Clarion: Journal of Spirituality and Justice

Satan and Empire -- by Brian Zahnd

by BRIAN ZAHND on JANUARY 25, 2012

Satan and Empire

When asked to identify the origin of Satan we are commonly directed to Isaiah 14. This is the passage where the King of Babylon is called Lucifer (Day Star) and described as “fallen from heaven” after coveting the throne of God.  But what should be readily apparent is that Isaiah is giving us a prophetic critique of empire by using the king of Babylon as a personification for the whole imperial project. This is quite clear from a simple reading of the text. Throughout Scripture (and especially in the book of Revelation) Babylon remains a prophetic symbol of empire and the kingdom of Satan.

Here are a few thoughts from Isaiah 14…

The Advent of Imagination -- by Brian Zahnd

___________________________________________________________

The Advent of Imagination
by Brian Zahnd

Are we lacking in imagination, we children of Cain
We of the ancient, worn-out myopic Idea
(Long since unworthy of that noble name)
The horrid idea born a bastard east of Eden—
Kill Abel and pretend we don’t know he’s our brother
Kill Abel and pretend we don’t know better?

Are we so appallingly lacking in imagination
That we have no freedom because we have no choices?
That which has been is what will be
That which is done is what will be done
There is nothing new under the sun
Thus spake the Preacher who lost his imagination
Thus chanted the Preacher in his mantra of despair.
(What we need is a greater than Solomon to arrive on the scene!)

Rhythm (Redo) - Brian Zahnd

Rhythm (Redo) Posted: 21 Nov 2011 01:14 PM PST I’ve been thinking about Advent today. It starts Sunday, you know. (For those of us at Word of Life it really starts Friday night with our Thanksgiving Communion Service and Christmas Tree Lighting.) Anyway, alert reader Gerald Lewis reminded me of this four and half year old post and it seems apropos. So with a few alterations, here is Rhythm (Redo). RHYTHM Life is full of rhythm. The daily rhythm of sunrise and sunset. The seasonal rhythm of winter, spring, summer, fall. The lunar rhythm seen in the cycles of the moon. When we consider the human body we can say life is rhythm. The steady rhythm of breathing. The syncopated rhythm of the heart. The many rhythms of a healthy body. When your body is out of rhythm you are sick. If the rhythm is not restored you are dead.

Constitutional Democracies and Burst Wineskins - Brian Zahnd

The conservative evangelical political position in America is basically this: We have our Constitution -- created by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and Thomas Jefferson. It is a good thing; almost inspired. It has served us well and helped make us great. We believe in Jesus Christ and his gospel. So we will elect Christians to political office so that we can be a Christian nation. We will pour the good wine of the gospel into the good wineskin of our Constitutional democracy. But it will never work. The Deist-created, Enlightenment-influenced wineskin of modern liberal democracy can never contain the powerful wine of the kingdom gospel of Jesus Christ. In the end one will ruin the other; both will ruin one another. We cannot form a modern nation-state around the Sermon on the Mount and Jesus' gospel of the kingdom. The two agendas are incompatible. Only the new wineskin of the church (as a radical alternative community) is capable of containing and communicating the powerful wine of Jesus' gospel. The agenda of the "Religious Right" (or the "Religious Left" for that matter) amounts to pouring new wine into old wineskins. I think I'm right about this. But what about leaven and dough? Somehow I think there is a subtle, but essential distinction. Yes, we exist within the wider culture as a "leavening" influence. But we are under no illusion that the political structures of this age can be a faithful expression of the kingdom of Christ. The role of leaven in the dough is to make it rise; to transform it. This is what we can do (to a limited extent) within the wider society. But the role of leaven in dough is different than wine in a wineskin. The function of a wineskin is to contain, preserve, transport and administer wine. This is something the political state can never do. Our understanding of the complicated relationship of the church to the political state should not only be informed by the parable of leaven and dough, it should also be informed by the parable of wine and wineskins. Bottom line: The constitutional democracies of modern nation-states is an inadequate wineskin for the gospel of Jesus Christ.

 

A Dream, The Samaritan Woman, and The Voice of God - by Eric Janzen

This past summer I had a dream. I found myself in a church service standing in the midst of a large circle of people. As I looked around the circle, I was startled to see that they were more like zombies than anything; their faces were thin and gaunt, their skin pale and wan, their eyelids half closed. I was frightened by the sight and I said,

“What’s wrong with these people?”

The Lord spoke to me in the dream and said, “They are passing away because they are not hearing my prophetic words for them. Their spirits are drying up within them.”

