In light of my post on Monday, a video to help visualize income inequality in America:



H/T Robin Parry at Running Heads

Like many of you, I've been watching Pope Francis and have been impressed so far with what I have seen. I hope he keeps going in the direction he seems to have charted for himself and the Catholic Church.

Over the weekend I took note of some words Francis shared with the bishops of Brazil. Lamenting the decline in church membership there Francis pointed to a few different issues. One of them was that the church had become too intellectualized:

"At times we lose people because they don't understand what we are saying, because we have forgotten the language of simplicity and import an intellectualism foreign to our people. Without the grammar of simplicity, the church loses the very conditions which make it possible to 'fish for' God in the deep waters of his mystery."

Amen. I recently made a similar point about progressive theology becoming too intellectualized, too reliant upon Continental philosophers like Lacan, Derrida and Hegel.

I think progressive theology has "lost the grammar of simplicity." In my own experience when I am "reading the bible with the damned"--in prison or among the economically vulnerable--I find myself reaching for "the language of simplicity" and I hear myself, more and more, sounding like a fundamentalist.

I find myself speaking of simple things, things like sin, brokenness and the mercy of God.

Last week I posted about my growing disillusionment with American liberalism. Specifically, I mentioned that liberals should be more focused on things like strengthening the labor movement than worrying about our kids eating too much sugar.

That reference to labor may have struck some of you as odd or out of the blue. It came to my mind because I've been reading a lot lately about the labor movement. Why?

Some of my reasons are summarized in this article by Henry Blodget in the Business Insider, "I've Always Hated The Idea Of Labor Unions, But It May Be Time To Reconsider".

After noting many of the (very legitimate) problems with labor unions, Blodget brings to our attention a few trends, trends that I'm pretty concerned about.

First, income disparity--the separation between the proverbial 99% and the 1%--is the greatest it has been in America since the Great Depression. (To explore more about these trends you can examine these charts in a separate article by Blodget.)

Second, corporate profits are at an all time high.

Third, wages as a percent of the economy are at an all-time low.

Fourth and finally, Blodget shares this chart from the EPI showing the increasing income disparity in America against the decline in union membership:

Now, of course, correlation does not equal causation. But the problems we are facing--historic levels of income inequality and decreased wages--are real and are creating a sociologically and politically volatile and unsustainable situation. Class warfare isn't a phantom being ginned up by President Obama. It's an economic reality getting worse every year. And it's going to keep getting worse until something--God knows what--hits the fan.

(And all that is to say nothing about the collision course we are on between capitalism and the finite resources of the environment.)

At this moment I am unsure about if the labor movement, as it has done in the past, has the resources that can help with the crises we are facing. Maybe it does, maybe it doesn't. The labor movement was pretty damn corrupt.

And yet, the labor movement has been the only force outside of the government in American history that has successfully challenged and chastened the corporate profit motive.

The point being, if the government isn't the solution to these problems then perhaps we should be looking toward the people.

How did I get interested in The Rule of St. Benedict?

Well, in writing Unclean I developed an ongoing interest in expressions of Christian hospitality. And if you dig at all in this history and literature you quickly come across Chapter 53 of The Rule of St. Benedict "The Reception of Guests."

Chapter 53, Verse 1 might be the most famous and influential part of The Rule of St. Benedict. It reads:

¹All guests who present themselves are to be welcomed as Christ.

From the hospitality of Abraham in Genesis 18 to Matthew 25 to the Road to Emmaus to the epistolary injunctions to practice hospitality, Chapter 53, Verse 1 of The Rule of St. Benedict captures the point as well as anyone ever has:

When you welcome others you welcome Christ.

Hospes venit, Christus venit.

Awhile back I wrote this reflection for the forum I host at the Evangelical Universalism Forum:

People often make a distinction between being a hopeful versus a dogmatic universalist.

You're a hopeful universalist if you desire, wish or hope that universal reconciliation in Christ be true but just can't bring yourself to believe it to be true, likely because of how you read the bible. You're a dogmatic universalist if you are convinced that universal reconciliation in Christ is true, likely because you have come to believe that the bible does, in fact, support universal reconciliation in Christ.

People often ask me if I'm a hopeful or a dogmatic universalist. And my answer is that I'm both. I'm both hopeful and dogmatic.

Which might seem paradoxical, so let me explain that.

Truth be told, I'm really not a dogmatic universalist. Why? Because I'm not dogmatic about anything. I struggle with too many doubts. There are days when I wonder if God exists. So how can I, if I'm wavering on that big question, feel dogmatic about a very particular vision of the afterlife? You have to get the cart before the horse.

So why do I argue so vociferously for universal reconciliation in Christ? Because I think universal reconciliation in Christ is the only view of the afterlife that gives the Christian faith moral, biblical, intellectual and theological coherence. I'm dogmatic about that, about how universal reconciliation in Christ is the only view that makes sense when you really investigate the other options. In light of that, I'd say I'm more of a polemical universalist than a dogmatic universalist. I'm polemical in that I argue--strongly--that universal reconciliation in Christ is the only view that makes Christianity morally, biblically and theologically coherent and that all the other options--e.g., eternal conscious torment, conditionalism, and annihilationism--make Christianity morally, biblically and theologically incoherent (if not monstrous). I'll argue that deep into the night and into the next day. That's the polemical part. But being polemical--arguing the merits of your view against the weaknesses of alternative views--isn't the same as being dogmatic. Because at the end of the day, do I know if any of this is really true? I don't.

And that is what makes me a hopeful Christian universalist. Because of my doubts, I'm not dogmatic that any of this is true.

But I sure hope it is.

When it comes to humility I think a lot of Christians tend to work with the wrong idea.

The idea that many seem to have is that humility involves thinking less about yourself, to have a negative or even morbid self-concept. Justification for this sort of thing comes from texts like Philippians 2.3:

Philippians 2.3
Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves.

Humility, it seems, is considering others as "better" than yourself. And if others are better than you it stands to reason that you are "worse." Humility, in this view, is having that sort of morbid self-concept: Others are "better" than me.

But is that what Philippians 2.3 is saying?

The word translated as "better" in this text is hyperechontas from the root hyperechō. The word (in various forms) occurs only four other times in the NT:

Romans 13:1
Every person must be subject to the governing (hyperechousais) authorities because there is no authority except by God’s appointment, and those that presently exist have been instituted by God.

Philippians 3:8
More than that, I regard all things as loss because of the surpassing (hyperechon) worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things and regard them as rubbish, in order to gain Christ

Philippians 4:7
And the peace of God, which surpasses (hyperechousa) all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

1 Peter 2:13
Submit to every human authority on account of the Lord, whether to the king as supreme (hyperechonti) authority.

As can be seen in these texts hyperechō means, broadly, "to hold above." In Romans 13.1 and 1 Peter 2.13 the context is explicitly political, with a political power being "held above" other powers. In Philippians 3.8 the value of knowing Christ is "held above" all other things. In Philippians 4.7 the peace of God is "held above" our ability to understand.

Which brings us back to Philippians 2.3. Translating hyperechontas as "better" doesn't really get at the root meaning of the word. Some translations to compare how well they do getting at the root meaning of "to hold above":

NIV:
Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves.

ESV:
Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves.

NASV:
Do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, but with humility of mind regard one another as more important than yourselves.

NRSV:
Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility regard others as better than yourselves.

CEV:
Don’t be jealous or proud, but be humble and consider others more important than yourselves.

The Kingdom New Testament (N.T. Wright)
Never act our of selfish ambition or vanity; instead, regard everyone else as your superior.

The NRSV goes with "better than." Which I think is the worst translation. The NASV and CEV go with "more important" and the ESV goes with "more significant." I don't think those are much better.

