Recommended Reading: Mayra Rivera's "Poetics of the Flesh"

Recommended: "Poetics of the Flesh:" I have contended for sometime - commencing with my biblical education in undergraduate studies at a bible university - that "flesh" (sarx) and "body" (soma) are intricately intra-connected between the "law of God" and the "law of sin" with no ability to separate the two concepts so simply as many theologies have implied. Here, in Mayra Rivera's review, she does the same while moving the discussion into a postmodern context of inter-relateability of the human soul as it develops through childhood's naive position of "self" to its maturing "mirrored" reflection of "self in the eyes of others," however rightly or wrongly obtained from the words and reactions of others. Others who may bear the best of intentions or the worst of intentions as forebearers of either "life" or "death" to the souls they speak to. All the while this discussion flows between a redefining of how the ancient Greek concepts of flesh and body contemporarily interacts with the wholeness of our being, persona, social relations, and the world itself, including the Creator of this world we live and breathe. In the echoing reflections of NT Wright one might hear the words of "Well done" to Mayra's reconceptions of blending a Greek culture's binary concepts of the world into a unifying whole so emphasized by the earlier Jewish/Semetic custom of "oneness" to the "duality of life" expressed in more blatant Western contexts. As such, to those requiring a new, more maturer, outlook upon the old theologies we have grown up with I would recommend this study.

R.E. Slater

August 17, 2018

OLD 20TH CENTURY CHRISTIAN ILLUSTRATIONS

OF "BODY-SOUL-SPIRIT"

Old Bible Illustration of the Parts of Man,
by Dispensational Theologican Clarence Larkin

Old Bible Illustration of the Parts of Man,
by Dispensational Theologican Clarence Larkin

Old Bible Illustration of the Parts of Man,
by the 20th Century Church

Old Bible Illustration of the Parts of Man,
by the 20th Century Church

BOOK BLURB

In "Poetics of the Flesh "Mayra Rivera offers poetic reflections on how we understand our carnal relationship to the world, at once spiritual, organic, and social. She connects conversations about corporeality in theology, political theory, and continental philosophy to show the relationship between the ways ancient Christian thinkers and modern Western philosophers conceive of the "body" and "flesh.” Her readings of the biblical writings of John and Paul as well as the work of Tertullian illustrate how Christian ideas of flesh influenced the works of Maurice Merleau-Ponty and Michel Foucault, and inform her readings of Judith Butler, Frantz Fanon, and others. Rivera also furthers developments in new materialism by exploring the intersections among bodies, material elements, social arrangements, and discourses through body and flesh. By painting a complex picture of bodies, and by developing an account of how the social materializes in flesh, Rivera provides a new way to understand gender and race.

Amazon link

Review of Poetics of the Flesh

by "Reading Religion,"

a Publication of AAR (American Academy of Religion) 

Title: Poetics of the Fles
Author: Mayra Rivera
Publication Date: October 2015
Publisher: Duke University Press, Durham, NC, USA
216 pages.

Paperback.

ISBN - 9780822360131

For other formats: Link to Publisher's Website.

Reading Religion Review

Mayra Rivera guides readers of Poetics of the Flesh on a journey through the rich and diverse understandings of flesh and body in the Western Christian tradition. The monograph is divided into three parts: Part I, “Regarding Christian Bodies,” examines the concepts of “flesh” (sarx) and “body” (soma) in John’s Gospel, Paul’s letters, and Tertullian’s writings; Part II, “The Philosophers’ (Christian) Flesh,” “focuses on flesh as dynamic relation between the body and the world” (58) through the writings of Maurice Merleau-Ponty and critiques by Michel Foucault, Jean-Luc Nancy, and Luce Irigaray; Part III, “A Labyrinth of Incarnations,” analyzes the particular ways in which flesh is shaped by the world, interlaced with social identities and social perceptions of bodies (114). Many voices join the discussion here, with primary attention given to Frantz Fanon, Aimé Césaire, and Judith Butler. Although it is a challenging read, this book constructively advances theological anthropology and material discourses by creatively (re)making (poiesis) words that become flesh.

As Rivera explains, “Poetics of the Flesh is inspired by the practice of Édouard Glissant’s Poetics of Relation” (2). Rivera cites Derek Walcott’s description of Glissant’s poetics, which is analogously compared to lovingly gathering and reassembling the pieces of a broken vase. Rivera approaches the texts, which range from Greek scriptures to continental phenomenology to Caribbean poetry, “as part of ongoing, sometimes painful processes of remaking visions of corporeality—out of pieces of shattered histories and shards of vocabulary” (4). Indeed, this analogy of carefully and creatively (re)constructing a theology of flesh well describes Rivera’s text. She begins this process by problemetizing, with Sharon Betcher, the recent theological turn to the body which sometimes “represents the unattainable stability that social norms demand but that corporeality cannot mirror” (7). Poetics of the Flesh offers a theological response to Betcher’s call to “learn to think flesh without ‘the body’” (7).

While some readers (including myself, I confess) may be initially frustrated by Rivera’s refusal to clearly distinguish between “flesh” and “body” in her introductory chapter, it gradually becomes evident that doing so would undermine the project as a whole. “Words do not simply mirror what is, or express the thoughts and desires of a person, but rather shape reality and subjectivity. . . . We are interested in processes of materialization—not just in matter” (9). Re-reading the introduction, having read the body of Rivera’s text, I now recognize that any facile attempt at the outset to define the words “body” and “flesh” would obscure not only their complex genealogies but also the subtleties of becoming flesh that are (in some ways) continued and (in other ways) initiated by Rivera’s poetic processes of materialization in which the reader becomes ever more intertwined and interlaced.

Chapter 1, as one might expect, examines the term “flesh” in John’s Gospel. Far from a philological analysis of sarx, however, Rivera’s thematic trek through the Fourth Gospel incorporates interpretations by Karmen MacKendrick, Tat-siong Benny Liew, and others. Most notably, she draws upon liberationist readings of Bartolomé de las Casas and the “elemental materiality [that] connects the bodies of workers with shared bread, with consecrated bread” (23). The gospel, Rivera asserts, resists attempts to literally or figuratively separate word, flesh, spirit, and bread—all the while interlacing boundaries between individual and societal bodies.