I was both saddened and disturbed. I knew I could not go around the circle and prophesy over every single person there. As I looked about, my eyes came to rest on a man and the Lord said “Go, prophesy over him.” So I went.

There were three or four people with me in the dream and we gathered around the man and began to prophesy over him. “Seek first the Kingdom of God and his righteousness will be added to you. You can't attain it...you can't obtain it...he will add it to you.” The man was overcome with emotion and he fell to the ground weeping. He was a youth pastor from somewhere in the United States, and as we prophesied over him concerning his ministry he physically changed before my eyes. His body filled out, the colour returned to his skin, even his hair began to grow.

Then I woke up. I looked to the bedroom ceiling and silently prayed so as not to wake my wife, “What was that Lord!?”

Brian Zahnd on Merton's 'Moral Theology of the Devil'

The Moral Theology of the Devil Posted: 03 Oct 2011 09:12 PM PDT Tonight I watched part two of the Ken Burn’ film “Prohibition” on PBS—a brilliant documentary on America’s fourteen year ill-fated war on alcohol. It’s a classic study in good intentions gone wrong. It’s a penetrating look at the fallacy of thinking, “If we can just pass this or that legislation, we can produce a righteous society.” Anyway, it’s a well-done documentary about a strange time in American history. After the documentary I decided to read a random chapter from Thomas Merton’sNew Seeds of Contemplation. I chose a chapter entitled “The Moral Theology of the Devil.” It turned out to be entirely apropos for my state of mind. Here are some selections from the chapter.

Hints and Guesses by Brian Zahnd

Hints and Guesses Posted: 30 Sep 2011 11:15 PM PDT   Hints and Guesses My favorite thought is the Incarnation. My favorite poet (after Dylan) is T.S. Eliot. Here is a snippet of T.S. Eliot poetry that touches on Incarnation. ____________________________________________ Men’s curiosity searches past and future And clings to that dimension. But to apprehend The point of intersection of the timeless With time, is an occupation for the saint— No occupation either, but something given And taken, in a lifetime’s death in love, Ardour and selflessness and self-surrender. For most of us, there is only the unattended Moment, the moment in and out of time, The distraction fit, lost in a shaft of sunlight, The wild thyme unseen, or the winter lightning Or the waterfall, or music heard so deeply That it is not heard at all, but you are the music While the music lasts. These are only hints and guesses, Hints followed by guesses; and the rest Is prayer, observance, discipline, thought and action. The hint half guessed, the gift half understood, is Incarnation. —T.S. Eliot, Four Quartets, The Dry Salvages (from stanza V) ____________________________________________ How do we grapple with the Incarnation?— Such an elusive idea. (God become human!) How do we contemplate the Incarnation?— In a way that has meaning for our lives? Hints and guesses. But mostly by prayer, observance, discipline, thought and action. Amen. BZ (The artwork is “Blue (Moby Dick)” by Jason Pollock. Suggest soundtrack is Bon Iver.)

 

That Preacher of Peace by Brian Zahnd

by BRIAN ZAHND on SEPTEMBER 12, 2011

That Preacher of Peace
by Brian Zahnd

In his bizarre and surrealistic novel, The Master and Margarita, the critically acclaimed 20th century Russian writer Mikhail Bulgakov creates a fascinating conversation between the Roman governor Pontius Pilate and the Galilean preacher Yeshua. When asked about his views on government, Bulgakov’s Yeshua says, “All power is a form of violence over people.” Yeshua goes on to contrast the governments of power and violence with the peaceable kingdom of truth and justice. In response Pontius Pilate rages, “There never has been, nor yet shall be a greater or more perfect government in this world than the rule of the emperor Tiberius!” When Pilate asks Yeshua if he believes this kingdom of truth will come, Yeshua answers with conviction, “It will.” Of course, Pilate cannot and will not stand for this.

“It will never come!” Pilate suddenly shouted in a voice so terrible that Yeshua staggered back. Many years ago in the Valley of the Virgins Pilate had shouted in that same voice to his horsemen: “Cut them down! Cut them down!”…And again he raised his parade-ground voice, barking out the words so that they would be heard in the garden: “Criminal! Criminal! Criminal!”…“Do you imagine, you miserable creature, that a Roman Procurator could release a man who has said what you have said to me?…I don’t believe in your ideas!”

Saints and Sages by Brian Zahnd

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This morning I read an op-ed piece by a local freelance journalist entitled “Finding Their Religion”. In the column the journalist writes rather disparagingly about “organized religion,” likening it, as Nietzsche did, to “herd mentality.” The writer tells us how she vowed that her children would never be part of the religious herd. Instead, her children will be left to “find their own path” so that they might possess “beliefs they can wholly claim.”

