I want to repeat some things that I have said before because of some current political circumstances both in secular politics and within the Church: True morality consists far more in how well we care for others than in the external behaviour we demand of others. This why moralism is truly immoral and, moreover, moralism is the last refuge of the pervert.
What is true cannot be a heresy and what is false cannot be sound doctrine. We must stop telling lies as if we were doing so to defend doctrine. We cannot demand of educated people that they must choose between God and truth, but that they cannot have both. Nevertheless, this is being done, and it is not only immoral, but it is feeding atheism far more than any militant atheist could ever hope to.
Fear cannot produce sincere repentance, but only trigger a survival instinct which produces a false formula of repentance. Such repentance is not about being sorry for sins, but about regretting that you cannot get away with them. Only love can produce a true, heartfelt repentance.
Moral outrage is a form of public confession; we hate most in others what we fear most in ourselves.
Orthodoxy of the mind is merely an intellectual exercise. Until one attains to Orthodoxy of the heart, one is still an alien to the faith. This is why the prayer of the heart directs us to bring the mind into the heart.
With some sort of power, you can brutalise and bully people into what you consider correct external behaviour according to one or another "moral code," but like the law of the Old Testament, this cannot save anyone, it cannot serve for the transformation of the inner person.
Hypocrisy is among the greatest acts of immorality and sin. It is 100 times worse when the hypocrite is a hierarch or priest. It not only destroys the soul of the hypocrite but forms a stumbling block to others who seeking to follow Christ.
When first presented with the universalist hope, many Orthodox and Roman Catholics immediately invoke the authority of the Fifth Ecumenical Council (553), citing the fifteen anti-Origenist anathemas: “Apokatastasis has been dogmatically defined by the Church as heresy—see canon 1 … case closed.” Over the past two centuries, however, historians have seriously questioned whether these anathemas were ever officially promulgated by II Constantinople. The council was convened by the Emperor Justinian for the express purpose of condemning the Three Chapters. Not only does Justinian not mention the apokatastasis debate in his letter to the council bishops, but the Acts of the council neither cite the fifteen anathemas nor record any discussion of them. Hence when church historian Norman P. Tanner edited his collection of the Decrees of the Ecumenical Councilsin 1990, he did not include the anti-Origenist denunciations, offering the following explanation: “Our edition does not include the text of the anathemas against Origen since recent studies have shown that these anathemas cannot be attributed to this council” (I:106).
Who then wrote the anathemas and when? Over the past century different hypotheses have been advanced, but historians appear to have settled on the following scenario, first proposed by Wilhelm Diekamp in 1899 and more recently advanced by Richard Price: the Emperor Justinian and his theological advisors composed the anathemas and then submitted them to the bishops for “approval” before the council formally convened on 5 May 553. We do not know how long before the council this meeting took place (hours? days? weeks? months?) nor who attended nor whether there was any actual discussion of the anathemas. One thing is clear—the Emperor wanted the anathemas cloaked with conciliar authority. A decade earlier he had denounced apokatastasis in an epistle to Patriarch Menas. Regardless of the origin of the 15 anathemas, we may confidently affirm that the Fifth Ecumenical Council did not formally publish them. The burden of historical proof now lies with those who maintain that the Council Fathers officially and authoritatively promulgated the anti-Origenist anathemas.
But let’s hypothetically assume that the Council did publish the fifteen anathemas. There would still remain the challenge of interpretation. Not all universalisms are the same. Just as there are both heretical and orthodox construals of, say, the atonement or the Incarnation, so there are heretical and orthodox construals of the universalist hope. The apokatastasis advanced by St Gregory of Nyssa, for example, differs in critical ways from the sixth-century theories against which the anathemas were directed. The latter appear to have belonged to an esoteric metaphysical system set loose from the Scriptures, as even a cursory reading reveals. The chasm between the two is enormous. Scholar Augustine Casiday suggests that we need to think of the anti-Origenist anathemas as the rejection of this system as a whole, each anathema denouncing one of its particulars (private email correspondence). Met Kallistos Ware made a similar point in 1998:
Those who want to hold onto a primitive vision of a violent and retributive God often cite the white horse rider passage from Revelation. They will say something like this: “Jesus came the first time as a lamb, but he’s coming back the second time as a lion.” (Despite the fact that no lion is ever seen in Revelation — the lion is the Lamb!) By this they mean the nonviolent Jesus of the Gospels is going to mutate into what they fantasize is the hyper-violent Jesus of Revelation.
