"Is There a Meaning in this Text?", Chapter 7

Vanhoozer has (re)covered the author and the text and now sets out to deal with the reader. A quick summary: Vanhoozer is an hermeneutical realist and rationalist: he believes that texts have meaning that is knowable, being grounded in the communicative agency of the author. Texts are communicative acts that "with matter (propositional content) and energy (illocutionary force)...and direction (perlocutionary aim)" (367). So, what about the reader? "If there is a meaning in the text, is there a right (and a wrong) way to respond to it?" (368). Reading is not passive, whether one is reading for the text's point (illocutionary force) or for its perlocutionary effect (transformation). So, does a reader have an obligation to the text? Vanhoozer says yes, and, perhaps for just a time as this, focuses on the other of the text: "My thesis is that in reading we encounter an other that calls us to respond" (368). He takes the following steps in laying out this belief: First, what is the reader's relationship to the text? Second, is there a proper way to read a text, in light of the reader's inherent biases? Third, how does the reader's freedom relate to the text? By this Vanhoozer asks whether one can read for different purposes and with different methods and still "obey" texts. With all these moral questions, Vanhoozer asks what role the Holy Spirit plays in making ethical interpretation possible.

Readers can be users, critics, or followers. Users do just that: use the text. Texts have no right and can be manipulated and controlled by the reader to their own gain. Reading is purely pragmatic, completely amoral. Vanhoozer puts Richard Rorty in this category.

Critics stand in a privileged position of power against the text, evaluating and lining up reasons for dispensing with its claims from specific positions (feminist, womanist, etc.) (372). This is different from a reader who views a personal presence in the text, needing to be shepherded and obeyed. Both aim to be ethical in their reading--one by deconstruction and liberation from the text's claims, the other by taking the text seriously and justly and incorporating it into one's life. There are those, of course, who believe that ethical interpretation involves both reading and critiquing. Finally, as interpretation has grown, so has deconstruction; deconstruction is no longer simply about the text, but about undoing certain interpretations, as well.

Followers have a complex relationship with the text. As Ricoeur noted, reading is always a struggle with the text. This involves, first, a reception. The text must have its say; its allusions must be tracked down; its words used as the author would have defined them. Ricoeur also notes that readers must "expose themselves to the effects of the text" (375). How does the text impinge on the reader? Texts, by means of this exposure, allow the reader self-examination. This is the ultimate effect of a text. The text is like musical score that is followed, but with which one must break relationship should it become harmful. One keeps company with a text for a certain while. So, how does one decide whether or not to become friends with a text? Vanhoozer lists four virtues of interpretation: honesty--acknowledging one's biases; openness--willing to hear other ideas; attention--focusing on the text, not its pragmatic use; obedience--reading it, as best one can, as the author intended.

But is it possible for readers to be followers? Is Levinas right that reason and interpretation simply end in self-absorption? This has implications for translation, of course. Does the translator betray the text and deconstruct it as they engage in translation, or do they translate a (potentially) unethical aim, one that the author wished to encourage? Vanhoozer, going back to the communicate act, believes translation should match the impact the author wishes to have. This means that readers and authors enter into covenants of communication: mutual responsibilities and commitments. Vanhoozer suggests it is always valuable to respect others, even the immoral aims of immoral authors. We must respect the communicative agent's intention, as it is part of the communicative act.

With ethics in mind, then, Vanhoozer suggests that readers are both servants and lords of the text. They are servants in that the meaning that they acknowledge the matter of the text and subject themselves to its force. They read as the author intended. This is understanding the text. However, readers are also lords of the text. Readers judge a text's significance and morality. One is able to disagree with a text, perhaps from a privileged vantage point, but only after one has stood under it.

This dynamic relationship between a text and reader means that reader may actually find his/herself in the text. The text is then reading them. In this way Ricoeur says that a text could give a self, in ipse, to the ego, the idem. Reading, then, has all sorts of struggles--historical, moral, linguistic, cultural, etc. To be able to read in light of these struggles, Vanhoozer suggests is a spiritual exercise and perhaps fruit of the Spirit. The remainder of the chapter, which I will not explore, lays out this process for the Christian in community.

Writing a Thesis: The Map Metaphor

Writing a thesis is like creating a map. You have to rely on people who know how to make maps, but you cannot let them tell you your map is correct because they do not--and should not at some point--know the terrain as well as you. They may think the map should look a certain way, but you are the one living in the terrain you're mapping. And the only way to work on the map is to live in the terrain and walk its hills, swim its lakes, sleep in its forests. You might need to redraw, but you never know you will until you've found your own map to come up short.

