Persistence pays off

I want to illustrate a couple of ways in which the title is true.

1. Today I received in the mail two checks from the government of Quebec. One is a bursary from Quebec student loans (QSL) that I should have received roughly 18 months ago. That was nice. But kudos to the QSL people: They paid me interest. Wow. That's something. Persistence in writing letters and making phone calls leaves me happier right now.

2. The good people of Canada suffered under tolerable gov't with the Chretien Liberals and endured bad gov't under Paul Martin. Their persistence has led to a PM who actually has vision for the country. One little dividend to this PM: He understands the people. Here's some evidence.

3. I will be doing a devotional tomorrow night on Matthew's genealogy of Jesus. Talk about persistent people and persistence in the cases of Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, and Uriah ('s wife)...and, of course, Mary.

Merry Christmas!

SFS 5: Sacrifice to End Sacrifice

In Chapter 5, Heim asks whether the critique of scapegoating violence found in the gospels is continued in the New Testament. "Doesn't early Christianity finally side with the old sacrificial scheme and recycle it in a new and more absolute form?" (135) Heim's position is that while sacrifice is used to describe the death of Christ, that this continuity also means opposition. Further, Heim believes that the good news of scapegoating revealed and completed "was at the heart of the good news the first Christians saw in Jesus' death and resurrection" (135).

Heim begins with Stephen's speech and his highlighting of Abraham, Joseph, and Moses as typical sufferers in line with Jesus. He sees them as sacrificial victims: Abraham because he fathers Israel (Israel being the oppressed); Joseph because he is sold into slavery; Moses because his reciprocal violence precedes his flight from Egypt and then the Israelites push him aside for sacrifice in the wilderness. These form a line to think about Jesus because sacrificial violence shapes all their lives.

Heim also considers Rom. 3:25: "God presented [Jesus] as a sacrifice of atonement." Here Heim gives two possible readings: "Is this a specification of the heart of God's purpose, or is it a description of position, a place taken up by Christ in the service of God's purpose to redeem and ransom humanity? In incline to the latter" (143). God enters as a sacrifice to reverse the practice and save us from it.

Some of Heim's most fascinating work is concerning resurrection and forgiveness (he leans on Markus Barth alot). The vindication of Jesus in the resurrection shows that Jesus is not guilty. But if Jesus is not guilty, then his accusers are wrong. The resurrection of Jesus spells bad news for us all--as we participate in scapegoating violence, as well. But Jesus' resurrection is an assurance of forgiveness. Because Jesus is not dead, his killers can be declared not guilty of his murder. But denying the resurrection leaves the killers guilty. If Jesus is not alive, then "we have rejected the ground on which we might by delivered" (146).

Heim sees satan at the root of scapegoating violence. "The devil has us coming and going, we might say, instigating the rivalry and conflict that tear human community apart and then orchestrating the violent sacrifice that restrains that conflagration for a time" (148). Parallel to Satan is the Holy Spirit. While Satan is an accuser, the Spirit is an advocate. The Spirit proves the world wrong in their accusations against the victim. The Spirit sides with the victim making sure they are not alone.

Heim considers the death of Christ as the sacrifice to end sacrifice. He says that sacred violence was always wrong and that the cross reveals this. At the same time, Christ's sacrifice is better than all the others and accomplishes what they never could. These are not opposites, but flipsides of the same coin (157). (This is almost verbatim Heim.) "The sacrifice of Christ stops sacrifice. What sacrifice is always being repeated to achieve has actually been accomplished" (158).

Heim closes with some thoughts on the ransom theory of atonement. He says that God uses Christ as a payment to the evil perpetrators of scapegoating violence to receive those who have suffered previous violence back. But from that position he does not demand vengeance and the entire web of sacrificial relationships collapses. The sacrifice of Jesus is "evil's great triumph and its great mistake" (164).

Incoherent Lives

I just finished reading Alan Mann's Atonement for a 'Sinless' Society. He considers atonement in the rubric of shame and postmodern thought. For the postmodern, the deepest aspect of shame is an incoherent story--an incoherent self--and, since we are storied beings, an incoherent ontology. There is a tension between our 'ideal' self and our 'real' self and we present false selves to cover the tension. The life of Christ is one lived without any tension. In the Eucharist, one encounters the story of Jesus and identification with this story is made possible. In this identification, there is death of the self and God becomes the author.