Distinctions between flesh (sarx) and body (soma) are simultaneously sharpened and blurred through Rivera’s examination of the Pauline Epistles (chapter 2). For Paul, metaphysically transcendent spiritual bodies enslaved to the “law of God” stand in contrast to flesh enslaved to the “law of sin” (36, citing Romans 7:25). In chapter 3, Rivera traces “the affirmative images of flesh [in Tertullian’s writings], as they unfold from the poetics of the Gospel of John and the letters of Paul” (44). Here, the logic of poetics operates on two levels: within Tertullian’s corpus and in Rivera’s revitalization thereof. Without excusing or condemning Tertullian’s gendered hierarchies, Rivera demonstrates that the gender rift undermines his argument: “unless you can embrace your own flesh, and its beginnings in the flesh of another, you cannot love other fleshly beings—nor can you understand the incarnation” (53).

While the intricacies of Part II can hardly be summarized in this brief review, one moment strikes me as an especially poignant passage from the heart of the text. In a section entitled “intercorporeal engagements,” Rivera highlights Merleau-Ponty’s analysis of child psychology. In the developmental transition from subjective indistinction to individuality (a process which Merleau-Ponty insists “is never completely finished” (68)), a child enters the “mirror stage.” “In recognizing her image in the mirror,” explains Rivera, “the child learns that there can be a viewpoint taken on her. The child notices that she is visible, to herself and to others” (69). “[M]y experience of my body,” she continues, “is always already entwined with images that others have of me. . . . I borrow myself from others” (70).

Personally, I only truly began to grasp Rivera’s constructive theology of flesh at this point in the text. Unless I am misreading and perhaps making too much of but one passage, I would have preferred some foreshadowing of this moment—which is woven through later portions of the text—in the introduction. Rivera performs an apophatic phenomenology of multiplication (contra negation) through which touching flesh intertwines as a desire for the “you in me and the me in you” (77, John 14:20). This interlacing of inner and social identities informs Rivera’s reading of Frantz Fanon’s critique of Merleau-Ponty and—even more rewardingly—Fanon’s reading of fellow Martinican Aimé Césaire. Rivera, who later offers a critique of Simone de Beauvoir, notes that these authors become black and become gendered as “effects of the white gaze” (129).

Mayra Rivera’s Poetics of the Flesh is (for me, at least) a challenging text that is well worth the effort and attention it demands of its reader. The difficulty it poses is due to the richly profound space it opens for a carnal theology in which the reader is always already entangled and involved. The monograph might be faulted for omitting any engagement (critical or otherwise) with the writings of Jean-Luc Marion, which also explore Merleau-Ponty’s sensual phenomenology of flesh from a postmodern theological perspective. Nevertheless, Rivera’s text makes significant and noteworthy advancement, not only in theological anthropology, critical theory, and materiality, but also in an apophatic theology grounded in the immanent indeterminacy of multiplicity and relational, worldly ontology. While the book is unlikely to find its way onto undergraduate syllabi, it can be considered an enjoyable “must read” for many theologians, philosophers, and advanced graduate students.

About the Reviewer
Brad Bannon is an adjunct professor of theology at Fitchburg State University.
Date of Review: May 30, 2016

About the Author
Mayra Rivera is Associate Professor of Theology and Latina/o Studies at Harvard University and the author of The Touch of Transcendence: A Postcolonial Theology of God.

Rebecca Trotter - The Genuis and Challenge of Christianity

The Genuis and Challenge of Christianity

http://theupsidedownworld.com/2014/04/02/the-genuis-and-challenge-of-christianity/

by Rebecca Trotter

April 24, 2014

Comments

The genius of Christianity is that it demands you give mental agreement to all sorts of things you don’t actually agree with. Love your enemies. Every man is your neighbor. You’ll be judged by how well you showed love to the least attractive, least moral, least appealing, most repulsive people you meet. Don’t judge. All those beatitudes about the meek and the suffering and the pure of heart.

We don’t believe any of that stuff. We say we do, but we don’t really. Yet if we want to call ourselves Christians, we must affirm that we agree with these teachings of Jesus. Which creates mental dissonance. How we handle this gap between what we actually believe and what we profess to believe determines how successful we can become as Christians.

The typical way to handle cognitive dissonance is to go into denial. You continue following your gut level support of cultural norms and personal preference and just call that love. If the people you love complain that you’re actually hurting them, you dismiss it as their problem, their flaw or their lack of understanding. Some people are so committed to their denial, that they will devote a lot of time and energy to creating and promoting high-minded ideals about human nature, God’s ways and church philosophy all in service of ignoring and justifying the suffering of others.

These people will often become very involved in tertiary issues which do not have a great deal of bearing on Jesus’ teachings. Maybe they attend a lot of church or go on missions trips or memorize and quote scripture a lot. Maybe they sign lots of petitions and pass on scary stories about bad people. Maybe the adopt a strict moral code that guides where they shop, what sort of entertainment they consume and where to draw the boundaries between themselves and others.

Some people in ministry do almost nothing but help others find ways to think of themselves as Christians despite disagreeing with everything Jesus ever said.

Except the part where Jesus got angry and turned over tables and when he told that skanky woman to stop sinning. Those are often beloved parts of Jesus’ story for a Christian in denial. Not for the meaning Jesus was conveying with them. Just because they already agree with being angry and confrontational and telling sinners to knock it off.

It scares me to think of how many Christians go their whole lives practicing the faith this way. And I think it all comes from a fear of being wrong. We can’t admit we are wrong because we equate being wrong with being shamed. So we can go our whole lives, being wrong as wrong can be, and never really open ourselves up to learning all the mysteries contained in Jesus’ ridiculous, outrageous teachings. That none of us actually agree with.

The way of the Christian is to avoid retreating into denial. We may know in our head, at some level, that what Jesus says is true. But in truth, what Jesus taught is the end goal of following him. When we have been trained and tested, we will see, understand and agree with Jesus’ teachings. But we have to be trained and tested before we can get to that point.

If we are ever to be corrected, we must be willing to try, test and challenge Jesus’ teachings. Sometimes this starts by simply admitting, “this teaching is the most ridiculous, absurd, self-evidently wrong thing I’ve ever heard.” God already knows that’s what we think. He’s never been particularly impressed with our attempts at denying it. But he has shown himself more than willing to meet us right where we are. And he’s promised never to put us to shame. It’s perfectly fine to admit you don’t agree with him. Just follow up, like a man once did with Jesus, “I believe, please help me with my unbelief”.

