“The renewal of the earth begins at Golgotha…”

But Jesus says: ‘They [the meek] shall inherit the earth.’ To these, the powerless and the disenfranchised, they very earth belongs. Those who now possess it by violence and injustice shall lose it, and those who here have utterly renounced it, who were meek to the point of the cross, shall rule the new earth. We must not interpret this as a reference to God’s exercise of juridicial punishment within the world, as Calvin did: what it means is that when the kingdom of heaven descends, the face of the earth will be renewed, and it will belong to the flock of Jesus. God does not forsake the earth: he made it, he sent his Son to it, and on it he built his Church. Thus a beginning has already been made in this present age. A sign has been given. The powerless have here and now received a plot of earth, for they have the Church and its fellowship, its goods, its brothers and sisters, in the midst of persecutions even to the length of the cross. The renewal of the earth begins at Golgotha, where the meek One died, and from thence it will spread. When the kingdom finally comes, the meek shall possess the earth.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer in The Cost of Discipleship

N.T. Wright’s Reflections on Osama bin Laden’s Death

Found below is a complete copy of N.T. Wright‘s reflections on Osama bin Laden’s death. It is taken from Kurt Willem’s blog (The Pangea Blog) in its entirety. For those who don’t know, N.T. Wright is considered one of, if not the, world’s premiere New Testament and Early Christianity scholars. He has written an amazing amount of books and articles, which has resulted in his influential voice being found across the world. Not only is he a scholar, but he recently left his position as the Bishop of Durham in the Anglican Church. Feel free to comment below.

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N.T. Wright comments below on the recent situation with Osama bin Laden in light of the Myth of Redemptive Violence.  I think we Americans need to listen to relevant evangelical Christian voices from across the pond.

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Former Bishop of Durham Dr Tom Wright has sent us this:
By Tom Wright

(Rt Revd Prof N T Wright, formerly Bishop of Durham, now Professor of New Testament and Early Christianity at the University of St Andrews)

Consider the following scenario. A group of IRA terrorists carry out a bombing raid in London. People are killed and wounded. The group escapes, first to Ireland, then to the United States, where they disappear into the sympathetic hinterland of a country where IRA leaders have in the past been welcomed at the White House. Britain cannot extradite them, because of the gross imbalance of the relevant treaty. So far, this is not far from the truth.

But now imagine that the British government, seeing the murderers escape justice, sends an aircraft carrier (always supposing we’ve still got any) to the Nova Scotia coast. From there, unannounced, two helicopters fly in under the radar to the Boston suburb where the terrorists are holed up. They carry out a daring raid, killing the (unarmed) leaders and making their escape. Westminster celebrates; Washington is furious.

What’s the difference between this and the recent events in Pakistan? Answer: American exceptionalism. America is allowed to do it, but the rest of us are not. By what right? Who says?

Consider another fictive scenario. Gangsters are preying on a small mid-western town. The sheriff and his deputies are spineless; law and order have failed. So the hero puts on a mask, acts ‘extra-legally’, performs the necessary redemptive violence (i.e. kills the bad guys), and returns to ordinary life, earning the undying gratitude of the local townsfolk, sheriff included. This is the plot of a thousand movies, comic-book strips, and TV shows: Captain America, the Lone Ranger, and (upgraded to hi-tech) Superman. The masked hero saves the world.

Films and comics with this plot-line have been named as favourites by most Presidents, as Robert Jewett and John Shelton Lawrence pointed out in The Myth of the American Superhero (2002) and Captain America and the Crusade Against Evil (2004). The main reason President Obama has been cheered to the echo across the US, even by his bitter opponents, is not simply the fully comprehensible sense of closure a decade after the horrible, wicked actions of September 11 2001. Underneath that, he has just enacted one of America’s most powerful myths.

Perhaps the myth was necessary in the days of the Wild West, of isolated frontier towns and roaming gangs. But it legitimizes a form of vigilantism, of taking the law into one’s own hands, which provides ‘justice’ only of the crudest sort. In the present case, the ‘hero’ fired a lot of stray bullets in Iraq and Afghanistan before he got it right. What’s more, such actions invite retaliation. They only ‘work’ because the hero can shoot better than the villain; but the villain’s friends may decide on vengeance. Proper justice is designed precisely to outflank such escalation.

