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For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.  (Ephesians 2:8-9 ESV)

I’ve been reminded several times in the past few weeks, that salvation is by faith through grace, and not by works.  Thank you people who reminded me… but… I don’t really want to be reminded.  Now, we could talk for hours about what grace is, or how it works, what it means in different parts of the Bible, but while it may be fun, it really is a semantic game.  It doesn’t get to the root of the problem, and in fact, grace is often a chance to look past the problems.  And when we compact Christian faith into a settling of accounts between an individual and God, grace is barely more than a mistake the bank made in my favor.  Argue with my definition all you want, but if you have to nuance it and redefine it so much, then we are really talking around the problem, rather than speaking at it.

Salvation through grace is contextual, an empowering solution to a form of tyranny.  To remove grace from this context, and leave it in the realm of original sin or human depravity, is to miss the critique of power implicit in the simplicity of grace.  Grace becomes bourgeois, a solution to “first world problems.”  Let’s put it in perspective.

Let’s say I am an SS officer under the Third Reich (I know, another Nazi reference).  Maybe I’m a Nazi sympathizer, maybe I have deep reservations about what I do.  Either way, I’m complicit in the oppression of thousands of people, not that the numbers matter.  For me to attend worship, and settle my individual account with God, while those that I oppress also settle their individual accounts with God, by grace through faith, is to miss the point of grace altogether.  Frankly, we are all complicit in some form of systemic or direct oppression, be it through an unfair economic system, through our silence against bullies, or through our overconsumption.  And to simply claim a settled account and salvation in the face of these truths is an insult to grace.

In Romans and Galatians, Paul addresses (at least) two different communities on account of divisive conflicts within each group.  Paul is not laying out a systematic theology that is true for all times in all places.  Paul is directly addressing these conflicts, and grace, faith, works, and law, all have to be understood in the context of these conflicts.  For in each case, one group is excluding another group on account of a formation of laws.  And in each case, grace is a formulation by which Paul balances out the scales, so each group knows their equality before God.  In each case they are to be servants of one another.  Paul uses grace to level out the balance of power between conflicting sides, attacking divisive ideologies, providing a space for all.  It is not simply a settling of individual accounts with God.  It benefits the weaker party.

Fast forward to Luther, who grasped the power of grace to favor those oppressed by the Roman Church.  For Luther, grace became a settling of individual accounts with God, but only because the masses were having to settle individual accounts with Rome.  Having instead to settle individual accounts with God, they no longer were under the oppressive ideology of Rome.  But this is not truth for all time–grace is not settling individual accounts anywhere, anytime.  Grace functions to liberate the marginalized from the oppressed, and it must remain in this context.

Jesus too.  How often did Jesus turn to the Pharisees, to Herod, to Pilate or Caesar and say, “Your sins are forgiven”?  Rather, it was to the outcasts, the paralytic, the tax-collectors, to those that the “true-believers” rejected that Jesus extended such grace.  Jesus challenged what it meant to be sinful and how “sin” was lorded over others.  So grace and forgiveness are the solution, but the problem is not universal sin or human depravity, it is a power imbalance.

So personally, I recognize I am not marginalized, nor am I a victim of oppression.  I understand myself as complicit in various forms of systemic oppression and injustice.  I am far more in need of repentance and Gospel-living than I am in need of grace.  That’s hard to say as a Lutheran, but I think it puts grace in its right context.  And so, I am giving up grace for Lent.

But by God’s grace, I hope in the process of giving it up, I can give it out as well.

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This is my reflection on Peter Rollins’ Insurrection, which I summarized here.  (Disclosure: I was given a free copy of the book to review here)

As a biblical scholar, I try not to dabble in theology too much.  But rather than critique Rollins’ hermeneutic, I will try my hand at an cultural-theological look at Chapter 3 (“I’m not Religious” and Other Religious Sayings).  I admit that this is part semantic argument (over the definition of “religion”) and part critique of culture.  Once religion is defined my way, I am not sure that I will be critiquing Rollins’ argument anymore, and in fact our arguments may be compatible.

For me, religion is a social category, that both binds some people together and bind those people back to an earlier tradition.  I used to be one of those people who said, “I’m spiritual, but not religious.”  But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that everything that I thought was only spiritual, was actually religious.  So, I’m still unable to find a definition of “spiritual” that is not in some way religious.  In fact, I can openly admit, I really have no idea what “spiritual” means, now.  Prayer? Personal relationship with God?  Charasmatic experiences?  De-Institutionalized faith?  Against the physical?  Feel free to help me out here, but I get the sense that “spiritual” means private, and “religion” means institution.

