sky to the road signs as we drive.

We are always interpreting. 

What if you were told that the way you interpret something may be more important than the thing itself?

Would you be comfortable with the idea that your interpretive lens doesn’t just help you process your experiences – but actually helps create those experiences at some level?

Thinking about the way that we interpret things is called hermeneutics. It is a fancy word that would seem completely unnecessary if humans were not constantly interpreting nearly everything. The ‘Herme’ in hermeneutics comes from Greek mythology where Hermes was the messenger of the gods. Hermes was “considered to be the inventor of language and speech, an interpreter, a liar, a thief and a trickster. These multiple roles made Hermes an ideal representative figure for hermeneutics.”[1]

Words and ideas need interpreting because they can be tricky, double-coded, multilayered, and highly situational (contextual).

You may know that I come from an evangelical-charismatic background.  What you may not know is that I am continually contested in conversations with people from that background about the need to interpret our experiences and texts. I am often told that our religious experiences do not need to be interpreted, that they are actually a validation or a sign of faith. That, of course, is in itself an interpretation.[2]

We don’t just have experiences (like we don’t just read and believe the Bible), we interpret. We do it as second nature because to be human – and thus social – is to be thoroughly saturated in language and symbols. We speak, and indeed think, in language. It permeates everything we do and are. It is part of what being human means.

Hermeneutics is quite concerned with the complex set of relationships between an author, the text itself and the original or subsequent audience. The reader, according to hermeneutics, has a lot of power in that relationship.

Hermeneutics is a massive and complex field. Since this an ABC’s series, there are two basic things that are important to know:

  • The word has been in use since the 17th century even though the idea is an ancient one that can be traced all the way back to the Greek philosophers.
  • Everything changed in past 90 years. With the publication of Heidegger’s “Being and Time” in 1927, philosophy, and then subsequently the human sciences, took a hermeneutical turn.

This trickle-down effect has made its way through nearly every aspect of society and culture. The impact of this turn has been so thorough that we are now to the point where everything is analyzed, dissected, and questioned. No area of life gets a free pass and no activity is safe from interrogation. Social media is the perfect venue to exam how absolutely everything is now amplified (first) and then scrutinized.

If you are attracted to someone or not attracted to them, if you comb your hair a certain way or you don’t comb your hair, if you go to church or don’t go to church, if you stand for the national anthem at a sporting event or you don’t … everything means something.

This is true for individuals, families, congregations, people groups, and nations. It is the reality of the world that we live in for the 21st century.

One of Heidegger’s most famous students was Hans-Georg Gadamer. His 1975 book “Truth and Method” was about the world of interpretation and it expanded what is called the hermeneutical circle.

The five elements are characterized as:

  • pre-understanding
  • the experience of being brought up short
  • dialogical interplay
  • fusion of horizons
  • application.

This five-part cycle is really helpful and I often paraphrase it this way:

  1. We all come in with something to contribute. We have different perspectives, experiences, insights, histories, and assumptions. We might be familiar with topic or we might be new to the information. Both perspectives are needed.
  2. When we compare notes we come to realize that none of us have the whole picture and we might not even looking at our part of the picture in the most helpful or healthiest way. We admit our limitations or the flaws in what we were given.
  3. We begin to put our individual parts of the picture next to each other and may need to go outside to find some more or different parts of the picture in order to have a fuller or more wholistic understanding of what we are looking at.
  4. We begin to piece the whole picture together. We might overlap some areas, glue some down, we may choose to expand some elements or minimize others into order to make the project work together as a whole.
  5. We commit to actually do something with what we have made. We have each been impacted by the process and we acknowledge that we leave this phase of the cycle different than we came in.

In conclusion:

We all interpret. We think, experience, and speak through a lens. None of us are a blank slate and we never start from scratch. None of us come to a text, an event, or to an encounter value-free or judgement-free. We are rich tapestries full of values and laden with judgements.

These interpretations impact our beliefs, convictions, behaviors, practices, decisions, and feelings. Accounting for and attending to our interpretive lens in any situation will allow us to prosper in the complex, complicated, and multi-sensory world of the 21st century.

Bonus Section For Church Leaders:

A helpful example of the hermeneutical circle is employed in my field of Practical Theology. I tend toward utilizing the work of Paul Ricoeur and his ‘second naivety’ myself, but the example I want share is from Richard Osmer who utilizes Gadamer as his framework to talk about a community of interpretation.[3]

Let’s looks at what it takes to be someone who facilitates this for their community.  This understanding engages in different forms of communication because it is a collaborative effort. The following elements factor in significantly for the spirituality required to carry out the leadership that Osmer envisions.

  • The Descriptive–Empirical Task is called Priestley Listening and finds great importance in the power of presence.

The spirituality of presence addresses several levels of what is called attending to the congregation as a community of interpretation. Being present with and being attentive to the diverse perspectives, insights, experiences, and histories of those who make up the community.

  • The second task is the Interpretive Task called Sagely Wisdom.

The interpretive task draws off of thoughtfulness, theory, and wise judgment. Osmer appeals to Israel’s wisdom tradition and to Jesus being the hidden wisdom of God revealed. Facilitating this kind of communal discernment requires a unique set of skills and tools. There is a place for someone with specialized education (like seminary) in a community of interpretation.

