We have recently been exposed to the shortcomings of Apple and their subcontractor’s treatment of labor. And I am a little surprised that I have seen no commentary from my “social justice” friends (who mostly use Apple products.) So I will let loose on this aspect of “justice” and our situation in the world. Now these revelations are nothing new nor is the situation by any means limited to Apple. It is pervasive. At nearly all levels of production. In this real world no one gets their “stuff” without someone being abused.
We are all inextricably enmeshed in the banal evil of the world, even if we do not kill, steal or commit adultery we remain fundamentally complicit in maintaining oppression, slavery, wholesale murder. By living in the world we unavoidably participate in the systemic sin of the world. If we as Christians do not find this intolerable it is because we have consumed the opiate of religion.
Some will object: If this is true, how then did Jesus ever avoid sinning in his lifetime? This is not an attempt to avoid addressing the sin of this world and what we might do about it, but really question about what is and is not sin. It cannot be "a sin" to unavoidably participate in the systemic sin of the world. Our specific actions have to be sinful, or not, but we cannot be systemically guilty of sin in this way without also indicting our Saviour.
To this I would ask: to what extent did Jesus bear our humanity, to what extent was he one of us, to what extent then are we now in him? To the extent that Jesus was a Jew, he was under sin (Rom. 3:9), to the extent that Jesus was part of everyone he was under sin (Gal. 3:22, yet, nevertheless he is God's redemption from that sin) and more pointedly, 2Cor. 5:21 "God made the one who did not know sin to be sin for us, so that in him we would become the righteousness of God." This is not in my mind a conclusive refutation of this concern, rather an observation of a greater complexity at work. The issue remains problematic on many levels. However I do not have this concern. I do not necessarily have a problem with Jesus implicitly participating in a form of sin common to all humanity yet fully obedient to the Father and furthermore declared righteous by the Father and in so doing opening redemption to all of humanity that too is found under sin. I do not depend on getting all of Jesus' "A's" imputed to my report card, rather I hold to the righteousness declared over me by the Father on the basis of Jesus' obedient faithfulness.
Others may question whether we really are inextricably enmeshed in the banal evil of the world.
This is the banality of evil that I mean. I am no Marxist but the capitalist reduction of humans to units of production and consumption is hardly righteous. The purchase of corn or soy products empowers economic and environmental oppression. The purchase of gasoline supports evil regimes and bio-fuels have more than doubled the price of food globally leading to starvation. The vast majority of cotton, chocolate, coffee comes on the back of slavery. The purchase of any commodity that has exploitation in one of it’s production regions supports that exploitation. Our taxes support not only the good of our governments but also the evil.
The situation is much more complex and interesting when you remember that making money, trading food, using gas, etc... all also help people prosper and are significant means with which to treat each other with kindness. We work to be good while unavoidably participating in evil.
Here is Part 2
Tuesday, February 28, 2012
Tuesday, January 31, 2012
On A Mission From God
I was recently in Thailand doing the part of my job as the CEO of The Charis Project that I find most difficult and invigorating and that puts me in the greatest danger of growth and transformation.
I had the privilege and pleasure of spending the trip with my brother and co-founder Wayland Blue. He and I are alike in many ways that we are both divergent from the main population. In the way we think and in our attitudes. We have a great deal of mutual respect and push and support each other in ways that no one else does or can.
This trip was particularly taxing for the Blues Brothers. We, however, take the struggle as a birthright. A great honor we have been entrusted with. Because of the incarnation, because God became human and thereby took into himself humanity, and because of the Spirit that has made us brothers and heirs of the salvation that Jesus has already won, our struggle is direct participation in the very action of God in effecting that salvation in the very dirt of history. Because we are sons of the living God, born of the Spirit and caught up in the very life of Christ we are rulers of the universe. We look at the world and in all truth say, "we own all of this." Because of the incarnation this is our world. We have been given back the dominion that Adam and Eve lost. It is ours to subdue, not as a foreign beachhead but as our rightful inheritance.
