About a year ago I figured out that if I didn’t put a moratorium on talking politics, that it was all we would ever talk about.
So I implemented a 1-hour prohibition on saying the ‘T’ word in our gatherings. It has a made a huge difference.
Here is a short (5 min) video
The events of September 11th, 2001 has transformed our society in powerful ways.
One of the lingering effects has been the constant state of emergency. Certain policies were put into place in the days following 9/11 and they continue without any sign of being reconsidered or retracted.
We live in a perpetual state of emergency.
It is why so many of us feel exhausted, agitated, suspicious, and resigned.
The ‘patriot act’ has become a surveillance society. Torture has become ‘enhanced interrogation techniques’. We are still in two wars with no end in sight. The current administration seems to pick fights with our formerly friendly neighbors and allies.
I wrote the below several years ago but the news this week prompted me to edit it and re-post it. I hope you find it helpful.
“Sovereign is he who decides on the exception” is a sentence by Carl Schmitt that introduces ‘political theology’. That word ‘exception’ is a key to understanding what is going on in our nation right now.
In the last four centuries ‘sovereignty’ has shifted from:
In that same work, Schmitt also says that “All significant concepts of the modern theory of the state are secularized theological concepts.”‘
The State* now has both the ceremony (pledge of allegiance – national anthem at all sporting events, etc.) and the power (exclusive claim to foreign and domestic violence).
The State, and those who defend it – whether police or military – have the power of exception. It is important to understand it that:
Citizens who are upset are not permitted to be violent. They must protest in an orderly and civilized manner.
The police/riot-squad/ military are seemingly allowed to escalate and utilize violence because they have the exception of the state behind them.
We are not all playing by the same rules. Citizens have an asymmetrical relationship with the State when it comes to violence.
It is vital here to understand the insight of Max Weber when he talks about the State’s monopoly on violence. The link explains that:
“Weber describes the state as any organization that succeeds in holding the exclusive right to use, threaten, or authorize physical force against residents of its territory. Such a monopoly, according to Weber, must occur via a process of legitimation.”
Violence is a one-sided relationship. The State – and those who act on its behalf – may behave in violent ways because it will always be construed as exceptional.
Bonnie Honig, in Emergency Politics, says “The state of exception is that paradoxical situation in which the law is legally suspended by sovereign power.”
The problem is that we now live in a permanent state of emergency.
September 11, 2001 ushered in a state of perpetual exception. This applies to racial profiling, police brutality, State surveillance of its citizenry in the NSA – to name only a few.
When people are scared they willingly sacrifice their freedom and privacy in exchange for safety. The State benefits from a frightened population and people are more willing to accept the exceptional violence and excessive forced used by law enforcement. They are more likely to turn a ‘blind-eye’ or call them ‘isolated incidents’ and claim that they are being ‘blown out of proportion’.
A population is more willing to view as exceptional the excessive tactics and escalation of violence precisely because we now live in a permanent state of exception (or emergency).
What do we do now, however, when communities are not sure they are being protected by the police and in fact need protection from the police?
In his eighth thesis on the philosophy of history, Walter Benjamin says:
“The tradition of the oppressed teaches us that the ‘state of emergency’ in which we live is not the exception but the rule. We must attain to a conception of history that is in keeping with this insight. Then we shall clearly realize that it is our task to bring about a real state of emergency.” (1968)
I hear people asking about the current protests, “What are they hoping to accomplish?”
One thing they could accomplish is to create a real sense of emergency that will call into question in the larger American conscience a question about the permanent state of exception that has crept in over the past decades. The supposed ‘war on terror’ and ‘war on drugs’ are but two examples of this.
None of us want to live in a police state.
No one I know wants to live in a state of fear.
That it why we must question the exceptional violence and emergency politics that have become too normalized and quietly accepted in our society.
The people are raising their voice in protest of this exceptional violence.
_______________________
* I will be capitalizing ‘State’ to illustrate its elevated and exceptional status.
** I know four people in law enforcement and they are all amazing, loving, kind, people. My concern is about a larger mechanism in our society.