Scot McKnight - The So-called "Wrong Side of History"

The So-called “Wrong Side of History”

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/jesuscreed/2015/03/09/progressive-regressive-and-aggressive-and-the-wrong-side-of-history/

Mar 9, 2015 @ 0:04 by Scot McKnight Comments

Some people think they know where history is taking us and are quite happy to declare boom-booms on those who take exception, the boom-booms declared with a long finger pointing at them with the accusation they will be on the “wrong side of history” or, perhaps more damaging, they will be “left behind” or “irrelevant.”

The irony is that in a world where “manifest destiny” or “discerning God’s plan for America” or even connecting something bad (9/11) with something else bad (same-sex sins) are objects of scorn, it is more than a little surprising that we now have some who know where history is going. It comes from those on the Left and the Right.

From the Left, from Lynn Stuart Parramore, we get this observation about where history is going: religion is dying, so cheer up secularist:

With fire-breathing religion figuring anew in global conflicts, and political discussions at home often dominated by the nuttery of the Christian right, you might get the sense that somebody’s god is ready to mug you around every street corner. But if you’re the type who doesn’t like to hang your hat on organized religion, here’s a bit of good news: In America, your numbers are growing.

There are more religiously unaffiliated people in the U.S. today than ever before. Starting in the 1980s, a variety of polls using different methodologies have come to the same conclusion: people who do not identify with religious labels are on the rise, perhaps even doubling in that time frame.

Some call them “nones”: agnostics, atheists, deists, secular humanists, general humanists, and people who just don’t care to identify with any religious group. It’s not exactly correct to call them nonbelievers, because some still have faith and spirituality in some sense or another. A 2012 Pew study noted that 30 percent of these people believe in “God or universal spirit” and around 20 percent even pray every day. But according to the latest research, Americans checking the “none of the above” box will make up an increasingly important force in the country. Other groups, like born-again evangelicals, have grown more percentage-wise, but the nones have them beat in absolute numbers.

The nonpartisan Public Religion Research Institute has documented this sea change in its American Values Atlas, which it released last Wednesday. The fascinating study provides demographic, religious and political data based on surveys conducted throughout 2014. According to PRRI director of research Dan Cox, “The U.S. religious landscape is undergoing a dramatic transformation that is fundamentally reshaping American politics and culture.”

But John Gray, who points to the progressive theory of history at work in Sam Harris in an article in The Guardian, called “What Scares the New Atheists,” thinks the opposite might be the case so there is less cheer for the secularist here:

Harris’s militancy in asserting these values seems to be largely a reaction to Islamist terrorism. For secular liberals of his generation, the shock of the 11 September attacks went beyond the atrocious loss of life they entailed. The effect of the attacks was to place a question mark over the belief that their values were spreading – slowly, and at times fitfully, but in the long run irresistibly – throughout the world. As society became ever more reliant on science, they had assumed, religion would inexorably decline. No doubt the process would be bumpy, and pockets of irrationality would linger on the margins of modern life; but religion would dwindle away as a factor in human conflict. The road would be long and winding. But the grand march of secular reason would continue, with more and more societies joining the modern west in marginalising religion. Someday, religious belief would be no more important than personal hobbies or ethnic cuisines.

Today, it’s clear that no grand march is under way. 

Yes, Sam Harris more or less subscribes to a secularization theory that pretends to know where history is going but the facts are not all in his corner. What’s clear to Parramore is not clear to Gray.

And from the strident Right Jeannine Pirro overtly asks why President Obama accuses his opponents of being on the “wrong side of history,” which means both the President and Pirro know what is the “right side of history” and where it is headed:

You know Mr. President, why does it feel like you’re on the wrong side of things, on the wrong side of history? Why are you not working with Egypt and Jordan to eliminate ISIS. Both are Arab Muslim nations willing to identify the enemy as Islamic extremists.

Evidently Pirro knows where history is headed too, and it is in the opposite direction of Parramore and the President (as she constructs him).

I hear the same claim about the “right side of history” and the “wrong side of history” in the same-sex marriage or same-sex relations in the church crowds.

I wonder about this argument, this argument about the “right side of history.” No, in fact, I don’t wonder. It’s wrong. Here are my reasons why those who know where history are wrong:

1. They make history inevitable progress in their direction. This is simple hermeneutics, or put more simple, it’s hermeneutical colonialism. In fact, those who know the “right side of history” and the “wrong side of history” are judgmentalists through and through. They not only know history is moving where they are or want to be but they sit in judgment on all those who disagree. They are censorious — and both Parramore and Pirro illustrate the point.

2. They make history presentist. That is, what is happening now is not only progressive improvement but what is now is always better than what was before. Which means, far more often the advocates are wind sniffers who, now having counted up the tilt of numbers, have thrown in their lot and are ready to sanctify it with this specious argument that is is where “history is going.” We should pause only for a moment to know that presentist arguments would have justified — in other days — slavery, Stalinism and Hitlerism, and the inequality of African Americans, women and undocumented workers.

3. They destroy biblical eschatology. Instead of taking their cues from the biblical vision of the kingdom of God in the future (where Jesus will be Lord over all in consummation) they ask Jesus to join their presentist historical progressivisms and so sanctify their discernments as God’s divine plan. Tom Wright in some of his newest books — both Surprised by Scripture and Simply Good News— has taken shots at this theory of progress and countered with a kingdom vision of where history is actually headed.

4. They claim omniscience. Not overtly but the subtler form is all the more noticeable. When you can tell us where history has been and where it is headed, and you can say you are on that side, you have just made a claim bigger than Hegelian theories of the Spirit. You claim, like Deuteronomy, that you know the divine mechanisms at work in history and you pronounce some awful boom-booms on those who will not join. That is, these folks stand in with prophetic words from God.

5. They claim omniscience by assuming a futurist stance where all things will be as they think. It won’t be, and all history proves this. Whether one is a utopian or a postmillennialists, history doesn’t cooperate. Nor will it. Why? There are too many dissenters. That’s a very good thing.

