The New Black Theology And The Patristics

Posted on January 26, 2012 by RodtRDH

TOWARDS A CRITICAL RACE THEOLOGY?

A T-shirt parodying the political neologism &q...

Traditionally, the Patristics and their work were used as apologetics to protect Christians and our propositional truth claims. Tertullian agrees with me! No Augustine agrees with me! Origen is a heretic! Clement of Alexandria? Can you say liberal?

Recently, there has been a trend in the discipline of black theology to use Early Church thinkers toward anti-racist ends. The cover story in The Christian Century: The New Black Theology highlights this move brilliantly.

“What is revolutionary about these three black theologians is that they rely heavily on dogmatic texts from the patristic period to the Reformation. Why is this novel? Because nonwhite male theologians have historically been hesitant to trust these sources—and for good reason. In the worst of times, classic theological texts have been used to oppress persons of color and women. In the best of times, the overwhelming attention given these particular voices obscured other voices, giving the impression that the only Christians speaking and writing about God for the last 2,000 years were European men. Those who did not fit that description simply did not know how to relate to a tradition that claimed to speak for but did not reflect them.”

I would highly recommend that you give the article, linked above, a read. I am filled with excitement for this trend, if you couldn’t already tell. But first, I would like to show gratitude to the theological foremothers and forefathers who came before me, the crazy Zilpha Elaws, Julia J.A. Footes and James Cones, whose sharing of the Gospel have had a great impact on me theologically. The great news about this “new” black theology, Black Theology 2.0, is that theological resources from Early Christianity, and from the Antebellum South are read as equals. These acts in themselves are subversive, for they challenge our racist, sexist academic canons in theological studies that now exists as the hegemons that racial minority scholars have to face.

Two more important and encouraging signs about this theology is that #1, these black male writers are arguing how racism against blacks has its history intertwined with the histories of anti-Semitism and anti-Judaism, as Frantz Fanon argued a long time ago. Secondly, the “new black theology” has begun to make Christian theology an essential resource for critical race theory in general. That is why, even though I really, really hate neologisms, I have some desire to tentatively call this new theology, to escape the black-white binary, Critical Race Theology. I am still working on it, so it is a work in progress.

For more information about what I am calling “CRITICAL RACE THEOLOGY”:

Visit J. Kameron Carter’s blog and read my review of his book: Race: A Theological Account

Read my review of, and read Willie Jennings’ The Christian Imagination: Theology and the Origins of Race.

See also Brian Bantum’s blog, as well as from the evangelical perspective, Anthony Bradley’s site.

Network on FACEBOOK with theologians and religion scholars doing critical race theory:

Theology and Critical Race Theory

The Journal for Race, Ethnicity, and Religion

Society of Race, Ethnicity and Religion

You may also be interested in reading my Master of Theology Thesis, Beyond Liberated: Divine Transcendence and Cultural Hybridity in the Theologies of Clement of Alexandria and James Cone.

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RodtRDH

Formerly known as Rod of Alexandria, Rod the Rogue Demon Hunter Preacher of Hope | Black Scholar of Patristics | Writer for Nonviolent Politics. TRINITY! LIBERTY! EQUALITY!

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Posted in anti-Semitism, black theology, the Church | Tagged , , , , , | 3 Comments

Plutarch, the New Testament, and the Church Fathers

Posted on January 25, 2012 by RodtRDH
Portrait of Herodotus, identified after other ...

Last year in December, Joel made note of the similarities between the Pastoral Letter of 1st Timothy and Plutarch.

As I was reading Plutarch’s Morals on Kindle myself, I noticed a few similarities between this 2nd century thinker’s viewpoint and the apostles. One difference I would maintain is that for Plutarch, his code of ethics is for males who were born of good birth.

Plutarch wrote his Morals because he believed that ethics was philosophy, and vice versa:

“Plutarch’s Morals (Plutarch)
- Highlight Loc. 207-13 |

Philosophy, therefore, ought to be regarded as the most important branch of study. For as regards the cure of the body, men have found two branches, medicine and exercise: the former of which gives health, and the latter good condition of body; but philosophy is the only cure for the maladies and disorders of the soul. For with her as ruler and guide we can know what is honourable, what is disgraceful; what is just, what unjust; generally speaking, what is to be sought after, what to be avoided; how we ought to behave to the gods, to parents, to elders, to the laws, to foreigners, to rulers, to friends, to women, to children, to slaves: viz., that we ought to worship the gods, honour parents, reverence elders, obey the laws, submit ourselves to rulers, love our friends, be chaste in our relations with women, kind to our children, and not to treat our slaves badly”

The life of virtue is one of an on going nourishment:

“Plutarch’s Morals (Plutarch)
- Highlight Loc. 1653-55 |

For just as nurses mould with their hands the child’s body, so tutors, receiving it immediately it is weaned, mould its soul, teaching it by habit the first vestiges of virtue.”

