My Favorite Story from the Qur'an

While we're on the subject of Satan, and the fall, I'd like to deal a bit with one of my favorite stories from the Qur'an al-Kareem, one of the Qur'an's several versions of the fall of Man and the disobedience of Satan. This is from Surah al-Araf, The Heights, the seventh surah of the Qur'an.

The translation by Mohsin and Khan -- my personal favorite, given how literal its non-parenthetical translation is -- reads as follows:

11 And surely, We created you (your father Adam) and then gave you shape (the noble shape of a human being); then We told the angels, "Prostrate yourselves to Adam", and they prostrated themselves, except Iblis (Satan), he refused to be of those who prostrated themselves.
12 (Allah) said: "What prevented you (O Iblis) that you did not prostrate yourself, when I commanded you?" Iblis said: "I am better than him (Adam), You created me from fire, and him You created from clay."
13 (Allah) said: "(O Iblis) get down from this (Paradise), it is not for you to be arrogant here. Get out, for you are of those humiliated and disgraced."
14 (Iblis) said: "Allow me respite till the Day they are raised up (i.e. the Day of Resurrection)."
15 (Allah) said: "You are of those respited."
16 (Iblis) said: "Because You have sent me astray, surely I will sit in wait against them (human beings) on Your Straight Path.
17 "Then I will come to them from before them and behind them, from their right and from their left, and You will not find most of them as thankful ones (i.e. they will not be dutiful to You)."
18 (Allah) said (to Iblis): "Get out from this (Paradise), disgraced and expelled. Whoever of them (mankind) will follow you, then surely I will fill Hell with you all."

What follows is the story of Adam and Huwwa's temptation and fall. But this little exchange fascinates me, and tells me all I need to know about who and what Satan is. (Because it does not contradict a Bible story, or anything specific in scripture, I accept its moral legitimacy.)

Iblis (an Arabic version of diabolos, διάβολος, the term used in Matthew 4), is present with all the angels in heaven or paradise the moment God makes man from clay (طين). Sometime before, God made the angels and Iblis, and while it's not said here what God made them from, Iblis claims to be made from fire (نار) -- a fact he haughtily and arrogantly cites when he refuses the command of God that all the other created things bow before the Man.

Consider, for a moment, this scene. In Surah al-Baqara, another version of this is related. God has commanded the angels to bow before the man, the Angels question God. "Do you mean to fill the earth with these things that will cause mischief while we worship and adore you?" God dismisses the objection, teaches the man the names of all things, then asks the angels, who do not know. But here, there is no angelic objection, just a demand -- all the beings God has created up to this point are commanded to bow, to grovel before the thing made of clay. And they do.

All but Iblis. Angel of jinn, it doesn't matter (there is evidence in the Qur'an for both.)

"I am better than he!" (انا خير منه) Because Satan was made of fire, and fire is apparently better than clay.

At this point, God condemns Iblis. Leave paradise! You are finished!

And Iblis, for his part, doesn't argue about this. "Hold off on that until the last day!" he demands. And God, in God's mercy, agrees.

Further, Iblis then promises to lead astray any of the mud creatures as he possibly can, in order to teach God a lesson. This new creature, so dear to God (and who just seems to be standing there while all this happens), will prove to not love God anywhere near as much. And to not be anymore loyal to God than Iblis.

Fine, says God. I will fill Hell with all of you.

What intrigues me most is that Satan, from the moment of his rebellion against God, knows that he is doomed and defeated. He doesn't argue with God -- he merely asks for a postponement to his sentence, in order to work more mischief. But Iblis/Satan knows he is done. Knows he has been defeated and condemned.

So from this, it is pointless to follow Satan. Because then you are following one who has already lost and knows it. There can be no victory in following Satan, in falling for his temptations, because we are falling for one who has already lost, and in his desire to wreck some kind of vengeance upon God, promises to drag as many of these mud creatures with him as he can. (What follows next is the fall, but the qur'anic version always ends with Adam and Huwwa learning and speaking words of repentance to God, so this is not an Augustinian "original sin" moment so much as it is an attempt to deal with the human condition and create a foundation for humanity's moral relationship with God for Muslims. To be fair, this is what Augustine does too.)

Satan has already lost, the story says. So only a fool follows Satan.

I take something similar from something Jesus says in John 16:

33 I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world. (ESV)

All of these things are important to me because I get a little tired of people saying we must struggle to overcome evil. The overcoming of evil has already been done, and too often the evil in question is usually outside ourselves. It resides in some other. Or it is in a pietistic denial of self, a demand for denial which leaves no room for the kind of "love of self" that a true love of neighbor requires. The Devil has already lost. He was defeated on the day he came into being. We need not fear him. The love of God, in the Son of God, has already overcome the world.

The Fall of Man and the Frustrating of Human Purpose

That's a terrible title, I know. Sorry.

As I was preparing for my sermon this Sunday, I noticed something interesting in the Genesis 2-3 account of "the fall" of humanity. (I put that in quotation marks because not everyone sees it that way. I don't believe most Jews do.)

God makes the man out of mud -- mud formed, I think, from the soil of the ground and the mist that is in the air (it hasn't rained yet) -- breathes into him of his spirit, which makes the man alive. And then, in Gensis 2:15, God does the following:

The LORD God took the man kand put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it. (ESV)

So, the whole point of humanity's existence -- the man is humanity at this point -- is to tend the garden.

