I heard the last stanza read by John Pilger during his 2009 Sydney Peace Prize lecture and was very moved by it:

The Mask of Anarchy

by Percy Bysshe Shelley

Written on the occasion of the massacre carried out by the British Government at Peterloo, Manchester 1819

As I lay asleep in Italy
There came a voice from over the Sea,
And with great power it forth led me
To walk in the visions of Poesy.

I met Murder on the way -
He had a mask like Castlereagh -
Very smooth he looked, yet grim;
Seven blood-hounds followed him:

All were fat; and well they might
Be in admirable plight,
For one by one, and two by two,
He tossed the human hearts to chew
Which from his wide cloak he drew.

Next came Fraud, and he had on,
Like Eldon, an ermined gown;
His big tears, for he wept well,
Turned to mill-stones as they fell.

And the little children, who
Round his feet played to and fro,
Thinking every tear a gem,
Had their brains knocked out by them.

Clothed with the Bible, as with light,
And the shadows of the night,
Like Sidmouth, next, Hypocrisy
On a crocodile rode by.

And many more Destructions played
In this ghastly masquerade,
All disguised, even to the eyes,
Like Bishops, lawyers, peers, or spies.

Last came Anarchy: he rode
On a white horse, splashed with blood;
He was pale even to the lips,
Like Death in the Apocalypse.

And he wore a kingly crown;
And in his grasp a sceptre shone;
On his brow this mark I saw -
'I AM GOD, AND KING, AND LAW!'

With a pace stately and fast,
Over English land he passed,
Trampling to a mire of blood
The adoring multitude.

And a mighty troop around,
With their trampling shook the ground,
Waving each a bloody sword,
For the service of their Lord.

And with glorious triumph, they
Rode through England proud and gay,
Drunk as with intoxication
Of the wine of desolation.

O'er fields and towns, from sea to sea,
Passed the Pageant swift and free,
Tearing up, and trampling down;
Till they came to London town.

And each dweller, panic-stricken,
Felt his heart with terror sicken
Hearing the tempestuous cry
Of the triumph of Anarchy.

For with pomp to meet him came,
Clothed in arms like blood and flame,
The hired murderers, who did sing
'Thou art God, and Law, and King.

'We have waited, weak and lone
For thy coming, Mighty One!
Our Purses are empty, our swords are cold,
Give us glory, and blood, and gold.'

Lawyers and priests, a motley crowd,
To the earth their pale brows bowed;
Like a bad prayer not over loud,
Whispering - 'Thou art Law and God.' -

Then all cried with one accord,
'Thou art King, and God and Lord;
Anarchy, to thee we bow,
Be thy name made holy now!'

And Anarchy, the skeleton,
Bowed and grinned to every one,
As well as if his education
Had cost ten millions to the nation.

For he knew the Palaces
Of our Kings were rightly his;
His the sceptre, crown and globe,
And the gold-inwoven robe.

So he sent his slaves before
To seize upon the Bank and Tower,
And was proceeding with intent
To meet his pensioned Parliament

When one fled past, a maniac maid,
And her name was Hope, she said:
But she looked more like Despair,
And she cried out in the air:

'My father Time is weak and gray
With waiting for a better day;
See how idiot-like he stands,
Fumbling with his palsied hands!

He has had child after child,
And the dust of death is piled
Over every one but me -
Misery, oh, Misery!'

Then she lay down in the street,
Right before the horses' feet,
Expecting, with a patient eye,
Murder, Fraud, and Anarchy.

When between her and her foes
A mist, a light, an image rose,
Small at first, and weak, and frail
Like the vapour of a vale:

Till as clouds grow on the blast,
Like tower-crowned giants striding fast,
And glare with lightnings as they fly,
And speak in thunder to the sky,

It grew - a Shape arrayed in mail
Brighter than the viper's scale,
And upborne on wings whose grain
Was as the light of sunny rain.

On its helm, seen far away,
A planet, like the Morning's, lay;
And those plumes its light rained through
Like a shower of crimson dew.

With step as soft as wind it passed
O'er the heads of men - so fast
That they knew the presence there,
And looked, - but all was empty air.

As flowers beneath May's footstep waken,
As stars from Night's loose hair are shaken,
As waves arise when loud winds call,
Thoughts sprung where'er that step did fall.

And the prostrate multitude
Looked - and ankle-deep in blood,
Hope, that maiden most serene,
Was walking with a quiet mien:

And Anarchy, the ghastly birth,
Lay dead earth upon the earth;
The Horse of Death tameless as wind
Fled, and with his hoofs did grind
To dust the murderers thronged behind.

A rushing light of clouds and splendour,
A sense awakening and yet tender
Was heard and felt - and at its close
These words of joy and fear arose

As if their own indignant Earth
Which gave the sons of England birth
Had felt their blood upon her brow,
And shuddering with a mother's throe

Had turned every drop of blood
By which her face had been bedewed
To an accent unwithstood, -
As if her heart had cried aloud:

'Men of England, heirs of Glory,
Heroes of unwritten story,
Nurslings of one mighty Mother,
Hopes of her, and one another;

'Rise like Lions after slumber
In unvanquishable number,
Shake your chains to earth like dew
Which in sleep had fallen on you -
Ye are many - they are few.

'What is Freedom? - ye can tell
That which slavery is, too well -
For its very name has grown
To an echo of your own.

'Tis to work and have such pay
As just keeps life from day to day
In your limbs, as in a cell
For the tyrants' use to dwell,

'So that ye for them are made
Loom, and plough, and sword, and spade,
With or without your own will bent
To their defence and nourishment.

'Tis to see your children weak
With their mothers pine and peak,
When the winter winds are bleak, -
They are dying whilst I speak.

'Tis to hunger for such diet
As the rich man in his riot
Casts to the fat dogs that lie
Surfeiting beneath his eye;

'Tis to let the Ghost of Gold
Take from Toil a thousandfold
More that e'er its substance could
In the tyrannies of old.

'Paper coin - that forgery
Of the title-deeds, which ye
Hold to something of the worth
Of the inheritance of Earth.

'Tis to be a slave in soul
And to hold no strong control
Over your own wills, but be
All that others make of ye.

'And at length when ye complain
With a murmur weak and vain
'Tis to see the Tyrant's crew
Ride over your wives and you -
Blood is on the grass like dew.

'Then it is to feel revenge
Fiercely thirsting to exchange
Blood for blood - and wrong for wrong -
Do not thus when ye are strong.

'Birds find rest, in narrow nest
When weary of their wingèd quest
Beasts find fare, in woody lair
When storm and snow are in the air.

