Today, Mitt Romney was on the campaign trail and said that we cannot raise taxes to fix our budgetary problems. When someone suggested that we could raise taxes on corporations, Mr. Romney said, "corporations are people, my friend." See the relevant clip from his speech here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qQ8w4ZBXUbo.
The statement itself doesn't surprise me. The American gospel is that large corporations are what make our country great - they pay taxes, they provide people with jobs, and they are at the forefront of the innovation that made America great. What surprises me is that a representative of the American state, in an improvisational moment, actually spoke aloud the offensive position that corporations have attained the status of human beings.
What rights do these new human beings have? In a conflict between the rights of actual human beings and corporate human beings, who wins? I think we all know the answer.
This election season, I would like to propose a voter drive to elect Walmart, or McDonald's, or Halliburton to political office. What better way to make the gradual decay of individual rights, in order to make way for the depositories of vast wealth, explicit?
Exxon for Congress! Apple, Inc. for governor! Dupont for State Senate!
Showing posts with label radical. Show all posts
Showing posts with label radical. Show all posts
Thursday, August 11, 2011
Sunday, July 31, 2011
Symbolic actions for confronting the powers: Part II
In a previous article, I gave a list of symbolic actions that I found in a review of the prophetic books of the Bible, along with what these would look like if they were replicated in the 21st century. The purpose of this article is to provide a summary of symbolic actions as I have found them in the synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark and Luke; the book of John is not treated, as it is considered by most scholars to contain the least historical accuracy). Below, I continue this series of writings which will offer ideas for symbolic actions that followers of Jesus might use in a public square today, followed by the Biblical source of the idea in parentheses.
1. Public proclamations – As with my previous article, I begin this list with a few general ideas. The prophets and Jesus used symbolic actions to accompany a message, and delivered it in a public place where it would be heard by regular people, and interpreted by those representing the powers as a threat to the status quo. Therefore, it is important that symbolic actions be used to draw attention and memory to the message of God.
However, proclamations can be given without an accompanying symbolic action. As a previous article of mine suggests, the doctrine of satisfactionary atonement, to me, is an affront to social justice and the freedom to be found in relationship with God. Therefore, proclamation could include such things as calling christian radio stations to point out the reasons why atonement interpretations of Jesus’ execution pervert the Gospel’s message of the here-and-now kingdom of God, in favor of an angry god whose sole focus is on judgment and the afterlife.
A personal plan of mine is to sit outside of some fundamentalist churches on Sunday morning and hand out pamphlets about what the need to take our focus off of the afterlife, and to put our morals here on the ground. It’s time for progressive Christians to be more bold in proclaiming the Gospel as they see it! For too long, the right has been unapologetic about its message of fear of hell and honor of the empire, while the left has taken on the burden of being accommodating of all points of view. My reading of Jesus does not reveal a person who tried to create common ground of understanding when the opposing point of view was not conducive of his vision of justice and worth for the outcast. Be more courageous!
2. Consistent with John the Baptist’s use of baptism for repentance from our cooperation with cultural paradigms of violence in Luke 3, public baptisms with liturgies that denounce social evils, express a desire to turn away from our complicity with them, and speak commitments to the values of Jesus could be used to attack nationalism, capitalism, military solutions to differences of opinion, etc.
3. Proclamations that are made with power will always be questioned. This is because claiming power to change the social order is a political act, and thus steps on the toes of those who justify their place in corrupt systems by believing in their own power and position. Christians who wish to organize people to commit nonviolent and symbolic action might find an interesting guide for responding from Mark 11:27-33, where Jesus challenges the authorities about their treatment of John the Baptist. In confrontations I have had with people who interpret trends of social inequity as the result of individual personality flaws (e.g. poor people are poor because they are lazy; black people are arrested in higher numbers because they place a lower value on personal morality), a surefire conversation stopper is to ask whether they would make the same argument if Martin Luther King, Jr. were standing in front of them.
A recent twitter conversation I had started about racism elicited a response from an organizer of the Tea Party Coalition, who said that “liberals are always injecting race into everything and creating victims.” After a lot of back and forth, I asked if she thought Martin Luther King injected race into everything and created victims. There were no further replies. Martin Luther King is our John the Baptist, who wished for us to cast off the corruption of power and embrace a new way. It’s time for us to carry this message forward.
4. Jesus begins his ministry by proclaiming that the kingdom of God is here. Followers of Jesus recognize an authority that supplants earthly power. We are not to expect our institutions to try to create a better life for all people. This will only happen when regular folk shame those institutions to action. As an alternative, we should live life like the kingdom of God is already here, and declare rights for ourselves without regard to common convention or unspoken messages of hierarchy dictate.
5. The church itself has created rituals which could provide us with ready-made meaning. I like Walter Wink’s idea of using exorcisms to expel demonic influences where they are seen most: military complexes, banking institutions, churches, etc. Can you imagine the response if we were to perform an exorcism outside of a church???
6. Intentional alliances with the “unworthy”: General discussions of purity laws, which are intended to exclude. Mark 7:1-23 Jesus and his disciples don’t wash their hands before they eat. In verse 15, he says that “there is nothing outside a man which by going into him can defile him; but the things which come out of a man are what defile him.” Then, in verse 19, he declares all foods clean. In Luke 10:29-37, the person who helps the injured man is the reviled Samaritan, against whom much racism was leveled by many Jewish people of the time. Why? Not because the religious authorities who passed him by were bad people or didn’t care, but because the purity laws didn’t allow them to touch a man who was almost dead, as this would risk making themselves impure. So, the religious laws that define who is allowed in the presence of God, in fact can exclude us from acting the way a person who was living the kingdom of that God would act.
Can you imagine how scandalous it would still be if we were in continual association with hookers? On one occasion, when the Pharisees and Sadducees try to trap him, Jesus says that “the harlots are going to the kingdom of God before you.” (Matthew 21:21:31-2). Jesus doesn’t seem all that concerned with personal morality, as much as whether you are deemed acceptable and worthy according to the culture’s established hierarchies.
All of this is less about the individuals and their earthly status, and more a consistent point to be made that the kingdom of God is so totally foreign to the way we are used to, and that repentance and belief is a matter of rejecting the old ways, and embracing a new way that honors all life, especially the lives that the culture rejects as unclean, impure, unworthy. Our alliances are the best indication of which kingdom we really believe in.
7. “Go show yourself as clean.” In Mark 1:40-45, a leper comes to Jesus, and asks to be made clean. It is my belief that Jesus was a human being, without access to divine powers that are not available to all of us. Therefore, I choose to view this story as one of many where Jesus sees someone who had been utterly rejected by the society as unclean, and who could therefore not take part in the life of the city or accept any of the blessings of the religion. I believe that Jesus would find similar exclusions of people with AIDS, homosexuals, prostitutes, “smelly” homeless people, drug users, and many others in our churches. Jesus doesn’t heal this man of his leprosy. He encourages him to gather the courage to go to those who have declared him unworthy and make them tell him to his face that he is unwelcome. Public exposures of shameful policies are a main method Jesus has for demonstrating how our cultures have prioritized laws over human dignity.
I would like to suggest that we all find churches that refuse the sacrament to homosexuals, and go to church with rainbow pins on, and force the priests to turn us away. I believe that many parishioners have private beliefs that are counter to church policy, especially with regard to homosexuality. However, these parishioners remain silent, unable to see how theologies perpetuate political shame. Were parishioners to witness firsthand the rejection of the sacrament on such flimsy grounds as sexual orientation, it could create creative conflict in the church that is very necessary. Think of your own analogies to the lepers of our day, along with ways that those people could challenge the authorities who declare them unclean before the eyes of the people. Opportunities to see the kingdom of God as a different way from the status quo are most clearly seen in confrontations like these.