Of course, ‘proper justice’ is hard to come by internationally. America regularly casts the UN (and the International Criminal Court) as the hapless sheriff, and so continues to play the world’s undercover policeman.

The UK has gone along for the ride. What will we do when new superpowers arise and try the same trick on us? And what has any of this to do with something most Americans also believe, that the God of ultimate justice and truth was fully and finally revealed in the crucified Jesus of Nazareth, who taught people to love their enemies, and warned that those who take the sword will perish by the sword?

Osama bin Laden’s Death (Part 2): Jesus loved Osama bin Laden

Sunday night we heard the breaking news that Osama bin Laden had been killed. Not only had he been killed, but it was at the order of President Obama and carried out by an elite team of Navy SEALs. In response Americans began to celebrate at Ground Zero in NYC, in front of the White House, Shanksville, PA where Flight 93 crashed, and during the 9th inning of a Phillies-Mets game. American flags returned as the images and emotions of 9/11 flooded the communal memory of most Americans. In a wave of – depending on your view – relief or vengeful delight or fearful dismay or sorrow the events of the day had culminated with this news.

Now before I carry on I want to say that what follows doesn’t mean that I abhor America, our troops, the government or anything like that. I went to Ground Zero shortly after the attacks; I walked through the corridor in the Pentagon where the plane crashed soon after reconstruction began; I mourned at the grave site of Todd Beamer (one of the many who died in Flight 93) one year after 9/11. I have dear friends and family members who have fought in Iraq and Afghanistan.

What I offer below are mere thoughts and reflections on how I, as I attempt to follow Jesus, view the events surrounding Osama bin Laden’s death.

I was rather amazed at the reactions that sprang forth on the news. The celebratory delight that came as a result seemed to be founded upon the death of a man. I can understand this (as much as one can understand death and war) from the perspective of national or governmental relations. According to the narrative that the West lives out of, we were attacked and the natural outcome of this is to return violence with violence. The aim of our government is to obviously protect its citizens and its interests. Since we killed the enemy of the state before he was able to inflict more pain and death upon us we win. We win because he lost. He is dead and therefore we are alive. This is the Western narrative in which celebratory actions embody its ideals. So, as an American, I found some relief in his death. But is life really that easy? Is it really that violent? Is life actually that flat?

As a Christian, I cannot accept this because Jesus could not accept this. The narrative that Christians should be living out of has a Jesus at the center of it who tells us odd, countercultural, non-instinctual things. He tells us that when we are hit to turn the other cheek. He tells us that when someone takes away our shirt, we should offer them our jacket as well. Jesus takes things even further when he tells us that we are to love and pray for our enemies. Sure, says Jesus, most people will do this for their friends and family, but, if you are going to follow me, you will go the extra mile and will do this for your enemies.

And why should we do this? Because this is what Jesus did. He turned his other cheek when he was hit. He offered his jacket when his shirt was torn from him. He loved his enemies to the point of actually dying. And in the midst of taking upon himself the violence of the religious, political, social, and supernatural of the world, he humbly forgave the ones doing this to him.

Therefore, I can’t take pleasure in the death of an enemy. And, to be quite honest, as a Christian first and foremost, was he an enemy of Jesus and the Church? Or was he an enemy of the country I just happen to find myself in? A huge problem I see this event pointing out is the true allegiance of people. For quite some time I saw myself as an American Christian, emphasizing the nationality aspect of my identity. The truth is my allegiance is to Christ and the kingdom he brings, which includes loving my enemy. This is the challenge I try to make small steps towards every day.

As Stanley Hauerwas has said,

“I have argued that Christians’ first political responsibility is to be the church, and by being the church they should understand that their first political loyalty is to God, and the God we worship as Christians, in a manner that understands that we are not first and foremost about making democracy work, but about the truthful worship of the true God.This is a deep misunderstanding about how Christianity works. Of course we believe that God is God and we are not and that God is Father, Son and Holy Spirit but that this is not a set of propositions — but is rather embedded in a community of practices that make those beliefs themselves work and give us a community by which we are shaped. Religious belief is not just some kind of primitive metaphysics, but in fact it is a performance just like you’d perform Lear. What people think Christianity is, is that it’s like the text of Lear, rather than the actual production of Lear. It has to be performed for you to understand what Lear is — a drama. You can read it, but unfortunately Christians so often want to make Christianity a text rather than a performance.”

