Towards an OrthoPolitics in the Cities of the Triune God
“[...] to be a Christian nation would mean we would ultimately be faced with the task of regulating Jesus. [...] Believing it best represents God’s will, every Christian government is ultimately doomed to sacrifice Jesus once again.”– Erin Hamilton, “Christian Nation”
And
“American public officials should make every effort NOT to even appear to favor a particular religion or denomination or religious movement over others AS A PUBLIC OFFICIAL. As a private person, which a public official always also is, he or she has ever right to attend and participate in religious ceremonies. However, a line of danger is crossed when a public official publicly endorses and participates in a parochial religious worship event wearing his or her public “hat,” as it were.”- Roger Olson, Politicians and Prayer Meetings
Recently, I have had problems reading my Bible, particularly the Old Testament. Why you ask? I took note of something that I didn’t realize that was there (and shouldn’t, or at least should be clarified). Have you ever read through any of the oracles of the prophets, against the Nations? When you see these two words, The Nations, what comes to your mind? Is it hegemonic nation-states that we are all caught up in from birth, the United States of America, the struggling- to be Palestinian nation-state, China the emerging hyper-power in the world? The priest-prophet Ezekiel gives a 3 chapter tirade against the city-state of Tyre (chapters 26-28:19). Come to think of it, Babylon was a great Ancient Near Eastern city-state as well. When we read our English translations of Scripture, however, because we see the terms “The Nations,” our minds go straight to our modern notions of nationality. In fact, I have come to regret my reading of the last few chapters of Ezekiel, fearing it was nationalistic when perhaps it was MY OWN GAZE that was instead, for nationalism requires the arrogant stance that we are not from the land.
Nationalization of our identities also assumes that local differences must be suppressed. As I have argued, along the lines of Willie Jenning’s theology of Israel, nation-building is the epitome of Gentile arrogance. A precise reason why this is the case is that the God of Israel in the Hebrew Bible historically reveals YHWH acting politically within the confines of city-states. I am coming to believe that the difference of utmost importance. In order for our particularities (on the local level) to be denied, space and place must be taken away. Therefore, our identity is separated from the ground from which we came. Biblically speaking, this becomes a prideful practice; whether in Scripture, we are discussing when human beings return to dust, or where the places that we are buried have sacred meaning (wouldn’t that mean we should come to question cemetaries? I believe so).
While many scholars are coming to criticize the Enlightenment and the creation of the nation-state, what is left in the void is no alternative. Perhaps anarchy? Perhaps a one-world international government? I reject both, in favor of a return to the city-state. Nation-states require utopian understandings of the world, which are purely dedicated to times (past & future) without any discussion of space or place. Our own nationalism minus conversations on spatiality allow us to dismiss the suffering of our First Nations/Native American sisters and brothers, whose identity is tied to the land. In an assignment as a Masters student, I used the thought of Michel Foucault in critiquing Jurgen Moltmann’s early eschatology, it is the lack of talk of our inhabitance within particular space that remains problematic for “theologians of the future.” The question we should put forth is not only how and when, but also WHERE does our God of Resurection act to liberate the crucified populations of the world. The problem with the nationalistic Gentile Christianity put forth by Christian Dominionists such as Rick Perry and Gary North is that the Triune God’s emplacement is restricted to the North American nation-state.
One thing I can appreciate from conservatives like Michelle Bachmann is that they openly talk about their faith, using stories from scripture to relate to persons. It reminds me of the confessional politics I read about; what I am looking for is a confessional politics that is also cosmopolitan, a Christian politics of particularity which seeks the welfare (Jeremiah 33) of cities all around the world (cosmo + polis). As I am working through this, I seek a rejection of both liberal and conservative utopian thinking, and in favor of something more along the lines of a baptizing of sorts of Foucault’s concepts of heterotopias, moments and places in time that reflect the Kingdom of God. One potential start could be the embodiment within the body politic of the Christian supreme virtue of humility, which, according to Phillipians 2:1-15, is inextricably tied to Christ Jesus’s planetary rule and our distinct Christian witness.
For more on Michel Foucault and heterotopias, please see Michel Foucault’s “Of Other Spaces.”
Rod, I will never forgive Obama for trashing Jeremiah Wright.
The difference between Obama being a mediocre president and being great – great as Lincoln at Lincoln’s Divinely Inspired Second Inaugural Address – when Lincoln at his second inaugural became the greatest theologian America has ever produced – when Lincoln had the balls to say that the Civil War was our just desert from on High – and then the sun and the Sun shined down through the grey clouds in a beam of light on that very second inaugural address – the finest theological moment in American history – the difference between Obama and Lincoln is that Obama trashed Wright when Obama needed Wright the most. An idiot.
