Jesus against the (free) market: A Radically Orthodox read of Matt. 6:25-34 and the Irony of Roger Clemens

Saint Augustine said that part of what makes us human is desire--most aptly expressed in our desire for God. The abundance out of which God creates us spills over into us to lead back to that source. Or, as we desire God, we are expressing ourselves as His creation.

Jesus confronts desire in the sermon on the mount. Our primary efforts should express our desire, he says, for God's kingdom. In 6:25-34 he mentions food/drink and clothing--no doubt tied to cultural status, emphatically not the elevation of the spiritual over the physical. (As in, "Don't worry about eating; other things are more important!") Rather, he says, God takes care of the status of even the smallest things--birds and flowers--and you are more important than little things. For this reason we seek God's kingdom and God's righteousness--God's favour as God's kingdom seekers. The pagans? Jesus says they seek food, drink, clothes--to the neglect of life and the body. Jesus is after the change in desire--found in all, redeemed in some.

Switch gears for a sec. Radical Orthodoxy finds the desire of most--and thereby Jesus' rival--as the freemarket. It is a "gospel" that spans nations; it is transnational. So, you go to Costa Rica and you see malls; you go to England, you see malls... The free market gospel is the gospel of stuff--cheap stuff, mass produced, etc.

Now go back to Matthew's text. The issues Jesus highlights--clothing and food--fit quite easily into the freemarket system:
Clothes: Yesterday I bought a pair of shorts for $15. They were originally $35. The reason they could be sold for $35? They b(r)ought status. The reason they could be sold for $15? They were cheap. The free market supplies both.
Food: The $100 burger should do it (see a few days ago). Or, highlighting restaurants that have $300 meals because celebrities eat there.

The issue, remember, is not food or clothing; we all need these. The issue is desire and humanity. As exemplified above, the free market compromises the humanity of those elevated as the uberhumans. Of course, what really compromises humanity is sin--which is trans-personal, -national, -economical, etc. (This is why specific idols change, but the existence of idols is everywhere, always.)

And now the irony: Roger Clemens bashing his teammates for not doing enough in one game to win after he sits on his can for the first half of the season. Please, please appreciate that with me.

Realistic Writing: Joseph as Typical Politician

I am not a huge fan of Joseph. I think he's an ordinary politician. This might cause some questions, so I'll briefly outline my reading of him in the biblical story. But mainly I want to marvel, very shortly, at the humility of Genesis' writer in writing/maintaining the story as he has.

We meet Joseph as a young lad, rather arrogant. He tells his brothers and parents that they will bow down to him (Gen. 37:1-11). He is convinced of his own developing importance. (Typical politician.)

He is sold by his envious brothers into slavery. He is imprisoned for the sake of Potiphar's wife, though he himself is innocent. He dreams some dreams and is put in charge of Pharaoh's entire household. His responsibility is to prepare the people for upcoming famine. The plan? Keep reading.

First, gather grain during abundant years (41:47-49). For the moment, I'll leave untouched exactly how someone gathers grain from people when rumors of famine are circling. Perhaps military force?

Second, provide food. The famine spreads in Egypt and the world. But not to fear! Joseph has collected food from the people. And now he distributes it to the people of Egypt by...selling it to them (41:56)! Further, he sells it to strangers and aliens. Joseph treats the people in his charge the same as foreigners. Hmmmm.....

The famine continues. The people have given all their money--all the money in Egypt and Canaan!--for bread, but now the bread is gone (47:13-15). So, what does Joseph do? He graciously takes their livestock (47:17) for the bread he has made of the grain that he originally collected from them. (Grace, grace, marvelous grace...coming down from the Pharaoh above!)

The famine continues. All the money is gone. All the livestock is gone. The people still need food. So, what does Joseph do? He buys the people and their land in exchange for food (47:18-22). In essence, he makes slaves of the whole nation.