8. Luke 2:27: “Laws are made for people, not people for the laws.” As Jesus says to the Pharisees in Luke 11:37-54, “You...cleanse the outside of the cup and of the dish, but inside you are full of extortion and wickedness. You fools! Did not he who made the outside make the inside also?” Later, Jesus points out that they follow the rules of the religion, but they neglect the primary impulse of religion, namely, justice and love. Healing on the Sabbath is another example. Where Jesus in Luke 13 and 14, points out that his critics would save their son if he fell in a well on the Sabbath, and that the kingdom of God proclaims all of us sons and daughters, so fuck the rules when your children are in need.
9. Turn the other cheek, go the extra mile, if someone asks for your coat, give him your cloak as well. (Matthew 5:38-42) I refer my readers to the writings of Walter Wink, who has done a tremendous job of teaching us how these expressions have been corrupted to mean that we should let people treat us like shit, when in fact, they mean to take something that someone has done to us, and then encourage them to do something even more extreme, until finally, they see the injustice in their actions. If we fight fire with fire, we all get burned. If we fight injustice by requesting even more injustice, eventually the human being who is acting unjustly will be given the chance to see.
10. Defy convention – Let the dead bury their dead. You are alive! (Matthew 8:18-22) The acknowledgement of the kingdom of God is indicated by a complete reversal of all the rules and mores of society. Since the order that society pretends to offer is false, then everything you thought you knew is now the opposite. It’s like my children, with opposite day! In Mark 9:35, the last shall be first. In Luke 14:7-14, invite the lowliest to your parties, and take the lowest seat available. Those of us with middle class associations hear about events at which food and drink will be served every day. Let’s gather the hungry and take them with us to these free events!
11. Curing the blind – Seeing a new way. Did Jesus heal blind people? In my opinion, only those blinded by their collaboration with oppressive structures. Jesus’ new way encourages us to reject the rules of association which require you to associate only with certain types of people or discredit yourself. Tax collectors, unclean women (Mark 5: 21-43), prostitutes (Matthew 21:32), lepers (Marke 14:3). And don’t worry if the power structure reprimands you (Luke 12:11-12). This is to be expected, and so what?
12. Don’t fear those who kill the body (Matthew 10:28). Instead, take up your cross (Matthew 10:38) – face the full penalty of the empire and refuse to budge. This is an extension of the belief that the state/empire is an illegitimate source of power, which used fear of punishment to keep challenges to that power at bay.
When Jesus is asked whether they should pay taxes to Caesar, Jesus declares that we should “give to Caesar what belongs to Caesar, and to God what belongs to God.” While this has historically been interpreted to encourage the payment of taxes, one must recognize that, consistent with the message of the prophets (see my previous post on the prophetic literature), if Jesus had been asked what belonged to Caesar, he is likely to have said that nothing belonged to Caesar, and that everything belonged to God. The empire is not to be trusted, obeyed, or collaborated with. The opposing kingdom of God does not recognize earthly power, but rather judges according to how we met the needs of the hungry, thirsty, the stranger, the naked (Matthew 25). The kingdom is to be found in viewing the service to those that the state has rejected as an opportunity to experience God’s new way of living.
13. The use of parables (The Good Samaritan Luke 10; Prodigal son Luke 15; Rich man and Lazarus Luke 16; the Talents Luke 19) When we hear the parables, we must think that Jesus spoke these stories, that take about 20 seconds to speak, and then stood up and said, “Thanks for coming!” and walked away. This cannot be true. These stories are meant to incite discussion about fairness among his listeners. It is important to note that, when viewed this way, the main character of the story does not always have to be the stand-in for God. For example, in the parable of the talents, the owner of the money comes back and harshly declares that “to him who has will more be given; and from him who has not, even what he has will be taken away.” (Mark 4:25)
If this is a story Jesus used to let people who are not given the authority to interpret Scripture a chance to be in on the conversation, then we don’t have to be troubled that God’s way is so unfair. Rather, as Marcus Borg has pointed out, this story can be a chance for his followers to discuss the unfairness of the status quo, and for us, the ways that capitalism creates inequality. Viewed from this vantage point, isn’t the parable of the talents a story that has incredible potential to discuss how the rich get richer, and the poor get poorer?
Sometimes, the parable is a reflection of the inherent unfairness of society, and the discussion that follows is a Paolo Freire-like opening of the eyes, bringing to awareness the contrast between the paravin’s low place on the culture’s hierarchy, and the preferential treatment given to the lowest in the kingdom that is being manifest here on earth.
Consistent with this idea, it is important to point out that Jesus’ statement in Mark 14:7 that “you will always have the poor with you,” is not a resignation, but an angry rebuke of how fucked up this world is. Recognition of the kingdom and its reversal of the status quo will not bring about the actual reversal of policy to make societies equitable and fair. Rather, we live this other way in spite of and as a living contradiction to the fucked up empires who kill their prophets, and exploit the majority of their subjects.
14. More on discussion with the paravin. We are called to spend as much time as we can with those our society has rejected, in order to mutually gain from the insights the stories of and about Jesus have for exposing the unfairness of our earthly systems and providing the power and courage of rejecting those conventions. Despite what we have been brought up to believe, these are not God’s laws. Rather, distinctions and shame, centered on power/powerlessness and wealth/poverty is the way as it has been lived for centuries, except among those who follow a different way.
The Eucharist is another ritual that has tremendous power to declare an equitable community through eating and drinking. Might we have communion services with the outcast outside the church? Within the church’s walls, the distinctions between the worthy and unworthy are replicated by this institution which has rejected the radical message of Jesus. Only outside the church are all welcome to table, without regard to status.
15. Luke 4:16-30: Jesus does something radical, but only the religious can see it. He proclaims the Jubilee, which is a time that the Pentateuch demands every 50 years, when all debts are forgiven, and everyone is given a fresh start. I cross reference this proclamation the version of the Lord’s Prayer offered in Luke 11, in which Jesus says “forgive us our debts, as we forgive every one who is indebted to us.” Since Jesus was often criticized for offering “sinners” forgiveness of sin, and since the Lord’s Prayer has often been interpreted as saying “forgive our sins,” I wonder if we ought to proclaim to our own brothers and sisters the forgiveness of debt!!!
During this time in our country when the majority of people are paralyzed by uncomfortable levels of debt, I listen to Jesus talking about forgiveness of debts, and wonder how incredibly powerful it would be if we took upon ourselves the authority to tell others to stop paying our bills! Imagine it! We don’t even live in an age where people are thrown in prison for their debts. The only thing we have hanging over our heads is our credit score, and the shame we are supposed to feel if it is “too low.” So I say to you now, I forgive you all of your debts!!!
16. Mark 11:1-10. Jesus sets up his triumphal entry as an act of mockery of the false power of the empire. Ironically, when the children shout “Hosanna!” to him, they are correct. Jesus stands as long as he could and blocks entry to the temple, declaring the synagogue a sign of the religious authorities’ collaboration with the oppressive powers. The American church is the whore of the American empire and we would be justified in turning over the communion tables, offering plates, etc. to declare that our church has become the mouthpiece of the state, giving divine legitimization to its violence.
17. More generally, it is my opinion that the church’s function vis-à-vis the state should be to stand outside of it, and judge it from a higher standard. A simple step that must be made in order to move in this direction is the removal of the American flag from our sanctuaries. To be sure, the hanging of our flag in our places of worship is an affront to the God who recognizes no national boundaries. To suggest that the flag be removed will surely be met with strong resistance from parishioners. Nonetheless, the American flag is not just a piece of cloth, but a symbol of many things, including racism, entrenched poverty, and militarism, which are directly contradictory to the message of Jesus.
18. In line with this sentiment, it is important to speak aloud the nonviolent reaction of Jesus to his trial and execution. What makes nonviolent resistance so much more courageous than passive acceptance of the rules or violent insurrection, is that, as Gandhi taught, we do not break the law and then hide from the punishment, but instead seek vindication and redemption through the voluntary acceptance of the punishment that the written law requires. By forcing the authorities to act in concert with their own laws, even when the cause of the lawbreaker is just, the legal system itself is exposed as a ritual that cannot recognize the priority of human life over legal conformity.