Idolatry?

I don't know how serious this family takes their faith, but I get a little curious when, concerning a christening, the adjective 'priceless' is applied to an object.

Review: The Dark Knight

Let me begin by saying that while I have some limited understanding in writing book reviews, I don't really know how to write movie reviews. (Also: SPOILER ALERT.)

The Dark Knight (TDK), director Christopher Nolan's second movie from Frank Miller's graphic novels, is not your typical summer movie. If that's what you're looking for, go see Hancock. TDK, which tells the story of Harvey Dent and James Gordon's heroic prosecution of organized crime, the Joker's manic and demented self-hatred, and Batman's determined solitude and misunderstood efforts, breaks company with other super-hero movies, leaving the viewer with less resolution than when they entered.

With fear growing more and more intense in Gotham, villains and heroes alike begin to shine. Heroes like District Attorney Harvey Dent, Lieutenant James Gordon, Lucius Fox, and Batman emerge as true souls, brave enough to face the growing darkness. The darkness, a better class of criminal, goes beyond the petty greed of mobsters and crime lords to the psychotic and demented Joker. Rather than simply trying to bully and beat his way to riches, the Joker is more concerned with making others feel the emotional pain he lives with. What better way to do this than by constantly forcing anyone with whom he comes in contact to become like him? The Joker pits petty thugs against one another, convicted criminals against average citizens and vice versa, turns trusted police officers into kidnappers, sets Harvey Dent up for demented revenge, and, ultimately, challenges Batman to become the breaker of rules any right minded individual would become to fight evil. TDK weaves its plot, which is basically the capture of the Joker, through these themes.

TDK excells in almost every category. It never bores. It looks fantastic. Its actors play their roles effortlessly. (I especially enjoyed Gary Oldman and Morgan Freeman.) The story is compelling and not overly complex. Where it most excels is in its character development. This, however, is what makes the movie difficult to watch, at points, and keeps it from being an 'enjoyable' movie experience. The Joker is terrible. Literally, a terrible person. The more his mania grows, his insanity deepens, and his chops get licked, the edgier the viewer becomes. This edge never softens until the end, and then only slightly. The edginess of the movie stays with the viewer. As a result, this is not a kids movie. I could not recommend this movie to anyone below 15 and then I would still caution it.

TDK is a threshold movie for all superhero films. No longer will serious super-hero movies have goofy, gratuitous violence and flashy costumes. TDK shows a distinct difference between whipped cream superhero movies and compelling stories told around superheroes.

"Is There a Meaning in this Text?", Chapter 6

Now that Vanhoozer has resurrected the author, he seeks to redeem the text, showing that literary acts are rational, not simply lost in unconscious motives and words at play. Vanhoozer wants to show that there is a knowable, valid, and right interpretation of the meaning in the communicative act of texts.

Knowledge of texts is not knowledge of what the text is about, but about the text's subject matter and energy. Because authors do things in texts and authors are complex, literary knowledge must be sufficiently "thick" (284). But is interpretation possible? Suppose the author is alive and the text meaningful, can interpreters find anything but their own fabrications? Common sense says, "Of course!", but 'common sense' is a product of a certain language system. George Steiner points out that this means that deconstruction is irrefutable: if everything is interpretation--and deconstruction is content to befall the same reality while it shows it--then there is no proper meaning. However, Steiner bets on meaning, as does Vanhoozer. This he grounds in Reformed Epistemology, saying that interpretation is a properly basic human function. We have interpreting machinery (brains) that, when working properly, interprets properly.

So, then, why is there conflict? More importantly, if there is always conflict of interpretation, is 'knowledge' an appropriate category to describe literary interpretation? As he seeks to answer this question, Vanhoozer defines the primary object of interpretation is "to specify the what, whys, and wherefores of the text considered as communicative action" (293). His theory of knowledge of interpretation is a form of critical realism. This means that Vanhoozer recognizes there are no value free points of view, but affirms that neither are there only value-laden readings. So, the reader must affirm that there is literary knowledge, that she believes she has it, but is not certain she does.

Interestingly, the norm for literary knowledge, even with the author alive and well, is the text itself, but considered as a literary act (303). So, what is the literal sense? Vanhoozer says it entails three elements. The literal meaning of the text is shaped by its historical, narrative, and canonical context.

