"In God I Trust and No Other." So Then, "Who Is This God We Trust?" Part 2/2

"In God I Trust and No Other." So Then, "Who Is This God We Trust?"

"The words of Jesus tend to “comfort the afflicted

and afflict the comfortable.” - Rev. Saturnia

"The cross is the end to God’s affirmation of man's power structures through

the installation of God’s chosen Son. The cross is the beginning of a power

that can only-and-always look like weakness. It can only look like defeat. It

is almost possible to say that if we want to be sure to know where God is not,

then we should look not to the one wearing the victor’s crown, [the Roman

crown of victory, but the Jesus crown of shame, of ministry to the despised,

to the powerless, to the oppressed.]" - JRDK / [RES]

Yesterday I asked when people say that they "trust in God" just what kind of God do they trust in? More specifically we are hearing politicians proclaiming God's favor by rallying our nation to a violent, un-Jesus-like gospel. Since when does God favor a nation committed to killing their enemies? I know, I know, we've been preaching a violent bible and a violent end to history (known as end-time eschatology) for centuries. As such, these "good" politicians and their followers are simply following a Bible they have been taught and believe in.

But what if I said we've got it all backwards and inside out? Well, it'd be a scandal right? Many would respond by saying that a God who controls everything by using the means of divine (or angelic) wrath, judgment, and condemnation as His major tools towards obedience, is the right and proper view of Scripture. And yet, for many Christians they are questioning these extremist interpretive dogmas by saying, "Not so!"

Rather than describing God as a controlling God many are now re-describing Him as a non-controlling God. And rather than a God of violence He is being thought of as a very-patient, merciful God who acted very unlike what we humans would have done when challenging violence when sacrificing His own earthly life at the Cross. In beholding God in this way these post-Christians are re-interpreting a violent (OT) Jewish bible through Jesus' presence-filled New Testament acts of charity to the oppressed, despised, and pagan teachings of men and women both then and now.

Perhaps then we must ask if whether Israel had correctly interpreted "God's response to force by using force" in the administration of their kingdom? Perhaps this God they proclaimed was actually their own conscious wish to have an all powerful God full of just fury made in their own image, rather than God's true image?

If so, many Christians today see God through a Jesus-lens and not a so-called "bible-lens." (Thus, instead of reading the bible in a flat, literal fashion it is being read using a more rounded, existential or literary, anthropology. One that is still both narrative as well as instructive.) So then Jesus is the lens which is used to portray God by His life's testimony correcting all our pagan, idolatrous, and mimetic images of Himself. Otherwise this (un)biblical (non-Jesus) G/god was a type of God whom Israel needed in order to 'do to their neighbor the evil in their own hearts" (otherwise known as self-righteousness; the prophet/judge Samson would probably be a good picture of this).

So then, the post-Christian portrait of God is One who is Almighty but who also comes to mankind in humility, weakness, and presence (for those looking for a traditional interpretation here it is... an old interpretation with a new spin). But a God who refuses to control us, or our lives, wishing instead to partner with us in the fullness of His Spirit (again, more traditional teachings but this time given a slant toward "Open and Relational Theism" which is more Arminian based than Calvisinistic). A God who seeks just-justice without implementing a discriminating violent justice.

And if this is so, than our presidential candidates, along with the American nation we live in, must come to terms with which God they wish to follow. If choosing the more violent, unjust God than we may expect to sow what we weep (reap). If a more Jesus-like God than perhaps we as a nation might usher in the very Kingdom of God we have all yearned for throughout our lives. Amen.

R.E. Slater

February 3, 2016

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Ted Cruz delivering his victory speech after the Iowa caucus | Screenshot from YouTube, ABC News

Iowa, Ted Cruz, and the Evangelical Identity Crisis

https://www.ravenfoundation.org/iowa-ted-cruz-and-the-evangelical-identity-crisis/

by Adam Ericksen

February 2, 2016

Comments

Ted Cruz ended last night with a yuuuuge victory over Donald Trump in Iowa. (Sorry, had to do it!) Religion played a big role in Cruz’s victory. The New York Times reports that Cruz’s victory was “powered by a surge of support from evangelical Christians.”

For his part, Cruz reaffirmed his connection with his evangelical supporters by invoking divine favor upon his victory. “God bless the great state of Iowa! Let me first say, to God be the glory.”

But I can’t help but feel uneasy about the God proclaimed by Cruz and his evangelical supporters. That’s because, when it comes to their evangelical faith, they have an identity crisis.

The word “evangelical” has a specific meaning and history. It comes from the Greek word evangelion, which means “good news.”

Evangelical has become a distinctively Christian term, but during the first century it was used predominantly by the Roman Empire. In fact, when Caesar sent his armies off to conquer new land in the name of Roman peace, Roman soldiers would announce military strength as the “Gospel according to Caesar.” Rome waged peace through violence. In his book Jesus and Empire, Richard Horsley states that,

In the Roman world, the “gospel” was the good news of Caesar’s having established peace and security for the world. Caesar was the “savior” who had brought “salvation” to the whole world. The peoples of the empire were therefore to have “faith” (pistis/fides) in their “lord” the emperor. Moreover, Caesar the lord and savior was to be honored and celebrate by the “assemblies” (ekklesiai) of cities such as Philippi, Corinth, and Ephesus.