'Asses, swine, have litter spread
And with fitting food are fed;
All things have a home but one -
Thou, Oh, Englishman, hast none!

'This is slavery - savage men
Or wild beasts within a den
Would endure not as ye do -
But such ills they never knew.

'What art thou Freedom? O! could slaves
Answer from their living graves
This demand - tyrants would flee
Like a dream's dim imagery:

'Thou art not, as impostors say,
A shadow soon to pass away,
A superstition, and a name
Echoing from the cave of Fame.

'For the labourer thou art bread,
And a comely table spread
From his daily labour come
In a neat and happy home.

'Thou art clothes, and fire, and food
For the trampled multitude -
No - in countries that are free
Such starvation cannot be
As in England now we see.

'To the rich thou art a check,
When his foot is on the neck
Of his victim, thou dost make
That he treads upon a snake.

'Thou art Justice - ne'er for gold
May thy righteous laws be sold
As laws are in England - thou
Shield'st alike the high and low.

'Thou art Wisdom - Freemen never
Dream that God will damn for ever
All who think those things untrue
Of which Priests make such ado.

'Thou art Peace - never by thee
Would blood and treasure wasted be
As tyrants wasted them, when all
Leagued to quench thy flame in Gaul.

'What if English toil and blood
Was poured forth, even as a flood?
It availed, Oh, Liberty,
To dim, but not extinguish thee.

'Thou art Love - the rich have kissed
Thy feet, and like him following Christ,
Give their substance to the free
And through the rough world follow thee,

'Or turn their wealth to arms, and make
War for thy belovèd sake
On wealth, and war, and fraud - whence they
Drew the power which is their prey.

'Science, Poetry, and Thought
Are thy lamps; they make the lot
Of the dwellers in a cot
So serene, they curse it not.

'Spirit, Patience, Gentleness,
All that can adorn and bless
Art thou - let deeds, not words, express
Thine exceeding loveliness.

'Let a great Assembly be
Of the fearless and the free
On some spot of English ground
Where the plains stretch wide around.

'Let the blue sky overhead,
The green earth on which ye tread,
All that must eternal be
Witness the solemnity.

'From the corners uttermost
Of the bounds of English coast;
From every hut, village, and town
Where those who live and suffer moan,

'From the workhouse and the prison
Where pale as corpses newly risen,
Women, children, young and old
Groan for pain, and weep for cold -

'From the haunts of daily life
Where is waged the daily strife
With common wants and common cares
Which sows the human heart with tares -

'Lastly from the palaces
Where the murmur of distress
Echoes, like the distant sound
Of a wind alive around

'Those prison halls of wealth and fashion,
Where some few feel such compassion
For those who groan, and toil, and wail
As must make their brethren pale -

'Ye who suffer woes untold,
Or to feel, or to behold
Your lost country bought and sold
With a price of blood and gold -

'Let a vast assembly be,
And with great solemnity
Declare with measured words that ye
Are, as God has made ye, free -

'Be your strong and simple words
Keen to wound as sharpened swords,
And wide as targes let them be,
With their shade to cover ye.

'Let the tyrants pour around
With a quick and startling sound,
Like the loosening of a sea,
Troops of armed emblazonry.

Let the charged artillery drive
Till the dead air seems alive
With the clash of clanging wheels,
And the tramp of horses' heels.

'Let the fixèd bayonet
Gleam with sharp desire to wet
Its bright point in English blood
Looking keen as one for food.

'Let the horsemen's scimitars
Wheel and flash, like sphereless stars
Thirsting to eclipse their burning
In a sea of death and mourning.

'Stand ye calm and resolute,
Like a forest close and mute,
With folded arms and looks which are
Weapons of unvanquished war,

'And let Panic, who outspeeds
The career of armèd steeds
Pass, a disregarded shade
Through your phalanx undismayed.

'Let the laws of your own land,
Good or ill, between ye stand
Hand to hand, and foot to foot,
Arbiters of the dispute,

'The old laws of England - they
Whose reverend heads with age are gray,
Children of a wiser day;
And whose solemn voice must be
Thine own echo - Liberty!

'On those who first should violate
Such sacred heralds in their state
Rest the blood that must ensue,
And it will not rest on you.

'And if then the tyrants dare
Let them ride among you there,
Slash, and stab, and maim, and hew, -
What they like, that let them do.

'With folded arms and steady eyes,
And little fear, and less surprise,
Look upon them as they slay
Till their rage has died away.

'Then they will return with shame
To the place from which they came,
And the blood thus shed will speak
In hot blushes on their cheek.

'Every woman in the land
Will point at them as they stand -
They will hardly dare to greet
Their acquaintance in the street.

'And the bold, true warriors
Who have hugged Danger in wars
Will turn to those who would be free,
Ashamed of such base company.

'And that slaughter to the Nation
Shall steam up like inspiration,
Eloquent, oracular;
A volcano heard afar.

'And these words shall then become
Like Oppression's thundered doom
Ringing through each heart and brain,
Heard again - again - again -

'Rise like Lions after slumber
In unvanquishable number -
Shake your chains to earth like dew
Which in sleep had fallen on you -
Ye are many - they are few.

Last paragraph from Zizek's 'First as Tragedy, Then as Farce'

"The fact that [French philosopher Gilles] Deleuze, just before he died, was in the middle of writing a book on Marx, is indicative of a wider trend. In the Christian past, it was common for people who had led dissolute lives to return to the safe haven of the church in old age, so they might die reconciled with God. Something similar is happening today with the many anti-communist Leftists. In their final years, they return to communism as if, after their life of depraved betrayal, they want to die reconciled with the communist Idea. As with the old Christians, these late conversions carry the same basic message: that we have spent our lives rebelling vainly against what, deep within us, we knew all the time to be the truth. So, when even a great anti-communist like Kravchenko can in a certain sense return to his faith, our message today should be: do not be afraid, join us, come back! You’ve had your anti-communist fun, and you are pardoned for it — time to get serious once again!"

Dangerous Theologies 3: Gutierrez on Christian poverty as solidarity

"Poverty is an act of love and liberation. It has a redemptive value. If the ultimate cause of human exploitation and alienation is selfishness, the deepest reason for voluntary poverty is love of neighbor. Christian poverty has meaning only as a commitment of solidarity with the poor, with those who suffer misery and injustice... It is not a question of idealizing poverty, but rather of taking it on as it is-an evil-to protest against it and to struggle to abolish it... Because of this solidarity- which manifest itself in specific action, a style of life, a break with one’s social class- one can also help the poor and exploitated to become aware of their exploitation and seek liberation from it. Christian poverty, and expression of love, is solidarity with the poor and is a protest against poverty. This is the concrete, contemporary meaning of the witness of poverty. It is a poverty lived not for its own sake, but rather as an authentic imitation of Christ; it is a poverty which means taking on the sinful human condition to liberate humankind from sin and all its consequences."

from A Theology of Liberation by Gustavo Gutierrez

Dangerous Theologies 2: Calvin on oppression

Lenin: 20th Century Calvin lookalike?