The language of teachers being serving as mothers, breastfeeding the soul is reminiscent of Clement of Alexandria’s views on the Church, giving breast milk to all of her little babies: CoA refers the nourishing Father who provides us with milk to drink, which is the teachings and sacrifice of Christ in Clement’s The Educator.

Plutarch continues,

“Plutarch’s Morals (Plutarch)
- Note Loc. 269 |
I will next state something quite as important, indeed, if anything, even more important. That is, that life must be spent without luxury, the tongue must be 15under control, so must the temper and the hands.”

Do not these words ring with the Wisdom of the Letter to James:

“But those who look into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and persevere, being not hearers who forget but doers who act—they will be blessed in their doing. If any think they are religious, and do not bridle their tongues but deceive their hearts, their religion is worthless. Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to care for orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself unstained by the world.” James 1:25-27

The pure religion has a bridled tongue, solidarity with the poor, and a sanctified lifestyle to offer to the Father.

What I found to be most interesting is Plutarch’s take on wives submitting to husbands, or rather husbands not ruling over wives as complementarians would have us to understand the cultural context,

“Plutarch’s Morals (Plutarch)
- Highlight Loc. 1365-67 |

But the husband ought to rule his wife, not as a master does a chattel, but as the soul governs the body, by sympathy and goodwill.”

Plutarch is not trying to appease egalitarians out of some dream of political correctness, as egalitarians like me are accused of. No, what he is saying is that there is an essential unity between man and woman in marriage, and so the overlordship that complementarian academic scholars like the Council of Biblical Manhood and Womanhood is not consistent with Greek philosophy of the 1st and 2nd centuries Common Era. My point is that Plutarch’s understanding of submission, although not perfect, or Christian, still come pretty close to what egalitarians have been arguing about men being the SOURCE of women (like Adam “birthing” Eve in Genesis)–Thanks Suzanne!

I have been wondering silently to myself what a Christian Plutarchian understanding of kephale would mean when Christians read 1st Corinthians. Maybe if we took consideration of the Incarnation, how the mystery of the Logos became one with the anatomy of a fetus inside the womb of a 2nd Century Jewish virgin. A soul governing the body? Sound familiar? Read the above paragraph again. Think about it.

Plutarch had a good grasp of what justice is; it is not vengeance or privatized judgements in favor of one person over the other. No, he had a social understanding of justice.

“Plutarch’s Morals (Plutarch)
- Note Loc. 1736 |

For virtue, when it considers what it ought to do and what it ought not to do, is called prudence; and when it curbs passion, and sets a fit and proper limit to pleasure, it is called self-control; and when it is associated with our dealings and covenants with one another, it is called justice”

Justice cannot be understood without relationships with others, without covenants. Plutarch’s admonition for his audience (rich Greek males) to practice self-control rings odd in the ears of our hedonistic society today, where the rich get richer and more hedonistic (even when they do go to church) while the poor get poorer and the Republican lecturing circuit.

I will end this post with Plutarch’s political advice to those of us living in the United States today:

Plutarch’s Morals (Plutarch)
- Highlight Loc. 327-28 |

Abstain from beans: that is, do not meddle in state affairs, for the voting for offices was formerly taken by beans.

Beans beans they are good for your heart, if you eat too many, they will make you fart. Don’t vote, folks, or you’ll get the runs!

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RodtRDH

Formerly known as Rod of Alexandria, Rod the Rogue Demon Hunter Preacher of Hope | Black Scholar of Patristics | Writer for Nonviolent Politics. TRINITY! LIBERTY! EQUALITY!

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Posted in New Testament, the Church | Tagged , , , , | 1 Comment

Female Characters Who Kick Ass: Introducing Mallory Kane

Posted on January 25, 2012 by Amanda Mac

I have always been a fan of strong female heroes.  Buffy, Faith, Cordelia (in season 3 of Angel), Sydney Bristow…And this summer I’m hoping to get into The Hunger Games, and it sounds like is pretty kick-ass too.

Well, now there is another kick-ass character to add to the list: Mallory Kane.  Mallory Kane is played by MMA fighter Gina Carano in the movie Haywire.

Haywire is The Bourne Identity meets Ocean’s Eleven.  It has the feel of the 80’s action flicks of Jean-Claude Van Damme, in which the movie isn’t dependent on the star’s acting ability.  That being said, Gina does a pretty good job holding her own in the acting arena, and given a few more films, she will be pretty good.  (Remember that the trio from Harry Potter had no acting background before they got pegged for Philosopher’s Stone, and look at how they matured in their acting over the next seven films).