  • The third task is the Normative Task, which is called Prophetic Discernment.

This task weaves together narrative, theory, and scriptural illustration. This is the art of this kind of leadership. Like a quilter stitching together the various pieces of fabric into a coherent whole, or a knitter diligently alternating between the required and various patterns required to bring out the texture for the desired finished product.

  • The final task is the Pragmatic Task, classified as Servant Leadership.

Osmer identifies the three forms of leadership as task competence, transactional leadership, and transforming leadership. Playing this role in your community requires three overlapping and interrelated convictions: you want to do this well, you want to do it with people, and you want the community to empowered and liberated for their work in the world. 

A priest mediates between God and God’s people, a sage has unique knowledge, a prophet tells the truth in interesting and creative ways, and servant works on their hands and knees.

The motif of “deep change” is introduced through the writing of Robert Quinn and is woven together with Old Testament imagery in order to illustrate the type of leadership that is required in this task. Quinn’s Four-stage model of organizational change (called the transformational cycle) involves: Initiation, Uncertainty, Transformation, and Routinization.

I share all of these different examples to point out two themes that you find in almost every hermeneutical project:

  1. They form a cycle, a circle, or a spiral – signifying an ongoing (continual) process.
  2. The second stage or step is one of negativity, negation, or something negative (like uncertainty). This is important because it is only after was pass through the unknowing that we come to see-know-engage-understand-assimilate-fuse in a new way.

In summary, interpreting is always and ongoing process and we must address the negative second step in order to move forward.

[1] This is from the Wikipedia entry on hermeneutics.

[2] Like we talked about in F is Fideism, divine revelation or religious experience cannot be privileged to the point that it is exempt from the attention that pay to other ‘ways of knowing’ and other areas of refelction.

[3] He first examines the idea of guiding the congregation as a community of interpretation. Secondly, he addresses the need to guide interpretation evoked by the experience of being brought up short. Lastly, guiding the dialogue between theology and other fields of knowledge. Leadership of this kind is defined as “the exercise of influence.”

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G is for Genre (modified)

Genre is by far the most important thing about the Bible that many people who claim to be ‘Bible-believing’ don’t know. Nothing matters more than genre when it comes to reading the Bible.

According to Pocket Dictionary of Theological Terms (Kindle Locations 593-595).

“Genre: A term that refers to different types or varieties of literature or media. In the interpretation of texts, particularly the Bible, most exegetes agree that identifying the genre of the text to be interpreted is crucial and that the text must be understood in light of the common conventions that typified that genre at the time of its writing. Thus, poetry is not to be interpreted in the same manner as historical narrative, nor is prophecy properly read in the same manner as an epistle (letter).”

Simply stated, one must read a poem differently than history, prophecy differently than a gospel, a letter (epistle) differently than apocalyptic literature.

When people claim, “the Bible says …” it can be a bit of a misnomer. That would be like say ‘the library says’, or even worse, saying ‘according to the internet’.

The Bible is not one book per se but a collection of books. These 66 books were written at different times over a 600 year period by dozens of different men and women.

This is why one cannot say “The Bible says X” with any real authority.

It would be better to say “In Romans, Paul says …” or, better yet, “The epistle to the Romans says … ”.

Saying “the Bible says” is like saying “the Kindle says”.

If you said, “according to the Kindle”, one would ask ‘in which book?’ and ‘who was the author?’

We need to do the same with the Bible.

Think about it this way:

Imagine someone taking a newspaper and reading it without distinguishing between the different types of writing. They would read the weather forecast, the police report, the opinion column, and the sports section, and the comics all the same way.

Most of us know to read the different parts of the newspaper in different ways. You take the weather forecast as a prediction based on best data, the political opinions and rantings as such, the police report as an official (if not censored) story, and the comics section as satire. It is almost second nature. You would not claim that a little boy named Calvin was literally pushed by a tiger named Hobbes (as if it were in the police report) or that either the weather forecast is 100% true or else the whole newspaper cannot be trusted. 

All of this is to say that ‘genre’ is an important element of any Biblical reading and is essential to any discussion regarding faith and religion in the 21st Century.

The phase “the Bible says”, is not sufficient and is not helpful in the 21st Century when readers need to be aware of and account for the nuances and differences within the Biblical text.

The books of the Bible need to be read according to the genre that they were written in.

It is by attending to the diversity of the writing styles that we hear the truth contained in them – and Christians, beyond anything else, should be lovers of the truth – wherever that truth leads.

Parables are perhaps the most clear example of this is all of scripture. Parables are tricky: parables are stories told in code in order to come in under the radar of the listener in order to ask them to question the assumptions they came in with. Parables interrogate the established order and the expectations of the listener.

Many of us have been taught to read parables as allegory where each character represents a truth or is a stand in for a bigger idea (like ‘god’ or ‘Israel’). This way of reading leads to some horrible interpretations that present god as vicious, angry, or vengeful landowner or ruler or foreman. It also leads to some odd applications that can actually be counter to the overall theme of the gospels.