The NIV isn't bad with "value others above yourself." We hear a bit of hyperechō's "to hold above" in this translation, but the word "value" might muddy the waters. Finally, N.T. Wright does an interesting thing in going with the hierarchical/political meanings we observed above in Romans 13.1 and 1 Peter 2.13: "regard everyone else as your superior."

To be honest, I really don't like any of these. I sort of like staying with the basic meaning of hyperechō, "to hold above." Alternative phrases might be to "lift up," "elevate," or "place." For example:

Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility hold others up above yourselves.

Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility lift others up above yourselves.

Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility elevate others above yourselves.

Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility place others above yourselves.

To be sure, when we hold up, elevate, and lift up others this is being done over against the self. But I don't think that has to mean that the other is "better" or more "important." It simply means that the other is honored (elevated, help up, lifted up) and put first. And I think the context of the passage supports that reading. Here's the NIV with my tweak for hyperechō:

Philippians 2.3
Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility lift others up above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others. 

I think that works. Humility is less about thinking other people are "better" or "more important" than you are. Humility isn't about a morbid ego or a low self-esteem. Humility is, rather, a form of honoring and care-taking.

Humility is lifting up (hyperechō) the concerns of others, placing them above and ahead of your own.

In my book Unclean I discuss the research of Jonathan Haidt regarding the five moral foundations and how they are deployed by liberals and conservatives. For the purposes of this post we can summarize by noting that liberals tend to restrict their moral judgments to issues related to harm and justice where conservatives appeal to additional moral criteria like sanctity and purity. Liberals care more about things like fairness where conservatives worry more about things like contamination.

But not so fast, says Mark Oppenheimer, in a recent article in the New Republic. Oppenheimer argues that many liberals have been overtaken by a neurotic fear of contamination, making them the "new Puritans."

Oppenheimer's analysis was prompted by Portland's recent refusal to allow for the fluoridation of their water, a vote driven by liberal fears of contamination, a fear that Oppenheimer is increasingly seeing on the left:

Today, of course, while the right still dabbles eagerly in the anti-fluoride, anti-vaccination, and other anti-science pathologies, the left may be the even greater culprit. Certainly the anti-fluoride coalition in Portland depended more on self-identified liberal voters than on conservatives. But there are key differences in how liberals and conservatives come by their fears. On the right, these mental illnesses stem from fear of government. On the left, their origins are a bit harder to pin down, but as I see it, they stem from an old mix of righteousness and the fear of contamination—from what we might recognize as Puritanism.

Oppenheimer goes on to give some other examples of these puritanical fears of contamination from a child's birthday party he attended:

Let me give another example of left-wing Puritanism in action, one less glaring than the Portland referendum but which will be recognizable to many of you. Last month, at a birthday party for a three-year-old, I was hit with the realization that most of the parents around me were in the grip of moral panic, the kind of fear of contamination dramatized so well in The Crucible. One mother was trying to keep her daughter from eating a cupcake, because of all the sugar in cupcakes. Another was trying to limit her son to one juice box, because of all the sugar in juice. A father was panicking because there was no place, in this outdoor barn-like space at some nature center or farm or wildlife preserve, where his daughter could wash her hands before eating. And while I did not hear any parent fretting about the organic status of the veggie dip, I became certain there were such whispers all around me.

Like any moral panic, nobody was immune to its contagion. Soon, I was fretting—but for different reasons. For all I knew, some of these kids weren’t immunized, and they were fed only unpasteurized milk. The other parents were worried about germs and microbes and genetically modified apricots—I was worried about the parents. I was surrounded by the new Puritans: self-righteous, aspiring toward a utopian perfectionism, therefore condemned to perpetual anxiety—and in their anxiety, a threat to me and my children. 

I don't know about you, but I've also observed this sort of contamination panic among my liberal friends. And the most profound point that Oppenheimer makes, in my opinion, is how this new liberal puritanism has been increasingly co-opting what used to be the core of progressive, liberal politics. Rather than, say, strengthening the labor/union movement to stand up for and protect a vanishing middle class liberal puritans are worried to the point of obsession about things like sugar and anti-bacterial soap:

[T]hinking that Puritanism—whether a preference for organic foods or natural fibers or home-birthing—is somehow constitutive of a liberal politics is rather insulting to liberalism. Most of the middle-class “liberal” parents I know have allowed lifestyle decisions about what they wear, eat, and drive to entirely replace a more ambitious program for bettering society; they have no particular beliefs about how to end poverty or strengthen the labor movement, and they don’t understand Obamacare, or really want to. It’s enough that they make their midwife-birthed children substitute guava nectar for sugar...

They say hygienic reform; I say the 30-hour work week and not stressing if my children eat Kix. Liberalism, as the political philosopher Corey Robin has recently argued, should be above all about freedom. The best reasons to want a labor union, or universal health care, or Social Security are to be free of worry, want, and privation, and to be out from under the hand of the boss. It makes no sense to re-enslave ourselves with fear, worry, and stress.

I couldn't agree more. Too many liberals "have allowed lifestyle decisions about what they wear, eat, and drive to entirely replace a more ambitious program for bettering society; they have no particular beliefs about how to end poverty or strengthen the labor movement, and they don’t understand Obamacare, or really want to." This is just one of the reasons why I'm increasingly disillusioned with liberalism in its current American manifestations.

I'm with Oppenheimer on this. Let's spend more time talking about, say, how to reinvigorate the labor movement and less time stressing about if my children eat Coco Puffs.

...

Read Mark Oppenheimer's full article (he has some great stuff in there, for example how eating fast food is a form of feminist politics): The New Puritans: When Did Liberals Get So Uptight?

Chapter 52 of The Rule of St. Benedict--"The Oratory of the Monastery"--gives directions for keeping the oratory free of noise so that the brothers can use it as a quiet place of prayer throughout the day and night:

²After the Work of God, all should leave in complete silence and with reverence for God, ³so that a brother who may wish to pray alone will not be disturbed...⁴Moreover, if at other times someone chooses to pray privately, he may simply go in and pray...

This is one of the things I love about Catholic churches, how they are open during the day, and often into the evening, for you to enter and pray. Protestant auditoriums--and let's call them what they are, auditoriums--are generally locked up.

Whenever I visit a new city, I love, when I see a Catholic church, popping in to look around and even to pray. You know the door is going to be open and that inside will be a sanctuary, this holy and quiet place. And the change is often startling. And profound.

In a second, crossing the threshold, you are transported from a busy, loud and chaotic street to this quiet sanctuary of peace and prayer.

It's one of the great gifts of the Catholic church, and I've enjoyed it countless times.

In his book Justice Nicholas Wolterstorff coins a great phrase to highlight the concerns in the Old Testament to care and seek justice for the weak and vulnerable. Wolterstorff calls these vulnerable groups "the quartet of the vulnerable": the poor, the foreigner residing within your borders, the orphan and the widow.

The quartet is mentioned, in bits and pieces, all through the Old Testament. One passage where the whole quartet appears:

Zechariah 7:9-10a
This is what the Lord Almighty said: "Administer true justice; show mercy and compassion to one another. Do not oppress the widow or the fatherless, the foreigner or the poor."

Oppression isn't just bad people doing bad things. Oppression is also the product of oppressive laws and political systems. As Dorothy Day put it: "Our problems stem from our acceptance of this filthy, rotten system."

Isaiah 10.1-2
Woe to those who make unjust laws,
to those who issue oppressive decrees,
to deprive the poor of their rights
and withhold justice from the oppressed of my people,
making widows their prey and robbing the fatherless.

There are "unjust laws" and "oppressive decrees" that "deprive the poor of their rights and withhood justice from the oppressed."