Obama will never honor the tradition that Lincoln took a bullet to hand Obama. I cringe at the thought of comparing Obama’s second inaugural to Lincoln’s.
Obama needs to grow up. And this is not just a University of Chicago former student speaking (where Obama taught) – this is the voice of the Law School faculty at Chicago who criticized Obama for being utterly brilliant as a law school professor, but too immature to have the courage of strong visions – too young. Someone needs to get through to Obama. His time is running out.
If Lincoln’s political guts in making his second inaugural a fully and explicitly theological statement – the finest hour of fully political theology in American history – is not an inspiration for Obama, then Obama is squandering his best mentor and squandering Jeremiah Wright and squandering the potentially finest hour – now – in American political theology.
Foucault and Hamilton are bystanders. Voices lost in the crowd. Like Jeremiah Wright.
Someone, no – SOMEONE – needs to get through to Obama.
And peel that Oreo cookie.
Jim
I hate to break it to you Jim, but Lincoln was a deist at best…definitely not a christian. Having studied Lincoln in depth in years past, and re-reading the second inaugural address for the first time in over a decade (Thanks to you), I have to ask…how on earth would you possibly be able to differentiate someone who is “divinely inspired” and someone who is simply a brilliant public speaker.
First, let me clarify, I have no love for Obama. He has been little more than a disappointment. You and I agree there…but you misconstrue Lincoln. To be sure, he was one of the finest orators of his era, but he was most certainly not a brilliant theologian. You claim, “Lincoln had the balls to say that the Civil War was our just desert [sic] from on High.” This is not what he said at all. What Lincoln actually voiced was an assessment one side was willing to go to war to uphold its beliefs, and the other was willing to withstand war to preserve the union…and there was nothing god could do about it.
“It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God’s assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men’s faces, but let us judge not, that we be not judged. The prayers of both could not be answered.”
Lincoln then figuratively throws up his hands and says, as so many pastors/preachers/shah-men/prophets do and says, “The Almighty has His own purposes.” This is not “ballsy” as you have asserted. This is a cop-out. It is an admission of ignorance on the matter. Lincoln is saying, “I don’t know why we are still fighting about this, but I guess ‘SOMEONE’ does.” He is relinquishing responsibility, and it is deplorable…even if it is worded prettily.
As for your claim that the sun shining through the clouds was some sort of mystical, heavenly, reinforcement of Lincoln’s speech, and thus credit it as a truly inspired theology…forgive me, but that is absolute poppy-cock. Sunlight breaks through clouds all the time, all across the globe, and it always has. This is not a special or miraculous event any more than it would have been when the sun broke through clouds that had previously been raining upon the dinosaurs millions of years ago. The dinosaurs weren’t any more divinely inspired than Honest Abe.
Like I said, we agree on Obama, but you insult Lincoln by trying to burgeon him into some brilliant 19th century sophist. He was a man, with good ideas and bad ideas, just like anyone else. Expecting Obama to fill those shoes is both short-sighted and misinformed.
Tusk, good observations. Especially on deism. Lincoln never joined a church. Like Simone Weil. Like billions of others through history. Religious “nones” are not a new phenomenon. Religious “nones” (non-joiners) have a long tradition. Bury us in a common grave outside church property with Mozart.
I would take Lincoln’s deism as a heuristic category. Under which Lincoln concealed and hid more private inward Spirit-impressions and Spirit-messages than Lincoln wanted to share with the public. His private inner religion. So too, Ben Franklin. Jefferson. I’m not saying any of them were Christians. I would hate to think they were Christians. Given the state of genocidal and murderous Christianity at the time. See what the Christian gospel of genocide did in murdering millions of native aboriginals. Perhaps I would hijack Lincoln into my Quaker-bias – a Lincoln-Quaker who would at least try – try – to see the Spirit of God in everyone. The Spirit as a latent or patent Operator. Like William Penn. I know I am wrong. I am hijacking Lincoln now. I know it. And you are correct. I’m just exposing my bias here. Please know. I take your correction. Well done.