Next Vanhoozer tackles interpretation vis-a-vis the form of the text. A text's form indicates that it has a different purposes. History is not properly interpreted if read as fantasy, for example, because their forms have different purposes. The purpose of narrative literature is to display a world, according to Mary Louise Pratt (341), but also, according to Susan Snaider Lanser, to take a stance toward it (341). The force of the text, then is to paint, but also to judge. "[T]he way a story is told communicate the author's perspective on the world of the text. To speak of 'point of view' in narrative is to acknowledge that the author's voice and vision is communicated indirectly, in and through the displaying of a world" (341). Lanser says that "'the novel's basic illocutionary activity is ideological construction; its basic plea: hear my word, believe and understand" (341). (Recall that illocutionary force is the energy of the text; the direction the text pushes. Perlocutionary is the purpose of the text, the effects of which may or may not spring from the author's illocutionary force.)

Just like metaphors, genres are indispensable. Genres are necessary aspects of literary communicative acts and are, therefore, not "incidental but [are] essential to the content" (343). "A genre is a covenant, a covenant of discourse" (346). To be a communicative act, it must be sincere, true, and appropriate. This is the responsibility of the author to the reader. The reader must, in turn, pour themselves out to understand the other. [Vanhoozer notes that this might be what N.T. Wright calls a 'hermeneutics of love' (349).] This is so because all knowledge is personal knowing. Indwelling the text, participating in the text is what counts as knowledge. This leads us to Chapter 7.

Review: The Shack by William Young

The Shack, William Young's tale of Mack, his family tragedy, and his divine encounter, has become the NY Times number one best selling trade paperback fiction. Perhaps not exactly what Young was expecting, but certainly a hopeful sign that average people are still captivated by theology. Even good theology.

The Shack is the spiritual story of Mackenzie Allen Phillips (Mack), written by his friend Willie. On a camping trip with three of his children, Mack's youngest daughter, Missy, is kidnapped. All that is found is her bloody dress in an old shack. Missy is presumed dead and Mack returns home under the weight of what he calls, The Great Sadness. His relationship with God, already strained by his own father's abusive ways, becomes one of bitterness and anger. One day, Mack receives a note, inviting him to the shack--the shack--where his daughter was found, signed by none other than God.

When Mack arrives at the shack, God is not who he would expect. The Father, Papa, is a large African-American woman who loves to cook. Jesus is a Jewish laborer who wears work gloves. The Holy Spirit is a small Asian woman, Sarayu, dressed as a gardener. Not exactly who Mack would expect! As Mack interacts with each of them he hears of their internal relationship, their passions and hobbies, and how his own theological beliefs fall dreadfully short. Mack's weekend at the shack, leads to his experience of the full love of God, forgiveness with his father, and the beginning of forgiveness of the man who killed his daughter.

The Shack is better theology than fiction, which is not necessarily a significant critique as its theology is considered and thoughtful. However, the prose felt a little forced at times, trying very hard to be descriptive and detailed, which bogged the story down. Young's Trinitarian theology is solid. While God appears as two women and one man, Papa assures Mack that the Father and the Spirit are neither male nor female, though both sexes are derived from God's nature. God has created humanity to relate interdepently as sexes, woman originally coming from the rib of man (Eden having been a real place), and every man and woman now coming through women.

I would contend with three of Young's belief, however, (at least) two of which stem from his frustration with the institutional church. First, Young commits the heresy of patripassionism. Papa bears wounds on his wrists, just as Jesus does. Mack comments to Papa that he is sorry that he had to die (103), though it is specifically Jesus who dies. Papa never abandoned Jesus on the cross, though it felt like that. While some will wonder why this matters, it is important to maintain the Trinitarian relations that Young has skillfully described. If the Father has the same experience as the Son, then these two persons are in danger of being collapsed into each other. Further, part of atonement is Jesus entering the situation of estrangement from God and being brought back. If the Father has not abandoned the Son (at least politically), then the Son has not entered the fallen state of humanity.

Second, Young's Old Testament theology lacks a concept of covenant. God comments that the 10 Commandments are about teaching people they cannot live righteously. While the law does this on a national level and Paul affirms that the law was powerless to transform people, one must always consider the law as God's gift, evidence God has set Israel aside. But not only evidence, the gracious means of God's setting aside, intimately connected to the story outsiders enter to become Jews. Young emphasizes the relationship God wants with people that is not marked by rules and expectations, but by expectancy and love. However, the New Testament is full of commands, as well, which Young leaves unaddressed.