God later says that the man shouldn't be alone. God then makes a mess of animals, sets them before the man and he invents all sorts of wonderful and silly names for all the creatures God has just made. But it's not enough. The man is still alone, however. The animals are swell, but not quite fit company to truly help the man. To truly be a companion. So, he put the man to sleep, does a bit of surgery, and makes a woman.

Her purpose, in this passage (this is a passage about purposes) is to keep the man company. To help him. To be a companion.

So, then there's this snake, and an eating of fruit, and pretty soon, the man and the woman find themselves ashamed and embarrassed because they did something God told them not to do. And then come the curses. We'll skip past the cursing of the serpent, noting only this is why girls are afraid of snakes (joke), and go to the heart of the matter in Genesis 3:16-19:

16 To the woman he said, “I will surely multiply your pain in childbearing; in pain you shall bring forth children. Your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you.”   17 And to Adam he said, “Because you have listened to the voice of your wife and have eaten of the tree of which I commanded you, ‘You shall not eat of it,’ cursed is the ground because of you; in pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life;  18 thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you; and you shall eat the plants of the field.  19 By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread, till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; for you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” (ESV)

At first glance, it seems the curses are unequal. Even possibly unfair. The woman is cursed, but when God turns to the man, God curses the whole earth. The man himself is not actually cursed.

But consider the matter if we speak of created purposes. The Genesis passage seems clear -- the man is created to tend the garden, the woman is created to be a companion and partner to the man. Her curse, then, frustrates that created purpose. It turns it into something that can, and often times will, be unpleasant, the source of much pain and suffering. She is no longer a partner, but her desire is changed, and the man shall rule over her. This is not nature, this is curse. That is, the way so many men and women organize their lives together is not what God originally created either for.

And in cursing the earth, God is frustrating the man's purpose. He was made to tend a garden, a garden which required little work because it was full of so many good things to eat. (UPDATE: Or rather, the nature of work itself was changed, and work itself has become a curse, something human beings do in pain more than with joy.) Now, he will work hard, and often times pointlessly, to eke out a bare living from an uncooperative earth. (Thistles and thorns appear to be a product of the fall, if the text is to be taken literally...) By the sweat of your brow you shall eat your bread. Again, this is not nature, it is curse.

So, we live in the curse. In which we have been alienated, by the man and the woman's disobedience (Adam and Hawwa), from our created purposes. I don't honestly know what other implications flow from this, and I won't try too hard to build an entire edifice of theology on this scaffold. We are fools to think we can, through our own efforts, alter the curse at all (the earth remains at times terribly uncooperative and capricious, even with the gifts that science and mass industrial production have given us). And yet we can, as men and women, in moments, transcend the curse. Perhaps this is what the kingdom Jesus proclaims is all about.

The Devil is a Liar. But You Knew That Already...

My sermon for this Sunday, which I preached at First Lutheran in Harvey, Illinois. I ad-libbed a fair amount into this, but this text is the core of what I preached. The readings for the first Sunday in Lent from the Revised Common Lectionary are Genesis 2:15-17 & 3:1-7, Psalm 32, Romans 5:12-19 and Matthew 4:1-11.

* * *

Good morning, sisters and brothers. Let's talk about Satan.

Jesus calls him a liar. In fact, Jesus calls him the "Father of Lies" in John 8. So, we know all we need to know about Satan. That he is a liar.

But there are all kinds of different ways to lie. So, I think it's fair to ask -- what kind of liar is he? What kind of lies does Satan tell?

So let's take a look at the reading in Genesis this morning. God has made this garden, this amazing place, and created this man out of mud, breathing life into him. And put him to work, to tend the garden. That's what the man was made for, to work and keep the garden.

And the man has free run of the place, and can eat anything he wants in this amazing place. Except for one tree, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Now, many clever people have asked: "Why would God do this? Why create the temptation?" And many clever people have tried to answer this, too. I want you to set that aside -- the question is pointless and the answer is even more so. This story, and the Gospel, are about the human condition. And about God's response to the human condition. Not about some imaginary, perfect world.

Okay, so God has told the man this tree, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, is off limits. And there will be a price for eating of the tree -- "for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die." In the Hebrew, it literally says -- you shall die the death. It's emphatic. It's final. Death will be a consequence of eating.

How do we hear that? I'll tell you what I see in my mind -- I reach for the fruit, I grab it, I hold it my hand, maybe I smell it, and then I take a bite. And BAM! I keel over, dead. That's how I hear "on that day you will surely die, you will die the death."

Most likely, the man -- who's just been made, and doesn't know very much -- probably just nodded his head. You know, like a small child hearing stern words but not quite sure what they mean. I will die the death. Whatever die is. Whatever death is.

So we fast forward a bit, and suddenly a serpent -- who we identify as the Devil, as Satan, as the adversary -- shows up. God made a mess of animals to keep the man company, and finally he made a woman. And the serpents asks her, "So did God really tell you not to eat of that tree?"

"Yes," she says. "We shall surely die if we do."

This is where the Devil gets clever. "No, you won't die. You'll just be like God, knowing good and evil!" That's what he says.

Now, brothers and sisters, let me ask you -- did the Devil lie?

If by "on the day that you eat you shall surly die" means grab, smell, taste, die, then no, the Devil did not lie. In fact, if anything, God is a liar. Because the Devil goes on to tell the woman a very profound truth -- you shall know good and evil, and in that, be like God."

Is he right about that? The man and the woman suddenly realize they are naked, and do something about it.