For a powerful response to Schmitt, see Paul Kahn’s Political Theology: Four New Chapters On the Concept Of Sovereignty
This week I want to offer a 4-part series that addresses some issues behind the current state of affairs.
People are concerned about what they see happening right now. There are geographic divisions that seem increasingly pronounced. There are generational, political, and racial division that are inflamed at troubling levels. The news cycle, social media, and institutional corruption (banks, schools, churches, government, hospitals, Hollywood, Washington, etc.) provide a constant string of crisis and controversy.
Things seem to have escalated quite a bit in the past couple of years. Some people will say ‘every generation thinks things are chaotic and out of control’ and there is some evidence of that. However, we live in a unique era when there are the some distinct factors causing an intensification that is notable.
Change is a constant, we know that. Change at this rate, is not. We live in a time of exponential (not just incremental) change. It is no wonder that this environment breeds so much conflict and chaos.
One of the things that I would like to explore is the way that following 3 factors come together in a troubling way:
The connection between those three might not seem clear initially, but it is the way that they come together in the 21st century that is relevant for our conversation.
Consumerism is so assumed that it often goes unnamed. It is as if we are on automatic pilot. Buying things has become second nature. I know people who claim to be Christians who can go a whole day (or days) without praying but can’t go a day without making a purchase. Capitalism is the real religion of the West. [1]
Consumerism makes us individuals – or is it that individualism makes us consumers? … either way, we have exposed the root of the problem. Speaking a language, participating in an economy, procreating and raising the next generation, and nearly every other human activity is a communal enterprise that requires cooperation and mutuality. Individualism is a mental fiction we have been sold that fails us at nearly every turn.
Globalization has brought our communities into closer proximity than ever before. We have never had this much access to or contact with one-an-other. It almost doesn’t matter where you live anymore, you have access to goods from all over the world. In fact, you do business with, go to school with, and stand in line with people from all over the world. You may all have different religions, worldviews, or notions of community and belonging. We live in age of radical connection and proximity …. but maybe not overlap. And therein lies the problem for our concern this week.
Pluralism is then a relevant factor that completes our trio. As individuals whose communities are in great proximity to each other, we have to develop an approach to one-an-other.[2] Some of us feel like we have does this well. Which is why it is so baffling why it cause some of our fellow citizens so much agitation and even anger. ‘Difference doesn’t need to lead to division’ we say, and if attitude or acceptance was the only issue we might be right. The problem is that the first two ingredients to trio are the wood and gasoline that make our current environment so flammable. Attitude (or our approach) is just the spark that makes that situation combustible.
Here is the most important thing to understanding our current culture:
Our society is a set of fragments – leftover remainders – of previous expression that may not be compatible with other or newer expressions.
Again – our society is a set of fragments, leftover remainders, of previous expressions that may not be compatible with other or newer expressions. More on this tomorrow. The examples of this phenomenon are endless once you know what you are looking at. Think about religion, Christian denominations, theories of educations, economics, politics, nationality and race, pre-1975 military, for-profit prisons, policing strategies, parenting styles, marriage equality, even grammar and texting language.
Here is a picture that I want to utilize for this 4-part series. It is a piece by my neighbor Jeff and it really speaks to me.
Our circles (communities) have diversity and differentiation within them. Those circles are in close proximity to each other and are even connected … but without overlapping. They are not integrated. They do not bleed into each other. They are distinct from one-an-other.
What makes this proximity profound is that the newer circles are smaller and bolder but are foregrounded on other circles that are faded but still present. Those larger circles are older and not as pronounced but influential. They haunt the work. They are ghosts and shadows to the primary feature. They are echoes of the past who still exert their voice. Their influence has faded but their effect still remains. The current configuration and focus wouldn’t make sense without them.
Tomorrow we talk about the nature of these remaining fragments and how people who think about such things differ on the subject.
_____________________________
[1] There are so many great books on this, including For The Common Good by Daly and Cobb and What Money Can’t Buy by Sandel. I would also recommend the non-academic book The Suburban Christian by Hsu.