"But rulers, you will say, owe mutual duties to those under them. This I have already confessed. But if from this you conclude that obedience is to be returned to none but just governors, you reason absurdly. Husbands are bound by mutual duties to their wives, and parents to their children. Should husbands and parents neglect their duty; should the latter be harsh and severe to the children whom they are enjoined not to provoke to anger, and by their severity harass them beyond measure; should the former treat with the greatest contumely the wives whom they are enjoined to love and to spare as the weaker vessels; would children be less bound in duty to their parents, and wives to their husbands? They are made subject to the froward and undutiful. Nay, since the duty of all is not to look behind them, that is, not to inquire into the duties of one another, but to submit each to his own duty, this ought especially to be exemplified in the case of those who are placed under the power of others.


Wherefore, if we are cruelly tormented by a savage, if we are rapaciously pillaged by an avaricious or luxurious, if we are neglected by a sluggish, if, in short, we are persecuted for righteousness' sake by an impious and sacrilegious prince, let us first call up the remembrance of our faults, which doubtless the Lord is chastising by such scourges. In this way humility will curb our impatience. And let us reflect that it belongs not to us to cure these evils, that all that remains for us is to implore the help of the Lord, in whose hands are the hearts of kings, and inclinations of kingdoms. "God standeth in the congregation of the mighty; he judgeth among the gods." Before his face shall fall and be crushed all kings and judges of the earth, who have not kissed his anointed, who have enacted unjust laws to oppress the poor in judgment, and do violence to the cause of the humble, to make widows a prey, and plunder the fatherless."


from John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion (1536), BOOK IV, Chapter XX, 'Of Civil Government'

Dangerous Theologies 1: Moltmann's Theology of Hope

"All predicates of Christ not only say who he was and is, but imply statements as to who he will be and what is to be expected from him. They all say 'He is our hope' (Col. 1.27). In thus announcing his future in the world in terms of promise, they point believers in him towards the hope still outstanding in the future. Hope's statements of promise anticipate the future. In the promises, the hidden future already announces itself and exerts its influence on the presence through the hope it awakens.

The truth of doctrinal statements is found in the fact that they can be shown to agree with the existing reality which we can all experience. Hope's statements of promise, however, must stand in contradiction to the reality which can at present be experienced. They do not result from experiences, but are the condition of possibility of new experiences. They do not seek to illuminate the reality which exists, but the reality which is coming. They do not seek to make a mental picture of existing reality, but to lead existing reality towards the promised and hoped-for transformation." (3-4)

from Jurgen Moltmann's Theology of Hope, SCM Press

Jesus: All about [WHOSE?!] life

Jesus: All about [dying to] Life

below: Jesuit Martyrs

"Cheap grace is the deadly enemy of our Church. We are fighting today for costly grace. Cheap grace means grace sold on the market like cheapjacks’ wares. The sacraments, the forgiveness of sin, and the consolations of religion are thrown away at cut prices. Grace is represented as the Church’s inexhaustible treasury, from which she showers blessings with generous hands, without asking questions or fixing limits. Grace without price; grace without cost!



...The cross is laid on every Christian. The first Christ-suffering which every person must experience is the call to abandon the attachments of this world. … we surrender ourselves to Christ in union with His death—we give over our lives to death. … When Christ calls a person, He bids them come and die. …death in Jesus Christ[!]"



- Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Jesus: All About [WHOSE?!] Life - part2

Jesus: All About [OUR WAY of] Life

Jesus: All About [WHOSE?!] Life - part1

Jesus: All About [My Middle-Class] Life

Why men shouldn't be ordained

This was so good I had to cross-post it (from Inhabitio Dei)

10. A man’s place is in the army.

9. For men who have children, their duties might distract them from the responsibilities of being a parent.

8. Their physical build indicates that men are more suited to tasks such as chopping down trees and wrestling mountain lions. It would be “unnatural” for them to do other forms of work.

7. Man was created before woman. It is therefore obvious that man was a prototype. Thus, they represent an experiment, rather than the crowning achievement of creation.

6. Men are too emotional to be priests or pastors. This is easily demonstrated by their conduct at football games and watching basketball tournaments.

5. Some men are handsome; they will distract women worshipers.

4. To be ordained pastor is to nurture the congregation. But this is not a traditional male role. Rather, throughout history, women have been considered to be not only more skilled than men at nurturing, but also more frequently attracted to it. This makes them the obvious choice for ordination.

3. Men are overly prone to violence. No really manly man wants to settle disputes by any means other than by fighting about it. Thus, they would be poor role models, as well as being dangerously unstable in positions of leadership.

2. Men can still be involved in church activities, even without being ordained. They can sweep paths, repair the church roof, change the oil in the church vans, and maybe even lead the singing on Father’s Day. By confining themselves to such traditional male roles, they can still be vitally important in the life of the Church.

1. In the New Testament account, the person who betrayed Jesus was a man. Thus, his lack of faith and ensuing punishment stands as a symbol of the subordinated position that all men should take

"Cheap grace is the deadly enemy of our Church"

Below: scene from The Mission (1989)

I just watched The Mission (by Roland Joffe, 1986) for the bzillionth time, yet I can't help but be struck by the witness of South American martyrs. Dedicated (and arguably analogous) to the liberation theologians and the base communities of South America in the 20th Century who challenged neo-colonial expansion and exploitation. Many of their ranks were murdered while going about their business, at Mass, or while celebrating the Eucharist. If you haven't seen this film, GO SEE IT!

As the equal and opposite to the witness of the Jesuits in the film, it never ceases to horrify me how complict with power the many Christians were. Again, the three main antagonists of the film are analogous to 20th Century liberation theology's opponents: the institutional church represented by Cardinal Altamirano; the unsympathetic exploiter of indigenous peasants represented by Don Cabeza; and the polite pragmatist -i.e. the rest of the wealthy world - represented by Senor Hontar.