Let's recap: Joe collects grain from the people. He then sells it back for money, then livestock, then land and selves. Everything now belongs to Pharaoh (except for the lands of the priests). Now Joseph seals the deal: he gives seed to the people and says they can keep fourth-fifths of their crops, but have to give a fifth to Pharaoh. So, Joseph has taken the people's food--whether forcefully or peacably is now irrelevant. He returns it to the people by price gouging--offering the same product for increasing prices as things of value become scarce. In the end, Pharaoh owns it all and sets up a system that he gets grain for....nothing! Joseph has no doubt done a good thing: He has saved Egypt. He has just done it in a harsh, brutal, and vicious way. He has created a system of evil that will later lead to the slavery of his own people--once the new Pharaoh forgets that it was a descendant of Abraham that set up his cushy spot (Ex. 1:8).

Now, here's my amazement at Genesis' writing: The story is not sugar coated. Israel owns the fallen nature of their own ancestors. Joseph is recorded as being a scoundrel and a hero. The story does not appear altered to make Israel look better than they should. Nope, they produced the man who created the situation from which God would have to rescue them. Their ancestor played a role in getting them abused as slaves. It wasn't just them pesky foreigners; it was their flesh and blood.

Let's hope that we can record our own stories/histories so honestly!

Hamburger Theology

Here is an article about a $100 burger. Yes, a hamburger that costs $100. It is sold at a restaurant at a Country Club that costs $40,000 to join and $3,600 a year to stay. After reading the article, I needed to vent right away. Unfortunately for him, my brother Paul is usually the first bearer of such venting. He appropriately reminded me that it's just a burger; and one that costs $100 is the fruit of free society.

I wanted to point out the anti-Christian gospel this country club has: Membership to this society has not been paid; has not been given or offered; it costs $40,000. This country club (and most I've seen) breeds exclusion. I wanted to remind this club that the death and resurrection of Jesus has abolished all walls--I wanted to point them to Ephesians!

But my brother Paul's reminder was the appropriate one, because he said that this burger is it's own punishment. What a perfect illustration of sin and its consequences: Sin in the form of exclusion costs the ones who consider themselves the "in crowd" much more than those who are on the outside. Only to those who engage in such obvious financial exclusion does a $100 burger make sense. I'll let the reader decide whether the cross or the beef holds the real foolishness.

Theology, Philosophy, or Both? Or, Jim Rome the Philosopher

The following is a (too) long summary and (too) short review of John Caputo's Philosophy and Theology. Give it a quick read. Then I'd appreciate your opinion on the relationship Caputo addresses--at least for the sake of a tally.

Caputo asks Nietzsche's existential question, "Does anyone know we are here?" Does the universe care or is it cold? In asking that question one is already en route to asking the question in the title: Does theology, philosophy, or some combination find the answer?

Caputo answers this question by telling (quite quickly, the book is just 84 pgs, counting the appendix!) the story of philosophy and theology and says that the most important word is 'and.' Philosophy and theology. The premodern hegemony of faith, religion, theology over philosophy is what led to modernity, he says, which flipped the situation on its head. Philosophy, reason, became the go-to-guy in the deepest questions of life. So, Descartes doubts everything that can be doubted. And comes up with the belief that he can doubt everything except that he is doubting. That he cannot deny. And begins to work his way up, pulling himself up from his reason-able bootstraps.

This leads to philosophy, reason, being the "intellectual police." Kant set up a wall between philosophy and religion, limiting religion to the unknowable. We can have an idea that there is something beyond the wall, but we can't be sure what it is. The best notion of the being beyond the wall we've got is ethics (which is why Kant is famous for the moral argument for God's existence). But, and this is remarkable, as the intellectual police, philosophy has removed itself from the game. It's like the umpire in baseball that cannot play. In the absence of philosophy, the empiral sciences--they deal with the world we can know, after all! (according to Kant)--take over. We are still in this phase in education settings.

Against Kant, who emphasized the universal nature of ethics ("Only consider a moral rule that which you can consider a moral rule for all, everywhere, at all times"), Hegel continued in the modern period by asserting the historical nature of truth. The "Spirit" was drawing all things to universal end through history. In effect, Hegel tore down (at least wanted to; Larry Wood would emphatically say he succeeded, eh Nate?) the wall that Kant had built. God was not relegated to the unknowable, but was in the very world we feel, sense, measure, examine historically, etc. (Process theology emerges from Hegel.) But notice that reason is still king here. (So, Hegel delves into mathematics (!) in his Phenomenology of Spirit.) This brings us to Caputo's two benefits of the Enlightenment: 1. The emphasis that we should highlight what we do have in common (reason-wise) and not revelation given to some but not to others; 2. The reminder that God has not given only revelation to believers, but "a head on their shoulders and eyes in that head" (slight paraphrase, 36).