Rollins suggests something similar, critiquing both the spiritual and religous, when he says of private belief:

Because it is not our beliefs that provide power here, but rather the beliefs bearing down on us from others.  It is the beliefs of the magazines and television advertisements that hold the operative power, beliefs that we have internalized but refused to acknowledge.  We continue to believe through the unconscious affirmation of the others’ beliefs, thus allowing ourselves to reject, ridicule, and renounce the very things that continue to dictate our material actions.

This is the very problem with the social–with the religious.  Even when the individual is cognitively and rationally convinced of something, their lived existence still contradicts this belief, because we see the objects of belief through the eyes of other individuals within our communities.  But clearly, since the individual sees so-called ‘truth,’ and yet the individual’s behavior is still not changed, the answer cannot be more “privitization” (spiritualization) of belief.  Instead, it seems the individual cannot be ‘fixed’ in isolation, but only through a critique and reform of religious institutions.  The system must be checked.  But the community must also remain intact, in connection with a tradition, at least in its broadest sense as a long discourse over time.  For example, as Christians, we must remain in the existential crisis of what it means for the Christ to have died and to have been resurrected.  We may not all answer it the same, but that existential question forms the tradition around which Christians gravitate.

For me, ‘spiritualized belief,’ is simply a product of Western Culture and of the glorified “choosing individual.”  While it might stand as a corrective for the hegemonizing power of institutions, it creates more problems than it solves, and as Rollins’ points out, does not really correct hegemonizing institutions.  Only religious communities in constant reflection and reform can do that.  And even the proper ‘Insurrectionist’ must be part of an intentional and theological community that experiences God through loving others.  Thus, in my opinion, the Insurrection is part of a system that binds us together and binds us to a tradition–Insurrection is religious, not spiritual.

And so am I.

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(3rd in the LOST in Theology Series. #1. #2.)

Apocalypticism

It’s a big word.  In ancient times it was a genre of literature that disclosed a “transcendent reality which is both temporal, insofar as it envisages eschatological salvation, and spatial, insofar as it involves another, supernatural world.”  Nowadays, we hear the word thrown around, usually referring to end-of-the-world narratives.  Anything that deals with a possible end to humanity, or the end of most of humanity is deemed apocalyptic or post-apocalyptic.  So a good question to begin with might be: Why tell a story about the end of humanity?

In this case, it is helpful to look at the beginnings of the word: “an unveiling.”  Some call it revelation, but this is too loaded of a term to continue to use it efficiently.  Rather, an apocalypse gives the viewer a behind-the-scenes look at possible terrors–real, but unseen threats to human life.  Think of “I, Robot,” where the robots are going to destroy and enslave humanity in order to save humanity from its own violence, thus “critiquing” the alarming “violence” of humanity.

The Apocalypse of John (Revelation), too, unveils the evil of a city (Rev 17.5,18) where everyone is forbidden to buy or sell without its mark (13.16-17), and which exploits other lands for its wealth (18.4, 11-13).  Naturally, this city would have been Rome at the time of the writing, and indeed most scholars believe this is the case: an eschatological (“last things”) and other worldly narrative which critiques Rome.

Turn to LOST, where the incarnation of the black smoke threatens to “end everything” if it escapes the Island.  What is unveiled about humanity, or the state of the world, in the final “apocalyptic” seasons of LOST?  What, other than generic evil, does the black smoke serve or represent?

Consider the CON.  It is a major theme, especially in the back stories of the main characters throughout Season 1.  Not only in the characters, but in us viewers as well… we want to be conned.  We want to not know the truth until the last moment.  We consider it TV victory when the narrative fools us and pulls us to and fro.  We are conned when we invest in the characters of Ana Lucia and Libby, but then they are suddenly torn from us.  We are conned when we think that we will learn who the Others are.  We are conned with Locke to hope for reconciliation with his long lost father, only for our hope to be ripped out with his kidney.  The Con makes the narrative addictive.  But the writers have at least neutral intentions.  And we still sympathize with the great con, Sawyer.  So the Con, in-and-if-itself, is not the great threat to humanity.  Instead it is the Dark Con.