Move over JVC, Bruce Willis, and Jason Statham.  There is a new action hero on the scene.  But the question is, will audiences accept this 21st century heroine?

Some people might be uncomfortable with the fight scenes because of their realism.

It is this realism that caught me off-guard during the first fight scene.  Fight scenes with characters like Buffy and Sydney are almost cartoonish.  But this was different.  You can tell that Carano does all her own fight scenes, and there is nothing flashy about them.  She is doing what she knows, grappling and striking, leg locks and arm bars.  All of which makes the fight scenes have a strong sense of realism about them. Compared to the cartoonish fighting of Alias and BtVS, Mallory is fighting ‘dirty’, and is not relying on stunt doubles, special effects, wire-fu, or highly stylized choreography.

Add to it that all the fight scenes are Mallory versus guys, and there may be some discomfort at the violence involving a woman, since we’re all taught that men aren’t supposed to hit a lady. But as Ewan MacGregor’s character says to Michael Fassbender’s character “Don’t think of her as a woman”, meaning that to do so will be to underestimate her.

To those who may feel uncomfortable, I would suggest that if that is the case, ask yourself, “Would I feel uncomfortable with this violence if it was done by a male action hero?”  or “Do I feel this uncomfortable when Buffy is wailing on the vampires?”

The other thing I appreciated about this movie and the Mallory Kane character is that the movie doesn’t make her into a sex object.  It would have been easy.  An action movie for a mostly male audience means that the movie can show skin and sex appeal or even sex itself.  This movie is discreet.  The romantic sex scene is all innuendo, with the scene cut after the kiss, and restarted the morning after.  As well, when Mallory has to go undercover in evening wear, she shows just how uncomfortable she is with it.  It is not her.  She is playing a part.  But more importantly, the evening wear isn’t skanky or revealing; it is classy and elegant.

From what I’ve seen, the movie is getting decent reviews.  I hope that means that we will see more of Mallory Kane/Gina Carano in the future.  At the very least, hopefully it shines a spotlight on the female MMA circuit. There are some very talented female athletes who compete and who don’t get nearly the coverage that the male-dominated UFC gets.

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To @UnitedSeminary : John Wesley Would Oppose Kenneth Copeland’s Prosperity Gospel

Posted on January 24, 2012 by RodtRDH
John Wesley (1703-1791), founder of Methodism

I am speaking out of my capacity as someone with Methodist and Wesleyan friends, as well as someone who agrees for the most part with Wesleyan theology. John Wesley would not approve of the prosperity anti-gospel, and the Word of BANK  Faith movement. I have already made my opposition known to Tither-Driven Churches; I would now like to use John Wesley himself as an example, especially in light of lame-line seminaries aligning themselves with heresy in order to make a cheap buck. It’s pretty unbelieveable that this same school United Seminary has a member on its board who would rather go on an anti-Catholic rant (he’s a Methodist pastor) rather than confronting heretics. Apostacy wins. Tradition loses.

There is a difference between Catholics and the Word of Bank Faith movement. Catholic priests preach the Gospel, the Good News God ordained for the poor, for the broken hearted, for the unborn, and for the elderly. The prosperity anti-gospel does the exact opposite; we cannot compare the two. Catholic clergy and laity affirm the content of the Gospel while the prosperity anti-gospel movement, they CHANGE the content of the gospel to its very antithesis.

This leads me to reflect on John Wesley’s sermon on 1st Timothy 6:9; now, 1st and 2nd Timothy are not just friendly pastoral letters telling us how we should run our “CHUCH”; no indeed, historically, Paul is confronting rich women who were trying to take over the life of the church by their wealth and power. Theologically reconsidered, Paul’s message to Timothy and his church matches Jesus’ priestly ministry, that God just does not have a heart for the poor, but that they are His very heart, His existence, and, as the song goes, He is the Defender of the Weak, a Comfort to those in need. Our love and solidarity for the poor do not take a backseat to ecclesiology or pastoral authority; rather it is the reverse.

John Wesley preached on thedangers of riches, and greed ruled his day like it does our: “How many thousands do we find at this day, in whom the ruling principle is, the desire to enlarge the pleasure of tasting! Perhaps they do not gratify this desire in a gross manner, so as to incur the imputation of intemperance; much less so as to violate health or impair their understanding by gluttony or drunkenness. But they live in a genteel, regular sensuality; in an elegant epicurism, which does not hurt the body, but only destroys the soul, keeping it at a distance from all true religion.” Of course when you believe in either a hedonistic god like John Piper who only works for His own good please, well, I guess it’s okay to affirm a capitalism where each works for his own good.

