text:
Posted on: October 16th, 2008 Why the Liturgy Matters
Wow. The "internet age," while offering so many destructive dangers, also has its "upside." Recently on an exam question at SSW, I was asked to elaborate, as if I were writing an article for the church newsletter, on why the liturgy matters. Here, copied and pasted from my actual test response, is how I responded:
Dear friends at and friends of (the Church of the) Epiphany,
It is quite obvious to all of us (and painfully obvious to some of us) that, here at Epiphany we are pretty excited about this thing – this way of being, this way of ordering our lives individually and corporately – called "liturgy." Why? Why is this church so committed to living this way? During this Easter season – and please remember that according to the ancient church as well as our liturgy, the "paschal mystery" of Christ includes both his death and his resurrection since these two are utterly inseperable – I wanted to take this opportunity to share some thoughts with you about how our liturgy grounds our lives as Christians in the death and resurrection of Christ.
First, simply look at the shape of our Eucharistic liturgy, both in whole and in part. Seen from the "zoomed out lens" of the entire service (also called "the Divine Service") we can see that the very shape or structure of this ritual is that of death and resurrection. I don't know if you are like me, but confessing my sins is not one of the most pleasurable activities of my day or week. In fact, when done with sobriety and humility (as our prayer book enjoins) it can often feel like a death. And death it is, according to St. Paul's writings, where over and over again he tells us to give up on our own ways, our own desires, our own agendas, and to participate in Christ's death and passion in part through laying down – sacrificing – our lives to him. And then there is the reading and preaching of God's Word. Have you ever felt that the preacher's convicting words were directed specifically to you? Perhaps you have an existential awareness of Christ "walking in the midst" of his people, much as is described in the opening section of the book of Revelation, rendering by his Spirit the judgment so necessary for true holiness. None of this is a coincidence! Such "death" – also prefigured in a thousand ways in that second part of the Eucharist knows as the Anaphora – is a necessary prerequisite for the "resurrection life" of feasting like kings drinking wine and then being sent out with real energy into a hurting and broken world.
This ritual movement through time, however, gives rise to yet another way in which God's time is redeemed in our lives. It's not simply that we shape our worship on the pattern of Christ's death and resurrection, but actually that we begin to participate in that very paschal event or sequence. Truly, the Eucharist is like a time machine which allows us to touch, to taste, to live into, the very mystery of the universe: that God himself has died and bled for us, thereby "trampling down death by death," as they say in the East, in his glorious and utterly shocking resurrection. One of the most ancient words used to describe this mysterious transfiguration of time is the word anamnesis, from which derives our English verb "to remember." Because of liturgical reality – that is, because the true nature of the cosmos is liturgical – when we remember Christ's death and passion it is not simply that we have a picture of the "cross event" in our minds, but rather that the members of his body are being gathered, or literally re-membered. (So much for bringing the past into our "now." With more time and space than I have I could elaborate on the fancy word prolepsis – the opposite, if you will, of anamnesis, how this Eucharist also brings us to the end of the world, when we are, by the "first fruits" of the Holy Spirit, feasting with all the saints at the banquet supper of the victorious Lamb of God.")
You see, friends, the Eucharist is, quite literally, a re-membering of the body of Christ. His scarred, fish-eating resurrection body (known in the ancient church as the soma typicon or "typological body") which hung on the cross, becomes the living members of his true body (corpus verum), you and me. Theologians call this "participation," but as is painfully obvious, there quite simply are no words to describe this. In a way which transcends the "one flesh union" of my wife and me, we quite simply are members of Christ. We are his body. We are his body for the world and for the world's life. Which is why the Eucharist involves a third body as well: what the ancients knew as the "mystical body:" the corpus mysticum. This bread, together with the wine, imports the world into the church: the world of harvesting, the world of threshing, the world of trade and commerce, the world of civilized humanity created as God's image-bearing cultivators of his good world. And so, do you see? As members of his body, we are enacting the world's true culture and civilization. We are brining about the new world of the living, victorious Christ.
In these ways and so many more, my friends, we are truly living a mystery in doing what we do in the Eucharist. It is the mystery that lies at the heart of the world, the axis mundi. Truly, our liturgy grounds us and our lives as Christians in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
Filed under: Bible, liturgical theology, political theology, the Christian Life / Prayer, theology / ecclesiology, Uncategorized | No Comments »
Posted on: October 7th, 2008 Oops.
Oh, no. My blog, like most blogs, gets lots of spam comments, which I then have to delete manually. Probably 95% of all comments to my blog are in the form of cheap spam.
Well, in my zeal to delete them all last night, it appears that I also deleted ALL the comments that have ever been posted on my blog. Which makes me sad.
Oh, well. Please feel free to contribute if you read something stimulating or encouraging.
Filed under: Uncategorized | 2 Comments »
Posted on: October 3rd, 2008 Ritual Enactment vs. Historical Reenactment: Two Sacramental Views
Filed under: Uncategorized | No Comments »
Posted on: August 28th, 2008 _Catholicism_ (VIII): Salvation Through the Church
Is it possible for God to save persons who have never heard the proclamation of the Gospel and who have never been baptized? I remember when, as a high school student, I read the impeccably orthodox CS Lewis answer this question in the affirmative, I was scandalized. Only Later did I come to realize that, here and elsewhere, Lewis was consistent with ancient and historical precedent in his thinking. For, as de Lubac shows, the fathers of the church also answered in the affirmative:
"[The Son can be] the salvation of those who are … outside the way." … "The invisible presence of the Logos has spread everywhere. Through him, everything is under the influence of the redemptive economy, and the Son of God … has traced the sign of the cross on everything." – St. Ireneaus
"The divine Sun of Justice shines on all and for all." – Sts. Cyprian, Hilary, and Ambrose.
"Grace is diffused everywhere, and there is no soul that cannot feel its attraction." – St. John Chrysostom
"Christ is so powerful that, although invisible because of his divinity, he is present to every person and extends over the whole universe." – Origen
With Origen here, Sts. Jerome and Cyril of Alexandria "refuse to assert that any man is born without Christ."
St. Augustine taught that "divine mercy was always at work among all peoples, and even the pagans have had their hidden saints and their prophets."
This, then, poses a problem (217-222). Given all theses quotations from the church fathers why does the church still teach in her doctrine that she is necessary for salvation? In other words, given the consensus among catholic theologians today that God can and perhaps does save individual human persons who are outside of the reach of the church, in what sense, then, is the church (and her continual expansion) necessary? If so, in what sense?
De Lubac provides us with his solution, as always, relying on the Fathers, as follows:
1. The human race is one: members get their life from the body. (222-226)
2. While individual persons outside the cultural expansion of the church might somehow attain salvation, nevertheless other religions always fall short, and hence are ultimately not successful: while "the precise situation [of individual souls] in relation to the Kingdom is never known save to God alone, nevertheless the "objective systems" of other religions do show us that "there is something missing from every religious invention that is not a following of Christ.:" Budhist charity is not Christian charity, and Hindy mysticism is not the mysticism of St. John of the Cross.
3. Our (human persons) cooperation is necessary in (our) redemption (just like in creation). (226-227)
4. Like any other organism, to grow is of the very nature of the church. (227ff)
De Lubac concludes by discussing "the obligation to enter the Church and the responsibilities of the Christian."
Filed under: Bible, Book Notes (& articles, too), History / Genealogy, liturgical theology, political theology, Radical Orthodoxy, the Christian Life / Prayer, theology / ecclesiology, Uncategorized | 1 Comment »
Posted on: August 28th, 2008 St. Benedict: "No easy entrance."
No easy entrance, that is, into the monastic life and community.
"But Matt," you respond, "You aren't a monk, and you never will be." True in one sense, but this is where the wonderful writing of James Finley comes in. In his book Christian Meditation, the most helpful and mind-blowing book I have read on the life of Christian contemplation, he describes the possibility of living in a "monestary without walls."
Discussing St. Benedict, Finley writes,
St. Benedict knows, better than we, that struggles lie ahead. It is out of this understanding that he says, "Let not an easy entrance be granted to all who seek to enter." This seemingly less than cordial treatment is actually an act of love on St. Benedict's part. It is as if he is saying, Look, I owe it to you to give you a small taste of what you are in for. The difficulty you are experiencing in arriving at the gate is but a preview of coming attractions. What lies just inside the gate is not a lifetime of getting what you want when you want it. It is, rather, a lifetime of learning how to wait, with respectful, quiet persistence, in the midst of ongoing delays and difficulties, interspersed with unexpected and sometimes unmanageable graces and blessings.
St. Benedict knows, well, too, that all difficulties, at all stages of the journey, are themselves the very stuff the journey is made of. Patience with one's slow beginnings and false starts is itself a good beginning in learning to realize that, in the end, everything is right on schedule. Learning to be patient with yourself in your slow and inept efforts has within it the potential of an experiential knowledge of God's infinite patience with us as we spend our lives fumbling around at the entrance into the depths of the life we are living. It is our growing trust in the loving patience of God that sustains and supports us as we make our way into a meditative way of life.
Filed under: Book Notes (& articles, too), the Christian Life / Prayer, Uncategorized | No Comments »
Posted on: August 19th, 2008 St. Basil on Tradition
St. Basil of Caesaria writes:
"Of the dogmas which are preserved in the church, there are some which we have from Scripture, others we have received from the tradition of the Apostles, and both have the same force; nor will anybody contradict them who has any experience of the laws of the church."
As Richard Traverse Smith points out, though, Basil is referring "to practices or teaching which is embodied within practices, rather than to formal doctrines" (all of the latter of which are contained in Scripture alone). To quote Basil again:
"For if we go about rejecting the unwritten customs as of slight importance, we shall unawares do injury to the vital parts of the Gospel itself, or rather, reduce the preaching of it to a mere name (italics mine). For instance (to mention in the first place what comes first and is most common) who has taught us by writing to sign with the cross those who place their hope in Christ? What Scripture has taught us to turn to the east in the prayers? The words of invocation, when the bread of the Eucharist and cup of blessing are consecrated, which of the saints has left to us in writing? For we are not content with those words which the Apostles and the Evangelists record, but, both before and after, we use others and consider them to possess great importance to the mystery; and these we have received by unwritten teaching. And we bless both the water of baptism and the oil of unction, and even the way a person in baptized. Out of what Scripture? Is it not on account of the silent mystical tradition? The very anointing with oil itself, what written record has taught? And whence received we the custom that man should be thrice immersed? And the rest of the ceremonies in baptism, as the renouncing of the devil and his angels, whence have we….? For this cause we all look to the east in our prayers, but few of us know that in doing so we seek our native land Paradise, which the Lord planted in Eden, toward the sun-rising. And we pray standing on the first day of the week, not only because, being risen together with Christ, we should seek those things which are above, but because that day appears to be a type of the world for which we hope." – On the Holy Spirit xxvii, 66.
Filed under: liturgical theology, philosophy, political theology, the Christian Life / Prayer, theology / ecclesiology, Uncategorized | 1 Comment »
Posted on: May 26th, 2008 Westminster, Theology, and Liturgy
Another thought about Westminster Seminary (my alma mater) whose publication "Westminster Today" arrived in the mail recently, which I just read.
What wonderful, rich theology, for example in the article by Vern Poythress on the relationship between biblical and systematic theology, a topic which is perpetually addressed at the seminary with near exhaustive detail.
Indeed, one can read tens of thousands of pages about this relationship, and hear scores of hours about it in lectures.
However, eight years after Westminster, I find myself asking with even more conviction than I did eight years ago, "What about liturgical theology?" What about the ancient maxim, lex orandi lex credendi, which can be rendered as "Our worship determines our theology"?
On the other hand, I don't really expect Westminster to embrace this idea. It simply isn't a Reformed conviction, and Reformed theology "is what it is."
But it is very clear to me that, whatever the deep riches present at Westminster and in the grand tradition it represents — and there are many — it does not believe that theology begins in worship and is rooted there.
Perhaps if it did there would be a chapel on campus in which the sacraments are celebrated.
Filed under: History / Genealogy, liturgical theology, political theology, the Christian Life / Prayer, theology / ecclesiology, Uncategorized | No Comments »
Posted on: December 15th, 2007 Myth, Time, Feast, & Eucharist
Demeter's hair was yellow as the ripe corn of which she was mistress, for she was the Harvest Spirit, goddess of farmed fields and growing grain. The threshing floor was her sacred space. Women, the world's first farmers (while men still ran off to the bloody howling of hunt and battle), were her natural worshippers, praying: 'May it be our part to separate wheat from chaff in a rush of wind, digging the great winnowing fan through Demeter's heaped-up mounds of corn while she stands among us, smiling, her brown arms heavy with sheaves, her ample breasts adorned in flowers of the field.' Demeter had but one daughter, and she needed no other, for Persephone was the Spirit of Spring. The Lord of Shadows and Death, Hades himself, the Unseen One, carried her off in his jet-black chariot, driven by coal-black steeds, through a crevice in the surface of Earth, down to the realms of the dead. For nine days, Demeter wondered sorrowing over land, sea, and sky in search of her daughter, but no one dared tell her what had happened till she reached the Sun, who had seen it all. With Zeus' help, the mother retrieved her daughter, but Persephone had already eaten a pomegranate seed, food of the dead, at Hades' insistence, which meant she must come back to him. In the end, a sort of truce was arranged. Persephone could return to her sorrowing mother but must spend a third of each year with her dark Lord. Thus, by the four-month death each year of the goddess in springtime in her descent to the underworld, did winter enter the world. And when she returns from the dark realms she always strikes earthly beings with awe and smells somewhat of the grave." – Thomas Cahill, Sailing the Wine Dark Sea: Why the Greeks Matter, 3.
