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Babylonian Economics

Wednesday, June 23rd, 2010

From my work on Revelation 17-18:

Since at least the time of Tertullian, in the late second century, the church has grappled with which vocations might be inappropriate for Christians, even idolatrous. Tertullian raised questions about a host of occupations, including teaching (for promoting secular values and polytheism, or idolatry) and the military (for engaging in idolatry and violence). Touched by God’s amazing grace, John Newton (1725-1807) knew he had to stop buying and selling slaves. But apart perhaps from prostitution and drug-dealing, the church today seldom discourages any career path considered by young people or undertaken by adults. In my own United Methodist denomination, for example, a video on “vocation” for youth mentions a career in the military in the same breath as vocations in social work, medicine, the church, etc.

While few Christians today would question the appropriateness of teaching in secular schools as a vocation, perhaps, at the very least, Christian teachers should question and “come out” from some of the values and practices inscribed in many secular—and even Christian—forms of education. I am thinking here, not of topics like evolution, but of even larger worldview issues, such as nationalism and consumerism, to name just two. As for the military, many Christians cannot even imagine a reason why a career in the military might be anything less than an honorable Christian vocation, much less engage in a discussion about it. But this is a topic in need of discussion, especially for those who live in or near Babylon. There is something amiss when a Christian youth can go to summer camp one week and sing “Kumbaya,” and then go to Marine boot camp the next and chant “We can kill.” But it happens—all the time.

It would be easy to assume that most careers and day-to-day practices are exempt from critique, but Revelation will not allow us to be so naïve. If it involves buying or selling goods, Revelation puts a question mark on it. It this a business that directly or indirectly promotes the rich and exploits the poor? Does it harm the earth or other human beings? If so, then Revelation 18 has something to say about it. Churches, too, need to consider carefully the sources and means of their income, whether local “fundraising” techniques, such as flea markets or silent auctions or fashion shows, or larger issues such as investing.

How do we begin this conversation in the churches?

Posted in Christian practices, Civil religion, War | 10 Comments »

The absence from blogging is due to my intense efforts to conclude the semester while also finishing some articles and my book on Revelation. Most posts in the immediate future will likely be related to those projects, especially the book.

One of my very favorite interpreters of Revelation is Eugene Peterson in his book Reversed Thunder: The Revelation of John and the Praying Imagination. If you have not read it, do so immediately. Commenting on the second horse in Revelation 6, the red horse, Peterson writes (p. 77):

For a time, writ large in the headlines, war is perceived as an evil, and there are prayers for peace. But not for long, for it is quickly glamorized as patriotic or rationalized as just. But war is a red horse, bloody and cruel, making life miserable and horrid…. The perennial ruse is to glorify war so that we accept it as a proper means of achieving goals. But it is evil. It is opposed by Christ. Christ does not sit on the red horse, ever.

Posted in Biblical Scholars & Theologians, Christian practices, Jesus, Nonviolence, Revelation, War | 20 Comments »

Philippians 2 and the Story we tell this Sunday

Tuesday, March 23rd, 2010

As we approach Palm/Passion Sunday, I want to offer some reflections on Philippians 2 from my forthcoming article on this text, which is called “The Apologetic and Missional Impulse of Phil 2:6-11 in the Context of the Letter.” Philippians 2:5(6)-11 is the epistle reading in the lectionary for this Sunday. Non-lectionary-based churches should feel free to use it, too!

I would like to reflect directly, theologically and missionally, on our own context for reading Phil 2:6-11. I have suggested that it is the church’s master story that it recites in some form, as creed or poem or hymn, when it gathers for worship. The story’s immediate context suggests that the story it tells is inextricably connected both to its larger life together as koinōnia in the Spirit (2:1-4) and to its mission in the world (2:12-16).

Thus to recite the story liturgically is to remember the narrative shape of the One who, by the power of the Spirit, lives among us (and within whom we live) to form and re-form us into his image such that our individual and corporate narratives more faithfully resemble his. Worship of this God as Father, Son, and Spirit is therefore an exercise in spiritual formation for faithful living—for ethics and mission, if you will.

Part of that worship—its high point if we follow the trajectory of the story—is confessing “Jesus is Lord.” To confess Jesus as Lord, to the glory of God the Father, in the fellowship of the Spirit is relatively easy to do in the safety of a community of the like-minded. But as a group of Christians makes this confession week in and week out, or (better) day in and day out, and as it keeps that confession connected to the larger story, it becomes empowered to live and proclaim that story faithfully outside of its own walls.

Here the insights of Aristotle and Thomas on virtue are worth considering. We become what we practice. Our liturgical habits make it possible, or not, to live and tell the story faithfully, even naturally, over time. Churches that dispense with the telling of the story, perhaps in the interest of sensitivity to “seekers,” will eventually have nothing identifiably Christian to say, either to themselves or to those seekers. But since everyone, and every community, needs a master story, a new one will fill the void, and the new master story will carry with it a new, and most likely alien, ethic and mission. The final consequence of this creedal amnesia will be that the church has nothing left to live for or, if necessary, to die for, that faithfully embodies the story of Jesus. (Parenthetically, this same consequence is likely for those with sacramental amnesia, though we learn that from the Corinthians [1 Cor 11:17-34] rather than the Philippians.) The church will, instead, call on its children to live and die (and even kill) for some allegedly noble cause, almost certainly one that is ethnic or nationalistic in nature. It will have come, thereby, full circle, reaping the whirlwind of its fear of confession. By neglecting the story and confession of Jesus as universal Lord, the Lord who rules as Suffering Servant, the church will substitute the universal Lord for a tribal deity and the Suffering Servant for a conquering king. Sadly, this has too often been the pattern of the church throughout its history, especially in its mission.