Yes, authenticity is the order of the day.

God is Like Jesus by Brian Zahnd

God is like Jesus.
God has always been like Jesus.
There has never been a time when God was not like Jesus.
We have not always known what God is like—
But now we do.

Consider these two foundational truths of Christian theology:

1. God is immutable. i.e. God does not change and is not subject to change.

2. God is perfectly revealed in Jesus. i.e. Jesus does notchange God, Jesus reveals God.

(see John 1:1, 14-18; 5:19-21; 7:28-29; 8:19; 10:28-30; 12:44-46; 14:7-9)

Understanding that God is immutable and that God like Jesus is essential to our understanding of salvation. We must not think that salvation comes about because Jesus placates God (thus changing God) or that God is obligated to satisfy retributive justice in order to forgive sin (thus making God subordinate to a higher justice). Salvation comes about because Jesus reveals the Father and does the Father’s work. Jesus tells us that the great work of the Father is to give life to the dead (see John 5 and 11). Thus the primary problem the Gospel addresses is not personal guilt (though this is included), but human subjugation to death. If we think judicial guilt is the primary problem of sin, instead of death (and then falsely imagine that God killed Jesus instead of sinful humanity!), we greatly misrepresent the nature of salvation and concoct a distorted gospel where Jesus is saving us from God. No! Jesus reveals the Father, does the work of the Father, and saves us from the dominion of sin and death.

The Apostle Paul tells us that God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself…not reconciling himself to the world. The cross doesn’t change God (God is immutable). The cross shames the principalities and powers (exposing their claim to wisdom and justice as a naked bid for power) and changes us!

To hear my full sermon on this topic, the podcast is available here.

BZ

 

“Evil is to be overcome by forgiveness. As likewise is violence.”
-John Milbank, Christ the Exception

Jesus gives us an alternative to violence. Forgiveness. Jesus didn’t just theorize about it, he lived it. On the cross Christ made his message credible. He lived it all the way to the end. And calls us to follow him.

I believe most of us long for it to be true. We long for the Jesus way to be the beautiful alternative to the ugly way of violence. Romanticized violence can be appealing—imagined musketeers and Hollywood shoot ‘em ups—but real violence is always ugly. In a world awash in endless cycles of violence we know it’s appalling and we wonder if the beautiful way of Christ is a viable alternative.

Manhood Is Not Brutality -- by Brian Zahnd

Rage—Goddess, sing the rage of Peleus’ son Achilles,
murderous, doomed, that cost the Achaeans countless losses,
hurling down to the House of the Death so many sturdy souls,
great fighters’ souls, but made their bodies carrion,
feasts for the dogs and birds,
and the will of Zeus was moving toward its end.
Begin, Muse, when the two first broke and clashed,
Agamemnon lord of men and brilliant Achilles.
—The Iliad

Western civilization has always had two competing sacred texts: The Iliad and the Bible. We have long pretended we can form a nice synthesis of the two—that Homer’s Achilles and Isaiah’s Immanuel are somehow compatible ideals, but they are not. The rage of Achilles and the peace of Immanuel are fundamentally contradictory visions for the ideal of humanity in general and of manhood in particular. Those who derive their ideal of manhood from the pagan vision personified in Achilles will never be able to reconcile it with the ideal of manhood depicted in Christ. Achilles or Christ? Who is our model of manhood? We must choose. We must choose between the brutal way of Achilles and the peaceable way of Christ. And if you feel compelled to appeal to the whip-wielding Christ in the temple as an attempt to synthesize the two, let me simply say that Christ cleansing the temple is a world away from the violence of The Iliad that dominates imaginations from Homer to Hollywood; i.e. Jesus’ prophetic protest against religious exploitation is no endorsement of a “Walker, Texas Ranger” version of Messiah!

Thinking Tikkun Olam in Istanbul by Brian Zahnd

I’m sitting on a rooftop in Istanbul. I’m thinking. Thinking about the world. Thinking about Jesus. I’m thinking about Jesus as the savior of the world and the Jewish concept of tikkun olam (“to mend the world”).

The world is broken.
It needs mending.
Jesus is the answer.
Jesus is the savior.
Jesus is the savior of the world.

This is the confession of the gospel.
This is the witness of the apostles and prophets.
Consistently, repeatedly, scripturally, evangelistically, apostolically.
Jesus is the savior of the world!
Liberate it from cliché and dare to conceive it in a real and radical way.
Believe it in a fresh, invigorating, imaginative way.
Jesus
saves
the
world
!!!
This world! 
(And not some other.)