And woe to them who make such laws and decrees.

Many of us have been inspired by examples like those of Shane Claiborne and others from the New Monastic movement. We desire a simpler, less consumptive, less acquisitive, less consumeristic, and less materialistic life.

The struggles come with how far you go in any given direction.

Food is a good example. I've always been attracted to vegetarianism. But I generally hate fruits and vegetables. So it's a bit of a struggle. Your choices as a vegetarian eating out are already pretty limited, but if you can't stand--to speak totally hypothetically of course--mushrooms or tomatoes, your choices can evaporate in any given restaurant or dining experience.

But what you can do, I decided, is just eat less meat. If you aren't able to eliminate, you can reduce.

And from that conclusion I reached another conclusion. Beyond meat, you could just eat less overall. Again, not with any aim at being "healthier," though that's a nice side benefit. The goal is shifting to being a more ascetic than consumptive person.

All that to say, if you start wading into a theology of food you can be taken into a million different directions. Most of which are wonderful and laudable. I have friends who are vegans and locavores. I have friends who raise chickens in the city, friends who keep bees, and friends who only eat "God's food."

And me? I just eat less. Snack less. Get a medium rather than a large. Don't go back for seconds. This is simpler for me.

And this applies to more than just food, this idea of less. Three big easy rules are this:

Eat less
Buy less
Drive less

To be sure, these rules won't make you a Shane Claiborne or anything. These rules won't remove you from the webs of economic and industrial complicity. These rules won't make you "clean."

But these rules are simple to remember and easy to implement. While you can buy chickens and should research clothing factories, you can also focus on less. For many of us, less seems more practicable. Less is an asceticism for "ordinary radicals."

And maybe--if more people worked on less--less would, in the end, be more.

Last week I posted about issues related to gender and power in the church arguing that men are "lording over" women in the church and that this is sinful given Jesus' prohibition (e.g., Matthew 20.25-28). Rather than debating proper "gender roles"--whatever those might be--I argued that the only "role" in the church is that of servanthood.

Now the response you often hear in response to an argument like mine is that when men take charge in the church that this is a form of service and servanthood. Being the leaders is how men serve the church. And if this is the case then men aren't lording over by being Lords they are, rather, being servants.

That's an impressive bit of rhetorical derring-do. So allow me to respond.

Here's a simple and easy test to determine if you are actually talking about service or lording over:

A Simple Test of Service:
An activity in the church is truly an act of service if, in principle, every Christian can participate in it.

Basically, if you are excluding people from locations of service then you aren't talking about service, you're talking about power.

Let's take this test out for a test-drive and see how it does:

Case #1:
Man:
I'd like to sew some new curtains for the church offices.

Church:
Wow, you don't see guys sew curtains very much but, sure, knock yourself out. You are good at that.

Case #2:
Woman:
I'd like to be the church handy-man. I'm good with carpentry, electrical work, plumbing and generally knocking stuff down with sledge hammers.

Church:
Wow, you don't often see girls doing that sort of stuff but, sure, knock yourself out. You are good at that.

Case #3:
Woman:
I have an M.Div. degree and was the best preacher in my graduate homiletics class. I'd like to fill in as a guest preacher when we need one as a service to the church.

Church:
No, you can't do that because you're a woman. Even though you are good at that.

Personally, I think this test does a great job showing that the emperor has no clothes with the whole "leadership is an act of service" response. To be sure, leadership is an act of service but it's not an act of service if Holy Spirit-filled Christians are excluded from it.

Which brings me back to the point I made last week. I really don't think this issue is about gender roles. I don't care if you are man who stays at home or if you are woman who is a high-powered CEO. I don't care if you are a man who is a pastry chef or if you are a woman who is a Marine. I don't care if you are a man who works to provide for his family or if you are a stay at home Mom who loves to cook meals everyday for her family. I don't see how any of this--the ways you configure your life and the lives of your marriages and families--has anything to do with the only role we are called to perform in the Kingdom: service.

And to my point today, it's only service if it's universally available to every Christian filled with the Holy Ghost. It's not service if people are being excluded from participation. If you have one group in the church shutting off avenues of service to fellow Christians then we aren't talking about service, we are talking about lording over.

And if Jesus is to believed--let's call a spade a spade--that's a sin.

Sometimes monks had to leave the monastery for pilgrimages or to attend to monastery business. Or sometimes the work of the monk was too far away for them to get back for the prayer service. Chapter 50 of The Rule of St. Benedict addresses these situations by encouraging the traveling and working monks to continue to attend to the work of God (worship) no matter where they are:

³[The brothers] are to perform the Work of God where they are, and kneel out of reverence for God...⁴...to observe as best they can...

One of the most widely used instruments to assess religiosity is Gordon Allport's Religious Orientation Scale (ROS). The scale was developed to assess Allport's theory about religious motivation. According to Allport religious motivation--why you practiced your faith--could be either intrinsic or extrinsic. If your motivations were extrinsic you practiced your faith to get some external reward. Social approbation, perhaps, like Jesus describes in the gospels, practicing your faith "before men" so that you might be socially rewarded by others.

By contrast, someone with an intrinsic religious motivation is someone who is motivated by internal factors, like the love of God, someone who practices their faith in the absence of external rewards and punishments.

Another way to make this contrast is to say that extrinsic motivations treat faith as a means to an end. Intrinsic motivations see faith as an end in itself.

So how might you assess the difference?

One item from the original Religion Orientation Scale is this:

If not prevented by unavoidable circumstances, I attend church.

A key test in this regard is if you go to church when traveling or on vacation. If you do, your intrinsic motivation is very high. You go to church when there is zero external social reward or cost.

As an intrinsically motivated believer, you celebrate the work of God wherever you are.

Benedict would applaud you.

When it comes to egalitarian gender roles in the church most people go to Galatians 3.28, "there is no longer any male or female." That text is huge for me, but the one I regularly go to is this one:

Matthew 20.25-28 (NLT)
But Jesus called them together and said, “You know that the rulers in this world lord it over their people, and officials flaunt their authority over those under them. But among you it will be different. Whoever wants to be a leader among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first among you must become your slave. For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve others and to give his life as a ransom for many.” 

I find a lot about the gender roles debates to be distracting and off-topic. What does it mean to be a man or a woman? What are our proper "gender roles"? Can a man stay at home and a woman be the bread-winner? And so on and so on.

To be sure, these are important questions and important debates. But for me, they are often beside the point.

The problem, as I see it, is less about what men and woman can or can't do than with a group of men in the church exerting power over another group--women. In short, men are "lording over" women in the church, exercising top-down power via a hierarchy. More, this group of men is prohibiting another group (women) from having access and input into the very power structure that is being used against them and excluding them. That's lording over. And gender aside, that sort of lording over is prohibited by Jesus. "But among you it shall be different."  

For example, what rankles in my own local church context is that women have to ask men for permission. Women have to be allowed to do things. And it is this concentration, use and gatekeeping of power that is sinful.

The issue isn't really, fundamentally, about what "roles" men are equipped for versus women. The whole debate about "gender roles" is often beside the point and, I think, often a manipulation to keep our eye off the ball.  Because the only role in the church is the role Jesus took upon himself. The only role in the church is being a servant. 

So when you see a group in the church using and then excluding others from power--rather than eschewing power the way Jesus did--you move about as far away from Jesus as you can get. This is importing into the Kingdom satanic, worldly manifestations of power, bringing sin into the very heart and life of the church.

Dear brothers, repent. Repent and believe the gospel. The Kingdom of God is at hand. 

Among us it shall be different.

Sometimes it all boils down to something simple. For me, it's sin and mercy.