But as to the consequences of eating, well, no one dies that day. In fact, the man and his wife are cast out of this garden -- the man loses the very purpose for which he is created. The serpent is cursed, the woman is cursed, even the earth is cursed so that the very work man was created to do will become an unpleasant burden. None of those things God threatened or promised.

But no one dies that day.

Adam does die, after a very long life. And death becomes part of our existence. So, God did not lie. From that day on, we live, knowing we will die.

But we didn't die that day. The Devil didn't tell the truth, but he didn't quite lie either. The Devil mixes lies with truth, and he speaks more to our weaknesses and expectations. Even our hopes and dreams.

Mostly, though, the Devil wants to make God out to be liar.

And this takes us to our Gospel reading today. Jesus is out in the wilderness, driven there after his baptism in the River Jordan by the Spirit of God for the very purpose of being tempted by the Devil. He's hungry, he's alone, and then the Devil comes to him.

"Hungry? Well, if you are Son of God, turn those stones to bread and eat your fill!"

And it must have been tempting for Jesus to do just that! Because he is the Son of God -- this is the first time in Matthew's Gospel anyone calls Jesus by that name, and it is the Devil who does it -- and can do exactly what the Devil says he can do.

Use your power to solve your problems, the Devil says to Jesus.

And however Jesus answers -- angrily, confidently, just barely able to restrain himself from succumbing to temptation -- he tells the Devil, "no, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God."

So, not content with this, the Devil takes Jesus up to the top of temple. "If you are the Son of God, throw yourself off! You are so important to God that angels will come to rescue you." And the Devil's not content at this point to let Jesus do all the scripture quoting -- the Devil can quote the Psalms too!

And I suspect Jesus looked down and thought to himself, "why not?" Who wouldn't want to fly like that? Who wouldn't want to tempt God? I'm going to fall - catch me!!

But Jesus restrains himself. Quoting the Torah, he says, "you shall not put the Lord your God to the test."

So, the Devil takes Jesus to the top of a high mountain and shows him all of the kingdoms of the world. "All of these are yours, if you just bow down and worship me." Now, let's assume for a moment the kingdoms of the world are the Devil's to give -- I think they are. I don't think the Devil is lying when he makes this offer to Jesus. He hasn't lied to Jesus yet, not really. Not about stones and bread, not about his value to God, and not about the kingdoms of the world.

And I imagine Jesus is also tempted by this. Just think -- how much suffering, how much injustice, how much evil and violence could be done away with if the Son of God ruled the world? Jesus could do it differently. Jesus knows he could do it right. Not like Caesar or any of the world's other rulers.

But the price -- worshiping Satan -- is too high. And Jesus knows his Torah. "Scram, Satan! You shall worship the Lord your God and him only you shall serve!"

And with that, the Devil absconds. Whether he's angry or not, I do not know. Did he really believe he could tempt the Son of God? I suppose that's possible.

But the reality is he did not. The church has taught that Jesus was obedient to the will of God when Adam and his wife were not. Perfect obedience. Sure, I'll accept that. In resisting the temptations of Satan, Jesus becomes the obedience that Adam was unable to be. As Paul writes to the church at Rome, the sin that brought death into the world is undone here.

Honestly, though, I don't think that's all. Because something else happens here, in each of these temptations.

What does it mean to be fed? To tempt God? To rule the world? What are our expectations? A world full of bread, so no one goes hungry. A world in which everything is a Disneyland ride, and there are no real risks because everyone's plucked from doom just before they hit the ground. In which the world is ruled by only good and decent people, power wielded justly and fairly.

Something else happens here. Something I cannot really name. I'm not even entirely sure how to describe it. Jesus doesn't really resist the Devil's temptations. I mean he does, but he doesn't.

Jesus is the Word of God. But he becomes bread -- our bread -- when, in that rented room at the last supper, he breaks the bread and proclaims, "this is my body, given for you, do this in remembrance of me." He becomes the bread that feeds the world.

And what else is his long journey to Jerusalem but the tempting of God? Yes, he constantly tells his disciples that he will die, and rise three days later, and they don't believe it until after it happens. But maybe Jesus doesn't either, not really. What else is his agonizing prayer in Gathsemane but a plaintive and pitiful demand that this end some other way, because Jesus doesn't want to suffer, doesn't want to die. Because it just might not end the way God promised.

And when the the chief priests, the scribes and the elders tell the crucified and dying Christ at Golgotha, "he saved others, he cannot save himself, let him come down off that cross and we will believe in him," perhaps Jesus even wished, and hoped, prayed, for those angels to come down and save him. Right. Now.

"Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?" My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? For just a moment, maybe even Jesus doubted the promise of God. Because those are words of despair, very real, complete and utter despair, of someone who had hoped and prayed and possibly even demanded this would have ended very differently. Words of someone who is about to hit the ground with no one to save him.

As for the kingdoms of the world, Jesus rules those. Each and every one of them. Not as Caesar, not as king, not a president, not as prime minister. He has no army, no police, no treasury, no constitution, has has no policy and np program. We want to give him a flag and a banner, and march triumphantly under them as they flutter and wave, but he doesn't have those either. He rules by surrendering, he ruled by calling, he rules through love. His rule is not what we -- or maybe even Jesus himself at times -- expect rule to be like.

In each of these temptations, he says no to the Devil's way of doing things -- a way that makes sense to me. Feed the world? Wouldn't we turn stones to bread if we could? Tempt God carelessly if we could? Rule the world -- because we'd do it right!