A few pages later in this same book, Cahill draws a connection between this Greek myth of Demeter and the "myth become fact" of the Gospel story, and how God's people, the Church, have understood that story:
In Demeter's story … the attentive reader may catch dark prefigurings of the Christian Mother of Sorrows and the novenas – penitential nine-day cycles – commemorating her pain at the loss of her magical Child, who rises from the grave in late March or early April.
Now, we could take this insight of Cahill's and launch off from it in many different directions (for example, we could discuss the nature of "Christianity and culture" and why so many puritan-like or "evangelical" views of "synchretism" are wrong), but when I read this passage in Cahill this morning, I immediately thought of passage in Alexander Schmemann's For the Life of the World (pages 52 – 59) in which he discusses the Christian understanding of time, and how the Church has used feasting as a way to redeem created time (and creation with it).
This is particularly relevant in our postmodern, nihilistic world, a world which Schmemann calls "serious," in contrast to the life of joyful feasting which the Gospel brings about for us who are in Christ.
"Through the Cross," Schmemann quotes the liturgy, "joy came into the whole world."
[The Jewish feasts of Passover and Pentecost] were – to use another image – the "material" of a sacrament of time to be performed by the Church. We know that both feasts originated as the annual celebration of spring and the first fruits of nature. In this respect they were the very expression of feast as man's joy about life. They celebrated the world coming back to life again after the death of winter, becoming again the food and life of man. And it is very significant that this most "natural," all-embracing and universal feast – that of life itself – became the starting point, and indeed the foundation of the long transformation of the idea and experience of feast. It is equally significant that in this transformation each new stage did not abolish and simply replace the previous one, but fulfilled it in an even deeper and greater meaning until the whole process was consummated in Christ himself. The mystery of natural time, the bondage to winter and release in spring, was fulfilled in the mystery of time as history – the bondage to Egypt and the release into the Promised Land. And the mystery of historical time was transformed into the mystery of eschatological time…." — Schmemann, For the Life of the World, 56
This entire transformation – of pagan feast to Jewish feast to Christian feast, of natural time to historical time to eschatological time – culminates, argues Schmemann, in Easter, when the Church says,
Enter ye all into the joy of your Lord,
You who are rich and you the poor, come to the feast,
Receive all the riches of loving-kindness …
And let no one bewail his poverty,
For the universal Kingdom has been revealed.
The Pascha of the Lord,
From death unto life,
And from earth unto heaven
Has Christ our God brought us….
Now are all things filled with light,
Heaven and earth and the places under the earth.
All Creation does celebrate the Resurrection of Christ the King
On whom it is founded….
We celebrate the death of Death,
The annihilation of Hell,
The beginning of a life new and everlasting.
And with ecstasy we sing praises to the author thereof….
This is the chosen and holy Day,
The one King and Lord of Sabbaths,
The Feast of Feasts and the Triumph of Triumphs….
O Christ, the Passover great and most holy!
O Wisdom, Word and Power of God!
Grant that we may more perfectly partake of Thee
In the day of Thy Kingdom which knoweth no night.
Filed under: History / Genealogy, the Christian Life / Prayer, theology / ecclesiology, Uncategorized | 2 Comments »
Posted on: December 12th, 2007 ++Rowan Williams on Gay Clergy
From an interview with the Archbishop of Canterbury, posted on the American Anglican Council website (in which he reaffirms, in addition to the following, his staunch opposition to virtually all forms of abortion), dated Dec. 12, 2007:
Asked about his support for gay clergy, he replied: "I have no problem with gay clergy who aren't in relationships, although there are savage arguments about the issue you might have heard about. Our jobs mean we have to adhere to the Bible. Gay clergy who don't act upon their sexual preferences do, clergy in practising homo-sexual relationships don't. This major question doesn't have a quick-fix solution and I imagine will be debated for many years to come."
Filed under: Gender & Sexuality, Me / Us, news & culture, political theology, the Christian Life / Prayer, theology / ecclesiology, Uncategorized | No Comments »
Posted on: November 18th, 2007 _Aristotle East & West_ (review for _WTJ_)
The story of the development of the Christian doctrine of God, beginning with the doctrinal disputes of the fourth century, is long and complex. Certain key themes, however, emerge again and again: ousia, hypostasis, energeia among the most important. In this book Orthodox philosopher David Bradshaw lucidly and compellingly deals with all of them, focusing particularly, however, on the ancient concept of energeia (i.e., the "energies" of God), genealogically tracing its evolution from Aristotle through the Medieval Greek speaking theologian Gregory Palamas.
Readers will find the book immensely relevant to such discussions as the relationship between faith and reason (which, according to Bradshaw, has been rent in the West but held intact in Eastern Christianity); the pervasive influence of ancient Greek thought upon Christian theology; the origins of modern, western nihilism; and the nature of the theological issues dividing Eastern and Western branches of the Christian church.
The primary thesis of the book, attempting to indict central streams of Western Christianity in one grand sweep, is that the West, beginning with Augustine, has failed to assimilate the Greek understanding of God's energeia, a failure due in part to the exigencies of language (none of the major Latin renderings of this term – operatio, actus, and actualitas – fully capture its semantic nuances), in part to historical accident (e.g., Augustine had access only to certain "Neo-Platonist" philosophers), in part due to more pernicious reasons such as Augustine's absolutization of Plato's version of divine simplicity unique to his middle dialogues.
Of particular interest is the way in which Greek and Latin theology received the classical heritage. It is perhaps tempting for many to assume that the Greek speaking East is somehow more saturated with Greek thought, but this is not the case: "It is only by seeing both the eastern and western traditions as developments out of a shared heritage in classical metaphysics that they can be properly understood." (xii)
The book is divided into five parts: the development of energeia from Aristotle through Plotinus (chs. 1- 4; note that this includes Paul's letters, in which ten occurrences of the term are treated in the book); preliminary developments in the West (ch. 5); preliminary developments in the East (ch. 6); the growth of the Eastern tradition (chs. 7 – 8); and a systematic comparison of Augustine, Aquinas, and Palamas (ch. 9).
Beyond the general point that Christian notions of teleology have their roots in Aristotle, Bradshaw's articulation of Aristotle's doctrine of God (i.e., the Prime Mover) already foreshadows how the West has (allegedly) impaired the right use of ancient thought. For Bradshaw shows us how Aristotle's theos is not simply transcendent (as he is usually viewed in the West) but also radically immanent in his relation to the world (the first heavens, for example, being moved as objects of the Prime Mover's love). Bradshaw rehearses various other modes of participation between the creation and the divine (with energeia acting as a connecting thread) in the thought of the Hellenistic schools, Philo of Alexandria, and especially Plotinus, whose theory of two acts proved to be formative for subsequent thought. Of particular note here is the development of the concept of theurgy beginning with Porphyry but truly coming into its own in the philosophic outlook of his disciple Iamblichus, those thought – significantly – remained virtually unknown in the West.
Moving to a treatment of these ideas in a specifically Christian context, the influence of energeia is exerted most fully in the Trinitarian controversies of the fourth century. Among the most important examples is the Neo-Platonist logic behind Athanasius' theological critique of Egyptian bishop Serapion's denial of the deity of the Holy Spirit. Well known is Athanasius' affirmation that "the external works of the Trinity are undivided" (in Latin, Opera ad extra trinitatis indivisa sunt.). Less appreciated is that this doctrine relies on a philosophical presupposition of Neo-Platonism: that energeia is revelatory of essence implying in this case that if we know that the three persons of the Trinity perform their works (Greek energeiai) in unison, then we know (or so Neo-Platonist thinking would hold) that their ousia must be unitary as well. In this way Serapion's theology is demonstrated to fall short of Scriptural implications.
Here lies the primary benefit of this book. Modern western Christians of an orthodox persuasion readily accept Athanasius' conclusions here (and elsewhere), but ought we to embrace the Greek presuppositions upon which these conclusions depend? For these presuppositions, Bradshaw shows, lead to some rather far reaching consequences, most of which center on the ancient understanding of methexis or participation (at this point the book traffics in the domain of the theological development known as Radical Orthodoxy, with its insistence on the centrality of participation in the Christian life). God mysteriously interacts with his creation in ways that shed new light on such things as the body's role in prayer (just as the energies mitigate against a God / world dualism, so also do they mitigate against a mind / body, or even a soul / body dualism), the nature of the sacraments (the main connection here being that of theurgy), and the meaning of sanctification (hence the Orthodox understanding of theosis).
Critical reaction to this book centers on three basic points:
First, Bradshaw's (indeed that of the mainstream Orthodox tradition) reading of Neo-Platonist teaching in the writings of St. Paul needs justification. To load, for example, Paul's use of energeia in Ephesians 1:19 with classical philosophical meaning seems a bit suspect. What might be the Hebraic background of this idea? Even if such a query lies outside the scope of Bradshaw's book, this is a question that must asked when grappling with these issues. (To say this is not to totalize authorial intent at the expense of other interpretive postures: such ecclesial and corporate "reader response" may well be legitimate, especially given the dual authorship of Scripture, but such a move ought at least to be explicitly articulated and examined.)
Second, Bradshaw's genealogy of western nihilism as stemming from Augustine is tenuous (although shared with other compelling Orthodox theologians such as Christos Yannaras). It is true that Western theology and practice is more centralized, monarchical, and centered on the impersonal ousia of God (seen in the papal tendencies of Rome) than the Eastern commitment to the equal ultimacy of the tri-personhood of God. And yet, one must strain to trace modern nihilism in the west all the way back to a supposed Augustinian source. More plausible, it seems to me, is the genealogy of nihilism put forth by Radical Orthodoxy, beginning as it does with Duns Scotus and late medieval nominalism.
Third, the same objections to this account of the divine energies tend to crop up over and over again throughout the history of the church: that this view of God's energeia reifies what are properly merely logical distinctions, that it compromises the simplicity of God, and that it comes dangerously close to pantheism. To his credit Bradshaw does not avoid these criticism, engaging as he does in a lengthy response to one of the more recent critiques of this Neo-Platonist heritage, that of Rowan Williams. And despite the fact that Williams has modified his views on this particular issue, Bradshaw does overcome several real objections.
However, Bradshaw does not sufficiently bring out the fact that, in all likelihood, important figures usually associated with Eastern Orthodoxy would likely have objections to this view, wanting to protect the simplicity of God. In particular, to say that God decides something other than what he is does not seem to be consistent with the Cappadocian Fathers or Maximus. This, of course, does not mean that it is not true, but nevertheless full context here would be helpful.
This book is the product of a lucid mind and a faithful imagination engaged with his tradition and is worthy of deep respect.
Filed under: Book Notes (& articles, too), History / Genealogy, philosophy, Uncategorized | No Comments »
Posted on: November 16th, 2007 _Catholicism_ (III): Israel according to the Spirit
A couple of excerpts serve to summarize this portion of chapter 2, "The Church:"
Thus, just as the Jews put all their trust for so long not in an individual reward beyond the grave but in their common destiny as a race and in the glory of their earthly Jerusalem, so for the Christian all his hope must be bent on the coming of the Kingdom and the glory of the one Jerusalem; and as Yahweh bestowed adoption on no individual as such, but only insofar as he bestowed universal adoption on the people of the Jews, so the Christian obtains adoption only in proportion as he is a member of that social structure brought to life by the Spirit of Christ."
Where Christ is, and there alone, can be found the true Israel, and it is only through incorporation in Christ that participation in the blessings of Abraham may be obtained." (This is a quotation from Irenaeus, Against Heresies.)
Filed under: Book Notes (& articles, too), History / Genealogy, political theology, Radical Orthodoxy, the Christian Life / Prayer, theology / ecclesiology, Uncategorized | No Comments »
Posted on: November 9th, 2007 Gregory of Nyssa on the Great Miracle of the Cross
There were at that time all kinds of miracles: God on the Cross, the sun darkened … the veil of the temple rent … water and blood flowing from his side, the earth quaking, stones breaking, the dead rising…. Who can extol such wonders? But one is to be compared with the miracle of my salvation: minute drops of blood making the world new, working the salvation of all men, as the drops of fig-juice one by one curdle the milk, reuniting mankind, knitting them together as one."
Filed under: History / Genealogy, the Christian Life / Prayer, theology / ecclesiology, Uncategorized | No Comments »
Posted on: November 9th, 2007 _Catholicism_ (II): the Fathers on Sin as Individualization
For those of you who have read William Cavanaugh on the rise of the modern nation state, this will sound familiar.