Now, a good Bible believing evangelical will instantly recognize the politically subversive language of the New Testament. In the face of Roman military that brought the good news of “peace” by the sword, the early Christians delivered an alternative message of good news that claimed “those who live by the sword die by the sword.” Make no mistake, their evangelical message was political. They sought to reorder the world, not through Caesar’s military strength, but through Christ’s nonviolent love.

The early Christians subverted Roman violence through their use of language and their actions. They claimed that the good news was found not in Caesar, but in Christ. Christ, not Caesar, was the “savior” who brought “salvation” to the world. People were to have “faith” in him as their “lord.” Jesus was to be honored and celebrates at assemblies, which would become known as churches.

But for the early Christians, words weren’t enough. They took Jesus’ command to follow him seriously. Jesus didn’t lift the sword to defend himself against the violence that killed him, and neither did his disciples lift their swords. Rather, they continued to challenge the Roman Empire’s “good news” of achieving peace through violence. The disciples claimed that true peace could only be achieved by following the nonviolent way of Jesus, whose evangelical message commanded that his follower love everyone, included their enemies, including those who sought to persecute them. In following Jesus their Lord, the disciples were murdered, just like their Lord and Savior.

Jump ahead about 2,000 years to last night in Iowa and we discover that Ted Cruz and his evangelical supporters have an identity crisis. They claim that Jesus is their Lord with words, but not in action. Cruz promises to “carpet bomb” America’s enemies. He promises to beef up the American military, a military that spends roughly the same amount as “the next nine largest military budgets around the world, combined.” The U.S. military is already the strongest military that the world has ever seen.

René Girard wrote in his apocalyptic book Battling to the End that Christians must make a decision about violence because Christ has left us with a choice, “either believe in violence, or not; Christianity is non-belief.”

Christianity is non-belief in violence because it believes in the one true God who on the cross responded to violence not with more violence, but with nonviolent love and forgiveness.

“To God be the glory,” a victorious Cruz proclaimed to a cheering crowd in Iowa. But I can’t help but wonder – what God is Ted Cruz and his evangelical supporters talking about? Because “Hey! Good News! We just carpet bombed the hell out of you,” sounds a lot more like the gods of ancient Rome than the God of Jesus Christ.

As long as evangelicals proclaim faith in Jesus as their Lord, but continue to believe in violence as the way to peace and security for the United States, they will suffer from an identity crisis. And rightfully so, because that combination is not the Good News.

"In God I Trust and No Other." So Then, "Who Is This God We Trust?" Part 1/2

To say "we trust in God" is a nice sentiment but then again what kind of G/god is meant by this declaration? For example, Presidential nominee Ted Cruz says he trusts in God but I would not trust in his God. His is a God of violence. Businessman and presidential nominee Donald Trump also says he trusts God but then again this G/god seems to be graven out of Trump's own image.

Lutherans trust God, so do Mennonites and Anabaptists. Christian Reformed and Baptists trust God. But each of these (doctrinal) pictures of God contain something that expresses that religious group's societal values which may or may not be biblical.

The KKK trusts G/god but would you trust this G/god? I wouldn't. Neither did the blacks whom they oppressed and murdered.

The atheist has no G/god to trust but perhaps s/he is being led on a faith path to discover the real G/god and not a mimetic image of an intolerable G/god the conservative church speaks so often of? A God of wrath and judgment both in this life and its hellish outcome should you not be part of the "chosen elect." Certainly this is no God of mine.

So the, let's ask the question again. It's not whether "we trust God" but what kind of God we are trusting in. I'm always glad to hear the faithful expressing trust in God. But there must always be room in the faithful's lectionary to examine what kind of G/god they have graven. Especially during political seasons where politians love mom, babies, apple pie, and G/god.

More simply said, that God must picture Jesus. Anything less is not a biblical G/god but a G/god that is a mimetic image of ourselves. Or of a bible we have distorted and abused.

R.E. Slater

February 2, 2016

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Donald Trump and a Tale of Two Gospels

http://rachelheldevans.com/blog/donald-trump-gospel-liberty

by Rachel Held Evans

January 28, 2016

As Rev. Saturnia said, the words of Jesus tend to

“comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.”

As it becomes clear Donald Trump’s candidacy for president will be more than a sideshow this year, the probable Republican nominee is making his pitch to Christian voters. 

You would think it would be a hard sell given the fact that the real estate mogul and reality star has boasted about his extramarital affairs, profited off casinos and strip clubs, said he doesn’t need to ask God for forgiveness, called for targeting innocent civilians in war, mocked a reporter with a disability, threatened the religious liberty of minority groups in the U.S., and gained wide support among white nationalists for consistently lying about and demeaning blacks, Mexican immigrants, Muslims, and Syrian refugees. 

But polls show that despite all of this, Trump remains favored among evangelical voters. After speaking at Liberty University last week, Trump scored an important endorsement from Jerry Falwell Jr., a prominent leader of the Religious Right who, to the applause of thousands, compared Trump to Jesus and Martin Luther King, Jr. 

Despite what the polls say, I personally don’t know a single evangelical Christian who considers Trump a model Christian. His scant church attendance and clumsiness at citing Scripture have not gone unnoticed here in the Bible Belt. Russell Moore of the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention has been an outspoken voice against evangelical alignment with Trump, and I’ve found his righteous incredulity over Trump’s religious pandering refreshing. 