Jesus allows the authorities to arrest him without violence (Mark 14:43-52). He rebukes someone for cutting off someone’s ear in the act of defending Jesus (Matthew 26:47-56). He also keeps quiet when being questioned, which Marcus Borg interprets not as passive weakness, but rather as utter contempt for the authority they claim over his body. When Jesus does answer his interlocutors questions (e.g. “Are you the Son of God?), he answers them with smart-ass answers like, “You have said so.” – Mark 15:2-5).
During his execution, contrary to the cult of redemptive violence which requires the hero to overcome his unjust punishment and exterminate the evildoers (see my previous post on the movie Alice in Wonderland), he speaks love and forgiveness for his executioners’ complicity in evil (Luke 23:33-34).
Finally, consistent with the rejection of purity laws and emphases on personal morality, the Gospels state that the first person to have recognized Jesus’ role in a kingdom of God that shines even on the shameful, naked, impure cross was the robber next to him (Luke 23:39-43), and that the first person to declare Jesus’ post-mortem status as a Son of God was one of the Roman soldiers, who had just carried out the command of his execution! (Mark 15:33-39)
We are encouraged by the early church to reject the demonization of the human faces who perpetuate evil, and instead recognize how we are all trapped by the demands of the illegitimate system of rewards and punishments, blind to the ways those demands reject the God of history. Followers of Jesus act out a different way, knowing full well that there may be an automatic response of violence against such rebellion. Still, to act as if the conventions and laws do not hold any sway against us is the most powerful way we have to expose the weakness of power and the power of weakness. In so doing, we help the blind to see, the lame to walk, and bring sinners (those complicit with the “way things are”) to repentance.
In the story of Jesus, the crowd has an opportunity to reject the Romans’ right to execute, but instead chooses the way of Barrabas (Mark 15:6-14). The great commission to the early church, and to us today, is to continue to provide historical situations that are in fact opportunities to declare the kingdom of God and repent of the evils of religious and state purity laws.
__________________________________________
This list is not meant to be exhaustive. There are surely more examples that could be found and used as analogies. Instead, it is meant to encourage my readers to think creatively about how to plan out their own symbolic actions, using our rich Bible as a guide to courageous confrontation. Any of your own ideas are more than welcome.
1. Public proclamations – As with my previous article, I begin this list with a few general ideas. The prophets and Jesus used symbolic actions to accompany a message, and delivered it in a public place where it would be heard by regular people, and interpreted by those representing the powers as a threat to the status quo. Therefore, it is important that symbolic actions be used to draw attention and memory to the message of God.
However, proclamations can be given without an accompanying symbolic action. As a previous article of mine suggests, the doctrine of satisfactionary atonement, to me, is an affront to social justice and the freedom to be found in relationship with God. Therefore, proclamation could include such things as calling christian radio stations to point out the reasons why atonement interpretations of Jesus’ execution pervert the Gospel’s message of the here-and-now kingdom of God, in favor of an angry god whose sole focus is on judgment and the afterlife.
A personal plan of mine is to sit outside of some fundamentalist churches on Sunday morning and hand out pamphlets about what the need to take our focus off of the afterlife, and to put our morals here on the ground. It’s time for progressive Christians to be more bold in proclaiming the Gospel as they see it! For too long, the right has been unapologetic about its message of fear of hell and honor of the empire, while the left has taken on the burden of being accommodating of all points of view. My reading of Jesus does not reveal a person who tried to create common ground of understanding when the opposing point of view was not conducive of his vision of justice and worth for the outcast. Be more courageous!
2. Consistent with John the Baptist’s use of baptism for repentance from our cooperation with cultural paradigms of violence in Luke 3, public baptisms with liturgies that denounce social evils, express a desire to turn away from our complicity with them, and speak commitments to the values of Jesus could be used to attack nationalism, capitalism, military solutions to differences of opinion, etc.
3. Proclamations that are made with power will always be questioned. This is because claiming power to change the social order is a political act, and thus steps on the toes of those who justify their place in corrupt systems by believing in their own power and position. Christians who wish to organize people to commit nonviolent and symbolic action might find an interesting guide for responding from Mark 11:27-33, where Jesus challenges the authorities about their treatment of John the Baptist. In confrontations I have had with people who interpret trends of social inequity as the result of individual personality flaws (e.g. poor people are poor because they are lazy; black people are arrested in higher numbers because they place a lower value on personal morality), a surefire conversation stopper is to ask whether they would make the same argument if Martin Luther King, Jr. were standing in front of them.
A recent twitter conversation I had started about racism elicited a response from an organizer of the Tea Party Coalition, who said that “liberals are always injecting race into everything and creating victims.” After a lot of back and forth, I asked if she thought Martin Luther King injected race into everything and created victims. There were no further replies. Martin Luther King is our John the Baptist, who wished for us to cast off the corruption of power and embrace a new way. It’s time for us to carry this message forward.
4. Jesus begins his ministry by proclaiming that the kingdom of God is here. Followers of Jesus recognize an authority that supplants earthly power. We are not to expect our institutions to try to create a better life for all people. This will only happen when regular folk shame those institutions to action. As an alternative, we should live life like the kingdom of God is already here, and declare rights for ourselves without regard to common convention or unspoken messages of hierarchy dictate.
5. The church itself has created rituals which could provide us with ready-made meaning. I like Walter Wink’s idea of using exorcisms to expel demonic influences where they are seen most: military complexes, banking institutions, churches, etc. Can you imagine the response if we were to perform an exorcism outside of a church???
6. Intentional alliances with the “unworthy”: General discussions of purity laws, which are intended to exclude. Mark 7:1-23 Jesus and his disciples don’t wash their hands before they eat. In verse 15, he says that “there is nothing outside a man which by going into him can defile him; but the things which come out of a man are what defile him.” Then, in verse 19, he declares all foods clean. In Luke 10:29-37, the person who helps the injured man is the reviled Samaritan, against whom much racism was leveled by many Jewish people of the time. Why? Not because the religious authorities who passed him by were bad people or didn’t care, but because the purity laws didn’t allow them to touch a man who was almost dead, as this would risk making themselves impure. So, the religious laws that define who is allowed in the presence of God, in fact can exclude us from acting the way a person who was living the kingdom of that God would act.
Can you imagine how scandalous it would still be if we were in continual association with hookers? On one occasion, when the Pharisees and Sadducees try to trap him, Jesus says that “the harlots are going to the kingdom of God before you.” (Matthew 21:21:31-2). Jesus doesn’t seem all that concerned with personal morality, as much as whether you are deemed acceptable and worthy according to the culture’s established hierarchies.
All of this is less about the individuals and their earthly status, and more a consistent point to be made that the kingdom of God is so totally foreign to the way we are used to, and that repentance and belief is a matter of rejecting the old ways, and embracing a new way that honors all life, especially the lives that the culture rejects as unclean, impure, unworthy. Our alliances are the best indication of which kingdom we really believe in.
7. “Go show yourself as clean.” In Mark 1:40-45, a leper comes to Jesus, and asks to be made clean. It is my belief that Jesus was a human being, without access to divine powers that are not available to all of us. Therefore, I choose to view this story as one of many where Jesus sees someone who had been utterly rejected by the society as unclean, and who could therefore not take part in the life of the city or accept any of the blessings of the religion. I believe that Jesus would find similar exclusions of people with AIDS, homosexuals, prostitutes, “smelly” homeless people, drug users, and many others in our churches. Jesus doesn’t heal this man of his leprosy. He encourages him to gather the courage to go to those who have declared him unworthy and make them tell him to his face that he is unwelcome. Public exposures of shameful policies are a main method Jesus has for demonstrating how our cultures have prioritized laws over human dignity.