In addition, this comports quite nicely with John Zizioulas' theology of person (prosopon / hypostasis) in Being and Communion, where he teaches that there is really no such thing as a solitary individual, but only persons, who are always already in relationship with others, imaging the triune life of God.
According to de Lubac, if Adam / the human race was created as an integral whole (thus reflecting the unity of God), as the last post argues, then the fall must mean a shattering of that unity.
Thus, de Lubac shows (pp 33ff) how, according to the Fathers, Adam's sin is about the break up of the human race as much as anything else.
In discussing the fall of man, de Lubac offers the following quotations:
"Where there is sin, there is multiplicity." – Origen
"And now, we rend each other like wild beasts." – Maximus
"Satan has broken us up." – Cyril of Alexandria
"Adam himself is therefore now spread out over the whole face of the earth. Originally one, he has fallen, and, breaking up as it were, he has filled the whole earth with pieces." – Augustine
Filed under: Book Notes (& articles, too), Uncategorized | No Comments »
Posted on: November 7th, 2007 McLaren, Milbank, & Changing the Church
Today I picked up a copy of, and started reading, Brian McLaren's Everything Must Change.
First impression: I can't help noticing a familiar vibe, reminiscent of John Shelby Spong's Why Christianity Must Change or Die, which I read several years ago in college.
McLaren (typical of other "emergent" authors such as Donald Miller) offers a passionate call for believers to reject "mainstream" patterns of Christianity. In particular "emergent" authors have done a great job of conceiving of and articulating the meaning of the Bible in narratival ways.
However, as best I can tell, there is minimal ecclesiology (including as pertains to the sacraments and liturgy) in McLaren's approach.
The radical act that Christians are called up on to perform is to believe more "wildly," rejecting the "framing narratives" that dominate our culture.
A superior alternative to the program of the Emergent Church leaders is that of Radical Orthodoxy, with its emphasis on liturgy, participation, and the genealogy of nihilism. Drawing on the deep pre-modern roots of the faith, RO is able to offer a critique of postmodern secularity which "emergent" theology cannot.
For an excellent introduction to Radical Orthodoxy, listen to this.
Filed under: Book Notes (& articles, too), political theology, Radical Orthodoxy, theology / ecclesiology, Uncategorized | No Comments »
Posted on: November 7th, 2007 Global Anglican Communion
My dad (a parishioner at the Falls Church) was in Austin with us a few days ago.
The impetus for my thinking about these things was a conversation he & I had, in which he sort of represented TFC's perspective on how things are shaking out globally in the Anglican Communion.
So, Bishop Robert Duncan is actually, as of the last week or so, formally leading the Diocese of Pittsburgh out of the Episcopal Church. That is truly a new and unique development of historical proportions, especially since he is one of the "Camp Allen Bishops," together with the Bishop of Texas, Don Wimberly.
Meanwhile, the Global South Primates have denounced what the House of Bishops said (based on the report given by the Communion Sub-group of the Joint Standing Committee to the Archbishop of Canterbury) in New Orleans in late September.
So we await the Primates' response to New Orleans.
Based solely on the constitution / polity of ECUSA, ought they to submit to the Primates? Maybe not.
But do the bonds of peace outweigh the constitutional stuff? Yes. All sides would agree, I would hope.
The real question, putting it charitably is: "To the extent that ECUSA really believes that it needs to prophetically minister to gays & lesbians, will that commitment outweigh its commitment to global unity?"
My default position in all of this is that the Windsor Report is spot on, and that the Episcopal Church should submit fully to it, as the Camp Allen bishops say.
However, if the Episcopal House of Bishops were to argue in a unified way that this is an unacceptable encroachment on their independence and autonomy, I think that would then open up a quite intriguing conversation about the way we conceive of the church in the USA.
In other words, this whole debate, the impetus ("presenting issue" is the language of the Windsor report) of which was issues related to human sexuality, might be about the practice of "American religion" as much as it is about anything else.
Filed under: theology / ecclesiology, Uncategorized | No Comments »
Posted on: November 7th, 2007 Anne Lamott
Anne Lamott has a new book out which I have not yet read.
I love, though, this paragraph from her Plan B:
You've got to love this in a God — consistently assembling the motleyest people to bring, into the lonely and freightening world, a commitment to caring and community. It's a centuries-long reality show — Moses the stutterer, Rahab the hooker, David the adulterer, Mary the homeless teenager. Not to mention all the mealy-mouthed disciples. Not to mention a raging insecure narcissist like me."
Posted on: November 6th, 2007 "Books, Books, & More Books!"
Bella on a date with Daddy at Barnes & Noble.
Filed under: Book Notes (& articles, too), Me / Us, Uncategorized | No Comments »
Posted on: November 6th, 2007 Welcome Back, Self.
It has been six months since my last blog post. (Thanks to Tommy Crawford for helping to resurrect my blog.) A lot has happened in six months:
I traveled to England and met three of my favorite theological thinkers: Andrew Louth, Catherine Pickstock, and John Milbank. This was a wonderful and quite helpful time for me. I spent about an hour with Andrew Louth, about two hours with Catherine Pickstock, and about four hours with John Milbank. While I have decided not to pursue graduate work at this time, nevertheless the conversations and relationships that began clearly showed me a theological and relational trajectory that I need to follow. I am so psyched that John Milbank has traded several email with me before and after our meeting, some of which are really really long! I will never forget the tour of Southwell Cathedral he gave me, especially our conversation about the Green Man, of which there are many in the 13th century chapter house of the minster.
My wife got pregnant! (Yeah!) When we went to the oldest pub in Europe, "Ye Olde Trip to Jerusalem," Bouquet sat in a chair inside the pub above which a sign reads, "Warning: Legend has it that any woman who sits in this chair will become pregnant shortly thereafter." My wife sat in the chair, wiggled around and (partly due to the fervent prayer of dear friends) tested positive for pregnancy the day we arrived back in Austin from the UK.
I survived summer Greek at UT. This 12-semester hour course in classical Greek (which meets 30 hours / week for class, on top of necessary studying) was one of the highlights of my life. We read Herodotus, Lysius ("sophist" who figures prominently in Plato's Phaedrus), Homer, tragedian Euripedes, and Plato's Apology, about the trial of Socrates.
The PCA General Assembly took a horribly depressing action in its meeting this summer. Swayed by an emotional appeal to fear by RC Sproul (one factor among many) the General Assembly passed an overture which in effect condemns the theological position of the so-called "New Perspective on Paul" (one of whose chief proponents is Bishop NT Wright) as well as the "Auburn Avenue" theology, otherwise known as "the Federal Vision." (Thankfully, our presbytery, the South Texas Presbytery of the PCA, decided to resist and to defeat an attempt to do something similar at the level of presbytery.)
I firmed up my decision to leave Christ the King Church in my role as assistant pastor next summer, 2008. We will deeply miss our wonderful friends and brothers. We will also look forward to building the Kingdom, in concert with them, in new and different ways in the future. (More on that to come. Stay tuned.)
Filed under: Me / Us, Uncategorized | No Comments »
Posted on: April 30th, 2007 Gilson to de Lubac: Scholastics vs. Humanist Theologians
"… [Scholastics] understand only univocal propositions and those that seem univocal. [Humanist theologians], by contrast, are more interested in the truth the proposition attempts to formulate and that always partly escapes it. Then the latter no longer understand; they become restless, and, because they cannot be certain that what escapes them is not false, they condemt it as a matter of principle because that is more secure." Étienne Gilson in a letter to Henri de Lubac, quoted in Hans Urs von Balthassar, The Theology of Henri de Lubac
Filed under: philosophy, theology / ecclesiology, Uncategorized | No Comments »
Posted on: April 26th, 2007 Orthodoxy & Synergy / Participation
If one were to summarize the differences between the eastern and western traditions in a single word, that word would be "synergy." For the East the highest form of communion with the divine is not primarily an intellectual act, but a sharing of life and activity. This seems to have been true among both pagans and also Christians during the fomative period of late antiquity, stretching back to the magical papyri and Hermetica, as well as to the New Testament and early church Fathers. It led to a tendancy to think of earthly, bodily existence as capable of being taken up and subsumed within the life of God. Emphasis was placed, not on any sudden transformation at death, but on the ongoing and active appropriation of those aspects of divine life that are open to participation. Naturally this aspiration took on different forms in different authors, and there were marked differences between its pagan and Christian forms. But the underlying belief in synergy as a form of communion with God remains as clear in Gregory Palamas as it is in St. Paul. It influences the entirety of the eatsern outlook, not only in the explicitly religious and philosophical areas was have discussed, but in others we have scarcely touched upon." David Bradshaw, Aristotle East and West, p 265.
Posted on: April 19th, 2007 zizek: documentary
Slajov Zizek is at his best when he comments on late capitalism and the perverse and socially constructed nature of our desires.
"How do we account for the paradox that the absence of Law universalizes prohibition? There is only one possible explanation: enjoyment itself, which we experience as "transgression," is in its innermost status something imposed, ordered. When we enjoy, we never do it spontaneously; we always follow a certain injunction." — from "For they Know Not What they Do: Enjoyment as a Political Factor."
Commenting on this universal prohibition (beer without alchohol, dessert with no fat, coffee with no caffeine, etc.) he reverses Dostoevski: "If God exists, then all things are prohibited." — from the documentary Zizek!
"… if Freud in his theory, in its traditional configuration, was appropriate to explain the standard capitalism which relied on some kind of traditional ethic of sexual control, etc., then Lacan is perfect to explain the paradoxes of permissive late capitalism." — from the documentary Zizek!
"… capitalism, which can survive only by incessanlty revolutionizing its own material conditions, ceases to exist if it stays the same, if it achieves an internal balance. This, then, is the homology between surplus-value: the "cause which sets in motion the capitalist process of production, and surplus-enjoyment, the object-cause of desire." –from The Sublime Object of Ideology
Posted on: March 30th, 2007 Getting Real
Here is the best articulation I've seen of what it means to "get real:"
"… a subjective term, meaning different things to different people. It is used … to mean to be authentic; to be truthful; to say what you mean; to be congruent with what you value; to penetrate past lazy thinking, facades, games, defenses, fears, illusions; to get a core understanding, to get to the heart of the matter; to open your belief systems to examination; to increase your awareness of what is really going on, and your choices of how to respond." Mahan Kalsa, Let's Get Real or Let's Not Play (Salt Lake City: White Water Press, 1999), p. 12.
Posted on: February 19th, 2007 There is Another King: Gospel as Politics, by Joel Garver
There is Another King: Gospel as Politics, by Joel Garver
(note: more of Joel's work can be found at: www.joelgarver.com.)
When Paul and Silas were accused by a mob in Thessalonika, among the charges brought against them was that they proclaimed that there is another king, this Jesus (Acts 17:7). Whatever the intentions of the mob may have been, this incident shows us that the Gospel message heralded by Paul–that Jesus, as the messiah, has been made Lord–was a message easily and credibly heard as a political message in the context of the ancient world.1 This was even so when those bearing that message were busy with what we would see as "church work": proclaiming Jesus, explaining the Scriptures, and baptizing converts.
And yet, in our world, the Gospel is often heard only as a message about personal salvation or about distant events in a distant history or the promise of a new kind of spiritual experience. Even where the Gospel does lead to political involvement, more often than not it is seen as the intrusion of religion or the church into secular space, either by projecting one's private religiosity into the public square or by dangerously colluding with the powers that be or by attempting to wrest their power from them.2
In the following essay, I will argue that the way things now stand is deficient and that the Gospel does not merely lead Christians to enter into and engage themselves within secular political space. Rather the Gospel is politics, a politics moreover that questions the very constitution of any social space as "secular" or the relegation of politics to that space.3
The Gospel, thereby, begins to redefine what we mean by "politics," allowing our understanding of the political to migrate from ordinary understandings of it in narrow terms of civil administration (whether presupposing "secular" space or not), to a broader, analogically refracted concept of politics as encompassing the entire ethics of community and its common good, preserving politics as a normative discourse and practice embracing the various structures and patterns of human association under authority.4 Moreover, though our everyday grasp of the political may begin in our encounter with the sphere of civil magistracy, my claim is that, ontologically speaking, politics is rightly founded in the claims of the Gospel and the establishment of the church.5
I will begin by examining and deconstructing the notion of the "secular" as an artifact of the Enlightenment, noting how it has come to constrain the ways in which Christians and the church have seen themselves as related to the political. In the second half of this essay, I will attempt to sketch the ways in which the Gospel refashions politics around itself through its very message about a new King and new Lord, through the establishment of the church as the center of God's reign, and through new practices–in particular, baptism and eucharist–which are themselves politically transformative.