[2] I find this way of writing it helpful. It may seem clumsy at first but it will bear fruit later in the series.
With the news of Paul Ryan’s ouster of the House Chaplin [link], I have found myself referencing Christianism: Dangers of Frankenstein Christianity from 2 years ago.
I have lots of new readers and a whole new congregation since then so I decided to re-post it. It goes well with Being A Different Way In The World – you can listen to it here [link].
When Sarah Palin said that water-boarding was how we baptized terrorist, it was a turning point for my understanding of faith and the role it plays in our culture. I don’t know if I was more offended because of my hatred of torture (or ‘enhanced-interrogation techniques’) or my love of baptism and what it represents as a central expression of the faith. Baptism is how we who believe demonstrate that we accept the death-to-self and enter into the life-of-Christ.
I had been asking this question ever since Rumsfeld/Cheney put Bible verses on the covers of their Iraq war briefings to President Bush. That is how I learned about things like ‘master signifiers’, which are symbols such as ‘Christianity’ that have become detached from the meaning that they were originally anchored to. They are un-tethered from the history that originally gave them meaning.
Christianism is disconnected from the faith and tradition that gave it birth. When you see or hear something under the banner of ‘Christian’ that does not seem to reflect the example of Jesus or the teaching of Christ … you may have wandered into the wilderness of Christianism. It uses all the same words that you know … but in foreign and contradictory ways.
Christianism is several degrees removed from the teaching and example of Jesus. It begins in the formation/formalizing of those things (one degree) – then it takes on an authoritarian/hierarchical structure (two degrees) – then, and this is the big one, it is married to power (government/military) so now we are three degrees from the origin. This new orientation becomes solidified/codified as a thing that has its own identity: “Christian” becomes a category by which you can know who is in and who is out – the saved and the lost (fourth degree). This is where bad things done by ‘good people’ can be justified as being beneficial to ‘the cause’ or ‘our side’.
The final stage is when ‘Christian’ is an identity that helps to distinguish us (in-group) from others, NOT depending on ones obedience to the central tenants, following the teachings of the founders, or even knowledge of the distinctions that signify identity to the group. At this point the signifier ‘Christian’ is no longer anchored to anything that it was originally grounded in and no longer connected to the very thing that gave it life and health. ‘Christian’ becomes a floating signifier and is un-tethered from its proverbial mooring (fifth degree).
We are watching a ‘historical drift’. This is how Sarah Palin can say that water-boarding is how we baptize terrorist. This one statement has it all! We are the in-group. We do this to people with unilateral/coercive power. It is then connected to sacred/holy acts. And finally, we assume that we are doing God’s work when we do things that are opposite/counter to the example of what we say is the incarnation/revelation of our very God.
When something is this far (5 degrees) away from its original intent, folks can start to ask, “how is this connected to that?” The generous/gracious response is ‘loosely’. The concerned response is ‘they are not connected’. The critical response is ‘it is counter to the origin’.
When you add an ‘ism’ to anything it is in danger of becoming a Frankenstein creature that takes on a monstrous life of its own. Examples of this in the U.S. context involve:
These have all become master signifiers that identify an in/out boundary but which no longer re-present the original meaning they once stood for. Our world is full of markers/groups/identities/labels that are so far from what they originally meant that they are not longer tied (tethered) to the thing that used to anchor them.
My concern is that ‘Christian’ no longer signifies one who follows Christ and has instead become an ‘ism’ that designates an us/them distinction that has nothing to do with the teachings or model of Jesus. I get why people are being inventive and using ‘Christ-follower’ or attempting to follow ‘the way of Jesus’. Cynics will mock all they want, but if these innovative monikers are an attempt to protest or defy the ‘ism’ of the dominant expression … I say we ask more questions instead of making snarky and dismissive comments.
They might be onto something.
Interesting uses of Christianism started appearing between 2003-2005
Perhaps the most important theme that has developed for me in 2017 is the ongoing realization that there is no neutral position. This has been with me conceptually for the past decade but the seminary classroom has made it less abstract.