This is a clever and creative book, though a little abstract from time to time. But it did get me thinking: My life is not coherent; according to Mann, I am not I at-one. If I am not at-one with myself, can I be at-one with God?

In my life, I suffer the effects of being overly analytical, unsatisfied, and existential. The irony--not lost on me--is that these traits are exactly what drive the things I most love to do (preach, research, write) and they are the traits most necessary when I do these things well (which isn't necessarily that often). (Too many sermons stink from lack of analysis and no contact with the existential. ) However, my life becomes incoherent when analysis, existentialism, and lack of satisfaction grow through too many parts of my life. Those things which are strengths in some areas become hazardous weaknesses in others. This seems to me quite incoherent. But, why should this incoherence not be a sign of grace? Why shouldn't I consider the good these weaknesses have as signs of God's Spirit at work? If this is the case, then grace lifts me out of (a form of) coherence and makes my life a blessed incoherence. (Of course, coherence with strengths would be better than incoherence with strengths and weaknesses.) Does this defeat Mann's book? No, but it may show that perhaps his story is a little too thin (lacking the complexity of what it means to be human).

Does anyone else relate--that the things which are your greatest assets in some parts of life are your greatest torment in others?

It's a Christmas Irony!

I was thinking yesterday about the irony of those who gripe about 'Christ' being taken out of Christmas when most of the ones I hear are Protestants who took the Mass out of Christmas long ago.

Ascension and Time

I read a presentation by LeRon Shults (theologian of growing stature from Agder University in Normway) yesterday. This is the first thing I've read by him. It was on contemporary cosmology and the parousia. The thrust of his paper was well received, although I felt the paper itself kinda fluffy. The thrust: the parousia must be reconsidered in light of contemporary cosmology (study of the universe). This, of course, involves considering space and time. Shults' suggestion was to reconsider what "presence with," "being for" (literally parousia, the Greek word we translate "second coming") might mean in a universe with relative space and time.

This got me thinking about the doctrine of the ascension. In my presentation to the CETA last year, I suggested a paradoxical consideration of the absence and presence of Christ. I suggest Christ is absent from the church, via the ascension, but present via the Eucharist and baptism. I believe that Shults' suggestion to reconsider the parousia helps me make sense of this paradox. Here's how: What if the ascension doesn't just raise Christ above the powers (as the political doctrine it is suggests), but also raises him ahead in time? If time and space are relative, could the ascension be the act that thrusts Christ through time? This would mean that we are "catching up" via our temporal limitations, to which he is no longer subject. This means that Christ is absent--he is in the future, looking back at us. However, the story of Christ is present now because he traversed through time because of the ascension. It is not that he "skips ahead" from 33 A.D. to the point of his revealed presence (say, 3213 A.D.). Rather, he moved through all time in a way that we as yet cannot. So, it makes sense to say that Christ is present now from our perspective, but not in a full way. We sense his presence most fully in the times that he "slowed" his progress through time to nourish us in communion and wash us in baptism. Is he present? Yes, from our perspective. Is he absent? Yes, from his perspective. Ironically, part of the hope of the gospel is that in the hardest times, our life is "hidden with Christ in God" (Col. 3:3): the absent Christ is our safety and the present Christ is our comfort. Perhaps a good catch phrase for this position is to say, "Christ has been now before."

Thoughts?

Is this what government is supposed to do?

It's a little strange to see an effective and visionary government in Canada--at least for me. I'm not that old and I haven't always been so critical, so I'm sure there are other examples, but let me say: I like Stephen Harper. I haven't always agreed with him, but I can still like him.

Here's one more reason why: Senatorial reform. In a gov't where the Governor General appoints senators, under the recommendation of the Prime Minister, the senate can be filled with partisan players (e.g., Michel Fortier, who Harper appointed so he could put him in the Cabinet, although he will likely resign and run in the next federal election). As it stands now, the Liberals have about 65 people in the 105 seat senate. While the senate doesn't introduce legislation all that often, they make recommendations, form committees, sit on committees and influence parliament. Appointed senators sit until they are 75, effectively giving the gov't in power extra presence, without the consent of the people. Stephen Harper wants to change this--the article spells it out.