I was reading Sara Miles' book Jesus Freak and came across these lines:

I tried to remember what Jesus preached constantly: mercy. It sounded like an abstract theological principle, but I clung to it to keep me afloat in what was otherwise an inexplicable sea of human sin. Mercy. It was all that could help me give up my self-pity and judgment.

An inexplicable sea of human sin. Whenever Jana and I are trying to explain the stupidity, vanity, meanness, thoughtlessness, shallowness, duplicitousness and self-absorption of ourselves and others we are, more and more often, using this shorthand assessment: "It's just sin."

Which makes us sound like crazy Christian fundamentalists. But the tone we are using is not one of rage and judgment but that of pity, sympathy, and sad resignation. We are, pretty much all the time, a sad and sorry lot. And say what you will about Christian doctrine, but the label "sin" does more to describe the human condition than any term from my discipline of psychology.

And all that sin, in ourselves and in others, demands a response. How are we to live with all this sin? I think Sara Miles has it right in pointing to Jesus. Mercy. That's how we move through the world. That's how we must deal with each other, and with ourselves. Mercy.

More and more, that's what my theology boils down to.

Sin and mercy.

We are past the halfway point of The William Stringfellow Project where I read all of Stringfellow's books, in chronological order, in their first editions. The Project has fourteen titles and we've already gone through seven. The eighth book on the list is A Second Birthday, published by Doubleday in 1970. Original cover pictured here.

A Second Birthday is one of the theological memoirs of Stringfellow's oeuvre, a style he first used with My People is the Enemy and will use again. Specifically, A Second Birthday weaves in Stringfellow's theological observations as he tells the story of his puzzling illness, the precipitous decline in his health, his brush with death, surgery, and recuperation. As far as his life situation is concerned, Stringfellow was no longer living in Harlem but had moved to Block Island with the poet Anthony Towne.

In Part 1 of the book "Ordeal" as Stringfellow's health deteriorates, he dwells upon the experience and theology of pain. Here he observes how American Christianity has avoided a theology of pain, an avoidance that has produced a calloused indifference to suffering:

[G]iven the dignity of the mystery of pain, it is very surprising that so little has been uttered, since Job himself, concerning the theology of pain. American religiosity (as distinguished from biblical faith or theology), meanwhile, remains so hapless and absurd that, generally, it denies the reality of pain or else treats pain as a punishment for immorality. It is such religiose attitudes about pain that explain the profound, and primitive, indifference of institutional religion in America to human suffering occasioned by social injustice.

In Part 2 "Succor" Stringfellow meditates upon his decision to have surgery, a surgery that involved no small risk. In thinking about the theology of decision-making Stringfellow argues that "Decision is a vocational event." By this Stringfellow means that every decision we make, no matter how small or where we might make it, impacts the Christian calling. Every choice is a stone on the path of our vocation, our direction in life. And where should that path lead? What should all our decisions--big and small--be pointing toward? Stringfellow:

Vocation has to do with recognizing life as a gift and honoring the gift in living.

In Stringfellow's case the anxiety was about making the right decision regarding surgery so that he might live another day. But that anxiety, though legitimate, was interfering with his honoring the gift of living today:

In the Gospel, vocation means being a human being, now, and being neither more, nor less, than a human being now...And, thus, each and every decision, whether it seems great or small, whether obviously or subtly a moral problem, becomes and is a vocational event, secreting, as it were, the very issue of existence.

In short, our vocation is simply being a human being, now. Nothing more, nothing less. That's the only real decision we have to make. And we make it every moment of every day, over and over.

Later in Part 2 Stringfellow turns to the issue of prayer, describing the essence of prayer as "a confession of human creatureliness," a recognition of our limitations and ultimate reliance upon God. In describing this Stringfellow offers up this profound (and shocking if you are a delicate soul) meditation on the nature of prayer:

When I write that my own situation in those months of pain and decision can be described as prayer, I do not only recall that during that time I sometimes read the Psalms and they became my psalms, or that, as I have also mentioned, I occasionally cried "Jesus" and that name was my prayer, but I mean that I also at times would shout "Fuck!" and that was no obscenity, but a most earnest prayerful utterance.

In the final analysis, no matter what the vocabulary of prayer, or where muteness displaces words in prayer, the content--what is communicated by an individual in the world before God--in prayer is in each and every circumstance the same and it can be put plainly in one word: Help!

If you've ever suffered greatly (physically or emotionally) I'm sure you will identify with the observation that "Fuck!" can be, at times, the ultimate expression of prayer--an utterance of profound desolation, dependency, weakness, loss, pain, desperation, and vulnerability.

In Part 3 "Recall" Stringfellow reflects upon his decision to have have surgery and the fortuitous events that lead him to his surgeon. This "good luck" prompts Stringfellow to reflect on the nature of divine providence. He concludes that providence isn't God pulling the strings for us, making it all work out just right. Perhaps, Stringfellow argues, "everything is providential":

If everything is providential, then providence means the constant and continual renewal of God's grace in all situations for every person throughout time. If everything is providential then providence refers to God's capacity and His willingness to redeem all of life. It means that no circumstances ever arise which are beyond God's care or reach. It means that the power and reality of death at work concretely in the world is never so ascendant or successful that resurrection--the transcendence of death and the restoration of life--is either irrelevant or precluded. If everything is providential, then the issue in living is the patience and ingenuity of God's grace, and we need never live bereft of hope.

God's providence is the capacity to find life in the midst of the rubble of life. A capacity that requires "the patience and ingenuity of God's grace."

In the final part of the book "Hope" Stringfellow comes successfully through surgery. That he survived his illness and surgery is described by his friends as "a miracle." Stringfellow ends the book by reflecting on that word. He concludes that we use the word to convey our deep sense of gratitude for the gift of life: "I realized that what miracle signified to all who had invoked it about my survival was a gratitude for my recovery from death."

But Stringfellow goes on. A miracle did happen in his recovery and survival. And the miracle was this final realization:

[L]ife is a gift which death does not vitiate or void: faith is the acceptance, honoring, rejoicing in that gift. That being so, in my own story, it did not matter whether I died. Read no resignation or indifference into this confession. It is freedom from the moral bondage to death that enables us to live humanly and to die at any moment without concern.

Or, forsaking words, one can act, that is, anyway, a plainer way to speak.

This is the miracle of resurrection, the "freedom from the moral bondage to death that enables us to live humanly."

And to remind himself of that fact upon returning home Stringfellow named his house:

On Block Island, it is a custom for folk to name their homes. Sometime after immigrating to the Island, I had obtained a sign which I intended to put up for this purpose, but I had not done so. First thing, the morning after that second meal with Bengt and Anthony [a meal that starts off the book after Stringfellow returned home from surgery], I mounted the sign upon the gatepost...

What did Stringfellow name his home? This:

ESCHATON.

The name of his house is "a message," Stringfellow concludes, for his Block Island neighbors "and for everyone else."

Last week I finished my series "On Warfare and Weakness" but I'd like to make some final comments about the relative upsides and downsides of progressive theology and the vision I tried to articulate in my series.

To recap, the series tried to make the following argument:

God is love. This means that God is weak in the world, not exerting top down power over the world. Thus, love exists among a plurality of antagonistic powers, forces of violence and dehumanization, forces we'd call "satanic" in that they are manifestations of anti-love (and, thus, in the Christian imagination anti-Christ). Creating outposts of love in the world--making the Kingdom of God come to earth as it is in heaven--thus involves constant, daily struggle, a spiritual battle and war that is both moral and political, social and individual. And critical to keep in mind in all this is that this battle and war is fought with love and for love. Jesus "wins" a "victory" over satan on the cross. Jesus does battle with satan at Golgotha. That is the paradigmatic example of spiritual warfare. And if that vision has been bastardized in the Christian witness, with "warfare" looking like power and dominion rather than self-giving and weakness, then that is no reason to abandon the metaphor of spiritual warfare but cause to reclaim its biblical roots. Let's not abandon the language of spiritual warfare to heretics. 