OK, but what shall we do with this apostolic faith in Jesus as the savior of the world?

So you say you want a prophet? by Brian Zahnd

Posted: 06 May 2011 11:39 AM PDT

So you say you want a prophet? Because you want to know the truth that lies beyond the official script. You want to see beyond the matrix. Good for you! But keep in mind what prophets are. Prophets are seers. They see what we do not. They’ve seen behind the curtain. They’re not fooled by smooth words or slight of hand. The prophet is vital because the prophet can help us recover our imagination. We had an imagination once, as children (children who could enter the kingdom of God); but we grew up and that imagination got conscripted by the so-called “real world.” Yes, we need the help of the prophet to recover our imagination. But remember, the prophet is ever and always controversial. The prophet doesn’t salute the status quo, the prophet offers his withering critique. The prophet dares to speak of other alternatives—alternatives that some will find threatening. The powers-that-be are wary of the prophets and their poetic imaginations…as well they should be. But you still want to find the prophet, don’t you? You want to see beyond the veil, don’t you? You want to hear something other than the “approved statement,” don’t you? That’s what I thought. So ladies and gentlemen, I give you Wendell Berry—the farmer-prophet from Kentucky. (Amos was a farmer-prophet too, wasn’t he?) But keep in mind prophets are not safe. Prophets aren’t ear-ticklers, they’re butt-kickers! So if you can handle a dose of prophetic truth, well, here goes…

Despite its protests to the contrary, modern Christianity has become willy-nilly the religion of the state and the economic status quo. Because it has been so exclusively dedicated to incanting anemic souls into heaven, it has, by a kind of ignorance, been made the tool of much earthly villainy. It has, for the most part, stood silently by, while a predatory economy has ravaged the world, destroyed its natural beauty and health, divided and plundered its human communities and households. It has flown the flag and chanted the slogans of empire. It has assumed with the economists that “economic forces” automatically work for good, and has assumed with the industrialists and militarists that technology determines history. It has assumed with almost everybody that “progress” is good, that it is good to be modern and up with the times. It has admired Caesar and comforted him in his depredations and defaults. But in its de facto alliance with Caesar, Christianity connives directly in the murder of Creation. For, in these days, Caesar is no longer a mere destroyer of armies, cities, and nations. He is a contradictor of the fundamental miracle of life. A part of the normal practice of his power is his willingness to destroy the world. He prays, he says, and churches everywhere compliantly pray with him. But he is praying to a God whose works he is prepared at any moment to destroy. What could be more wicked than that, or more mad?

(This is from Wendell Berry’s sermon Christianity and the Survival of Creation.)

BZ

 

"Come with me." - by Brian Zahnd

The knowledge of God’s mystery is Christ.
–The Apostle Paul

Our hearts are restless until they find their rest in Thee.
–Saint Augustine

I dreamed I saw St. Augustine, alive as you or me.
–Bob Dylan

A bit of autobiography, because we are our stories
And we are known in the telling of our stories…

It was a Sunday afternoon in June and I was sitting on my porch reading a very old book. The book was The Confessions of Saint Augustine and I was reading it primarily because I was somewhat embarrassed that I never had. I knew Saint Augustine was a towering figure whose influence on the church and Christian thought cannot be overemphasized, so I eventually decided I ought to read his spiritual autobiography. Some have called Confessions the first real autobiography in history and if not the first it is certainly one of the most influential. Written 1,600 years ago, the entire book is a prayer—that is, it is addressed to God in the form of a three hundred page prayer of thanksgiving as Augustine reviews his life from his days as a profligate sinner to his life-altering encounter with Jesus Christ. As I sat with old Saint Augustine on my porch that Sunday afternoon, I had no inkling that the story of a fourth century church father would become a pivotal point in my own spiritual pilgrimage. But because it’s a great story and also because it pertains to what I want to tell you, let me share with you how Augustine became a Christian.

The Children of Cain - by Brian Zahnd

This post consists of an excerpt from chapter nine of All Quiet On The Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque.

Remarque was a German veteran of World War I. (He later became an American citizen.) Remarque published All Quiet On The Western Front in 1929. It sold two and half million copies in the first eighteen months. Some have describe it as the most honest account of war ever written. German soldiers would simply say of Remarque’s book, “So ist es gewsen!” (That’s the way it was!)

And if you ask me what this post has to do with Holy Week, I will simply answer, much!

Read it thoughtfully.

I have entitled this excerpt as…

The Children of Cain Have a Conversation Concerning the Legacy Bequeathed Them.