Everyone of these things Jesus shows there's a different way, his way, God's way, to do things. And he does them. Because we cannot. I can't be bread. I can't tempt God knowing that my death on the cross will save the world, will right the wrong of Adam's disobedience. And I cannot rule in humility and love. None of us can.

Jesus does these things for us. He invites us to participate in his reign, in his kingdom, his rule. In our baptism into his death and resurrection, we become part of this new way of obeying God, of being God's people. We, each and every one of us, shares in his hunger, his resisting of temptation, his body that is bread, his death that saves the world, his rule that is humility, poverty, powerlessness and love. And this is what makes it possible for us to follow when he calls, to live as his lived, to love as he loves, to die as he died knowing that death is not the final answer. That we will rise as he rose. Because he rose, we will rise.

That life eternal -- the promise of God -- is real. And true. It is not a lie. Regardless of what the Devil may tell us.

Elisha and Hazael -or- One Biblical Response to War and Suffering

There's a little story in 2 Kings, one of the Elisha stories, that absolutely fascinates me.

7 Now Elisha came to Damascus. Ben-hadad the king of Syria was sick. And when it was told him, “The man of God has come here,”  8 the king said to Hazael, “Take a present with you and go to meet the man of God, and inquire of the LORD through him, saying, ‘Shall I recover from this sickness?’”  9 So Hazael went to meet him, and took a present with him, all kinds of goods of Damascus, forty camel loads. When he came and stood before him, he said, “Your son Ben-hadad king of Syria has sent me to you, saying, ‘Shall I recover from this sickness?’”  10 And Elisha said to him, a“Go, say to him, ‘You shall certainly recover,’ but the LORD has shown me that he shall certainly die.”  11 And he fixed his gaze and stared at him, until he was embarrassed. And the man of God wept.  12 And Hazael said, “Why does my lord weep?” He answered, “Because I know the evil that you will do to the people of Israel. You will set on fire their fortresses, and you will kill their young men with the sword and dash in pieces their little ones and rip open their pregnant women.”  13 And Hazael said, “What is your servant, who is but a dog, that he should do this great thing?” Elisha answered, “The LORD has shown me that you are to be king over Syria.”  14 Then he departed from Elisha and came to his master, who said to him, “What did Elisha say to you?” And he answered, “He told me that you would certainly recover.”  15 But the next day he took the bed cloth and dipped it in water and spread it over his face, till he died. And Hazael became king in his place. (2 Kings 8:7-15, ESV)

Where to start?

What I find most fascinating about this story are verses 11 and 12. "Because I know the evil that you will do to the people of Israel. You will set on fire their fortresses, and you will kill their young men with the sword and dash in pieces their little ones and rip open their pregnant women," Elisha says to Hazael. He sees, perhaps in a vision, or perhaps simply because he grasped Hazael's character, the violence that Hazael will do to Israel -- to God's people -- once he becomes king of Syria.

And what does Elisha do?

He cries.

No press conference. No demand for a pre-emptive strike. No war without end. No condemnations. Not even any warnings, so far as we are told. Just a tear. Or two. Because he sees the suffering that's coming. Suffering that likely comes -- Hazael makes much war against Israel in subsequent chapters of 2 Kings -- though Elisha's vision is all we get in the way of details.

Hazael, as king of Syria, will wage horrific war, kill women and babies. He will kill unborn children. Again, the writer(s)/editor(s) of 2 Kings say this comes to pass because "the anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel" (2 Kings 13:3). Hazael appears to die a natural death, and his son appears to lose much of what Hazael conquered. So it goes.

Oh, and Amos calls down doom upon "the house of Hazael" and "the strongholds of Ben-Hadad" (Amos 1:4).

But that's it.

It's an important story. Because much of our modern theological conversation about evil demands that those who are "self-identified" good people must act. To stop horrific evil. Such as the evil Elisha clearly see Hazael ready to perpetuate.

But nothing of the sort happens in scripture. If Elisha does anything, it isn't said here. Hazael leads an army, an army that inflicts much death and destruction. And this is seen as God's judgement on Israel for its idolatry (1 Kings 12:25-33). The Assyrians would later conquer Israel, and its people would vanish. (Actually, no, they would become Samaritans.) Now, we tend not to see God's judgement at work that way, and when we do, it's generally to make tawdry political points. Because that seems to be all we're capable of anymore.

It speaks to the pointlessness of our ethics. Our ethics demand the exercise of our power because they assume the exercise of power. Our ethics assume power. We don't know what to do when we don't have any. Elisha is not powerless -- the episode in 2 Kings 6 when he strikes an entire Syrian army blind, but only to mislead them, not to defeat them -- shows what power Elisha has. He could have easily dealt with Hazael had he wanted to. But his is the power of the prophet -- the one who pronounces the word of God. He leads a Syrian army into a trap, and then commands mercy. And a feast. It's not a permanent peace, but there is no permanent peace this side of the eschaton.

Elisha not only foretold the coming awfulness, in a way, he also anoints the man -- an Assyrian leader, no less, one of the enemy's, one of the oppressor's, commanders -- as king who will inflict that awfulness. It's a strange tale, one that leaves our ethical sense reeling a bit.

And that is the point, I think. Sure, Hazael will be one of many imperfect instruments of God's justice upon God's people. But this is not an easy book of moral tales, a guide to good behavior, recipes on how to do right and succeed at life. It is the story of God's people in all its wonder and brutality.