6. They destroy both diversity and freedom. I give two examples: Back in the early decades of the 20th Century some American thinkers and literati knew where history was headed — toward socialism and communism. When it turned up vicious, brutal and murderous, they didn’t always back down but many sulked off to a quiet corners. Others switched sides. Back in the 70s and 80s some conservatives thought the church would be destroyed if women were allowed to be priests or pastors and some liberals thought it would save the gospel and the church and religion in America, and where are we now? Some are against and some are for women pastors. (The same will be the case with same-sex relations in the church and America — diversity.) But there’s a sinister side in all this: to announce that history is headed in any direction is to tell those who don’t agree with that side that their freedom to disbelieve is in jeopardy. It takes all kinds to compose a world and the “wrong/right side of history” people need to defend freedoms. We need freedom and freedom will mean diversity, and that’s what the world is about.

7. They seek to centralize their vision in order to impose conformity rather than to solicit the majority view based on the freedom of choice. These specious historians are top-down thinkers, whether from the Left or the Right. Common response to failure are to press even harder for the centralized vision and to blame the failure on the dissenters. The way to win is to get more votes, make more laws, and impose the laws on the blinkered dissenters. What this produces is resentment, and resentment will find a way for expression.

Scott McKnight - What's the "Old" Perspective on Paul?

What’s the “Old” Perspective on Paul?

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/jesuscreed/2015/03/09/whats-the-old-perspective-on-paul/

Mar 9, 2015 @ 5:15 by Scot McKnight 4 Comments

I’ve not seen the old perspective on soteriology, as framed mostly through one reading of Paul, expressed any better than in Carl Trueman’s sketch of Luther’s theology at work in the Heidelberg Disputation (slightly reformatted):

To get a fuller view of the old perspective than is found in what is quoted below one has to bring in not only the Old Testament and law but also Judaism and works of the law and tie them to an Augustinian anthropology. Not all of this is present in this summary, but the anthropology of self-deception is the foundation on which the whole posture toward law and works of the law and ultimately Judaism will be formed — and what Luther had to say about Judaism later in his life is, in the words of Trueman, “nauseating” (54) [e.g., Luther was anti-Semetic - res2]. There are a number of factors at work in Luther’s statements about the Jews, but one of them had to do with his anthropology as it was aimed at “law.”

Luther starts the disputation by examining the role of God’s law. The foundation is laid in the first two theses, which propose that the law of God is indeed salutary and good but that it is not able to advance human beings toward salvation (thesis 1), and that good works are even less capable of achieving that end (thesis 2). These theses summarize Luther’s new theological convictions, which had emerged as a result of his immersion in he writings of Paul in the immediately preceding years. God is righteous and his law is an expression of his holy character, but human beings are incapable of making themselves worthy in his sight.

The next pair of theses draws epistemological conclusions from this foundation: human works appear attractive but are actually “likely to be mortal sins” (thesis 3). Luther means here that human works seem to us to be worthy of God’s acceptance but are in fact as filthy rags before him. There is a disconnect between our perception of their merit and the reality, which points toward the moral nature of human knowledge. The same is true, in reverse, of God’s works, which appear sinful to human beings but are actually meritorious before God (thesis 4).

Thesis 5 is, on the surface, a quite confusing statement: “The works of men are thus not mortal sins (we speak of works which are apparently good), as though they were crimes.” Luther’s own published explanation of this thesis is that mortal sins, those which damn us before God, are not what we might think—outrageous acts such as adultery or murder—but rather any acts, even those which seem good, that flow from a sinful heart.

Luther is both deepening the understanding of what constitutes sin and at the same time pointing to the profound epistemological corruption to which human beings are subject. We might say that he is emphasizing that the theologies we create for ourselves are false in that they fail to understand the seriousness of the fallen human condition. This is reinforced in thesis 6, which declares that the works God does through human beings are not meritorious (pp. 58-59).

But the inner conflict of the self, which characterizes so much of the old perspective, comes through in Luther’s theory that we are simultaneously righteous and sinful, and here is Trueman’s summary:

There is also a sense in which all Christians are people divided against themselves: clothed in the righteousness of Christ and yet always striving to justify themselves by their own righteousness. That inner conflict is part of the very essence of what it means to be a Christian in a fallen world this side of glory (71).

He says it more forcefully in a later chapter but it gets to the core of justification’s existential reality for Luther and deserves to be included here:

Fear and terror are the products of the law, the inevitable result of that tendency within all of us to be theologians of glory, who wish to approach God on our own terms and thus find ourselves confronted with the terrifying God of perfect righteousness and holiness (129).

Luther’s approach was in a way self-protected for if you deny this sketch is your own experience, you are either not a Christian or you are trapped in self-righteousness. When Krister Stendahl’s famous essay about the introspective conscience was published many saw the old perspective for what it was more clearly — but Stendahl’s point was that this was Luther and this was Luther against his world but it was not Paul nor Paul against his world. On this new perspective hooked its anchor and sought to pull the whole out of its footing.

I have always had an ambivalent attitude toward Luther — I love some of what he accomplished and taught and I despise some of what he accomplished and taught. I am “suspending” all my thoughts about Luther as much as I can as I read this fascinating and well-written introduction to the person and thought of Martin Luther by Carl Trueman. The book is called Luther on the Christian Life: Cross and Freedom.

An Apocalyptic Jesus - Numbering Christian Interpretation, Part 2

Constantine's Vision

"In this sign you will conquer"

 or

"By this Cross conquer"

- Emperor Constantine's vision

October 28, 312 ad

Wikipedia - In hoc Signo Vinces

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_hoc_signo_vinces

In hoc signo vinces (Classical Latin: [ɪn hoːk ˈsɪŋnoː ˈwɪnkeːs]; Ecclesiastical Latin: [in ok ˈsiɲɲo ˈvintʃes]) is a Latin phrase meaning "In this sign you will conquer." It is a translation, or rendering, of the Greek phrase "ἐν τούτῳ νίκα" en toútōi níka (Ancient Greek: [en tóːtɔ͜ːi níkaː]), literally meaning "in this, conquer".