I would like to suggest that we all find churches that refuse the sacrament to homosexuals, and go to church with rainbow pins on, and force the priests to turn us away. I believe that many parishioners have private beliefs that are counter to church policy, especially with regard to homosexuality. However, these parishioners remain silent, unable to see how theologies perpetuate political shame. Were parishioners to witness firsthand the rejection of the sacrament on such flimsy grounds as sexual orientation, it could create creative conflict in the church that is very necessary. Think of your own analogies to the lepers of our day, along with ways that those people could challenge the authorities who declare them unclean before the eyes of the people. Opportunities to see the kingdom of God as a different way from the status quo are most clearly seen in confrontations like these.
8. Luke 2:27: “Laws are made for people, not people for the laws.” As Jesus says to the Pharisees in Luke 11:37-54, “You...cleanse the outside of the cup and of the dish, but inside you are full of extortion and wickedness. You fools! Did not he who made the outside make the inside also?” Later, Jesus points out that they follow the rules of the religion, but they neglect the primary impulse of religion, namely, justice and love. Healing on the Sabbath is another example. Where Jesus in Luke 13 and 14, points out that his critics would save their son if he fell in a well on the Sabbath, and that the kingdom of God proclaims all of us sons and daughters, so fuck the rules when your children are in need.
9. Turn the other cheek, go the extra mile, if someone asks for your coat, give him your cloak as well. (Matthew 5:38-42) I refer my readers to the writings of Walter Wink, who has done a tremendous job of teaching us how these expressions have been corrupted to mean that we should let people treat us like shit, when in fact, they mean to take something that someone has done to us, and then encourage them to do something even more extreme, until finally, they see the injustice in their actions. If we fight fire with fire, we all get burned. If we fight injustice by requesting even more injustice, eventually the human being who is acting unjustly will be given the chance to see.
10. Defy convention – Let the dead bury their dead. You are alive! (Matthew 8:18-22) The acknowledgement of the kingdom of God is indicated by a complete reversal of all the rules and mores of society. Since the order that society pretends to offer is false, then everything you thought you knew is now the opposite. It’s like my children, with opposite day! In Mark 9:35, the last shall be first. In Luke 14:7-14, invite the lowliest to your parties, and take the lowest seat available. Those of us with middle class associations hear about events at which food and drink will be served every day. Let’s gather the hungry and take them with us to these free events!
11. Curing the blind – Seeing a new way. Did Jesus heal blind people? In my opinion, only those blinded by their collaboration with oppressive structures. Jesus’ new way encourages us to reject the rules of association which require you to associate only with certain types of people or discredit yourself. Tax collectors, unclean women (Mark 5: 21-43), prostitutes (Matthew 21:32), lepers (Marke 14:3). And don’t worry if the power structure reprimands you (Luke 12:11-12). This is to be expected, and so what?
12. Don’t fear those who kill the body (Matthew 10:28). Instead, take up your cross (Matthew 10:38) – face the full penalty of the empire and refuse to budge. This is an extension of the belief that the state/empire is an illegitimate source of power, which used fear of punishment to keep challenges to that power at bay.
When Jesus is asked whether they should pay taxes to Caesar, Jesus declares that we should “give to Caesar what belongs to Caesar, and to God what belongs to God.” While this has historically been interpreted to encourage the payment of taxes, one must recognize that, consistent with the message of the prophets (see my previous post on the prophetic literature), if Jesus had been asked what belonged to Caesar, he is likely to have said that nothing belonged to Caesar, and that everything belonged to God. The empire is not to be trusted, obeyed, or collaborated with. The opposing kingdom of God does not recognize earthly power, but rather judges according to how we met the needs of the hungry, thirsty, the stranger, the naked (Matthew 25). The kingdom is to be found in viewing the service to those that the state has rejected as an opportunity to experience God’s new way of living.
13. The use of parables (The Good Samaritan Luke 10; Prodigal son Luke 15; Rich man and Lazarus Luke 16; the Talents Luke 19) When we hear the parables, we must think that Jesus spoke these stories, that take about 20 seconds to speak, and then stood up and said, “Thanks for coming!” and walked away. This cannot be true. These stories are meant to incite discussion about fairness among his listeners. It is important to note that, when viewed this way, the main character of the story does not always have to be the stand-in for God. For example, in the parable of the talents, the owner of the money comes back and harshly declares that “to him who has will more be given; and from him who has not, even what he has will be taken away.” (Mark 4:25)
If this is a story Jesus used to let people who are not given the authority to interpret Scripture a chance to be in on the conversation, then we don’t have to be troubled that God’s way is so unfair. Rather, as Marcus Borg has pointed out, this story can be a chance for his followers to discuss the unfairness of the status quo, and for us, the ways that capitalism creates inequality. Viewed from this vantage point, isn’t the parable of the talents a story that has incredible potential to discuss how the rich get richer, and the poor get poorer?
Sometimes, the parable is a reflection of the inherent unfairness of society, and the discussion that follows is a Paolo Freire-like opening of the eyes, bringing to awareness the contrast between the paravin’s low place on the culture’s hierarchy, and the preferential treatment given to the lowest in the kingdom that is being manifest here on earth.
Consistent with this idea, it is important to point out that Jesus’ statement in Mark 14:7 that “you will always have the poor with you,” is not a resignation, but an angry rebuke of how fucked up this world is. Recognition of the kingdom and its reversal of the status quo will not bring about the actual reversal of policy to make societies equitable and fair. Rather, we live this other way in spite of and as a living contradiction to the fucked up empires who kill their prophets, and exploit the majority of their subjects.
14. More on discussion with the paravin. We are called to spend as much time as we can with those our society has rejected, in order to mutually gain from the insights the stories of and about Jesus have for exposing the unfairness of our earthly systems and providing the power and courage of rejecting those conventions. Despite what we have been brought up to believe, these are not God’s laws. Rather, distinctions and shame, centered on power/powerlessness and wealth/poverty is the way as it has been lived for centuries, except among those who follow a different way.
The Eucharist is another ritual that has tremendous power to declare an equitable community through eating and drinking. Might we have communion services with the outcast outside the church? Within the church’s walls, the distinctions between the worthy and unworthy are replicated by this institution which has rejected the radical message of Jesus. Only outside the church are all welcome to table, without regard to status.
15. Luke 4:16-30: Jesus does something radical, but only the religious can see it. He proclaims the Jubilee, which is a time that the Pentateuch demands every 50 years, when all debts are forgiven, and everyone is given a fresh start. I cross reference this proclamation the version of the Lord’s Prayer offered in Luke 11, in which Jesus says “forgive us our debts, as we forgive every one who is indebted to us.” Since Jesus was often criticized for offering “sinners” forgiveness of sin, and since the Lord’s Prayer has often been interpreted as saying “forgive our sins,” I wonder if we ought to proclaim to our own brothers and sisters the forgiveness of debt!!!
During this time in our country when the majority of people are paralyzed by uncomfortable levels of debt, I listen to Jesus talking about forgiveness of debts, and wonder how incredibly powerful it would be if we took upon ourselves the authority to tell others to stop paying our bills! Imagine it! We don’t even live in an age where people are thrown in prison for their debts. The only thing we have hanging over our heads is our credit score, and the shame we are supposed to feel if it is “too low.” So I say to you now, I forgive you all of your debts!!!
16. Mark 11:1-10. Jesus sets up his triumphal entry as an act of mockery of the false power of the empire. Ironically, when the children shout “Hosanna!” to him, they are correct. Jesus stands as long as he could and blocks entry to the temple, declaring the synagogue a sign of the religious authorities’ collaboration with the oppressive powers. The American church is the whore of the American empire and we would be justified in turning over the communion tables, offering plates, etc. to declare that our church has become the mouthpiece of the state, giving divine legitimization to its violence.