Below: from The Mission, Cardinal Altamirano, Don Cabeza and Senor Hontar (on the right)

This film also reminds me of the classic book The Cost of Discipleship by Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who two centuries after the period set in the film walked the same path of martyrdom in the face of the capitulation of the churches to Nazism:

"Cheap grace is the deadly enemy of our Church. We are fighting today for costly grace. Cheap grace means grace sold on the market like cheapjacks’ wares. The sacraments, the forgiveness of sin, and the consolations of religion are thrown away at cut prices. Grace is represented as the Church’s inexhaustible treasury, from which she showers blessings with generous hands, without asking questions orfixing limits. Grace without price; grace without cost! The essence of grace, we suppose, is that the account has been paid in advance; and, because it has been paid, everything can be had for nothing...


Cheap grace means grace as a doctrine, a principle, a system. It means forgiveness of sins proclaimed as a general truth, the love of God taught as the Christian 'conception' of God. An intellectual assent to that idea is held to be of itself sufficient to secure remission of sins.... In such a Church the world finds a cheap covering for its sins; no contrition is required, still less any real desire to be delivered from sin. Cheap grace therefore amounts to a denial of the living Word of God, in fact, a denial of the Incarnation of the Word of God.


Cheap grace means the justification of sin without the justification of the sinner. Grace alone does everything they say, and so everything can remain as it was before. 'All for sin could not atone.' Well, then, let the Christian live like the rest of the world, let him model himself on the world’s standards in every sphere of life, and not presumptuously aspire to live a different life under grace from his old life under sin.


Cheap grace is the grace we bestow on ourselves. Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline, Communion without confession.... Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate.

Costly grace is the treasure hidden in the field; for the sake of it a person will gladly go and self all that they have. It is the pearl of great price to buy which the merchant will sell all their goods. It is the kingly rule of Christ, for whose sake a person will pluck out the eye which causes them to stumble, it is the call of Jesus Christ at which the disciple leaves his nets and follows him."


Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship, excerpts from pp.45-47

Catholic theologian William T. Cavanaugh is right when he reminds believers of our participation in this drama every time we partake of the Eucharist/Communion:

"...the eucharist is inextricably linked with martyrdom in the life of the church...

It is not simply that the eucharist is a commemoration of a past dying, the dying of Christ at the hands of the principalities and powers; it is more radical: The eucharist makes present that dying, incorporating the communicants into a body marked with the signs of death, such that Christians, as Paul says, are 'always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be made visible in our bodies' (2 Cor 4:10). The eucharist, in other words, creates a body of people who by definition stand in the line of fire.

...To take on the suffering of others may be central to Christianity, as the martyrs attest, but it is becoming increasingly marginal in this society. Sacrifice of the self is identified with a kind of morbid masochism that denies the goodness of creation.

In Christian thought, however, nothing could be farther from the truth. Suffering is not a good in itself; it is simply something that must be encountered if one is to speak the truth about the re-creation of the world through Jesus Christ. If one speaks truthfully of the in-breaking kingdom of light in a world of darkness, the powers of darkness are going to resist."

Sola Scriptura or Sola Text?: The vagaries of textual nihilism

When I first encountered this, I thought: 'You must be kidding'. But no, it's for real. It's not an adbusters spoof (e.g. the well-known 'What Would Jesus Bomb?')

It immediately reminded me of something I read in Hauerwas a few years ago re: sola scriptura ('scripture alone') being insufficient if not co-existent with liturgical praxis of the Church who is informed by the Story. In other words, Hauerwas argues that the best thing to happen to the American (and Australian?) church would be to take the Bible of the hands of people so corrupted by a lack of Christian identity that they have lost the ability to read scripture rightly. I'm not sure if I would have put it so harshly, but I have strong sympathies for his argument. Very often the presumed normativity of 'the Word' is confused with the normativity of the text (and of course its eminent interpreters). I remember trying to walk a fine line when asked to do a short talk on 'Sola Scriptura' about a year ago, trying to narrate the story of God's (threefold) liberation without falling into logocentric 'textual ontology' which ends up becoming a fetishized object that underwrites our 'common sense' (about life, war, gender, money, etc.)

Anyways, Hauerwas does it better:

"When sola scriptura is used to underwrite the distinction between text and interpretation, then it seems clear to me that sola scriptura is a heresy rather than a help in the Church. When this distinction persists, sola scriptura becomes the seedbed of fundamentalism, as well as biblical criticism. It assumes that the text of the Scripture makes sense separate from a Church that gives it sense. Perhaps those among us who maintain such a position forget that for much of the Church’s life most Christians could not read, but that did not in itself make them less faithful…

That Christians have learned of Christ and Christ’s relationship to Israel through biblical scenes portrayed on church windows and stone carvings and statues of the saints, alive and dead, should be sufficient for us to realize that the text of the Scripture is not mean to be “preserved intact” separate from the Church.

... God certainly uses Scripture to call the Church to faithfulness, but such a call always comes in the form of some in the Church remind others in the Church how to live as Christians – no “text” can be substituted for the people of God” (27-28)

Stanley Hauerwas in Unleashing the Scripture: Freeing the Bible from Captivity to America

Christ vs Dagon: JKA Smith on the struggle over desire in late-capitalism

James K.A. Smith from Calvin College has recently published the first of a projected 3-volume series on 'Cultural Liturgies' - Desiring the Kingdom: Worship, Worldview, and Cultural Formation

Here's a preliminary excerpt from the Intro where he positions the power of 'Mall Religion' (Australian translation: Shopping Centre Religion) vis-a-vis the Church, provoking some searching questions into the dominant paradigms of 'church' and 'Christian education'. I hope to post more bite-sized chunks when I actually get my copy!

:-)



"Indeed, the genius of mall religion is that actually it operates with a more holistic, affective, embodied anthropology (or theory of the human person) than the Christian church tends to assume! Because worldview-thinking still tends to focus on ideas and beliefs, the formative cultural impact of sites like the mall tends to not show up on our radar. Such a heady approach, focused on beliefs, is not really calibrated to see the quasi-liturgical practices at work in a site like the mall. An idea-centric or belief-centric approach will fail to see the pedagogy at work in the mall, and thus will also fail to articulate a critique and counter-pedagogy. In order to recognize the religious power and formative force of the mall, we need to adopt a paradigm of cultural critique and discernment that thinks even deeper than beliefs or worldviews and takes seriously the central role of formative practices—or what I’ll describe in this book as liturgies.