A popular way of talking about parables is that they are ‘an earthly story with heavenly meaning’ but Ched Myers says that they are actually ‘earthy stories with heavy meaning’. Remember, a biblical prophet is not somebody who tells the future as much as somebody who tells the truth in creative ways (think of Amos or Hosea). In this way, Jesus by employing parables, in utilizing a prophetic voice to punch holes in the status quo and to interrogate, undermine, and subvert the assumed ‘way things are’ for his audience.

In the Gospel of Luke this often has two results:

  1. It makes the hero of the story somebody that the listener may not have thought very highly of. This can be foreigners, servants, and women.
  2. It calls into question the power and the wealth of the upper-class in the assumption talk to God’s favor is with and who God is working for.

Take Luke 16 for instance. In the parable of Lazarus and the rich man in the afterlife it is noteworthy that Jesus gives the name to this beggar who would have been I nobody but Jesus does not given name to the rich man who everyone in town would’ve known his name. Jesus is not giving us a map of the afterlife he is using that as a stage to talk about god’s involvement in the drama of human life now. Jesus is telling us what God values in this life. If you were to think that Jesus is giving us the architecture of the afterlife then you would literally think that people in heaven can not only see the people being tormented in hell but that they can converse back and forth. This is not the point of the parable.

Parables are not allegory. When you read parables as allegory assigning each character in the story a corresponding person in real life, you often get the point of the parable 100% incorrect. If each time Jesus talks about someone with power and status, like a landowner, you assume that is the god character in the story then the Gospel of Luke really makes God into a monstrous, violent, and conflicted character. If however, you read the story that God is with the servants instead of the landowner, who is probably Rome in coded language, then Jesus’ parables read entirely inverted from the way most of us have been taught to interpret them.

Which brings up the next point.

We must read the Bible more slowly: if you come in thinking that you already know that point that the text is making, you can easily miss the actual thing that is being said.

In Luke 12: 38-40 we begin to see that Jesus’ teaching reads very differently if you are riding high on the hog then if you are on the underside of the beast (in this case Empire). If you have possessions like many of us in America do, the idea of a thief coming in the night causes worry and anxiety. In the context of the first century Jewish occupation by the Romans the thief coming in the night was the in breaking of the kingdom of God.

Earlier in Luke chapter 11 Jesus had talked about the need to bind a strong man if you’re going to ransack his house. And this was probably and allusion to Roman rule and Caesar would be the strong man.

Take Luke 12

4 “I tell you, my friends, do not fear those who kill the body, and after that can do nothing more. 5 But I will warn you whom to fear: fear him who, after he has killed, has authority to cast into hell. Yes, I tell you, fear him! 6 Are not five sparrows sold for two pennies? Yet not one of them is forgotten in God’s sight. 7 But even the hairs of your head are all counted. Do not be afraid; you are of more value than many sparrows.

When Jesus talks about the one it can be tempting to think he’s talking about God. But it is not God who after he is killed you has the authority to cast you into hell! That is Caesar. Jesus is speaking in code and this should probably be understood as part of the literature of the oppressed. You speak in code when you are not safe just say what you really think. We know that the One in verse 5 (who throws people in hell) is not God because in verse six Jesus name’s God as the one who care about every sparrow.

Jesus often had to speak in code, almost with a wink to his listener, and it’s easy to imagine a Roman century and standing just offscreen keeping an eye on the group that was listening to Jesus. There is so much more that could be said on this topic but I think it would benefit you greatly when you read a parable to ask if the person in power–whether that is a land owner, strongman, the one, etc. – is more likely Cesar character or God. If you make every powerful person in a parable a god character you end up creating a monstrous, even demonic, two-faced and violent character.

If you see ‘the one’ and automatically think ‘God’ you get the exact 100% wrong lesson out of this text. Jesus names god in verse 6 as one who cares about each one. Why would he not have name ‘him’ in verse 5? Because the ‘him’ in verse 5 is not god – it is a contrast to the caring God.

Conclusion:

We can do this same careful kind of reading for the genres of history, epic tales, poetry, proverbs, drama (such as Job and Jonah), prophetic writings, apocalyptic, and epistles. By honoring the genre that a work is written in and by reading slowly without assuming that we already understand the point ahead of time, we allow the text to speak in its own voice and actually negate some of the odder, uglier, and more confusing parts of the Bible that people often find so troubling and distasteful.

I could give you 50 examples of how this is true. One of my favorites is in Hebrews 9:22 (without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins) which actually is saying the exact opposite thing of the point that it is frequently quoted to mean. We could do this for the story of Abraham sacrificing Isaac or the book of Revelation or more than 80% of the famous passages of scripture that we read outside of their genre.

Genre really matters when it comes to reading the Bible. Which leads perfectly into our next chapter on interpreting texts: H is for Hermeneutics.

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Naming Whiteness

White normalcy works in silence by going unnamed.

When something doesn’t have a label, it can be assumed to be ‘normal’ or regular.

You can see another post about whiteness here: https://bosanders.wordpress.com/2020/06/04/whiteness-workshop/

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F if for Fideism (modified)

How do we know what we know about god?

There was a medieval theory about this which said that every word represented a concept which represented the reality it was trying to talk about. This triangle theory of knowledge was very popular and deeply formative to the way that we think about and talk about matters of faith.