The Dark CON relies on the faith of others in order to gain for itself, especially at the painful and fatal expense of those same others.  Early on, Locke’s father is the Dark Con Artist.  For seasons 3-4, Benjamin Linus is the master of the Dark Con.  But even the master is mastered by the black smoke, in the form of Locke.  In the judgment of Benjamin Linus (below), Dark Locke sends Ben into be judged, only then to appear as the black smoke (which Ben does not yet realize), and the characters of his judgment order Ben to follow Dark Locke, which ultimately leads to Ben killing Jacob.  Dark Locke depends on Ben’s faith, on Ben’s guilt, and on Ben’s desire for revenge to Con Ben into harming the very one who wants to protect life and save the island that Ben loves.  In this way, it is the Dark Con that is unveiled.

What other Dark Cons are found in LOST (there are many)?  What Dark Cons do you see in the world? In religion?  In the Church?

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Small Wonk-Tangent

Doing some real research today, and ran across this helpful observation: The Blind Man (men) of Jericho move from the exit to the entrance in Luke.  Since we know Luke is using Mark, the question is: why the change?

First, Luke inserts the two stories Lk 19.1-10 (Zacchaeus) and Lk 19.11-28 (Minas) between his use of a Markan sequence (Mk 10.13-11.10).  Second, Zacchaeus takes place inside Jericho, not allowing Jesus to arrive and depart immediately.  But since, he moves the Blind Man to the entrance of Jericho and exits via the Parable of the Minas, we can conclude that Luke (or an earlier source) sees a very necessary link in the narrative sequence from the Zacchaeus’ story to the Minas (as 19.11 suggests).  What do you think this could be?  Any other thoughts on the synoptic comparison below?

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“For many years, the peasants in Solentiname, a remote archipelago in Lake Nicaragua, gathered each Sunday to reflect on the gospel reading. From recordings of their dialogue, this extraordinary document was composed. First published in the 1970s in four volumes, it was immediately acclaimed as a classic expression of liberation theology a radical reading of the Good News of Jesus from the perspective of the poor and oppressed. (It was also banned by the Somoza dictatorship.) Forty years later, now available in one volume, The Gospel in Solentiname retains its freshness and power. Though times may have changed, the message of Jesus as heard by these peasants continues to challenge the rulers of our age, and to inspire the poor with the hope of a different world.”

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Great discussion today on Divine/Biblical Interpretation.  To think “God–>Writer–>Text” is too simplistic.  The chart below shows some of the processes and conclusions that also must be inspired in order account for the Inspiration of the Bible that we can hold in our hands.  Thoughts?  What did I miss?

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(A follow up to #2 in the LOST in Theology Series)

To give another example of the function of an unidentified group within a single narrative, consider for a moment at the character development of “The Crowd” in Mark:

He went out again beside the sea, and all the crowd was coming to him, and he was teaching them. (Mark 2:13 ESV)

Jesus withdrew with his disciples to the sea, and a great crowd followed, from Galilee and Judea and Jerusalem and Idumea and from beyond the Jordan and from around Tyre and Sidon. When the great crowd heard all that he was doing, they came to him. (Mark 3:7-8 ESV)

And he said to them, “Come away by yourselves to a desolate place and rest a while.” For many were coming and going, and they had no leisure even to eat. And they went away in the boat to a desolate place by themselves. Now many saw them going and recognized them, and they ran there on foot from all the towns and got there ahead of them. When he went ashore he saw a great crowd, and he had compassion on them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd. And he began to teach them many things. (Mark 6:31-34 ESV)

And when they came to the disciples, they saw a great crowd around them, and scribes arguing with them. And immediately all the crowd, when they saw him, were greatly amazed and ran up to him and greeted him. (Mark 9:14-15 ESV)

And immediately, while he was still speaking, Judas came, one of the twelve, and with him a crowd with swords and clubs, from the chief priests and the scribes and the elders. (Mark 14:43 ESV)

And the crowd came up and began to ask Pilate to do as he usually did for them. And he answered them, saying, “Do you want me to release for you the King of the Jews?” For he perceived that it was out of envy that the chief priests had delivered him up. But the chief priests stirred up the crowd to have him release for them Barabbas instead. And Pilate again said to them, “Then what shall I do with the man you call the King of the Jews?” And they cried out again, “Crucify him.” And Pilate said to them, “Why, what evil has he done?” But they shouted all the more, “Crucify him.” So Pilate, wishing to satisfy the crowd, released for them Barabbas, and having scourged Jesus, he delivered him to be crucified. (Mark 15:8-15 ESV)

How does the so-called “crowd” change?  What’s its effect on you (the reader) or on Mark’s audience?