Give 'em hell Harry -- by Brian Zahnd

Artwork "Way to Hades" by Sanjay Sonwani

Thinking.

Preface: I tend to see a lot our evangelical ills as connected with the seduction of empire. (Or as I call it in public these days, “superpower.” Because people who reject the notion that the United States is an empire, will proudly claim the moniker of “superpower.” So, empire, superpower, it doesn’t matter to me, both fall under the same prophetic critique.) Anyway, I realize I tend to pull a lot of diverse things into my critique of evangelicalism’s unholy allegiance to the compromised values of a superpower, so I could be off base here. But I don’t think I am.

Hell. Hell as an afterlife torture chamber generated by a wrathful God who is personally offended at the transgressions of sinners. (As opposed to sin-generated contemporary Gehennas and whatever afterlife self-imposed exiles and adverse reactions to the love of God there may be [which have the potential to be “forever” and are for ever…until they are not.]) That Hell—the punitive Hell of Jonathan Edward’s angry God (where the wrath of God is understood, not as an anthropomorphism for the consequences of sin in a universe created with a default mode of goodness, but as the literal fury of an offended deity)—that Hell serves a useful purpose in the psyche of those committed to the necessary violence of an empire…I mean, superpower.

In my reading of Cain and Abel, the city Cain built, Abraham’s quest for a different kind of city, especially in Jesus’ cryptic comments about lies and murder in John 8, and finally the city of God unveiled in the Apocalypse, allegiance to violence lies at the heart of much of what God in Christ is saving the world from.

But the good folk living in a superpower have a hard time hearing this. Because even if they only know it subconsciously, there is an intuition that our (all important!) lifestyle is maintained by violence. It’s simply the way the world is, if it is arranged around an axis of power enforced by violence. This is the world of Cain’s city and Pilate’s truth—the world of violence, collective murder, and the lies we tell ourselves about it.

So if the God of the Bible is ultimately a raging violent deity hurling his enemies into a burning hell, we have a powerful warrant for the necessity of utilizing violence for achieving our own good ends.

For example: If those godless Japs are headed to an eternal hell anyway, what’s the big deal if Harry Truman orders Hiroshima and Nagasaki turned into temporal hells? (Ironic factoid: Truman’s nickname was “Give ‘em hell Harry”) And if today we need to give some Muslims a taste of burning hell from an Apache helicopter, it’s nothing compared to what God is going to give them later on! So praise the Lord and pass the ammunition! (Or is it praise the ammunition and pass the Lord?)

Yes, I think an “infernalist” view of hell (thank you for that term, Brad) is intimately connected to our still largely unchallenged allegiance to violence, a problem which is especially exaggerated in a superpower culture. I have anecdotal evidence of this. On several occasions when I have challenged our allegiance to violence by appealing to the Sermon on the Mount, I have been “trumped” by hell. People do connect the dots. And then look for an escape. They look for an someone to save them from the “impossible” demands of Jesus. Sometimes they go backward into the Old Testament and use Joshua to save them from Jesus (“Well, in the Old Testament God commanded war.”) Sometimes they leap forward into a literalist interpretation of Revelation and use Edward’s angry and violent God to save them from Jesus. (“God is not opposed to violence, look what he does in Revelation!”)

What I’m saying is that violence and our acceptance or rejection of it has a lot to do with how we form our eschatology, atonement theory, and ideas of eternal judgment.

And empire has a hell of a lot to do with our desire to find a way for violence to be baptized in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. One of the ways we do this is to imagine that God himself is eternally addicted to violence.

But I don’t believe it.

God is like Jesus.

God has always been like Jesus.

There has never been a time when God was not like Jesus.

We have not always known this.

But now we do.

 

Of Hitler and Lilies -- by Brian Zahnd

“Consider the lilies.”
—Jesus

Leonard Woolf (1880-1969), the English writer, political theorist and husband of Virginia Woolf, wrote a book entitled Downhill All The Way. Published in 1966, it is an autobiographical account of the years leading up to World War II. Leonard Woolf closes Downhill All The Way with these words:

I will end with a little scene that took place in the last months of peace. They were the most terrible months of my life, for helplessly and hopelessly one watched the inevitable approach of war. One of the most horrible things at that time was to listen on the wireless to the speeches of Hitler—the savage and insane ravings of a vindictive underdog who suddenly saw himself to be all powerful. We were at Rodmell during the late summer of 1939 and I used to listen to those ranting, raving speeches. One afternoon I was planting in the orchard under an apple-tree iris reticulata, those lovely violet flowers, which like the daffodils come before the swallow dares and take the winds of March with beauty. Suddenly I heard Virginia’s voice calling to me from the sitting room window: “Hitler is making a speech.” I shouted back, “I shan’t come. I’m planting iris and they will be flowering long after he is dead.” Last March, twenty-one years after Hitler committed suicide in the bunker, a few of those violet flowers still flowered under the apple-tree in the orchard.