So the triangle is: words – concepts – reality

Then, as always happens, somebody tried to simplify it and flattened it to be more of a straight line. Words represent the realities that they talk about. It was a case of over-simplifying to the point that the theory fell apart. Then a battle broke out: some became really aggressive in their critique and criticism while others became really defensive in their attempt to preserve The Faith.

Some groups tried to rescue the idea by being more nuanced and elaborate. Other continued to double-down in simplistic and literalists understandings. Some alternative schools of thought sprung up to try and get out of the either-or all-or-nothing game altogether.

Fideism is one of those alternative approaches and it is both tempting, and thus, a potentially dangerous development on the religious landscape for our lifetime.

Fideism: The view that matters of religious and theological truth must be accepted by faith apart from the exercise of reason. In its extreme, fideism suggests that the use of reason is misleading. Less extreme fideists suggest that reason is not so much misleading as it is simply unable to lead to truths about the nature of God and salvation.

  • Pocket Dictionary of Theological Terms (Kindle Locations 552-554).

Fideism has been around for a long time but it has taken on a new tenacity recently. There are several new schools of thought that we will cover in a moment, each of them has an element of ‘you won’t fully understand until you believe’ or ‘what we have (or have been given) is a self-contained unit and really only works if you play the game by its rules”. 

The 19th Century was a tough one for ‘reasoned faith’. Those bastions that survived into the 20th Century were not left unaltered. In fact, since WWII the effect of those descended from who Paul Ricoeur dubbed ‘The Master of Suspicion’ – Freud, Nietzsche, and Marx (some add Darwin) –  has grown and intensified.

Another way of saying this is that the fields of psychology, philosophy, sociology, and science have deeply impacted the way that faith and religion was understood in the latter half of the 20th century. It is almost as if the pressure created by the work of these Masters of Suspicion was building up in the 19th century and was unleashed with the events of the early part of the 20th century. 

The two merged into a storm of doubt and decline that has yet to end in our current situation. 

Think about how much changed from just 1900 to now .

From Pentecostal revival that started in 1906, to the great depression, the World Wars, the Civil Rights movement, television, Watergate, Vietnam, the Cold War, cable TV, Monica Lewiski, Y2K, September 11th, the internet, and the first iPhone in 2007. In that 101 years from the Azusa Street revival to the iPhone … think about how much psychology, sociology, philosophy, and science changed and changed how we think about things – how we conceive of them, interpret them, and participate in them.

Understandably, part of ‘reasoned faith’ is that it had to adjust and modify. It had to account for new data (scientific and sociological) and, more importantly, it had to stop playing by its own rules.

The rules of engagement changed. Faith no longer got a free pass. The ‘church’ was no longer running the uni-versity. Fields like science had grown up since the Copernican revolution were no longer afraid of the church – and began to act like they were running the show now.

Psychology asked why we did things. Sociology questioned the venue in which we did them. Philosophy examined what was behind those things in the first place. Science explored the means by which we did them and expanded our ability to do them.

Not only had the rules of the game changed, the game itself was changing.

Modern Christianity had to choose between:

  • Fight
  • Flight
  • Concede
  • or Adjust-Adapt-Evolve

A subtle form of this impulse toward fideism is simply to speak of ‘Non-Overlapping Magisterium”. Science and reason take care of their areas and faith takes care of its area.

Those who take this impulse further retreat into what Wittgenstein would call ‘private language games’. They take on a formal defense of the given-ness of faith say that faith doesn’t have to be reasonable. Those two things are just speaking different languages and that science of reason doesn’t even have the ability to understand what faith is doing. That is why neither can even provide a critique let alone a correction. Religion is thus except from an investigation-integration from outside.

I would argue that what we believe in private has massive implication for how we participate in the public arena. In our present societal unrest what folks believe in private really does impact how that participate in public.

I have found it very useful to multiply the categories from 2 to 4 so that we talk about the:

  1. Private
  2. Personal
  3. Public
  4. Political

It is helpful to expand the existing categories to reflect more of how actually think about and engage in matters of faith and politics.

This is why we have to care about fideism. I understand the desire to preserve the past and stake out ones territory for the given-ness of the tradition. It is a way of protecting what is deeply valued and – let’s be honest – in grave danger.

Those who are attracted to fideism look at the evolution of their religion and the disappearance of treasured practices and think “I don’t even recognize this contemporary mutation as the same thing that we inherited from those who came before!”

… and that might be true. But we live in a world come of age and The Faith both needs to and is bound to change.

Here are what seem to be the 3 biggest temptations for modern Christianity:

  • to concede
  • to attack
  • to retreat

Concede

Faith as a public matter has never been more challenging. The easiest response is to both personalize ones faith and then make it private. This is a two-step dance but either is dangerous on its own.

Personalizing faith is a natural response for an Enlightenment Individual. We major in ‘self’. We have cultivated the ability to think in ‘me’. This is a novel development in religion and some argue that it is against the very nature of religion! The purpose of religion is to bind us together in practice (re-ligio) or reconnect us as a belief-community.

The second step is to internalize one’s personal faith. In liberal democracy, no one cares if you believe something – just keep it to yourself. Don’t put it on someone else. Your personal practice in there or over there is one thing … just don’t make too big of a deal about out here. Out here we have a civil expectation of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. If your religion helps as a means to those ends, fine. If not, it might become an issue of you infringe on someone else right. Go ahead and practice your ‘tradition’ on your own time but just keep it down when you’re out here in public.