It is our story. We need it because of the wonder. And the brutality. 

Because It's Not About God Anymore

Rod Dreher over at The American Conservative asks the following:

What is the point of going to seminary if you don’t believe in God? What is the point of having a seminary that trains clergy who don’t know if they believe in God, but do know that they believe in destroying the tradition?

Well, being a graduate of a mainline seminary -- The Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago -- and a candidate for ministry in a liberal Christian confession -- The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America -- I think I can answer this question.

The first has to do with doubt. Sometime in the mid-20th century, you could not be an intellectually serious theologian or cleric without doubting. You weren't thoughtful if you didn't doubt. This was true of Protestants as well as Catholics (the Orthodox never got with the program in this). Doubt was essential because certainty had given us Auschwitz and Hiroshima, Stalin and Hitler. Certainty had given us the H-Bomb and the willingness to use it (and the film Atomic Cafe has more than its fair share of clips of confident and certain clergymen encouraging the use of the H-Bomb to annihilate communism -- and communists).

But part of this was also the limits of humanist theology that had so dominated Christian thinking since at least the 17th century. It was a theology that had embraced modernity on modernity's terms, looking more to philosophers than to biblical story to answer broad questions about human nature, good, evil, salvation, and the whole point of human existence. Such theology had begun breaking down during the First World War, but it had no idea whatsoever how to answer the methodical and industrialized mass killing and destruction of the Second World War. Where was God in all this? It seemed that God had abandoned the world, that Kierkegaard and Nietzsche were right about the silence and the abyss.

The God of the Liberal Christians, a God of comfort and order -- and this included many confessions and denominations that call themselves socially and politically conservative -- simply had nothing to say. Why believe in such a God? Doubt was a logical, natural, and even reasonable response.

(And yet such a God was still taught. The very God we doubt is the only God we know how to deal with...)

There's a scene in the BBC comedy Rev. -- I forget which episode -- in which Nigel is going before the bishops board to seek approval for ordination. He's told, by Rev. Smallbone I think, to doubt. "But not too much." It goes badly, largely because the character of Nigel is incapable of really doubting anything. But the point is -- a thoughtful cleric is also a cleric who doubts. At least a little.

Now, this isn't anywhere near as true as it once was. However, we live in the long shadow of mid-20th century doubt. I've met few doubters myself, but I understand they are out there. But the presence of doubt was so central to the established churches of the mainline that its acceptance is part of the landscape now.

The second has to do with the professionalization of the clergy beginning in the late 19th century. Professionals are people who are have specialized education or training, apply some amount of scientific rigor to the work they do, and are somewhat (at least outwardly) emotionally detached from their work. Professionalism is the ethos by which mass industrialized civilization is administered. The clergy, in this arrangement, became responsible for managing the souls and morals of society, and were somewhere between social workers and teachers as members of a "helping profession." The whole point of this management was to make society run better, more smoothly.

Well, this arrangement has broken down -- who need clergy anymore to manage souls and morals? But we're still expected to be members of the "helping professions," only now we're all somewhere between social workers and community organizers. And who needs God to organize people? Or to agitate for "social justice"?

At the root of this is the loss of the biblical story as our story, as the story of God's called and redeemed people. The Bible usually gets lost in systematic theology, and that was as true of the Protestant systematizers in the 17th century as it was of the Aquinas and the Catholic systematizers of the 12th and 13th centuries. Faith gets reduced to a series of abstract propositions. But God is not an abstraction. Israel encountered a very real God, a God who yanked them out of Egypt in terror and mass death, a God who appeared in cloud and fire at Sinai, a God who redeemed God's people time and again in the midst of their suffering. The disciples met a very real God, a God present in the person of Jesus of Nazareth who called fishermen and tax collectors "follow me" and who knew, in that moment, God had reached into their lives and nothing about those lives would be the same again.

I am a biblical theologian. I have little use for systematic theology, for scholastic theology, for the edifice of natural law (I find most of it unbiblical anyway), for the impressive but incredibly lifeless cathedral that is the intellectual heritage of the church. It's one thing for Christians to talk to each other in terms of philosophy -- whether that philosophy is Aristotle or Immanuel Kant -- but to think we have anything to say to the world that it doesn't already know using that language is plain foolishness.

We're wasting our time and our energy doing anything but telling the story of God's love for God's people Israel, especially as made known to us in the person -- in the life, death and resurrection -- of Jesus Christ.

We stopped telling that story, instead focusing on tiny bits to support that impressive but cathedral of "doctrine," thinking that somehow right doctrine would save us. (Which is why we built that cathedral in the first place.) We only tell it anymore to either get rules or moral inspiration. (I'm always shocked at just how poorly many conservative Christians know the actual story.) But that story is no longer who we are. It no longer gives us meaning. Instead, our theologians resort to pointless abstraction and philosophizing, too many people wallow in sentimentality, and not enough people know, really know, Jesus rose from the dead. When I say we surrendered to modernity, we did -- our story is now taken from the social sciences, from literature, from media, from the civic faith, from high-falutin' ideas bounced around by philosophers. Everywhere but from the Bible, the only place where the story of God's love for God's people, for the redemption of Israel, for the coming into the world of Jesus of Nazareth to live, and die, and rise again among us, who calls us to follow can be found.

