Theology for the Masses

From Julia Esquivel in Threatened with Resurrection: Prayers and Poems from an Exiled Guatemalan (Elgin: The Brethern Press, 1982), 79-91.  I love how it uses Biblical language and themes to remind us at what price our comfort comes.  I’m thinking hard this holiday season about the intersection between religion, politics, exploitation, and thankfulness.  I pray that we can slow our lives down to the point that we loose our lusts of luxury.

In the third year of the massacres
by Lucas and the other coyotes
against the poor of Guatemala
I was lead by the Spirit into the desert

And on that eve
of Thanksgiving Day
I had a vision of Babylon:

The City sprang forth arrogantly
from an enormous platform
of dirty smoke produced
by motor vehicles, machinery
and contamination from smokestacks.

It was as it all the petroleum
from a violated earth
was being consumed
by the Lords of capital
and was slowly rising
obscuring the face
of the Sun of Justice
and the Ancient of Days

Each day false prophets
invited the inhabitants
of the Unchaste City
to kneel before the idols
of gluttony
money
and death
Idolaters from all nations
were being converted to the American Way of Life

The Spirit told me
in the River of death
flows the blood of many peoples
sacrificed without mercy
and removed a thousand times from their lands
the blood of Kekchis, of Panzos
of blacks from Hati of Guaranis from Paraguay
of the peoples sacrificed for “development”
in the Trans-Amazonic strip
the blood of the Indians’ ancestors
who lived on these lands, of those who
even now are kept hostage in the Great Mountain
and on the Black Hills of Dakota
by the guardians of the beast…

My soul was tortured like this
for three and a half days
and a great weariness weighted upon my breast
I felt the suffering of my people very deeply!

In tears I prostrated myself
and cried out: “Lord, what can i do?
Come to me Lord, I wish to die among my people!
Without strength, I waited for an answer.
After a long silence
and heavy obscurity
The One who sits on the throne
to JUDGE THE NATIONS
spoke in a soft whisper
in the secret recesses of my heart:

You have to denounce their idolatry
in good times and in bad
Force them to hear the truth
for what is impossible to humans
is possible for God.

Note: This is my first crack at this and it is rough and incomplete.  Also, I whipped this up at 1am after a long, long day.  So be gentle.  I am limited to 1000-1200 words of commentary.  I’m taking some chances with gender and scripture, so think of those areas as an exploration rather than… something else.

Section I – Preamble

We hold the below to be our best understanding of the reality of God, God’s relation to creation, actions within history, and our relation to both the rest of creation and to God. We draw upon the following for our formulations: the Spirit of God speaking through the Scriptures, the wisdom of our fore-parents, the best thinkers of our day, and our communal experience. We recognize that this statement is contextual and need not be universal and may even be wrong. If so, we welcome and humbly scrutinize any criticism as we pursue God and God’s will. This statement of faith will consist of statements which are commented upon in the footnotes.

Section II – The Nature and Relation of God.

We believe in one God who is love[1] and therefore internally and externally communal.[2]

And that this God transcends gender but relates in culturally engendered ways.[3] This God relates to itself and others

1. through the person of the Father, Almighty, judge, and maker of heaven and earth,
2. and through the Logos, [4] the only begotten Son, fully incarnated in Jesus of Nazareth,[5]
3. and through the Paraclete,[6] the Holy Mother,[7] which dwells within the members of Christ’s body and guides them through the Bible.[8]

Section III – Creation

We believe in the material and spiritual creation of all that is by God.[9]

And that there is a plan, purpose, and order to creation and that this plan, purpose, and order were disrupted by sin, rendering the whole of creation alienated from God, introducing chaos, decay, and death.[10]

Section IV – Humanity

We believe that humanity was created by God and imbued with the image of God and charged by God to care for creation in God’s stead.[11]

And that we sinned and continue to sin against God, creation, and one another, marring Shalom and separating ourselves from God, creation, one another, and from spiritual life.