The modern expression of Christianity has responded to this two-step dance in many little ways – my favorite of which is consumeristic-accessorization. The bumper sticker on my interal-combustion automobile and the fashionable yet ironic message T that imitates a popular ad campaign are just two examples. It allows me to allude to a Bible verse (I am not of the world after all) while participating in a capitalist system that goes unquestioned.

Attack

To counter the personal-and-internal compromise noted above, an aggressive and external coup has been attempted. The memory of Christendom has fueled a political response to take back power and ‘return to our roots’. The rise of the Religious Right (and Moral Majority) of the past four decades is perhaps the most high-profile example. It is, however, just the latest incarnation of this impulse.

 

The fond (and white-washed) memories of days gone by and yesteryear fuel an anger at what is seen as a disintegrating culture and a slouching toward Gomorrah. The resulting Culture Wars and political animosity have a fundamental problem however:

Ever since the Constantinian compromise in the 4th century is has been difficult (if not impossible) to get the Bible to say what one needs it to say in order to justify a claim to power.

A religion founded on the teaching of a marginalized prophet and incubated in persecuted minority communities does not lend itself to being in charge. An incredible amount of selective editing, creative hermeneutics and mental gymnastics are required to make it fit. At some point a voice comes along and points out that ‘this is untenable’.

Retreat

The above two responses are both simpler and more obvious (and thus more popular) than our last response. The retreat is more subtle and sophisticated. There is great concern about a school of thought that seeks to move the Christian tradition toward an “autonomous and protected location”.

A seductive temptation is found in an attempt to preserve former (historic) expressions of the faith behind linguistic fences (insulated language games) and communities that become isolated silos. These “are really retreats into forms of fideism or ‘protective strategies’ that seek ways of interpreting theological discourse so as to preserve its unique status.” [1]

Those who follow this line of reasoning contend that theology is not properly about ascertaining indubitable truth claims about God or reality, nor about fathoming the depths of human subjectivity; rather, the task is to analyze and explicate the fundamental claims about reality and human life that have emerged within a specific tradition, so that believers might more fully appropriate and live out of their tradition’s vision of reality.

It becomes a:

“self-enclosed historical community; its method is interpretive, not critical; and its goal is to aid in the internalization of central claim, not the critique or reconstruction of that which we have inherited.”

You can see the attraction of the retreat! By privileging “revelation” or the “given-ness” of the tradition, one is afforded the space to preserve and defend an inherited system which immune for outside critique and thus preserved in its ‘as is’ status.

This romantic preservation and reclamation mistakenly – and perhaps intentionally – defends and protects manifestations and consequences that we not only need to move on from but that it is impossible to return to.

[1] The Post-Liberal work of Lindbeck and the Radical Orthodoxy camp of Milbank and MacIntyre are in danger of this.

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E is for Empire (modified)

E is for Empire in the ABC’s of (modified) Theology.

Em·pire.      /ˈemˌpī(ə)r/

noun

an extensive group of states or countries under a single supreme authority, formerly especially an emperor or empress.

Christian thought, belief, and practice, “suffers from an imperial condition” according to Catherine Keller in her chapter in PostColonial Theology. That is eye-opening news to many people who claim to be ‘Bible-believing’.

We live in an odd time in N. America where those who love, quote, and believe in the Bible most deeply happen to be the least aware of the Bible’s concern with and critique of Empire. What is fascinating to me is that those who are most unaware of the nature of the American Empire (imperial policies and practices) are also those who claim to take the Bible the most seriously.

Whenever this subject comes up, without exception someone will question, ‘how can this be so?”, and others will say, “what are you making such a big deal about?”

Here is how it works: The biblical narrative details many empires – all of whom have a devastating effect on the people of God.

The Exodus narrative, the Babylonian captivity, and the Roman occupation are all examples of Empire. The Bible is through-and-through saturated with imperialism and the disastrous effects that it has on the people of God. This includes enslavement, genocide, military occupation, oppressive taxation burdens, displacement, tyranny, and limitations on religion to name a few.

This is where it gets tough: Moses, Daniel, and Jesus all suffered (and subsequently overcame) imperial regimes. The Bible is saturated with themes of ‘empire’ and resistance. The problem is that those who are most embedded in the Empire are the most unaware of this theme and may have no idea that the Bible that they value so much has anything to say about the issue what so ever!

If you do not take into account the themes of ‘empire / imperialism’ then the Bible reads a certain way which allows you to be complicit in the current American imperial impulse and actually believe that you are serving the Kingdom of God by participating in those structures. The shocker is when you find out that Moses, Daniel, and Jesus were on the underbelly of the beast and were figures of resistance seeking to undermine the established order – the systems, structures, and institutions of repression and containment.

This information can be eye-opening!

There is not a single part of the New Testament that is not haunted by the shadow of empire and imperial domination. One might as well not even read the Gospels or the Book of Revelation outside of this lens! In fact, it is impossible to talk about the cross of Christ or Paul’s letter to the Romans without a thorough understanding of empire.