17. More generally, it is my opinion that the church’s function vis-à-vis the state should be to stand outside of it, and judge it from a higher standard. A simple step that must be made in order to move in this direction is the removal of the American flag from our sanctuaries. To be sure, the hanging of our flag in our places of worship is an affront to the God who recognizes no national boundaries. To suggest that the flag be removed will surely be met with strong resistance from parishioners. Nonetheless, the American flag is not just a piece of cloth, but a symbol of many things, including racism, entrenched poverty, and militarism, which are directly contradictory to the message of Jesus.
18. In line with this sentiment, it is important to speak aloud the nonviolent reaction of Jesus to his trial and execution. What makes nonviolent resistance so much more courageous than passive acceptance of the rules or violent insurrection, is that, as Gandhi taught, we do not break the law and then hide from the punishment, but instead seek vindication and redemption through the voluntary acceptance of the punishment that the written law requires. By forcing the authorities to act in concert with their own laws, even when the cause of the lawbreaker is just, the legal system itself is exposed as a ritual that cannot recognize the priority of human life over legal conformity.
Jesus allows the authorities to arrest him without violence (Mark 14:43-52). He rebukes someone for cutting off someone’s ear in the act of defending Jesus (Matthew 26:47-56). He also keeps quiet when being questioned, which Marcus Borg interprets not as passive weakness, but rather as utter contempt for the authority they claim over his body. When Jesus does answer his interlocutors questions (e.g. “Are you the Son of God?), he answers them with smart-ass answers like, “You have said so.” – Mark 15:2-5).
During his execution, contrary to the cult of redemptive violence which requires the hero to overcome his unjust punishment and exterminate the evildoers (see my previous post on the movie Alice in Wonderland), he speaks love and forgiveness for his executioners’ complicity in evil (Luke 23:33-34).
Finally, consistent with the rejection of purity laws and emphases on personal morality, the Gospels state that the first person to have recognized Jesus’ role in a kingdom of God that shines even on the shameful, naked, impure cross was the robber next to him (Luke 23:39-43), and that the first person to declare Jesus’ post-mortem status as a Son of God was one of the Roman soldiers, who had just carried out the command of his execution! (Mark 15:33-39)
We are encouraged by the early church to reject the demonization of the human faces who perpetuate evil, and instead recognize how we are all trapped by the demands of the illegitimate system of rewards and punishments, blind to the ways those demands reject the God of history. Followers of Jesus act out a different way, knowing full well that there may be an automatic response of violence against such rebellion. Still, to act as if the conventions and laws do not hold any sway against us is the most powerful way we have to expose the weakness of power and the power of weakness. In so doing, we help the blind to see, the lame to walk, and bring sinners (those complicit with the “way things are”) to repentance.
In the story of Jesus, the crowd has an opportunity to reject the Romans’ right to execute, but instead chooses the way of Barrabas (Mark 15:6-14). The great commission to the early church, and to us today, is to continue to provide historical situations that are in fact opportunities to declare the kingdom of God and repent of the evils of religious and state purity laws.
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This list is not meant to be exhaustive. There are surely more examples that could be found and used as analogies. Instead, it is meant to encourage my readers to think creatively about how to plan out their own symbolic actions, using our rich Bible as a guide to courageous confrontation. Any of your own ideas are more than welcome.
Wednesday, July 20, 2011
Symbolic actions for confronting the powers
Recently, I reread all of the prophetic books of the Bible, along with the three synoptic Gospels, with the goal of writing down examples of symbolic actions which the protagonists in those books used to confront the evils of their time. In many cases, these symbolic actions were meant to communicate the coming disaster which god was supposedly planning to visit upon his people. In this article, I disregard this violent message, and focus instead on the uses of these actions to confront 21st century evils. Where a prophet meant to warn the nation of Israel that it would be subjected to slavery and abject poverty by the upcoming invasion of the Babylonian forces, I instead focus on the ways that a similar action can call attention to the violence of captivity and poverty itself. Below, I begin a series of writings which offer ideas for symbolic actions that followers of Jesus (who himself derived many of his own symbolic actions from the prophets) might use in a public square today, followed by the Biblical source of the idea in parentheses.
1. Public proclamations – I begin this list with a general idea. The prophets and Jesus used symbolic actions to accompany a message, and delivered it in a public place where it would be heard by regular people, and interpreted by those representing the powers as a threat to the status quo. Therefore, it is important that symbolic actions be used to draw attention and memory to the message of God.
However, proclamations can be given without an accompanying symbolic action. As a previous article of mine suggests, the doctrine of satisfactionary atonement, to me, is an affront to social justice and the freedom to be found in relationship with God. Therefore, proclamation could include such things as calling christian radio stations to point out the reasons why atonement interpretations of Jesus’ execution pervert the Gospel’s message of the here-and-now kingdom of God, in favor of an angry god whose sole focus is on judgment and the afterlife. On a more basic level, if someone were to stand outside their city hall and proclaim something similar to Jeremiah’s statements in chapter 7, verses 1-11, this could be very powerful.
2. A common refrain from the prophets is that God is the king of the kings, and that earthly power is a pretension (e.g. Daniel 2:21). Jesus’ “triumphal” entry into Jerusalem was a direct mocking of the claims of Caesar to be the Son of God. A combination of this message with a mocking of the pretensions of power would be very humorously communicated if, next election, we recruited voters to submit write-in votes for an inanimate object, or for a corporation. “Vote for this stick for Congress!” Or, “Vote Walmart for Senator!”
3. Wearing tattered clothes (Jeremiah 13:1-11; Baruch 4:20) – Society likes its poverty hidden. Therefore, a public witness of someone in tattered clothes, proclaiming the violence of poverty, should draw attention to this message. This can be even more powerful if groups of impoverished people gather the courage to appear in public and proclaim their worth by their very presence in the public eye. Perhaps those of us in community with the poor can have Bible studies on the lawns of government property.
4. Breaking a jug (Jeremiah 19:10) – Instead of breaking a jug in front of “the elders” and then proclaiming that god is about to smash them, use this action to talk about how poverty, racism, militarism, etc. creates brokenness.
5. “Make yourself…yokes and put them on your neck.” (Jeremiah 27:2) Such a sight would certainly create curiosity. There are many evils in our world which make us slaves to fear, death, injustice, etc. Proclaim these truths with the yoke on. (see a similar action in Ezekiel 7:23)
6. God threatens to “silence the shouts of rejoicing and mirth…in the streets of Jerusalem” in Baruch 2:23. Write up pamphlets or signs with the message you wish to convey, and wear a rag around your mouth to portray the common person’s feeling of being silenced by the powers.
7. “Overlaid with gold and silver, their tongues polished smooth by a craftsman, [the Babylonian gods] are counterfeit and have no power to speak.” (Baruch 6:7) Create an altar, and put money on it. Bow to it. Perhaps put some corporate logos of some of the biggest, most influential corporations on the front of the altar, suggesting that the worship of money has been sponsored by them.
8. Ezekiel took a brick, laid it in front of him, scratched the word “Jerusalem” on it, and then acted out a war on it, showing Jerusalem being besieged and defeated (Ezekiel 4:1-3). Consistent with my belief that God has never been the cause of poverty, war, or slavery, this could be an enactment of America’s treatment of persons at the bottom of our false hierarchies of worth.
9. “Lie down on your left side…for three hundred and ninety days…And when you have done this, lie down again, on your right side…for forty days.” (Ezekiel 4:4-6) You wouldn’t have to do this for that many days to be able to elicit an audience for the message your God has given you to proclaim.
10. Go out to the public square, and cook food on cow dung. (Ezekiel 4: 15) The poor get poorer, and the rich get richer. When will we insist that the poor have a right to what they need to survive? I’d love to use this to preach Martin Luther King’s demand of a guaranteed annual income (see MLK’s speech, “Where do we go from here?”)
11. Clap your hands and stamp your feet! (Ezekiel 6:11) If you did this all day, people would take note. Perhaps someone could write a cheer to match the clapping and stamping. I’d like to hear and see one, proclaiming that our poorest citizens are Too Big to Fail.