Sadly, the proponents of this flawed interpretation seem to prefer their imagined violent Jesus of the future over the nonviolent Jesus of the Gospels. At a basic level they essentially see the Bible like this: After a long trajectory away from the divine violence of the Old Testament culminating in Jesus renouncing violence and calling his followers to love their enemies, the Bible in its final pages abandons a vision of peace and nonviolence as ultimately unworkable and closes with the most vicious portrayal of divine violence in all of Scripture.
In this reading of Revelation, the way of peace and love which Jesus preached during his life and endorsed in his death, is rejected for the worn-out way of war and violence. When we literalize the militant images of Revelation we arrive at this conclusion: In the end even Jesus gives up on love and resorts to violence. Tragically, those who refuse to embrace the way of peace taught by Jesus use the symbolic war of Revelation 19 to silence the Sermon on the Mount.
This kind of hermeneutic has disastrous implications; it mutes Jesus’ message of peace and forgiveness. When we literalize the ironic and symbolic images employed by John of Patmos, we illegitimately use Revelation to give license for our own hellish violence. We reason, if Jesus is going to kill two hundred million people upon his return, what does it matter if we kill one hundred thousand people at Hiroshima?
In 1546 the English playwright John Heywood coined the phrase ‘There’s none so blind as those who will not see’ and although it is believed to be in reference to Jeremiah 5:21, his words could easily be applied to the story of the blind man in John 9.[1] John is telling a story of physical and spiritual blindness, on one side there is healing combined with recognition and discipleship, and on the other a blind refusal to acknowledge the obvious truth compounded by an entrenched theological and social position.
John’s story of the blind man is almost theatrical in its composition. Tasker describes it as an ‘acted parable of faith and unbelief.’[2] There is a growing sense of drama and a comic juxtaposition of characters as heroes, villains and bystanders play their parts and respond to the challenge to see and recognise Jesus. The words spoken have multi-layered meaning and include farcical questioning and satirical response as the story moves towards its climax. For Wright it is a story that ‘crackles with irony.’[3]
Investigating the background to both the story and its original audience using the questions, who, when, where, what and why reveal detail that gives insight into Jesus’ intent in healing the blind man, and how the story plays out in its wider context. It also elucidates John’s purpose in recording the story and helps to discern how the text can be interpreted and applied today.
"This song and video was just released by Radiohead. It's like Radiohead has been reading René Girard -- sacrifice at the dark heart of civilization." - Brian Zahnd
I concur with Brian. Certainly the Girardian themes of scapegoating and sacred violence are intrinsic to both the witchhunt lyrics and the Wickerman-style references in the video. First to the lyrics:
Lyrics
Stay in the shadows Cheer at the gallows This is a roundup This is a low flying panic attack Sing a song on the jukebox that goes
Burn the witch, burn the witch We know where you live Red crosses on wooden doors And if you float you burn Loose talk around tables Abandon all reason Avoid all eye contact Do not react Shoot the messengers This is a low flying panic attack Sing the song of sixpence that goes
Burn the witch, burn the witch We know where you live, We know where you live
The Video
Song meanings are notoriously subjective. Listeners hear what a song means to them, sometimes quite divorced from authorial intent. And this is as it should be. Art does that. One interpretation of the song and video comes from Virpi Kettu, an animator who collaborated on the video, spoke to Billboard about her take on the song:
Based on Kettu's understanding of what the band was after, she opines they may have wanted "Witch" to raise awareness about the refugee crisis in Europe and the "blaming of different people... the blaming of Muslims and the negativity" that could lead to sentiments such as "burn the witch."
My reaction: With the current refugee crisis, and even prior to that, with the momentum of Muslim immigration into the UK, movements like 'Britain First,' (and watch for America First) are sharpening their pitchforks and terrifying people with how the Muslims will impose Sharia Law once their numbers make them the majority.
