Unsettling our judgements about status and desert

The Gospel reading this morning from Mark 12 about Jesus sitting around in the Temple observing who was giving and how much they were giving to the Temple collection raises some interesting issues.

One of them is the simple fact that Jesus was just sitting around observing what was going on. He was interested in what people were doing and how they were relating to this central institution in Jewish life.

Jesus made the observation to his disciples following his observation of rich people putting in a lot of money and a widow putting in a couple of low value coins. "I tell you this widow has put in more than all the others. Everyone else gave what they didn't need. But she is very poor and gave everything she had. Now she doesn't have a penny to live on."

What is Jesus up to here? Is he commending what the widow has done? After all she is someone with no status, no access to economic resources and totally dependent on the community provision through the laws related to gleaning and provision from the harvest leftovers.

What right did she have we might think seeing that she is dependent upon the limited social welfare system to go giving away what little she had? Is she moving herself out of the ranks of the deserving poor into the undeserving poor because of her extravagance on the religious front? I can imagine that there were those in the Temple hierarchy who would have assented to this judgment.

Was Jesus commending the widow? The text isn't clear but there is no doubt that her generosity is acknowledged by Jesus and her status is elevated compared to that of the rich people who give what is left over. It's a commendation of some sort with the implication that.


But think about the equivalent scenario today. It is as though a single Aboriginal mother on Centrelink benefits has gone and given away her last $10 to a World Vision appeal for victims of earthquake in Indonesia and will have to go to the Salvation Army for food for the next couple of days till her next payment is due.

Is she still one of the "deserving poor" or has she removed herself from that category because of her extravagance in giving away what little she had and increasing her reliance on the generosity of the community?

There is something unnerving and unsettling about Jesus and the observations he makes here.  Our easy certainties about status and desert are brought into question. There is a further sting  which we miss because the chapter division used by the lectionary cuts off the reading at this point.  Immediately afterward at the start of the next block of readings as Jesus leaves the Temple he speaks of the edifice being torn down, a judgment on the entire Temple system. Whatever our assessment of who is or is not deserving we are all subject to the questioning of God's justice.

Remembering well

Remembrance Day in Australia has been just about lost to public view given the focus on Anzac Day.

The War Memorial Web site has a helpful account of the history of Remembrance Day and suggests that we take a minutes silence at 11am on 11 November to " remember those who died or suffered for Australia's cause in all wars and armed conflicts."

This raises a good question about remembering. Christians are called to remember and to re-member Jesus, as we do in coming to share a meal together, who refused to use violence to bring in God's kingdom. How should Christians remember war? This is an important issue for Christians in Australia given the emergence of Anzac Day as the manifestation of a form of civil religion.

Ekklesia in the UK have just produced a very useful report Reimagining Remembrance Day that though it adresses the specific issues related to Remembrance Day in the UK provides some useful theological insights that are relevant to the task of how christians might remember Anzac Day.

Some of the issues that churches could address include:

• A greater equality in remembrance to incorporate all those affected by war, including those on both sides and civilians, conscientious objectors, and those executed for ‘cowardice’
• The language used in remembrance should be more truthful. Words like ‘glorious’ should no longer be used. There should also be an acknowledgement that some did “die in vain” and an end to automatic references about all soldiers giving “their lives for the freedom we enjoy today”.
• Churches should resist the misappropriation of religious language in remembrance. Where it is used it should be qualified carefully, particularly with regard to words like “sacrifice”, which should not be used to condone violence.
• Following other examples from around the world a far greater commitment should be made to peace
• Churches that have bishops and chaplains to the armed forces, should also provide them for the “unarmed forces”, those who work as peacemakers and peacebuilders without weapons
• Remembrance should encompass groups who are often excluded. The environmental impact of war, including ecological damage and millions of animals slaughtered should also be more widely acknowledged

• There should be an end to ‘selective remembrance’ where the more shameful aspects of war are forgotten Ekklesia


Churches who seriously took up this agenda would find themselves in conflict with the RSL in short order. This might be no bad thing as there are serious issues of theological integrity at stake here for the churches. It would also make clear that we have reached an end of the Christendom settlement and any automatic alignment of church and nation.