Take a minute and think about what a cross was – an instrument of intimidation and public terror reserved for those who threatened that stability of the empire (like sedition). It was tool of spectacle meant to scare the masses into compliance and submission. To paraphrase Philip Yancey in The Jesus I Never Knew : Jesus didn’t get crucified because he told people to be nice to each other.  No, he was a threat to the delicate balance of power that Rome and the Jewish viceroys were attempting to hold together by a thin thread.

I might go as far as to say that empire and imperial pressures dominate and dictate every facet of the Bible and especially the New Testament.

It is concerning then that those who claim to take the Bible the most seriously (or least read it the most) may know the least about this aspect of its original context … and this blind spot may lead those same people to be most complicit and supportive to the current role that their nationalistic government plays in the world.

Even a cursory glance at the history of empire reveals that empires have often been justified and supported by theological means. Already at the time of Jesus the Romans could rely on a well-organized theology of empire that was able to assimilate other theologies to varying degrees – even those that would appear rather incompatible, such as traditional Jewish theologies of places like Palestine. 

  • Joerg Rieger  in “Christ & Empire: From Paul to Postcolonial Time”

Think about the difficulty you would have if you do not see the role that Egypt, Babylon, and Rome played in the Biblical narrative. By what lens would be able to see the role that post-Cold War foreign policy played in global affairs or that America plays in the global ‘War on Terror’?

It would be difficult if not impossible.

Let’s come at this a different way.

The people of God have frequently been oppressed and dominated.

Scripture tells us of their resistance and deliverance.

Empire is coercive, violent, controlling of nearly everything it its radius. Domination is actually the modus operandi of imperial regimes. The methods are predictable:

  • Road blocks
  • Security checks
  • Boarders
  • Prisons
  • War
  • Surveillance
  • Control

The Bible testifies to this and provides tools for resistance. Read the stories in the book of Daniel, the parables of Jesus, or the apocalyptic rhetoric in the book of Revelation and you have a manual to interrogate, undermine, and subvert the coercive and dominating powers of empire. 

The great irony of history is that so many Bible believing people both don’t know this and ,then, subsequently participate (even complicity) in the continuation of this oppressive system.

The Bible tells us that Moses, Daniel, and Jesus all suffered under imperial oppression. We need to make sure that we don’t use the Bible to defend or extend any Nationalistic/ Empire ambitions in the world that we live in via the systems that we participate in and support.

One possible starting point is found in our translation of ‘Basileia tou Theou’ (Βασιλεία τοῦ Θεοῦ) into English. This phrase is almost always brought in as The Kingdom of God. This translation is problematic at many levels.

The primary problem is that it in no way carries the counter-imperial element of Jesus’ life and teaching. It would be more accurate to translate it as:

  • The Un-kingdom
  • The Counter-kingdom
  • The Anti-kingdom
  • The Upside-down government

Perhaps the most profound alternative in to speak of a Kin-dom. This kin-dom conveys that we are all god’s children and that we relate to each other as related-ones. We are connected in profound and meaningful ways. Kin-dom language also gets rid of the problematic masculine language of ‘king’ and the hierarchy embedded in kingdom imagery. It is much needed upgrade for the alternate translation of Greek word βασιλεία, (‘basileia’) instead of the classic (and

problematic) ‘kingdom’.

Some thinkers have toyed with the idea of leaving such certain rich and nuanced words/concepts untranslated into English like we do with agape in Greek or Selah in the Hebrew psalms. It provides a novel element and may loan it an air of mystery or exotic foreignness.

There is much work being done with translations such as:

  • Economy of God
  • Reign and rule
  • Commonwealth
  • Government, etc.

Some of these mayprovide a helpful way forward. Though it may be argued that some convey many of the same associations with the intrinsic hierarchy, coercion, and domination that it incongruent with the love of God revealed in Christ.

In the end, I have circled around again and again to the kin-dom of God. It signifies that we are all interrelated (kin) and that as family, we are relationally constituted. Our related-ness is our prominent characteristic. What defines us? Our connection to the divine/transcendent/reality “in whom we live and move and have our being” (Acts 17:28).

A helpful advocate is found in the work of Ada Maria Isasi­Diaz’s “Solidarity: Love of Neighbor in the 21s t Century” in Lift Every Voice: Constructing Christian Theologies

from the Underside. It resonates with so many scriptural themes, including Romans 8:15 and Galatians 4:6 when that talk about the inner witness of God’s spirit in our spirit that we have been adopted and are children of God. [1]

There are many reasons to be concerned/critical of ‘the kingdom’ translation. There are so many objectionable aspects to it, including when Americans seem to romanticize foreign monarchy and the imperial ideal of domination. What role or function is being accomplished in this romanticized obsession.

The past couple of years there has been an resurgent theme in Christian books and materials which are centered around King or Kingdom themes. Tim Keller, NT Wright, Scott McKnight,  and Rob Reimer have all produced bestseller that doubled down on this phenomenon.  While its appeal may be understandable at one level – a return the imagined or romanticized past – one has to be careful that Christianity’s future is not found in Europe’s past.

Jesus didn’t speak English, so there is nothing sacred about the translation ‘kingdom’. In fact, the more one examines the merit of the kin-dom translation, the clearer it communicates the virtue and the loving relational characteristic that Jesus modeled and taught. 