Yet Falwell’s support is hardly isolated, and I suspect if Trump is the nominee, he will continue to find even more of it from the Religious Right (which I designate as a subset of a broader and more diverse evangelicalism). Despite about a million think-pieces on the topic, the reasons are not that mysterious. Racism and xenophobia remain powerful forces in our country, as does celebrity worship, and white Christians aren't as immune from these influences as they like to think.

Indeed, a quick study of history shows the origins of Liberty University and the Religious Right lie not in their opposition to abortion (that came later), but rather in their opposition to racial integration. Trump’s message mirrors several postures that have characterized the Religious Right from the beginning: 1) a glorified nostalgia for the past (“make America great again!” “America was once a Christian nation!”) that minimizes the historical suffering of women and minority groups in this country, 2) an overwrought persecution complex that confuses sharing civil rights with others with being persecuted by them, and 3) a persistent fear of the perceived “other”—Muslims, LGBT people, immigrants, refugees, etc.—that results in culture wars meant to “take back” the public square. Trump’s promise that “everyone will say Merry Christmas” when he’s president appeals to those who think being wished “happy holidays” by a store clerk is a form of religious oppression (and who apparently remain unconcerned about how Trump's mandate will be enforced upon those of other faiths). Both the Trump campaign and the Religious Right movement begin with the assumption that things were better in this country when the culture was dominated by white Christian men and that things will get better if white Christian men are freed from the burden of “political correctness” and restored to dominance once again. 

But perhaps the most tantalizing of Trump’s pitches to the Religious Right, and the one with broadest appeal, is his promise to protect their power.

“I’ll tell you one thing,” he told a crowd in Sioux Center, Iowa, “I get elected president, we’re going to be saying ‘merry Christmas’ again…And by the way, Christianity will have power…because if I’m there, you’re going to have somebody representing you very, very well.”

This is the gospel of Donald Trump, his “good news” to Christian voters: Stick with me and you’ll be a winner. Stick with me and I’ll give you power, protection, prestige. 

It’s also the very thing Satan promised Jesus when he tempted him in the desert.

“I will give you power and authority over all the kingdoms of the world,” Satan said, “it has been given to me and I can give it to anyone I want to.” 

While Jesus resisted the allure of power and privilege, it has long been a snare to his followers, and the Religious Right sold its soul long ago. Its support of Trump proves once again it will do anything to protect its power, even if it means baptizing as anointed a candidate whose rhetoric and actions contradict any sane understanding of what Christianity is about. 

Trump’s sloppy citations of Scripture are accepted by many at Liberty University because, as an arm of the Religious Right, the school’s primary function is political, not religious. The Bible is harvested for a few conservative sound bites, Jesus reduced to an object of veneration whose death saves but whose life and teachings remain inconsequential. When power is the end game, faithfulness bows to political expediency.

Another Gospel…

After his pep rally at Liberty, Trump was flying high, claiming with his usual hyperbolic flourish that Christians just LOVE him.

…And then he made the critical mistake of actually walking into a church.

Last Sunday, Trump took a break from the campaign trail to surprise the congregation of First Presbyterian Church in Muscatine, Iowa with a visit to their regular morning service. 

[See “Donald Trump Accidentally Sat Through A Sermon About Welcoming Immigrants”]

Now understand, as a liturgical Mainline Protestant congregation, First Presbyterian Church follows the Revised Common Lectionary, which means the Scriptural passages for the service and sermon are determined years in advance. Had Trump wandered into my church—St. Luke’s Episcopal Church in Cleveland, Tennessee—that morning, he would have encountered the very same texts. Thousands of congregations around the world—from Lutherans to Anglicans, to Presbyterians, to members of the United Church of Christ and other denominations—stick with this calendar as a way of pulling the days’ focus around a common theme. Nothing about the service would have changed just because Trump walked through the door...(well except maybe the tension in the room!)

The first Scripture reading that morning came from 1 Corinthians 12, and at First Presbyterian Church Muscatine, was read from the The Message, an idiomatic translation by Eugene Peterson:

“But I also want you to think about how this keeps your significance from getting

blown up into self-importance. For no matter how significant you are, it is only

because of what you are a part of. An enormous eye or a gigantic hand wouldn’t

be a body, but a monster. What we have is one body with many parts, each its

proper size and in its proper place. No part is important on its own. Can you

imagine Eye telling Hand, “Get lost; I don’t need you”? Or, Head telling  Foot,

“You’re fired; your job has been phased out”?… - 1 Cor. 12

Then came the sermon, which was based on one of the most important passages of the New Testament, the one where Jesus teaches at the synagogue in Nazareth and explains exactly what his ministry is all about: 

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring

good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives

and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim

the year of the Lord’s favor.” - Luke 4

This passage from Luke 4 is a declaration of the nature and aim of the gospel—the good news—and as the next verse reveals, it nearly got Jesus thrown off a cliff. As it turns out, the kind of people Donald Trump and the Religious Right deem acceptable collateral damage in their quest for power—the poor, the oppressed, the marginalized, the hated minorities—are the very people Jesus prioritized. His life and ministry started with them and his kingdom will ultimately be realized through them. The gospel isn't about protecting power and privilege, but rather about surrendering them until God's vision of justice is fulfilled. 