Remembering Marcellus of Tangiers

The need to demystify the nation state is on an ongoing task for Christians. William Cavanaugh makes this point forcefully:

The nation-state is neither community writ large nor the protector of smaller communal spaces, but rather originates and grows over against truly common forms of life. This is not necessarily to say that the nation-state cannot and does not promote and protect some goods, or that any nation- state is entirely devoid of civic virtue, or that some forms of ad hoc co- operation with the government cannot be useful. It is to suggest that the nation-state is simply not in the common good business. At its most benign, the nation-state is most realistically likened, as in MacIntyre’s apt metaphor, to the telephone company, a large bureaucratic provider of goods and ser- vices that never quite provides value for money.

The problem, as MacIntyre notes, is that the nation-state presents itself as so much more; namely, as the keeper of the common good and repository of sacred values that demands sacrifice on its behalf. The longing for genuine communion that Christians recognize at the heart of any truly common life is transferred onto the nation-state. Civic virtue and the goods of common life do not simply disappear; as Augustine saw, the earthly city flourishes by producing a distorted image of the heavenly city. The nation-state is a simulacrum of common life, where false order is parasitical on true order. In a bureaucratic order whose main function is to adjudicate struggles for power between various factions, a sense of unity is produced by the only means possible: sacrifice to false gods in war. The nation-state may be understood theologically as a kind of parody of the Church, meant to save us from division.

The urgent task of the Church, then, is to demystify the nation-state and to treat it like the telephone company ("Killing for the Telephone Company: Why the Nation-State is not the Keeper of the Common Good" Modern Theology 20:2, April 2004)

It was worth keeping in mind that this task is not new. Today is the saints day for Marcellus of Tangiers. In the task of reshaping our understanding of the respective claims of God and the state the story of Marcellus is worth remembering.

In the year A.D. 298, enemies threatened the Roman Empire on several fronts. For reasons of state security, the government increased pressure on soldiers and others to demonstrate allegiance to the “divine” emperor. Protocol required the centurion Marcellus to lead his troops in giving allegiance to Rome on the emperor’s birthday.

An ancient account states that “Marcellus rejected these pagan festivities.” He threw down his soldier’s belt (which carried his weapons) in front of the legionary standards (the Roman eagle and images of the emperor). Then he spoke in a loud voice in front of his troops: “I am a soldier of Jesus Christ, the eternal king. From now I cease to serve your emperors and I despise the worship of your gods of wood and stone, for they are deaf and dumb images.”

The record says the soldiers under the command of Marcellus were “amazed,” and promptly arrested him. An account of his trial in October 298 records the following exchange between the judge Agricolanus and Marcellus:

Agricolanus: “Did you say the things that are recorded in the prefect’s report?”

Marcellus: “Yes, I did.”

Agricolanus: “You held the military rank of centurion, first class?”

Marcellus: “Yes,”

Agricolanus: “What madness possessed you to throw down the symbols of your military oath and to say the things you did?”

Marcellus: “No madness possesses those who fear the Lord.”

Agricolanus: “Then you did say all those things that are set down in the prefect’s report?”

Marcellus: “Yes, I said them.”

Agricolanus: “You threw down your weapons?”

Marcellus: “Yes, I did. For it is not fitting that a Christian, who fights for Christ his Lord, should fight for the armies of this world.”

Agricolanus: “What Marcellus has done merits punishment according to military rules. And so, whereas Marcellus, who held the rank of centurion, first class, has confessed that he has disgraced himself by publicly renouncing his military oath, … I hereby sentence him to death by the sword.”

Marcellus (being led out to execution): “Agricolanus, may God reward you.”

Questions about "public theology"

I have been thinking for some time about the emergence of "public theology" as yet another attempt by mainstream Christian theologians to avoid facing fully the implications of the disintegration of Christendom. Some unrelated googling to follow up on the work of Catholic theologian
 Michael Baxter turned up the following comments by him on this theme that provides some support for my suspicions in his analysis of responses by mainstream Catholic theologians to Dorothy Day and the Catholic Worker movement.