We are not settlers or besieged villagers holding out for reinforcements. We are giants of salvation and forgiveness walking the face of the earth. We are not victims of spiritual warfare or disease or the military industrial complex. We are the agents of subversive redemption wherever we step. It is by the active power of our Father that we succeed and fail and in failing we still succeed; such is the radical depth of God's subversive grace. We are not victims, we are free and willingly take on the weight of our freedom in the shining face of the Lord.
This is yours also, the kingdom of God is at your very hand. There is no act so small or menial that it cannot be world shifting.
Go forth and rule.
I had the privilege and pleasure of spending the trip with my brother and co-founder Wayland Blue. He and I are alike in many ways that we are both divergent from the main population. In the way we think and in our attitudes. We have a great deal of mutual respect and push and support each other in ways that no one else does or can.
This trip was particularly taxing for the Blues Brothers. We, however, take the struggle as a birthright. A great honor we have been entrusted with. Because of the incarnation, because God became human and thereby took into himself humanity, and because of the Spirit that has made us brothers and heirs of the salvation that Jesus has already won, our struggle is direct participation in the very action of God in effecting that salvation in the very dirt of history. Because we are sons of the living God, born of the Spirit and caught up in the very life of Christ we are rulers of the universe. We look at the world and in all truth say, "we own all of this." Because of the incarnation this is our world. We have been given back the dominion that Adam and Eve lost. It is ours to subdue, not as a foreign beachhead but as our rightful inheritance.
We are not settlers or besieged villagers holding out for reinforcements. We are giants of salvation and forgiveness walking the face of the earth. We are not victims of spiritual warfare or disease or the military industrial complex. We are the agents of subversive redemption wherever we step. It is by the active power of our Father that we succeed and fail and in failing we still succeed; such is the radical depth of God's subversive grace. We are not victims, we are free and willingly take on the weight of our freedom in the shining face of the Lord.
This is yours also, the kingdom of God is at your very hand. There is no act so small or menial that it cannot be world shifting.
Go forth and rule.
Monday, January 30, 2012
On The Value Of Beatings
Well, hello again. I will get back to the series I started a while back (part 1, part 2, part 3) as soon I regain the neural capacity. This time I am going with something more apropos the topics of discussion that are trending in my own home.
My wife is working on an extended project having to do with significance and meaning. You can get a taste of the direction it is heading in this post. Add to that the difficulties of getting by on not quite enough money and the struggles of our ongoing (unpaid) work of revolutionizing the care of at-risk children and and my incessant need to make sense of things and nearly pathological desire for significance and you will end up with some thoughts on the desires of God and our quality of life.
Particularly in developed countries there is this notion that following God should make our life nice and easy. This comes out often when we are making decisions about what to do with our life. I have often heard people say things along the lines of, "If God is behind it (whatever "it" is) then it will work." Usually "it working" means "it will be easy" or "things will fall into place." There are all sorts of biblical precedents that indicate that this is crazy talk. So I won't bother talking about this from that direction. The simple observation that there is rape and murder in the world indicates that what God wants does not necessarily actually take place in the real world. How then can we believe that our endeavors will go more smoothly if God is behind them?
What particularly interests me right now is the way we look to heros of the faith for inspiration. When we do this we more or less look strictly at the final hero status and separate that from what led to the status. We look at the end product of the famous person, the recognized hero and actually look up to the recognition and fame rather than the process that led to it, forgetting that no hero ever has heroism handed to them. Salvation is a thing handed to us through the grace of God. Heroism is something we earn. The only way someone becomes a hero is by getting the crap kicked out of them. That beating is absolutely necessary to the end result. It is through enduring the beatings and holding on and pushing through that one ever has the possibility of achieving heroism.
God has plans in this world. God struggles and has to overcome. Look at the true revelation of the living God. God incarnate in his deepest self revelation in the world. Did Jesus need to push through and overcome adversity to effect salvation? I know, stupid question. To be fully conformed to the image of Christ involves heroism. The struggle itself is an integral part of the path.
