Bono and US Exceptionalism

Early last week Bono wrote an op/ed for the NY Times, and a member of our faith community posted  it for us to read about (we’re followers of Jesus in the Mennonite tradition).  Below are the questions that came to mind that I offered for some dialogue on our community listserve.

As a citizen of the US and participant of our stories and myths (willingly or not…), is Bono (and the rest of the world he points to) falling into the myth as the US as manifest destiny or exceptionalism?  He says that the US is poised to eradicate “extreme ideology”, among other things.  Does a country which regularly and publicly claims to be the greatest nation in the world (a statement that strikes other nationals as amusing, alarming, or otherwise) count as extreme?  How would it be that America would be a hope to shape the global “economy” (in the broad sense of the word), facilitate change without also exporting a strong ideal of the social democracy/free market captialist economy as it addresses extreme poverty?

In addition, as the Anabaptist community has often been at the margins of society, in fact a marker of the community, how would we advocate for the voice of the dozens of marginalized countries whose voices may not be heard by the democratic political economy of the west?  How does a faith community that identifies itself on the margin within a global power (that has gone unchecked up to this point) respond to a charge made by Bono that “the world wants to believe in America again because the world needs to believe in America again. We need your ideas — your idea — at a time when the rest of the world is running out of them.”?  How do we empower conversation and engagement of the globally marginalized?

What do y’all think?

Obama’s Roots In Faith and Goverment

Help us then, now, Lord, to work for that day when nation shall not lift up sword against nation, when tanks will be beaten into tractors, when every man and every woman shall sit under his or her own vine and fig tree, and none shall be afraid; when justice will roll down like waters and righteousness as a mighty stream.

- Civil rights veteran Rev. Joseph Lowery in his benediction to close the inauguration ceremony of President Barack Obama. (Source: God’s Politics via SojoMail)

As an Obama supporter, I’ve heard pundits discuss that Martin Luther King would likely take issue with some of Obama’s rhetoric about carrying on the war in Afghanistan and Iraq.  Not to mention his (empty?) threats to those who “oppose” democracy and America through terrorism. It is also interesting that he uses the language of America becoming again a facilitator of peace in light of his rhetoric.

I hope that President Obama’s administration becomes shaped into the image of Rev. Lowry’s prayer as his presidency wears on…

Hegemonic Faith

Church tank, er . . . tank church, uh. . .

Patriotism is a kind of religion; it is the egg from which wars are hatched.

-Guy de Maupassant, short story writer and novelist (1850-1893)

Tension…

I published this on another blog I write for…

In the record John wrote about Jesus, there is a section (Ch. 17) where Jesus prays for his apostolic followers and the disciples to come.  He asks God to watch over them and care for them, asking for an offering of joy, strength, and that the truth would change and shape them.  In the midst of Jesus request, he his ever mindful of the fact that his followers are no longer operating and captive by the host society, just as he himself isn’t.  (Remarkable that Jesus makes this distinction, considering shortly after this his closest followers bail on him because of the association with Jesus and his political character against the state.)  This prayer of Jesus has motivated all sorts of theologies and incarnational life, some of great separatist ideologies where a stance is taken that because we are not of the world we must avoid or remove ourselves from the dominate culture.  An in-depth study is not possible here.  However, I find it interesting that Jesus also makes the statement that we are sent into the world as he is.  How we can be sent to the world and yet attempt to remove ourselves from our culture and society don’t line up very well in my head; there are perhaps those who have done it faithfully and imaginatively that I am not aware of.

Our sending into the world is appropriate as well, seeing as our presidential election season has great ramifications to the world.  As people who follow Jesus, aka evangelicals, we have been come to be known for the moral majority issues: abortion, marriage structure, etc.  These issues tend to be insular and rooted within domestic policy in the world of politics.  But what of the world?  What of our economic policies?  Our military expenditures vs. foreign/domestic aid?  (See this post by Eric for some quick numbers.)  The push in immigration “reform” to separate families and erect walls between them?

Our politics have a great deal of impact on the world.  Whither the church?  How do we engage in our society, our world if you will, and yet be of a different society?  There are calls for abstention in voting, and some for participation.  There are distinctions made about our allegiance, that pledging oneself to the nation is a misplaced faith in the politik of the US.  Allegiance is defined in the American Heritage Dictionary as

1. Loyalty or the obligation of loyalty, as to a nation, sovereign, or cause. See Synonyms at fidelity.
2. The obligations of a vassal to a lord.

The entomology of allegiance is from the French in 1399, where a liege-man to his Lord.  (In fact, some of the theology of Christ is been shaped greatly in politik of the feudal system; prior to this era Jesus as Lord had been largely undeveloped.) That fidelity is synonymous with allegiance or loyalty is poignant as well. Who are we faithful to?

This is the tension that I feel, and seem to garner from folks struggling with this.  What is our faithful response to our societal political structure and activity?  How does our activity effect our global neighbor?  Are we not to vote because the candidates platforms are not reflective of our deep convictions, or is there something else that motivates or hinders our participation?  Is it bigger than the right candidate?  What of US democracy, is that at issue?  How do we as citizens of a different society remain faithful to their primary communal identity and participate in the host culture of the US in the here and now?  I believe my responsibility in who I vote for (or if I don’t vote!) continues through their term and decisions; I cannot wash my hands of my culpability after they take office.  What does this mean then for what I do?  Shane Claiborne offers an alternative (Jesus for President; Irresistible Revolution); are there others?  What of the Christian imagination can we tap into?

Lessons From the Past…

I have risen here, I who I am the voice of Christ in the desert of this island, and therefore no one of you agrees with what I have said; but yet with your heart, you hear it; this voice will be to you the newest, the harshest and the most lasting voice that you have ever heard, more dreadful than you ever thought to hear: all of you are in mortal sin and in sin you live, by the cruelty and tyranny by which you abuse these innocent people. Decide now: By what right and by what justice have you placed these Indians in such a cruel and horrible servitude? By what authority have you waged so hateful a war on these people who were living in their calm and peaceful lands, where you have consumed infinite numbers of them, with death and ruin?

Are these not men? They do not have rational souls? Are you not obliged to love them as much as you love your very selves? Do you not understand this? Do you not feel this? … Know for certain that, in the state in which you are now, you cannot be saved any more than the Moors or Turks who lack, and do not want, the faith of Jesus Christ. – MONTESINOS, Antonio de (mon-te-see’-nos), clergyman, born in Spain in the 15th century.

This sermon was preached in 1511 in what are now the nation states of the Dominican Republic and Haiti, in the beginning of the “discovery” of the Americas by the Spanish. The indigenous peoples were subjected to slavery for the agricultural and mining work of the Spanish looking to get rich quick. Wives worked in the fields, separated from their husbands in the mines for sometimes 8-10 months. They were beaten, whipped, forced to work 16+ hours a day, and receive almost no compensation. What is more difficult about this story of the beginning of the “west” in the America’s is that it was done under the name of the cross. These efforts were genuinally pursued to bring the Gospel to the people.

In this class, Issues in [Christian] Mission History, we recently studied the efforts in African mission, and how closely tied to the church was the slave trade. Both Quakers and Jesuits, some of the most significant faith expressions around peace and caring for the other in the name of Jesus, became slave traders themselves.

What struck me closest to home when reading this, however, was that this sermon could be spoken today from our pulpits in the US with the same alacrity. By substituting the demographic of “Indian” with “the poor”, “the sweatshop worker of any country that produces our Nike’s, or Gap or North Face clothing” the sermon still fits.

As people of Jesus striving to follow him, we seem to do much damage in his stead. Jesus loved these as he does us; in fact more so, as he hears the crying out of those who are oppressed and enslaved. That was one of his reasons he saved the people of Israel from Egypt. We haven’t learned this part of following him, however.

And so, history repeats itself.

Week 10 – Response to Ben V: Week 10 – Wednesday

Ben brought up our closing conversation in class around the fan fiction phenomenon around cult classics like Star Trek and Star Wars. In particular, those stories that might develop around the stories of the Biblical narratives. However, as I was thinking about it, we have some of these artistic licenses amidst already: some of the material in The Prince of Egypt or other Biblically based movies, historical fiction based on Old Testament times and characters (my wife has read a couple but I can’t remember the series title), and most notably in my opinion is the famous Max Lucado. Lucado has quite a following of which many would say is “light” on theology, but adds a depth and richness in story that many find fills in the dimensions of Scriptural narrative. (I’m not real big on him, myself…)

Week 10 – Wednesday

It took me a bit of time and question asking to understand the aspect of the audience/consumer actually having some power in the cycle/system of cultural analysis.  It came to a clarity when it Ryan stated that it was not that they are not powerless, but are still without the broad control of the producers.  I wonder, how would the audience/consumer actually regain or exercise greater control over the texts in a manner that usurps the producers?

Week 10 – Models…Theology: Bevans; Conclusion

After being caught up in thinking of my life and experiences in the lenses of the models contained in this book, it was refreshing to be reminded by Bevan’s that these aren’t hard and fast. Models can be hybridized, so to speak, with each other, and each may be appropriate at different times and contexts. I suppose that my only raised eyebrow in this section came from his opinion of western secular culture and the church’s need to critique it. I’m not sure I understand how the western context would be limited to that, or why it wouldn’t be approached from a less critical standpoint as some of the other models are founded.

Week 10 – Theology…Culture: Cobb; Conclusion

Cobb’s closing thoughts give rise to his convictions and intersection with cultural studies: by use of the word “their” in when referring to the respected cultural theorists today, he has set up an us/them dichotomy. He has a grasp of the truth and sees “through” contemporary culture’s longing for a transcendent God, and “they” (read: cultural theorists) have a stack of symbols that point to symbols only, without any foundation of a meta-narrative or greater meaning to life than semiotics. It is a sad thing to see that in the end, he has merely participated in the binaries that Derrida and Foucault exposed, and that his awareness of truth is limited to that which can concretely tied to transcendence that bespeaks only of the holy. Deconstruction and the genealogies of power/meaning, although not perfect, contain truth and point towards the systemic brokeness of the human spirit and incarnation.

Week 10 – Monday

I was struggling a great deal today with the cycle of cultural studies that we focus on: producers, texts, consumers/audience, and everyday life. It seems that our cultural identity is defined by these categories, that our cultural subjectivity has been reduced to our roles in these categories. And yet as people made in the image of God, our identity would seemingly lie elsewhere, established by a different means in a different culture. I don’t want to be dismissive or throw out the baby with the bath water, but I feel constrained by the cycle itself. Further, at what point (if at all) do we look at this cycle of cultural studies through a lens of the economics of God?