Notice here the similarities between Weigel's and Curran's reading of the Worker. Both find it lacking in responsibility when it comes to institutional change. Both appeal to criteria of effectiveness. Both extol the Worker for its inspiring example, but its significance is restricted to the realm of individual witness. Both are indebted to the Weberian paradigm of politics. Differences in tone and emphasis notwithstanding, the readings of the Catholic Worker offered by Weigel and Curran are equally condescending and misleading.

And this is true, I would submit, of a host of social ethicists dedicated to developing a "public philosophy" or a "public theology," whose considerable differences give way to a common reading of the Catholic Worker's ecclesiology as "sectarian." This is a key word in the lexicon of Catholic social ethics done in the Troeltsch-Niebuhr-Gustafson lineage. It is invoked as a way to dismiss the claim that Christian discipleship entails a form of life that is embedded in the beliefs and practices of the Church and therefore cannot serve as the basis for universal, supra-ecclesial ethical principles that are then applied in making public policy. In this dismissal, it is possible to detect the lineaments of the kind of Weberian critique of the Catholic Worker offered by Weigel and Curran, namely, that Gospel ideals do not pertain to politics and must therefore be translated from ends into means, from absolute into relative terms, so as to have a more direct bearing in the world of pragmatic policy making. But such a translation reproduces the former neo-Scholastic separation of theology and social theory that Peter Maurin criticized in his easy essay. It also runs counter to the consistent claim of Maurin and Day that true society is rooted in the supernatural life of Christ and cannot be abstracted from the beliefs and practices of the Church. Most importantly, this "public theology" approach fails to take seriously a contention that has been central to the life of the Catholic Worker from the beginning, namely, that the modern nation-state is a fundamentally unjust and corrupt set of institutions whose primary function is to preserve the interests of the ruling class, by coercive and violent means if necessary-and there will always come a time when it is necessary.

Those working out of the Murray tradition of "public theology" find this assessment of the modern nation-state to be intolerably negative. And indeed it certainly is negative-but Day would add that this is for good reason. After all, she was formed politically by the Old Left during and after the Great War. This was the era of the Committee on Public Information, the suppression of journals such as The Masses, the Palmer Raids, the shut-down of the Wobblies, and the Red Scare of the twenties. The history of state-sponsored political repression was very much intertwined with Dorothy Day's personal history (as is especially clear from the first part of her autobiography), and it left her forever wary of the claims of the state, as she herself indicates with the title of the chapter in The Long Loneliness on anarchist politics: "War is the health of the state."

("Blowing the Dynamite of the Church": Catholic Radicalism from a Catholic Radicalist Perspective Houston Catholic Worker Newspaper)

Religious violence - myths and legends

Religion and violence seem to be inextricably linked in current popular discourse and the new atheists such as Christopher Hitchens are right in their. If they are really opposed to religious violence then provided we can get clarity about what they mean by the term religious, then I really might be in their with them on that and on grounds that are based on being a follower of Jesus.

Now if that looks confusing at first glance then to unpack the issues we might turn with gratitude to the most recent book by William T Cavanaugh The Myth of Religious Violence: Secular  Ideology and the Roots of Modern Conflict (Oxford University Press, 2009).

Cavanaugh's  first book Torture and Eucharist was a stunning case study of the Catholic church in
Chile and its engagement with the Pinochet regime that canvasses issues of church and state engagement, why ecclesiology matters and how the Eucharist can be understood as embodying a distinctive form of politics.

(For the a comprehensive list of his work see the  Unofficial William T Cavanaugh Internet Archive at Catholic Anarchy.Org.)

The Myth of Religious Violence is less directly theological than Torture and Eucharist. The argument in summary is as follows:

The idea that religion has a dangerous tendency to promote violence is part of the conventional wisdom of Western societies, and it underlies many of our institutions and policies, from limits on the public role of religion to efforts to promote liberal democracy in the Middle East.

Cavanaugh challenges this conventional wisdom by examining how the twin categories of religion and the secular are constructed. He shows how a growing body of scholarly work explores how the category 'religion' has been constructed in the modern West and in colonial contexts according to specific configurations of political power and examines how timeless and transcultural categories of 'religion and 'the secular' are used in arguments that religion causes violence.