Go forth and conquer
Tuesday, December 13, 2011
In Search Of A Shameless Christmas
In general I find Christmas stuff irritating. I am able to deal with the black friday, buying spree aspect of it by placing it in the same sort of class as prostitution: an abusive cycle that in a diabolical synergy falsely promises to fill a void while making us more dependent on that void and blinding us to the void's very nature and existence. That is an easy one, addiction, brokenness and idolatry is so commonplace that it takes an effort to get worked up about it.
I don't care that the tree comes out of Roman paganism. I don't care that the date has far more to do with pagan fertility rituals that with the likely historical birth of Jesus of Nazareth. I am not an advocate of nor am I a critic of Christian observance of Chanukah (the celebration of a miracle of lamp oil lasting days longer than it should have in a temple that never saw the presence of God and housed a hypocritical and vilely corrupt group of covenant breaking religious leaders.) What gets me about these traditions is that they effectively distract from what is the point. But they are nowhere near the core so they are somewhat innocuous. These are traditions that mean whatever they mean to the observer.
The most insidious and blatant assault is the baby Jesus stuff. Coming so close to the core portraying the infant in Kinkadian sap. All tame and nice. Like an inoculation that tricks your mind into thinking it has the point while actually shifting your view just enough askew to miss it. The cards and cutouts and ornaments and plays and creches portraying a nice happy bright little tame baby. It makes me a wee bit sick.
Baby Jesus, yes. The cute babyness, no. What is going on in the Baby Jesus is the sort of thing that makes your bowels turn to liquid, that makes your breath stick in your throat, that deafens your mind with its immensity. In the Baby Jesus, the creator of the universe crammed himself, covered in shit and blood, through the cervix of a palestinian teenager. In the Baby Jesus, God absorbed humanness into himself. By taking up existence as a real, tiny, human person God took humanness itself into himself with the result that all who share in that humanness got taken up as well. In that little baby, the fire that formed galaxies, we lose the ability to be separated from God.
I don't care that the tree comes out of Roman paganism. I don't care that the date has far more to do with pagan fertility rituals that with the likely historical birth of Jesus of Nazareth. I am not an advocate of nor am I a critic of Christian observance of Chanukah (the celebration of a miracle of lamp oil lasting days longer than it should have in a temple that never saw the presence of God and housed a hypocritical and vilely corrupt group of covenant breaking religious leaders.) What gets me about these traditions is that they effectively distract from what is the point. But they are nowhere near the core so they are somewhat innocuous. These are traditions that mean whatever they mean to the observer.
The most insidious and blatant assault is the baby Jesus stuff. Coming so close to the core portraying the infant in Kinkadian sap. All tame and nice. Like an inoculation that tricks your mind into thinking it has the point while actually shifting your view just enough askew to miss it. The cards and cutouts and ornaments and plays and creches portraying a nice happy bright little tame baby. It makes me a wee bit sick.
Baby Jesus, yes. The cute babyness, no. What is going on in the Baby Jesus is the sort of thing that makes your bowels turn to liquid, that makes your breath stick in your throat, that deafens your mind with its immensity. In the Baby Jesus, the creator of the universe crammed himself, covered in shit and blood, through the cervix of a palestinian teenager. In the Baby Jesus, God absorbed humanness into himself. By taking up existence as a real, tiny, human person God took humanness itself into himself with the result that all who share in that humanness got taken up as well. In that little baby, the fire that formed galaxies, we lose the ability to be separated from God.
Monday, November 21, 2011
Wednesday, November 16, 2011
The Long Silence
This is what concerned me about starting a blog: The Long Silence. It is not that I have given up the search, it is just that the rest of my commitments (family, work, The Charis Project) have suddenly taken up all my time and energy so now all I can do is experience the reality of the gospel in midst of my life or not. It is kind of a spiritual "put up or shut up" situation. If the gospel is for real and something that is without shame it needs to keep being real even when you are not looking at it. That is, if the gospel doesn't continue to make a real difference in your life even when you are not thinking about and meditating on it then the gospel you are dealing with is a load of dingo's kidneys and you should start looking for a different one.