12. This Too Big to Fail idea could also go along with an enactment of slavery, as described in Ezekiel 7:23. Our slavery to corporations and the demons of capitalism and military might could be offset by the message of the worth of those the world has discarded.
13. Wear dark glasses and carry a cane. Proclaim the things you don’t want to see any more (poverty, racism, etc.), or expose the ways that we are blind to the truth, or blind to the ways of God, etc. (This comes from the startlingly disturbing visions recounted in Ezekiel 8-11.)
14. The references to mourning rituals in Ezekiel 24:15-18 remind me of the use of sackcloth and ashes for declaring the time of mourning publicly. Are we not in mourning for our country, for our lost opportunities, for those who have had to make compromises with “the way things are” in order to survive? Let’s go out into the public arena with our sackcloth and ashes and speak these truths.
15. In Haggai 1:6, Yahweh speaks of workers who put their wages in a bag with a hole in it. I envision a repeated ritual involving a bag with a hole, some coins, and an artistic creation depicting the greedy maws of corporate and state institutions. The coins are dropped in the bag, they slip out the hole in the bag, and land in the mouths of these faceless entities which swallow up our wealth and our livelihoods.
16. The book of Daniel is full of acts of refusal, which can be general guidelines for us to refuse to participate in anything which humiliates ourselves or our brothers and sisters. Daniel and others, sometimes accompanied by a few colleagues, commit the following acts of refusal:
a. Shadrach, Meshach and Abed-Nego (later referred to as SMA-N) refuse to eat meat and wine ordered by the king
b. SMA-N refuse to bow down to a statue of the king (Refusing the pledge to flag? Refusing to stand for the national anthem?)
c. SMA-N sing hymns while being punished
d. Daniel prays to his God, even though it is forbidden
e. Daniel refuses to accept gifts from the king
f. Daniel’s interpretation of mene, mene, teqel and parsin on the wall is a bold affront to the authority of the foreign king – This is part of a larger message of the prophets, which is that God makes and unmakes kings (Daniel 2:21). These four words include the message that God has just ended the king’s sovereignty and put an end to it, has weighed the king in the balance and found him wanting.
We could certainly come up with a phrase which declares the same thing against our government/church/culture. This seems consistent with the early church’s declaration of Jesus as Son of God. This title was one that was used by Caesar during Jesus’ time, making the use of it for Jesus, the executed criminal a revolutionary act. What would it look like if we declared the United States as wanting? What would happen if we decided to publicly reject the authority of our government, and to declare a new kingdom to which we pledged sole allegiance? Lots of potential here.
17. In Amos 7:7, Yahweh reveals a plumb line that is intended for judging the people of Israel. Perhaps a pamphlet of some sort could be passed out, listing America’s sins, and suggesting a prayer of forgiveness? The person passing out the pamphlet could be accompanied by someone else carrying and using a plumb line on or around a symbolically important building.
18. The church itself has created rituals which could provide us with ready-made meaning. I like Walter Wink’s idea of using exorcisms to expel demonic influences where they are seen most: military complexes, banking institutions, churches, etc. Can you imagine the response if we were to perform an exorcism outside of a church???
19. Consistent with John the Baptist’s use of baptism for repentance from our cooperation with cultural paradigms of violence in Luke 3, public baptisms with liturgies that denounce social evils, express a desire to turn away from our complicity with them, and speak commitments to the values of Jesus could be used to attack nationalism, capitalism, military solutions to differences of opinion, etc.
20. Many of these ideas above are actions of denunciation against the state. However, the church has its share of evils that require direct confrontation as well. Take any of the ideas above and perform them in front of the most powerful, well-populated church in your town.
21. More generally, it is my opinion that the church’s function vis-à-vis the state should be to stand outside of it, and judge it from a higher standard. A simple step that must be made in order to move in this direction is the removal of the American flag from our sanctuaries. To be sure, the hanging of our flag in our places of worship is an affront to the God who recognizes no national boundaries. To suggest that the flag be removed will surely be met with strong resistance from parishioners. Nonetheless, the American flag is not just a piece of cloth, but a symbol of many things which are directly contradictory to the message of Jesus.
This list is not meant to be exhaustive. There are surely more examples that could be found and used as analogies. Instead, it is meant to encourage my readers to think creatively about how to plan out their own symbolic actions, using our rich Bible as a guide to courageous confrontation. Any of your own ideas are more than welcome.
1. Public proclamations – I begin this list with a general idea. The prophets and Jesus used symbolic actions to accompany a message, and delivered it in a public place where it would be heard by regular people, and interpreted by those representing the powers as a threat to the status quo. Therefore, it is important that symbolic actions be used to draw attention and memory to the message of God.
However, proclamations can be given without an accompanying symbolic action. As a previous article of mine suggests, the doctrine of satisfactionary atonement, to me, is an affront to social justice and the freedom to be found in relationship with God. Therefore, proclamation could include such things as calling christian radio stations to point out the reasons why atonement interpretations of Jesus’ execution pervert the Gospel’s message of the here-and-now kingdom of God, in favor of an angry god whose sole focus is on judgment and the afterlife. On a more basic level, if someone were to stand outside their city hall and proclaim something similar to Jeremiah’s statements in chapter 7, verses 1-11, this could be very powerful.
2. A common refrain from the prophets is that God is the king of the kings, and that earthly power is a pretension (e.g. Daniel 2:21). Jesus’ “triumphal” entry into Jerusalem was a direct mocking of the claims of Caesar to be the Son of God. A combination of this message with a mocking of the pretensions of power would be very humorously communicated if, next election, we recruited voters to submit write-in votes for an inanimate object, or for a corporation. “Vote for this stick for Congress!” Or, “Vote Walmart for Senator!”
3. Wearing tattered clothes (Jeremiah 13:1-11; Baruch 4:20) – Society likes its poverty hidden. Therefore, a public witness of someone in tattered clothes, proclaiming the violence of poverty, should draw attention to this message. This can be even more powerful if groups of impoverished people gather the courage to appear in public and proclaim their worth by their very presence in the public eye. Perhaps those of us in community with the poor can have Bible studies on the lawns of government property.
4. Breaking a jug (Jeremiah 19:10) – Instead of breaking a jug in front of “the elders” and then proclaiming that god is about to smash them, use this action to talk about how poverty, racism, militarism, etc. creates brokenness.
5. “Make yourself…yokes and put them on your neck.” (Jeremiah 27:2) Such a sight would certainly create curiosity. There are many evils in our world which make us slaves to fear, death, injustice, etc. Proclaim these truths with the yoke on. (see a similar action in Ezekiel 7:23)
6. God threatens to “silence the shouts of rejoicing and mirth…in the streets of Jerusalem” in Baruch 2:23. Write up pamphlets or signs with the message you wish to convey, and wear a rag around your mouth to portray the common person’s feeling of being silenced by the powers.
7. “Overlaid with gold and silver, their tongues polished smooth by a craftsman, [the Babylonian gods] are counterfeit and have no power to speak.” (Baruch 6:7) Create an altar, and put money on it. Bow to it. Perhaps put some corporate logos of some of the biggest, most influential corporations on the front of the altar, suggesting that the worship of money has been sponsored by them.
8. Ezekiel took a brick, laid it in front of him, scratched the word “Jerusalem” on it, and then acted out a war on it, showing Jerusalem being besieged and defeated (Ezekiel 4:1-3). Consistent with my belief that God has never been the cause of poverty, war, or slavery, this could be an enactment of America’s treatment of persons at the bottom of our false hierarchies of worth.
9. “Lie down on your left side…for three hundred and ninety days…And when you have done this, lie down again, on your right side…for forty days.” (Ezekiel 4:4-6) You wouldn’t have to do this for that many days to be able to elicit an audience for the message your God has given you to proclaim.