Basically, what I'm arguing is this. Progressive theology is rooted in the confession that God is love. My observation is that this confession makes God weak in the world and this weakness implies a "warfare worldview," to use the label of Greg Boyd. So I argue that "spiritual warfare" is the natural language of progressive theology.

As I noted, progressive theology has run away from the spiritual warfare language because it has been too reactionary. That is, progressives have abandoned areas of Christian thought and language that have been contaminated by toxic elements in Christianity. For example, progressives have, as I said, abandoned the language of spiritual warfare because they have seen that language tragically misused and abused. But rather than thumping their bibles to continually point out that Christ's victory over the satan was won on the cross, progressives got timid and evacuated this language altogether. And I think this has damaged progressive theology as it effectively separated progressives from Jesus and his Kingdom proclamation. Dislocated from Jesus progressives had no robustly biblical ways to unpack their central confession that "God is love." Unplugged from Jesus progressives defaulted to liberal humanism. Not a bad move, but the confession "God is love" was thinned and hollowed out to become an insipid vision of liberal tolerance rather than a robust conflict against the forces of dehumanization in the world and in our own hearts.

Okay, with that as an overview and recap of my series let me offer some final reflections as to why I think progressive theology struggles if it eschews the language of spiritual warfare.

First, progressive theology is too focused on epistemology. Progressive theology has generally focused on the epistemological challenges associated with modernity and post-modernity. That is to say it's hard for many modern people to believe in Christian metaphysics, to believe in things like miracles or even God. To be clear, this is why I am attracted to progressive theology. And I think one of the great achievements of progressive theology is found in how it uses doubt as a theological and moral resource. I make this very argument in The Authenticity of Faith.

The trouble is, this focus on doubt only gets you so far down the Christian path. You can give up God for Lent only so often before the novelty wears off and you just start giving up Lent completely. Doubt is a powerful moral and theological resource that cannot be abandoned, but doubt will struggle to sustain Christian practice and witness throughout the lifespan. At the very least, doubt has failed to do this for me. I've needed something else, some positive vision to fight for. I think recovering the language of spiritual warfare can help with this.

Second, progressive theology needs to recover a theology of sin. Progressives have been so worried about judging people--in yet another reaction to toxic forms of Christianity--that they have evacuated the language of sin. If the language of sin is used at all it is usually reserved for structural sin, systemic injustice. But this leaves progresses fairly well mute when it comes to the personal realm, where we experience addiction, infidelity, lust, vanity, and selfishness. This means that progressives have tended to have a great deal to say (usually in Facebook rants) about, say, famines in Africa but less about the moral struggles of day to day living. I think this is a huge hole in progressive theology. And I think recovering the language of spiritual warfare can help with this.

Finally, progressive theology needs to connect better with the poor, uneducated and marginalized. For a variety of reasons the language of spiritual warfare is the idiom of disenfranchised groups. In working with poor and prison populations I've had to learn to talk like a Pentecostal. To be sure, as a progressive I unpack this language in progressive ways (see: Wink and Stringfellow). Regardless, if progressives want to communicate with the poor and marginalized (who also tend to be people of color) they will need to learn to sound a bit more charismatic. Progressives may even--gulp--have to raise their hands during a worship service.

Basically, the language of progressive theology is too white, male and European. I'd recommend less talk about Derrida, Lacan, and Heidegger and more talk about the devil and the Holy Ghost.

And, obviously, I think recovering the language of spiritual warfare can help with this.

In Chapter 49--"The Observance of Lent"--of The Rule of St. Benedict Benedict starts off with this:

The life of a monk ought to be a continuous Lent.

The life of the monk, and I would argue the life of every Christian, should be a continuous life of prayer and fasting, a continuous life of confession and repentance. These aren't to be seasonal activities. Thus, during the season of Lent observances are intensified rather than taken up from scratch: "During these days, therefore, we will add to the usual measure of our service something by way of private prayer and abstinence from food and drink."

I like that phrase, "the usual measure of our service." You shouldn't be going from zero to sixty during Lent. You should already be moving down the road.

Jesus says to his disciples in Mark 10 that "Whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be slave of all."

Paul in Philippians says that we are to "have the same mind that was in Christ Jesus" who "emptied himself" and became a servant.

Why is it so hard to take the last place, to be the least among others, to become a servant?

I think a lot of it boils down to mattering.

We all want to matter. To be the focus of respect, esteem and interest. Thus we spend a lot of time trying to show others our best side. Think about Facebook, how we fill our profiles with happy pictures, notices about our successful children and beautiful photos from vacation.

And what if it is hard to matter in the ways our culture defines "mattering"? What if you don't have a job, don't have kids, or a spouse, or money for the Instragram-worthy vacation?

How do you matter in this culture when you have to take a bus, have your electricity turned off, or need to ask others for food?

Well, you find other ways to matter. For example, I have a friend who doesn't have a great deal in his life--he's poor, has no job, no family to speak of--that would commend himself to others. So he tells stories. You know these stories aren't true, but you don't want to burst his bubble because these stories give him something to share, some news of interest from his week. Most of us have things about family or work to share with each other at church. He doesn't have any of that, so he confabulates to participate in the social mixing. And though his stories don't jibe with reality, you listen attentively and express interest and concern. Because he wants to matter.

I have another friend, in similar circumstances, who uses injury and accidents to matter. Any given week his arm might be in a sling or he might be on crutches. And when you see him you inquire about his most recent injury. And he tells you the story of the accident. And you listen because this is how he matters.

Occasionally I drive a van for our church Freedom Fellowship on Wednesday. Driving that route has taught me that sometimes we matter because of what we know. And even the smallest, thinnest epistemological edge can give you this sense of mattering. At the start, being new to the route the regular passengers knew the locations and best routes to get everyone that needed to be picked up. The first few times I drove I needed help about where to go next. People helped me and it made them feel like they mattered. They knew something that I didn't. Their knowledge allowed them to help me, placed them in a superior position.

But as I've driven more and more I need directions less and less. But still the directions come. I know I need to turn left, they know I know that I need to turn left, but I'm still told to turn left. Why? Because telling me how to go helps them matter. And they are going to hold on to that mattering for as long as possible. And I'm not going to rush them. Sometimes I ask for directions when I don't need them.

Tall tales, new crutches, giving directions. There are ways to matter to others when you feel you don't have much to commend yourself. But this isn't any different, just more transparent, than what all the well-dressed, successful people are doing at church when they visit with each other. We're all just trying to show off and impress each other. It's more subtle and more socially skilled, but it's all the same thing. We all want to matter. For one person it's the crutches for another it's having the Honors student or the new iPhone or the golf score from the weekend or the new dress or the witty remark or the latest gossip or the concert tickets or the new car or the fresh nail job or the recent promotion or the new tan from the cruise.

Look at me, pay attention to me, see me as interesting and worthy of attention. I want to matter.

And I do the same thing. I'll check my blog statistics. How many hits? Subscribers? Comments? Links? Tweets?  I'll check Amazon. Book sales? Reviews?

I want to matter.

Behind it all is a deep-seated insecurity, a dread that if we aren't noticed that we aren't worth anything. And if that's the case, let's revisit Jesus' commands and example from above. How can we become insignificant and small--how can we rest into being unnoticed--given our massive insecurities?