If you don't have time to read the article, just let me leave you with one quote:

"I have warning for the Liberals. A democratically elected and genuinely accountable Senate may not serve the Liberal party, but it will serve the Canadian people, and their interests come first to the Conservative party."
~Stephen Harper

Question

For those of you who like the concept of story, especially as it pertains to theology, I have a question: What is it? What is story? (Note: I am not asking what is the story.)

True Postmodernism

Something postmoderns forget is that they are generated by modernists. Postmoderns understood the need for relationality. Postmoderns want intimacy. Postmoderns like teams. However, and I owe this point to Alan Mann (Atonement for a Sinless Society), the postmodern, thoroughly indoctrinated with the modern notion that what matters is the self, sees relationality, intimacy, and team as what they want. "I like small groups," becomes almost self-defeating if one considers small groups from the perspective of self. It's like saying, "I like food," without considering the irrelevancy of desire when it comes to food and simple survival.

Of course, the question becomes, "Where do I stand to realize this phenomenon? What group has formed me and how have I been conditioned to overcome this perspective?" Answer: I don't know.

SFS 4: The Paradox of the Passion

Heim's point in chapter 4 is that the gospels witness to the saving power of the cross and that it is a tragedy that shouldn't happen.

Heim tackles objections to the cross' prominence in Christian theology. He offers a critique for those troubled by the cross' violence. Let me put it bluntly: "Good. You should be troubled by its violence." Wanting to leave out the cross says more about the person than it does about the cross. It shows the desire to avert our eyes from the victim.

Heim also addresses the similarity between the story of Jesus of Nazareth and early myths. Because Heim believes that behind the myths of dying and rising gods were actual deaths of real people, he asserts the historicity of Jesus all the more. However, it is the visibility of the victimization of Jesus that gives the insight that the other myths are not myths at all--they are the mythologized account of real victims. The cross--the scapegoating of God himself--is what unmasks all scapegoat myths for what they are.

Heim puts the story of Jesus into the rubric of the scapegoat mechanism. Is there turmoil in the city? Check. Does Jesus have something to set him apart (i.e., "illegitimate birth", Galilean, powerful?)? Check. Does Jesus get accused of rabblerousing and blasphemy? Check. Do all eventually withdraw, condemn, abandon? Check. Heim concludes that Jesus' death has scapegoating written all over it. What is the difference? Like the magician showing you all the stuff that makes it seem magic, we get shown the mechanism that is taking Jesus down. We see it as scapegoating--an innocent victim being condemned by the crowd. And all form part of the crowd. Further, the words of Jesus, especially from Ps. 22, form scapegoat words--the innocent crying out to God. "Father forgive them!" The world is crushing Jesus and he needs vindication and in its midst he cries forgiveness.

The scapegoat mechanism is visible for the participants, too. The killers want peace in the city--the Jews don't want the Romans coming down on them; even Herod and Pilate become friends b/c of this death (Lk 23:12). We see the positive effects that scapegoating has.

Resurrection, however, vindicates the scapegoat. The voice of the Psalmist, of Job, and of Jesus has been heard by God. The tomb is emptied. Matthew records that many tombs were opened (previous scapegoats?). In this light, the fear that grips the disciples (the women at the end of Mark, the disciples locked in a room, etc.) makes perfect sense: If Jesus hasn't taken the brunt, then the disciples will have to. They are next in line to take the hit. If Jesus isn't dead, then someone else will have to die. This leads to Heim's final point: The defeat of scapegoating. The benefit achieved by the cross is that it unveils the violence that leads to peace. God does not accept the peace established by a grave, but establishes that no stones need be cast in the first place.

SFS Chapter 3: The Voice of Job: Sacrifice Revealed and Contested

Chapter 3 asks the question how the Bible deals with violence. Because violence is found throughout Scripture, what is the effect of it being described explicitly? God sometimes even appears to be the endorser of such violence. He uses violence (eg, Noah and the flood) to stop violence. Heim says that none of these pictures describe God fully, but they do give insight into the human situation and our relation with God. Without these stories, we would not see our situation, though we must move past their description.