10. Go out to the public square, and cook food on cow dung. (Ezekiel 4: 15) The poor get poorer, and the rich get richer. When will we insist that the poor have a right to what they need to survive? I’d love to use this to preach Martin Luther King’s demand of a guaranteed annual income (see MLK’s speech, “Where do we go from here?”)
11. Clap your hands and stamp your feet! (Ezekiel 6:11) If you did this all day, people would take note. Perhaps someone could write a cheer to match the clapping and stamping. I’d like to hear and see one, proclaiming that our poorest citizens are Too Big to Fail.
12. This Too Big to Fail idea could also go along with an enactment of slavery, as described in Ezekiel 7:23. Our slavery to corporations and the demons of capitalism and military might could be offset by the message of the worth of those the world has discarded.
13. Wear dark glasses and carry a cane. Proclaim the things you don’t want to see any more (poverty, racism, etc.), or expose the ways that we are blind to the truth, or blind to the ways of God, etc. (This comes from the startlingly disturbing visions recounted in Ezekiel 8-11.)
14. The references to mourning rituals in Ezekiel 24:15-18 remind me of the use of sackcloth and ashes for declaring the time of mourning publicly. Are we not in mourning for our country, for our lost opportunities, for those who have had to make compromises with “the way things are” in order to survive? Let’s go out into the public arena with our sackcloth and ashes and speak these truths.
15. In Haggai 1:6, Yahweh speaks of workers who put their wages in a bag with a hole in it. I envision a repeated ritual involving a bag with a hole, some coins, and an artistic creation depicting the greedy maws of corporate and state institutions. The coins are dropped in the bag, they slip out the hole in the bag, and land in the mouths of these faceless entities which swallow up our wealth and our livelihoods.
16. The book of Daniel is full of acts of refusal, which can be general guidelines for us to refuse to participate in anything which humiliates ourselves or our brothers and sisters. Daniel and others, sometimes accompanied by a few colleagues, commit the following acts of refusal:
a. Shadrach, Meshach and Abed-Nego (later referred to as SMA-N) refuse to eat meat and wine ordered by the king
b. SMA-N refuse to bow down to a statue of the king (Refusing the pledge to flag? Refusing to stand for the national anthem?)
c. SMA-N sing hymns while being punished
d. Daniel prays to his God, even though it is forbidden
e. Daniel refuses to accept gifts from the king
f. Daniel’s interpretation of mene, mene, teqel and parsin on the wall is a bold affront to the authority of the foreign king – This is part of a larger message of the prophets, which is that God makes and unmakes kings (Daniel 2:21). These four words include the message that God has just ended the king’s sovereignty and put an end to it, has weighed the king in the balance and found him wanting.
We could certainly come up with a phrase which declares the same thing against our government/church/culture. This seems consistent with the early church’s declaration of Jesus as Son of God. This title was one that was used by Caesar during Jesus’ time, making the use of it for Jesus, the executed criminal a revolutionary act. What would it look like if we declared the United States as wanting? What would happen if we decided to publicly reject the authority of our government, and to declare a new kingdom to which we pledged sole allegiance? Lots of potential here.
17. In Amos 7:7, Yahweh reveals a plumb line that is intended for judging the people of Israel. Perhaps a pamphlet of some sort could be passed out, listing America’s sins, and suggesting a prayer of forgiveness? The person passing out the pamphlet could be accompanied by someone else carrying and using a plumb line on or around a symbolically important building.
18. The church itself has created rituals which could provide us with ready-made meaning. I like Walter Wink’s idea of using exorcisms to expel demonic influences where they are seen most: military complexes, banking institutions, churches, etc. Can you imagine the response if we were to perform an exorcism outside of a church???
19. Consistent with John the Baptist’s use of baptism for repentance from our cooperation with cultural paradigms of violence in Luke 3, public baptisms with liturgies that denounce social evils, express a desire to turn away from our complicity with them, and speak commitments to the values of Jesus could be used to attack nationalism, capitalism, military solutions to differences of opinion, etc.
20. Many of these ideas above are actions of denunciation against the state. However, the church has its share of evils that require direct confrontation as well. Take any of the ideas above and perform them in front of the most powerful, well-populated church in your town.
21. More generally, it is my opinion that the church’s function vis-à-vis the state should be to stand outside of it, and judge it from a higher standard. A simple step that must be made in order to move in this direction is the removal of the American flag from our sanctuaries. To be sure, the hanging of our flag in our places of worship is an affront to the God who recognizes no national boundaries. To suggest that the flag be removed will surely be met with strong resistance from parishioners. Nonetheless, the American flag is not just a piece of cloth, but a symbol of many things which are directly contradictory to the message of Jesus.
This list is not meant to be exhaustive. There are surely more examples that could be found and used as analogies. Instead, it is meant to encourage my readers to think creatively about how to plan out their own symbolic actions, using our rich Bible as a guide to courageous confrontation. Any of your own ideas are more than welcome.
Thursday, July 14, 2011
Nonviolent strategies for the 21st century
Gandhi’s book, Nonviolent Resistance, which I read in the office of a pastor who gave me shelter while completing a cross-country bicycle trip in my early 20s, was my introduction to the use of courageous refusal to corroborate with oppression or humiliation. From there, I read more Gandhi, and then, in seminary, Martin Luther King, Jr.’s book Stride Toward Freedom. King’s book illuminated for me the ways that the life of Jesus enacted and encouraged others to enact nonviolent resistance to the occupation of Rome and the corroboration of the religious authorities in that occupation.
Until only recently, over 10 years after a 6 year tenure as a pastor, my interest in nonviolent resistance has been as an intellectual curiosity. I was interested in its utility for the oppressed, and rooted for the use of nonviolent tactics in class-based struggles. My current position, as a professor at an HBCU (historically black college/university), has exposed me to stories of struggle and humiliation that my students and their families have shared with me. These stories remind me of the struggles our family had, growing up on welfare in Section 8 housing. I have gone back to the Bible, after years of neglect, to revisit this Jesus who gave up everything in order to insist that he had the right to tell the truth, and to proclaim that the kingdom of God was everywhere, waiting for us to act accordingly.
This has been rewarding study, but I have felt a familiar frustration. Books about nonviolent resistance make broad claims about its effectiveness, but rarely give ideas for specific actions. Books about “empire” discuss our culture’s reliance on what MLK called “the giant triplets of racism, extreme materialism, and militarism,” but offer little in the way of fighting these “powers and principalities.” I yearn for someone to write about how regular people, inspired by Jesus, Gandhi and King, can commit symbolic actions and acts of nonviolent resistance, in order to challenge the U.S. empire’s weak hold on its power.
In the absence of such a source of concrete action which is specifically informed by the potentially radical Bible, I wish to take on this task myself, beginning with this article. The purpose of this article is to start a conversation: In what ways can the Bible provide us with ideas for confronting the American empire’s injustices? Let me explain my thinking.
My reading about Jesus has led me to believe that Jesus intentionally travelled to Jerusalem because it was where the empire’s evil was most powerfully felt. His entrance was intentionally planned (In Mark 11: 2, he tells his disciples, “Go to the village facing you, and as you enter, you will at once find a tethered colt that no one has yet ridden.”) as a mocking imitation of Rome’s annual triumphal entry into Jerusalem during the week preceding Passover. His turning of the tables in the Temple, and attempts to keep anyone from entering, was an intentional act of symbolic fury against the religious authority’s corroboration with its own servitude. His confrontations with the scribes and Pharisees were intentionally provocative. In short, Jesus went to Jerusalem and caused trouble with the explicit purpose of exposing the injustices that were pervasively present, knowing full well that it was highly likely he would be killed for insurrection.
As I came to realize the extent to which Jesus intentionally planned out symbolic actions to make the implicit explicit, I wondered what these actions would look like in our day. Surely, the church is a hypocritical institution, which values its power and wealth to such an extent that it keeps silent about injustices that are endemic to American society. Surely, if Jesus were here now, he would wish to expose injustice, even if it meant that it was highly likely he would be killed. But what, exactly, would he do?