Because I don't think we fail to follow Jesus because we are wicked and depraved.

I think we fail to follow Jesus because we want to matter.

I want to update you on the testicle debate.

Regular readers will recall a post of mine entitled Head Coverings in Worship: Why Female Hair Is a Testicle in which I discuss the work of NT scholar Troy Martin regarding his translation of 1 Corinthians 11.15. Some readers of that post pointed to Mark Goodacre's rebuttal of Martin's translation "testicle" in 1 Cor. 11.15.

I wanted to make interested readers aware that Martin's response to Goodacre appeared last week (Journal of Biblical Literature 132, 2013, 453–465): Περιβόλαιον as “Testicle” in 1 Corinthians 11:15: A Response to Mark Goodacre.

(H/T to my colleague Trevor Thompson for the head's up.)

Reviewing from the previous post, one of Martin's areas of expertise is in using ancient medical texts to illuminate NT passages, particularly passages that seem confusing to us. Given the fact that we don't share the same medical understandings as the NT writers and their audiences when ancient medical terms or ideas are used we can often miss the meaning.

And a good example of this, according to Martin (see: JBL 123, 2004, 75–84), comes from 1 Corinthians 11.2-16.

This passage has caused a lot of head scratching. In this text Paul makes an argument about women needing a head covering during worship. But what is strange about this is that after making this argument Paul seems to undercut and contradict himself.

The passage starts off in vv. 5-6 where Paul makes the argument that a woman should wear a covering to cover her hair during worship because not doing so would be a "disgrace" (NIV).

So far so good. But a few verses later Paul goes on to make an argument from nature that seems to contradict what he has just argued, that a woman's hair is a "disgrace" if uncovered. The perplexing text is v. 15:

...but that if a woman has long hair, it is her glory? For long hair is given to her as a covering.

You can see the problem. In vv. 5-6 the woman's hair needs a covering to avoid disgrace. But in v. 15 a woman's hair is its own covering and her glory. 

So what's the deal? Is a woman's exposed hair disgraceful or a glory? Does a woman need to cover her hair or is her hair its own covering?

This is one of those passages where Martin argues that a proper understanding of ancient medicine, in this case reproductive medicine, can help resolve the apparent paradox. Specifically, Martin argues that the root of the interpretive paradox has to do with the proper interpretation of the word "covering" in v. 15.

The word rendered "covering" in v. 15 is peribolaiou.  Peribolaiou can refer to an outer garment and given the discussions about covering up in this text most translators have gone with this meaning. However, Martin points out that in the ancient world peribolaiou had a wider range of meanings.

Specifically, peribolaiou could refer to testicles. Which raises a question about the connection in the text with women's hair. Why is Paul talking about reproductive anatomy in a discussion about hair?

According to Martin, it has to do with how the ancients understood where sperm was stored and how hair aided the movement of sperm through the body.

Two ideas are important here. First, the ancients saw the head as the place where sperm was stored. Second, the ancients saw hair as functioning like a straw, exerting a sucking force on the sperm. That is, where more hair was located more suction was exerted.

The idea is roughly as follows. A woman has a lot of hair on her head so that, when sperm enters her body during intercourse, the hair can suck the sperm upward and into her body. By contrast, for the man the goal is to pull the sperm downward and out of the body. The testicles were believed to be "weights" that helped exert this downward pull.

What all this means is that, according to the ancients, the hair was a part of reproductive anatomy, with the female's hair functioning as the analog of the male's testicles. The testicles in the male pull semen down and out and the hair of the female pulls the semen up and in.

This is one reason why Paul considers long hair on a man to be problematic. If a man grows his hair long he'll be unable to eject semen as his long hair will exert too much suction upward. A similar line of argument goes for females with short hair.

And all this explains what Paul is saying in 1 Cor. 11.15. Paul's argument is that a woman's long hair is proper to her nature. Why? Well, just as a man has testicles so a woman has long hair. The proper reading of v. 15b is this: "For long hair is given to her as a testicle."

And if a woman's long hair is sort of like a testicle then of course you'd want to keep that covered up during the worship service.

That's a popular-level summary of Martin's work with 1 Cor. 11.15.

But as noted above, readers alerted me to Mark Goodacre's work (JBL 130, 2011, 391–96) contesting Martin's interpreting peribolaiou as "testicle," to which Martin has just recently responded.

Much of their debate swirls around their respective translations of an occurrence of peribolaiou in Euripides’ play Hercules (line 1269). Goodacre argues that if the translation of peribolaiou in this text can't be rendered as "testicle," as Martin argues, then much of Martin's case falters has Martin uses this passage in Euripides as an external and critical bit of evidence for his translation of 1 Cor. 11.15.

Martin responds in two ways. First, Martin defends his interpretation of Euripides. Second, and more importantly in his estimation, Martin argues that the meaning of peribolaiou in 1 Cor. 11.15 has more to do with the immediate context and meaning of that passage than with any external comparison one might make (like the one in Euripides). For Martin, meaning within the immediate context is determinative. Thus he challenges Goodacre to come up with a better translation of 1 Cor. 11.15, one that doesn't make Paul look confused or contradictory. Given that Goodacre doesn't provide an alternative translation that resolves the contradiction in Paul, Martin concludes his paper with this:

After carefully considering Goodacre’s evaluation and article, I conclude that my reading of περιβόλαιον as “testicle” in 1 Cor 11:15 makes better sense of this passage than any other reading proposed thus far. If Goodacre or anyone else can suggest a more cogent reading, I am happy to consider it. Until then, however, I shall continue to read this passage in the only way that makes sense by translating περιβόλαιον in the context of 1 Cor 11:15 as “testicle.”

To conclude, given that all this discussion about translations and testicles might seem a bit irrelevant, let's end with this question, as I did my previous post: what if Martin is right with this translation?

That is, if Martin is right should women today continue to follow Paul's advice to keep their hair/testicles covered in Christian worship? At the end of his 2004 paper Martin concludes:

Informed by this tradition, Paul appropriately instructs women in the service of God to cover their hair since it is part of the female genitalia. According to Paul’s argument, women may pray or prophesy in public worship along with men but only when both are decently attired. Even though no contemporary person would agree with the physiological conceptions informing Paul’s argument from nature for the veiling of women, everyone would agree with his conclusion prohibiting the display of genitalia in public worship. Since the physiological conceptions of the body have changed, however, no physiological reason remains for continuing the practice of covering women’s heads in public worship, and many Christian communities reasonably abandon this practice.

We reach the last post in this series, a series of posts where I tried to sketch out a progressive theology that would be appealing, energizing and richly biblical.

Specifically, I've argued that we should combine the weakness of God with a warfare worldview. The emphasis on the weakness of God gives this theology its progressive appeal, and union with a warfare theology gives it its energy and biblical richness. 

The point in making this connection is that I think in failing to connect with the Christus Victor themes in the bible progressive theology has become too philosophical and abstract. As I said in Part 1, people want a real fight and progressive theology often fails to give them one.

True, progressives are fighters, they fight for peace and justice everyday, they just have trouble connecting that fight to the biblical narrative. Why? Because a lot of the biblical narrative is embarrassing or hard to swallow. In light of that, this series was an attempt to make some connections between progressive thinking regarding the weakness of God and the warfare worldview of the bible to provide a way to speak about and act upon the weakness of God using the "fighting words" of spiritual warfare, words generally found only among Christian fundamentalists.

Because here's the deal. Progressives love Jesus. Love him. The Jesus of the gospels may be the only thing progressives like about Christianity. Jesus is often the only thing keeping progressive Christians in the faith. Progressives love Jesus.