As Rev. Dr. Pam Saturnia put it, “Jesus has come to proclaim freedom and healing to those who are the most unloved, who are the most discriminated against, the most forgotten in our community and in our world. Jesus has come to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor on the teenagers who are homeless, on the Syrian refugees, on the Mexican migrants, and the people who find themselves prisoners of addiction and their families, on the poorest of the poor in Haiti — Jesus has come for them.” 

After the service, Trump seemed a little defensive, wondering aloud to the press if the Corinthians passage was directed at him, (“I have more humility than people think,” he said), and arguing, “I want to take care of all people but with Syrians, we just can’t do it here.”

But contrary to Trump’s prevailing worldview, this event had not in fact been orchestrated around him. The man had simply stepped into a big ole’ pile of actual gospel and immediately realized it contradicted everything he stands for. 

In contrast to Liberty University's convocation service, this church was a place where Scripture was quoted at length and in context, where the words of Jesus were honored and heeded, and where the vanities of a racist billionaire were challenged rather than coddled for the sake of financial and political gain. Kudos to Rev. Saturnia for sticking with the prophetic word God had given for that day and not cowering or compromising because it might offend one of the most powerful men in the world. 

Donald Trump had an encounter with the gospel of Jesus Christ and rather than propping him up, it made him uncomfortable…as tends to happen with anyone who is actually paying attention, myself included. 

When I left evangelicalism for a Mainline church, I was teased by some evangelicals who informed me I’d picked the losing team. They reminded me that Mainline churches like my Episcopal church in Tennessee and First Presbyterian Church in Mascatine, Iowa, are losing members at faster rates than evangelical churches are losing them. I’d jumped the evangelical ship, the said, for nothing but a capsizing lifeboat.

They aren’t entirely wrong. We Mainliners don’t fill many mega-church buildings these days, and our pastors don’t typically write bestselling “biblical diet” books or get quoted on CNN. But what these critics fail to understand is I don’t go to church to be with a bunch of “winners." I go to church to be with the people of God, people transformed by the gospel of Jesus Christ. 

Sure, the “good news” of safety, popularity, and political power is more appealing to the masses, but it’s not the good news Jesus preached. Not by a long shot. No one ever said the fruit of the Spirit is money, success, or political power. Rather, the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, and self-control - qualities that can be found in all types of communities be they conservative or liberal, evangelical or Mainline Protestant, big or small. Getting lots of people to go to church (or to attend a convocation/ political rally) isn’t the same as making disciples of Jesus Christ, and Christian leaders would do well to remember the difference. 

As Rev. Saturnia said, the words of Jesus tend to “comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.” 

Last Sunday, those words were enough to make one of the most powerful men in the country squirm. How’s that for being politically incorrect?

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Photo: screenshot from TedCruz.org 

God Is Not on Cruz Control

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/storiedtheology/2016/02/02/god-is-not-on-cruz-control/

by J. R. Daniel Kirk

February 2, 2016

Comments

"The cross is the end to God’s supposed affirmation of our power structures through the

installation of God’s chosen within them. The cross is the beginning of a power that can

only and always look like weakness. It can only look like defeat. It is almost possible to say

that if we want to be sure we know where God is not, then we should look to the one

wearing the victor’s crown, [the Roman crown of victory, not the Jesus crown of shame,

of ministry to the despised, to the powerless, the oppressed.]" - JRDK / [RES]

Blogsphere confessional: despite my thick skin when it comes to what some might consider infringing on the holiness of God, I turned off my T.V. last night. I was terrified by the blasphemy that was reaching my daughter’s ears.

Perhaps the only thing more incongruous to the identity of God than a pro athlete giving all the credit to God for a victory is a politician affixing God’s divine providence to a political victory. “To God be the glory,” proclaimed Cruz. A sentiment that I can get behind–for all the great things that God has done.

But the blasphemous coincidence of God’s glorious action and Cruz’s garnering a plurality of the vote in Iowa must never be our song of praise.

Getting the Story Wrong

At the risk of overgeneralizing, here is my basic assessment of American politicians who attempt to infuse their campaigns with divinity:

"The glory that they see coming to them from God’s hand, and the glory they see as

God’s shiny reflection in an exceptional America, are completely antithetical to the

identity  of God as made known in the story of Jesus Christ." - JRKK

The greatest trap in which Christians become ensnared is the trap of thinking that the God whose power gives us all life is the same god whose power is reflected in earthly measures of greatness.

We have a primal instinct to look for God by looking “up.” We look up to the pastors and assume that they are closer to God. In earlier generations we constructed great chains of being through which we looked up to the kings and angels who stood between us and God. We look up to the country in power (if it’s our own!) and assume that here, if anywhere, rests the hand of the Almighty.

We hear the powerful sermon and assume that the gifted rhetoric is the gift of preaching. We learn of a doctoral degree and assume that academic attainment reflects the gift of knowledge.

We assume, in other words, that the power structures of our world are instituted to tell the divine story and reflect the divine glory.

And when we give ourselves to these assumptions (as we all have at times), we deny the gospel story and the God who is made known through it.

The story of Jesus makes known to us the identity of the Christian God. If you’re not Christian, that’s fine, your G/god can have some other identity. But for those of us who proclaim that the Lord over all is none other than the Crucified, it is blasphemous to align God with the worldly glory of political victory.

In 1 Corinthians Paul is dealing with a similar problem: people being drawn to the wise and powerful. And so he retells the story of the cross: Christ crucified is weakness to the Jew and foolishness to the Greek. The glory of God, in other words, is hidden in suffering and death.