And that humanity was created not to live alone, but as flourishing members of a community.[12]

And that those who accept the grace of God are crafted into the Body of Christ, made citizens of the Kingdom of God, and receive spiritual life anew.[13]

Section V – Scripture

We believe that Scripture consists of the Protestant canon.[14]

And we consider it to be human compositions[15] which were co-opted by God and breathed through by God so that it is “useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness.” (2Ti 3:16 NRS)[16]

And that it is the sole record of God’s revelation in literary form. [17] This message will always need to be translated by the help of the Paraclete into each culture it encounters.[18] In that way, it is subjective.[19] It is objective in that it describes the world as God wills it to be.[20]

Section VI – Redemption

In line with sections III and IV, we loudly proclaim a cosmic no! to the present state of ourselves and the universe. Accordingly, we believe that Jesus’ work on the cross is the means through which he will redeem all of creation.[21] This is happening in part now, but will only be finished at the Parousia. We look to the past for the pristine state, to the original Shalom as that which will be restored.[22] Yet, we also look forward to when heaven and earth will be created anew and heaven will descend upon earth.[23]

And that his begun with the victory of the Resurrection, continues through the present time, and will only be completed at the Parousia. Empowered by the Paraclete, we are agents of the reclamation of both sinful creatures and sin-smashed creation, as image bearers, until Christ finishes the work at the end of this age.

---

[1] “Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love.” (1Jo 4:8 NRS)

[2] As love, God must have an object and subject of his loving and since it is dependent upon nothing, there must be plurality within the Godhead. (Grenz and Franke 2001, 195)

[3] God has no sex, save for the humanity of Jesus. God does relate to us in ways that are culturally gendered. He contains both genders, “for male and female he created them, (Gen 1:27 NET)” and so we speak of God as genderful, rather than genderless. God the Father relates to us as in traditionally constructed masculine ways. He creates us, protects us, rebukes us, and loves us. God the Son is sexually male, but genderly neutral. He carries both masculine and feminine attributes as commonly seen in cultures. He is Lord, but also Wonderful Counselor. It is noteworthy that Jesus was sometimes depicted with feminine features in Antique and Late Antique art precisely because of his traditionally feminine traits. (Jensen 2000, 124-128) The Paraclete relates to us as a mother, less as Lord, ruler, and protector, but more as a comforter, and intimate guide. See note 7 for my drawing from Christian traditions on this matter. Furthermore, to emphasize the relational aspect of the trinity, I will use he and she to refer to actions as persons and it to describe unified actions. This is more to underscore the relational nature of the members of the Trinity than anything else.

[4] “In [the] beginning was the Logos and the Logos was beside the God and God was the Logos.” Εν ἀρχῇ ἦν ὁ λόγος, καὶ ὁ λόγος ἦν πρὸς τὸν θεόν, καὶ θεὸς ἦν ὁ λόγος. (Joh 1:1 NA27)

[5] "And the Word became flesh, and did tabernacle among us…” (Joh 1:14a YLT)

[6] Just as we take Logos from the Greek in John 1:1, we take Paraclete from it as well later on in John. We are reminded most often of John 14, which is as near as you can get to a Trinitarian statement: “And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, who will never leave you.” (Joh 14:16 NLT)

[7] I follow both Origen of Alexandria and early Syriac Christians which sometimes described or approvingly quoted works which described the Paraclete as the Divine Mother. (Rogers 2009, 119)

[8] (Grenz and Franke 2001, 64-68)

[9] In [the] beginning God created heaven and earth. “in principio creavit Deus caelum et terram” (Gen 1:1 VUO)

[10] Where there was Shalom, there is now decay, death, violence. The climax of Genesis’ opening creation poem ends with God creating rest on the 7^th day. This rest can be seen as all of history bundled up in this day (see Hebrews 4 for the Future Rest) or as the completion and establishment of harmony in creation and with God, the pristine state which sin marred in the next few chapters of Genesis, the return to which history aspires. (Wirzba 2006, chap. 1-2)

[11] “God created humankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them, male and female he created them.” (Gen 1:27 NET) As image bearers, we rule and cultivate creation in God’s place. (Grenz and Franke 2001, 199) See Gen 1:28 and 2:15 for a scriptural basis.

