re-thinking Christendom

A lot of the intellectual issues I try to deal with our fundamentally about the relationship between the Church, it's theologies and political practice. Recently I have decided to try and work through something that John Milbank poses in an interviewover at the The Other Journal:

"And that means of course, re-think Christendom. But now in more festive, pro-body, yet more interpersonal, less fearing terms and ones celebrating much more excellence and virtue in every realm including those of craft, farming and trade. And having a greater will to the democratization of excellence."

Considering the anti-Christendom strain in my thinking and the traditions I have been apart of (Anabaptist,evangelical,anarchist and missional) this quotation is directly challenging. The political thinking intrinsic to Milbank is that theology has a place in the economic, social and political world beyond the position of prophetic utterance or face-to-face relationship. Examining my thought it seems that the ecclesiology I pertain to puts a monopoly first on the personalist 'face-to-face' and the Anabaptist/liberationist 'prophetic utterance'. For me Milbank has effectively de-stabalized these two monopolies in my mind.

In Missional Church, a book I have mentioned before, Darrell Guder describes the relationship of the church, the people of God, to the reign of God as "the sign,foretaste,instrument and agent of God's rule in Christ" (pg 221). The church is not identical to the reign of God, but is certainly related and the relationship is not easily severed. I will call 'Christendom' a social arrangement which is not identical to the reign of God and neither identical to the Church.

Milbank seems to mention some of the harsher criticisms of the Christendom arrangement including the less festive,anti-body,impersonal,fear-mongering,lack of virtue and lack of respect for the common person as citizen and worker. He is open about the reality that historic Christendom has major flaws but does not abandon the project altogether after the failure of both socialism and liberalism in avoiding both wide-scale genocide,economic injustice and nihilism.

As a member of those various traditions above I would argue about, or more precisely add to, his constructive politics of a re-thought Christendom is a heavy suspicion of power, a rejection of violence, a need to reconcile localism with global technocracy and a recognition of cultural diversities. I would also caution that european imperialism has been an experienced reality of the last five centuries partially out of the failures of the old Christendom.

Re-thinking Chistendom means for me thinking through my cautions and additions to what Milbank is saying. Much of what seems to me to be 'post-Christendom' political theology seems to bubble out of a dialect between an ethical aim (to respond to the other, to have justice) with political suspicion (which comes out of a lived reality of imperialism - such as the Anabaptist persecutions by the state churches in Europe). Yet at the same time in quite clear terms Post-Christendom theology must come to the realization that it is not politically neutral and that even the concept of 'Christendom' is the recognition that our theology will inevitably, if taken to their the logical conclusions, will produce or support some sort of social arrangement which although neither the reign of God nor the Church is something related to the two.

First of all, following Macintyre and also Milbank and 'Theology and Social Theory', we must recover a robust understanding of virtue. But I would caution that this must be 'textured' by the Scriptures and should be more from the Spirit than Aristotle. This means both practice and understanding arising out of the New Testament, especially Paul's epistles. Perhaps love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control" can be the virtues of this new order.

Secondly the suspicion of power and rejection of violence must be taken into account, especially as informed by the New Testament. This means both the development of virtues and communities of nonviolence and a communal respect and distrust of power. There are practical ways of exploring this including favouring the local and de-centralized institutions, including economic and politics ones.

Thirdly - learn from De Certeau and Ellul about technology and it's use. Technology is not a bad thing intrinsically but has the potential, as is shown in actual history, to be very alienating. There are ways to use technology to build community, strengthen the local economy and build towards what Illich call 'conviviality'.

Two things in those whole Christendom discussion:

First - it is secondary or ever tertiary. Not in the sense that it does not matter but in the sense that ethics come before politics. What matters primarily is not the setting up of an order but the spiritual flourishing of individuals and the church in the willingness to suffer and love the last,the lost, the least,the widows, the orphans and the enemies.

Secondly we must head Illich's warning "Responsibility is the soft under-belly of power".

Moltmann quotation.

"We however need another theology of liberation for people incapable of living - for melancholic and apathetic and in this sense godforsaken people in the First World" - Jurgen Moltmann

That sums up what I've been trying to say, to write, to express.