But Caputo says that reason overstepped its bounds. Enter Kierkegaard: He criticized Hegel's "system" and emphasized the transcendence of God. Philosophy is not the Saviour of God, says Kierkegaard. God did not save the world in a 19th c. German philosopher, but a 1st c. Jew. (This leads to the neo-orthodoxy of Karl Barth.) The table is now set for the postmodern agenda: Both Theology and Philosophy have had their respective kick at the can; their chance at being in charge. Both have failed. Philosophy's latest turn has even removed itself from the game. The sciences have taken over...and the deepest questions begin to be treated as fairly shallow: Everything is biology, or neurology, or physics, or chemistry.

Caputo then lists three turns which completed the postmodern table set (he admits to oversimplifying, here): First, there is the hermeneutical turn. Basically, it means you have to have an "angle." When you go to speak or to find something out or to live, you realize that you are already there. You already, in the words of Jime Rome, "have a take." This "take" is necessary to seeing the game, at all. It's like a seat in an arena: you have to sit in that seat and not another, but without it you don't have access to watch the Oilers lose at all. Second, there is the linguistic turn. Whenever Descartes tried to doubt everything he was already writing. He was already thinking linguistically--hence, conditioned and shaped. This means that what you say, or think, is already partially formed before you think it. If you ever listen to Jim Rome, some of the best callers merely parrot, but parrot well, a combination of smart sports writers. Of course, they think these thoughts are their own--and in a way they are. These callers--who both parrot and are entertaing--in the words of Jime Rome, "Don't suck." The hermeneutical turn and the linguistic turn can be summed up by Jim Rome's adage: "Have a take and don't suck."

This brings us to the last turn, the "revolutionary turn" by Thomas Kuhn in science. He says that science doesn't simply add knowledge to knowledge piecemeal, but the best advances have brought complete paradigm shifts--the earth around the sun (Copernicus), the bendability of space and time (Einstein), etc. Science, in other words, does not start at zero and build up, it has a world in which it lives. Science itself already "has a take" and tries "not to suck."

Some might question whether this leaves us without truth. It does not. It leaves us without certainty. To say that I am not certain does not mean that there is no truth. It means that the truth is not mine to possess and hold; it lays hold of me; it pushes against me. It means that we have good reasons for believing scientific models, philosophy, history, in God, etc. but we are not absolutely positive. But notice that science, history, philosophy, God are all combined here. One does not reign. They are all "language games." They are all paradigms--and they all overlap to a degree (familial relations). This means that interpretation is the key. Because all of these paradigms have perspectives, they all have something to say. They all see the world as something. Neither theology nor philosophy (and thereby science) have complete access to whatever they are studying--they don't see "all the way down." So it is both seeing is believing--we all have heads and eyes--and believing is seeing--we all have presuppositions which let us think and see in the first place. Yet it is mostly "What to believe if we are to see."

So, philosophy and theology are not opposites, or enemies, but two kinds of faith--two kinds of believing trying to see. They are two ways of finding answers to the question, "Does anyone know we are here?"

To illustrate this last point Caputo compares Augustine and Derrida and their respective works, Confessions and Circumfession. Augustine and Derrida have two different kinds of faith. What they did not see is what drove them on. So, Augustine says that our hearts are restless until they rest in God. And Derrida prays, but also rightly passes for an atheist. Where Augustine saw light and had faith, Derrida is overtaken by too many claims to light and acknowledges the darkness. But this darkness, says Caputo, does not negate his faith. Rather, it makes the light all the brighter. So as not to lose the point, remember that they are both asking the question, "Does anyone know we are here?" Derrida's lack of definitive answer ("I rightly pass for an atheist") is not, however, cynicism, but simply his place in history; his form of faith is faith nonetheless. So, both Augustine and Derrida have the question of God: they do not stay with Nietzsche's cynical question ("Does anyone know we are here?"), though we all return there from time to time. Rather Caputo says that central to both forms of faith is the question, "What do I love when I love my God?" This question holds the passion that the first existential question promises. Caputo concludes that philosophy and theology are both ways to nurture the passion of life--initially and subsequently of wonder ("Does anyone...?"), but finally and ultimately of love ("What do I love when I love my God?").