The Greek Symbol Chi Rho

Constantine's commemorative coinage

Wikipedia - Chi Rho

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chi_Rho

The Christian Christogram
of Chi-Rho

The Chi Rho (/ˈkaɪ ˈroʊ/) is one of the earliest forms of christogram, and is used by some Christians. It is formed by superimposing the first two (capital) letters chi and rho (Χ - Ρ) of the Greek word "ΧΡΙΣΤΟΣ" (Christos = Christ) in such a way as to produce the monogram. Although not technically a Christian cross, the Chi-Rho invokes the crucifixion of Jesus, as well as symbolising his status as the Christ.

The Chi-Rho symbol was also used by pagan Greek scribes to mark, in the margin, a particularly valuable or relevant passage; the combined letters Chi and Rho standing for chrēston, meaning "good." Some coins of Ptolemy III Euergetes (r. 246–222 BC) were marked with a Chi-Rho.

The Chi-Rho symbol was used by the Roman emperor Constantine I as part of a military standard (vexillum), Constantine's standard was known as the Labarum. Early symbols similar to the Chi-Rho were the Staurogram () and the IX monogram ().

* * * * * * * * * *

Depiction of Constantine fighting his Roman foe Maxentius at Rome’s Milvian Bridge.

Background by Dan Graves {In Context}

In AD 312, the Roman Empire is up for grabs. Its previous emperor, Diocletian, divided the realm between two senior and two junior emperors, but the complex arrangement has collapsed. The successors are at one another’s throats. Young general Constantine, son of Constantius, one of Diocletian’s co-emperors, has military successes under his belt, but now he faces a formidable veteran with a larger army and a better strategic position. What shall he do?

Constantine realizes that he needs help from a power greater than himself, but who or what? He has his doubts about the traditional Roman gods. He prays earnestly that the true God, whoever that may be, will “reveal to him who he is, and stretch forth his right hand to help him.”

He does not know it yet, but that prayer will change the course of Christian history as well as of western civilization. Later he will tell his friend Bishop Eusebius the incredible story of that hour. When Eusebius reports it in his history, he admits it is hard to believe.

What happens that is so hard to believe? Constantine suddenly sees a bright cross of light emblazoned against the noonday sky and upon it the inscription: “In hoc signo vinces” —“In this Sign Conquer.”

It brings Constantine the assurance he needs. He accepts this as the answer to his prayer and orders his soldiers to inscribe crosses on their shields. Encouraged by his vision in the heavens, he hurls his troops against his rival Maxentius at Rome’s Milvian Bridge. Surprisingly, Constantine is victorious. Maxentius is among those who drown in the Tiber.

The Chi-Rho with a wreath symbolizing
the victory of the Resurrection,
above Roman soldiers, ca. 350.

Afterward Constantine does not forget to whom he owes his victory. For close to two hundred and fifty years, since AD 64 when Nero initiated violence against it, the Christian church has been a persecuted minority in Roman lands. Only a few years earlier, between 303 and 311, it suffered through Diocletian’s savage “Great Persecution.” Now Constantine issues orders that the Christian church is to be tolerated just as other religions are. Although he does not make Christianity the official religion of the empire, Constantine bestows favor on it, builds places of worship for Christians, and presides over the first general church council. He becomes the first emperor to embrace Christianity and will be baptized on his death bed—waiting so late for fear his duties as emperor might cause him to sin after he receives the solemn rite, blotting out its efficacy.

Writing Constantine’s biography, Eusebius will describe him as God’s gift to a suffering church. His Greek account will give the quote simply as “Conquer by this.”

For the first time in its short history, the church can worship and grow without constant fear of deadly persecution.

- Dan Graves, {In Context}

https://www.christianhistoryinstitute.org/incontext/article/constantines-cross/

For further references to Constatine - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constantine_the_Great

Sculpture of Constantine the Great in York, England: "By this sign conquer".

* * * * * * * * * *

The Symbol of the Cross and Its Meaning

What does the symbol of the Cross mean? What did it mean to the early church? To the pre-Catholic church? To the Catholic, Protestant, and Eastern Churches of Christ to come after the Reformation?

Overall, the symbol of the cross is a symbol of mystery. We know it as God's "paschal mystery" in reference to God "passing over His people" in order to protect them by His sacrifice in Jesus using both the Old Testament concept in Exodus on the eve of Israel's departure as well as to the New Testament image in Christ-on-the-Cross atoning for our sin.

In essence, the paschal mystery of Christ refers to His passion (that is, His life and life's ministry), death, and resurrection, and by these accomplishments signifying the completed work of God the Father whom sent His Son in the power of His Spirit to make atonement for the fallen world of man.

Moreover, Catholic, Anglican, and Orthodox Christian churches celebrate this mystery through the season of Lent culminating on Easter. It is further remembered and celebrated at every Eucharist (or Communion) event on Sunday which is also known as the Pascha of the week.

Ultimately, the Pascha of Christ is a symbol of grace and peace as much as it has been used as an iconic symbol of war and violence as begun by Constantine when taking the Christian symbol of the cross and making it a political symbol of conquering his enemies in a bid for power from Rome.

In the Old Testament under the Law of Moses we read of the Jewish people implementing a "Law of Measures" in Exodus 21.23-24:

23 But if there is harm, then you shall pay life for life,

24 eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot,

25 burn for burn, wound for wound, stripe for stripe.

But no less is this concern for civil justice not also demonstrated throughout human societies as symbolized by the more modern icon of the Scales of Justice hung in the balances waiting to being meted out between men with one another, their community, and with other societies.

Throughout church history we read of the church's violence to each other and to other societies based upon its understanding of the commandments of God as given through Moses. A theology that reflects not God but the violence set in its own heart. Begging the question why God would say this or why early Israel so long for this institutional mandate of civil justice?

Was God speaking to Israel in order to give them a baseline of civility between one another? Did Israel wish to be like the other nations of the land around them in its infancy? We could go round-and-round on this question but nonetheless, the civil institutions of Israel were first laid down in the book of Exodus.

The Myth of Violence

It is the myth of violence that war, brutality, and fighting can put back together again a kind of civil peace between human beings. In the story of Samson we see this sorrowful cycle of revenge repeating itself again and again in the ragged prophet's life as it spins out of control eventuating in his heart-rending death.