The Body, the Eucharist, Sacraments and Symbols

I've mentioned that a lot of what I do read is the movement known as Radical Orthodoxy. What I do severely enjoy about it's corpus of writtings is how they engage with contemporary philosophical,political and cultural issues ranging from the destructive habits of late capitalism to a theology of the body.

It is the theology of the body which challenges me the most. Mainly because their theological account of gender,marriage and sexuality is centred around the Sacrament of the Eucharist. Having listened to their arguments and been somewhat of an observer of the discourse I can say that I do really desire to have the same understanding of the Eucharist as they do simply because from the point they are able to narrate a different world, a 'city of God' so to speak. From that point they are able to talk about Bodies in a meaningful way because they hold a sacramental view of the Eucharist.

So now I'm stuck. I want to engage with a discourse and theology on bodies but now have been forced to really think and pray about what the Eucharist really means.

Consumerism - Part II

Alienation.

Consumerism, as a system of economic organization which creates profound social and personal effects, is fundamentally alienating. In "Being Consumed: Economics and Christian Desire" William Cavanaugh points out three things that Consumerism alienates us from:

Producers - those who make our stuff and grow our food. Those people across oceans who stitch our shirts and cultivate our coffee. Those who work in factories, most of the time under terrible conditions, to produce our junk.

Products - Cavanaugh points out that Consumerism even detaches us from the products themselves as it is oriented to always more. One can not be satisfied with the products that one has rather one must always buy and buy and buy. The author also points out that this can be read as an alternative to Christian ascetism which also wants to be detached from products, but for a different reason.

I use the word Alienation in the same way Jacques Ellul used it in The Ethics of Freedom - which I urge everyone to read at some point.

Consumerism - Part I

It has been pointed out to me that despite the title of this blog I have yet to discuss consumerism. Here I hope to introduce what will be a series of posts on consumerism, especially as it related to theology.

Consumerism I use as a concept is developed out of a critique of what once called Materialism. Materialism was a kind of value-system where people 'desire' material goods more than out of need but out of desire. The problem with Materialism as a discourse is that, in my mind, it seems to ignore the economic system and social consequences of materialism and simply focuses on only one aspect of it.

Consumerism is more systematic. It is more than just an individual's one time sin - it is cyclical vice that fuels the political order of society. Where 'investment' was valued by the early Calvinist settlers of the US, purchasing has become eroded to immediate gratification based on bad debt (money that is not there). More than that the influence of Consumerism is part of the global social order. The world economy is based on the consumption of goods by the World's richest cultures, but it is not only consumption but conspicuous consumption.

I realize I have said a lot, and it may seem a bit confusing, but these article on Consumerism seems to illustrated my distaste of it.

But the real purpose of this blog is not criticize consumerism as such, but to provide a theological alternative to it. I find myself agreeing a lot with Being Consumed: Economics and Christian Desire by Cavanaugh.

I use the terminology of 'liberation theology' to evoke that specific theology which begins by acknowledging that the class position of a reader of the Scriptures and of the Church should effect our theology and praxis. My proposal is that whereas traditional Liberation Theology came from the perspective of the poor, and to liberate them from their oppression, that as North American's we should come from the perspective of the average consumer who needs to be liberated from false desire, indifference,brand identification, loneliness bred from the breakdown of community, greed and participation in the oppression of the Global Economy or politico-poetically called "Empire" and other things related to consumerism. Instead a theology concerned with Consumer Liberation will look to community, simplicity, solidarity, liturgy and Spirituality as things to be restored.

Now one thing I must make clear: I believe it is God who liberates. It is only in Christ can people truly become free. I think that our readings of Scripture has been shaken by the affleunce we have, and the consumerism we practice, I think it is still possible to participate in Christ.