There are three major strands to his case:
1) There is no transhistorical and transcultural essence of religion. What counts as religious or secular in any given context is a function of political configurations of power. Examination of a range of scholars who attempt to make this case makes it clear that it is exceedingly difficult to draw a clear and coherent distinction between religious and secular violence. Cavanaugh is clear that religion can be deeply implicated in violence but that the real issue is to explore when and how beliefs and practices of whatever character become implicated in violence. The practical issue is under what conditions are people willing to kill whether it be for the sake of the belief or practice.

The religious/secular divide is not a transhistorical reality. It is part of the historical mythology underpinning the liberal state. FewAmerican Christians will kill over a matter of belief but many as a matter of practice will kill on behalf of the  United States to uphold the honor of the United States flag. Is that secular or religious violence?

2) A transhistorical and transcultural concept of religion as non-rational and prone to violence is one of the foundational legitimating myths of Western society.  Cavanaugh provides a chapter examining the historical scholarship that calls into question the myth that te liberal state was the solution to the problem of the wars of religion in Europe.

3) This myth can be and is used to legitimate neo-colonial violence against non-Western others, particularly the Muslim world.

Here the issue emerges with which I started this review. Hitchens uses the myth of religious violence as the basis for a secularist justification for violence against religious actors. There is not a consistent commitment to critique the use of violence on his behalf. Terrible irrational religious actors need to be subject to the violence of the secular state seems to be the position which Hitchens ends up justifying. The world must be made safe for secularism and if violence is required then it is OK as long as it is in the cause of rationality and enlightenment.

The way forward for Christians is to go back and revisit the fundamental theological commitments that arise from being followers of Jesus who was announced as the Prince of Peace. Cavanaugh has indicated that if we are going to be committed to the way of peace then the conditions that underpin the justification for violence need to be critiqued regardless of whether they are advanced on "religious" or "secular" grounds.

Getting over Christendom - Douglas John Hall

Doing some preparation for teaching a course on Christianity in Australian Society, I have been going back over some reading on ecclesiology, paying attention to one of the few mainstream theologians who has made this a major concern in framing his work.

The Canadian theologian Douglas John Hall has paid continuing attention throughout his career to the cultural disestablishment of Christianity in North America as opposed to the legal disestablishment of the churches in Europe. He combines this with attention to Luther's "theology of the cross" as opposed to a theology of glory. All this makes for an astringent theology that takes a clear stand against both liberalism and fundamentalism.

For a couple of articles online see: An Awkward Church


For an introduction to Hall's theological stance see The Cross in our Context: Jesus and the Suffering World (Fortress Press). What is curious is that he betrays no real awareness of the anabaptist tradition and history or its relevance for his argument.

Still like Stuart Murray in PostChristendom: Church and Mission in a Strange New World he regards the movement beyond Christendom as an opportunity to be rejoiced in rather than an occasion for lament.

Church in the crossfire, not the "opium of the people"

The following news release on paramilitary assassination of church leaders in Colombia caught my eye. Here we have the church literally caught in the crossfire from real drug dealers. Christian discipleship and leadership in Colombia is not for those looking for comfort in the way that Karl Marx may have been suggesting with his comments about "religion being the opiate of the people".

Justapaz, a ministry of the Mennonite Church of Colombia, reports an ongoing state of crisis in the northern Colombian province of Córdoba. So far in 2009, six Protestant church leaders from southern Córdoba have been murdered by paramilitary armed groups. Several attempted murders and dozens of death threats have forced the displacement of hundreds of people. Some churches have been literally caught in the crossfire. In one town, the lives of six pastors were threatened if they failed to make extortion payments. Many victims were targeted for their community leadership in land-rights struggles and for opposing the violence affecting their communities.

Justapaz is profoundly concerned about what it sees as the ongoing collusion between rearmed paramilitary groups and Colombian public security forces, as well as the lack of response from other state agencies to this violence.

According to local leaders and local and regional analysts, the current surge is driven by a territorial dispute between paramilitary groups and their economic interest in drug trafficking routes. Justapaz leaders say the groups target local pastors and leaders as a strategy of coercion to gain more land to control the routes. The number of violent deaths documented by Justapaz, as well as the analysis of local leaders, suggests that these groups are seeking to consolidate their control.

For the full story: Call to Prayer and Action for Colombia