Deconstructing the "Secular"
In order for the politics of the Gospel to be heard and grasped, it is first necessary to dismantle some of the assumptions that are often brought to discussions of civil order and faith, assumptions that may well distort what is meant by the claim that the Gospel is politics. These assumptions are typically "modern"–the "modern" referring to those varying perspectives that have been widely operative since the 17th century and which share many common themes and notions, ranging over the realms of politics, epistemology, ethics, and metaphysics. 6
Such assumptions include: the conception of the "secular" as a particular social space as opposed to the religious; a limiting of the "political" to that secular space and conceiving it primarily in terms struggle for power; an abstract opposition between "society" and the "individual" or the public and the private.7 These assumptions, in turn, are tied up with more evidently theological ones: a separation of reason and faith; a sharp division between the order of nature and that of grace or the natural and supernatural; a dichotomization between the exterior or objective and the interior or subjective; and so on. Moreover, it is arguable that this entire set of assumptions involves relations of mutual support and thus comes together as a single "package." I will explicate some of these assumptions and dynamics presently, while leaving the rest to be addressed in my more positive account.
We can begin by noting that the "modern," as many have contended, has its roots not merely in certain philosophical thinkers of the Enlightenment, but (perhaps more importantly) earlier in the late scholastics (e.g., John Duns Scotus, William of Ockham).8 Thereby, the "modern" also affects in differing degrees the thought of both various varieties of Protestantism as well as Tridentine Catholicism, including the ways in which both developed their overall theologies, including their theological reflections upon the state and politics in relation to the church and faith. The full story of the construction of the "modern," with its varying assumptions, however, is beyond the scope of this present essay, but a few brief gestures toward a more complete genealogy may prove useful in questioning its suppositions and categories.
For pre-modern, medieval thought (which finds its highest expressions in Thomas Aquinas and Bonaventure), the kinds of sharp distinctions drawn within the modern were unknown or drawn quite differently. Fundamental to this medieval conception of the world was a conception of language and thought (and, indeed, reality itself) as functioning analogically, grounded upon the doctrine of creation.9 Since the creation comes from God, is directed towards God, and stands in relation to God, it is like God and revelatory of God. Nevertheless, this revelatory likeness is only analogous–implying both likeness and unlikeness. Since everything is created by God it images him (supremely human beings); but since everything is created by God it images him only within the greater and absolute divide between Creator and creature. The Fourth Lateran Council had formulated this in the following way: for every similarity between God and the creature there is an even greater dissimilarity (maior dissimulitudo in tanta similitudine).10
Thus, for example, when we say "God exists" and "creatures exist" we are using the term "exists" analogously, not univocally (and not equivocally either, since a real likeness is there). For God to "exist" is for him to exist non-derivatively, independently, originally, a se, and so on. For us to "exist" is to exist derivatively, dependently, createdly, in deus, and so on. In God, existence and essence are co-terminous and identical. In the creature, there is a real distinction between existence and essence (i.e., we don't have to exist) that gives primacy to act over form as the concrete and particular subsistence of things. Nevertheless, because of creation, there are real analogies between the divine existence and creaturely existence.
This analogical view has implications for many areas of thought and practice, including not only epistemology and metaphysics, but also (and more importantly for our present purposes) political theology and philosophy. But I begin with a metaphysical observation, that within this pre-modern perspective the "natural" is not the self-contained world of manipulable matter that is the opposite of "artificial" (as it became in later thought) and thus the "supernatural" is not conceived as some second story of "stuff" that is somehow added on top of a more basic nature. On the contrary, natura has to do with kinds of things, their origins and ends, and what they do (including making "artificial" things), as they are organized in relation to one another in a single whole. All things within their fundamental relations to other things within this whole are "natural." Those very same things, however, are equally conceived as "supernatural" in terms of their absolute origins (since all creation is ultimately pure gift, i.e., grace) and in terms of their final end (since life within God is the graciously given goal of all creation). "Natural" and "supernatural," therefore, are adjectival or adverbial on such a conception and have no reference to a distinction in substance. They are also temporal, pointing backward and forward in the unfolding of time, rather than spatial. Nature, indeed, is always-already "graced."11
Let us turn now to another observation, this time epistemological. Given what we have already seen about the term "exists" and the relationship between nature and the supernatural, it is clear that on such a pre-modern doctrine of analogy, the question of "Being" cannot be raised apart from the question of created or uncreated being and so there is no possibility of a philosophical ontology that is prior to and unconstrained by theology. Indeed, all of created being must be seen as symbolically disclosing the divine, pointing to transcendent reality, not just as some undifferentiated "God of the Philosophers" but as the Triune God of Scripture. This is the case, in part, because all of the perfections of God (truth, being, goodness, beauty, etc.) are only manifest in the generation of the Logos in the Spirit. Thus our knowledge of God, ourselves, and the world is an analogous manifestation in us of God's own Trinitarian knowledge of these things and thereby, as it were, our thinking God's thoughts after him.12
With regard to the political, there are significant implications following from these observations, foremost that it is impossible to construct some kind of "natural" or wholly "common grace" politics that remains neutral to and outside of theological concerns and the operation of grace in history. On the other hand, there can be no simplistic identification between the structures, role, and significance of the various overlapping organizations of, for instance, church and civil orders. Rather, their relationship must be conceived analogically, within the eschatological tension of creation's origin and end. Thus the pre-modern notion of the "saeculum" was not that of the modern spatialized "secular." Rather, it was temporal, referring to those aspects of the present order of things that will one day pass away when the telos of the creation is consummated.
This also implies that "politics" is not to be confined to the functioning of power within a secular realm, but must, first of all, refer very broadly to the whole organization of a "polis," a way of life of a people who share a common life, including various analogous and overlapping structures of rule and authority (what one might see as an irreducibly "gothic" social space).13 These implications will be drawn out further below in relation to the Gospel, church, and sacraments.
Before turning to that account, however, we can note that there were several important shifts that John Duns Scotus (and later, Ockham and nominalism) introduced into wider questions as they had been explicated within pre-modern thought. The major Scotistic shift was the positing of a univocal notion of "Being" and with that, undermining the analogical use of language.
Unlike his medieval predecessors, Scotus maintained that it is possible to consider "Being" in abstraction from the question of created or uncreated being. In doing this Scotus established the separation of philosophy (ontology and epistemology) from theology and, indeed, founded the possibility of constructing a philosophical ontology that is unconstrained by and transcendentally prior to theology itself, philosophy thereby being permitted to set the conditions for theology. Ockham, in turn, represents a further radicalization of the steps that Scotus had already taken, positing an entirely equivocal notion of "Being" in dialectical tension with its univocity.
Other separations and dichotomies (nature/grace, nature/supernature, faith/reason) flow from these basic shifts in the following ways. First, God and creation can be set within one undifferentiated chain of Being. This, however, introduces serious difficulties into language and its ability to refer since "Being" can now refer univocally to two different realities–created and uncreated–and thus language, and our ideas and concepts expressed in language, become a mask over reality rather than a medium by which reality is able to reveal itself to us in the context of the event of knowing.
This in turn begins to shift epistemology into a direction in which the subject and object of knowledge become increasingly related extrinsically and externally, rather than maintaining the kind of interior intentional connection that was found in earlier thought. Thus it is the case that either the world exterior to the mind remains philosophically unknowable or it becomes approachable only through experimental manipulations devised by reason, perhaps guaranteed by divine fiat (as was true both for Ockham and, later, Descartes). Thus late medieval thought unwittingly founded what would develop into the claims of Enlightenment reason.
With regard to nature and supernature (and its concomitant, nature and grace), there is a twofold separation and fission between God and the creation (even if Scotus' original intent was to safeguard the gratuity of grace). First, since God and creation are both situated within a single extension, it is possible to explain and think about the world in relation to Being without reference to God and thus the world becomes the self-enclosed system of "nature," a material reality that remains complete in itself and at our disposal. It is this "nature" that opens up the space for the secular and politics as one expression of the exercise of power over that realm.
Second, this entails that the operation of grace must be seen as an extrinsic operation that is super-added from outside of the creation and thus is, experientially, unknowable except by faith (even if otherwise guaranteed by revealed facts such as "propositional revelation" or by grace-given experiences such as "being born again" or externally imposed present authority such as "papal infallibility" or automated sacramental mechanisms).14 Religion, thus, begins to be pushed to the margins of what is distinctively human, a development that will have significant implications for the Renaissance isolation of the "secular" as a particular space of human existence, under the sole scrutiny of human reason.15 Such a space exists in distinction from the privatized and interiorized realm of a grace accessible only by faith, a site that was constructed by late medieval theology and philosophy.16
By the time the "modern" fully emerged, it arrived with a well-formed secular sphere to which politics is proper, leaving us with the various negotiations between that sphere and "religion" to which I already referred above. Regularly enough, political theology has been complicit–often unwittingly–with these modernist assumptions, even within those traditions that most wish to be consciously "biblicist" in their approach.
In the Reformed tradition, for instance, certain theonomic, pluralist, and klinean approaches are arguably all infected to varying degrees (and often in opposite ways) by the erection of secular social space. In the case of some theonomic thought, the rhetoric and strategy remains very much one of power, taking over present political structures (even if emphasizing bottom-up efforts, limited government, and rule of law) without substantially questioning the nature and constitution of modern social space and its underpinnings (e.g., an abstract opposition between the individual and society, the market as a neutral mechanism of exchange).17 In the case of some pluralisms (however "principled") and of klineanism, there are varying degrees of retreat from theological engagement with the political, staking out a sealed sphere of kingdom work (often centered on personal, individual salvation) and only entering the secular sphere on the basis of a naturalistic "common grace" that remains neutral to Jesus.18
Obviously these claims cannot be taken to characterize all versions of the positions in question or to constitute a substantive critique of them. Nonetheless, these kinds of critiques will be borne out, I think, by the more positive account I will provide below. With this genealogical sketch of the modern and its effects in mind, however, we can now turn to the biblical text, hopefully with ears better attuned to hear the politics of the Gospel.
Gospel as Politics
We start with the simple observation that Jesus (and John the baptizer before him) came with the Good News of a kingdom–the reign of God–proclaiming the forgiveness of sins. Paul summarized this same Gospel in terms of the one who "was descended from David according to the flesh and was declared to be the son of God in power according to the Spirit of holiness by his resurrection from the dead: Jesus, the messianic king, our Lord" (Rom 1:3-4), then going on to expound justification. Such a Gospel not only presents itself as the proper fulfillment of the political aspirations of Israel (no matter how much it may challenge, overturn, and redefine those aspirations), but also, insofar as it became Good News for all people, Jew and Gentile alike, it relativized or undercut any claim by Caesar to be ultimate Lord, ruler, savior, or divine son.19
In the follow sections, then, I will argue that this Gospel (even the very term "Gospel") is fraught with politically disruptive claims and thereby gives rise to a new kind of civil community in the church, which practices two politically redefining rites: baptism and eucharist. Thus the Gospel is politics and, in its politics, both repositions the relationship between the Christian community and any particular civil governing regime in a way that lies beyond the "secular," as well as shapes and forms how Christians are to act politically.
We can begin by considering the term "Gospel," which, as is commonly recognized, not only finds its way into the New Testament from the prophetic literature of Israel, but also would have significant resonances within the Roman world to which the New Testament addressed itself.20
From the perspective of Isaiah 40 and 52, the "Gospel" was the message of Israel's God returning, enthroned in his holy city on behalf of his people, to redeem them, to judge their enemies, and, in so doing, to set the whole world aright. This vision of Israel's restoration was one that, elsewhere in prophetic literature, was filled out in terms of Israel's anointed king and representative, the messiah, in whom her destiny was set and who would be the agent of Yahweh's justice, establishing true order. In either case, it challenged Israel's ultimate allegiances to any other gods or sovereigns and called her to trust her God and his justice, even in the midst of exile.
From the perspective of the wider world of the New Testament, a "Gospel" was the proclamation and celebration of an emperor or king, whether his birth or his rule, and, in Paul's day, it would have had particular relevance with regard to news of the Caesars. Like Israel's "Gospel," this royal summons was intended to elicit a response of allegiance and fidelity.
When the New Testament presents a Gospel about Jesus, then we must see both perspectives in play, giving us a prophetic message that is directly and unavoidably political. The proclamation of Jesus as messianic king, savior, and Lord constituted not only a theological message, but also a political confrontation both with Israel's aspirations and collusions as well as with a wider empire, especially where rulers expected worship and sacrifice as well as taxes.21 And the "obedience of faith" (Rom 1:5) which this message engendered represented not only a personal appropriation of some "private" religious truth, but also a very public shift in political allegiances, that "there is another king, this Jesus."
The remarkable content and implications of this New Testament Gospel, however, need to be explored further, so that the precise significance and contours of its politics can be better appreciated.
In focusing the Gospel upon Jesus, the New Testament presents the man of Nazareth as the fulfillment of both Yahweh's return and Israel's messianic expectations, the two prophetic threads intertwined and each deepening the meaning of the other. Thus, when Paul says in Romans that the "Gospel" proclaims that by Jesus' resurrection the Spirit declared him to be messianic "son of God," this points through and beyond the title of Israel's king and representative (1 Sa 7:14; Ps 2:7; 89:4, 26-27; cf. Ex 4:22), to Jesus' divine sonship as Yahweh in the flesh (see, e.g., Rom 10:13, quoting Joel 3:5). As such Paul's Gospel subverted not only Israel's understanding of her own God, her political hope, and her messianic expectations, but also the imperial good news of Caesar and his claims to divine sonship. We will examine the Jewish and imperial contexts in turn.