Finally, Young lacks a solid political theology. Young's Jesus says, "I don't create institutions--never have, never will." Jesus is not fond of economics, politics (179), preferring relationship. Here Young has failed to take seriously that economics and politics--institutions, markets, cities--are relational. They are fallen relationships, but relationships, nonetheless. To remove Jesus from the creation of institutions also removes Jesus from the powers which emerge from such institutions, which is Manichean and certainly against Paul's words in Colossians that thrones, powers, authorities are created by Jesus. Further, if Jesus is not involved in the creation of institutions, then is he not involved in the creation of orphanages? Hospitals? Universities? Publishing houses?

(One might also point out the personification of God's wisdom Sophia, which indicates a fourth 'person' of God. Better had Young somehow worked this into Jesus and how his story reflects the story of wisdom, but I'll leave that to New Testament scholars. As a theologian, I am uncomfortable with a 'personification' or enfleshment of anything in God except God's Word. All enfleshing is in him.)

In the end, I believe Young's work is worth reading and reflection. It would serve as a good text for church small groups to the extent that it raises a number of important issues in forming church. I appreciated Young's creativity and fearlessness in addressing preconceived notions of God. Even in the above criticisms to a partial extent, Young's work is critical and thoughtful. He has not written this work sloppily and would likely have strong and thoughtful responses to my critiques. In the end, my critiques are disagreements and not necessarily points that Young would see the need to change or sharpen. Finally, Young's book is a significant story that could form the imagination of people in need of reconciliation or forgiveness in their own tragedies. It paints a nice picture of God's involvement in this blue-green ball in black space and God's love for it and all its inhabitants.

On Listening, by Jean-Luc Nancy, "March in Spirit in our Ranks" and "How Music Listens to Itself"

Nancy now explores the role of music (and dance and architecture) in its role in aiding the rise of Nazi Germany. "Without in any way wanting...to retrace an obscure genealogy of Nazism, I cannot prevent myself from noticing, when it is a question of music and of National Socialism, that something had already been preparing itself for a long time--something that did not as such prefigure the Third Reich, but that offered it a choice space" (51). He says that music, dance and architecture can be arts of "expansion"--the propagation of a "subjectivity" (51).

Subjectivity, in order for it to take root, must be communicated and music "harbors a force of communication and participation" that all forms of power--religious, secular, aesthetic--have recognized (52). Nancy points out the example of the Reformation and how it contained "marked musical translation," as well. So, this historical period belonged not only to religion, but to music, as well...and by implication, to politics and philosophy (54).

"How Music Listens to Itself"

"If someone listens to music without knowing anything about it...without being capable of interpreting it, is it possible that he is actually listening to it, rather than being reduced to hearing it?" (63). Musical listening must have both dispositions.

"To listen...is to touch the work in each part--or else to be touched by it, which comes to the same thing" (65). Music is thus close to visual sensory arts here, except that musical composition keeps the listener anticipating its development and waiting for its result (66).

"Music is the art of the hope for resonance: a sense that does not make sense except because of its resounding in itself. It calls to itself and recalls itself, reminding itself and by itself, each time, of the birth of music, that it to say, the opening of a world in resonance..." (67).

On Listening, by Jean-Luc Nancy, Interlude

In Derridean fashion, Nancy's continuation of "On Listening," its Interlude, concerning music, is a play on the french word 'mot,' and its relation to other sounds. This game, this play, is the sense, the meaning of the word. In a sense, the word has brought him to this meaning as he has listened. Likewise with music, the listening strains to end in sense.

"Sense, if there is any, when there is any, is never a neutral, colorless, or aphonic sense: even when written, it has a voice" (34). Nancy says that this is the meaning of to write: making a sound beyond signs; a "vocalizing" of a sense that would otherwise be silent except for a self. Nancy quotes Francis Ponge, "I never come to write the slightest phrase without my writing being accompanied by a mental speaking and listening, and even, rather, without it being preceded by those things" (35). [As I read Nancy for the second time, reviewing my notes, I form the words over and over again in my head, sometimes finding my tongue moves in rhythm with these silent words in my head. For the few (any?) actually reading this, perhaps Nancy's work has caused you to do the same. Interestingly, a novel--ones that are easily read, at least--do not force us to do this. We can skip words--paragraphs, even--and still read the novel. But without this vocalization, I do not think we can say that we have listened to it.] This speaking is "the echo of the text" and is what "opens it to its own sense" and a plurality of, literally for different listeners, senses (35). And this sound--Nancy shifts back into music at this point--is more than its listener. Nancy says it listens to itself, thereby finds itself, thereby deviating from itself, and is able to resound further away, becoming another subject, which is "neither the same as nor other than the individual subject who writes the text" (35). [I am hearing traces of Ricoeur here, especially as the text is able to gain an autonomy from the author, embarking on its own course, but Nancy has also tied the text to its author.]