Regardless of how these words and concepts get translated into English, the greater concern is that people of faith are aware of how the systems and structures of power continue to employ mechanism of control and violence that oppress and dominate. As people of faith, and especially those who claim to follow Christ, it is important that utilize the resources provided us in the Bible to interrogate, undermine, and subvert the unjust systems of power in our world. We have been given this precedent and this permission by Jesus.

For further examination:

Beyond the Spirit of Empire – Rieger, Sung, Miguez

Colonialism, Han, and the Transformative Spirit – Grace Ji Sun Kim

Arrogance of Nations: Paul and Empire – Neil Elliott

God and Empire – John Dominic Crossan  

Jesus and Empire – Richard Horsley

New Testament and Empire – Warren Carter  

[1] David Harstkoetter tells us that: “She skillfully argued that the gracious, salvific work of God, through love of the neighbor, entails solidarity characterized by interconnectivity—namely commonality and mutuality. … Yet, rather than describe solidarity as God’s ‘kingdom,’ a term that Isasi­Díaz names as sexist and is in the contemporary context “hierarchical and elitist,” she instead uses the term “kin­dom” to emphasize that the eschatological community will be a family: “kin to each other.” p. 89 in Getting Back to Idolatry Critique: Kingdom, Kin­dom, and the Triune Economy.

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Just Politics

edited for clarity: theology section in the middle has been removed. Now a 5 min video just about politics. Read yesterday’s post here: https://bosanders.wordpress.com/2020/09/10/when-liberal-is-the-only-alternative/

I am intrigued when someone accuses me of being a liberal. What that tells me is that they only have two options in their mind, and I am clearly not conservative. They have no larger framework to understand that what I am actually outside of their spectrum all together (social constructivist).

What is helpful to understand is that our contemporary political ‘spectrum’ is actually a very small slice of a much bigger historical spectrum.

We live in the shadow of the Enlightenment which prioritized the individual. We are all, basically, at this point individualist – unless we come from a culture that is more communal or familial in its orientation.

What we call ‘conservative’ is a actually conservative individualists (which is a type of liberalism) and what we call ‘liberal’ is just a slightly more liberal individualist. We speak in a sort of shorthand: ‘conservatives’ are really conservative liberals and ‘liberals’ are liberal-liberals.

I always encourage people, when given an either/or binary of options, to find a third alternative to help clarify the skewed picture. In this case you might think of Libertarians. Libertarians, however, are actually extreme individualists and in sense are just radical liberals.

What I would want people to see is that a better alternative is more of a Communitarian approach that understands both the interdependent nature of our social fabric and the way that we are all enscripted (or conscripted) into a society with its expectations, behaviors, language, practices, beliefs, and narratives.

Now to be clear, I am very concerned about the embedded hierarchies, and specifically, patriarchy, built into communitarianism but I still think that it is a better option than the atomized individual that is plaguing every aspect of our culture right now.

What I am interested in is a radical democracy – not this thing we have now of representative democracy where our law-makers are beholden to special interest lobbies and big money. No, I actually want people to have equity (if not equality) in the system and for then to have actual say in their communities, workplaces, and institutions.

What may surprise you is that this politic actually comes from my theology – specifically my ecclesiology. I view Pentecost as the decentering and democratization of God’s presence in the world. My view of the church is an empowerment model of mutuality, participation, and accountability.

Anyway, back the subject at hand. When we don’t know that all of our political options and arguments are actually centered on an individualism that foreign to the world of our sacred scriptures and then we try to import and impose our liberal (be they conservative, liberal, or radical) expectations on them, we will always be unsatisfied and impotent. We are trying to manipulate the variables in a equation that does not have any of the givens we are looking for and have learned to count on. It is just not there.

This anachronism (from the Bible) and amnesia (from the Enlightenment) leaves us in wasteland of polarization and arguments that are irreconcilable because  they are inherently incompatible. This is why no election result this fall will fix what ails us – the cancer that plagues us in individualism which is baked into the bread of our system whether you fall on the conservative, liberal, centrist, or radical wings of that spectrum.

Moving toward a communal understanding, or communitarian approach, which prioritizes cooperation, compromise, mutuality, collaboration, and gifting (grace) is the only hope we have of getting out of this cultural morass.

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When Liberal Is The Only Alternative

I am intrigued when someone accuses me of being a liberal. What that tells me is that they only have two options in their mind, and I am clearly not conservative. They have no larger framework to understand that what I am actually outside of their spectrum all together (social constructivist).

What is helpful to understand is that our contemporary political ‘spectrum’ is actually a very small slice of a much bigger historical spectrum.

We live in the shadow of the Enlightenment which prioritized the individual. We are all, basically, at this point individualist – unless we come from a culture that is more communal or familial in its orientation.

What we call ‘conservative’ is a actually conservative individualists (which is a type of liberalism) and what we call ‘liberal’ is just a slightly more liberal individualist. We speak in a sort of shorthand: ‘conservatives’ are really conservative liberals and ‘liberals’ are liberal-liberals.