[12] We were not created as individuals plucked from the void and twisting in the wind. (Grenz and Franke 2001, 203). Instead, we are social animals, who construct, find meaning, and live in community. By community, I refer to Toennies’ idea of Gemeinshaft instead of Gesellshaft. Gemeinshaft refers to “relationships encompassing human beings as full personalities rather than single aspects or roles of human beings,” to which Gesellshaft refers. (Grenz and Franke 2001, 211) This is a by-product of living within God’s design, not an end in and of itself.

[13] Called out of the rebelling masses of humanity are those who respond to the call of God to accept the gift of grace which is offered by Jesus and made possible through his work on the cross, which is the apex of history. Those that respond to the seed of faith are grafted into the body of Christ which is his bride. This body extends temporally from the past, through the present, and into the future, and geographically throughout the whole world. For the seed metaphor, see Luke 8:11-15; for the basis of grace and the cross, see John 3:16 and Col 2:14.

[14] We have no scriptural basis, no manuscript basis, and no scientific basis for this claim. It rests solely upon our faith in the Spirit guiding our historical spiritual community. It was not delivered to us on plates of gold; it came into being through much struggle, trepidation, and time. We listen to other Christian works such as the Catholic Apocrypha, popular Christian devotional and academic works, and even ancient Christian non-canonical texts (such as the Acts of Mar Andrew and Mar Matthias) for human and divine wisdom, but hold the Canon over and above all these as the only set of works co-opted by God as his instrument of communication.

[15] We rebel against the notion that God is the initial crafter of these texts.

[16] We cling onto usefulness and deny the practice of using it as the fourth member of the trinity, as God incarnate.

[17] As such, we elevate it above all other texts and base our construction of the world upon our readings of it. Insofar as worlds are constructed by the language and categories as socio-cultural worlds, the Paraclete creates the Christian world through the melding of the revealed biblical stage and the present and local cultural stage.(Grenz and Franke 2001, 75)

[18]Additionally, it was produced within a specific geo/cultural-historical context and must be translated into each successive and adjacent context by aid of the Paraclete. The Paraclete enhances our ability to read the Bible and understand its overarching narrative and to craft and translate it into our interpretive frameworks. (Grenz and Franke 2001, 81)

[19] Though subjectivity in this sense is not of the same sort that plagues Christian apologists in their nightmares and writings; it is truth in context.

[20] (Grenz and Franke 2001, 272)

[21] “[A]nd through him God reconciled everything to himself. He made peace with everything in heaven and on earth by means of Christ’s blood on the cross.” (Col 1:20 NLT)

[22] See Hebrews 4, especially Hebrews 4:9: ‘So then, a Sabbath rest still remains for the people of God;” (Heb 4:9 NRS)

[23] Consider “Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the old heaven and the old earth had disappeared. And the sea was also gone. And I saw the holy city, the New Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven like a bride beautifully dressed for her husband.” (Rev 21:1-2 NLT) This will fulfill Jesus’ prayer to God that “May your will be done on earth, as it is in heaven. (Mat 6:10 NLT)

Something I have been wondering about recently is the use of judicial language in letters and our interpretation of said letters. Often antique rhetoric (art of persuation) would employ the language of judicial proceedings to describe/persuade the recipient. In fact these authors were not saying their subject matter functioned as law courts, but the language of law courts was the form through which they made their arguement.

Now, this is just some stuff off the top of my head and I’d need some examples for me to be taken seriously. I am just wondering about this over breakfast.