Speaking is a "question of two things together": rhythm and timbre (36), the movement and color of sound, outside pitch and volume. Nancy says these form the constitution of sound offered to listening. This constitution is paralleled by the womb where we can only hear, never see, and begin to listen.

[I think Nancy is here saying that the color of sound--its timbre--which is invisible, is the actual communication. It is the communication because sound opens up its own space for possible relationship and while the child is in the womb, unformed by language, timbre is what is shared between it and what it hears. There is only noise to the child, but its timbre reflects communication of the other--an other not its mother.]

On Listening, by Jean-Luc Nancy, Part I

In this challenging little book, Nancy asks the question, "Is listening something of which philosophy is capable?" (1). Wouldn't it be true to say that philosophy hears, hears to understand, understands to philosophize? Nancy's point here is that there is a space between listening and hearing--listening is a tension and hearing is a balance, although to listen is to understand and to understand means one must listen, in the long run.

He asks why such a difference exists (2). Nancy sees the difference connected with the difference between sight and sound. Whereas philosophy has been more concerned with the visual, form, representation, and less with the sonorous (3). But he asks a telling question: If the question of truth from Kant to Heidegger has concerned with the appearance/manifestation of being ("phenomenology"), then "shouldn't truth 'itself,' as transivity and incessant transition of a continual coming and going, be listened to rather than seen?" (4). But if this is the case, truth is not something to call 'itself' because if heard, then once heard it is gone, and we are only left with an echo.

Nancy, by this reasons (and since he continues past page 4), thinks philosophy can listen. So, what does it mean? "What does it mean for a being to be immersed entirely in listening, formed by listening or in listening, listening with all his being?" Because listening was first used in the context of espionage, Nancy thinks that an answer must thereby be found by considering listening as an action that discovers a secret. "What secret is at stake when one truly listens, that is, when one tries to capture or surprise the sonority rather than the message?" (5). What secret is made public by listening? But beyond this, when we consider the expression, "To be all ears," listening must also take on an existential dynamic. So, what does it mean "to be listening"? (5). The ear, the organ and its intention must therefore be combined: To hear (with the ear), one must listen, just as to smell (with the nose), one must sniff (5). Nancy thinks that hearing and listening have a special relationship, though. In hearing, there is understanding, "as if 'hearing' were above all 'hearing say'" (6). This means that all saying has a hearing and all hearing a listening. Sound, which is really 'say,' desires to be heard, to be sensed (by the ear); to resound.

So, then, what is the difference between hearing and listening? "If 'to hear' is to understand the sense, to listen is to be straining toward a possible meaning, and consequently one that is not immediately accessible" (6). (The sense that hearing understands is the context, not the text of the sound.) Consider two examples of sound and sense, hearing and listening. In hearing a speech, we listen for meaning. But in music, the sound itself is that for which we listen. In a speech, the sound disappears. In the music, sense becomes sound. Nancy thinks that this makes a double move: we both seek sense in sound, and sound is sought in sense. "To be listening is always to be on the edge of meaning..." (7), the sound is this edge whose meaning is found upon its resonance on the listening ear.

The shared space of meaning and sound is 'referral. ' Meaning is "made of a totality of referrals: from a sign to a thing, from a state of things to a quality, from a subject to another subject or to itself, all simultaneously. Sound is also made of referrals: it spreads in space, where it resounds while still resounding 'in me'" (7). Sound, and therefore meaning, returns to itself and is also placed outside itself. Nancy says, then, that meaning and sound refer to each other, and that this space of referral "can be defined as the space of a self, a subject" (8). This means that a self is always in relationship, always part of a referral, and that "a subject feels: that is his characteristic and his definition" (9).

To be listening, then, means straining toward or approach a self--not a specific individual self, but the structure of a self. "When one is listening, one is on the lookout for a subject, something that identifies itself by resonating from self to self, in itself and for itself, hence outside of itself, at once the same as and other than itself, one in the echo of the other, and this echo is like hte very sound of its sense" (9). Here the difference between sight and sound becomes clear. While I can hear what I see, I cannot see what I hear. Visualization includes an object, a mimetic reflection. Sonority is methexic, a participation or sharing.