Consider the lilies.
Fear no evil.
Fret not because of evil men.
Trust in the Lord with all your heart.
This too shall pass.
Amen.

BZ

Bust of Leonard Woolf in the orchard at Rodmell.

The irises beneath the apple-tree.

(The painting is Irises by Vincent Van Gogh.)

 

American Exceptionalism by Brian Zahnd

American Exceptionalism: The theory that the United States occupies a special place among the nations of the world and possesses a unique destiny in history.

I’ve heard it said, “American Exceptionalism is simply a fact.”

I’m sure it is.

Just like Greek Exceptionalism and Roman Exceptionalism and British Exceptionalism were facts too.

If you’re not exceptional, you’re just another nation. “Exceptionalism” is required of a superpower. It’s what gives cred to the “We’re number one!” chant.

But you’ll have to excuse me if I don’t get too excited about Greco-Roman-British-American Exceptionalism—or any the geopolitical claim to be exceptional.

(There really is a big difference between being truly exceptional and merely the latest in a long line.)

American Exceptionalism. This too shall pass. There’s only one exception.

The Kingdom which endures world without end. The Empire of Christ.

The Beatitudes by Brian Zahnd

People have asked for the “BZV” Beatitudes. So here they are.

Blessed are those who are poor at being spiritual,
For the kingdom of God is well-suited for ordinary people.

Blessed are the depressed who mourn and grieve,
For they create space to encounter comfort from another.

Blessed are the quiet and content, the humble and unassuming, the gentle and trusting who are not grasping and clutching, for God will personally guarantee their share when heaven and earth become one.

Blessed are those who ache for the world to be made right,
For them the government of God is a dream come true.

Blessed are those who give mercy,
For they will get it back when they need it most.

Blessed are those who have a clean window in their soul,
For they will perceive God when and where others don’t.

Blessed are the peaceful bridge-builders in a war-torn world,
For they are God’s children working in the family business.

Blessed are those who are mocked and misunderstood for all the right reasons,
For the kingdom of heaven comes to earth amidst much persecution.

BZ

(The painting is The Sermon on the Mount by Fra Angelico)

 

The Church as an Alternative Society by Brian Zahnd

Charisma Magazine asked me to write an op-ed addressing this question: Can Christians save the mess that is today’s American political scene? Better yet, should we? I was asked to represent the position that the church is an alternative society and our role of prophetic voice is better served when we remain transcendent to political partisanship. I was given a thousand words. Of course I explained that the relationship of the church to the state is one of the most complex issues we have faced in our two thousand year history and it would take at least a thousand pages to adequately address this topic. Nevertheless, I took a shot at it. Here are my 999 words on the subject:

The Church as an Alternative Society
By Brian Zahnd

Truth, Violence and Love -- by Brian Zahnd

What is truth?

This was Pilate’s famous ironic question of Christ. A short time later—after Jesus had been scourged and was now standing before Pilate wearing a crown of thorns—Pilate answered his own question when he said to Jesus, “Do you not know that I have power to crucify you?” In this moment the “truth” came out. For in the end it is the power of violence that is the ultimate truth for the principalities and powers. The “truth” of violence is the axis around which the world ruled by the principalities and powers revolves. It is their centering principle. It is the bottom line for those under the spell of “the ruler of this world.”

Pragmatism is the ultimate truth of empire, and the ultimate pragmatism is violence. (Though ordinarily great effort is expended to conceal this “awful truth”.) So despite the fact that noble virtues are often present within the empire (family, justice, service, etc.), the axis of empire, the centering principle, the final truth is violence. This was certainly true of Rome.

What is truth?

Christian Obsession with Political Power -- Brian Zahnd

Excerpt from a letter to Clancy Martin (Nietzschean scholar):

Christian obsession with political power drives me crazy! It is so damaging to the Christian message. The notion that Christians should "change the world" is little more than a quest for dominance (Will to Power?). In any case I'm absolutely convinced that what fuels the deep passion of the Religious Right is what Nietzsche called ressentiment. The Religious Right feeds on a narrative of perceived injury and lost entitlement leading them to blame, vilify and seek to in some way retaliate against those they imagine to be responsible for the loss in late modernity of a mythical past that was "Christian America." This is ressentiment. 