As I am nearing the completion of my degree and am on the cusp of having time to think on theological matters once again, I am struck by the inclusion of letters, letters, from Paul [1] to various peoples in the Canon.  I am an absolute Canonist (this will show up in an upcoming post which will complete my Paul and 1 Cor 11 series which has been on hold as I completed many school projects.) and take as an article of faith that what shows up in our present Canon belongs in the Canon.

However, having a sentence included in the Canon does not mean it should be taken as completely prescriptive 100% of the time prime facie.  When we have letters, we have to realize that a) letters are very different beasts than Gospels, Apocalypses, etc. and b) there are many different types of letters out there, each meant to be read in a particular way. 

With this in mind I have been pondering how we are to read the Pauline letters.  If we do straight theology from them, we might (but we might not) be missing something…I can’t think of any examples in the specific (and I will have my mind back early next week).

Any thoughts?

1. or people writing in Paul’s name [↩]

In the last post in this series we were introduced to Dale Martin’s interpretation of 1 Corinthians. He thinks there are two keys to understanding the letter, the differing constructions of the body in antiquity, and the parousia of Christ. We took a few paragraphs to familiarize ourselves with the first key, though we will be returning to it in depth later, and now, let us do the same with the second key.

General Characteristics of Apocalyptic Gospels

We could spend much time on this topic, but a few introductory comments will have to suffice in the interests of time and attention spans. Apocalyptic gospels are quite popular in times of oppression. They tend to imagine or construct mirror worlds to expose the instability of the values of the cultures they are opposed to, in this case, the Greco-Roman culture. [1] For a really interesting discussion of the issues surrounding apocalypticism, see “Apocalyptic AI: Religion and the Promise of Artificial Intelligence (PDF)” by Robert Geraci.

Paul’s Parousia

Our particular apocalyptic gospel, Paul’s, presupposes a “now, but not yet” inverted vision of reality. The structures of the world are contrasted with the structures of the Kingdom of God, which is found restored in the Church, but not fully realized within the rest of the world. There will come a time when the Kingdom of God will be fully ushered in, but that will not happen until the Parousia of Christ.

Currently, there are slaves and freepersons, but in the kingdom of God, there are no such distinctions. To underscore this point, Paul inverts the current model – the slaves are free in Christ and the free are slaves to Christ. [2] Paul does not directly argue for equality, abstract nor realized, but for inversions of current social hierarchies. Paul identifies with the Strong in Corinth on a philosophical level, but subverts their culturally engrained hierarchies by appealing to Parousia of Christ for the purpose of unifying the assembly there. [3] Paul inverts all manners of social society in 1 Corinthians, from socioeconomic status, educational privilege, freedom, and slavery. [4] Paul uses this series of reversals as a rhetorical tool to correct the Strong on matters of wisdom, philosophy, and rhetoric, the Lord’s Supper, non-Christian courts, sacrificial meat, speaking in tongues, and the nature of the resurrection.

Thus, Martin’s Paul sees the Parousia of Christ at the 2nd key to understanding 1 Corinthians. All of the categories of exploitation are reversed through the Parousia; gender is the only non-reversed category, for reasons we will explore next.

1. Martin, The Corinthian Body, 60. [↩]
2. 1 Corinthians 7:21-24 [↩]
3. Martin, The Corinthian Body, 68. [↩]
4. Martin, The Corinthian Body, 199. [↩]

I am currently reading The Corinthian Body and came across the following statement:

Paul’s reference to the “mystery” of Christ would have had a certain kind of resonance for any Greek speaker, evoking the mystery cults that were so important in Greek culture[…].  But the term would also carry a reference to apocalypticism, not so familiar with the typical Greek but an indispensable feature of early Christian proclamation, especially in Paul’s version of the gospel.  For Paul the apocalypticist, “mystery” refers to the apocalyptic narrative in which the expected revelation of the heavenly Christ will overturn the structures of the world.

Is this how you all think that “mystery” should be interpreted in Paul?