To be listening, then, means to enter this sharing, to be looking for relation to self, "to relationship in self," not to specific individuals (12). Nancy says, then, that to listen is not to have access to self, but the reality of access itself. (I think this means that listening is not what makes a self, but is the possibility of relation to self.) Nancy, I think, uses this to move away from phenomenology rooted in being and toward action--coming, passing, extending, penetrating (13). Because sound cannot be captured, it is always moving; it is "not a point on a line" (13), but captures space-time because sound expands. Thus, to listen is to enter that type of space that also penetrates me, opens in and around me; moves toward me and away from me (14). To listen has elements of being open from within and from without (which is why listening provides opportunity for relationship, but is not relationship with self itself). Because sound creates this space and it is in this space that I listen, listening takes place at the same time as the sound-event. Sound therefore has an ability to attack that sight simply does not. A visual presence is there before seen; sound simply arrives the moment it is heard. (Think here of an instance when you have been frightened. Often the fright is doubled if sound accompanies the sudden pop up of the other's face.)

The omnipresence of sound in the space it creates means that it returns to itself, encounters itself. It is co-presence--"presence in presence" (16). But because it is not fixed or stable, sound is a place as relation. Inasmuch as sound resounds sound creates a subject. So, Nancy gives the example of a child who, with his first cry, becomes a "sudden expansion of an echo chamber"--a place for resounding (17). So, Nancy comes to say that sound is not intended, but that sound places a subject in tension. The child is open to relation by the sound now resounding and them being able to re-sound--both themselves and others. So sound (and here Nancy is using the example of music) is not a phenomenon, but an evocation, a call, of presence (20). Sound, resonance, is not a phenomenon, but ought be considered as being itself. And here sound must be understood (Nancy says, cleverly, s'entendre--which is french for both understood and heard by oneself) not as privation of resonance, but an arrangement. Just like when the silence is just right so that you hear your own breathing, heart pounding, and body resonating.

Colossians and Politics

My church is going through Colossians this summer and I posted this to our church blog.

Hi friends,

This post will be a little longer than normal, and for that, I apologize. However, the subject is one that is very important and must always be handled with respect.

Being the week of July 1 (Canada Day) and July 4 (U.S. Independence Day), let's reflect on politics and the book of Colossians. I know what some are thinking: Politics and religion are supposed to be separate! Separate, of course, means that political authority will not set up and promote any one religion. It does not mean that religion and politics will never be in competition or conflict. In fact, they often are. Colossians, though we often miss it, gives us a good picture of this sort of conflict.

First, let me draw your attention to recent speeches on patriotism by the two (presumptive) candidates for the 44th President of the U.S.A., Senator Barack Obama and Senator John McCain. Give them a read. (You'll notice how similar they are, even though the politics of both men is fairly different!)

Take special note of these two quotations and what they imply. First, Senator McCain says, "Patriotism is deeper than its symbolic expressions, than sentiments about place and kinship that move us to hold our hands over our hearts during the national anthem. It is putting the country first, before party or personal ambition, before anything." Second, Senator Obama says, "In the end, it may be this quality that best describes patriotism in my mind — not just a love of America in the abstract, but a very particular love for, and faith in, one another as Americans."

In Paul's day, the Roman Empire had established what is called the Pax Romana, the Peace of Rome. Rome boasted a gospel that it had brought peace and prosperity because of the divinity and glory of their rulers. Paul, however, says something different. Paul wishes peace from God the Father (1:3), not Rome, because the gospel is that God brought reconciliation through Jesus Christ (1:21-23). And rather than Caesar being the head, it is Jesus--he is the image of God, the ruler of all powers, rulers, and authorities (1:15-17).

Paul has taken the political language of his culture and has made sure that his readers know that Jesus is the one to whom they owe primary allegiance. We must also listen to the language of political leaders and critique our own allegiances. As Christians, we could never agree with Senator McCain that we should put our countries before anything and we should push Senator Obama's boundaries of loving Americans, and be defined as a community of people who love all, and who have primary allegiance to brothers and sisters of the true Lord, Jesus.

This is not to say that Christians cannot be proud of their country and have a sense of loyalty to it. Paul was very proud of his Jewish heritage and tradition! However, his loyalty was first and always to Jesus and that put him at odds with his fellow Jews from time to time. Christians of the 21st century should expect nothing different.

Battling princes and powers, not flesh and blood

Because of the struggles of a man connected with our church, I have been doing more research than I otherwise would in the area of military veterans.

While we may be divided in some issues, let's remember those who return from military service and the trials, struggles, and isolation they often face.

More info at www.IAVA.org.