The nation of Israel begins participating in the mythic and sacrificial violence, sometimes, apparently, at God's command. "The [Israelite] community centers its collective violence on a representative sacrifice, which is charged with all the guilt and sins that pollute and threaten the people, and driven out and off a cliff--the very image of mob violence against a human scapegoat" (77). But in the story of Israel, notably attached to the story of Isaac, is an exchange of sacrifices. Heim suggests that although Israel did practice human sacrifices from time to time, that the sacrifice of Isaac is part of the work of God to substitute animals for humans. This lessens the effect, though not the act of sacrifice and violence.

Heim's work then focuses on the voice of scapegoats found in the Old Testament. Like O'Donovan, Heim's read of the Psalms is especially interesting and enlightening to his work. There he finds the classic story of scapegoating, but from the side of the scapegoat. So, we hear Psalms that cry out, "Everyone is against me unjustly; they destroy me! No one is on my side and the violent seek to destroy me." Sometimes the Psalmist wants revenge; sometimes the Psalmist wants vindication and restoration. (Re: the imprecatory Psalms that call for God to destroy the evildoers: how politically incorrect of the Jews to keep such honesty in their Scriptures and by the Christians not to hide the deep desires of the human soul! I love honest Scriptures.)

The focus of this chapter, though, is Job. "What we have in the book of Job is an interview with a scapegoat" (85). God is presented as the allower of violence. Job's friends listen to Job, but then take up the mythic belief that violence is the result of divine justice. While we current readers are not surprised at the devastated calling out to God for his help, there is no reason we would expect God to side with scapegoats at the time. Scapegoats suffer divine violence.
So, Job can say that God has wronged him; God has hurt him (Job 19). But Job still calls for an advocate: sometimes against God (the opposite of the satan who accuses Job of faithfulness only because of his good fortune) and sometimes he wants God himself to be his advocate. Heim calls Job a book about a failed scapegoat where the scapegoat gets a hearing--addressing the mob and God. Ultimately, God vindicates Job: Job has spoken rightly, even when he has had divine double speak--sometimes God is unjust, sometimes he is on Job's side. Heim sees in the voice of Job the two historical competing views of the divine: demander of scapegoating violence and emphatic sufferer with the scapegoats.

In one of the more revealing lines of the book, Heim says that under Job's address, "God sides with Job. Or perhaps we could says the Bible sides with Job's God" (92). Now we begin to see the victim and the false gods of sacred violence. But they could only be seen by displaying violence. That the Psalmist thinks God will hear him, that God will side with him, shows the victory Job has won. And so it makes sense that the story of the Old Testament continues with the voice of the prophets wanting justice, not sacrifice. God has moved his people in the direction that sacrifices are not needed. Ultimately, this is considered using the suffering servant of Isaiah. While we considered him stricken and afflicted by God, God vindicates the servant. God sides with him and exalts the scapegoat.

Forgiving as Defending without Condemning

I think quite a bit about forgiveness for a few reasons. First, and mainly, it is most likely the subject that receives the most attention--direct or indirect--in my pastoral work thus far. Everybody needs to forgive and to be forgiven. Second, it forms part of my thought on atonement. Third, it is just difficult--both to do and to think about. Miroslav Volf's work on forgiveness in Free of Charge and Exclusion and Embrace has shaped my thought, though I disagree with him in places.

Forgiveness is not refusing to "hold something against" a person. That is ridiculously dangerous and foolish. Forgiveness in that case would bring, most likely, more evil and place people with certain weaknesses to specific sins in situations they might not be able to handle, thereby offending again. Neither does forgiveness return us to a position prior to the offense's happening. Rather than looking backward, forgiveness looks forward, entertaining and aiming for total reconciliation and beginning that process, but not living into it immediately. Thus, it becomes both unwise and impossible to forget what one has forgiven. Forgetting what one has forgiven leaves one open to suffering in the same way. Further, forgetting what one has forgiven can derail reconciliation as one would forget the situation being reconciled. (However, once total reconciliation has taken place, I think forgetting could be the gracious gift of God.)

So, I propose that in forgiving we are committing to defending ourselves (remembering the sin we suffered), but refusing to condemn the other because of that offense.