Whereas every fiber of our being yearns to see God by looking “up,” the cross of Christ teaches us that the only way to see God is by looking “down.” Down to the pierced and trampled. Down to the loser.

The wisdom of God is not the wisdom of the rulers of this age. If the rulers of this age understood the wisdom of God, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.

In the dark and shameful history of the church we have sinned at times by so associating the Jews with Jesus’ death that they have been labeled “Christ killers.” Perhaps it would be better for us to affix this label to every ruler, every king, every president, every senator. These are the embodiments of the rule of the rulers of this age. These are the ones who “crucified the Lord of glory.”

Indeed, Cruz himself rested his victory on the most powerful force we have: not the hand of God, but the clamor of the people. The crowds. (NB: at this point one returns to the Gospel stories to see how well things turn out if we follow the whims of the crowds. Spoiler: I think we end up chanting at the seat of Pontius Pilate.)

So yes, to God be the glory–and that is a glory that comes when the Ted Cruzes and Hillary Clintons and Donald Trumps and Barak Obamas and Bernie Sanderses have their work exposed as the glory of the darkness that the shining light overcomes, the glorying in death that gets shown up for shame when resurrection life triumphs.

Not God’s Messiah

The point in Cruz’s speech where I threw up in my mouth a little bit was when he cited Psalm 30:5 (with a King James lisp for good measure): “Weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning.”

That was his promise. For those who have been sore oppressed by eight long years of Obama’s presidency. The millions who are now covered by insurance “suffering” due to the current administration have hope! God will rescue! God will deliver!

Ted Cruz is the messiah?

This script has been played out before. Or, rather, the hope that such a script would play out has quickened the hearts of many–including Jesus’ earliest followers.

They, too, knew themselves to be the beleaguered victims of years of malfeasance.

They, too, knew themselves to have had their freedoms and rights curtailed by years of distant, federalized rule that made no allowances for what was rightfully theirs.

They, too, knew themselves to be the rightful recipients of God’s promised deliverance–the morning of joy after the long night of weeping.

But the disciples’ yearnings were thwarted. Not the true, deepest longings for redemption. But the longings for a new political day. A new political deliverer. A new power to match and displace the powers of the earth by taking their place here on earth.

Rather than a glorious victor, they were given a crucified Christ.

Rather than a revolt they were given the way of the cross.

Rather than seats of honor at Jesus’ right hand and left they were left looking at cruciform thrones on either side of Jesus as he slowly bled out.

It’s not that they, or we, or the people of Iowa, are wrong to name our grievances. It’s that the expectation of a divine deliverance that looks like the exertions of the political power of the world will not be matched in the Jesus story.

The cross is the end to God’s supposed affirmation of our power structures through the installation of God’s chosen within them. The cross is the beginning of a power that can only and always look like weakness. It can only look like defeat. It is almost possible to say that if we want to be sure we know where God is not then we should look to the one wearing the victor’s crown.

Not Without Hope

Cruz is not God’s man to save us from this hour. Neither is Ben Carson, despite the YouTube video singing his praises as such. Neither was Barak Obama. Neither is Bernie Sanders.

What, then, are we to make of our presidents within this biblical narrative of upside down power?

First, any resemblance that their policies or persons bear to the coming reign of God will be a happy accident for which we should be grateful. But it can never be one and the same. Any resemblance is God’s gracious manifestation of life out of a culture of death.

Second, most of what gains praise and accolades and votes likely requires forgiveness. Yes, it is great that we are a secure people with relatively little upsetting our peace and tranquility. And this is bought at the high price of drone strikes that kill “collateral” as indiscriminately as they kill the targeted suspects. The “peace president” is a source of terror so that we might sleep soundly.

Third, figuring out in this context how to faithfully integrate our faith with our politics is a big mess. It’s well and good to think that the Bible tells us that we should welcome the stranger. But why should that be public policy? It’s well and good to believe that we are called to turn the other cheek, but will that protect the people of this nation?

Fourth, I think I am starting to accept that the reasons I might have for being in favor of a public policy are not necessarily the reasons our nation should do something. We might need to start owning up to the difference between the reasons of religious conviction and the reasons of our faith. And then we can start to get clear on how our religious convictions can or can’t, should or shouldn’t, influence the political direction of our country.

But however we attempt this messy, awkward dance of being a country of faith-filled people and a nation led by politics, we who name Jesus as Lord have a responsibility to get our story straight.

And that begins by recognizing that ours is the story of the cross. It is the story of upside down power. It is the story of the mustard seed and of the whispered secret.

If the glory we claim in the name of Jesus is recognizable as glory to the clamoring crowds, that’s our most sure sign that the story we’re living has little to do with the Story we proclaim. That will always be the story of the crucified Christ, of the shamed crowds, and the wagging heads of mocking power.

Banksy - Tearing Down Walls of Oppression, Part 1/2

Across America's political landscape, and throughout the GOP/Republican Party's 2015 campaigning season, we are hearing messages of "Building Walls of Separation and Discrimination." Messages of societal molding and conformity to a public rhetorical platform that is being hotly debated from the diatribes of the infamous Donald Trump stigmatas to an entire stage of right-wing conservative candidates looking to lead America to its "glory lands of peace and lauder" through building better walls, greater military budgets, and an expanded prison system already too full.