"Your moralism is killing you" by Brian Zahnd

  I'll never forget the time I was sitting at the Starbucks in downtown Estes Park, Colorado with my friend Brad Jersak and his relating to me how Archbishop Lazar Puhalo of the Orthodox Church of Canada had replied upon being asked, "What message would you have for the evangelical church?" The Archbishop's reply was this:

"Your moralism is killing you."

Wow! That hit me like a ton of bricks. And the line has stuck with me ever since. "Your moralism is killing you." Sometimes it takes the perspective of an outsider to get to the heart of the matter. Orthodoxy has its own issues to contend with, but as far as I'm concerned Archbishop Lazar's diagnosis of the chief malady within evangelicalism is right on target. Our moralism is killing us. But Jesus wants to save us!
Here is another quote from Archbishop Lazar which expounds upon the topic.

"If our faith is primarily a mantra to drive away punishment, our faith isn’t really a faith, it is a fear. We feign faith in order to keep from being punished. When we do that it usually manifests itself as a kind of harsh and brutal moralism. Because in this system it is psychologically comforting to see ourselves as better than other people. Thus trying to hype up our ego leads us to a kind of moralism where we have to denigrate others in order to make ourselves feel better." -Archbishop Lazar

Alright, that's all I wanted to share with you, but if you are interested in more of this conversation you can view theSymposium on Deep Structural Fear with my friends Brad Jersak, Ron Dart and Archbishop Lazar. It will be well worth your time.
Grace and Peace,
BZ
Symposium on Deep Structural Fear from Orthodox Canada on Vimeo.

Ten Flags by Blind Man at the Gate

Ten Flags

by Blind Man at the Gate

(This poem is mostly true)

 

Today I saw ten flags in ten minutes

Of the stars and stripes variety

Three were flown from churches

With marquees that said things like

“Celebrate Freedom”

Five were flown in front of banks

The biggest one waved proudly above a

Perkins Restaurant

(Omelettes starting at $6.99)

The highest one flew atop a

Wal-Mart

Of the Supercenter variety

(Open 24 hrs)

Ain’t this America

With liberty and justice and omelettes

And low mortgage refinancing for all

Freedom is what it’s called

Freedom is what it’s about

Freedom is what we’re fighting for

Just remember buckaroo

Freedom isn’t free

It starts at $6.99

With 7.39% APR financing

(Rates adjust annually thereafter)

O say!

Does that Star Spangled Banner yet wave

O’er

Churches and Banks and Perkins and Wal-Mart?

Freedom^© made in America^®

Freedom of religion and commerce and omelette

Freedom to buy cheap apparel made in China

I’m proud to be an American

Where at least I know I’m free

Ev’ry heart beats true

‘Neath the Red, White and Blue

Support our troops

Buy American. Save Jobs.

Financing options available

Today I saw ten flags in ten minutes

For the Common Good by Brian Zahnd

For the Common Good

posted by Brian Zahnd on June 14, 2010 at 5:50 PM

I have drafted a statement which explains the friendship and cooperation I have with Ahmed El-Sherif (an Arab-American Muslim) and Samuel Nachum (an Israeli-American Jew) as we work together in the Let The Children Play for Peace project. It goes like this:

For the Common Good

We are Jews, Christians and Muslims.
And we are friends.
We seek to follow our respective religions faithfully.
We do not believe all religions are the same.
We recognize the reality of our religious differences.
But we are friends.
We are devout in our faith and respectful of our friendship.
Our faith and friendship need not be mutually exclusive.
We recognize that we share common space—the common space of a shared planet.
For the sake of the common good we seek common ground.
We do not share a common faith, but we share a common humanity.
In our different religions we do not practice the same rituals or pray the same prayers.
But in our shared humanity we hold to a common dream: Shalom, Salaam, Peace.
We hold to the dream that our children may play in peace without fear of violence.
And so...
We pledge not to hate.
We pledge not to dehumanize others.
We pledge to do no harm in the name of God.
As individuals we do not compromise the truth claims of our respective religions—
But we will not use truth claims to fuel hate or justify violence.
We will practice our respective faiths: Judaism, Christianity, Islam.
But we believe our faith can be practiced in the way of peace—
We believe our faith truly practiced need never be at odds with humanitarian ideals.
Our religions share a complex and intertwined history—
A history of interaction that has too often been tumultuous and bloody.
We believe there must be a better way and we seek that better way.
The way of peace.
We are Jews, Christians and Muslims.
And we are friends.
We seek common ground for the common good.
Shalom, Salaam, Peace.

Ahmed El-Sherif
Samuel Nachum
Brian Zahnd

End of the Line by Brian Zahnd

This is an article I wrote for the May issue of Charisma Magazine at the request of the new editor, Marcus Yoars.