Perhaps part of the problem in our world is that we have mistakenly separated out the beliefs of Christianity with the embodied life and practices of Christianity. We all seek peace, regardless of ethnicity, political affiliation, religion, but how can a world believe in a Jesus whose church doesn’t embody its ideals?

Perhaps speaking about loving an enemy, like an Osama bin Laden, seems rather outlandish. And perhaps it is since, in all likelihood, he wouldn’t have had a great influence on our day to day lives. So, for me, I have to wonder how this is actually lived out in my day to day life. It makes me wonder about the reality that there is a convicted felon in my neighborhood. He moved in, fixed up a house, and seems to be contributing to our small neighborhood. Then everyone found out that he is a convicted pedophile who committed an atrocious crime. In many ways, he could possibly be my enemy. Yet, when the rest of the neighborhood has been attempting to evict him from our community, how am I to apply Jesus’ command to love my enemy?

How am I to love a pedophile? Or what about the known drug house down the street? Or the kid who speeds past my house when my daughter and I are outside playing? These are questions I must wrestle with in light of Jesus’ high call to love them.

Can we imagine this? Can the church really be a people that loves that those who are different than us? Are we Americans first and then Christians or Christians first and then Americans? What would it look like if we had actually loved Osama bin Laden? When was the last time you prayed for Osama bin Laden?

How do we come to grips with the reality that Jesus loved Osama bin Laden?

Osama bin Laden’s Death: Reflections and Questions (Part 1)

Sunday night was an interesting night. My wife, mother-in-law, and newborn daughter were about to go bed when the news of something big was about to be announced by President Obama. The suspense was heightened by the fact that they couldn’t tell us what was going to be announced. The combination of this huge news coming so late in the evening with its secrecy was enough to keep us up. Then without warning, the channel we were watching decided to leak the info that it was in regards to Osama bin Laden and his death at the hand of our government.

My initial thoughts were rather mixed. I was pretty surprised by the matter. Surprised that they actually found him. Surprised that we were actually still looking for him. And even more surprised that now we seemed to have an “ending” to the search that apparently has continued since 9/11. I thought of the people and places that were greatly affected that fateful day. I remember, like most people of my generation, where I was and what I was doing. I remember the fighter jets flying over Philadelphia, where I lived during college, and wondering what was going on. Just like JFK’s assassination was a turning point for my parents’ generation, 9/11 would be a day marked for the rest of my generation’s life.

So I began to wonder if this would bring any resolve to the turmoil across the world. Would this now bring any peace to our country? To the Middle East? To the people suffering under bin Laden’s regime? Is the level of evil really lower now?

Soon thereafter celebration began to erupt across the country. Americans affected by the events of 9/11 seemingly had the justice they were after. Facebook, Twitter, and every news outlet were flooded with the news. Interestingly, it seemed as if there was a satisfaction in his death, even it was fleeting.

Personally, I felt satisfaction, curiosity, and, to be honest, worry and sorrow. For those I know who were personally affected by 9/11 I wondered if this would end a chapter in their lives. Would this be the end they were seeking? Is this end we all are seeking? Justice (who’s justice, is another question) seemed to carried out and bin Laden had now received what we all, myself included, had hoped for since 9/11.

But then I began to worry and feel sorrow in the fact that I should probably not feel and accept the satisfaction that came with his death. Is life really about vengeance? Is life really about getting back? Does death bring an end to evil? I also wondered about the call Jesus sent forth and to which I have answered. Regardless of anyone’s religious affiliation, we all must wrestle with and think through Jesus’ words of how to deal with evil and retaliation. Do they have any bearing on our world? Are they just words or do they produce anything worthwhile? Is the point just to “believe” in these words or do they produce something? Could their be a community in which peace brings reconciliation between enemies?