One of the great challenge and great opportunities of the multi-denominational seminary is that students come in with layers of experiences, perspectives, loyalties, and insights. They do not come in as clean slates or blank canvases. We never start from scratch (thank God).
Training for ministry does not happen in a vacuum. It happens some where and some when. That is why yesterday I wrote that truth is not dead, it just needs to be understood as situated.
This is a big revelation and a potential stumbling block for some! Truth and meaning do not materialize out of thin air – they are constructed socially. The realization that our access to truth is partial, provisional, and perspectival comes with some profound implications.
Meaning, then, is correspondingly understood to be:
Meaning is mediated because our understanding comes to us through inherited language, social constructs, and mental frameworks (paradigms).
Meaning is located because the same event or data may look very different or be interpreted differently by a different person in another place or time.
Meaning is contested because in a partial/perspectival understanding, no one interpretation gets a free ride or an automatic pass. Everything is up for review.
This realization can have a disrupting effect and can lead to disorientation. However, once it is embraced, there is a comforting peace that can settle in as knowledge of the world and claims within faith correspond more accurately to history and to the world as it really is.
Perhaps the two most significant implications are for the person who has been sold an ideology and for the perennial skeptic. Those two positions are tough to maintain in this new reality. There is no neutral (or exempt) position anymore. One does not simply get to sit back and poo-poo other’s perspective without providing an alternative. It is not sufficient to take shots at or poke holes in opinions that you disagree with.
Because our culture, and our understanding of truth, is so fractured … one has to make the claim or justify ones position in the arena of ideas or the court of public discourse. Nothing gets off scot-free, no idea gets a free ride, and no position is exempt from examination.
There is no neutral anymore. Inactivity reinforces the status quo and is, by default, taking a position.*
Two quick examples: theology and hair.
Whether the topic is women in ministry or speaking in tongues, it is not sufficient for the cynic to encounter a new perspective and simply say “I don’t know about that”. 20 or 40 years ago that may have worked, but it works no longer. If a young man wants to be skeptical after reading feminist theology or looking at charismatic excesses, he gets to do that, but he must bring something to the table in its stead. No longer can one take the privileged position of retreating to the way things are as a defense against engaging new ideas and challenging critiques.
This is a new reality that takes some adjustment. It can be uncomfortable for those who have been groomed or conditioned to succeed in the traditional way things have been.
Hair is an interesting example. It is not enough to make snarky comments about how trendy beards are without realizing that shaving in a social performance as well. One may feel free to criticize the money and attention that a women puts into her hair – but not doing your hair is a decision as well. For both men and women, shaving your legs and armpits are both political statements. For women of a certain age, coloring the gray and not coloring become an issue. A womanist friend of mine explained that African-American women can go-natural, use product, straighten or braid (among a myriad of other options) but they all make a statement (sometimes political) and that position will be reviewed and will likely be contested. There is no neutral.
Sir, you can criticize my expensive organic fair-trade cotton Tshirt, but your $4 Walmart knockoff sweatshop shirt or not wearing any shirt at all are both up for review as well.
Like it or not, the age of inactivity is over. Sitting in your house or protesting the government, cooking at home or going out to eat, buying nice furniture or going off the grid, having kids or using protection are all statements and they are all consequential.
*Academics might reference this as the nature of the hegemonic order. The 20th century saw the ability to presume the established order of things dissolve at every level. Economy, politics, military, ecology, morals, religion, civility, marriage, gender, sexuality, occupations and trades are just a few examples of categories that display this loss of fixed and stable assumptions.
Political Theology is a fascinating field that continues to become increasingly relevant in our interconnected post-9/11 world. One of my courses this semester is ‘Culture & Systems Change’ and part of the class is looking at the intersection of religion and politics.