Now, those who oppose the fear-mongering typically say, "You're exaggerating. The population balance won't tip that soon and the danger that Sharia Law will be imposed here is fabricated."
But I say, let's do a thought experiment. Let's assume for a moment that for sure Muslims will outnumber non-Muslims in the UK (or Europe) by 2050 or 2070. And let's assume that your children or grandchildren will live under Sharia Law. If you knew that for sure, how would you want to treat Muslims for the next 35-50 years as you wait for that day? What we sow, we will reap. If for the next 35-50 years, we sow fear, hatred and exclusion, what do you imagine our descendants will experience once Islam is running the nation? If it were me, foreseeing what's coming, I would want to be so kind, respectful and hospitable that when the day comes, mistreating my children or trampling on their rights would be unthinkable to them. The spiritual or social math on this is unbelievably obvious.
Typically, I see glazed looks in response. And the next words always start with "Yeah, but ..." My reaction: "Yeah, but ... what did our Lord, Jesus Christ say?"
Our Lord, Jesus Christ
The golden rule, after all, is part of the sermon on the mount. Jesus said,“So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets" (Matthew 7:12). And he did say,
43 I was a stranger [the Bible-word for immigrant/refugee], and ye took me not in: naked, and ye clothed me not: sick, and in prison, and ye visited me not.
44 Then shall they also answer him, saying, [YEAH, BUT] Lord, when saw we thee an hungered, or athirst, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not minister unto thee.
45 Then shall he answer them, saying, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye did it not to one of the least of these, ye did it not to me.
46 And these shall go away into everlasting punishment: but the righteous into life eternal.
"Yeah, but ..." A common, but oh-so-inappropriate phrase after Jesus speaks. Or worse, "By no means, Lord!" -- Peter's words in Acts 10 as Christ is preparing to dismantle his racism!
Muslim Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan
In any case, such interesting timing ... the release of Radiohead's song coincides with the election of London's first Muslim mayor! Of course, Britain First will be panicking. Their own mayoral candidate, Paul Golding, defiantly turned his back on Kahn at his swearing-in ceremony
Is it ironic or poignant (in light of the controversy) that the first Muslim mayor of London is the son of Pakistani immigrants and became a civil rights lawyer. His statement at the swearing-in didn't sound so much like the first steps to Sharia Law. It didn't feel like the great tribulation had begun:
"I'm determined to lead the most transparent, engaged and accessible administration London has ever seen, and to represent every single community and every single part of our city as a mayor for Londoners."
Not that I believe political promises or trust the systems that overwhelm their good intentions. But Gandalf seemed happy. Actor Sir Ian McKellen greeted Khan at the cathedral gates. He said,
"To have a Muslim mayor seems preferable to me to any alternative regardless of the politics. I hope it's an image that will go round the world as representing a new sort of England that's at peace with itself regardless of race and so on. That's the beauty of it."
America First - the Donald
Meanwhile, much closer to home (for me ... 2 miles from America), I write this the week that Donald Trump crushed it in Indiana and became the GOP's presumptive nominee. Today, Donald Trump is having a rally in Lyndon, Washington, about 15 miles from my house. I'd probably cross the border and attempt to start negotiations with him on building the northern wall (echoes of Game of Thrones), but I'm told that I'd have to get a ticket and line up by 9:00 am to get into the 3:30 pm rally. I guess I won't bother.
Some of my very good friends (truly) will be voting for him in November. I'm just saying.
I only bring him up to connect the dots between the above story to one policy item that's come up. Thanks to BZ for digging this up for me:
"America First will be the major and overriding theme of my administration." - Donald J Trump, Foreign Policy Speech, April 27, 2016
You have to admit, he's good at slogans. Slogans are powerful. Slogans cover a multitude of sins. "Make America Great Again" may yet stand as the greatest marketing slogan of all time ... at least since "Jesus is Lord." As one of his Evangelical supporters put it: "It doesn't matter if he's a racist or a misogynist or a xenophobe. We need a strong president. We need someone who will make America great again."
