Clarion: Journal of Spirituality and Justice

The Babylonian Captivity of the Gospel - by Michael Hardin

The Babylonian Captivity of the Gospel, Michael Hardin

Presented to Theology and Peace, May 31-June 2, 2011 in Baltimore, MD

I would like to suggest an outline for what a North American Protestant Christian theology informed by the mimetic theory might look like.[1] Specifically I hope to validate an observation by Rene Girard that the anthropology of mimetic theory and the orthodox structuring of Christian theology are eminently compatible.[2] After a brief introduction concerning the relation of the gospel to human culture or what I call “The Babylonian Captivity of the Gospel” there are two sections.  The first explores the metaphor of the gospel’s imprisonment and examines the nature of the “guards” which attempt to keep it walled in and impotent. Second, I will sketch a paradigm of what a Christian theology looks like when the problem of violence is addressed honestly and the radical solution of love and forgiveness is taken seriously.  In short I am hoping to be able to integrate the two components of this conference, theology and peace, as an example of the theme of this conference, Transforming Christianity.

On the Fall of the Church

There has been a lot of debate on what occurred at the time of Constantine in relation to church/state relations. Some Girardians, e.g., Robert Daly would argue that pre-Constantinian Christians were no less violent than their contemporaries and that the “Constantinian turn” was not a real change at all.[3]  Others, like myself, would argue that something decisive took place in and around Constantine that would alter the way the church perceived issues of nonviolence.[4]  As I see it, Daly wants to suggest that marginal references to Christians in the military before Constantine amounts to the wholesale rejection of a nonviolent or pacifistic early church.  This is to engage in the kind of revisionist history associated with Walter Bauer, who contended that evidence for minority heterodox groups amounted to their suppression as actual majority groups by an ‘orthodox’ minority, a hypothesis that has not been without its critics.[5] Early Christian history is not a linear movement from pacifism to acceptance of violence as a means to control violence (just war theory).  It is a time of travail much like Girard sees Jewish history before Jesus as it struggles to become free from pagan myth.[6]

To read the rest of this article:

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[1] Two recent Protestant theologies that I recommend, although neither uses the mimetic anthropology, are Douglas John Hal, Professing the Faith: Christian Theology in A North American Context (Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress, 1993) and Stanley J. Grenz, Theology for the Community of God (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1994).

[2] “Mine is a search for the anthropology of the cross, which turns out to rehabilitate orthodox theology.” The Girard Reader, edited by James G. Williams (New York: Crossroads, 1996), 288. I am not speaking specifically to how mimetic theory would shape a Roman Catholic theology inasmuch as the agency of authorization is different. Roman Catholics must deal with the teaching magesterium and the authority of the papacy while Protestants must wrestle with the authority of Scripture.

[3] Robert Daly “Violence and Institution in Christianity”, Contagion Vol. 9, Spring 2002, 4-33.

[4] “Rene Girard: Violence and the Recovery of Early Christian Perspectives” Brethren Life and Thought Vol. 37, No 2, 1992; The Jesus Driven Life (Lancaster: JDL Press, 2010).

[5] Walter Bauer, Orthodoxy and Heresy in Earliest Christianity, edited by Robert Kraft and Gerhard Krobel, (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1971).  A trenchant critique of the Bauer hypothesis is Thomas Robinson, The Bauer Thesis Examined (Lewiston: Edwin Mellen, 1988). Some of the effects of the Constantinian turn are documented in Robert Markus, The End of Ancient Christianity (Cambridge: Cambridge, 1990). Peter J. Leithart criticizes Mennonite scholar John Howard Yoder’s historiography of the Constantinian era in Defending Constantine (Downers Grove: IVP, 2010).  Yoder is one of the principal exponents of the Constantinian fall of the church. Leithart wants to argue that the primary issue is not church-state relations and the co-opting of the gospel but rather infant baptism. I think Yoder is more correct to notice that it is the issue of violence/nonviolence that plays a more substantive role in emergent fourth century theology.

[6] Robert Hamerton-Kelly, ed. Violent Origins (Stanford: Stanford, 1987), 141.

Option A - by Anna Paolucci

Option A

Carve me into your back

and let me ride with you on your weird and

dilapidated horse into an unending sunset;

to be the flag of your martyrdom

and a child of burden.

Option B

Carve me into your back

and let me ride with you on your weird and

dilapidated horse into a conflicted sunset;

to be the source of your comfort

and a child of promise.

Option C

Carve me into your back

and –

fawwwwwwk.

your womb, it’s

 

Carve me into your womb;

to claw at the fire of labour, made

crazy by pain and the bright of your light, to corkscrew

through the crust of the earth,

shattering the line of the sky – seeing you,

I’ll see you.

Review of Amy Simpson's 'Troubled Minds' by Connie Smith Jakab

I just finished reading my friend Amy Simpson’s book, “Troubled Minds - Mental Illness and the Church’s Mission”. I was compelled to read this book because it is a topic I have ignored, mostly because it scares me. It’s unknown and awkward. However, in the last few years I have personally found myself face to face with the effects of mental illness; from seeing my grandfather deteriorate from the effects of dementia, to teaching teens in middle and high schools with an increasing rate of mental illness. It’s not uncommon for just one class to include students with behavior disorders, social disfunctions, learning disabilities, depression and/or anxiety issues so immense some have to be escorted from class to class by an aid. I also observe mental illness in the homeless population I visit in the shelters in my city. When Amy mentions the increasing rate of mental illness in our nation, she isn’t kidding.