Might we suggest to these candidates - as well as to any of the American public gullible enough to actually believe that walls do actually bring unity and security that this is but a fictional dream - or nightmare - of your own incredulous making. No wall, budget, or system, anywhere, will bring to a people or a country the security it longs for. Or, the peace-and-unity it seeks, simply by banishing its enemies to the outside of its own severe political and religious boundaries. It has been done - and failed - too many times down through the history of the world to believe that it can be incorporated successfully as a final strategy.

And since this is a Christian website let us also observe that we see this same kind of energy being expressed time-and-again within conservative Christian theologies as well. Theologies that would raise dogmatic walls ever higher against the torrents of progressive rhetoric blowing against it as if "the higher the wall the more secure and at-peace its people will be within." People desiring to be protected against an outside world full of evil, forment, and unrest. Certainly this is a desirable goal but a goal without sufficient means of attainment when driven by isolating its own people from harm while excluding others longing from the very same needs of peace, rest, and harmony being sought.

Hence, the artist Banksy points out this sublime fact time-and-again that "walls do nothing if but divide people from one another." That they provide a false security, an enforced segregation to injustice, and do nothing to resolving the differences between the "haves" and the "have nots." In the long view of things, the only healing which may occur within a walled society is the fantasyland of belief that one is safe and secure from "those meanies and hate-mongers" on the outside of our concrete or theological boxes.

So excuse us once again if we plead for some semblance of sanity amongst the conservative circles of the Christian faith to remind each other that strong doctrines, strong positions, and strong belief systems do nothing but weaken that very thing you wish to protect. Weaken it by isolation and exclusion rather than strengthening it by allowing its faith assemblies to be intimately involved with a hard-bit world of turmoil and oppression. To be involved through the hard work of activism, advocacy, and petition. One cannot expect walls to inform a people held by fear within. Nor do walls encourage involvement. They are separators that create calloused societies focused on themselves and their own needs while using others to support those needs and wants. Walled societies are places of injustice, inhumanity, and oppression. Walled societies cannot be supported. They are built upon their own unworthy foundations of sand while giving the deceptive impression of solidarity, control, and imperviousness to all onslaughts against it.

More the rather, to strengthen what you wish to protect is to expose that society's foundations and structures to the very criticisms being levelled at it. That in the strangest of paradoxes the things we wish to protect must become exposed and weakened in order to show the strength within that very thing you seek to cling to in the desperate hours of darkness.

What this means is that God and His Holy Word, the Bible, will never crumble to the fears of His people attempting to "honor" Him by "prophesying in His Name" of His salvation to mankind by excluding those outside the faith from the faith within. But must dutifully crumble to those same fears which would "wall out God's people" from those same dark forces that must be exposed, contended with, and vigorously protested against.

If anything, the Christian faith, if it is true, must become an "unstructured wall exposed" if it is to confront the ungodly on both sides of the religious wall of faith. Both the ins and the outs. The haves and the have nots. For the Holy God of the Bible is not a Redeemer who is in the business of building walls but of tearing walls down so that both the world of faith and the world of unfaith may collide and learn from one another. Teach one another. Learn to listen to one another.

America cannot be a nation on a hill whose light shines brightly if it hides the light of its liberty from the very ones desiring this thing both in their hearts and in their societies. There can be no one economic system. No one political system. But from across the spectrum of capitalism to communism, from a society built upon republican virtues to socialistic virtures, God reaches out to one-and-all irrespective of our belief systems, our cultures, our economies.

If anything, the need for walls should tell us that we must go to the ones shouting the loudest to listen so that we might humble ourselves, repent, and repair the damages caused by our vigor and protest. Areas like Ferguson, MO, cry out for the servants of the Lord to restore civility to the crimes committed for too many years and too many decades of exclusionism. Crimes of negligence. Crimes of over-zealous protection. Crimes of unjust civic law creating discrimination, racism, fear, and pride. Not simply there but everywhere we look in our cities of industry, progress, and means.

Walls do nothing if but illuminate ourselves to the world. They do not bring justice but injustice to those walled out. And to the political and religious demagogues and their foolish public who think otherwise remember God's very own Holy Personage as example who did not wall out a sinful humanity but suffered Himself to come into its manic folds:

Who did not think it "unpolitic" to humble Himself and come into a creation full of sin and

ruin. But made of Himself a part of this holy creation that He might take the form of a

servant and serve. Even to the point of dying to that very thing He created and loved."

Walls destroy. Walls bring death. Let us learn to live without walls in our lives. Let us seek to be "agents of demolition" to all that would wall ourselves out from one another. To seek peace and unity without the necessity of building higher, greater, deeper, walls. Whether in our political beliefs. In our theological beliefs. In our personal lives. Let us learn to live as exposed people. As weak servants of the living God. As people whose faith is real enough to allow it to examine ourselves first even as it will our "enemies in the lands of the living" whom we hate and fear.

And finally, should this be a plea for pacifism or for some kind of militant pacifism (an oxymoron if ever there was one)? When fighting injustice it must be one that loves our enemies but seeks to fight for those who are oppressed with crimes intolerable. Love is both weak and strong, wise and fearless. Perhaps rather than building walls we learn to re-build relationships with our enemies who are themselves as much in the business of wall making as we are by their own crimes of terror and oppression.