Back to scapegoating. Donald Trump is an expert at employing Girard's scapegoating mechanism: you create pseudo-peace by bringing mimetic rivals together to focus on and sacrifice a common threat. In the end, though, those who live by the sword, die by the sword, and I won't be too surprised if the Donald becomes the scapegoat whose sacrifice will make everyone feel good about themselves. Creating the Trump phenomenon and then voting him out in a landslide (if that happens) could almost make the nation feel virtuous, yes? No?
Satan, your kingdom must come down (Robert Plant)
At the end of the day, Robert Plant's 'Band of Joy' gets it right. "I heard the voice of Jesus say, Satan, your kingdom must come down." A great tune worth hearing before I give Michael Hardin the last word.
Last Word - Michael Hardin
I dare not wax eloquent about Girardian theory without passing the mic. to Michael Hardin--Rene Girard's preeminent interpreter. What say you, Michael?
This pervasive disease that is Christendom (Empire Christianity) must fall. The whole megalomaniac, flash and glitz, narcissistic personality disorder that I see dominating Christendom (except for the few, the proud, the Pope Francis's; and Richard Rohr's) has got to come tumbling down. And then I wonder how will Islam respond to its internal Janus-faced god, it's economies of exchange and its theology of glory. I wonder: 100 years from now, who will be known as the Kierkegaards and Bonhoeffers of our generation?
We live at a period of time in which two types of spirituality are vying for the hearts and minds of many. The “I’m spiritual but not religious” slogan and cliché is but a symptom of such worldviews at odds. The differences between these outlooks have a 500-year-old history and such perspectives continue to play themselves out in a social way and manner. There is the Classical tradition as embodied in a catholic and Chaucerian heritage. There is the Protestant tradition as embodied in a modern, anarchist and Bunyanist heritage.
The classical, catholic heritage of The Canterbury Tales
The classical, catholic and Chaucerian heritage of The Canterbury Tales portrays a vision of a complex community of good, bad, mediocre and questionable people and temperaments that are on pilgrimage together to Canterbury. Such a community is idealistic and realistic, tolerant of imperfection, critical of those who distort the highest ideals, yet loyal to the community. The fact that Chaucer had the ability to describe what Matthew Arnold called “God’s plenty” in all their complex aspirations and disarray makes The Canterbury Tales a work of layered genius. The fact that Chaucer was classical and catholic in his breadth and depth meant that when disappointments, betrayals and distortions occurred, forgiveness (again and again) and faithfulness to the higher goals of unity and destination kept the pilgrims together on their way to Canterbury. Thus, the journey to Canterbury is a metaphor of unity and oneness of goal—with imperfection—as a means towards such a destination. The classical vision was very much played out in the thinking of 16th century reformers such as Thomas More and Erasmus. Such men were loyal yet critical to the notion of communal unity and the commonwealth while recognizing that the path taken in community was fraught with imperfection. Such is the classical and catholic notion of spirituality as incarnated in the thinking, lives and writings of Chaucer, More and Erasmus.
The Modern, Protestant Notion of Pilgrim’s Progress
The more modern and protestant notion of spirituality that we find in Luther, Calvin and, at a more extreme and anarchist level, in Bunyan/Milton is expressed in multiple fragments and schisms. Ideals are held so high that when such ideals are not realized, groups break off from one another (again and again) in the name of some higher purity, spirituality or being guided by the Divine Spirit—such is the genetic code and DNA of Protestantism. The reductio ad absurdum of Protestantism can be found in Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress that, in the Chaucerian sense, is both an immature understanding of what it means to be a pilgrim (in community) and certainly not progress.
The lone pilgrim in Pilgrim’s Progress leaves one and all behind in his quest for God—we find the same perspective at work in Milton (in a more sophisticated sense). Those who see themselves as spiritual but not religious or reacting to perceptions of imperfect institutions are neither radical nor prophetic—they are merely uncritical children of Bunyan and Milton. In short, such a position is simply a form or reactionary anarchism and very trendy. The fact that many modern and postmodern Bunyan and Milton types see imperfections in church and society does not take a great deal of minimal thinking—such has always been the obvious case.