But the truth of the matter is this: If you don't get the battle between Jesus and the satan you don't get Jesus. So if progressive Christians want Jesus they are going to have to figure out a way to get their heads around the fact that Jesus was, first and foremost, an exorcist.

Acts 10.38
God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power, and because God was with him, he went around doing good and healing everyone who was oppressed by the devil.

1 John 3.8b
The Son of God appeared for this purpose, to destroy the works of the devil.

You don't get Jesus until you get the battle he was fighting. No gospel makes this more clear than the very first gospel, the gospel of Mark. Highlights from Mark Chapter 1 where the proclamation of the Kingdom is signaled by Jesus' power over demons:

After John was put in prison, Jesus went into Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God:

“The time has come,” he said. “The kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe the good news!”

[After calling his first followers, Jesus and his disciples] went to Capernaum, and when the Sabbath came, Jesus went into the synagogue and began to teach. The people were amazed at his teaching, because he taught them as one who had authority, not as the teachers of the law.

Just then a man in their synagogue who was possessed by an impure spirit cried out, “What do you want with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are—the Holy One of God!”

“Be quiet!” said Jesus sternly. “Come out of him!”

The impure spirit shook the man violently and came out of him with a shriek. The people were all so amazed that they asked each other, “What is this? A new teaching—and with authority! He even gives orders to impure spirits and they obey him.”

News about him spread quickly over the whole region of Galilee.

That evening after sunset the people brought to Jesus all the sick and demon-possessed. The whole town gathered at the door, and Jesus healed many who had various diseases. He also drove out many demons, but he would not let the demons speak because they knew who he was.

Very early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house and went off to a solitary place, where he prayed. Simon and his companions went to look for him, and when they found him, they exclaimed: “Everyone is looking for you!” Jesus replied, “Let us go somewhere else—to the nearby villages—so I can preach there also. That is why I have come.”

So he traveled throughout Galilee, preaching in their synagogues and driving out demons. 

This victory over the satan was the sign of the inauguration of the Kingdom in our midst. Jesus succinctly summarized this:

Matthew 12.28
But if it is by the Spirit of God that I drive out demons, then the kingdom of God has come upon you. 

And this power was also the key sign of the expansion of the kingdom:

Luke 10.1-3, 17-18
After this the Lord appointed seventy-two others and sent them two by two ahead of him to every town and place where he was about to go. He told them, “The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field. Go! I am sending you out like lambs among wolves..."

The seventy-two returned with joy and said, “Lord, even the demons submit to us in your name.”

He replied, “I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven."

I'm aware that this facet of Jesus' ministry, this defining feature of the Kingdom of God, makes progressives squirm. But the fact has to be faced that the proclamation of the Kingdom is intimately associated with the casting out of demons. A Christus Victor warfare theology sits at the heart of Jesus' life, ministry and teachings. And if you don't get this about Jesus you just don't get Jesus.

And, incidentally, to bring in another voice, N.T. Wright agrees with me on this. If you've read any of Wright's books on Jesus, scholarly or popular, you know that Wright argues that Jesus saw his real enemy to be the satan, that the battle with the satan was the battle Jesus was fighting and calling his followers to fight. And again, if this is so, then I think by eschewing the paradigm of "spiritual warfare" progressives have pulled the plug on their connection with Jesus.

I'm arguing that it's this pulling the plug on Jesus' battle with the satan that has de-energized progressive theology and set it adrift in a search of alternative energy sources such as postmodernism, Democratic politics or "death of god" theologies (in various guises).

To be sure, progressives are not going to see the work of exorcism the same way a Charismatic faith-healer would. Progressives aren't going to see themselves as casting out literal devils. But as I've been arguing, progressives do need to see themselves as doing battle with dark satanic forces, as participating in a battle between two rival Kingdoms. And as we noted in the last post, this battle isn't about "flesh and blood," demonizing out-group members. The battle is against wickedness in "high places," a battle against the oppressive, violent and dehumanizing mechanisms of the world.

[Interlude:
If a progressive pushed me and asked, "What do you think is going on with the demon possession in the gospels?" a sketch of my answer is as follows:

If we bracket the question about the literal existence of demons and demonic possession (I don't want to rule that out for people), I think a lot of our physical, social, political and mental illnesses are produced by internalizing the "spirit of the age," a spirit the New Testament describes as "satan." That is, the cultural air that we breath (the "spirit," "breath," "wind") is toxic and it harms us in a multitude of ways, like breathing in pollution. The spirituality of our world ("the present evil age") creates physical problems like hypertension and obesity. It creates eating disorders, anxiety, depression and addiction. It creates abuse, oppression, violence, and war. It creates economic exploitation and ecological ruin. It creates prejudice and hate. It creates resignation, apathy, and callousness. The list goes on and on.

An all this gets worse as oppression increases. (I'm thinking here of the Roman occupation and the demon "legion.") Oppressive environments have toxic--even lethal--physical, psychological and spiritual effects upon people. Anyone who has walked among the poor and oppressed have seen, first hand, the psychological and spiritual devastation. Oppression creates resignation, despair, criminality, addictions and in-group violence and exploitation. (That's one of the darkest effects of oppression: how it causes oppressed groups to cannibalize themselves while the powers that be sit on the sidelines.) There's a reason the lower classes in America are more likely to be obese, addicted to nicotine, play the lottery, be raped or be arrested. Can we separate the political from the moral/spiritual in these instances?

In short, the "spirit of the age" when it is internalized makes us sick, in all kinds of ways. So it's not surprising to me that in Jesus's day people would manifest, at the very least, these sicknesses in psychosomatic ways that were described as demonic possession in that time and place. And nothing much has changed. Words have changed, but empirically we are facing the same sorts of sickness that Jesus faced. And I think we "cast out" and heal this sickness in the same way Jesus did: radical hospitality. Our sickness is rooted in a fundamental alienation and estrangement. We are "empty" and we fill that emptiness with the "spirit of the age." That spirit then becomes our spirit, the spirit that animates and vivifies us, the spirit that gives us life. But life isn't what we experience. What we experience is sickness.

So healing comes by exorcising this spirit--at every level of causality, from the moral to the structural, as these from a gestalt--and being filled with "the Holy Spirit." This is why we see Jesus breathing on his followers after his resurrection. Jesus is replacing their spirits with his spirit, a spirit characterized by his love, mercy, welcome, community, embrace and solidarity. This is why the inauguration of the Kingdom is associated with exorcism. The Kingdom only comes when the "spirit of the age" is cast out and replaced with the Spirit of Jesus. This is the fundamental practice of exorcism that continues to this very day. When the Spirit of Jesus fills us Satan is cast out and the Kingdom of God is found "within" us and enjoyed "in our midst."]

Here's an important thing to note about all this. In this talk about exorcism I'm not trying to force a pill down the throat of the progressive Christian. This isn't about me "adding on" some mythological mumbo-jumbo to social action and activism. As we've noted, if you take the weakness of God seriously, and many progressives do, you are thrust into this battle. The battle is logically implied by your progressive theology. As we've noted, the weakness of God is what makes the warfare worldview possible.

In short, to be a progressive Christian is to recognize that spiritual warfare is your native and natural language. You were born to be an exorcist. Conservative and fundamentalist Christians have no business talking about spiritual warfare. If you have a high view of God's omnipotent providence and sovereignty you can't have a coherent view of spiritual warfare without implicating God directly in evil and the work of Satan. That is the key point made by Greg Boyd in God at War. And I think he is exactly right.

Warfare implies God's weakness. Weakness implies spiritual warfare.