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Karl Barth

Favorite post this week goes to Professor Kirk’s post on Knowing the Hidden God.  It was nice to hear some critique and good analysis, especially of my variety.  He says,

As an overall theological question, however, I think that the one Barth is pressing here continues to delineate different theological groups.

What does it mean to be a fundamentalist? an evangelical? a progressive? a liberal?

In part, the points along this scale are determined by the extent to which scripture as God’s revelation is seen to come into various cultures, from without—critiquing us and calling us to the God who is other, and the extent to which we see cultural moments shaping, limiting, and providing new opportunities for God’s revelation in the world.

Is revelation entirely a word from without? To what extent is it a word contextualized in time?

And this is the million dollar question:  How can you go from ‘Revelation’ from God into a human brain (and out towards humanity) without any corruption of data so-to-speak?  And who gets to say whether one has had that Revelation from God?  If you can show me a convincing positive answer, I’ll be ready to reconsider some of my views.  Until then…

Next week, we continue and aim to finish the LOST in Theology series.

Destiny calls: you are here for a purpose… aren’t you?

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2nd in the LOST in Theology Series. (1st)

This is about gaps–not logical gaps, lacunae–but about questions the story creates and then doesn’t answer.  Case in point: in LOST, who the heck are the Others?  What do they want with children, you know, Walt?  There are more of these gaps, and from having watched all the episodes consecutively in a short time, they stand out more.  Now, this could be a blog about pondering who the Others are, picking out pieces of evidence and making hypothoses based upon that evidence.  But that’s exactly the kind of thinking that I try to guard against on this blog.  Rather, I want to take this opportunity to turn the analytical eye back on the LOST viewer.  How do the Others play on LOST viewers?

For me, Seasons 1-3 drove me to ask the question: Who are the others?  In many ways, the genre of Lost (a serialed, weekly thriller) demands that it has constant unanswered questions, most of which are answered as new questions are posed during Season transitions.  It is a form used to a lesser extent by Dickens and Dostoyevsky, but still directed by market forces.  The genre structure keeps you watching, like an addictive chemical that makes you crave for it nightly.  But if such a driving question of the narrative is never answered, it is fair then to ask its function.

Narratives are primarily functional, somewhat rhetorical, and rarely ontological (concerned with the true nature of things, like Systematic Theology or Creedal statments).  They lead the audience through doors that they choose, passing other doors by.  The identity of the Others is one of those unopened doors, simply because the author, the narrative, enters into another door.  Then why include them at all?  The answer, I believe is functional, and a clue lies in the wisdom of Locke again:

LOCKE: He is one of them. To Rousseau, we’re all Others. I guess it’s all relative, huh? (One of Them, S2.14)

We are all others.  The Others fuction as a backdrop, so we can see the shapes and true colors of the 815ers, and we (the viewers) can engage and reflect on the 815ers’ moral choices.  We do this in real life, locating those we disagree with the most (GOP, Democrats, Muslims, etc.) and defining our own identities and morals against the backdrop of those ‘others.’  But in real life, those views are not always challenged.  But narratives often help us to see the moral complexity in others–most of Literature has this purpose.  In LOST, we encounter touching back stories of Juliet and Benjamin Linus.  We wrestle with Benjamin Linus, his betrayal, his tyranny, his redemtion, his further betrayal, his further redemption, and in the end we are no longer left with the burning curiosity of who the Others are, nor why they needed children.  That door is left closed.

As a Bible teacher, I’m often asked a question that shows me that when many people read the Bible, they are looking for ontological answers, rather than reading a functional narrative: “When did Jesus realize he was God?” (for other face-palming questions, look here.)  Truth is, there’s little (read: nothing) of Jesus’ divinity in the first three Gospels, so… But in John, we are given four statements that equate Jesus (or the Word) with God (1.1; 5.18; 8.58; 10.30).  However, in none of these statments does Jesus explicitly say that he is God.  In fact, Jesus’ suggested divinity is one of those doors closed by John’s narrative.  We glance at it as we pass it by, but we are more concerned with other things: Jesus’ farewell speech, his clash with Pilate, his call to feed his sheep.  As responsible readers/viewers, we must let the narratives take us where it leads, asking good questions along the way, but letting them linger as they do in the narrative.

What other unanswered questions are in LOST?  In what other ways to Christians skip the narrative to find theological answers?

Are you “one of them”?

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