The most recent public example is President Obama's removal of the political walls between America and Cuba; with Iran's nuclear program arsenaled off from the contemporary world; and his visit of peace and respect to the nations of Africa. To hear his message that Muslims everywhere must be valued and not hated. But to also stand against the oppressions of all criminal groups - whether it be ISIS or that of an injust American system disempowering the disenfranchised. To recreate justice for all and not for some. To recreate community relations to every person of race, creed, or color, and not just to those we feel most welcomed within its boundary lands of oppression, hate, and discrimination.

If one is to lead a nation as a GOP candidate than one must be above the protocols and restrictions of one's own ideals if to serve and to bear the wounds of many. Any who would be a candidate for presidential leadership must be a candidate for all people everywhere and not simply to their own party of beliefs and ideologies. This takes a great wisdom of which only some have been successful at throughout the history of the world. But it is a wisdom from above. A wisdom that we pray and seek daily to honor from the God of all love, authority, and forgiveness, who is both our example, our Spirit-power, and our Lord and God who desires mankind to be at peace with itself.

R.E. Slater

August 13, 2015
revised August 24, 2015

Phillippians 2.1-11

Christ's Example of Humility

1 So if there is any encouragement in Christ, any comfort from love, anyparticipation in the Spirit, any affection and sympathy, 2 complete my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. 3 Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. 4 Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. 5 Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus,[a] 6 who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, 7 but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant,[b] being born in the likeness of men.8 And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. 9 Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, 10 so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 11 and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

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Brian Sewell Art Directory

BANKSY

http://www.briansewell.com/artist/b-artist/banksy/banksy-palestinian-tag.html

We couldn't work out if Banksy's taging of the Segregation Wall Palestine was 'Cheap publicity from other peoples misery' or 'Publicity for Palestinian misery'? So here is a review from the Intifada.

Well-known UK graffiti artist Banksy hacks the Wall

Nigel Parry, The Electronic Intifada, 2 September 2005

The Wall around Qalqiliya. A twenty-five foot high concrete cage cuts residents off
from their agricultural land, necessary for their survival, and prevents you from traveling
even 5 minutes out of the City. A single gate, open at the whims of the occupying army,
controls 100,000 residents. | Photo: StopTheWall.org

Whitewashing the Wall

In June 2003, I received an e-mail in EI’s inbox from a Nathan Edelson, who introduced himself as “a design critic whose features on architecture have been published in major U.S. newspapers,” which a Lexis-Nexis newspaper database supported. He was writing a story “about architecture in Israel, with emphasis on the new security ‘fence’ which you rightly call a wall.” His request was for larger images of the Israel’s West Bank barrier for study, and explained that “the premise of my article is that one can argue about the desirability of a wall, and certainly where it runs, but if it is going to be built it should not be an aesthetic monstrosity.”

As you can imagine, we get a lot of crazy mail at EI, ranging from the fundamentalist who has for years been weekly mailing Zen-like one-liners such as “Biblical Christianity will one day return to the Holy Land,” to the ex-Israeli soldier who sent photos of him in service across the occupied territories with accompanying narratives of how much he enjoyed mistreating the Palestinians he came across. But somehow, this e-mail from internationally-respected design critic Nathan Edelson won my vote for the most clueless communication that info@electronicIntifada.net has ever received.

Usually, all correspondents to EI receive a polite response with links to more information. But when a clearly educated person tries to get you to swallow soup with a turd in it, there’s got to be a cut-off point for pleasantries.

“That's a little,” I replied, “like arguing for nice faux painting on gas chamber walls or calling for Martha Stewart torture chamber bed sets. Clearly ethics play no part in your school of design criticism.”

Edelson’s reply was truly surreal. “I could accuse you of having no ethics because you want the security wall to be as repulsive as possible so it will stir up the maximum possible resentment, which will translate into more violence.”

“I care very much about where the security wall runs,” he continued, “as well as how it looks. My upcoming article will hopefully elicit meaningful conversation between the sides based on a joint desire to make a bad thing better, and this can help create the trust which can change not only the look but the routing of the barrier.”

Of course, the second the beautification of the barrier is complete, the Israelis, who bulldozed and confiscated countless acres of Palestinian land to build the wall, cut off thousands of farmers from their sole livelihood and, in one example, surrounded a single Palestinian family home in a mini-wall, will sit down for a meaningful conversation with their new Palestinian friends about the route of the finished barrier! I was also chastised by Edelson for being less than “civil” in my response to him.

“There is nothing you can do aesthetically,” I wrote in my reply to Edelson, “which will make this wall benign. There is no making it ‘better’. Want a big picture of the wall? Here's one attached. Do you think a nice mottled green would help it blend in to the indigenous landscape nicely? Or perhaps some arches and battlements for a more traditional medieval flavor?”

This satellite image of Qalqilya and Israel's West Bank Barrier surrounding the city
was taken on 7 June 2003. The progress of construction of the barrier can clearly be
seen, ultimately cutting off residents from their surrounding agricultural land. See
here for before & after images. (Photo: Space Imaging/NTA Space Turk)

“If you actually intend to actually write an article arguing for this monstrous whitewashing of a visible human rights violation -- and it says so much about the state of ignorance in America that you are even thinking of it or if indeed there is any likelihood any serious newspaper would print it -- I would suggest you first get on a plane and go visit Qalqiliya and Rafah and see the reality for yourself. Speak to the people who live there. See how the thing plays out on the ground.”