So why is it necessary for clergy to believe in God? It's a nice fringe benefit, really, but the God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, David and Jesus stopped being important long, long ago.

The Art of Propaganda

I have a confession to make: I love North Korean propaganda. And there are times when I think such propaganda reaches artistic levels.

I have been an amateur North Korea watcher since the late 1980s, when, as opinion page editor of the San Francisco State University newspaper, The Golden Gater, I found stuffed into my box every week a copy of The People's Korea (the site used to be better, and this links carries much of what appears in TPK), an English-language newspaper that repeats, in translation, a lot of what appears in the official North Korean newspaper Rodong Sinmun. No one else, not even the communists in the SF State journalism department, were interested in the North Korean newspaper. So, I took them home and read them.

About this time, I'd frequently be able to tune into Radio Pyongyang's English-language broadcast on the shortwave, every afternoon at either 3 p.m. or 4 p.m. Again, it wasn't informative content-wise, but it was fun to listen to the structure and language of the broadcast. (Official North Korean music is terrible.) Again, the point wasn't information so much as paying attention to style. In the words used and images constructed, something approaching real meaning could maybe be found.

(Once, when I was in Panama in 1986, I found an Albanian state shortwave broadcast in English, and actually heard the phrase "running dogs" used to describe America's NATO allies. Oh, how I miss the Cold War sometimes!)

It's a reach, I know. But this is the kind of stuff I like doing for fun. For a while, my friend Vince and I would watch the evening news from Seoul in Korean and then various Korean and Japanese programs (the Japanese ones subtitled in Korean) on the international channel in Los Angeles. Without language, we'd make a game of trying to figure out what exactly was going on. "Here, a guy in a tie meets with several other guys in ties," kind of thing. But it meant that we paid attention to something other than the content of the newscast, and instead saw things other than the obvious or intended content.

Because meetings of "guys in ties" as an important news item happens everywhere.

Anyway, this is a long-winded introduction to a love of North Korean propaganda. Some of which I've evaluated here before. I realize what kind of state The Democratic People's Republic of Korea is -- I'm under no illusions. But that state will produce articles and video whether or not people are imprisoned and shot and targeted with mortar rounds. So, why not learn a little something? And yes, even be entertained.

So, from the "It Sucks to be the King's Uncle" Department comes the quick arrest and shooting of Jang Song Taek, the uncle of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un (know here affectionately as "The Adorable Little Despot") and brother-in-law to late North Korean Dear Leader Kim Jong Il. This is one of those interesting bits of information that causes much speculation, certainly in people better educated than I. But rather than deal with the western reports, I think it imperative to go straight to the Korean Central News Agency copy and read it in its entirety. Because it's rare to read this kind of thing in our world, feeling as it does like a relic of the 1940s or 1950s, something George Orwell would have had fun condemning (along with bureaucratic nonsense emanating from Washington and Brussels).

Pyongyang, December 13 (KCNA) -- Upon hearing the report on the enlarged meeting of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Workers' Party of Korea, the service personnel and people throughout the country broke into angry shouts that a stern judgment of the revolution should be meted out to the anti-party, counter-revolutionary factional elements. Against the backdrop of these shouts rocking the country, a special military tribunal of the DPRK Ministry of State Security was held on December 12 against traitor for all ages Jang Song Thaek.  

The accused Jang brought together undesirable forces and formed a faction as the boss of a modern day factional group for a long time and thus committed such hideous crime as attempting to overthrow the state by all sorts of intrigues and despicable methods with a wild ambition to grab the supreme power of our party and state.  

The tribunal examined Jang's crimes.  

All the crimes committed by the accused were proved in the course of hearing and were admitted by him.  

A decision of the special military tribunal of the Ministry of State Security of the DPRK was read out at the trial.  

Every sentence of the decision served as sledge-hammer blow brought down by our angry service personnel and people on the head of Jang, an anti-party, counter-revolutionary factional element and despicable political careerist and trickster.
The accused is a traitor to the nation for all ages who perpetrated anti-party, counter-revolutionary factional acts in a bid to overthrow the leadership of our party and state and the socialist system.  

Jang was appointed to responsible posts of the party and state thanks to the deep political trust of President Kim Il Sung and leader Kim Jong Il and received benevolence from them more than any others from long ago.  

He held higher posts than before and received deeper trust from supreme leader Kim Jong Un, in particular.  

The political trust and benevolence shown by the peerlessly great men of Mt. Paektu were something he hardly deserved.  

It is an elementary obligation of a human being to repay trust with sense of obligation and benevolence with loyalty.  

However, despicable human scum Jang, who was worse than a dog, perpetrated thrice-cursed acts of treachery in betrayal of such profound trust and warmest paternal love shown by the party and the leader for him.  

From long ago, Jang had a dirty political ambition. He dared not raise his head when Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il were alive. But, reading their faces, Jang had an axe to grind and involved himself in double-dealing. He began revealing his true colors in the period of historic turn when the generation of the revolution was replaced, thinking that it was just the time for him to realize his wild ambition. 

Jang committed such an unpardonable thrice-cursed treason as overtly and covertly standing in the way of settling the issue of succession to the leadership with an axe to grind when a very important issue was under discussion to hold respected Kim Jong Un in high esteem as the only successor to Kim Jong Il in reflection of the unanimous desire and will of the entire party and army and all people. 