I loved this book. My only critique is that Caputo is more philosopher than theologian and I am more theologian than philosopher. (This relationship is something he mentions in the book: Believing thinker/Thinking believer; Philosophical theology/Thelogical philosophy; etc.) So, when Caputo writes about God as the one before every knee will bow (Isa. 45:23), I want to remind him of the biblical story and the Philippian hymn that puts every knee bowing at the name of Jesus (Php. 2:10-11). God is not afar; he is revealed. But, of course, this is not a stunning critique--nor is it meant to be--because the worship of Christ used philosophy to explicate its theology in the Nicene-Constantinople and Chalcedonian Creeds (and at Ephesus and in syonds...). And, I think, this is another illustration for Caputo and the inevitably tense, but mutual relationship of philosophy and theology, of loving God: God's work in Jesus Christ elicits and inspires our thoughtful worship.

So.... Theology? Philosophy? Both? Does Jim Rome capture the relationship accurately? ;)

The pathetic nature of Liberal debate

This is bad news for Canada. I am not overly surprised. Whenever a potential superstar like Stephen Harper is beginning to emerge--and is looking to be a little teflon-coated like another PM who wasn't half bad for about 8 years--then it is not surprising, but it is bad news. Superstars need critics and opponents, however. Not opposition balley-hooers.

Please check the quote by the Honourable MP, Michael Ignatieff: "Beating Mr. Harper means defeating his narrative. The storyline: He loves power, but he dislikes government. He wants to make it impossible for future Liberal governments to do what they have done since Wilfrid Laurier: building the infrastructure, the health services, the income security, the transfers and equalization payments, the environmental policies that hold us together as Canadians."

To quote (I think) the Ben Stiller character from SNL's Celebrity Jeopardy, "Sometimes it helps to examine something if you just break...it...down." So let's.

First, Mr. Harper's storyline is that he loves power. Hmmm...loves power? Gave up his own leadership of the Canadian Alliance and put himself in a position to lose the leadership of the new Conservative Party. The power-monger! Hmmm....loves power? Continues to promise holding a free vote to repeal legislation that was won by abuse of power by the Liberal gov't on June 28, 2005. (Someone please remind the Honourable MP of Etobicoke-Lakeshore of his own party's recent history.)

Second, Mr. Harper dislikes gov't. Yet he has devoted the last twelve years of his life to public service. Hmmm.....perhaps he dislikes corrupt gov't. The dislike-monger!

Third, Mr. Harper wants to make it "impossible for future Liberal gov'ts to do what they've done since Wilfrid Laurier...." Let's just pause here and remark how vicious Stephen Harper is for campaigning for his own party! Someone please, please stop this man from campaigning for someone other than the Liberals! Please! But, we should continue... What has the Liberal party been doing since Wilfrid Laurier? Nothing less than developing the policies that have shaped what it means to be Canadian! Wow! Thanks for giving me my Canadian identity, Liberal policies--policies like unworkable health policies with waiting periods of years in some cases; non-existent and all mouth work environmental policies... Boy, thanks for that identity.

And then Ken Dryden reminded us all of why the CPC is now governing: "Today, we fight the Conservative government of Stephen Harper with its small, pinched understanding of the country." Hmmmm....Liberal policies have shaped Canadian identity says Ignatieff. Yet Harper is the leader of the party with the "small, pinched understanding of the country." I'll just let that irony speak for itself.

I suppose with those kinds of leadership candidates, you had better focus on condemning the leader of your opposition.

Enjoying a hidden Christ

A couple weeks ago I posted on the hidden nature of Jesus because of the ascension. Acts 1:9 records that Jesus was taken up before the disciples very eyes, and a cloud hid him from their sight. The hidden nature of Christ after the ascension is somewhat hard to make sense of. Matthew promises that where two or three are gathered, there Christ is as well. But John says that the Spirit cannot come until Christ ascends. There is a paradox of his absence and presence. Most of the time we consider the benefit of Christ to be his presence--however we make sense of it: for discipleship/sanctification; worship; communion; joy/peace/etc. However, I believe that his absence holds benefit, as well. Colossians 3 records Paul's exhortation to live the resurrection life: Set our hearts on the realm of heaven where Christ reigns ("is seated," 3:1, via the ascension). Because we died to the "world," we can live the resurrection in the world (where else can we live it?). Yet such living is dangerous; it got this letter's author killed. Yet Paul says that our life is hidden with Christ in God (v. 3) and that when Christ appears (now being hidden) we will also appear with him in glory--because he is our life. The resurrection life--life lived in the realm of the reigning Messiah--appears for all to see.