“What you propose -- using art to serve the interests of what is a dictatorship for the 3.2 million Palestinians who didn't vote for the system that rules over them -- follows in the footsteps of Leni Riefenstahl and Richard Wagner. While I totally concur with your point about the need for civil responses to civil questions, there was nothing "civil" about your enquiry. It was a perfect example of 21st century barbarism.”

“Hats off to Nathan Edelson, the man who came up with the wonderful solution to a century of conflict: simply paint the cage a new color and watch the prisoners dance.”

Hitler with Leni Riefenstahl (R), an otherwise brilliant 

film maker who made propaganda films for the Nazis.

Edelson didn’t give up, and responded one last time, expressing hope for a resolution to the conflict, making a final statement about the aesthetics of the barrier. “I also believe, however, that given any particular routing decision, it is immoral to create any more ugliness than is absolutely necessary.”

Enter Banksy

When I first encountered some of the graffiti art and sculpture of “Banksy” in London several years ago, I was struck by the importance of where his pieces were located. In Banksy’s work, location itself is a large part of the message, a key component of the resulting metaphor. Whether he’s hanging a fake rock pictogram of early man pushing a shopping cart in the British Museum, or installing an amalgam of the Statue of Liberty and Statue of Justice clad as a prostitute at the site of his last arrest, the environment is usually part of the message.

The “Manifesto” on Banksy’s website contains only a diary extract from Lieutenant Colonel Mervin Willett Gonin DSO, who was among the first British soldiers to liberate Bergen-Belsen in 1945:

“It was shortly after the British Red Cross arrived, though it may have no connection, that a very large quantity of lipstick arrived. This was not at all what we men wanted, we were screaming for hundreds and thousands of other things and I don't know who asked for lipstick. I wish so much that I could discover who did it, it was the action of genius, sheer unadulterated brilliance. I believe nothing did more for these internees than the lipstick. Women lay in bed with no sheets and no nightie but with scarlet red lips, you saw them wandering about with nothing but a blanket over their shoulders, but with scarlet red lips. I saw a woman dead on the post mortem table and clutched in her hand was a piece of lipstick. At last someone had done something to make them individuals again, they were someone, no longer merely the number tattooed on the arm. At last they could take an interest in their appearance. That lipstick started to give them back their humanity.”

 

The Holocaust Lipstick motif in Banksy's art (see above right), which accompanies the text on his website, has also appeared on the streets of the UK and aptly captures the deliberate incongruity of his large body of public work, which highlights and satirizes the dehumanizing impact of modern society and government by disturbing our sense of place and appropriateness.

Familiar images -- the Queen, smiling children, policemen -- are given a dark twist designed to wake observers up from the 9 to 5 rat race -- also a common Banksy theme, typically delivered in person by talking rats -- a rat race that literally itself streams through Banksy’s borderless gallery of streets to make you reassess the structures and symbols that form the backdrops to our lives.

Banksy hacks the Wall

Whereas Nathan Edelson wants to create no “more ugliness than is absolutely necessary”, Banksy’s the kind of guy who prefers to draw a 20 foot high arrow pointing at the ugliness to encourage us to ask why the hell it’s there in the first place.

When I first learned of Banksy's summer trip to the route of Israel’s West Bank barrier, which the artist describes on his website as “the ultimate activity holiday destination for graffiti writers” -- I knew even before I saw the first image that this was going to be interesting.

“How illegal is it to vandalize a wall,” asks Banksy in his website introduction to his Wall project, “if the wall itself has been deemed unlawful by the International Court of Justice? The Israeli government is building a wall surrounding the occupied Palestinian territories. It stands three times the height of the Berlin wall and will eventually run for over 700km - the distance from London to Zurich. The International Court of Justice last year ruled the wall and its associated regime is illegal. It essentially turns Palestine into the world’s largest open-air prison.”

Much of the art he produced on the Wall visually subverts and draws attention to its nature as a barrier by incorporating images of escape -- a girl being carried away by a bunch of balloons, a little boy painting a rope ladder.

Other pieces invoke a virtual reality that underlines the negation of humanity that the barrier represents -- children in areas cut off from any access to the sea playing with sand buckets and spades on piles of rubble that look like sand, and corners of the wall peeled back to reveal imagined lush landscapes behind.

Banksy's site offers two snippets of conversations with an Israeli soldier and a Palestinian who happened upon him while he was in the process of creating the series of nine pieces on the Wall, in Bethlehem, Abu Dis, and Ramallah.

Soldier: What the fuck are you doing?

Me: You'll have to wait til it's finished

Soldier (to colleagues): Safety's off

Banksy is the anti-Leni Riefenstahl and anti-Richard Wagner, reclaiming public spaces as a space for public imagination and enlightenment where they have become propagandistic barriers to thought and awareness, as is the very terminology for Israel's West Bank barrier itself. Banksy's summer project on Israel's Wall stands out as one of the most pertinent artistic and political commentaries in recent memory.

Perhaps the last word, perhaps the clearest answer to the Nathan Edelsons of this world who wish to whitewash all that is ugly rather than change its basic nature, should come from another conversation Banksy reports having with an old Palestinian man:

Old man: You paint the wall, you make it look beautiful.

Me: Thanks

Old man: We don't want it to be beautiful, we hate this wall, go home.

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