More about Peace Church

What prompted my other post on Peace Church the other day is that I am currently reading Violence, Hospitality and the Cross.

This quotation struck me as something I need to work through:

"The resurrection mandate of pure hospitality needs to be tempered, therefore, by the wisdom of conditional hospitality. Inasmuch as we are still constrained by current historical conditions, our welcome of the stranger and the prodigal will necessarily involve some restraint, conditionality and even violence. The penal element of the atonement offers some significant insights into the way we should act in our everyday social, economic, and political realities. Practicing hospitality is a difficult and painful task." (178-179)

He is arguing that although the resurrection promises pure hospitality the hospitality we offer is always conditional. He expands what he means by conditional by saying that it will mean, sometimes, violence. He accounts for this conditionality theologically by reading the violence of the cross as an example of how we, in our 'everyday social, economic and political realities', should act. Although his definition of violence is broad, a definition that ends up placing restraining your children and genocide in the same category, he does not advocate it's use arbitrarily. Yet he does advocate some violence based on the violence God use on the cross.

Now that I have un-packed his writing a bit I will go on to articulate my position.

First of all he has the presupposition that to act in nonviolence will actually increase the violence. I do not necessarily disagree but wonder if he is now basing his ethics on an ontology of violence, the belief that reality is essentially chaotic, aggressive and Malthusian, which, along with Milbank, he accuses Levinas and Derrida of possessing. Perhaps this binary opposition between a harmonious ontology of peace and discordian ontology of violence needs to be deconstructed to account for what exactly the Church means when it theologizes saying "this is a fallen world".

Boersma consistently references Paul in his book but I do not believe he takes an adequate look at a Pauline pneumatology and certainly he does not connect pneumatology to ethics. The phrase "the Spirit who rose Christ from the dead" is one of the canonical idioms in the Pauline corpus almost to the point of become cliche. It captures Paul's theology of the spirit quite adequately.

Because the Spirit has risen Jesus from the dead those who are part of the Church can be justified in participating in a different praxis. This praxis is no longer based on the conditional hospitality of a violent reality but based on the 'eschatological hospitality' (Boersma's wording) of the resurrection.

This different praxis is 'Christian' in the very literal meaning of the word, being based on the actions of Jesus. The actions which were to act non-violently in surrendering to the crucifixion rather than acting violently against the Roman or religious authorities. More importantly he did not put confidence in violence to establish the reign of God, nor did he accept that he had to match the chaotic reality on his own terms, but rather chose to obey God (cf. the Gethsemane narratives in the gospels) and was rewarded in being risen from the dead.

Now theologically, the historical life and especially resurrection of Jesus, means that the eschaton and it's reality has appeared in the present. Theology discourse, especially of the radical reformation variety, uses the language of God's kingdom having "broken in" within history. This has implications for our ethics. It means acting nonviolently is based not on pragmatic ignorance towards the violence that this might allow but based on three theological confessions: the counterintuitive death of the Jesus, the surprising resurrection and the inheritance of the Spirit.

"However, you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you But if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Him. If Christ is in you, though the body is dead because of sin, yet the spirit is alive because of righteousness. But if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you.So then, brethren, we are under obligation, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh-for if you are living according to the flesh, you must die; but if by the Spirit you are putting to death the deeds of the body, you will live. For all who are being led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God." Romans 8:9-14, NASB

In this Paul is not directly talking about nonviolence but it is not inappropriate to use this passage to illuminate any discussion on the issue. Paul here contrasts 'the flesh' to 'the Spirit' in explaining some of his ethics and he manages to work the events of the death and resurrection of Jesus into this account. I understand that the historical reading of 'the flesh' has a significant amount of quasi-gnostic meanings to it but I do not have the space to go into that here. The point of the passage is because Christians have the same spirit who rose Jesus from the dead we no longer have to live according to 'the Flesh' or, in the context of my argument, violence, because we have been empowered to live otherwise.

Now it is not clear but Boersma seems to be saying that although we do have hope for that 'eschatological hospitality' because of the resurrection of Jesus we live in the time of 'conditional hospitality' (read: necessary violence) where the violence of the cross has implications. These implications it seems (he may be saying otherwise but I see no hint of this in his book) means necessary violence now which could mean things like the death penality, just war (or maybe, since he is Canadian, 'peace-keeping') etc. This seems like a bizarre reading of the implications of the cross to me, and I would suggest he read NT Wright's work (one of his main sources) closer and perhaps even the New Testament itself (which I admit, saying that is a bit polemical on my part)

There that is my counter-reading of the hospitality of the death and resurrection of Christ and it's implications. I will now proceed to show areas where further, critical reflection is needed on my part as I hope I have already shown some areas where reflection is needed on his.

Copious amounts of graphic nonviolence: the presupposition that is held by Boersma and not necessarily challenged by me is that nonviolence actually has no power. I believe that I need to do a lot more critical thinking, careful reading, meticulous observation and authentically pray about this issue. The hypothetical situation set-up to criticize advocates of nonviolence is that mass scale use of nonviolence will lead to very bloody war. I have had to engage with this situation on a theoretical level as well. Not to long ago I found this blog post which critiqued this view pointing to examples in history of nonviolence resistance, such as Gandhi, the civil rights movement etc.

Perhaps it is the historical situation (I refrain from saying it will always be the case) that most people, including most Christians, do not believe in nonviolence. And it is this particular situation which socially constructs the belief that nonviolence is ineffective and will produce more violence.

But it is this particular situation where the Church is called to act, and according to my belief act nonviolently. Which means, in effect, that our nonviolence will not stop violence. But I am finding myself disagreeing that the proliferation of violence makes nonviolence a choice complicit in this proliferation.That is to say makes nonviolence irresponsible and a contributor to violence. It is not people who choose to act nonviolently that causes the nonviolence but the fact that those who choose nonviolence are in the minority.

The final issue is my defense of a nonviolent stance from the position of my pneumatology. What does it mean that The Spirit gives life to our mortal bodies? Does it simply mean the wisdom and courage to act nonviolently or, alternatively, does it mean that our nonviolence will actually be effective?