Philosophically, John Wesley was a contemporary, and a vocal opponent of the pagan philosopher economist Adam Smith. United Methodist theologian Joerg Rieger notes in his book, NO Rising Tide that it was faithful Christians like John Wesley who first confronted Smith and his unbiblical theories, not any “godless Marxists.” Justice must include covenant, and the New Covenant, just as the First Covenant, gives first priority to the widows, the orphans, the elderly,the exiled, and the unborn over those concerned with the here and now, the middle-class, and those who see themselves in “stable-homes.” This goes against the logic of “satan likes to see a poor preacher’; that’s just bad anti-gospel theology, and misses the whole point about Scripture’s message (and John Wesley’s view) about stewardship.

Are modern-day Protestant clergy here in Amerika superior to the apostles and disciples, that we don’t have to go through persecution, or fellowship with the disabled, or suffer through poverty, chosen or unchosen? I guess according to UTS and Copeland, they are. Maybe Protestants need to start learning from Catholics and start taking Vows of Poverty.

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RodtRDH

Formerly known as Rod of Alexandria, Rod the Rogue Demon Hunter Preacher of Hope | Black Scholar of Patristics | Writer for Nonviolent Politics. TRINITY! LIBERTY! EQUALITY!

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Posted in anti-intellectuals | Tagged , , , | 17 Comments

Grimm: Of Mouse and Man

Posted on January 22, 2012 by RodtRDH

“I am impelled not to squeak like a grateful and frightened mouse but to roar….”

Juliette to Nick, “At least I know who you are.”

Well,  at first this episode fit the profile of the past seven episodes. Oh, btw, **SPOILER ALERT**  Someone gets murdered. The body gets dumped. Nick and Hank meet up with Sergeant Wu to examine the gruesome details of tonight’s mystery creature. Even Nick Burkhart takes a nonchalant attitude to this case, “Sounds like your basic bully.”

Then, all of a sudden, things started to get dark.  First, a person of interest, Marty Burgess claims that Natalie and her boyfriend (the victim we see in the first scene) Leonard Drake were having an argument, that Mr. Drake was a “terrible man” and “had a difficult life to turn out so mean.”  The second person of interest is a lawyer, Mason Snyder heavily involved in the lives of Natalie and Leonard.  Meanwhile, there were a couple of suspicious stalkers spying on Juliette.

Nick visits Monroe, who identifies Mason as a Lausenslange, or an evil snake dude, and Marty as a harmless Maushertz, or mouse guy. Grimm, unfortunately, has no files on a Maushertz because they really keep to themselves (except for their whole cartoon scam they got going). While they were talking, Eddie gets a phone call, a gig to fix a watch in Boston. Monroe is really excited, and has to leave Nick on his own for this case.

Later in the show, we see that a gang of big bad creatures gang up on Monroe for what the audience is left to assume, retaliation for aiding and abetting a Grimm) Monroe is beaten to a bloody pulp, and on his car, it is vandalized with his own blood, with a mysterious symbol- the Reaper that we saw in vaguely mentioned in the first three episodes or so.

Back in Portland, Grimm and Hank are closing in on Marty and Snyder as the primary suspects for Leonard’s murder. Marty warns Snyder to stay away from Natalie (Marty obviously has a crush on her), to which Mason responds, “You will never be anymore than what you already are. A little rodent with a little rodent’s life.”  Marty sees visions of his dad talking down to him and ends up kills Mason.

Marty and Natalie have dinner together, and Marty tells her of his plans to move, “We make our own truth. Don’t let anybody ever tell you what you can’t do.” Of course, Nick and Hank have caught on by now that their man is Marty, and get him in the end.

This episode had more story arc than the previous seven combined, and has given me a glimmer of hope. The final scene, Nick visits Eddie at his home.  Nick sees Monroe, bruised and battered, “Whew. What happened to you?” Monroe, “Funny you should ask. You happened to me.”

Monroe,”You start messing with the status quo, there are gonna be some people who are not necessarily sanguine about that.” Nick offers to not receive any more of Eddie’s help, and Monroe, in his own fashion “I’ve never been a status quo kinda guy.”

I’m glad to see the Reapers are back in the picture. I think we are just getting started folks.

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RodtRDH

Formerly known as Rod of Alexandria, Rod the Rogue Demon Hunter Preacher of Hope | Black Scholar of Patristics | Writer for Nonviolent Politics. TRINITY! LIBERTY! EQUALITY!

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