The right idea from the wrong place

I have been thinking about a post on Marriage I read some time ago defending Marriage from an Eastern Orthodox liturgical point of view. It reminded me of an interview with Graham Ward I read a while back in which the subject of bodies,sexuality, Marriage and Judith Butler were brought up. It is a good read. But one thing I realized is in a lot of the discussion of marriage, gender, sexuality etc. I tend to find myself drifting to a somewhat litrugical understanding in my ways of thinking. Considering the emphasis on the sacramentality of marriage, which relates to the sacramentality of the church, in both of the previous positions (Eastern Orthodox and Ward's own) mentioned I wonder how to approach any discourse on marriage without referencing it's sacramentality.

I mean most of the people I hang out/ worship with do not have the same sacramental understanding as I do. The one even accepted the label of 'sacramental anarchist'. Yet they believe in the 'sanctity' of marriage. I agree that marriage is sacred like they say but I see no real reason for them to believe that. Thus they seem to have, as the title suggests, the right idea from the wrong place. I don't believe I should attack them, or bring it up, but I do see issues that might need to be worked out in the future.

This post was inspired by this one.

De-Institutionalizing Ideas

Below, sometime ago, I have written about the institutionalization of hospitality as seen by Ivan Illich. In his book "The Rivers North of the Future" he discusses how it became evident to him that it is off immediate importance to work within the framework of institutions and that culture because of how systematic it was. As I have been reflecting on this top this past weekend I have one very simple piece of advice for those working in institutions:

Make friendships. Real Friendships.

If you are a pastor at a church get to know on a good level some of denominational staff. Not only that but for the people you are serving make sure that some of the relationships go deeper than just a pastor-congregant relationship. It is only in these friendships can change actually occur. Illich went so far as to label these friendships as the new form of prophesy. Do I agree? I am not sure exactly but I know real, lasting friendship is one of the primary means to be human in a beaurocratic techno-societies.

re-traditionalization

I came upon an interesting post over some time ago which used the concept of "traditionalization".

"According to Ogbu U. Kalu, during an era where Japan was trying to modernize its industry, there was something called “traditionalization,” or patterning Japanese industrial practices consistently with traditional Japanese mores (Kalu, 9)."

The idea came up in my own personal reflections. Today I spoke at an Intentional Community forum called SharedSpace in which I discussed how I entered into Intentional Community. I explained how my family's experience both in the Apostolic Christian Church and the Banat Swabian persecution. I also referenced my time in my Churches youth group and the emphasis on Service and Mission.

I realized, although I did not use this particular language, that I re-traditionalized both my family heritage and youth group experience into something which seems completely new and foreign to both, yet connected quite intimately.

All this also reminded me of anti-work articles in a recent issue of Geez that I read. It seems ironic, on the surface, that a magazine connected to Anabaptism and Mennonites who are essentialized as hard-working farmers would advocated non-work. Yet on a deeper level they are re-traditionalizing the social and political distincteness of the Anabaptist reading, which focuses on both peace, the poor and has an anarchist tinge, of Christianity in the context of the 21st Century (I hesistate to label it anything else)

My appreciation (or appropriation) of media and cultural studies.

I appreciate media and cultural studies.

What I mean by that is not that I study it - although as someone who reads a lot of theology I come across a lot of the same thinkers and discourses. Here I want to focus on MacLuhan's "The medium is the message". I'm not going to analyze and explain but to suffice to say it is something important for Christians. The message we are trying to spread, or at least owe loyalty to, is the gospel. The gospel might be expressed differently in different circles of sub-traditions of Christianity but it is still the gospel.

But "the medium is the message" has challenged. The medium I use the most, academic theology books, usually talk about things related to or around the gospel. Yet if "the medium is the message", a belief that I think is justified, have I turned the medium of theology books into the message of the gospel? In more practical terms have I defined discipleship not as serving the Risen Christ so much as reading books?

Cultural studies plays a helpful role in this too. Where as media studies analyzes the characters and effects of media and media technology cultural studies looks at the social consequences of economic structures. It uses the metaphors of production and consumption for culture, useful metaphors in my estimation. I have to admit besides being the medium of books that which I read, and possibly define as my message as indicated above, is also tied into the economic forces of business. Grands Rapids is my cultural capital in economic terms since almost of all my favourite authors and books are published by Eerdmanns .

Have I defined my discipleship, then, as an intellectual pilgrimage through Grand Rapids?

These are questions I am dealing with.