Gnostic Puritanism
Chaucer described such the situation well and wisely. What is done when such insights come to the fore determines whether a deeper and more demanding communal response will emerge or a retreat into ever smaller enclaves and reactionary groups will dominate the day. The bourgeois Gnosticism (to use Voegelin’s term) of many self-congratulating radicals (so well dissected by Hooker in the 16th century in his critique of Puritanism) is as alive then as now.
The gnostic sees him/herself as having the true and higher insights, others as betrayers and compromisers of the noble vision and, as such, separation from such imperfect communities must ensue. Such an ideological stance is just a modern form of Pharisaism (thank God I am not as those imperfect Chaucer types). This merging of Gnosticism (idealism and purity) with Pharisaism is the opposite of the charitable, humble and thoughtful Publican who simply says, “Lord Have Mercy” and quietly serves an imperfect and historic community on the trail to Canterbury.
Pilgrims in Community
The position of Chaucer asks of those on pilgrimage to be tolerant, forgive and work with those who might irritate, vex and trouble the brittle idealist. Maturity and Divine Love are called for to remain in complex communities for the long journey. The simpler and more immature position is to desert such communities, retreat from the communal fray into ever smaller tribes who see themselves as radical, prophetic or on the ‘cutting edge.’
Such flattery, needless to say, breeds a sort of ever shrinking notion of what it means to engage in an imperfect church and world in a thoughtful manner over decades. Chaucer/More/Erasmus or Bunyan/Milton? The choice made embodies two types of spirituality—the former has depth, is grounded and rooted in imperfect communities on pilgrimage together. The latter perpetuates the protestant tendency towards fragmentation and isolation—the former know what it means to be a publican, the latter a judgmental Pharisee.
From the perspective of mimetic theory, the most serious problem with the Left Behind series of novels, by Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins,(1) is their re-sacralization of violence. Their version of Jesus is no longer the Lamb slain but the same beastly violence of the Roman empire that John of Patmos is trying to portray. Jesus, when he comes again, will simply wield a vastly superior firepower, the epitome of righteous, sacred violence.
At stake is the God we meet in Jesus Christ, the God of whom St. John says, “that God is light and in God there is no darkness at all” (1 John 1:5). In Jesus Christ we are finally able to see sacred violence for what it is, namely, the darkness of our human violence wrongly attributed to God. We human beings are the ones who put our faith in superior firepower. But in the Left Behind novels the darkness of that human, satanic violence is once again attributed to God, especially through the fictionalized figure of Jesus in the last volume. If the function of the Gospel, and the work of the Paraclete in the world, is to de-mythologize sacred violence — that is, to reveal all pictures of divine violence as an idolatry which veils human violence behind a cloak of divine violence — then these books are a splendid example of a re-mythologizing anti-Gospel. And, considering that the main villain in these books is the Antichrist, it goes beyond ironic to tragic that their message ends up going in the direction opposite to that of Christ’s message.
For those who haven’t ventured into reading any of the Left Behind series, my main purpose here is to give examples of the re-sacralization from the climactic book in the series, Glorious Appearing. I argue elsewhere for a nonviolent, de-mythologized reading of Revelation’s many images of violence.(2) Here, I primarily share prime examples of how the Left Behind series takes these images and explicitly connects them with Jesus (and God) as an agent of the violence, with depictions that far exceed those in Revelation.
There are sixty-six books in the Christian Bible, none of which has provoked more controversy, esoteric speculation, or misunderstanding than the very last one — Revelation. In the fourth century notable scholars like Chrysostom and Eusebius hesitated to include Revelation in the canon. The Protestant reformer Martin Luther described it as “neither apostolic nor prophetic. My spirit cannot accommodate itself to this book. I stick to the books which present Christ to me clearly and purely.” John Calvin wrote commentaries on every book in the New Testament except Revelation. Today, among Eastern Orthodox believers Revelation is the only book that they don’t read in their public liturgy.
Not in the mainstream of the Christian faith, Revelation has, however, been the favorite book of the Bible of many marginal Christian groups. Sects like David Koresh’s Branch Dividians have used its violent imagery to support its own violent actions. The two churches most common for sending its members knocking on doors to ‘evangelize,’ Seventh Day Adventists and Jehovah’s Witnesses, nearly always begin their proselytization with Revelation (at least in my experience of conversations on porches).