Life is the original research of theology.
Life is the original research of theology.
Sunday, October 9, 2011
Running From a Shameful Gospel: Part 3
Been super busy for the past week with work and travel. Headed to Thailand in a few days to do my job with The Charis Project. I have been a bit delinquent here and may be again for a bit but I have both time and energy so here we go with another installment of well meaning theological insurgency.
That is what I wrote a few days ago and was too tired to continue and just too slammed to get back at it. Now I am in the Bangkok airport waiting for my flight up to the north and surprisingly feel up to producing. So here goes.
Once again, if what I say here seems way too harsh please read my Prolegomina before your blood pressure gets too high.
In Part 1 I stated in "blunt" language how the standard formulation of the gospel comes across to those who don't already know what it is supposed to mean. In Part 2 I asked "who cares?" about this standard gospel and I think the cultural trends indicate that fewer and fewer people do care. These are "watching world" criticisms and could be argued to therefore be irrelevant to the truth of the formulation of the gospel that I am discussing: "If the blind are unable to see, does that make the picture wrong?" I would agree with such arguments. I do not intend for the little I have said so far to show the gospel wrong, only more-or-less irrelevant or mildly irritating to the surrounding culture. It doesn't even present a challenge, since in order to challenge someone they need to already be at least provisionally invested in what you are saying
These have been missiological criticisms, if you will. Criticisms that a Shameless Gospel will address and I believe dismiss. The next two criticisms are more theological and thus internal to the structure of the Christianity that formulates the gospel as I have been discussing it. We can look forward to these as having to do with sin management and gnosticism.
I will really try to get something out sooner rather than later but I will be in the jungle for the next two weeks and may not be able to round up the technology or the health/energy/mental fortitude to get this up while doing all the teaching and other work that I must do here.
I am looking forward to moving through these basic criticisms and getting into the positive work of progressively finding a Shameless Gospel.
That is what I wrote a few days ago and was too tired to continue and just too slammed to get back at it. Now I am in the Bangkok airport waiting for my flight up to the north and surprisingly feel up to producing. So here goes.
Once again, if what I say here seems way too harsh please read my Prolegomina before your blood pressure gets too high.
In Part 1 I stated in "blunt" language how the standard formulation of the gospel comes across to those who don't already know what it is supposed to mean. In Part 2 I asked "who cares?" about this standard gospel and I think the cultural trends indicate that fewer and fewer people do care. These are "watching world" criticisms and could be argued to therefore be irrelevant to the truth of the formulation of the gospel that I am discussing: "If the blind are unable to see, does that make the picture wrong?" I would agree with such arguments. I do not intend for the little I have said so far to show the gospel wrong, only more-or-less irrelevant or mildly irritating to the surrounding culture. It doesn't even present a challenge, since in order to challenge someone they need to already be at least provisionally invested in what you are saying
pet peeve: speakers, and it is far and away Christian speakers who do this, saying "I want to challenge you" and usually following this is something they want me to do. I always think when someone says this that they don't believe what they are saying deeply enough for it to have truly affected them sufficiently for them to speak convincingly about it and so they use the "I want to challenge you" sales script. My response is, "Then get on with it and actually challenge me."
These have been missiological criticisms, if you will. Criticisms that a Shameless Gospel will address and I believe dismiss. The next two criticisms are more theological and thus internal to the structure of the Christianity that formulates the gospel as I have been discussing it. We can look forward to these as having to do with sin management and gnosticism.
I will really try to get something out sooner rather than later but I will be in the jungle for the next two weeks and may not be able to round up the technology or the health/energy/mental fortitude to get this up while doing all the teaching and other work that I must do here.
I am looking forward to moving through these basic criticisms and getting into the positive work of progressively finding a Shameless Gospel.
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