There are, as we've noted in this series, a plurality of forces in the world. Evils exists in the present age because God is the weak force of love in the world, the power of the cross. And wherever that love reigns the Kingdom of God is in our midst. And the Kingdom comes with the power of exorcism, the casting out of devils, the casting out of the satanic forces of sin, violence and oppression. The Kingdom is found in our midst when we "receive the Holy Spirit." This is a Christus Victor view of salvation where salvation is experienced as deliverance from evil through the power of the cross.

Participating and working for that deliverance is the proper work of the Kingdom and the proper work of the exorcist.

That is what is looks like to follow Jesus, what it means to be a Christian. It means imitating the one who proclaimed the Kingdom of God to be in our midst, following one who went about doing good and healing all those oppressed by the devil.

May you go, and do likewise.

Epilogue

...

To explore more on how progressive Christians can come to see themselves as "exorcists" I recommend the following resources:

Ched Myer's Binding the Strong Man
Walter Wink's Powers Trilogy: Naming the Powers, Unmasking the Powers, and Engaging the Powers
John Howard Yoder's The Politics of Jesus
William Stringfellow's An Ethic for Christians and Other Aliens in a Strange Land
Sara Miles' Jesus Freak: Feeding, Healing, Raising the Dead
Jacques Ellul's The Subversion of Christianity

Please recommend other sources in the comments.

We started this series with a focus on spiritual warfare (Parts 1-3). But we ended up taking a theological detour in the middle posts when we recognized that a warfare theology required rethinking God's power in the world (Part 4).  We did this by taking a cue from John Caputo's The Weakness of God where we posited that God's power in the world is manifested as weakness--as the power of the cross, as the power of love (Part 5). But while a focus on the weakness of God resolves some theodicy issues, it places some pressure on conventional readings of God's power in the biblical narrative, particularly how God's power relates to the origins of evil (Part 6) and to the ultimate defeat of evil (Part 7). Using a creation theology of the quotidian, we followed the Wisdom books and left those questions unresolved, focusing on the experience of spiritual struggle in the everyday (Part 8). Which brings us back to spiritual warfare.

So in the final two posts of this series we want to come back to the issue of spiritual warfare and Greg Boyd's God at War.

My argument is that progressive theology will be energized if it adopts a Christus Victor framework. Not only will this make progressive theology robustly more biblical, it infuses the spiritual experience with a sense of adventure and excitement. Two things that I think are critical if progressive theology wants to have broad popular appeal.

However, the Christus Victor framework is going to need to be recast if it is to be acceptable to progressive and liberal Christians. This was the issue we mentioned in Part 3, which we now return to.

Specifically, as regular readers know, Christus Victor theology views the salvific work of God as being primarily about our emancipation and liberation from dark enslaving forces. Biblically, these forces go by a variety of names--sin, death, Satan, the principalities and powers. In the book of Galatians Paul even describes "the Law" as an oppressive force.

You can run, at this point, in a variety of different directions in how you think about this spiritual conflict. Some might anthropomorphize these spiritual forces, positing literal demons and a literal Satan. And like I said in Part 3, that's fine if you want go in that direction. But many progressive and liberal Christians will struggle with this move. Does that mean progressives won't be able to work with a robust Christus Victor theology?

That's what it often looks like. It seems to be that progressives have been so spooked (pun alert) by the vision of a literal Satan and demons that they have rejected any hint of anything that smacked of "spiritual warfare." And this, in my estimation, is why progressive theology often looks so insipid, unexciting, and boring. In rejecting "spiritual warfare" progressive Christianity gave up on offering a vision of a "real fight."

This is not to say that progressive Christians gave up or lost a fighting spirit. Far, far from it. Progressive Christians are fighting everywhere, tooth and nail, for justice and peace. The problem, as I'm articulating it, is that this fight has been largely divorced from the biblical imagination. I think that is sad as the connections here are so obvious and rich.

For example, last night Jana attended an event at our church that was supporting the ministry of those fighting against sex trafficking in India.  What is going on in the world of sex trafficking is truly demonic and satanic. Thus I think those working in these places of the world can be properly described as "exorcists," as agents of the Kingdom casting out devils. Just as Jesus did.

Because the problem of sex trafficking isn't just about "lust." It's about the spirituality of our age, a spirituality deeply entwined with nations and economies and politics and cultures and worldviews. A hurricane of dark forces that catch up and crush young women. How do you liberate those young women? How do you liberate a world caught up in the hurricane of that dark spirituality?

The battle against these dark forces is what Christus Victor theology is all about. Which is why I think progressive Christians would be energized in taking up the warfare theology of the New Testament. I think progressive Christians would benefit by being a bit more Pentecostal in this regard. Jesus commissioned his disciples to be exorcists. And I think progressive Christians need to start seeing themselves as so commissioned.

Dear progressive Christian, take a pass on Derrida, the micro-brews, the hipsterism. Be an exorcist. Start casting out devils.

Of course, such language is going to make a lot of progressives uneasy. But let me make a strange claim. I actually think, if progressive Christians started to think and talk this way, that they are well-positioned to help us better recover a more biblical notion of what spiritual warfare is supposed to look like.

Because if you look at the language in the bible regarding "the principalities and powers" you quickly see that these forces were often distributed and/or hierarchical forms of power. Yes, these were both spiritual and physical forms of power, but they were often conflated in ways that made them hard to separate. Caesar, for example, as a "son of God." Political power simply was an expression of spiritual power. And the point for our purposes is that the battle against "demons" is less about spooky spirits inhabiting human beings than in confronting the way the world works. I don't know if Adolf Hitler was literally demon possessed. But there was something demonic about how he was able to rise to power and do what he did. He couldn't have done it alone. The demonic forces at work in the rise of Nazism are not so easily localized. Nor are they in the fight against sex trafficking. Or in the battle against poverty.

In short, what is corrupted is, to use biblical language, "the present evil age." What is demonically infested is the way the world works.

And this is why I think progressives can help recover this biblical insight about the principalities and powers. Progressives have always focused on corrupt power arrangements and systems, on the way the world works. Thus, progressives are well-positioned help us see that "our battle is not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places."

Confronting the wickedness in high places is the proper work of spiritual warfare.

And let me make one final observation.

While it is true, as I've been arguing, that progressives can help us recover central aspects of spiritual warfare by focusing us on "wickedness in high places," I also think the paradigm of spiritual warfare can pull progressives toward a more holistic practice of Christianity. That is, I think the paradigm of spiritual warfare can help ameliorate some of the weaknesses of progressive Christianity.

Specifically, spiritual warfare can help up link up the political/structural with the moral/personal. Generally, these spheres have been divided up between liberal and conservative Christians, with liberal Christians focusing on the political/structural and conservatives on the moral/personal. But I think this divide can be bridged if progressives adopt a spiritual warfare framework as it allows us to do battle with "the present evil age"--to become exorcists--at every level of the problem, from the personal on up to the structural. For example, the battle against sex trafficking is both a battle against lust (personal) and great structural evils. Same goes for poverty. For progressives it's not just about famines in Africa and global economic inequity. It's also about opening your home and life to poor people.

In short, our battle against the principalities and powers is both political and pietistic. Progressives have tended to be dismissive of piety, and yet some of their greatest icons, from St. Francis to Gandhi to Mother Teresa to Dorothy Day to Dietrich Bonhoeffer, were extraordinarily pietistic. And that piety is what gave their social witness such potency. And this is, in my opinion, another part of the reason why progressive theology has become insipid and uninteresting for many people. Liberal theology is intellectually stimulating, but holy lives connected to a social witness are what will attract people.

In short, there are devils to be cast out all over the place, from the personal to the structural. There is addiction and economic inequity, there is lust and sex trafficking, and there is forgiving each other seventy times seven and global peace-keeping.

So calling all exorcists. Progressive Christian...I'm looking at you.

Part 10