More troubling is the extent to which Revelation is fascinating larger numbers of contemporary “evangelical” Christians, especially in the United States, who have made the “Premillennial Dispensationalism” of John Nelson Darby (1800-1882; British preacher) a central part of their faith — as manifested, for example, in the popularity (over 50 million books sold) of a fictionalized version of dispensationalism, the Left Behind series of novels by Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins. (For more on the Left Behind series from the perspective of mimetic theory, see the webpage “Re-Sacralizing Violence in the Left Behind Books.”) With much of mainline Christianity seemingly doing its best to ignore the Book of Revelation, there has not been a strong enough voice to challenge the increasing acceptance of the dispensationalist way of reading it.
Is it time for other Christians to wake up and add their voices to the mix? If that would happen, they would find that there is a more recent trend in the interpretation of this mystifying book that may be even the most surprising yet: seeing Revelation as a call to nonviolence — a 180 degree turn from the Left Behind version. The Book of Revelation, I believe, shows us a picture of the beastly powers of violence finally collapsing into their own hell-hole of violence, together with a plea to the faithful to maintain their faith. In the midst of relating his vision, John the Seer pauses to speak directly to those faithful:
Let anyone who has an ear listen: If you are to be taken captive, into captivity you go; if you kill with the sword, with the sword you must be killed. Here is a call for the endurance and faith of the saints. (Rev. 13:9-10)
The second Sunday after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, I preached a sermon entitled “The Road To Armageddon.” During those days of grief and rage when I should have preached the gospel of peace and forgiveness, I instead resorted to the hackneyed trope of dispensationalism that claims a mega-war in the Middle East must occur before Jesus can return.
I’ve repented and made amends for that pastoral failure, but the fact remains that my mistake was made possible by the terrible eschatology I had inherited. The Late Great Planet Earth and the Left Behind series are only the best known of countless books that have popularized the worst possible reading of Revelation.
The phenomenon of modern dispensationalism with its endorsement of supposed divine and unavoidable hyper-violence is such an ugly and perverse eschatology that it’s unfit to be called Christian. A Christian eschatology of peace and hope has been supplanted by a dreadful eschatology of violence and doom. An eschatology that insists there must be more wars, more famines, more earthquakes, and more epidemics before Jesus can return is not a Christian eschatology. The Apostle Paul calls the glorious appearing of Christ the “blessed hope,” but there’s nothing blessed about another war or global catastrophe.
Yet hoping for “wars and rumors of wars” is the predicament the adherents of dispensational eschatology find themselves in. According to their system (based in an utterly mistaken reading of the Olivet Discourse and the book of Revelation), Jesus cannot return until a series of global catastrophes culminating in World War III occurs first. This leads to the deplorable phenomenon of Christians secretly (or not so secretly) hoping for another war and finding a reason to rejoice over the latest catastrophe. An earthquake kills 100,000 people in China and somewhere in America a Christian smiles and says, “Praise the Lord. It’s a sign of the end times. Jesus is coming soon!” An eschatology that rejoices over earthquakes and causes people to want another war in the Middle East is not a Christian eschatology! Christian hope is for the peace of New Jerusalem, not the horrors of Armageddon.
Bradley, my wife and I met you recently at the Grace Conference. I asked a question about sovereignty, and your response addressed misunderstandings of what sovereignty means. Would you please elaborate and give some additional sources for me to look into. We enjoyed the conference and the material you presented. MUCH food for thought and reflection. -- David RESPONSE:
I would summarize that work like this: 'Sovereignty' is a biblical synonym for governance or rulership or kingdom.
That is, sovereignty denotes the function of a king. I believe that God has established his kingdom in Christ, who is sovereign over the whole universe. Over our whole world. He reigns over all. The Bible says he is the king of kings and the king of glory.
So the extent of Christ's sovereignty is infinite and all-inclusive. It's all his, from the big bang to the whole shebang.
The next question is how Christ came to rule--how his kingdom or sovereignty was established. The Gospels present us with a startling surprise. Christ established his kingdom rule -- showed himself to be sovereign -- not by violent conquest, military or miraculous coercion. He did not use overwhelming force to make people believe or behave.