END OF THE LINE
By Brian Zahnd

God is shifting the church from one seasonal platform to another. Are we ready?

Western Christianity is at a critical juncture. Those who care deeply about the church are aware of this. Things are not as they once were. Things are changing. Dramatically so. Even if we don't understand what is happening, we can certainly feel it. There is an uneasy feeling throughout evangelicalism that everything is changing. Long-held certitudes are being challenged from both within and without the Christian faith. The way things were even ten years ago is no longer the way things are today. It's easy to be disconcerted by it all. 

In the midst of pronounced uncertainty it is tempting to succumb to nostalgia and pine away for some point in the past that we identify as the "glory days." But we cannot go back. The healthy practice of recognizing the contributions of the past and building upon them is not the same thing as a regressive attempt to return to a bygone era. This is the problem with revivalism. Too often it is a naive attempt to recapture a particular past. It's like a Renaissance fair-nice entertainment for a Saturday afternoon but you can't live there. An idealized memory of the past is not a vision which can carry us into the future. Nostalgic reminiscing about the past is for those who no longer have the courage to creatively engage with contemporary challenges and opportunities. All of this is related to the critical juncture we have come to in the course of Western Christianity.

Crazy Love by Brian Zahnd

Why is there something instead of nothing?
The only feasible answer is an Absolute Being (God).

But why would God create?
Why would God bother?
Why would Absolute Being sufficient in itself create other?

The only feasible answer is...
LOVE
Love Love Love
Crazy Love

The reason for (existence in the ultimate sense) is...
God and his crazy love.

The reason for everything is...
God and his crazy love

To build up arms - by Brian Zahnd

To build up arms
(And such arms!)
Bombs that unleash hell
The fire of Gehenna
On faceless enemies
From a safe distance
At the push of button
Cutting edge technology
To kill a million at time
Cain's club to the hundredth power
And to want their existence at all
Worse, to revere these monstrous inventions
Yea, to love them as guarantors of "Freedom"
To reject the welfare state
And embrace the warfare state
To choose the rage of Achilles
Over the peace of Immanuel
To worship Mars and the horrid drums of war
While claiming to be a follower of the Lamb
Is almost more than I can stand
I belong to a different faith
Than the religion of "shock and awe"
Because I do not love
The "nuclear option"
Nor the trumpets of Mars
Nor the rage of Achilles
And I will not accept that these "practical men"
Know what's best
For they do not
They know how to kill and destroy
And call it by benign code names
But you can't call it Christianity!
I guess I was just to stubborn
To ever be governed
By enforced insanity
And this passion for the Big Bombs
Well, it's...
Not my faith
Not my hope
Not my love

On the New Idol by Brian Zahnd

 The book of Revelation is primarily a prophetic critique of empire—a prophetic denunciation of the all-powerful state as a devouring, dehumanizing beast. In John the Revelator's day the Beast took the form of the Roman Empire. In subsequent history the Beast has flown other flags. The drama of the Apocalypse is found in the contest between the monstrous Beast which devours humanity with its military and economic might and the Lamb of God who redeems humanity with his blood. The hope we find in the final book of the Bible is in the prophetic picture of the ultimate triumph of Jesus and his kingdom over the satanic empires of Babylon. And thus the Bible is a book which gives us the happiest of all possible endings.

But the Beast is subtle. Like the serpent which is its father. And though the shed skin of the Beast is easily recognized once it is relegated to the realm of history, the Beast can be difficult to spot in its contemporary incarnation. It takes a prophetic eye to spot the shape-shifting monster that is the Beast.

Schooled in Denial - Brian Zahnd / Walter Brueggemann

Schooled in Denial - Posted by Brian Zahnd

Last night I dreamed I had a conversation with Walter Brueggemann.
Maybe it went something like this...

That's Brueggemann on pain, artistry and the role of the church in a culture of denial.
And a culture of denial is always part and parcel with imperial exceptionalism.
It's part of the mantra of the "we're number one" mentality.
So the empire arrogantly says...

I sit as a queen
I am no widow
I will never mourn
(Revelation 18:7)

But of course the empire provides no exemption from sorrow.
Yet it's in the pain of sorrow that hope is born.
Not the the panicked, desperate bid for cheap certitude--
But authentic hope in God which has always been an anchor for the people of faith.

Don't give up.
You are loved.
And you are going to make it.

BZ

Everybody's wearing a disguise
To hide what they've got left behind their eyes.
But me, I can't cover what I am
Wherever the children go I'll follow them.