But please know and consider that deism really did operate as almost a catch-all heuristic category for many early deists. I really feel this whole category – deism – needs to be revisited in American history scholarship. That’s my sociometric (hidden beliefs) bias from ethology (biology) and from my social science statistical bias. Again, I am wrong. But deism needs to be revisited by American scholars. There are 100,000 masters’ degree theses in revisiting deism as a heuristic mask (more concealing than revealing). Just Like Harold J. Berman at Harvard tried to revisit American religious influences on American law (Berman could not quite close the deal between America law and the Spirit – almost!). Not – not – to make deists into Christians. See above on the murderous gospel of Christian genocide.
I would rather have Lincoln a fully confirmed deist than a genocidal Trinitarian Christian in his own time.
Lincoln’s deism does not bother me. I commend Lincoln for it. I suspect Lincoln masked and hid a lot behind that label. I do not know. Maybe we will never know. He never ‘joined.’ I commend him for that too. Given the state of genocidal Christianity.
The problem post-Lincoln is that the U.S. turned back to murdering more Indians. Christian murderers. Good Trinitarian Christians. We may never know what Lincoln (instead of Grant – the drunk) would have done with the Indians. Given a full second term. We don’t know. That’s lost. Heart-breaking.
You’re asking the impossible question – how to differentiate divine inspiration from brilliant public speaking?
Tusk, killer question. I have no good answer. Kudos to you.
Here’s my best answer. Short answer. Play along, please. Then criticize. Short answer: remember the passages in the gospel (John 12:28, 29) where “a voice came out of heaven” – (“’Father, glorify Your name.’ Then a VOICE came out of heaven: ‘I have both glorified it, and will glorify it again.’ So the crowd of people who stood by and heard it were saying that it had thundered; others were saying, ‘An angel has spoken to Him.’” John 12:28-29).
Look at that. “A voice came out of heaven.” Some heard only thunder. Some speculated it was an angel. There was no – no – uniform and homogenized agreement about the “voice.” None. Zero. Zilch. Zip. When God speaks out of heaven, then the “VOICE” does not automatically lead to homogeneous public opinion. I know this text deserves the full blow of higher criticism. I’m not bypassing higher criticism. This is an analogy.
That’s how I see Lincoln’s speech. Inspiration is in the HEARING. As well as in the “voice.” For me, it’s not even necessary for Lincoln to know that Lincoln was inspired. It may – may (possibility only) – be advantageous in some cases (some cases: not all) for a speaker not – not – to know that the speaker is inspired. Perhaps Lincoln knew. Or half-knew. Or did not know. It matters not to me. “Deism” is a mere word shell that theologians obsess over. The word shell – deism – doesn’t say much. It obscures more than it reveals. What matters is what is happening underneath the word shells. In the listening. And hearing – let he/she who has – ears – HEAR.
I would rather have an inspired deist speak than a murderous Christian genocidal gospel-banger who would filter out true repentance from the Spirit and who would just say, “kill more Indians! Manifest Destiny!”
That sort of thing. But none of this matters too deeply to me. Because inspiration is in what I hear. Inspiration is not limited to what Lincoln said. Some will hear the “Voice.” Others will hear only thunder. Like the clouds on the day of his speech. I am not responsible for what others hear. I am responsible only for – the “Voice” – that I hear.
So what?
I take my vengeance on injustice one case at a time. Just one case at a time. I do not always hear the “Voice” in my cases. Sometimes. Not always. I do need to keep trusting. I’m not good at macro-theology. Macro-theology is the realm of professional experts. All these expert labels – deism, Trinitarianism, Council of Chalcedon. Even Quakers have become spastic over – words.
For me? I am glad to hear the “Voice” in just one case. One case at a time.
So I take your correction on Lincoln.
Obama – I loved him much. I am disappointed much. I hate to use racist terms – like Oreo cookie – to describe Obama. I am playing into the hands of racism for that. I just want to wake him up. He lost integrity when he abandoned Wright. Even if I disagreed with everything that Wright stood for (in Wright’s liberation theology – and I do not disagree), the Obama still lost his own integrity when Obama trashed Wright. Tragic.
Tusk – perhaps your own line of reasoning (not my harsh and caustic racist rhetoric) would be more effective in getting through to Obama? Do you feel there is any chance? – any chance in getting through to him? – any chance at all for Obama to rise up and catch on fire with a little bit of what Wright taught Obama? Any chance?
Jim
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“Not Forgiving Obama ~ Peeling the Oreo Cookie Obama ~ Gutless Obama Squandering the Political-Theology Tradition that Lincoln to a Bullet to Hand Obama”
http://randomarrow.blogspot.com/2011/08/not-forgiving-obama-peeling-oreo-cookie.html