First, let us consider the variegated politics of Second Temple Judaism. The landscape here is likely familiar: while some Jews colluded with the Romans and others retreated into the wilderness, the hopes of many were lodged in political and religious liberation from Roman dominance through the leadership of a revolutionary messiah.22 Within this matrix of revolutionary hope, rituals and sites such as Torah observance, ancestral traditions, the national homeland, and the Temple itself could serve as powerful symbols of that hope and catalysts for action.23
It was just such politicized symbols that Jesus drew upon as part of the Good News of God's reign, rejecting, relativizing, and redefining those symbols around himself, thereby calling into question dominant Jewish notions of identity and ambition, proposing a different "way" of being the people of God. In doing this, however, Jesus was proposing another kind of politics, one which the Gospel-writers present as the politics of the true messiah and, therefore, of Israel's God, restoring his people and establishing his justice. Indeed, the "way" that Jesus followed is the very "way of Yahweh," which is, paradoxically, the way of the cross.24
This was a reversal of all expectations. Rather than overthrowing the Romans and restoring Israel's power and symbols in the way anticipated, this messiah would "be handed over to the chief priests and the scribes, and they will condemn him to death; then they will hand him over to the Gentiles; they will mock him, and spit upon him, and flog him, and kill him…" (Mk 10:33-34; cf. 8:31; 9:31). In his words to his disciples, Jesus made the politics of this reversal explicit,
You know that those who are considered rulers over the Gentiles Lord it over them, and their great ones are tyrants over them. But it is not so among you; rather, whoever wishes to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you must be slave to all. For even the son of man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many. (Mk 10:42-45).
It is precisely in the apparent shame and defeat of the cross that Jesus, in fact, had victory over the principalities and powers, putting them to open shame on the way to reconciling all things to himself (Col 2:13-15).
Jesus, thereby, revealed the way of service–service unto death–as the true way of being the messianic king. And, insofar as the messiah was the summation and representative of Israel, Jesus lived out in his own life what Israel had been called to do and be for the world–called to service among the nations as a light and witness to the God who was the creator of the whole world, a God revealed supremely in Jesus. The way of the messiah and of Israel, then, was not to be the way of ethnic pride or nationalistic fervor, of pharisaic zeal or violent revolution.
Nonetheless, in this reversal of expectations, all Israel's hopes were strangely fulfilled, her restoration found in the new community of believers in Jesus, and, as Israel's messiah, through his death and resurrection, Jesus became Lord and savior of the world, including Rome. Israel, after all, was called by God to bear his purposes for the whole human race in Adam, so that when Israel's true son and king was made Lord, his rule would not be merely that of a Jewish monarch, but moreover, as the true human, embody the eschatological dominion that the race of Adam was always intended by God to receive.25 Where Eden's guardian, Adam, failed to lay down his life for his bride in the face of a bestial serpent, Jesus was faithful unto death, as a servant, and thus became Lord of all, from Israel to the "farthest corners" of the world.
This trajectory is clear not only in the overall shape of Paul's Gospel of the Jewish messiah who is Lord, but also, for instance, in the unfolding narrative of Luke-Acts, with the ascension of the messiah as divine ruler at its thematic center (functioning against the backdrop of Daniel 7).26 As the royal proclamation of this messiah goes out to Israel in Acts 1-12, it culminates in the sudden death of Herod, Israel's false king (and local agent of Rome) who arrogates to himself royal and divine titles that rightly belong to Jesus. Acts 13-28 narrate this same royal proclamation as it makes its way to Rome, to another throne where there sits another ruler who makes similar royal pretenses to divinity. Thus Jesus reveals the nature of all truly human rule to be, in the first instance, that of cruciform service–not of Roman identity or divine aspirations, of imperial power or military violence.
In this context we can reflect upon the Good News of the kingdom as involving the "forgiveness of sin" and Paul's Gospel as directly concerning "justification." These two, closely related categories are the obverse side, as it were, of Jesus' death and resurrection by which he was vindicated as Israel's messiah and Lord of the world.27
Since Israel remained in disarray and as exiles in their own land as a result of her sin and apostasy, "forgiveness of sins" was part and parcel of return from that exile, of the vindication and restoration, and advancement of the kingdom that Israel expected and her God had promised. This eschatology, however, was realized in an unexpected way in Jesus as Israel's messiah, through the way of the cross, leading to his own resurrection and enthronement, events by which God declared that sin had been forgiven and that Jesus was in the right before the divine court. Since Israel represented all of adamic humanity, Israel's restoration in the messiah's resurrection, in turn, was also the means by which the human race as a whole might be, in the person of Jesus, restored from its exile from paradise, forgiven and vindicated before the divine court, and advanced to the kind of dominion-through-service for which it was created.
Thus the end of history is already accomplished in the midst of history in the person of Jesus as messiah: the true Israel and the true humanity. Moreover, as Paul emphasizes in Romans, these events reveal the remarkable "righteousness" or "justice of God" (e.g., Rom 1:16-17), God's own faithfulness to his covenant promises to Israel and the human race, acting as righteous judge, setting the world aright. As such, the doctrine of justification has political implications for both Israel and the wider world.
With regard to Israel, it shows that God's justice–yearned for by the psalmists and prophets–is not a vindictive justice that favored Israel at the expense of the Gentile nations or one that condoned Israel's own apostasy. Rather, it shows that Jew and Gentile alike were bound over to sin so that God could shower mercy upon all (Rom 11:32). This would have profound implications for Israel's relationship with the Gentiles, relativizing ethnic, political, and ritual boundaries, particularly as Jew and Gentile were woven together in the church (cf. Eph 2:11-22).
With regard to the wider world, Paul's message of justification–particularly as addressed to the church at Rome–questions prevailing notions of justice, Rome's divinized pretensions to house the goddess Iustitia, and the exercise of that virtue within the empire.28 The Gospel then calls upon those seeking a true measure of justice to place their ultimate allegiance with Jesus as Lord and savior, rather than the emperor or senate (and Paul's comments on the civil magistracy in Romans 13 must be read in this wider context, designed to preclude misreading his polemic as negating all human civil authority under God).
Thus, once again, the Gospel and the doctrine of justification it entails, reveal a reconfiguration of political values. With these points in hand, we can now turn to how the Gospel takes shape in the people of God as the church.29
As resurrected Lord, the justification received by Jesus is, in turn, shared with those who receive the Gospel in faith, thereby becoming the messiah's people and partaking in the forgiveness and vindication he secured and received. Thus the church becomes the locus of a new humanity, where we begin to live out what Jesus has done so that God's justice is manifest (2 Cor 5:21). Therefore, insofar as the as the church is a forgiven and forgiving community of people sharing an ordered common life together, the church also is the practice of a new politics.
That the church is, in some sense, a "political" community should be evident even from the political, social, and economic terminology that the New Testament applies to the church: assembly, kingdom, city, nation, citizenship, community, people, partnership, warfare, and so on.30 The New Testament is rife with political terminology applied to the church, thereby presenting the church itself as the center of a new kind of human community. But the kind of community the church is supposed to be is not the kind of "political" community the world envisions. It is a community that instead follows the way of the cross, one whose weapons are not the world's weapons, and one in which authority is neither by might nor power, but by the Spirit of God, through one-anothering service and openness to risk.
The New Testament draws out this new ecclesial politics in various stories and images. As one example, in Acts we find the Christian ekklesia juxtaposed against that of pagan Ephesus and apostate Jerusalem.31 In common Greek usage, the ekklesia of a polis was the ordered assembly of its citizens gathered for official business. But Luke ironically narrates the ekklesia of Ephesus as a riot where "some cried one thing, and some another, for the assembly was confused and most of them did not know why they had come together" (Acts 19:32, cf. 19:38, 41). The chaos at Ephesus is paralleled in Acts 21 by similar events in Jerusalem, showing that even the city of Yahweh had devolved to the level of a pagan city-state.
Luke's portrayal is all more ironic in that the Greek polis was founded on the aspiration to master chaos, to order society, and to exercise justice, all interwoven with the cult of the patron deity, social class and status, and forms of ritual inclusion and exclusion.32 Jerusalem finds itself acting the part of a Greek polis, accusing Paul of bringing disorder, discarding the law, and defiling ritual boundaries. In both cases, however, Luke shows the purported aims of the respective ekklesiai to deconstruct into their opposites in the face of the Christian Gospel: Ephesus falling into disarray, miscarrying justice in the heat of human passions and Jerusalem disregarding the legal requirements of Torah, provoking the intervention of Gentile authority.
Both episodes, thereby, uncover the real workings of merely human politics, as Peter Leithart argues,
In these two incidents Luke pronounces his (and the Lord's) verdict on the old world's ways of ordering human life, on the cultures of the old creation. When the people come together in ekklesia, the true character of their civilization is revealed and unmasked. In the assembly, it becomes clear that the future hopes of the world for peace and justice cannot lie with either of the ancient ekklesiai, with either the city-state of the Greeks or the temple city of the Jews.33
Adamic humanity, left to itself, can only erect temporary measures towards order, measures that, in the face of the Gospel, are revealed as possessing an underlying and inherent violence.
In between the two accounts, however, Luke tells us what happened when the Christian ekklesia of Troas came together at the end of Passover, on the first day of the week, to break bread, representing a liturgical alternative to Ephesus and Jerusalem (Acts 20:6-12). Instead of shouting and chaos, we find the people of God gathered, listening to and dialoguing with Paul, a scene so tranquil that poor Eutychus falls asleep. Leithart comments,
This is not a place of chaos and confusion but a new life, a new order of human life and society. Its assembly is a passage, a Passover, a transitus that moves its participants from death to new life, signified when (at midnight!) Eutychus goes through the window to his death but is raised to new life and is received into the feast.
The breaking of bread together here, in eucharist, is a sacramental alternative to both the temples of Artemis and of Israel, offering not merely one way of being a community among other options, but rather "an alternative ekklesia, which formed the heart of an alternative polis, an alternative city, an alternative culture, a new world."34
Elsewhere, in his letter to the (overwhelmingly Gentile) church at the Roman colony of Philippi, Paul provides a similar challenge, again centered on the Gospel of Jesus as "savior" and "lord" who is able to "subdue all things under himself" (3:20-21; cf. 2:9-11, alluding to Isa 45:23 and thereby supposing Jesus' divine status).35 Though not all of those whom Paul addresses in Philippi would have shared the privileges of Roman citizenship, the city as whole did enjoy many benefits of its colonial status, under the protection of Roman law and culture, and thus could take pride in that status, a pride which, in the days of Paul, had begun to take shape in terms of the cult of the emperors.36
It is in this context that Paul warns against placing "confidence in the flesh" (3:4), and instead, whatever privileges the Philippians may enjoy, to "count them as loss…as dung" in light of the reign of Jesus as messiah and Lord and our heavenly citizenship (3:7-8, 20-21). As Paul had noted earlier, since Jesus was God, he lived the humility of the true God, not seeking to take advantage of his divine privilege, but taking the form of a servant, following the way of the cross (2:6-8; a theme we have already seen unfolded in the Gospels). Following the pattern of Jesus, Paul works through the implications for his own Jewish privileges, calling upon the Philippians to do the same with regard to their Roman citizenship.
Paul's argument here, while couched in terms of his own experience with Judaism and cast in the language of Jewish slurs against paganism, is offered as what N.T. Wright suggests is a "coded" analogy (speaking in a way that is "safe" for his readers, 3:1), as a viewpoint from which the Roman, Gentile Philippians are to think about their own allegiances and identity (3:15-20; the analogy between non-Christian Judaism and paganism is one that Paul makes elsewhere as well, cf. Gal 4:1-11; Col 2). The "citizenship" of the Philippian church (1:27; 3:20) lies elsewhere, thereby situating them in Philippi, not as a colony of Rome, testifying to and extending Roman privilege, but as a colony of heaven, testifying to Jesus' Lordship and the way of being human that he lived out (note Paul's allusion to ideal humanity drawn from Psalm 8). This, of course, did not eliminate the Roman identity of Paul's readers, but resituated that identity in the messiah and subsumed it to his service. After all, Paul himself was not beyond pressing his own Jewish, Pharasaic, or Roman identities into the service of the Gospel when the occasion required it (Acts 21:40; 22:3, 25; 23:6).
We find a similar dynamic in Peter's first epistle. Whatever the particular citizenship or ethnicity of his readers, Peter several times refers to them as "exiles" and "sojourners" (1:1, 17; 2:11) in light of their new identity in Jesus, the messiah: "you are a chosen race, a kingdom of priests, a holy nation, God's own people" (2:9).
Leading up to this remark, Peter quotes and alludes to Israel's constitution as a nation (1:14-16; 2:5, 9-10), their deliverance from Egypt (1:18-19), and Israel's promised restoration after exile (1:24-25, quoting Isa 40:6-9), applying each of these to the church as God's new restored humanity, a new race and people, a new kingdom and nation. In this context he also alludes to Jesus' kingship over them as Davidic messiah, the one embodying Israel's restoration (2:6 quoting Isa 28:16), the vindicated one admitted to God's temple after enemy oppression (2:7 quoting Ps 118:22; cf. the allusion to Ps 34:8 in 2:2), and the return of Yahweh himself (2:8 quoting Isa 8:14-15).