When his cunning move proved futile and the decision that Kim Jong Un was elected vice-chairman of the Central Military Commission of the Workers' Party of Korea in reflection of the unanimous will of all party members, service personnel and people was proclaimed at the historic Third Conference of the WPK, making all participants break into enthusiastic cheers that shook the conference hall, he behaved so arrogantly and insolently as unwillingly standing up from his seat and half-heartedly clapping, touching off towering resentment of our service personnel and people.  

Jang confessed that he behaved so at that time as a knee-jerk reaction as he thought that if Kim Jong Un's base and system for leading the army were consolidated, this would lay a stumbling block in his way of grabbing the power of the party and state.  

When Kim Jong Il passed away so suddenly and untimely to our sorrow, Jang began working in real earnest to realize his long-cherished greed for power.  

Abusing the honor of often accompanying Kim Jong Un during his field guidance, Jang tried hard to create illusion about him by projecting himself internally and externally as a special being on a par with the headquarters of the revolution.  

In a bid to rally a group of reactionaries to be used by him for toppling the leadership of the party and state, he let the undesirable and alien elements including those who had been dismissed and relieved of their posts after being severely punished for disobeying the instructions of Kim Jong Il and kowtowing to Jang work in a department of the Central Committee of the WPK and organs under it in a crafty manner.  

Jang did serious harm to the youth movement in our country, being part of the group of renegades and betrayers in the field of youth work bribed by enemies. Even after they were disclosed and purged by the resolute measure of the party, he patronized those cat's paws and let them hold important posts of the party and state.  

He let Ri Ryong Ha, flatterer, work with him since the 1980s whenever he was transferred to other posts and systematically promoted Ri up to the post of first vice department director of the Party Central Committee though he had been purged for his factional act of denying the unitary leadership of the party. Jang thus made Ri his trusted stooge.  

Jang let his confidants and flatterers who had been fired for causing an important case of denying the unitary leadership of the party work in his department and organs under it in a crafty manner in a few years. He systematically rallied ex-convicts, those problematic in their past careers and discontented elements around him and ruled over them as sacred and inviolable being.  

He worked hard to put all affairs of the country under his control, massively increasing the staff of his department and organs under it, and stretch his tentacles to ministries and national institutions. He converted his department into a "little kingdom" which no one dares touch.  

He was so impudent as to prevent the Taedonggang Tile Factory from erecting a mosaic depicting Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il and a monument to field guidance given by them. Moreover, Jang turned down the unanimous request of the service personnel of a unit of the Korean People's Internal Security Forces to have the autograph letter sent by Kim Jong Un to the unit carved on a natural granite and erected with good care in front of the building of its command. He was so reckless as to instruct the unit to erect it in a shaded corner.  

He committed such anti-party acts as systematically denying the party's line and policies, its organizational will, in the past period. These acts were a revelation of deliberate and sinister attempt to create extreme illusion and idolization of him by making him appear as a special being who can overrule either issues decided by the party or its line.  

He went so rude as to take in the middle even those things associated with intense loyalty and sincerity of our army and people towards the party and the leader and distribute them among his confidants in an effort to take credit to himself for doing so. This behavior was to create illusion about him.  

Due to his persistent moves to create illusion and idolization of him his flatterers and followers in his department and organs under it praised him as "comrade No. 1." They went the lengths of denying even the party's instructions to please him at any cost.
Jang established such a heterogeneous work system in his department and the relevant organs as considering what he said as more important than the party's policies. 

Consequently, his trusted henchmen and followers made no scruple of perpetrating such counter-revolutionary act as disobeying the order of the Supreme Commander of the Korean People's Army.  

The revolutionary army will never pardon all those who disobey the order of the Supreme Commander and there will be no place for them to be buried even after their death.  

Dreaming a fantastic dream to become premier at an initial stage to grab the supreme power of the party and state, Jang made his department put major economic fields of the country under its control in a bid to disable the Cabinet. In this way he schemed to drive the economy of the country and people's living into an uncontrollable catastrophe.  

He put inspection and supervision organs belonging to the Cabinet under his control in defiance of the new state machinery established by Kim Jong Il at the First Session of the Tenth Supreme People's Assembly. Jang put all issues related to all structural works handled by the Cabinet under his control and had the final say on them, making it impossible for the Cabinet to properly perform its function and role as the economic command. They included the issues of setting up and disorganizing committees, ministries and national institutions and provincial, city and county-level organs, organizing units for foreign trade and for earning foreign money and structures overseas and fixing living allowances.  

When he attempted to make a false report to the party without having agreement with the Cabinet and the relevant ministry on the issue related to the state construction supervision organization, officials concerned expressed just opinion that his behavior was contrary to the construction law worked out by Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il. Hearing this, he made the reckless remark that "the rewriting of the construction law would solve the problem." 

Abusing his authority, he undermined the work system related to the construction of the capital city established by Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il, reducing the construction and building-materials bases to such bad shape little short of debris in a few years. He weakened the ranks of technicians and skilled workers at the units for the construction of the capital city in a crafty manner and transferred major construction units to his confidants so that they might make money. In this way he deliberately disturbed the construction in Pyongyang.  

He instructed his confidants to sell coal and other precious underground resources at random. Consequently, they were saddled with huge debts, deceived by brokers. Jang made no scruple of committing such act of treachery in May last as selling off the land of the Rason economic and trade zone to a foreign country for a period of five decades under the pretext of paying those debts.  

It was none other than Jang who wirepulled behind scene Pak Nam Gi, traitor for all ages, to recklessly issue hundreds of billions of won in 2009, sparking off serious economic chaos and disturbing the people's mind-set.  