SFS: Chapter 2: The Cross No One Sees: Invisible Scapegoats

First, what is the deal with colons in titles?

Second, this book is excellent. I am not completely sold on Girardian social theory (which we will come to), at least as the metanarrative ('grand recit,' since he is French--thanks Crusty Guy), but it is interesting, considered, clever, and has no agenda hidden.

Anyway, on to the chapter.

Heim's proposal in this chapter is that if the cross is universal in scope and applicability, there must be a universal problem it addresses. He proposes one way "that the death Jesus died [is] related to the very fabric of...human life" (38). Basically, ritual sacrifice (sometimes of the human variety) is the method that humans have used to control violence and achieve temporary peace. The death of Jesus, unlike all other sacrificial myths, unveils what is really going on--scapegoating violence--in order to pull the curtain back on all other scapegoat victims.

Rene Girard's theory is that in the process of becoming human, the conflicts that would arise in burgeoning social groups would be solved by scapegoating sacrifice. Something (often, someone) was the cause of the group's problem and their violence vented against the person would achieve reprieve. Because this violence actually did achieve temporary peace, there was a sacred element attached to it that claimed divine work behind the violence. Oftentimes the victim would be elevated to being the divine at work in the midst of the people, though they were unaware.

Heim highlights the myths of sacrifice and violence that often tell stories of societiess (e.g., Romulus and Remus and the founding of Rome). While in the West we are conditioned to hear such sacrificial myths as just stories, Girard's claim is the behind such myths is real and true violence. There is an actual victim, a founding murder. Of course, the peace achieved by sacred violence was not permanent. It ended. And so another scapegoat was necessary. And the process continues, even today.... What is different, as Heim will point out, is that today the hiddenness of such scapegoats is removed; they are easier to see because of the scapegoating of Christ.

Heim closes the chapter with the following interchange between Foucault and Girard; it shows how he will bring this around to Christian theology and why Girard himself is a man of faith:
"Michel Foucault...reproached Girard for his insistent concern with violence and sacrifice: 'It is not necessary to build an entire philosophy on the victim.' To which Girard replied, 'No, not a philosophy -- rather a religion.... But one already exists!' It was in the Bible" (63).

Thoughts on the Liberal Convention

I have read a couple of articles on the Liberal convention in Montreal.

THOUGHT 1:
Looks like Ignatieff is going to have a tough time finishing this up--will almost certainly go to a third ballot--and the more ballots it takes, the better the chance of Bob Rae winning, so far as I can tell.

There are two sweet ironies here:

1. One slogan of the Liberals is "Don't let Stephen Harper do to Canada what Mike Harris did to Ontario." And who put Ontario in the place that it needed financial rescue? Bob Rae, my bet on the next Liberal leader.

2. The Libs are always griping about Harper being "Bush-lite." And who is the leader after the first ballot? The candidate who most resembles Stephen Harper.

3. The Libs are saying that Harper is not progressive enough. Agree or disagree with him, what is more progressive than calling a group of people a nation in a united country? Again, agree or disagree, it seems to me that going back to one nation, plain and simple, is the regressive act, no?

4. In a candidacy fraught with "realism"--"Who can defeat the big bad wolf, Stephen Harper?"--the Libs are poised to elect the candidate who has the least chance of beating Harper. I suppose this is what it means to be part of the visionless Liberals right now: You either elect a candidate who supported the Iraq war, but can likely defeat Stephen Harper, or you support a candidate who didn't support the war but whose claims to victory and resume bragging come after his most recent venture in actual governance....

THOUGHT 2:
One thing I have wondered about is where Canadians get this "We're-not-the-USA" identity. Now I know: The Liberals. How do I know this? A prominent sign at the Liberal convention reads: "Defeat Harper." Well done! Let your opponent dictate the game and you've already lost! Bravo! Ironic that most Canadians voted in the Conservatives because they didn't like the Liberals, not because they liked the Conservatives....

THOUGHT 3:
Also, I love Jean Chretien as former Prime Minister. He of the dubious reputation of "the proof is a proof when it's proven" and Shawinigate is now starting to speak a little more candidly. When asked about Paul Martin's last run as PM, Chretien said, "He didn't win; I would have preferred if he had." Yes. Classic words.