Thus, according to Peter, the primary identity of these churches, as a community and a people, did not derive from what part of the empire they happened to reside in (cf. 1:1) or from what people they derived their descent. Rather, as those who had been "ransomed from the futile ways inherited from [their] ancestors" (1:18), they rendered obedience to the Lord Jesus as messiah, as those born into a new human family, with the God of Jesus as their Father (1:14, 17-18, 22-25).
This theology, however, might very well be heard by Peter's audience as liberating them from every human obligation outside of the church and freeing them from all merely human authority, relativizing emperors and governors to the point of undermining their legitimate rule altogether. But Peter anticipates such reasoning, agreeing that Christians are a "free people"–loosed from old allegiances–but admonishing them not to use this "freedom as a pretext for evil" (2:16). Peter knows his Gospel, with its message of a new king and kingdom, might well lead the Gentiles to "malign [believers] as evildoers," and so he admonishes the churches to "conduct yourselves honorably…that others may see your honorable deeds and glorify God on the day of visitation" (2:12). As a particular application of this call to honorable conduct, Peter writes that they should "accept the authority of every human institution for the sake of the Lord" Jesus and his rule, whether the emperor or provincial governors, honoring their place as those sent by Jesus as messianic king and Lord to punish wrongdoers and to benefit those who do right (2:13-14).
Thus, for Christians, human authorities are re-positioned as expressions of the authority of God himself and of the messianic Lord he has installed as well as reinterpreting those authorities in relation to a new ecclesial identity. This is a theme also sounded by Paul (Rom 13:1-4), whose comments, like Peter's, must be read in a wider context that questions the pretensions of civil authority in light of Jesus' resurrection as Lord and the justice of God.37 Arguably, both Peter and Paul's injunctions to honor the civil authority as servants of God can be traced back to Jesus' well-known statement, "render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's" (Mt 22:21), given in answer to a question about paying taxes. In particular, this seems echoed in Paul's statement, "Render to all what is owed to them: taxes to whom taxes are owed, revenue to whom revenue is owed, respect to whom respect is owed, honor to whom honor is owed" (Rom 13:7).
But Jesus' statement, like Peter and Paul's, steers its way through the tension between the ultimate authority of God and sometimes presumptuous human authority, even while affirming that such authority comes from God and pointing out the kind of path that those who would follow Jesus must take.38 In all three synoptic Gospels the question about paying taxes to Caesar comes in the context of parables of coming judgment upon Jewish unbelief, as well as growing confrontation with Pharisees, Herodians, Sadducees, and scribes. As such, Jesus' reply needs to be read, in part, as a challenge to various Jewish responses to imperial authority, whether revolutionary zeal or expedient compromise, turning the focus instead upon his own identity and mission. Moreover, within the context of the Gospels and the communities to which they were written, Jesus' reply also functions to challenge the church whose identity is found in him.
Jesus begins by asking for a coin and asking whose image and inscription it bore. As any first century person would know, the coin showed Caesar, proclaiming him "son of god" and "high priest," rendering it an extremely problematic object for Jews to carry and use, even not overly scrupulous ones. Jesus' question, then, puts his questioners in an awkward position, face-to-face with what they would resent as their own unsettling complicity in the system they opposed.
Furthermore, the incident occurs in a context where taxation had already spawned more than one revolutionary movement, resulting in the execution of the rebels. In this context, Jesus' statement to "Give Caesar what is his" could be heard as an endorsement of such revolutionary programs, a call to stick Rome with its just deserts.39 But this is the same Jesus who rejected all such programs and called his followers to go the second mile, not to live by the sword, to turn the other cheek, and to be the servants of all. The way of kingdom's victory would be the way of the cross. Thus Jesus continues, "And give to God what is his."40 In saying this, Jesus turns the question back to the questioners, challenging where they placed their ultimate loyalties–with their own, potentially violent, political aspirations or with the reign of God that Jesus was proclaiming.
Paul and Peter understand and apply Jesus' teaching rightly. The transformation of political order that Jesus began would come about through being the church as an alternative polis, understanding itself as living within an eschatological tension. On one hand, those in the church were called to lead "quiet and peaceable" lives of allegiance to Jesus "in godliness and dignity" (1 Tim 2:2) cooperating with and praying for those in authority in the civil sphere, paying taxes, rendering honor, and serving them as those appointed by God and his messiah.
On the other hand, the church was to enact the reign of God and his triumph in Jesus over the principalities and powers, proclaiming a Gospel message of another king, a citizenship from heaven, and a fearless freedom which resituated all human authority and, when such authority opposed the Gospel itself, could open the path to martyrdom. Indeed, Paul immediately follows his call to "render to all what is owed them" with the paradoxical qualification, "owe no one anything–except to love one another" (Rom 13:8), thereby resituating even cooperation with political authority in light of the mutual, self-giving love of the Christian community.
Baptism is the rite of entrance into this church and kingdom and has, itself, a political dimension, granting a new identity, acting out a new way of forming community, and setting apart those baptized as having already died and risen with the messiah. In all these areas there are important implications for the church as a new polis and the practice of a new politics.
In terms of the new identity conferred by Christian baptism, this rite is to be understood in light of Jesus' own baptism and against the background of various water rites in the Old Testament and John the Baptizer's proleptic ministry.41 As such, baptism is an expression of the faithfulness of God himself who in and through Christ Jesus accomplished salvation by Jesus' undergoing baptism in his own person for the sake of his people. The baptism of Jesus points back to all of God's acts of creation and re-creation throughout salvation history, including:
* the original creation in which a new world was drawn by God from the watery deep
* the safe journey of Noah and his family through water in God's ship to a new world washed from sin
* the powerful deliverance of Israel from the slavery of Egypt through the cloud and sea unto a new obedience
* the entry of Israel into the promised land, crossing the Jordan, with the ark of God's presence in their midst
* Israel's gracious return from the exile of sin, returning across the great River, vindicating the nation against her enemies.
Jesus' baptism was also a new application of the rites given to God's people for cleansing from the living death of leprosy and from contact with bodily death, rites that had once reconstituted Israelites as God's priestly people. Analogously, Jesus' baptism recapitulated the ordination of Aaron and his sons as priests to serve in God's house as guardians of his holiness, servants to their Lord, and ministers to his people. Finally, the baptism of Jesus set him apart as heir to David's throne, God's anointed and beloved servant, that is, the representative and sum of Israel's own sonship and her service to the nations as a new adamic people.
Thus the baptism of Jesus summarized all of God's promises to his people through the centuries–promises of sonship, priestly service, vindication, spiritual anointing, new creation, God's presence, cleansing, and so on–and attested to God's faithfulness to all of those promises in the messiah. In Christian baptism, then, everything that belongs to Jesus is shared with his messianic people, the Church, marking them out as God's new creation in which all old barriers have been torn down, whether those of anointed priesthood, ritual purity, familial descent, national identity, or royal lineage. The promises to which these various boundaries once pointed are now fulfilled in the church: the old things have passed away and all is made new.
Thus, within the New Testament, the identity announced in baptism stands in contrast, perhaps most clearly, to the demands of the so-called judaizers. Paul makes it clear, that while such rites had their place in God's plan, no ethnic or nationalistic rite, such as circumcision, marks out the eschatological kingdom. Nor is the rite of kingdom initiation any kind of gnostic mystery or elaborate induction into citizenship of a pagan polis, limited to those who acquired the approved esoteric knowledge, who are born of proper descent, or who have performed some great public work.42 Rather, baptism stands as a simple, public water rite applicable to all: Jew and Greek, male and female, slave and free, barbarian or Scythian, and so on. All other identities are thoroughly conditioned by baptismal identity and once the kingdom arrives, to return to the old patterns of identity and boundaries, whether Jewish or pagan, would be, as Paul says, to submit once again to the "elementary principles" (Gal 4:1-10; Col 2:8-23, where the connection with baptism and "the powers" is made explicit).
Moreover, the new identity received in baptism is one that calls us to die to the old Adam and find our identity in the new Man and the way of life that he established and over which he is Lord. This involves a certain "transvaluation of values," for while there is a lowering and breaching of old adamic barriers, since the church is open to anyone whosoever, there is a cost be counted in such a radical break from old identities, the embracing of a new ecclesial identity, and the forms of social and political tension that may ensue. After all, as Jesus says, those who would follow him must "hate father and mother" if such family ties prove an impediment to following the messianic Lord (Lk 14:26).
Thus baptism is itself an event of considerable social and political risk-taking, marking out a community of such people who, as already dead and reborn, place their ultimate hopes in a kingdom that is not founded upon this world, but proceeds from heaven. Whereas pagan virtue would build political community on the supposition of the community as its own end, ecclesial politics would regard itself as missionary and eschatological in purpose, calling its members, outsiders, and even enemies to that end.43
Moreover, the pagan polis, as its own end, required that it define itself by a marked distinction between how it treats its own members and how it regards all others. In such a context, the ties that bind people together in community–both fellow-feeling and anger–are implicated within a particular kind of communal pride by which co-members share in the nobility of the community itself and those who fail to uphold the standards of the community are deemed worthy of vengeful anger.
Christian practices of the political, however, undermine such conceptions. Paul, after all, regards himself as the apostle to "both to Greeks and to barbarians" (Rom 1:14), setting the two on equal footing with regard to the Gospel's objective. And this Gospel calls upon all who enter the church to do so through baptism, a recognition that they only come as people who have been forgiven so that any pride in former identities but be regarded as loss. Thus pagan vengeance is undercut and the community puts itself at risk as a place where the onetime enemy is invited within. But, with Jesus as Lord and savior, the Christian church, as a new polis, leaves itself to his hands, trusting that he will preserve his people in the world.
Finally, eucharist is a politically charged meal which projects an ideal for new ecclesial community of forgiven and forgiving people. As such, it has eschatological, environmental, ethical, economic, and other dimensions and thereby must take a central place in any Christian political practice. Given the centrality of the eucharist in any authentic Christian praxis and given its theological depths, my remarks here will be necessarily limited.
In terms of its first century context the eucharist can be read in light of both the sacrificial meals and festivals at the Temple in Jerusalem and over against various kinds of sacred meals within pagan Hellenism. Moreover, our reading of the eucharist must likewise be informed by wider patterns of table fellowship, both in Jesus' own ministry and in the early church.
With regard to Judaism, Jesus' institution of the eucharist in the context of the Passover feast would have certainly drawn upon the significance of that feast, not only as a ritual remembrance of God's deliverance of Israel from Egypt, but also its first century importance as a politicized expression of Israel's hope for present deliverance from Roman occupation and the fulfillment of Yahweh's eschatological promise.44 Jesus' appropriation of the Passover for his last meal with his disciples must therefore be read, in part, as offering an alternative politics, centered on his own person and the expectation of his imminent execution.
In the background to this final meal stood Jesus' practices of table-fellowship which he had undertaken over the three years of his public ministry in which he had "come eating and drinking" as a "friend of tax collectors and sinners" (Mt 11:19). Shared meals, in this cultural environment, embodied close fellowship and, as enacted by Jesus, were both a proclamation of Yahweh's prodigal and restoring forgiveness as well as the construction of new ties of kinship around Jesus himself. As such they called upon participants to extend forgiveness to one another and to all, engendering forms of restitution that exceeded legal requirements. Those at Jesus' table, therefore, were nothing less than the inbreaking of a future eschatological Israel that served as a rebuke against those who would perpetuate a politics of exclusion, national identity, and violence, a rebuke that came to public expression in Jesus' confrontational action at the Temple.45
And so, when Jesus gathered his disciples together at Passover (particularly read against Jesus' Temple action earlier that week), he was showing himself and his new community to be the true Temple of Yahweh, reorienting all its symbols around himself as the site of Yahweh's promised return, the sacrifice for sin, and the restoration of Israel. But the restoration envisioned by Jesus would be one that came about through following a road that led to the cross, calling his followers upon the same path. As a "memorial" performance of this manner of deliverance, Jesus' Supper would also be the perpetuation of the "dangerous memory" of an unjust execution at the hands of corrupt officials and an indifferent empire.46
The eucharist, therefore, continually troubles the gathered church with an eschatological tension of being a martyr church on mission, filling up in itself what is lacking in the sufferings of Christ, and thereby thwarting any too easy embrace of present systems of governance. As such, it establishes the proper conception of the "secular" as "saeculum," a temporal notion referring to this present world as both passing away in its provisional structures as well as remaining that which is to be redeemed within the bosom of the church.
Within the context of the Roman empire, this function of the eucharist took on other dimensions insofar as it conceived itself as the true sacrificial meal of which pagan feasts were only a false image. While Paul allows that meat sold openly at market could be permitted upon a Christian table, whatever its origin (1 Cor 8:1-6), he also decreed that it is not possible for a Christian to partake of the table of the Lord and the table of demons–to participate in the sacrificial feasts of the pagan polis and to gather in partnership as the body of Christ (1 Cor 10:14-21). Paul's use of the term "partnership" or "communion" here (koinonia) comes with cultic, economic, and political overtones, for within antique order local temples were not merely places of cultic ritual. Rather, they were thoroughly implicated within a complex network of social relations, literally defining space within the ancient polis, bound up with the privileges of citizenship and kinship, the stratification of political order, and forms of economic access.