Those of us who are followers of this Jesus I am presenting here, need to get real and plan out symbolic actions which expose the injustices which pain our hearts. We write about them; we read about them. Let’s discuss them, and embolden ourselves to action. So, here’s an assignment: Read your Bible. Specifically, read the prophets and the synoptic Gospels, and ask yourself the following questions:
1) What is the societal problem the protagonist is railing against?
2) What is the analogous problem in the United States today?
3) What is the tactic the protagonist uses to expose the problem?
4) What would this tactic look like in the United States today? Where would we commit our symbolic action? What would we do? Are there any props that are necessary to make it work? What would we say?
Inspired by this desire to collect concrete ideas from the readers of my work, I have spent the past month re-reading all of the prophets and the synoptic gospels myself, and taken notes whenever I encountered an action or proclamation that was nonviolent, symbolic, and intended to expose societal evil.
Here is an example: In Haggai 1:6, Yahweh says that in Israel, “The wage-earner gets his wages only to put them in a bag with a hole in it.” Since the Bible is full of people who went into public places to proclaim hard truths, prophetic action today can include statements that judge American empire or American church by the standard of the radical Jesus. However, the Biblical example seems particularly powerful when proclamations are complimented with visual symbolism. Isn’t this image of wages being put into a bag with a hole in it especially relevant today? Couldn’t we go out in front of our local city hall and proclaim these same words? How memorable this would be if we also had a bag with a hole in it, and we pored our money into the bag, only to see it fall into a bucket below, labeled “Corporate welfare?” (Feel free to replace the label with your idea of choice.)
On another note, if we were courageous enough to look foolish, we could draw attention to any message our God desired us to proclaim if we imitated Ezekiel’s action in Ezekiel 4:4-8, and lie down in front of a building representing power or corroboration with power. Or, in Ezekiel 4:9-17, we could warn our country of the violence of poverty by cooking food for ourselves in a public square, using cow dung. There are so many ideas from Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Isaiah, and Daniel, not to mention in the synoptic Gospels, that could be used to construct symbolic actions in public squares around the country. Many of Jesus’ actions were referential of the Old Testament prophets; we can do the same.
I intend to write numerous articles about my findings, and draw analogies of my own. However, I can use your help. The church has spun the prophetic stories in the Bible as one-time events, unplanned actions that responded in real time to the voice of God, who directed the actions from heaven. Jesus showed us that nonviolent resistance is intentional and planned out. So, let’s plan! Please comment below with your ideas. I think we’ll be surprised how powerful we can be if we just imagine how much attention bold, unusual action gets, and then preach this message that Jesus has commissioned us to preach in the presence of the powers.
Until only recently, over 10 years after a 6 year tenure as a pastor, my interest in nonviolent resistance has been as an intellectual curiosity. I was interested in its utility for the oppressed, and rooted for the use of nonviolent tactics in class-based struggles. My current position, as a professor at an HBCU (historically black college/university), has exposed me to stories of struggle and humiliation that my students and their families have shared with me. These stories remind me of the struggles our family had, growing up on welfare in Section 8 housing. I have gone back to the Bible, after years of neglect, to revisit this Jesus who gave up everything in order to insist that he had the right to tell the truth, and to proclaim that the kingdom of God was everywhere, waiting for us to act accordingly.
This has been rewarding study, but I have felt a familiar frustration. Books about nonviolent resistance make broad claims about its effectiveness, but rarely give ideas for specific actions. Books about “empire” discuss our culture’s reliance on what MLK called “the giant triplets of racism, extreme materialism, and militarism,” but offer little in the way of fighting these “powers and principalities.” I yearn for someone to write about how regular people, inspired by Jesus, Gandhi and King, can commit symbolic actions and acts of nonviolent resistance, in order to challenge the U.S. empire’s weak hold on its power.
In the absence of such a source of concrete action which is specifically informed by the potentially radical Bible, I wish to take on this task myself, beginning with this article. The purpose of this article is to start a conversation: In what ways can the Bible provide us with ideas for confronting the American empire’s injustices? Let me explain my thinking.
My reading about Jesus has led me to believe that Jesus intentionally travelled to Jerusalem because it was where the empire’s evil was most powerfully felt. His entrance was intentionally planned (In Mark 11: 2, he tells his disciples, “Go to the village facing you, and as you enter, you will at once find a tethered colt that no one has yet ridden.”) as a mocking imitation of Rome’s annual triumphal entry into Jerusalem during the week preceding Passover. His turning of the tables in the Temple, and attempts to keep anyone from entering, was an intentional act of symbolic fury against the religious authority’s corroboration with its own servitude. His confrontations with the scribes and Pharisees were intentionally provocative. In short, Jesus went to Jerusalem and caused trouble with the explicit purpose of exposing the injustices that were pervasively present, knowing full well that it was highly likely he would be killed for insurrection.
As I came to realize the extent to which Jesus intentionally planned out symbolic actions to make the implicit explicit, I wondered what these actions would look like in our day. Surely, the church is a hypocritical institution, which values its power and wealth to such an extent that it keeps silent about injustices that are endemic to American society. Surely, if Jesus were here now, he would wish to expose injustice, even if it meant that it was highly likely he would be killed. But what, exactly, would he do?
Those of us who are followers of this Jesus I am presenting here, need to get real and plan out symbolic actions which expose the injustices which pain our hearts. We write about them; we read about them. Let’s discuss them, and embolden ourselves to action. So, here’s an assignment: Read your Bible. Specifically, read the prophets and the synoptic Gospels, and ask yourself the following questions:
1) What is the societal problem the protagonist is railing against?
2) What is the analogous problem in the United States today?
3) What is the tactic the protagonist uses to expose the problem?
4) What would this tactic look like in the United States today? Where would we commit our symbolic action? What would we do? Are there any props that are necessary to make it work? What would we say?
Inspired by this desire to collect concrete ideas from the readers of my work, I have spent the past month re-reading all of the prophets and the synoptic gospels myself, and taken notes whenever I encountered an action or proclamation that was nonviolent, symbolic, and intended to expose societal evil.
Here is an example: In Haggai 1:6, Yahweh says that in Israel, “The wage-earner gets his wages only to put them in a bag with a hole in it.” Since the Bible is full of people who went into public places to proclaim hard truths, prophetic action today can include statements that judge American empire or American church by the standard of the radical Jesus. However, the Biblical example seems particularly powerful when proclamations are complimented with visual symbolism. Isn’t this image of wages being put into a bag with a hole in it especially relevant today? Couldn’t we go out in front of our local city hall and proclaim these same words? How memorable this would be if we also had a bag with a hole in it, and we pored our money into the bag, only to see it fall into a bucket below, labeled “Corporate welfare?” (Feel free to replace the label with your idea of choice.)
On another note, if we were courageous enough to look foolish, we could draw attention to any message our God desired us to proclaim if we imitated Ezekiel’s action in Ezekiel 4:4-8, and lie down in front of a building representing power or corroboration with power. Or, in Ezekiel 4:9-17, we could warn our country of the violence of poverty by cooking food for ourselves in a public square, using cow dung. There are so many ideas from Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Isaiah, and Daniel, not to mention in the synoptic Gospels, that could be used to construct symbolic actions in public squares around the country. Many of Jesus’ actions were referential of the Old Testament prophets; we can do the same.
I intend to write numerous articles about my findings, and draw analogies of my own. However, I can use your help. The church has spun the prophetic stories in the Bible as one-time events, unplanned actions that responded in real time to the voice of God, who directed the actions from heaven. Jesus showed us that nonviolent resistance is intentional and planned out. So, let’s plan! Please comment below with your ideas. I think we’ll be surprised how powerful we can be if we just imagine how much attention bold, unusual action gets, and then preach this message that Jesus has commissioned us to preach in the presence of the powers.
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