Review of Hans Boersma's 'Embodiment and Virtue in Gregory of Nyssa' - by Ron Dart

Hans Boersma, Embodiment and Virtue in Gregory of Nyssa: An Anagogical Approach (Oxford University Press, 2013).

There is definite tug and pull, jostling and clashing in theology, the church and world in the early years of the 21^st century. The postmodern-emergent church, for the most part, has lost faith in the traditional reformed-evangelical articulation of Christianity and is fragmenting in a variety of directions. The reformed and evangelical tribe, seeing so clearly, the breakdown of a 500-year tradition, are reasserting their position and drawing deeper lines in the sand. Gregory Boyd, Brian McLaren, Phyllis Tickle, Richard Rohr and tribe tend to flatter themselves on being part of a new reformation and great emergence--they are certainly moving in different directions than Jim Packer (the elder), Mark Driscoll, John Piper and Tim Keller. There are those, though, who see this in house conservative protestant beating of the bushes as reactionary, short lived and doomed as merely the product of a protestant cul-de-sac. There is, so the argument goes, no real historic depth, grounding and rootedness in this dialogue that generates more heat than light. There has been, therefore, in its most recent form, a turn to the 2000 year old “Great Tradition” as embodied in the Fathers of the Church (West and East) as a way responding to the weaknesses, short sightedness and limitations of the reformed-evangelical and postmodern-emergent  church versions of Christianity. There has been a decided interest in the Patristic Era (see both the “Renovare” and “Ressourcement” movements) and a growing interest in the mother church (Roman Catholic, Orthodox, Anglican) vision of theology, liturgy, ecclesiology and public life in the last few decades. There can be little doubt that Hans Boersma is on the cutting edge of the turn to the Great Tradition and the theologians who incarnate (in thought, word and deed) such a time tried way.

Review of James Doyle's 'Progressive Heritage' - by Ron Dart

James Doyle, Progressive Heritage: The Evolution of a Politically Radical Literary Tradition in Canada, 2002

This book has tried to suggest the literary significance of many Canadian writers who were unjustly ignored or condemned because of their political beliefs. The poetry of Joe Wallace, the novels of Dyson Carter, the early work of Dorothy Livesay and Milton Acorn, all the extensive and complex tradition of anti-capitalist creative writing in Canada, are part of the structure of this country’s culture and should be read and written about with the same-mindedness that is presumably applied to those writers who profess other political assumptions.

James Doyle pp. 298-299

Those who have the good fortune of studying Canadian literature are often exposed to the standard bourgeois classics of Canadian poetry, novels and drama—these bourgeois classics are what we call the Canadian canon of must read literature. There are also leading literary critics such as Northrop Frye who are embodiments, in a thoughtful and nuanced way, of such a canon. There is, though, a para-canonical literature in Canada of the Marxist left that is often ignored in the teaching of the standard approach to Canadian literature.  The obvious strength and appeal of Progressive Heritage is the way this left of centre literary heritage is, unpacked and unravelled, in a chronological and thematic manner.

When Traditions Collide: Neo-Calvinism and the Emergent Church

Jail Baptisms - Bob Ekblad

Last Sunday during our jail service I came prepared to baptize a man who had requested baptism a few weeks before.  The jail Sergeant even personally filled up the minimalist paper cup for this Sacrament, handing it to me with a smirk across the institutional-maroon Formica booking counter.  I knew there was a good chance my supply of water would not be used as on the previous Thursday.

There was no guarantee that I would see the men from E-Pod due to the jail’s reorganization efforts.  My thirty minute time slot was already whittled down to twenty minutes due to the previous group’s late start.  As the guard ushered me back into the jail’s multipurpose room I learned that the upper tier of E-Pod was locked down due to a fight, so the chances of the baptismal candidate being in the lower tier was getting lower.  And yet I’ve been experiencing God’s amazing flexibility in working in the midst of the messiness of human contingencies, and the group that came in did include the man wanting baptism. 

We looked together at Jesus’ baptism according to Matthew 3:11-17, and I suddenly wondered why I had complicated an already short time reflection by including verses 11-12.

George Grant and Hinduism: Contemplative Probes - Ron Dart

Christianity seems in a certain way closer to Hinduism than it does to its fellow religions that arose in the East.

George Grant, George Grant in Conversation (1995) p. 176

In talking about a philosophical response, are we not supposed to have agreed upon understanding as to what philosophy is? And certainly one should not try to take advantage of the fact that there is no definition of philosophy on which all are agreed.  

John Arapura, Modernity and Responsibility: Essays for George Grant (1983) p.52       

Modern scientists, like the modern thinkers in Swift’s Battle of the Books, explain nature, human and non-human, the idea of soul, and not surprisingly they have produced a world where it is difficult to think what it means to be open to the whole. Ancient thinkers are compared to the bee which goes around collecting honey from the flowers; modern thinkers are compared to the spider which spins webs out of itself and then catches its food in that web.