I would submit that the intrusion of an alien master story, and the ongoing re-conversion of the church to that pseudo-gospel, is the greatest and most persistent sin of the church, at least in the United States, today. From presidential claims, both Democrat and Republican, that the United States is the light of the world and the hope for human freedom, to the language of “mission” that permeates military discourse, to talk of “redemptive violence,” to the incorporation of nationalistic holidays and devotion into the liturgical life of the church, the church is constantly bombarded with temptations to honor an alien Lord with an alien mission in the world.

By telling and re-telling the church’s true master story, however, the church is empowered to cast off this alien master story and is prepared to live the story missionally and faithfully.

Wouldn’t Palm/Passion Sunday take on new meaning if we really understood, preached, and lived Philippians 2 as our master story and—most importantly—allowed it to challenge those alien master stories that seek to replace it?

Posted in Christian practices, Civil religion, Missional hermeneutic, Paul, Theological interpretation, War | 23 Comments »

Obama’s Oslo Speech

Saturday, December 19th, 2009

Like many other theologians and church leaders, I had some real difficulties with (a) Obama’s receipt of the Nobel Peace Prize and (b) Obama’s discourse on just-war theory and “realism” as his acceptance speech. I’ve not had the time to read many of the responses, but my friend Brian McLaren has a very good one. (I found another friend’s, Stanley Hauerwas’s, perhaps equally insightful but not as clearly written.)

Posted in Biblical Scholars & Theologians, Christian practices, War | No Comments »

Praying for Soldiers at War?

Tuesday, August 12th, 2008

Our church’s July 2008 church newsletter contained an (unsigned) article on suggestions for praying for the U.S. military forces, especially in Iraq. It struck me as sincere but theologically misguided. In the August 2008 newsletter, I offered another view in order to stimulate some additional thinking and discussion in our church—and now more broadly. Apparently, it has stimulated some controversy, though only one person has directly approached me about it. It follows:

The first point to be made is that whenever Christians pray, but especially during a war, we pray as Christians, not as Americans (or Canadians or whatever). It is very easy for Americans or anyone else to assume that some power called “God” is on their side. But it is more difficult to know what and how we as Christians should pray during a time of war.

We need to put prayer during war into a wider spiritual framework, and not just assume (like the misguided minister and his flock in Mark Twain’s famous poem “War Prayer”) that God is on “our” side—that is, our particular country’s side. We should remember that when the U.S. went to war in Iraq, most major denominations and many theologians (myself included), both in the U.S. and around the world, protested that the war would not meet the criteria for a just war.

Whatever one’s view of this specific war, some things from Scripture are crystal clear:
1.God does not desire war but, instead, peace, justice, and reconciliation. God “breaks the bow, and makes wars to cease.” God in Christ dealt with us, his enemies, with love, not death. Jesus is the Prince of Peace.
2.Jesus calls us, his disciples, to be peacemakers and to love our enemies.
3.God has a special concern for the poor and oppressed, the victims of injustice.
4.As Christians, we are part of the universal body of Christ, and that is far more important than any national identity

These truths should affect the way we as Christians pray:
1.We should pray for the war to end, for the establishment of justice, for reconciliation among enemies, for creative alternatives to violence. Pastor Steve does this frequently in church.
2.We should pray for the courage to make peace, and to love those who might be perceived as our enemies.
3.We should pray for the victims of war, especially the families of innocent civilians, refugees, etc.
4.We should pray for the church in Iraq, which has been horribly affected by this war.

As for the soldiers themselves, there is no mandate from Jesus to pray for them. Historically, however, when Christians have thought about whether Christians are even permitted to participate in war, the church’s largest concern has been that soldiers might actually have to kill or do something else that violates the teaching of Jesus. Historically, the church has often required all returning soldiers to go through a period of repentance.

Therefore, the chief prayer we should offer to God for Christians who are in a war zone is not merely that God will protect them, but that God will protect them from committing evil, from doing anything that violates the gospel of Jesus Christ. For some of us, this will mean praying that they will not kill anyone at all and will even lay down their weapons. For all of us, it will mean praying that they will not kill the innocent or do anything else that contradicts the will of God. And it will mean asking God to forgive all of us for contributing to humanity’s incessant penchant for war and violence.

At the same time, we can pray that God will keep all those involved in the war (on all sides) from doing evil, that all will seek peace, and that God will provide for the families and friends of all who are away from home because of war. This might be at least one spiritually acceptable way to pray both for those we know, and for those we do not know, in a time of war. It might even help draw this long, horrible conflict to a close.

2008-08-12

Posted in Christian practices, Prayer, War | 5 Comments »

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Archive for the ‘War’ Category

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War is a Red Horse

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Praying for Soldiers at War?

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