If many configurations of cultural practices function as quasi-liturgies, as formative pedagogies of desire that are trying to make us a certain kind of person, we need to ask ourselves: Is there a place that could form us otherwise—a space of counter-formation? Given the kinds of creatures we are—affective, desiring, liturgical animals—this can’t be addressed merely with new ideas or even Christian perspectives. The pedagogy of the mall does not primarily take hold of the head, so to speak; it aims for the heart, for our guts, our kardia. It is a pedagogy of desire that gets hold of us through the body. So what would it take to resist the alluring formation of our desire—and hence our identity—that is offered by the market and the mall? If the mall and its “parachurch” extensions in television and advertising offer a daily liturgy for the formation of the heart, what might be the church’s counter-measures? What if the church unwittingly adopts the same liturgical practices as the market and the mall? Will it then really be a site of counter-formation? What would the church’s practices have to look like if they’re going to form us as the kind of people who desire something entirely different—who desire the kingdom? What would be the shape of an alternative pedagogy of desire?

Because our hearts are oriented primarily by desire, by what we love, and because those desires are shaped and molded by the habit-forming practices in which we participate, it is the rituals and practices of the mall—the liturgies of mall and market—that shape our imaginations and how we orient ourselves to the world. Embedded in them is a common set of assumptions about the shape of human flourishing, which becomes an implicit telos, or goal, of our own desires and actions." (24-25)

:-o

I'm looking forward to reading how Jamie develops the notion of 'desire' and its formation in the later chapters of this book, esp. in relation to pedagogical practices in different cultural spaces (Church, school, university). Watch this space!

De/Reconstructing Substitution: Fabricius fires ten salvos

This issue has bugged me for so long, I'm glad intelligent Christians out there are writing about it. As a reader of Karl Barth, Jurgen Moltmann, Rene Girard, John Yoder and an advocate of various liberation theologies, I must say I consented both intellectually and affectively.

I can't say very much that would add to Kim Fabrcius' excellent exposition on the kerfuffle surrounding Penal Substitutionary Atonement (PSA) posted on Ben Myer's Faith and Theology blog... except to say that as a big fan of Stan Hauerwas, I particularly enjoyed the last line of his first proposition (as a vulgar person, I couldn't help but bold it). Also check out the excellent volume Stricken by God?: Nonviolent Indentification and the Victory of Christ (reviewed extensively HERE) and William T. Cavanaugh's Torture and Eucharist: Theology, Politics, and the Body of Christ

Ten propositions on penal substitution by Kim Fabricius

"1. The doctrine of penal substitution is a theory – or, better, a model – of the atonement, an extended metaphor that narrates how God reconciled the world to himself in Christ. It is one model, but it is not the only model. Indeed, without radical recalibration, it is a theologically repugnant model with potentially vicious and disastrous social and political implications. For now, however, the point is this: while the church dogmatically defined its Christology at the Council of Chalcedon (451), it left its soteriology underdetermined. Therefore penal substitution – or any other doctrine of the atonement – should not be deployed as a litmus test of faith. Stanley Hauerwas says, “If you need a theory to worship Christ, worship your f---ing theory!”

2. The doctrine of penal substitution finds its classical expression in the theology of John Calvin (1509-64), and its definitive form in the theology of Charles Hodge (1797-1878). Today it is the lynchpin of “sound” conservative evangelical theology. In essence it says that the divine justice demands that humanity must “pay the price of sin,” and that the sentence is death; but that on the cross, Jesus identified himself with our sinful condition and died in our place, taking our sins to the grave with him.

3. It is usually claimed that the doctrine of penal substitution is Pauline (indeed, pre-Pauline), but Paul Fiddes observes that while Paul certainly thought of Christ’s death in terms of “penal suffering” (since “Christ is identified with the human situation under the divine penalty”), Calvin’s doctrine requires the additional idea of the “transfer of penalty” – and this theory “requires the addition of an Anselmian view of debt repayment and a Roman view of criminal law” (Calvin, remember, was trained as a lawyer!). A fortiori, to cite patristic evidence for the doctrine is anachronistic.

4. It is also usually claimed that St Anselm (c. 1033-1100) anticipated Calvin. Insofar as Calvin was dependent on Anselm’s view of debt repayment, and also added to Anselm’s feudal emphasis on the compensation of God’s honour his own late medieval emphasis on the expiation/propitiation of God’s wrath, this claim is true. However, in contrast to Calvin, for Anselm punishment and satisfaction are not equivalents but alternatives: aut poena aut satisfactio. For Anselm, Christ is not punished in our place; rather he makes satisfaction on our behalf. Therefore Anselm does not propound a doctrine of penal substitution. “Indeed, in the end,” according to David Bentley Hart, “Anselm merely restates the oldest patristic model of atonement of all: recapitulation.”

5. If the doctrine of penal substitution is to have any place in contemporary soteriology, there are certain elements of its demotic form that have to be eliminated: especially the notion that Jesus died to placate or appease God, or to secure a change in God’s attitude, or to settle a score or balance the books – and, indeed, the notion that the cross is itself a divine punishment. Rather than drive such a wedge a between God and Jesus, the cross expresses their unity and mutual love. It is not a matter of anger or honour but of rescue and risk, obedience and self-sacrifice, of putting the world (Anselm’s ordo universi) to rights and making it beautiful again. Penal substitution is often narrowly construed in individualistic terms, so that the cosmic scope of the atonement is marginalised or missed altogether.

6. I repeat: God does not punish Jesus, or even will the death of Jesus tout court. Herbert McCabe: “The mission of Jesus from the Father is not the mission to be crucified; what the Father wished is that Jesus should be human.... [T]he fact that to be human means to be crucified is not something that the Father has directly planned but what we have arranged.” That is, the crucifixion of Christ is not a penalty inflicted by God but the result of human sin, what inevitably happens when human sin encounters divine love. The cross, therefore, represents the wrath and judgement of God not directly but indirectly: God “gives us up” (παρέδωκεν, Romans 1:24, 26, 28) to the consequences of our destructive desires and actions, the human condition with which Christ identified himself in life, and to which God “gave him up” (παρέδωκεν, Romans 8:32), and to which we (with Judas) “betrayed”/“handed him over” (παρέδωκεν, Mark 3:19), in death.

7. Expounders of the doctrine of penal substitution often elide the juridical with the sacrificial. This is a mistake: the law court, not the temple, is the metaphorical setting of this model. Sacrifice, in the Bible, is never punitive; rather, it is a divine gift which, as human offering, becomes an expression of praise and gratitude. It is also a demonstration that reconciliation is a costly matter. But justice too, in the Bible, is not essentially punitive or retributive; it is restorative. If we continue to think of the atonement in forensic terms, it is essential to see it not as a legal transaction but as the transformation of a relationship. No cross without a resurrection, and no justification without sanctification – connections not always convincingly made by advocates of the doctrine of penal substitution.