I always encourage people, when given an either/or binary of options, to find a third alternative to help clarify the skewed picture. In this case you might think of Libertarians. Libertarians, however, are actually extreme individualists and in sense are just radical liberals.

What I would want people to see is that a better alternative is more of a Communitarian approach that understands both the interdependent nature of our social fabric and the way that we are all enscripted (or conscripted) into a society with its expectations, behaviors, language, practices, beliefs, and narratives.

Now to be clear, I am very concerned about the embedded hierarchies, and specifically, patriarchy, built into communitarianism but I still think that it is a better option than the atomized individual that is plaguing every aspect of our culture right now.

What I am interested in is a radical democracy – not this thing we have now of representative democracy where our law-makers are beholden to special interest lobbies and big money. No, I actually want people to have equity (if not equality) in the system and for then to have actual say in their communities, workplaces, and institutions.

What may surprise you is that this politic actually comes from my theology – specifically my ecclesiology. I view Pentecost as the decentering and democratization of God’s presence in the world. My view of the church is an empowerment model of mutuality, participation, and accountability.

For me this is the power of the liturgical calendar from Christmas to Easter and on to Pentecost which leads to ‘normal time’. Normal time is the result of that narrative. In the incarnation God identifies with humanity. In the crucifixion the scapegoat is sacrificed and then God vindicates the victim. In Pentecost you have the dissemination of God’s spirit which is no longer contained with man-made temples since the curtain between heaven and earth was torn in two.

Side note:  the silly either/or binary of a physical resurrection and a ‘spiritual’ one is the result of imposing our Enlightenment rationality back onto a premodern narrative (anachronistic) which is the most liberal thing I have seen. Jesus’ was neither a ghost nor a zombie – but had a glorified body. Read the story. Enter in to the narrative. He could both walk through walls and disappear but also bore the scars of his suffering and execution, and could be touched. He looked enough like himself the disciples could recognize something about him but was different enough that the mistook him for a gardener or fellow traveler. His glorified body was not the reanimation of a corpse but a glorified body that teaches us about new creation. The round and round debate about resurrection in an Enlightenment problem that will never go away because it is debating a set of expectations that the gospel itself has no interest in mediating.

Anyway, back the subject at hand. When we don’t know that all of our political options and arguments are actually centered on an individualism that foreign to the world of our sacred scriptures and then we try to import and impose our liberal (be they conservative, liberal, or radical) expectations on them, we will always be unsatisfied and impotent. We are trying to manipulate the variables in a equation that does not have any of the givens we are looking for and have learned to count on. It is just not there.

This anachronism (from the Bible) and amnesia (from the Enlightenment) leaves us in wasteland of polarization and arguments that are irreconcilable because  they are inherently incompatible. This is why no election result this fall will fix what ails us – the cancer that plagues us in individualism which is baked into the bread of our system whether you fall on the conservative, liberal, centrist, or radical wings of that spectrum.

Moving toward a communal understanding, or communitarian approach, which prioritizes cooperation, compromise, mutuality, collaboration, and gifting (grace) is the only hope we have of getting out of this cultural morass.

1

C is for Christology (modified)

Sometimes people will try to correct a swearing friend by pointing out that Christ is not Jesus’ last name. Those who employ this gentle chide may not understand exactly how theologically important their little quip is.

Christology is one of those topic where my initial excitement is quite high and then it drops rapidly the more I get into it. The first 10 minutes of the ride or fantastic but the longer it goes on The less enjoyable and helpful I find it. In baking, the more you need the dough the less appetizing it gets.

Part of the difficulty in the situation is the binary categorization that has come to us throughout history.

  • Divine/Human
  • Jesus/Christ
  • Unique/Particular
  • Type/Degree
  • High/Low
  • From Above/From Below

Having said that, Christology is another epic topic that, like atonement and baptism before it, has everything that we are looking in our journey though these ABC’s of theology: the perspectives are diverse, the topic is inherently multifaceted, different views have developed over time, many of those view has changed or adapted over time, and there is contemporary work being done on the subject. Christology can also be contention.

You can read the rest in the PDF:

c-is-for-christology-modifiedDownload

When people ask me what I believe about Jesus I try to say something like:

Jesus was a unique human. Jesus was fully human in the way that we all are human with one slight difference that makes him special. Like many of us, Jesus was open to the presence of God in his life. Jesus, however, was open to God’s presence in his life to a degree that only a few other humans have ever been. This meant that God’s presence in his life began to actually form his character and allowed him to say something that not many others can: “I and the father are one – if you have seen me you have seen the father” (John 14:9).

What makes Jesus truly unique however was not this openness – for other exemplars have been this open to what God was calling them to be – what makes Jesus unique is what God called him to be: messiah for the whole world.

This approach recognizes that Jesus was unique in human history in that:

  1. Jesus shows us something unique about God
  2. God was present with Jesus in a unique way that comprised Jesus’ identity and character.

It avoids the dangerous temptation to say that Jesus was not fully human, only appeared human, or was a different kind of human. It also allows us to embrace Jesus as a model for full-humanity (to the Nth degree) and openness to God’s calling in our own lives.

At some point we will have to address the evolution from Jesus’ religion to a religion about Jesus. That is a tricky and complicated conversation, but I have seen it bear good fruit for those who are will to wrestle with it.

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