God protects the resurrection life in the hidden Messiah. As much as Christ is present, he brings change, spurs worship, and unites us. As much as he is hidden, we are protected. How upside down! The absent King is our protection!

BAGM 6

Well, it has been a while since I shared a good old fashioned BAGM story. So, today I am doing so.
We helped a lady and her sister move today. The same lady we were helping when I ripped my favourite red shirt. So, we wanted to establish some boundaries so that several people weren't spending their entire day to move boxes of junk or boxes that either of the ladies we were helping could have moved. They had done much better this time after a good pep-talk: they had already moved some boxes; were all packed for the most part; and had thrown some stuff out. Good work!

However, they still had an organ--a beast. I started moving it out of the apartment with one of the other guys. But I could feel the need to...uh...relieve some gas before lifting such a heavy object. So I did. A good one, too. We then started out the door. Three people then entered the room where the organ had been, unaware of what had just taken place. As I was leaving, through the doorway I heard through the ladies say, "It smells like mustard behind the organ!" "How'd the organ start to smell like mustard?" and so on. It was a great moment of laughter--and later on, when I shared this with the other movers who had not been in on it, but heard the conversation and experienced the "mustard" smell in other ways we all appreciated partipating in BAGM--if only for the mustard.

Profiles and Terrorism

First, I have added this photo of Joe Comuzzi to my profile. Joe Comuzzi one of the few Liberals for whom I have respect. He voted against same-sex marriage on June 28, 2005, even resigning a Cabinet post to do so. (FYI: The issue, for me, is not homosexuality, but the arrogance of gov't. Comuzzi is a man who understands that public service is service for the public, not creating a public for whom you'd like to serve.)

Second, here is another Liberal strategist who I am beginning to like. Kinsella is promoting www.iamnotafraid.ca in response to the terrorist plannings in Toronto. The response? Get everyone out to go to a Blue Jays game, which is near where the terrorists had planned to strike. I love it! (Side note: I couldn't help but think of Jean Chretien giving the gears via a nasty choke-hold to a guy who tried to pie him a few years ago when I heard the Islam extremists wanted to behead the PM. That would have gotten ugly for any knifewielding terrorist. Methinks the current PM would be more apt to pull his opponent's shirt over his head hockey style.)

Which comes first: The Christian or the Egg?

I've been reading James Smith's "Introducing Radical Orthodoxy." It is a very helpful introduction to a very complex theological attitude. (I think attitude, perhaps affinity, is a good description; Smith may use them--I can't remember.) I find myself with one question, though. Let me summarize the RO critique of modernity first: it says that its politics (liberal) is based on a theology which "unhooks" the creation from the Creator thereby creating an autonomous and independent reason. The corrective is to emphasize the createdness of creation and to recover the theology of everything because creation is always "hooked" to the Creator. Moreover, this is known in the Christian story. So, the Christian critique is always and (I think) only from within the Christian narrative.

Now, I have two questions: How does one account for the success of the modern period? Smith quotes Pickstock as saying something like, "Now that the modern project has so miserably failed, we should move on." I find myself saying, "Huh?" So miserably failed? Not likely.

Second, what do we do with the social sciences at all? I understand the critique from within the Christian narrative. This is all well and good--but it remains a critique and not a construct. Do Christians need to restart the failed projects of physics, math, sociology, medicine all over again from within the Christian narrative? If yes...well, forget it, that will never and should never happen. But if no, then how much critique does RO hold? It emphasizes the need for everything to be theologically informed--great! But for a Trinitarian God, isn't the world already theologically charged, regardless of the creation's effort to ban Him from the playground?

Let me be the first to admit that I do not have this affinity down, yet. But this has been going around in my mind.