8. Substitution – or representation? Did Jesus die “in our place,” or “on our behalf”? The debate is barren: both are true. They are, as Colin Gunton says, “correlative, not opposed concepts. Because Jesus is our substitute, it is also right to call him our representative.” But, again, it is in the court, not the cult, that substitution gets its metaphorical purchase: in Christ, the judge steps into the dock and is judged in our place (Barth). And, again, the theme is God’s liberating initiative, not the demands of the law. “The centre of the doctrine of the atonement is that Christ is not only our substitute – ‘instead of’ – but that by the substitution he frees us to be ourselves. Substitution is grace” (Gunton). And grace, not sin, runs the show.

9. Nevertheless, others – particularly students of René Girard – declare that penal substitution is an inherently violent model of the atonement; moreover, that it underwrites a culture of brutality and vengeance, ethically, socially and politically. Radical feminist theologians Joan Carlson Brown and Rebecca Parker have gone so far as to speak of “divine child abuse,” and to argue that the model’s image of Jesus voluntarily submitting to innocent suffering contributes to the victimisation of women. Black liberation theologian James Cone links the model to defences of slavery and colonialism. Michael Northcott suggests that it is no coincidence that leaders of the Religious Right, for whom the model is so central, are such staunch advocates of the lex talionis, capital punishment and the war on terror. Yet even Miroslav Volf, hardly a conservative evangelical, argues that “the only way in which non-violence and forgiveness will be possible in a world of violence is through displacement or transference of violence, not through its complete relinquishment.”

10. I am unimpressed and unconvinced by – and find myself finally opposed to – the idea of divine violence. Spin it as retributive justice all you like, I am with James Alison: “Nothing that is dependent on vengeance can be called reconciliation.” How can one say such a thing? The doctrine of the Trinity! If opera trinitatis ad extra sunt indivisa, and if the economic Trinity reveals the immanent Trinity (Rahner’s rule), how can the Spirit-anointed Jesus of Nazareth, who rejected the way of violence and vengeance, have a violent and vengeful Father? Not surprisingly, expositors of the doctrine of penal substitution usually isolate the cross not only from the resurrection of Jesus, but also from his life and witness. To rephrase I John 1:5: “This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is non-violent, and in him is no violence at all” – not even the violence of retributive justice! The work of Moltmann and Jüngel is an indispensable resource for working out the soteriological implications of the inextricable relationship between the doctrine of the Trinity and a theologia crucis. A doctrine of substitution may be salvageable, and still serviceable – but not a doctrine of penal substitution."

...

Amen.

Flannery O'Connor on the Eucharist

I read this the other day...

"I was once, five or six years ago, taken by some friends to have dinner with Mary McCarthy and her husband, Mr. Broadwater. (She just wrote that book, A Charmed Life.) She departed the Church at the age of 15 and is a Big Intellectual. We went at eight and at one, I hadn't opened my mouth once, there being nothing for me in such company to say.... Having me there was like having a dog present who had been trained to say a few words but overcome with inadequacy had forgotten them.

Well, toward morning the conversation turned on the Eucharist, which I, being the Catholic, was obviously supposed to defend. Mrs. Broadwater said when she was a child and received the host, she thought of it as the Holy Ghost, He being the most portable person of the Trinity; now she thought of it as a symbol and implied that it was a pretty good one. I then said, in a very shaky voice, Well, if it's a symbol, to hell with it.

That was all the defense I was capable of but I realize now that this is all I will ever be able to say about it, outside of a story, except that it is the center of existence for me; all the rest of life is expendable."

"Ecological debt is a spiritual issue" - WCC

Finally, some prophetic voices from the Church:

In a 31 August hearing on “ecological debt” during the World Council of Churches Central Committee meetings in Geneva, Sumire and others shared some of the ways that the global South has frequently been victimized by greed and unfair use of its resources.

In the case of Peru, Sumire said mining has had particularly devastating effects: relocation, polluted water, illness and decreasing biodiversity.“We indigenous peoples propose that those responsible should take on the ecological debt and commit themselves to rectify the harm done over the years” to the earth and its people, she said.

The concept of ecological debt has been shaped to measure the real cost that policies of expansion and globalization have had on developing nations, a debt that some say industrialized nations should repay.

Dr Joan Martínez Alier, a professor at the Universitat Autónoma de Barcelona in Spain, said that debt includes both actual financial costs as well as intangibles such as quality of life.

Martínez said climate change, unequal trade, “bio-piracy”, exports of toxic wastes and other factors have added to the imbalance, which he called “a kind of war against people around the world, a kind of aggression”. “I know these are strong words, but this is true,” he said. Martínez beseeched those present, at the very least, to not increase the existing ecological debt any further.

Dr Ofelia Ortega of Cuba, the WCC president from Latin America, said it is a spiritual issue, not just a moral one.“The Bible is an ecological treatise” from beginning to end, Ortega said. She described care for creation as an “axis” that runs through the Word of God. “Our pastoral work in our churches must be radically ecological,” she said.

Dr Kim Yong-Bock of the Advanced Institute for Integral Study of Life in South Korea also framed the issue in biblical language. “God has made comprehensive covenants with all living beings and with the earth as the living entity,” he said. “This covenant is broken.”

(More HERE)

Beyond Reactionary Rumours: What is Liberation Theology (actually)? Part I

Liberation theology emerged as a result of a systematic, disciplined reflection on Christian faith and its implications. (READ MORE)

Classic line from Hauerwas on 'Church and Culture'

"The church need not feel caught between the false Niebuhrian dilemma of whether to be in or out of the world, politically responsible or introspectively irresponsible. The church is not out of the world. There is no other place for the church to be than here…. The church need not worry about whether to be in the world. The church's only concern is how to be in the world, in what form, for what purpose."

Stanley Hauerwas

Milbank on 'Stale expressions of Church'

I have personally been feeling the malaise of "low church" for quite some time. Apart from all the denials of tradition, it remains trapped in the ignorance that it is being formed by contrary practices (of the liberal-individualist tradition)... hence the increasingly individualistic and 'marketing'-driven Christianity that pervades. For all its critiques of 'postmodernism', I fear low churches (and I count myself as being an offspring of one) are a good expression of postmodern (i.e. neo-liberal, individualistic) christianity where Church is reduced to a collection of 'saved' individuals. In an article published last year, Radical Orthodoxy pioneer John Milbank fires a salvo at the push toward low church evangelicalism in the CoE:

"Managerialism in the Church is rooted in the very character of Reformation theology. The latter’s understanding of salvation as imputation and its reduction of the importance for salvation of belonging to the Church encourages the idea that there is a religious ‘product’ which can be managed and marketed. Modern evangelicalism consummates this tendency and uniquely allows a combining of the capitalist product with the capitalist actor."