In 1922, Carl Schmidt said that “all significant concepts of the modern theory of the state are secularized theological concepts.”[1] The remnants of so many of our former religious and royal forms were adopted and transformed in this novel expression of belonging and duty. Not only is the word sovereign borrowed directly from religious vocabulary, but as Paul Kahn explains: “The politics of the modern nation-state indeed rejected the church but simultaneously offered a new site of sacred experience.” [2]
It can be troubling to be made aware of these connections for the first time. Is it odd that God and Nation are both referred to as ‘sovereign’, to interpret the constitution like the inspired scriptures, to revere the founding fathers like the patriarchs, to preserve the flag as if the fabric itself was sacred and not just symbolic, or to demand participation in the national anthem before one can play a game?
If you are interested in this topic, I wanted to point you to 3 really interesting resources:
The first is a podcast interview with Paul Kahn from a CBC Ideas series called ‘The Myth of the Secular’. It is a 7 part series and Kahn is part 5.
The second is a great into book called Political Theology: A Guide for the Perplexed by Elizabeth Phillips.
The third is a new article Evangelicals and the End of Civic Religion by Alexandria Barbera in the Other Journal. She explains that:
“In terms of the more recent manifestations of evangelical politics, Lynerd defines republican theology as a political-theological doctrine that “asserts the mutual dependence of individual liberty, moral virtue, and Christian faith to support a civil religion that values all three.” However, a civil religion uses faith to sanctify politics, whereas political theology makes use of theology-based ethics to advance political causes. His use of the phrases political-theological doctrine and civil religion is key here, because it disrupts the prevailing evangelical narrative that political engagement is about duty to one’s faith and not about politics.
Although it may not be clear whether political evangelicalism is a civil religion, which is thus intrinsically political, or a theological system in which politics play a large role, Lynerd’s work foregrounds the explicit political character of right-wing evangelicalism. He reminds us that the alliance between evangelicalism and the American right is “not accidental,” taking on its current shape only in the twentieth century.”
Take at look/listen to those and let me know your thoughts!
_____________
[1] Paul W. Kahn, Political Theology: Four New Chapters on the Concept of Sovereignty, Reprint (Columbia University Press, 2012), location 37.
[2] Ibid., 360.
[3] CBC Ideas part 5
The MLK holiday provides a time to check in on the new year. I actually start getting ready for this question during Advent. Once we round the corner of Christmas day and I begin to take inventory of the past year in preparation for the New Year … I know that today is coming.
Each MLK holiday I ask myself how our society is doing with Dr. King’s triplets of evil: racism, materialism, and militarism.
I am currently reading “The End of White Christian America” and it reminded my of a post that I put up two years ago today. I thought I would share a part of it again:
The loss of my mother has caused me a nearly indescribable amount of pain. I have given great thought to changing the entire direction of ministry – it has to be about more than just helping people understand the Bible better or be a better person.
Dr. King’s ‘triplets of evil’ are alive and well in our world and impact us all everyday … but because they are embedded in larger structures they can hide from people’s awareness and so they need to be investigated, exposed, and subverted.
In honor of this holiday and my mother’s memory I want to say two things:
Now, as a christian minister I have chosen to stick with the gospel as I think that it provides the tools to do these two things.
On this MLK holiday I just wanted honor the legacy of a man and movement that has deeply impacted me and inspired my vision.
“We must rapidly begin the shift from a “thing-oriented” society to a “person-oriented” society. When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered.” Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
Politics is on everyone’s mind these days. I wanted to give you something a little different if you are tired of the daily dose of election news (recommendation is at the end of the post).
In ‘political theology’ there is a famous book by Carl Schmitt (four chapters on soverignty) and a more recent book (four new chapters – 2012) by Paul Kahn that updates and challenges the original. I have been thinking about this new work a lot recently.
God used to be thought of as ‘sovereign’, now we call nations ‘sovereign’. When did that shift happen? When did the sacred migrate to the state?
This shift or transfer developed in an age when revolution and political revolts were “destroying the legitimacy of the divinely-ordained, hierarchical dynastic realm.” [1] The dissolving social order of caste and class allowed for membership and participation by the population in a new way. To die for a religion (God) or a King was to reinforce that social order which established the hierarchical strata. Locating sovereignty within the conception of Nation – however dispersed and elusive – was a profound change.