These are just some of my initial thoughts. Honestly, I have more questions than answers, but I really do believe that this event has the potential to be another watershed moment. How we react to Osama bin Laden’s death could be the event that pulls back the veil a bit, that points to our stances on the deeper realities of justice, violence, love, and reality.

So, how did you initially react? Did, or do, you find that how you did react conflicts with how you should react?

The End of Evangelicalism?: An Interview with David Fitch

Over at The Other Journal is an article (found here) with David Fitch, a pastor and professor in the Chicago area. I’ve been blessed to spend some time with Fitch, as he is heavily involved with the Ecclesia Network. The interview deals with his newest book, The End of Evangelicalism?: Discerning a New Faithfulness for Mission, his use of Slavoj Zizek’s cultural critique and political philosophy, and Rob Bell’s Love Wins among other things.

Below is the first paragraph in the interview, which will hopefully whet your appetite, and curiosity, to give the rest of it a look. Enjoy.

The Other Journal (TOJ): Your newest book, The End of Evangelicalism?, uses the thought of the iconic cultural critic Slavoj Žižek to look critically at the public presence of evangelicals. Your book was released just a couple of days before Rob Bell’s book on heaven and hell, Love Wins, a book that has generated national attention on the evangelical world and its fissures. Let’s say Žižek spent a couple hours reading the blogs on Rob Bell from his detractors—what do you think he would say about the media storm associated with Love Wins?

David E. Fitch (DF): Žižek would probably notice the extreme amount of media activity surrounding the prerelease of Love Wins and the Neo-Reformed response to Bell. He’d suggest that there is almost a perverse enjoyment in John Piper’s saying “farewell Rob Bell?” the kind of enjoyment that says more about us than the person we are targeting. Žižek would perhaps note that in finding a heretic, we found a reason to feel validated in our beliefs, and boy does that make us feel good. Of course, along the same lines, he would take notice of how the publishing world is creating this swirl of activity to ask, who is the church? Is not the church being shaped around these crazy discussions that are generated by publishing empires? Is this not a sign that evangelicalism has become a groupthink that generates no real activity for change in real life? He would note that we are, in essence, having discussions that allow us to be complicit with the ways things are, the status quo.

Preachable Paintings

Here is Jesus Appears to Mary Magdalene by Lavinia Fontana. The biblical context for this is taken from John 20 where John describes the resurrection and Jesus’ appearances. John tells how she mistakenly thought Jesus was the gardener. Within his theological rendition of casting Jesus’ work of new creation, Mary seeing Jesus as the gardener on the first day of the week is pointing us back to Genesis 1. Adam was the first gardener in the first creation that came about in the first week. Now Jesus is initiating his kingdom plan of new creation beginning with his crucifixion and resurrection as the restoration of everything.

Hence the painting.

Have you ever seen Jesus portrayed this way?

βασιλεία (Kingdom)

“Jesus came into Galilee, preaching the gospel of God, and saying, ‘The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.’” – Mark 1:14-15

I grew up in a Christian tradition that faithfully preached the repentance of sins, the personal need for someone/something to save us, and the proper mode of living after one has made a decision. The individual prayer, usually deemed as the “sinner’s prayer” (which I blogged about here) is something most people have experienced, whether or not they prayed it. Most people whom have grown up attending church have been part of a service in which the push and ending culmination of the service is the altar call.

“If you’ve prayed this prayer, please lift a hand or raise your head up so I can recognize you and thank God for your decision.” This is typically the mode of welcoming new believers into the family of God. The call is for life change in response to the need for grace for the entrance into heaven when we die.

Repent, pray, and raise a hand. Easy enough.

Yet, why does Jesus say something about God’s kingdom? What is this all about? I’d be willing to bet (because I know from personal experience) that most Christians don’t know much about the kingdom or its importance. Most churches emphasize a personal repentance into a personal relationship with God through Jesus, but what about the communal effects of salvation? What and how does Jesus’ declaration of the kingdom of God being at hand intertwine with repentance? Obviously, personal salvation is a must, but not to the exclusion of kingdom living and thought. Is there something bigger and more extensive that perhaps overemphasizing personal salvation misses out on?

Anyone out there have any thoughts? I’ll write more as we move along.