Paul, of course, is no dualist and, in keeping with his Jewish creational monotheism, perceived now through Jesus, he recognized that all things exist through Jesus as Lord and messiah. Nonetheless, Paul introduced forms of moral reasoning, rooted in Jesus' Lordship and the practices of the Christian community as an integral community in itself, by which his hearers might wisely discern how to live as members of God's kingdom and household, making judgments within a world that, while under Jesus' Lordship, still resists God's reign. Indeed, the table of the Lord must serve as just such a place of discernment and judgment, manifesting the gathered Body of Christ in reconciled solidarity over against the world, thereby proclaiming the effective power of Jesus' death until he comes to judge.47
In this light, it is unremarkable that, not only does Paul proscribe involvement with the official cultic rites of pagan cities, he also forbids Christians from appealing to the pagan courts (1 Cor 6:1-6). This is not because such courts have no authority under God (we must presume), but because whatever legitimate authority those courts possess is already disclosed in a greater way within the church and, there, in light of eschatology and with eternal consequences (1 Cor 5:3-5; 6:2-3, 9). The eucharist, therefore, stands as a rite that encompasses the people of God both as a household and family gathered intimately at table and as a polis and nation assembled publicly at temple, thereby outwitting any absolute dichotomy between public space and private space.
But this eucharistic politics is one that knows no spatialized dualism of the natural and supernatural, rather functioning subjunctively in proclaiming and giving a foretaste of the ways things ought to be, against the remembrance of Jesus' death, a temporal movement, relating eschatology and history. As a ritual meal of eating and drinking, the eucharist forges a tie to this world as the place in which God's reign is realized, the transformation of this world in and through human action, and the establishment of peace.48
In particular we see a confluence of work and play, the mundane and the refined in the joining of bread with wine. Bread is basic sustenance but requires the establishment of human economy–subsistence agriculture–as well as the cessation of conflict and employment of human labor.49 Wine, on the other hand, is a cup of playful celebration but requires some degree of technological sophistication, extended peace to age and mature, and the opportunity to relax and enjoy. The eucharist, therefore, projects a communitas in which such labor and celebration are valued, along with the peace to engage in them and the leisure to delight in them.50 And insofar as the one and same Body of Christ is present wherever eucharist is made, the work of liturgy likewise undoes the logic of center and circumference–whether in terms of political, economic, social, or cultic centralization and stratification–founding catholicity precisely in what is most local.
In these reflections, I have not offered anything near a comprehensive Christian politics. Nonetheless, I have attempted to underscore the ways in with the Gospel itself functions politically and implications drawn from that. And in some respects, I suggest, Christian politics consists first and foremost in living out that Gospel as church, enacting it authentically in community through the word and sacraments. Only by consciously engaging in such praxis and through continued reflection from within it, will it be possible to envision and move towards what that politics will mean for our particular lived conditions within neighborhoods and businesses, civic associations and civil government.
Still, several broad themes have emerged, I think, in the course of this discussion, and we would do well to bring them together here in summary. First, the Gospel of "Jesus is Lord" unravels any attempt to construct a Christian politics of "two kingdoms" in which the church and civil governments are set side-by-side as externally and extrinsically related orders. Rather the relationship is one of analogy, which, of course, presupposes a fixed distinction, without confusion, but also internal and intrinsic relations.51
Second, ecclesial order and civil order thus do not occupy two different spaces, but two different times: the church having an eternal end, rooted in God's past saving acts in Christ, made present now in word and sacrament; the civil order having a temporal function within the present saeculum, ordained to continually pass away, though its treasures are carried in the bosom of the church into the eternal kingdom (Rev 21:24). Thus, rather than proving a threat to civil order, the church, as the true polis and kingdom, is the transcendent community before which immanent civil structures can be see to have a reality and integrity quite apart from the exercise of force or the territorialization of space.
Third, these conceptions serve to relativize civil authority, situating it within and under the authority of God and his Christ. As a result, Christians cannot trust any human institution to ultimately secure our advantage, to be an object of final allegiance, or to sustain the missionary vocation of the church in the world. In light of the Gospel as the revelation of God's authority, justice, love, and universal concern, human authority is seen always to hold the potential to deify itself, to miscarry justice, to perpetuate violence, and to construct barriers.
Fourth, insofar as Christ is the model of truly human rule and the church is his Body, a renewed humanity, civil organization must come to be analogically fashioned in the image of the church, in a way that is appropriate for a temporal order and its ends, often exercising authority within communities consisting of both Christians and non-Christians. But there is no place here for a "common grace" politics that remains neutral to the claims of the Gospel, even with regard to the place of unbelievers within society, for it is precisely the Gospel that calls us to risk love even for enemies and to remain at peace with all people, as far as it is up to us (Rom 12:18). If anything is clear from Jesus' ministry, as a manifestation of God's justice, it is that the promises of God are not be secured through violence.
Finally, the politics engendered by ecclesial order provide a model for the analogous reconfiguring of social space in the ways suggested above: questioning the dichotomy of private and public spaces, disengaging centripetal forces and their relation to the peripheral and local, complicating homogenized space with a polymorphic organization of overlapping structures and authorities, and so on. These kinds of shifts would have significant implications for the exercise of civil authority, the shape of economic markets, the production and dissemination of culture, and so on. Clearly these implications suggest that the church stands as a witness to the possibility of a praxis that refuses the dichotomies offered by the modern: either nation-states or anarchistic turmoil, globalization or protectionism, unregulated capitalism or state socialism, and so on. But just how these binaries are to be overcome is left open and it is the church that must prove the site of resistance through a more self-conscious attempt to live out the Gospel as a counter-political community drawn together around word and sacrament.
Further implications might be drawn, but these few shall suffice. The Gospel, I have shown, is already politics and thus the church, as Augustine suggests, is the true res publica in light of which human community, politics, and justice is possible at all. And so, indeed, there is another king, this Jesus.
1. N.T. Wright likewise suggests that the message Paul brings here is politically resonant (2000:165).
2. It seems to me that many well-intentioned Christians are, unfortunately, complicit in these misunderstandings (much of the rhetoric of the so-called Religious Right comes to mind, though left-leaning bodies such as the National Council of Churches are often just as imprudent). Part of the burden of this essay is an attempt to rethink these problematics.
3. This is not to say, by any means, that politics is the primary focus of the Gospel and, much less, that politics somehow exhausts the meaning of the Gospel. But inasmuch as the relationship between faith and politics is the aim of this essay, I will be focusing upon the political import of the Gospel.
4. I am appealing here, in part, to the pre-modern notion of the "political" as a very broad ethical discourse, encompassing various forms of human association, the virtues embodied in them, directed toward the common good as an end, and exercised through some kind of public authority (though, unlike ancient political thinkers such as Aristotle, I would place politics under the wider rubric of ethics, rather than vice versa). As such, the church can be seen as "political" in a way analogous to a particular civil regime or, perhaps, "counter-political."
5. One thinks here of Augustine's claim that the Roman empire could not claim truly to be a republic or a people since it lacked justice, other virtues, and authentic community (De Civitatis Dei 19.21-28). Augustine goes onto suggest that it is the church that is the true res publica and city-state.
6. Much of the following analysis is drawn from de Certeau 1992, Foucault 1994, Gillespie 1994, Milbank 1993, Montag 1999, and Pickstock 1998. The story of the transition from the pre-modern to the modern is one that is gaining an important place within much postmodern discourse as a genealogical strategy by which modernist assumptions can be recovered and questioned.
7. John Milbank begins his magisterial Theology and Social Theory with the assertion, "Once, there was no 'secular'…" (1993:9) and proceeds to narrate the founding of the secular. Much of my account here is dependent upon his.
8. Although Rene Descartes (1596-1650) is often credited as the "father of modern philosophy" the full story of the construction of the modern is naturally much more complex. After all, Descartes' near contemporaries were also instrumental-including Niccolo Machiavelli (1469-1527), Petrus Ramus (1515-1572), Jean Bodin (1530-1596), Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679), among others. Consult, e.g., Pickstock 1998:47-100, Milbank 1993:9-38, Gillespie 1994. Moreover, the historical roots of the modern run much deeper, not only philosophically, in the thought of Scotus (1266-1308) and Ockham (1288-1349), but also socially and politically, in developments stemming from the investiture controversy and the rise of conciliarism. On these latter points, consult Montag 1999, Cavanaugh 1998:207-221, de Certeau 1992:82-87, and Kantorowicz 1957.
9. One may speak here of an analogia entis, though the term came into current use through Erich Przywara in the early 20th century. The criticism of this notion by Karl Barth and some other (Reformed) Protestant authors, seems to me to largely miss the mark by understanding the analogia in far too a post-scotistic manner.
10. For a very helpful exposition of this doctrine of analogy and its implications for faith, philosophy, politics, education, gender, and the like, see Schindler 1996. Schindler follows very closely in the footsteps of de Lubac and von Balthasar on these matters.
11. While a sharp dichotomy between "nature" and "grace" or the "natural" and the "supernatural" is often taken to be a hallmark of the thought of Thomas Aquinas, this is a serious confusion, mistaking the views of later thomism (which is much indebted to Cajetan and Suarez) for those of the Angelic Doctor himself. Much of the burden of 20th century Roman Catholic theology has been to move beyond these dichotomies towards a more integrated–and more authentically thomist–understanding of nature and grace. The two most important figures here are Karl Rahner (see Rahner 1992; 1978) and Henri de Lubac (see de Lubac 1998; 1984), though the retrieval of Aquinas is a much broader project; see Chenu 1964, Jordan 1992, te Velde 1992, O'Rourke 1992, Jenkins 1997, Milbank and Pickstock 2001, and Kerr 2002.
12. Milbank and Pickstock's Truth in Aquinas (2001) presents an extended exposition and defense of interpreting Aquinas in this way.
13. On the notion of "complex" or "gothic" social space see Cavanaugh 2002:99-106 and Milbank 1997:268-292.
14. On the move away from pre-modern notions of revelatio, consult the account given by Montag 1999. The rejection of medieval typological and liturgical enactments of the biblical text and the decided shift towards a more literalistic exegesis and the "grammatico-historical" sense of the text, was deeply complicit with the founding of the modern as well as the construction of the secular state. See Milbank's comments on the biblical hermeneutics of Hobbes and Spinoza in 1993:17-20.
15. Indeed, the very notion of "religion" underwent a significant shift, see Cantwell Smith 1962:30-44.
16. Again, consult the critiques of this perspective by Rahner and de Lubac (though my sympathies lie with de Lubac, in the context of Catholic debates). This conceptualization of "nature" and "grace" was the standard account within Roman Catholic dogmatics texts by the time of the 19th century and remained prominent in Roman Catholic theology well into the 20th century. I would argue that these very same dynamics play out in analogous way, particularly within some Reformed Protestant dogmatics, in areas such as how the doctrine of "regeneration" relates to Christian experience or the relationship between the pre-lapsarian "covenant of works" and the "covenant of grace." Various attempts to overcome the more problematic forms these dynamics have met with considerable resistance in some quarters.
17. I readily admit that the bulk of theonomic literature envisions their program as coming to fruition through evangelism and discipleship. But the question remains: when enough people have converted and have embraced the theonomic vision, what then? I am left with impression that the goal is more for existing institutions to be merely "taken over" by the new majority than for the entire social fabric to be transformed. I say this, in part, because much theonomic analysis of culture and economics remains thoroughly imbued with what strikes me as conventional social conservativism and libertarian economics.
18. Again, I certainly grant that the intention of these theorists is well-meaning. Several aims may be intended, I presume: [1] to prevent the grace of the Gospel from being confused with mere civil legalities, [2] to realistically recognize that we live in a pluralistic society, and [3] to avoid any kind of "theocracy" (by which is meant, I think, an "ecclesiocracy"). I hope that I am not ignoring any of these concerns, but a couple of comments seem in order. With regard to [1], there are ways of expressing the grace of the Gospel that give in too much on nature/grace dualities; proper distinctions can be made without conceding to such conceptions. With regard to [2], I suggest below that within a Christian politics, a pluralistic society can only be rightly predicated upon the Gospel's call to love even our enemies; such a pluralism cannot remain neutral to the person of Jesus. With regard to [3], the fear of "theocracy" already supposes a distribution of social space in which the church and "religion" is external to the civil sphere and thus must intrude upon it in an ecclesiocratic manner in order to shape the political. It is just such a conceptualization I am arguing against as too complicit with the modern.
19. Though perhaps unsatisfactory to some, it is my understanding of the New Testament that the term "Gospel" most focally means the announcement of the reign of God, manifest particularly in the death and resurrection of Jesus as messiah and Lord and is summarized in the Christian confession that "Jesus is Lord." Other matters (such as justification and forgiveness of sins) are immediately entailed by this Gospel, while other matters are further implications of and responses to the Gospel (for instance, personal faith). These matters, however, are not the primary referent of the term "Gospel" itself.