George Grant in Dennis Lee, Poetry and Philosophy (1982)      

The recent book, Athens and Jerusalem: George Grant’s Theology, Philosophy, and Politics (2006), probed Grant’s deeper theological roots, but in the doing of this, Grant’s interest and affinity with the Orient and Hinduism was missed and ignored. This is a serious lack and weakness in an otherwise needed and necessary commentary on Grant.  

Grant saw himself as standing within the ‘Hindu wing of Christianity’, and, as mentioned above, he thought the contemplative and mystical core of Christianity made it ‘closer to Hinduism’ than to either the Jewish or Islamic traditions.

What did Grant mean by the statements mentioned above, and why was he, as a Canadian, at the forefront of probing greater contemplative depths in the Christian Tradition, and, by doing so, opening up new trails for interfaith dialogue?

Women and the Orthodox Tradition - Brad Jersak w/ Archbishop Lazar Puhalo

The following interview took place over several days via email and in person. In it, Brad Jersak queries Archbishop Lazar Puhalo on the role of women and the Orthodox tradition. The conversation was triggered by a statement from blogger and theologian, Derek Flood (www.therebelgod.com), who observed, “So often, even where women are not acknowledged, they are the real spiritual backbone of the church.”

Archbishop Lazar:

Interestingly, several women are classed as "Equal of the Apostles" in the Orthodox Church. All of them publicly preached the Gospel; most of them were martyred for preaching the Gospel. One of these Equals of the Apostles was St Nina, a slave girl who converted the Kingdom of Georgia (Iveron) to Christianity, and the nation remains to this day the oldest of the Orthodox Catholic Christian nations.[1]

Among the others, Mary of Magdala and Photini (the Samaritan woman at the well) were martyred. St Helen the Empress (mother of Constantine) and Saint Olga of Russia are also "Equals of the Apostles." Both had a great deal of authority over men, and both taught the faith publicly. Both had much to do with their sons’ conversions.

To see this entire article, Download Women in the Orthodox church.

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[1] Church tradition also acknowledges the sisters Mary and Martha, along with Junia (Rom. 16:7) as apostles and fellow-prisoners with Paul. Junia and Andronicus were apparently a couple and are regarded as ‘of the seventy’ whom Jesus sent out as evangelists. Andronicus became bishop of Pannonia, but the two took the Gospel far beyond that diocese.  

Contemplative Ways: "The Jesus Prayer" - Murray Dueck

There are many methods of interacting with God, maybe as many as there are people, but my favorite is the Orthodox method, handed down by the Desert Fathers. Technically this prayer would be known as Hesychasm, the prayer of rest or quiet. But it comes to us today maybe better known as, “The Jesus Prayer.”

Many of you know this little prayer: "Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me." And there are a few variations, including a very short one, "Lord, mercy."And I am going to assume here that if you are reading this blog you know all about being still, breathing, attention, repeating the prayer, etc...Therefore I am going to focus on an aspect of the Orthodox model that often gets over looked: the factor of where in our being the Orthodox Fathers would like us to say our prayer from - our “nous,”which dwells in our heart. In the Orthodox view¹ it is our heart that steers the ship of our being, (and I think we would agree with that, to a point, as we are to “Watch over our heart with all diligence, for from it flows the spring of life (Prov 4:23)).” However in our heart, in the Orthodox view, is the core of our being - our “nous.” In our Western thinking we would equate the nous with the “inner man,” however the Orthodox concept is a bit more difficult to grasp, and I must admit I am still struggling with it. Therefore let me give you the Orthodox definition out of the Philokalia:² 

To read the rest of the article, click here: Download Hesychasm Dueck

To visit Murray Dueck's website, click here: http://www.samuelsmantle.com/

Bringing Justice to People - Henry Smidstra

I often come away from theologically oriented discussions about the topic of justice, especially about criminal justice, with the impression  the Old Testament is regarded as the preferred place for the grounding for the concept of justice, especially in Amos or Mica 6:8; but not in the New Testament. The New Testament is sometimes called upon to emphasize the judgment or wrath of God on the unrighteous, or our duty for visiting prisoners, or, providing clothes and food for the poor, benevolence or charity, but primary justice talk, not so much.

Of course theologians and philosophers such as Wolterstorff (2011) have contested such reductionism, indicating also a tendency by some to read the New Testament gospel as though the love command trumps the Old Testament teachings of justice. Wolterstorff, along with Bianchi (1985), also indicate a tendency of NT translators of  interrupting the symmetry of the New Testament Greek dik-stem words (justice), and frequently mistranslating the word dikaiasune , using the characterological word, “righteousness”, instead of the English words, “ just”, or, “justice.” Bianchi(1985) focusses his work on correcting OT translation errors relating to the concept of justice, noting that the English word “retribution” is often skewed in translation, as well as stating that the original Hebrew meanings of the words for Torah (law) and tsedeka (justice, righteousness) have been altered in translation.