Into this myth enters Jesus who comes to yet another mountain of God to speak a new law to His people not unlike Moses' institution of the Deuteronomic law. A law that would remove the cycles of violence man has committed himself to by a greater law. A law of peace and forgiveness. We call this new set of laws the "Sermon on the Mount" as taken from Matthew chapters 5 - 7.

Mt.5:38 "You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’
39 But I say to you, Do not resist the one who is evil. But if anyone slaps you on the right
cheek, turn to him the other also. 40 And if anyone would sue you and take your tunic,
let him have your cloak as well. 41 And if anyone forces you to go one mile, go with him
two miles. 42 Give to the one who begs from you, and do not refuse the one who would
borrow from you."

In Jesus' new words He is saying that concretely, or pragmatically, there can be no end to violence. The only end to violence is through forgiveness and the turning away from any further violence. And it is in this response that the mystery of redemption begins to work its power like leaven kneaded into a loaf of bread. It doesn't solve any one problem one-for-one but addresses the whole nature of the problem of relationship between individuals, communities, and nations.

"But Justice Matters!" Yes, this is made very clear in Scripture. Both old and new. But in Jesus' new words we are not to resist evil but to accept it. To not continue in the myth of redemptive violence as a thing that can bring peace and enclave to the world. That His cross will not be a thing, a symbol, or a mindset for violence but a symbol to be known for its grace and forgiveness. It is by this kind of cross that we conquer together as crucified communities of our Lord.

What is Jesus doing? Is He challenging the bible? Is He challenging both Jewish theology and later Christian theology to come? Is He being too naive when saying that "By this New Torah that I give to you on this New Mountain of God I have become both a New Moses to you as will as a New Law of God?" Yeah, verily, He does.

So then, why did God institute Law in one era and Love in another? Did His people mis-hear Him? Have we divided the Scriptures up in error? Not if we reflect on the actions of those believers in the New Testament who, upon hearing Jesus' new law of love and forgiveness are immediately revitalized in their redemptive walk with Yahweh. How many accounts do the Gospels list of a forbidden woman coming before Jesus to wash His feet with her hair to the unfavorable sentiments of many? Or of Jesus forgiving a woman of prostitution before a condemning Sanhedrin wishing to stone her according to their law? Or of Jesus healing people on the Sabbath as a holy day consecrated to the Lord? Or of tax collectors dropping their collection rolls to take up their call to follow Jesus as his new disciples of redemption and healing? Too many.

Moreover, Jesus lives out His own words. To His betrayer Judas He says, "Friend, I forgive you. Go do what you must do." Or to His Father-God in the Garden of Gethsemane, "Lord, not my will but thine be done." To those hated and despised by society He calls friend. To His servant Peter He removes the sword from his hand and repairs the severed ear of the temple servant so that he might continue serving once more without mar or wound.

Does this cause the stricter interpreters of God's Torah emotions of rage and violence? Certainly. So much so that we come to see these scribes and pharisees not as God's servants but as their own masters committed to power and prestige and religious delusions of self-atonement (we call such works of the flesh legalism). They become like the dogs and vipers that Jesus speaks of who turn upon the True Servant of Yahweh to beat, humiliate, and kill the Holy One whom they vilely hate. Initiating yet again the dictum of "violence begetting violence" not understanding that it is but a pitiful human redemptive myth for putting things aright when undone by sin.

And so we must observe, "Jesus wasn't simply a good teacher but a g-r-e-a-t practitioner of God's Word. But does love and forgiveness actually work? If by the evidences of a torn temple curtain opening up the Holy of Holies to all men, or by the confessional submission of a Roman Centurion before the foot of Jesus' cross, or by the many testimonies of betrayed and martyred men, women, and children, then yes, we must clearly say so. The teaching of Jesus was to powerfully, practically embrace God's willful redemption and reclamation of mankind in a way not like any other way. That it is the most complete, most unifying, most significant action that we as God's people might commit towards one another every moment and every day of our lives.

To take up Jesus' Cross and follow Him is not to bear sword and shield in hand to slay our enemies declaring rightful power in God's name but to stay our hands and hearts and bow down before our King in obedience to His will of grace, peace, forgiveness, and hope. It is by this kind of Cross that we conquer and no less. The Cross now becomes a place of personal redemption and transformation and no longer an vacant symbol of sin, revenge, and violence.

May then the Cross of Jesus become a symbol of love and transformation. A symbol of renewal, revival, and resurrection. May it no longer be used by the church to commit works of hatred towards others by exclusion, meanness, bullying, or of ill-will, oppression, and unkindness. Let the Cross of Christ become our Paschal Cross of Resurrection bourne in the power of the Holy Spirit unto the deep satisfaction and great good will of our holy God who Himself is our Paschal Peace. Amen.

R.E. Slater

March 2, 2015

Dedicated to the martyrs

of flesh, hopes, and dreams

become as Christ-bearers

and Testimonies of Light

to a new Torah of Shalom

granting grace and peace

by El Shaddai's infilling

Shekhinah-glory, the

Paschal mystery of  God,

whose holy presence

would dwell amongst men.

continue to -

Numbering Numbers

An Apocalyptic Jesus - Numbering Christian Interpretation, Part 1

An Apocalyptic Jesus - Numbering Christian Interpretation, Part 2

An Apocalyptic Jesus - Numbering Christian Interpretation, Part 1

An Apocalyptic Jesus

In a previous blog post (Numbering Numbers) I had laid out the book of Numbers of the Old Testament in a typical Christian interpretation of its history and theology. Today I wish to consider that interpretation and ask why our first reading from yesterday did or didn't surprise us as to the kind of reaction God had shown amongst His people Israel and towards their enemies.

Perhaps we should first start with John the Baptist, the cousin to Jesus who had baptised His Lord in the River Jordan to witness God's ordination of His Son in terms of the Holy Spirit descending upon Jesus in the form of a dove (Matthew 3). Now John the Baptist was a fairly outspoken critic of the religious temple of his day. He was known for preaching a strong version of Jewish theology that at all times pled for repentance while looking to a coming Day of the Lord spewing wrath and judgment. 

Not surprisingly, in both Jewish Apocalyptic literature before Jesus' birth, as well as in later Christian eschatalogical (end-time) writings after Jesus' resurrection, there was found a very firm belief in God's coming judgment upon the sins of mankind. A judgment issuing forth in woes, plagues, wars, harms, blood, disasters, and all manner of human suffering due to man's sin. A judgment-of-all-judgments that would be sent by God rightfully upon all humanity for its refusal to bow down before Him as the God of all creation. A God who seeks justice, righteousness, and holiness against the wickedness and evil man has created by the freedom of his corrupt heart, soul, and mind.

Into this era of Jewish and Christian agreement on "End Time Judgment and Wrath" comes God Himself incarnated in the form of Jesus endowed by the Spirit of God to preach love, kindness, forgiveness, and hope to all men everywhere beginning with His people Israel and unto the ends of the earth. Like John the Baptist, Jesus' message also bears within it an urgency for repentance and forestaying of God's wrath - a wrath in which He ultimately places Himself as the stop-gap to the satisfaction of God's holiness for this world's sin and evil. And thereby, personally demonstrating through His life choices that this God is not only a God of wrath and judgment but also a God of love, forbearance, mercy, and forgiveness.

However, lest we miss the point, it was Jesus in His very person that was this very God that the world looked to for righteousness and justice, equity and fairness. That it was this same God of wrath so feared and anticipated who became flesh and blood to walk amongst sinful mankind preaching peace and love. Which is surprising, really, in that through the entirety of the Old Testament Scriptures it seemed that God only loved those who obeyed His rules and regulations and set His wrath upon those who disobeyed Him (conditional love). Time and again we read in the book of Numbers of God's consuming wrath upon His people unwilling to follow His appointed leaders (Moses and Aaron), times, structures, ways, and wishes (the tabernacle, religious liturgy, calendar dates, instructions, etc).

One would think then that should this God of the OT come down to this earth in the form of humanity that He would throw a crusader's cape across His shoulders, gird up His loins, take sword and shield in hand, and begin swinging away cutting large bloody swaths across the nations of the Mid-East in all directions before preceding like an Alexander of old into the world at large against all opposing Him. And why not? This was exactly the picture His people Israel had come to expect of God when He came! However, we quickly discover that they grossly neglected in their theology that God is also a God of love and forebearance. A God who redeems out of love and not by mere human self-serving appeasement and artifact by temple and ordinance. In fact, the God they felt they needed was a God of vengeance and iron rule - but in the paradox of the rule of God this God came as a humble, weak servant to suffer in the place of His people as their Lamb and atoning sacrifice (Isaiah 52-53). Thus was there confusion in Israel as to Jesus' credentials. He simply didn't fit into the theology they had been taught and expected.

And yet, the irony of this is that even Jesus' close cousin John preached a powerful kingly-Redeemer and not a humble, servant-Redeemer. Even Jesus' family misunderstood His declaration of ministry expecting at any time for Jesus to take up the sword and lead a willing congregation of Jewish men into battle against enemies beset around-and-about their impoverished enclaves. So too did Jesus' disciples believe in their ministry of preaching repentance and preparation to the people of Israel that at the last Jesus would throw off his robes for the armored dress of war. That in all ways the Jewish theology of the people of Israel believed God to come as a seething Lion and not a humble Lamb. A wrathful King and not a crucified Christ. As a "Lord of Lords" and not as "payment for mankind's sins" beginning with their own misdirected theology and insidious dogmas with its inflexible man-made religious rules and pitifully poor social graces overlooking the destitute, sick, and hated amongst their society.

How like this form of Jewish theology has our own Christianity become? How like John the Baptist and the many Jewish people across the land of Israel has today's description of God bent backwards to the old forms of wrath and retribution, judgment and penalty upon our enemies as upon the despised of society? Might it be a timely reminded to say that "not unlike the first century Jews who rejected Jesus' lordship in their lives while remaining at all times sacrosanct and righteous in their own eyes" that we might look to ourselves first for repentance of heart and mind?

To re-consider Jesus' ministry and "servant theology" over more muscular preferences for a theology like John the Baptist's "Almighty-God" theology. To allow our "Christian" theology and "bible-convictions' to become more permeated with Jesus' servant-mindedness? That we, as the church of God, are to love our enemies, serve the oppress, reach out to the hated and discriminated amidst our society, and not be like the world in its self-serving religious oppressions and vaunted doctrines of engrossing self-righteousness?

An Apocalyptic Revival

If so, than this is but the beginning to revising Christian doctrine so that it first weighs out the love of God over the wrath of God. To consider that God's holy person is holy because He is a loving God first and foremost. That holiness derives from being loving. A love that seeks justice and equity and fairness for His creation. A love that brings this God into mankind's very midst to become its divine sacrifice for sin that no other human or animal or created thing can be for His creation. A love that reaches out in service tenderly, moderately, gently, speaking soft words of blessing and honor to all who might listen and obey.

This is the surprising God of the Old and New Testament. That He is One God in Triune Person who at all times reaches out to His creation for their good and not ill. That this violent version of Himself as described in the Bible through Jewish and Church theology in both the Old and New Testaments is perhaps more a version of our own hearts longing for rightness and justice than it is of a gracious, loving, compassionate God moving to redeem His people so that we might come into sustaining covenant with Him. A covenant granting identity, relationship, blessing, and hope (promises).

The question we must ask today is this, "How can we move beyond a theology like John the Baptist's wishing for God's consuming fire so that a "Kingdom of Law, Order, and Justice" be enacted to a theology of Jesus who read the same Old Testament Scriptures as His cousin John did, His family did, and His disciples did, but came away with a dynamically polar opposite view? Yes, we might answer, it was because God's time had not yet come to begin His Kingdom. That Jewish theology incorrectly and pre-maturely hastened God's time to the neglect of remembering key portions of their Scriptures thereby settling in for a theology of self-righteous religious dogma to the neglect of sustaining, repentful, recreative, life-giving nurture.

But even so, aren't we as the church today doing the same in our church theologies however they are constructed? Are we not hastening the Kingdom of God in its final versions of itself without first giving due consideration to the ministry of Jesus forebearing in the yoke of His Lord as first set out by His God? If so, than to those whom we consider our enemies what are we doing to repent and reach out beyond our prides and prejudices? To those whom we callously neglect in their need and longing are we confessing our sin and seeking to right wrong acts? To those whom we despise because we feel its what the bible teaches in our hard-headed, hard-hearted Christian doctrines are we willing to put away such foolishness so that we might more clearly see the needs of those who suffer from our meanness, bullying, and unkindness?

Nay, this is not a different gospel. It is a rightfully nuanced version to all previous gospels too eager to preach divine wrath and judgment rather than laying down human pride, vitriol, and dictum to repentfully reach out in the more servant-minded gospel of Christ to share our Lord's grace and mercy. At the last, it is not God who needs our defense, but ourselves who need His Spirit-filled eyesight to see past ourselves, our wants and needs, and to re-consider that His Kingdom doesn't forcefully come as we had expected. But that the Kingdom of God comes on the backs of kindness, words of love, and in service to humanity. It is a Kingdom which grows from the inside-out in a paradoxical mystery we cannot begin to understand but must follow its example. This is the mystery of God: To be holy but also to love. This is the charge of the church's holy eucharist as it would commune with its Lord during its season of Lent. As such, "Do this this day" as taught by our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen

R.E. Slater

February 28, 2014

continue to -

Numbering Numbers

An Apocalyptic Jesus - Numbering Christian Interpretation, Part 1

An Apocalyptic Jesus - Numbering Christian Interpretation, Part 2

Isaiah 52

English Standard Version (ESV)

The Lord's Coming Salvation

52 Awake, awake,

put on your strength, O Zion;

put on your beautiful garments,

O Jerusalem, the holy city;

for there shall no more come into you

the uncircumcised and the unclean.

2 Shake yourself from the dust and arise;

be seated, O Jerusalem;

loose the bonds from your neck,

O captive daughter of Zion.

3 For thus says the Lord: “You were sold for nothing, and you shall be redeemed without money.” 4 For thus says the Lord God: “My people went down at the first into Egypt to sojourn there, and the Assyrian oppressed them for nothing.[a] 5 Now therefore what have I here,” declares the Lord, “seeing that my people are taken away for nothing? Their rulers wail,” declares the Lord, “andcontinually all the day my name is despised. 6 Therefore my people shall know my name. Therefore in that day they shall know that it is I who speak; here I am.”

7 How beautiful upon the mountains

are the feet of him who brings good news,

who publishes peace, who brings good news of happiness,

who publishes salvation,

who says to Zion, “Your God reigns.”

8 The voice of your watchmen—they lift up their voice;

together they sing for joy;

for eye to eye they see

the return of the Lord to Zion.

9 Break forth together into singing,

you waste places of Jerusalem,

for the Lord has comforted his people;

he has redeemed Jerusalem.

10 The Lord has bared his holy arm

before the eyes of all the nations,

and all the ends of the earth shall see

the salvation of our God.

11 Depart, depart, go out from there;

touch no unclean thing;

go out from the midst of her; purify yourselves,

you who bear the vessels of the Lord.

12 For you shall not go out in haste,

and you shall not go in flight,

for the Lord will go before you,

and the God of Israel will be your rear guard.

He Was Pierced for Our Transgressions.

13 Behold, my servant shall act wisely;[b]

he shall be high and lifted up,

and shall be exalted.

14 As many were astonished at you—

his appearance was so marred, beyond human semblance,

and his form beyond that of the children of mankind—

15 so shall he sprinkle[c] many nations;

kings shall shut their mouths because of him;

for that which has not been told them they see,

and that which they have not heard they understand.

Footnotes:

Isaiah 52:4 Or the Assyrian has oppressed them of late

Isaiah 52:13 Or shall prosper

Isaiah 52:15 Or startle

Isaiah 53

English Standard Version (ESV)

The Suffering Servant of the Lord

53 Who has believed what he has heard from us?[a]

And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?

2 For he grew up before him like a young plant,

and like a root out of dry ground;

he had no form or majesty that we should look at him,

and no beauty that we should desire him.

3 He was despised and rejected[b] by men;

a man of sorrows,[c] and acquainted with[d] grief;[e]

and as one from whom men hide their faces[f]

he was despised, and we esteemed him not.

4 Surely he has borne our griefs

and carried our sorrows;

yet we esteemed him stricken,

smitten by God, and afflicted.

5 But he was pierced for our transgressions;

he was crushed for our iniquities;

upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace,

and with his wounds we are healed.

6 All we like sheep have gone astray;

we have turned—every one—to his own way;

and the Lord has laid on him

the iniquity of us all.

7 He was oppressed, and he was afflicted,

yet he opened not his mouth;

like a lamb that is led to the slaughter,

and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent,

so he opened not his mouth.

8 By oppression and judgment he was taken away;

and as for his generation, who considered

that he was cut off out of the land of the living,

stricken for the transgression of my people?

9 And they made his grave with the wicked

and with a rich man in his death,

although he had done no violence,

and there was no deceit in his mouth.

10 Yet it was the will of the Lord to crush him;

he has put him to grief;[g]

when his soul makes[h] an offering for guilt,

he shall see his offspring; he shall prolong his days;

the will of the Lord shall prosper in his hand.

11 Out of the anguish of his soul he shall see[i] and be satisfied;

by his knowledge shall the righteous one, my servant,

make many to be accounted righteous,

and he shall bear their iniquities.

12 Therefore I will divide him a portion with the many,[j]

and he shall divide the spoil with the strong,[k]

because he poured out his soul to death

and was numbered with the transgressors;

yet he bore the sin of many,

and makes intercession for the transgressors.

Footnotes:

Isaiah 53:1 Or Who has believed what we have heard?

Isaiah 53:3 Or forsaken

Isaiah 53:3 Or pains; also verse 4

Isaiah 53:3 Or and knowing

Isaiah 53:3 Or sickness; also verse 4

Isaiah 53:3 Or as one who hides his face from us

Isaiah 53:10 Or he has made him sick

Isaiah 53:10 Or when you make his soul

Isaiah 53:11 Masoretic Text; Dead Sea Scroll he shall see light

Isaiah 53:12 Or with the great

Isaiah 53:12 Or with the numerous

Live Long and Prosper: The Jewish Story Behind Spock,

Leonard Nimoy's Star Trek Character 
(in rememberance, 2.27.2015)

Greeting each other by offering God's blessing

The Hebrew letter Shin is the first letter in the words:

El Shaddai - God Almighty

Shalom - peace, blessing, order, completeness

Shekhinah - the presence and glory of God which dwells among humans