20. On the meaning and resonances of the term "Gospel" see, Wright 1997:39-62; Horsley 2000:164-165.
21. On the rising Roman imperial cult, see Price 1984.
22. For some general overviews of the religious climate of first century Judaism consult Sanders 1992, Saldarini 2001, and Hengel 1989.
23. Though I cannot agree with all of his various assertions, Borg 1984 makes for stimulating reading on this topic. For a more balanced account, see Wright 1992:369-442.
24. Regarding "the way" that Jesus followed, see Mk 2:23; 3:1; etc., esp. 10:17, 32, 52. That Jesus' "way" was the very way of Yahweh is intimated by John the baptizer at the beginning of the Gospel, Mk 1:2-3; that it was the way of the cross is stated by Jesus himself in Mk 8:34-35; 9:35. The centurion at the foot of cross draws these texts together when, seeing the way Jesus died, he confesses, "Surely this was son of God" (Mk 15:39). For a more detailed study of these themes in Mark, see Garver 2000.
25. This Adam-Christ dynamic is most evident in Paul's writings (esp. Rom 5 and 1 Cor 15).
26. For a brief elaboration of this reading of Luke-Acts, see Wright 1998.
27. The following remarks draw heavily upon Gaffin 1987, Wright 1992, 1997, and Siefrid 2001, among others.
28. See Georgi 1991 and Wright's comments in Horsley 2000:170-173.
29. Allow me to anticipate a possible objection at this point: that by so thickly nesting the Gospel within the vocabulary and issues of the era in which it was first articulated, one runs the risk of losing the message of the Gospel for us today (thanks to Jim Rogers for pointing this out and for much other helpful criticism). I would reply by arguing that the Gospel only speaks to situations outside of its immediate first century context because it is "so thickly nested" within its first century context. The universal is only found in the particular. And that is not to say that it is necessary to understand all the particularities of the immediate context in order to understand the Gospel for one's own time and place. But I am presupposing an ontology here in which history and cultures are analogically ordered so that all history that preceded Christ typologically anticipated him in more or less obscure ways ("preceded" here including either absolute temporal preceding or in terms of preceding the Gospel's actual arrival). And all history that comes after Christ, on the other hand, is attributable to the event of Christ and its re-narration of everything through the church. Of course, it is the history of Israel and the church that most centrally and fully participate in Christ either by typological anticipation or as an effect, respectively. But this is only so because everything always already reveals Christ in some manner.
Epistemologically, this means that it isn't necessary to do this kind of analysis of the first century context in order for the Gospel to have its import and effects in whatever time and place it arrives, because the context of the first century is already analogically anticipated in that site of arrival in such a way such that, once the Gospel is received and enacted sacramentally and liturgically in that new time and place, its original effects will be non-identically reproduced. Nonetheless, this kind of historical analysis serves to deepen that event and, I would argue, enhance the Gospel's effectiveness and relevance to our contexts precisely because the more light that is shed on its original context, the more light we shed on own context and how to receive the Gospel within it as that good news continuously arrives here and now.
30. On various aspects of this terminology, see Horsley 1997, 2000. For further reflections on the political, public character of the church, see Leithart 1993 and Clapp 1996:44-57.
31. The following observations are indebted to Leithart 1997a.
32. On the nature of the ancient city-state, see Polignac 1995, Zaidman and Schmitt Pantel 1989, Dumezil 1970, Alföldy 1985, and Gordon in Beard and North 1990. Hauerwas and Pinches' interaction with Casey's Pagan Virtue is also worthy of note (1997:89-112).
33. Leithart 1997a.
35. The following is informed by the comments of Wright in Horsley 2000:173-181 and Oakes 2001.
36. On the emperor cult, again see Price 1984.
37. On Romans 13 see O'Donovan 1996:146-148, Elliott 1994:214-226, Wright in Bartholomew 2000:190-191, and Jewett in Horsley 2000:65-68.
38. Some of the following is drawn from Hart 1984, Wright 1992:502-507, and Hays 1996:126-127.
39. That Jesus' statement might have been heard this way is all the more possible against the backdrop of a passage like 1 Macc 2:68.
40. The phrase here resonates with an allusion to Ps 96:7-10, which, given its larger context of Yahweh's contest with false gods and idols, strengthens the anti-imperial undercurrents of Jesus' saying.
41. With regard to what follows, see in particular Garver 1999 and 2001.
42. With regard to the religio-political organization of the ancient polis, see, again, Polignac 1995, Zaidman and Schmitt Pantel 1989, Dumezil 1970, Alföldy 1985, and Gordon in Beard and North 1990.
43. On this point and the two that follow, see Hauerwas and Pinches 1997:104-109.
44. On this context for the last supper see Wright 1992:554-563.
45. The importance of the temple action here is noted by Neusner 1989.
46. Much of the theoretical and theological analysis in what follows is inspired by Cavanaugh 1998:222-252 and 2002.
47. On 1 Corinthians in its imperial context, see Horsley 2000:72-102. See also Leithart 1997b.
48. Leithart 1997b and Schmemann 1973:11-46.
49. See Kass 1994:121-122.
50. Empereur and Kiesling 1990:117-118.
51. The echo of the Chalcedonian formulation of the two natures of Christ is intentional as it provides a helpful, though limited, analogy. According to that formulation, the human nature of Christ is united to the divine, but without any confusion with that divine nature. Nonetheless, the humanity of Jesus is enhypostatized by the single subject of the divine Son so that the humanity of Jesus is a perfect analogical revelation of deity. In an analogous manner the civil sphere must be seen as situated in relation to the church, without confusing the two spheres, but with the civil sphere analogically manifesting ecclesial "politics." This analogy, of course, can be pushed too far, though it has the ironic effect of suggesting that the Lutheran "two kingdoms" doctrine is incipiently Nestorian.
Alfoldy, Geza. 1985. The Social History of Rome, trans. by D. Braund and F. Pollock. London: Croom Helm.
Augustine. De Civitatis Dei.
Bartholomew, Craig, Jonathan Chaplin, et al, eds. 2002. A Royal Priesthood: The Use of the Bible Ethically and Politically, A Dialogue with Oliver O'Donovan. Grand Rapids: Zondervan.
Beard, Mary and John North, eds. 1990. Pagan Priests. London: Duckworth.
Borg, Marcus J. 1998. Conflict, Holiness, and Politics in the Teachings of Jesus. Harrisburg, PA: Trinity Press International.
Cantwell Smith, Wilfred. 1962. The Meaning and End of Religion. New York: Macmillan.
Cavanaugh, William T. 2002. Theopolitical Imagination: Discovering the Liturgy as a Political Act in an Age of Global Consumerism. London: T&T Clark.
—–. 1998. Torture and Eucharist. Oxford: Blackwell.
Certeau, Michel de. 1992. The Mystic Fable, trans. by Michael B. Smith. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Chenu, Marie-Dominique. 1964. Towards Understanding St. Thomas. New York: Regnery.
Clapp, Rodney. 1996. A Peculiar People: The Church as Culture in a Post-Christian Society. Downer Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press.
Dumezil, Georges. 1970. Archaic Roman Religion, trans. by P. Krapp. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Elliott, Neil. 1994. Liberating Paul: The Justice of God and the Politics of the Apostle. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis.
Empereur, James L. and Christopher G. Kiesling. 1990. The Liturgy That Does Justice. Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press.
Foucault, Michel. 1994. The Order of Things: An Archaeology of the Human Sciences. New York: Vintage.
Gaffin, Richard B. 1987. Resurrection and Redemption: A Study in Paul's Soteriology. Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian and Reformed.
Garver, Stephen Joel. 2001. "A Brief Catechesis on Covenant and Baptism," website, La Salle University. http://www.lasalle.edu/~garver/cateches.htm
—–. 2000. "Mark's Jesus and Our Sufferings," website, La Salle University. http://www.lasalle.edu/~garver/markjesus.html>
—–. 1999. "Baptism in Matthew and Mark," website, La Salle University. http://www.lasalle.edu/~garver/NTbaptism.htm
Georgi, Deiter. 1991. Theocracy in Paul's Praxis and Theology. Minneapolis: Fortress.
Gillespie, Michael Allen. 1994. Nihilism Before Nietzsche. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Hart, H. 1984. "The Coin of 'Render unto Caesar…'" in Jesus and the Politics of His Day, ed by E. Bammel and C.F.D. Moule. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Hauerwas, Stanley and Charles Pinches. Christians Among the Virtues. University of Notre Dame Press.
Hays, Richard B. 1996. The Moral Vision of the New Testament: A Contemporary Introduction to New Testament Ethics. New York: HarperCollins.
Hengel, Martin. 1989. The Zealots: Investigations into the Jewish Freedom Movement in the Period from Herod I unto 70 AD. Edinburgh: T&T Clark.
Horsley, Richard A., ed. 2000. Paul and Politics: Ekklesia, Israel, Imperium, Interpretation. Harrisburg, PA: Trinity Press International.
—–. 1997. Paul and Empire: Religion and Power in Roman Imperial Society. Harrisburg, PA: Trinity Press International.
Jenkins, John. 1997. Knowledge and Faith in Thomas Aquinas. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Jordan, Mark. 1992. The Alleged Aristoteliansim of Thomas Aquinas. Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Medieval Studies.
Kantorowicz, Ernst. 1957. The King's Two Bodies: A Study in Medieval Political Theology. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Kass, Leon. 1994. The Hungry Soul: Eating and the Perfecting of Our Nature. New York: Free Press.
Kerr, Fergus. 2002. After Aquinas: Versions of Thomism. Oxford: Blackwell.
Leithart, Peter J. 1997a. "Against Christianity: for the Church" in Premise Vol IV.2. http://capo.org/premise/97/june/p970604.html.
—–. 1997b. "The Way Things Really Ought to Be: Eucharist, Eschatology, and Culture" in Westminster Theological Journal 59:159-76.
—–. 1993. The Kingdom and the Power: Rediscovering the Centrality of the Church. Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian and Reformed.
Lubac, Henri de. 1998. Mystery of the Supernatural, trans. by Rosemary Sheed. New York: Crossroad Herder.
—–. 1984. A Brief Catechesis on Nature and Grace. San Francisco, Ignatius.
Milbank, John. 1997. The Word Made Strange: Theology, Language, and Culture. Oxford: Blackwell.
—–. 1993. Theology and Social Theory: Beyond Secular Reason. Oxford: Blackwell.
Milbank, John and Catherine Pickstock. 2001. Truth in Aquinas. New York: Routledge.
Montag, John, SJ. 1999. "Revelation: The False Legacy of Suarez" in Radical Orthodoxy: A New Theology, ed. by John Milbank, et al. London: Routledge.
Neusner, Jacob. 1989. "Money-changers in the Temple: The Mishnah's Explanation" in New Testament Studies 35:287-90.
Oakes, Peter. 2001. Philippians: From People to Letter. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
O'Donovan, Oliver. 1996. Desire of the Nations. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
O'Rourke, Fran. 1992. Pseudo-Dionysius and the Metaphysics of Aquinas. Leiden: E.J.Brill.
Pickstock, Catherine. 1998. After Writing: On the Liturgical Consummation of Philosophy. Oxford: Blackwell.
Polignac, Francois de. 1995. Cults, Territory, and the Origins of the Greek City-State, trans. by J. Lloyd. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Price, S.R.F. 1984. Rituals and Power: The Roman Imperial Cult in Asia Minor. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Rahner, Karl. 1992. Karl Rahner: Theologian of the Graced Search for Meaning, ed. by Geffrey Kelly. Minneapolis, MN: Fortress.
——. 1978. Foundations of the Christian Faith: An Introduction to the Idea of Christianity, trans. by Willima Dych. New York: Crossroad.
Saldarini, Anthony J. 2001. Pharisees, Scribes, and Sadducees in Palestinian Society. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans.
Sanders, E.P. 1992. Judaism: Practice and Belief, 63 BCE – 66 CE. Philadelphia, Trinity Press International.
Seifrid, Mark A. 2001. Christ Our Righteousness: Paul's Doctrine of Justification. Downers Grove: IVP.
Schindler, David L. 1996. Heart of the World, Center of the Church: Communio Ecclesiology, Liberalism, and Liberation. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans Publishing.
Schmemann, Alexander. 1973. For the Life of the World: Sacraments and Orthodoxy. Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir's Seminary Press.
Te Velde, Rudi. 1995. Participation and Substantiality in Thomas Aquinas. Leiden: E.J.Brill.
Wright, N.T. 1998. "Upstaging the Emperor" in Bible Review, February: 17, 47.
—–. 1997. What Saint Paul Really Said. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans.
—–. 1992. Jesus and the Victory of God. Minneapolis: Fortress.
Zaidman, Louise Bruit and Pauline Schmitt Patel. 1989. Religion in the Ancient Greek City, trans. by Paul Cartledge. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Filed under: Uncategorized | 1 Comment »

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl