Guerrilla Warfare
I've been having a lot of thoughts lately on how often Christians think of their spirituality in militaristic terms. I've been questioning if this ends up doing more harm than good in the ways it often plays out practically. Is there anything to be gained by viewing everything "Christian" in terms of warfare? It is an especially troubling question for anyone who takes Jesus' seriously when he blesses the "peacemakers" for they will be called sons of God.
As an experiment I decided to re-read Che Guevara's "Guerilla Warfare" allegorically to see if there was anything to gain by applying a manual of warfare to a faith that so many perceive as warfare. I'm unsure of how this affected my theology, but it certainly did "illuminate" Che's writings for me. I interpreted "Guerilla Warfare" allegorically as instruction from Jesus to His Church on how to approach evil. More specifically:
Che= Jesus
Army/people= The Church
Imperialism/USA= sin, evil, injustice, poverty, USA (half joking)
Propaganda=The message of the gospel
Guerilla Warfare= The method of overcoming evil instituted by Jesus and His Church
Some Interesting Quotes
Guerilla Warfare is used by the side which is supported by a majority but which possesses a much smaller number of arms for use in defense against oppression.
Triumph will always be the product of a regular army, even though its origins are in a guerilla army.
The guerilla soldier should be an ascetic.
An entrenched enemy is never the favorite prey of the guerilla fighter; he prefers his enemy to be on the move, nervous, not knowing the ground, fearful of everything and without natural protections for defense.
One of the great educational techniques is example.
The guerilla fighter grows at night, and the enemy feels his fear growing in the darkness.
It is necessary also to make use of popular organizations of workers, professional people, and peasants, who work at sowing the seed of the revolution among their respective masses.
One of the characteristics of revolutionary propaganda must be truth.
New experiences can vary and improve these concepts. We offer an outline, not a bible.
Truth in the long run is the best policy.
The peasants, not accustomed to precise battle language, have a strong tendency to exaggerate, so their reports must be checked.
When the combat morale of the individual is very high and self-respect strong, deprivation of his right to be armed can constitute a true punishment for the individual and provoke a positive reaction.
But generally guerilla warfare starts from a well-considered act of will; some chief with prestige starts an uprising for the salvation of his people, ,beginning his work in difficult conditions in a foreign country.
The army is the people in uniform.
Guerrilla warfare is not passive self-defense; it is defense with attack. And from the moment we recognize it as such, it has as its final goal the conquest of political power.
US Imperialism is guilty of aggression-its crimes are enormous and cover the whole world.
Since imperialists blackmail humanity by threatening it with war, the wise reaction is not to fear war.
I'm struggling with where this exercise leaves me in response to my initial questions. But one thing I find interesting is the similarity in language. I suppose that is the point, but after reading Che in this manner I was surprised at how much his writing and word choice resembled those of various religious leaders that I have read in the past. Where does this leave us? I'd love to hear any thoughts or comments on this one. I guess at this point all I can say is that I do believe there are some fascinating ideas in some of those quotes, but also some very troubling ones. If you're going to think of your faith in military terms please exercise caution and make sure you are thorough in your definition of the enemy and what it is exactly you are fighting for.
I’m Just Going To Put It Out There (Why I’m A Universalist)
Perfect love casts out fear; for fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not reached perfection in love. 1 John 4:18
The ideas in this post are not my own. They come directly out of Thomas Talbott's book "The Indescribable Love of God". The same sort of argument was first proposed to me in "The Evangelical Universalist" written under the pseudonym Gregory Macdonald. I was struggling with these issues for a while and finally decided to look into universalism to see if I found any merit to it. I stepped into the dialog expecting a watered down/wishy washy/feelings oriented sort of argumentation. However, I was shocked by how compelling and logical I found the idea to be, how there have been respectable Christian figures throughout church history who have affirmed the idea, and even how ironically it seemed to respect the traditional understandings of God in a more holistic manner. The argument goes something like this.
A Cardinal doctrine of the faith is that God is at work redeeming sinners and that this is an act of love. Western Christians have disagreed about the details of this redemptive activity, its extent, and success. Talbott presents three inconsistent propositions (with Scripture that is traditionally used to back all three up) about God's redemptive work.
1. It is God's redemptive purpose for the world (and therefore his will) to reconcile all sinners to himself. (2 Peter 3:9, 1 Timothy 2:4, Romans 11:32, Ezekiel 33:11, Lamentations 3:22 & 3:31-33)
2. It is within God's power to achieve his redemptive purposes for the world. (Ephesians 1:11, Job 42:2, Psalm 115:3, Isaiah 46:10b & 11b, 1 Cor. 15:27-28, Colossians 1:20)
3. Some sinners will never be reconciled to God, and God will therefore either consign them to a place of eternal punishment, from which there will be no hope of escape, or put them out of existence altogether. (Matthew 25:46, II Thessalonians 1:9, Ephesians 5:5)
Talbott suggests that we can classify Christian theologians and their theological systems by which of these three propositions they reject." The Augustinian/Calvinist will reject the first proposition, the Arminian will reject the second, and the universalist will reject the third. In this regard the universalist is no different than the Calvinist or Arminian. Upon reflection of the propositions one MUST reject one of them due to their inconsistent (yet biblically supported) nature. Rejecting the first proposition jeopardizes God's love and rejecting the second proposition limits God's sovereignty. However, by rejecting proposition three you can still profess God's limitless love and believe that his redemptive purposes are unthwarted.
Once we recognize that we are not all that different from one another and understand that how we view redemption shapes how we interpret seemingly inconsistent passages of scripture, we can go about the messy task of interpreting Scripture as a whole. I will leave this for another blog post altogether, but I will suffice it to say that I do believe there is room for a universalist reading of the Bible. There are places where universalism is explicitly taught and it can be consistent with the biblical meta-narrative. I'm not saying that every biblical writer was a universalist, just like I would not claim every biblical writer was a Calvinist. I only claim that universalism can be believed by someone who takes the Bible, justice, God's Holiness, and evangelism seriously.
There it is, I guess you could say I'm out of the universalist closet. I'm not trying to convert anyone to universalism. I'm only trying to give it the validity that I feel it deserves. This post is already getting rather lengthy and there are other points I would love to make along with sharing some amazing ways in which Scripture and my relationship with God has opened up over the past year. To all my Evangelical brothers and sisters reading this I only ask that you remember what we have in common. That Jesus Christ is Lord and that only He offers the words of eternal life.
Constantine’s Sword
Constantine's Sword by James Carroll has to be the most challenging book that I have ever read. The book is a detailed history of the relationship between the Catholic church and the Jews.
I am not a Catholic, but I take just as much ownership over this unfortunate history as a Christian. Up until the Reformation this literally is my history, and after the split I am sorry to say that the Protestant tradition has no better record. I commend Carroll (a devoted Catholic) for having the courage and humility to not only own up to this history but to be brutally honest about the roots that caused it and the implications for the future.
The climax of this story is the Holocaust. What am I as a Christian to make of the Holocaust? I think that before reading this book the Holocaust represented the greatest contemporary example of evil as a reality to me. The Holocaust pointed me to Christ in that after confronting an evil as great as genocide I was convinced that only divine intervention could save humanity and show us a way out of our own self destruction and hatred. The love of Christ was the only truth that I could hold onto in light of overbearing evil. I believe that many Christians share this same reaction when learning of the Holocaust. We can't wrap our heads completely around it so we do what we can to fit it within our doctrine of evil and suffering. But what would Jews make of my reaction?
What I was not prepared for was the dark reality that my Christian tradition was the very tradition that historically had been used to propagate this hatred to begin with. The very symbol that I saw as the hope for mankind was the exact symbol that represented persecution to the Jew and that eventually culminated in the annihilation attempt. The symbol of the cross represents salvation to me, but it is imperative that I realize that this same exact symbol also represents Crusades, Inquisitions, Blood Libels, Jewish Ghettos, Political Power Struggles, racism, and practically everything contrary to what I believe the gospel to be.
Carroll admits that it is an oversimplification to blame the church for the Holocaust. The Nazis implemented and carried out the cruelties that would eventually be known as the Holocaust, but the question remains. How could the Church remain silent while this was happening? How could the Vatican remain silent while Jews living in a ghetto within earshot were rounded up and taken to their deaths? The answer to this question should be haunting for the Christian.
The tragic reality is that our doctrinal ambiguity towards the Jews combined with a desire for supersessionism throughout history created a climate that was perfect for a fascist dictator to create an "other" out of the Jewish people. What I find even more frightening is that even now, decades after the holocaust this doctrinal ambiguity remains.
I don't know how to apply all of this just yet. Carroll suggests many great starting points that I intend to put into practice personally. But one of them that I think needs to be exercised with caution is going back to the scriptures and realizing that even the gospels had agendas that were not historical in nature. The gospels were written in the midst of a Christian movement within a Jewish context that was striving for power over the rival Pharisaic movement while at the same time suffering oppression from Rome. Carroll suggests we read the gospels in these contexts and critique them accordingly. I agree with this, but is he implying that Jesus' disgust with false piety and empty rituals has any less merit because the gospel bias was anti-pharisaic? Whether its the Pharisees or Christian fundamentalism, the truth found in those passages is the same and I am not ready to disregard that truth because the church has abused and misused the context the lesson was presented in. At the same time I recognize that we form doctrine out of our reading of scripture, and that perhaps we should be careful that our high respect for the Word of God does not give us license to hate in the name of God, and if it does perhaps we need to re-evaluate how we read Scripture entirely.
I cannot hide from my tradition. It is there, it is ugly, and I have to deal with it. When all is said and done I still find the gospel compelling and beautiful and I still believe Jesus Christ to be the Son of God that will one day establish peace on Earth. At the same time I now completely sympathize with those that find my beliefs repulsive, which ironically is a good starting point in my opinion. Anyone have any thoughts?
Lent (Revisiting Films For Renewal)
Last Wednesday was Ash Wednesday, a day that marks the beginning of Lent. Lent is the forty six days (forty not counting Sundays) of preparation for the Easter celebration. These forty days mirror the forty days Jesus spent in the wilderness, where he was tempted and made ready for ministry. In the same way, Lent can be an extremely useful time of repentance and renewal for the believer. It has always struck me as beautiful that Lent overlaps with the start of spring, when the dead suddenly spring forth new life.
I have used this time in the past to be more intentional about meditating on the Word and coming back to the simplicity of the gospel that I confess. This year I hope to do this by entering into my own "wilderness journey". My goal is to revisit some films that I remember stirring within me a spirit of worship and a need for meditation after first viewing. I hope that through rewatching these films God will once again reveal Himself to me in powerful ways that will only draw me closer and change me once again. These are the films that I will be rewatching, and if you wish to join me in watching any of these, please leave a comment below and I will let you know when I plan on showing them.
Pasolini's Gospel Accoring to Matthew*
The Seventh Seal
The Silence Trilogy (Through A Glass Darkly, Winter Light, & The Silence)
Gandhi
The Passion of the Christ**
Gandhi
The Mission
The Passion of Joan of Arc
The Apostle
The Last Temptation of Christ
*This film I watch every year during Holy Week.
**I have not watched this film since seeing it in the theater. Honestly, I'm a little anxious about watching it again, but I want to see if my opinion will change since reading James Carroll's "Constantine's Sword: The Church and The Jews".
The Nate Awakening
I went through a long period of time where nothing really moved or touched me. This pretty much stretched over the entire summer and up to the last few weeks. I watched all sorts of film, read a book or two, and listened to all sorts of music that just didn't do it for me. Of course, I recognized when something was "good", but the spiritual connection I used to have with certain pieces felt completely nonexistent.
Thank God, that completely changed this week. I'm not sure if it was the materials I exposed myself to, the time I allowed them to sink in afterward, a mood shift having to do with the changing seasons, or a combination of all the above but I feel that my soul has been rejuvenated.
These were some of the things that have moved me this week.
1. I watched Francois Truffaut's "Shoot The Piano Player" and was reminded of how one's decisions can affect a whole range of events to come, and sometimes we hurt people in ways we never could have imagined but that this is the human condition and we deal with this realization in different ways.
2. I finished "Ender's Game" and was struck by how beautifully this book wrapped itself up and showed how fear and misunderstanding can trigger the worst in us and make enemies of potential allies. It is the ones who are willing to communicate and understand that are ultimately vindicated and set free, and all is never lost.
3. I watched "The Crucible" because I felt like watching another Daniel Day-Lewis performance and was moved by his character's unwillingness to damage his good name. It got me thinking about whether or not I hold my own name in high regard.
4. I listened to "Drive-By Truckers' Brighter Than Creation's Dark" and it made me love the roots of American music all over again. Now I want to go back and listen to my collection of folk music and focus on the American fascination with being on "the righteous path".
I guess that about does it. Lets hope this inspiration keeps up and perhaps even births some creation on my part. As I was taking all of these things in this week I felt a desire to even start studying theology again. Right now I'm reading "Learning Scripture With The Church Fathers" with the confidence that I have some profound things to learn from antiquity. But for right now, I'm just happy to be enjoying things again.
- RT @DemetriMartin: Happy Extremely Pregnant Woman's Day (day before mother's day).
- I don't understand baby corn. #strangefoods