This excerpt from Milbank's article is a good antidote for the Church (broadly understood), not against it (from my reading). It might be a useful antidote to the malady faced by many:

.

"The projects known as ‘Fresh Expressions’ and ‘mission-shaped church’ are... the outcome of this evangelical-liberal collusion. For all the protestations, they are a clear conspiracy against the parish. Perfectly viable parishes, especially in the countryside or the semi-countryside, are increasingly deprived of clergy who are seconded to dubious administrative tasks or else to various modes of ‘alternative ministry’ such as ‘ministry to sportspeople’ or ‘ministry to youth.’ In all this there lies no new expression of church, but rather its blasphemous denial.” The church cannot be found amongst the merely like-minded, who associate in order to share a particular taste, hobby or perversion. It can only be found where many different peoples possessing many different gifts collaborate in order to produce a divine-human community in one specific location. St Paul wrote to Galatia and Corinth, not to regiments or to weaving-clubs for widows. He insisted on a unity that emerges from the harmonious blending of differences. Hence the idea that the church should ‘plant’ itself in various sordid and airless interstices of our contemporary world, instead of calling people to ‘come to church’, is wrongheaded, because the refusal to come out of oneself and go to church is simply the refusal to church per se. One can’t set up a church in a café amongst a gang of youths who like skateboarding because all this does is promote skateboarding and dysfunctional escapist maleness, along with that type of private but extra-ecclesial security that is offered by the notion of ‘being saved’.

The real, universal Church is found always paradoxically in one place, within one circumscribed boundary and in one sacred, consecrated building, for very good theological reasons"

'Stale Expressions: the Management-Shaped Church' by John Milbank, Studies in Christian Ethics, 2008; 21: 117-128

Is Michael Jackson the opium of the masses?

South Park episode #33, when it was still cool to make fun of Michael Jackson

I'm getting extremely sick of the hysteria that has been whipped up by the media over Michael Jackson's death. I mean, have we honestly fallen for this sick joke? Every idiot knows that the day before he died, MJ was for most people the butt of jokes about plastic surgery disasters, dangling babies over the balconies and paedophilia. Then suddenly the next thing we knew, the whole world was mourning as if their dog had just died when in fact, people were more concerned with the texture of their dog's runny poo than MJ. Now everyone's pretending like they've always been big fans (no... downloading his songs online the day after he died does not generally make one a long-time fan).

I wonder if this periodic public outpouring of grief is a way for people to externalise their crappy existence without actually changing anything.

You really want to celebrate the life of Michael Jackson? Why not smash the media that cashed off his misery all those years? Or at least stop buying their lies.

What is Christian Anarchism?

"Christian anarchism is based upon the answer of Jesus to the Pharisees, when He said that he without sin should be the first to cast the stone, and upon the Sermon on the Mount, which advises the return of good for evil and the turning of the other cheek. Therefore, when we take any part in government by voting for legislative, judicial, and executive officials, we make these men our arm by which we cast a stone and deny the Sermon on the Mount.

The dictionary definition of a Christian is one who follows Christ; kind, kindly, Christ-like. Anarchism is voluntary cooperation for good, with the right of secession. A Christian anarchist is therefore one who turns the other cheek, overturns the tables of the moneychangers, and does not need a cop to tell him how to behave. A Christian anarchist does not depend upon bullets or ballots to achieve his ideal; he achieves that ideal daily by the One-Man Revolution with which he faces a decadent, confused, and dying world."

- at Catholic Worker web, from The Book of Ammon (Fortkamp/Rose Hill, 1994)

Verso's 'Revolution(s)' Series presents: Munzter's 'Sermon to the Princes'

I'm uber excited about this new release from VERSO:

“Omnia sunt communia — all things are common.” — Thomas Muntzer

"The Reformation was originally an attack on a corrupt Church, sparked by Martin Luther. Thomas Müntzer, originally Luther’s protégé, became increasingly convinced that the Reformation did not go far enough. In 1524 he became one of the leaders of the Peasants’ War, where the struggle against the Church exploded into a revolutionary attempt to realize the Kingdom of Heaven on earth." From VERSO website for the book

Excerpts from Muntzer's sermon (1524):

"It is true - I know it for a fact - that the spirit of God is revealing to many elect and pious men at this time the great need for a full and final reformation in the near future. This must be carried out. For despite all attempts to oppose it the prophecy of Daniel retains its full force... This text of Daniel, then is as clear as the bright sun, and the work of ending the fifth Empire of the world is now in full swing. The first Empire is explained by the golden knob - that was the Babylonian - the second by the silver breastplate and arm-piece - that was the Empire of the Medes and Persians. The third was the Greek Empire, resonant with human cleverness, indicated by the bronze; the fourth the Roman Empire, an Empire won by the sword, an Empire won by force. But the fifth is the one we see before us, which is also of iron and would like to use force, but it is patched with dung...that is, with the vain schemings of hypocrisy, which swarms and slithers over the face of the whole earth. ...What a pretty spectacle we have before us now - all the eels and snakes coupling together immorally in one great heap! The priests and all the evil clerics are the snakes, as John [the baptist]...called them...and the secular lords and rulers are the eels, symbolised by the fishes in Leviticus 11.

Therefore, my dearest, most revered rulers, learn true judgment from the mouth of God himself. Do not let yourself be seduced by your hypocritical priests into a restraint based on counterfeit clemency and kindness. ...Only seek without delay the righteousness of God and take up the cause of the gospel boldly. ...King Nebuchadnezzar wanted to kill his wise men because they were unable to expound the dream. It was no more than they deserved. ...Our clergy today are in the same position. I know this for a fact, that if the plight of the Christian people really came home to you and you put your mind to it properly then you would develop the same zeal as King Jehu showed, 2 Kings 9, 10, and as we find throughout the whole book of Revelation. And I know this for a fact that you would have the very greatest difficulty not to resort to the power of the sword. For the condition of the holy people of Christ has become so pitiable, that up to now not even the most eloquent tongue could do it justice. Therefore a new Daniel must arise and expound your dreams to you and...he must be in the vanguard, leading the way. He must bring about a reconciliation between the wrath of the princes and the rage of the people. For once you really grasp the plight of the Christian people as a result of the treachery of the false clergy and the abandoned criminals your rage against them will be boundless, beyond all imagining. ...For they have made such a fool of you that everyone swears by the saints that in their official capacity princes are just pagans, that all they have to do is to maintain civic order. Alas, my fine fellow, the great stone will come crashing down soon and smash such rational considerations to the ground, as Christ says in Matthew 10: 'I am not come to send peace, but he sword.' But what is one to do with the sword? Exactly this: sweep aside those evil men who obstruct the gospel! Take them out of circulation! Otherwise you will be devils,... Have no doubts that God will mash all your adversaries into little pieces... Now if you are to be true rulers, you must seize the very roots of government, following the command of Christ. Drive his enemies away from the elect; you are the instruments to do this. My friend, don't let us have any of these hackneyed posturings, about the power of God achieving everything without any resort to your sword; otherwise it may rust in its scabbard. ...Hence the sword, too, is necessary to eliminate the godless. To ensure, however, that this now proceeds in a fair and orderly manner, our revered fathers, the princes, who with us confess Christ, should carry it out. But if they do not carry it out the sword will be taken from them (Daniel 7), for then they would confess him in words but deny him in deeds. ...The tares have to be torn out of the vineyard of God at harvest-time.

...There is no doubt that many...will be similarly offended by this little book, because I say with Christ...and with the guidance of the whole divine law, that one should kill the godless rulers, and especially the monks and priests who denounce the holy gospel as heresy and yet count themselves the best Christians. ...For the godless have no right to live, unless by the sufferance of the elect... So be bold! He to whom all power is given in heaven and on earth is taking the government into his own hands."

Lenin & Critical Pedagogy 1

Inspired by Zizek and his Lenin Reloaded, I have been reading some of the works by the leader of the October Revolution.

I want to think about the applicability of some of his ideas to the formation of a revolutionary philosophy of teaching & learning within a Christian tradition in the context of financial/consumer capitalism.

Anyways, here's some of the goatee man himself:

"This struggle must be organised, according to “all the rules of the art”, by people who are professionally engaged in revolutionary activity. The fact that the masses are spontaneously being drawn into the movement does not make the organisation of this struggleless necessary. On the contrary, it makes it more necessary."

Lenin, The Primitiveness of the Economists and the Organization of the Revolutionaries (1901)

Who is right about the 'Economic Crisis'? I choose...

The guy on top.

(Obama, Rudd, Brown and others seem to have gone for the second geezer)

As Ali G once so cleverly pointed out, all the bad people in history have moustaches (Hitler, Stalin, Franco...etc) while all the good people have beards (Jesus, Moses, Lenin...etc).

See! It's even historically proven.

For all the saints who went before me

For Oscar Romero, Camillo Torres, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Martin Luther King Jr. and the thousands of brothers and sisters who have suffered and died for others because they believed in the resurrection.

******************

Why? Well...

Sometimes we in the 'West' like to believe that it is right to do something only when we feel compelled. i.e. that truly "authentic" action is an expression of our inner desires.

For example, a common explanation for tattoos is that it "expresses something inside me... my inner self... etc". The 'inner self' works its way out.

Sadly, this is true of how many people see Christianity; you shouldn't feel like you MUST do something until you are convinced it is good.

As I watched the Israeli campaign in Gaza on TV, I felt sick. Having followed the apartheid and suffering in Gaza unfold over the last few years, this was another layer of death on top of the many who have already died in that part of the world. The Israelis near the Gaza border live in constant fear of rockets raining down on them; the Palestinians are alienated from the world and live in what is practically a giant refugee camp.

Oh how I longed for the kingdom of God, that both grace AND justice might heal that fractured place.

So I got inked.



I didn't do it because I am a person who naturally cares always about others; I didn't do it because I am always seeking the kingdom of God; I didn't do it because inside I always weep with the oppressed, get angry at brutality and, confident in my union with Christ, throw myself into those places where people are being crucified. I don't always desire these things.


I got inked because I want to be all those things.


(Saba Mahmood's book about the piety movement within Egyptian Islam taught me that much: that contrary to the 'West', these women understood that the outward act is done in the hope that the inner self will learn to conform to it)


I hope that this outward act will conform my inner self.


In a world that is still in exile, Camillo Torres puts it plainly:


I chose Christianity because I felt that in it I had found the best way of serving my neighbors. I was elected by Christ to be a priest forever, motivated by the desire to devote myself full-time to loving my fellow man.

I feel that the revolutionary struggle is a Christian and priestly struggle. Only through this, given the concrete circumstances of our country, can we fulfill the love that men should have for their neighbors...


"He who loves fulfills the law," says St. Paul. "Love and do what you will," says St. Augustine. The surest sign of predestination is love of neighbor. St. John tells us: "If someone says he loves God, whom he does not see, and does not love his neighbor whom he does see, he is a liar.


Those who hold power constitute an economic minority which dominates political, cultural, and military power, and, unfortunately, also ecclesiastical power in the countries in which the Church has temporal goods. This minority will not make decisions opposed to its own interests... The power must be taken for the majorities' part so that structural, economic, social, and political reforms benefiting these majorities may be realized. This is called revolution, and if it is necessary in order to fulfill love for one's neighbor, then it is necessary for a Christian to be revolutionary."

Not because we feel like it, but because we must.

My summer reading list

Okay, I've set myself the near-impossible task of getting the following books read over this summer:

• Moltmann, Jurgen On Human Dignity: Political Theology and Ethics
• Moltmann, Jurgen God for a Secular Society: The Public Relevance of Theology
• Yoder, John. H. The Original Revolution: Essays on Christian Pacifism
• Yoder, John. H. Body Politics: Five Practices of the Christian Community Before the Watching World
• Hauerwas, S. After Christendom: how the Church is to Behave if Freedom, Justice, and a Christian nation are bad ideas
• Kuyper, Abraham Lectures on Calvinism
• Long, D. Stephen Divine Economy: theology and the market
• Petrella, Ivan The Future of Liberation Theology: An Argument and Manifesto
• Sung, Jung-Mo Desire, Market and Religion
• Dabashi, Hamid Islamic Liberation Theology
• Hefner, R.W. & Zaman, M.Q. Schooling Islam: The Culture and Politics of Modern Muslim Education
• Asad, Talal Formations of the Secular: Christianity, Islam, Modernity
• Carette, J. & King, R. Selling Spirituality: The Silent Takeover of Religion
• Maddox, Marion God Under Howard: The rise of the religious right in Australian politics
• Boucher, G. & Sharpe, M. The Times Will Suit Them: Postmodern Conservatism in Australia
• George, J. & Hyunh The Culture Wars: Australian and American Politics in the 21st Century