In 1922, Carl Schmitt said that “all significant concepts of the modern theory of the state are secularized theological concepts.”[3] The remnants of so many of our former religious and royal forms were adopted and transformed in this novel expression of belonging and duty. Not only is the word sovereign borrowed directly from religious vocabulary, but as Paul Kahn explains:
“Political theology today is best thought of as an effort to describe the social imaginary of the political… (arguing) that secularization, as the displacement of the sacred from the world of experience, never won, even though the church may have lost. The politics of the modern nation-state indeed rejected the church but simultaneously offered a new site of sacred experience.” [4]
The church, often unwittingly, plays a role in validating and reinforcing the migration away from its seat of influence.
If Schmitt is right – even partially – then all of these similarities are neither trivial nor are they inconsequential.
If this whole concept interests you, please take a listen to an incredible podcast with Paul Kahn by CBC Ideas [link to podcast]. You can listen there or download the mp3.
You may also want to check out Kahn’s book (I have the kindle edition).
Let me know what you think.
__________________________
[1] Anderson, Imagined Communities, 8.
[3] Paul W. Kahn, Political Theology: Four New Chapters on the Concept of Sovereignty, Kindle location 37.
[4] p. 360.
I totally get the Trump thing.
Several years ago I read a book about people’s frustration with Washington and politics in general. The guy who wrote it is further out than Bernie Sanders. His name is Chris Hedges and the book is called ‘The Death of the Liberal Class’. It is an autopsy on our broken American system that explored the discouragement, anger and alienation that so many feel.
The past decade of congressional gridlock, filibusters over the debt ceiling, threats to shutdown the government and the citizen’s united ruling/’corporations are people’ debacle has been enough to discourage even someone like me who is only marginally political.
I have watch with great discomfort as the Tea Party has emerged chanting ‘we want our country back’ and I have been forced to learn what gerrymandering is. I get agitated when voting rights a repealed and am horrified when birther conspiracies and anti-Muslim sentiments are loudly broadcast.
I was one of those snobby-onlookers who chuckled at Trump’s opening escalator decent to his announcement with its Toby Keith style rhetoric and actors hired to fill out the ‘crowd’. It was not long before I came to realize that this was not your regular publicity stunt. There was something different about this one – even from the bombastic and inflammatory style of precursors like Ted Cruz, Michele Bachmann and Sarah Palin.
Keep in mind that on a good day I have to be careful not to pull a muscle rolling my eyes at staged theatrics and choreographed spectacle. I don’t have cable. I refuse to watch ‘reality TV’. I buy my organic-free range groceries at Sprouts. I bike to work most days. I brag about how long it has been since I shopped at Wal-Mart or ate at McDonalds. I listen to Democracy Now as I brew my single-region fair-trade coffee in a french-press.
I’m that guy.
I am also a public theologian with a propensity toward cultural criticism however. Last week I posted a 10 min video where I proposed that we live up against the end. I don’t mean ‘the end of the world’ or the End Times in a Left-Behind rapturous sort of way. I mean the end of this current configuration.
We are up against the end of some significant categories:
It is no surprise to me that we are in the moment of Trump. He is the perfect fusion of 3 significant areas: politics, economy, and entertainment. He is a billionaire media-personality who is largely funding his own campaign as an irreverent trash-talking outsider.
That equation makes perfect sense to me. It terrifies me but at least the trajectory lines up!
Take equal parts reality TV, Palin/Tea Party, Citizens United, anti-Obama backlash and the war on terror … stir it up and pour it over a healthy dose of frustration about ‘political correctness’ (aka being able to say what you want about people of other religions, races or sexualities) and serve it hot.
If you are interested in talking about a spent society and our cultural exhaustion, I would encourage you to watch the 10 min video and let me know what you think.
Seen through this lens, the Trump phenomenon makes total sense. He is not a ‘sign of the end’ but just one prominent symptom of a sickness hanging in the air.
the end
Bo Sanders: Public Theology 