Jang encouraged money-making under various pretexts to secure funds necessary for gratifying his political greed and was engrossed in irregularities and corruption. He thus took the lead in spreading indolent, careless and undisciplined virus in our society.  

After collecting precious metals since the construction of Kwangbok Street in the 1980s, he set up a secret organ under his control and took a fabulous amount of funds from a bank and purchased precious metals in disregard of the state law. He thus committed such anti-state criminal acts as creating a great confusion in financial management system of the state.  

He let the decadent capitalist lifestyle find its way to our society by distributing all sorts of pornographic pictures among his confidants since 2009. He led a dissolute and depraved life, squandering money wherever he went.  

He took at least 4.6 million Euro from his secret coffers and squandered it in 2009 alone and enjoyed himself in casino in a foreign country. These facts alone clearly show how corrupt and degenerate he was.  

Jang was so reckless with his greed for power that he persistently worked to stretch his tentacles even to the People's Army with a foolish calculation that he would succeed in staging a coup if he mobilized the army.  

He fully revealed his despicable true colors as a traitor for all ages in the course of questioning by uttering as follows: "I attempted to trigger off discontent among service personnel and people that the present regime does not take any measure despite the fact that the economy of the country and people's living are driven into catastrophe. Comrade supreme leader is the target of the coup."  

As regards the means and methods for staging the coup, Jang said: "I was going to stage the coup by using high-ranking army officers who had close ties with me or by mobilizing armed forces under the control of my confidants. I don't know well about recently appointed high-ranking army officers but have some acquaintances with those appointed in the past period. I thought the army might join in the coup if the living of the people and service personnel further deteriorate in the future. And I calculated that my confidants in my department including Ri Ryong Ha and Jang Su Gil would surely follow me and had a plan to use the one in charge of the people's security organ as my confidant. It was my calculation that I might use several others beside them."  

Asked about the timing of the coup and his plan to do after staging the coup, Jang answered: "I didn't fix the definite time for the coup. But it was my intention to concentrate my department and all economic organs on the Cabinet and become premier when the economy goes totally bankrupt and the state is on the verge of collapse in a certain period. I thought that if I solve the problem of people's living to a certain measure by spending an enormous amount of funds I have accumulated under various names after becoming premier, the people and service personnel will shout "hurrah" for me and I will succeed in the coup in a smooth way."  

Jang dreamed such a foolish dream that once he seizes power by a base method, his despicable true colors as "reformist" known to the outside world would help his "new government" get "recognized" by foreign countries in a short span of time.  

All facts go to clearly prove that Jang is a thrice-cursed traitor without an equal in the world as he had desperately worked for years to destabilize and bring down the DPRK and grab the supreme power of the party and state by employing all the most cunning and sinister means and methods, pursuant to the "strategic patience" policy and "waiting strategy" of the U.S. and the south Korean puppet group of traitors.  

The hateful and despicable nature of the anti-party, anti-state and unpopular crimes committed by Jang was fully disclosed in the course of the trial conducted at the special military tribunal of the DPRK Ministry of State Security.  

The era and history will eternally record and never forget the shuddering crimes committed by Jang Song Thaek, the enemy of the party, revolution and people and heinous traitor to the nation.  

No matter how much water flows under the bridge and no matter how frequently a generation is replaced by new one, the lineage of Paektu will remain unchanged and irreplaceable. Our party, state, army and people do not know anyone except Kim Il Sung, Kim Jong Il and Kim Jong Un. Our service personnel and people will never pardon all those who dare disobey the unitary leadership of Kim Jong Un, challenge his absolute authority and oppose the lineage of Mt. Paektu to an individual but bring them to the stern court of history without fail and mercilessly punish them on behalf of the party and revolution, the country and its people, no matter where they are in hiding.  

The special military tribunal of the Ministry of State Security of the DPRK confirmed that the state subversion attempted by the accused Jang with an aim to overthrow the people's power of the DPRK by ideologically aligning himself with enemies is a crime punishable by Article 60 of the DPRK Criminal Code, vehemently condemned him as a wicked political careerist, trickster and traitor for all ages in the name of the revolution and the people and ruled that he would be sentenced to death according to it.  

The decision was immediately executed.

Now, let me state: I don't speak or read Korean, so I have no idea how much of the tone, the intent, and the facts of the English version adhere to the original. Regardless of that, the English says things the DPRK either wants the world to know or doesn't care if the world knows.

Once you get past the purple prose -- and honestly, this is actually really well written for KCNA copy -- there's actually a lot of specifics here. I suspect Jang really did organize an attempt to topple Kim Jong Un. How far he actually got is anyone's guess. Far enough to fall so completely, but not far enough to make revealing the actual plot a threat to the state. The DPRK leadership is confident enough in their security that they are willing to say publicly that Jang Song Taek organized within the party and the army to topple to regime. That's a big deal.

It's also clear Jang is being assigned the blame for whatever construction problems are plaguing developments in the capital, Pyongyang. I can see someone as connected as Jang was rather cavalierly saying that any problems with his complying with the law could simply be dealt with by rewriting the law. (It does sound like something a corrupt politician or boss would say.) As for his degenerate lifestyle, that's just a hazard of being a member of an elite in a society like North Korea's. Everyone with the power and wealth is allowed to live that way. Until they aren't, at which point the lifestyle clearly is held against them.

What is intriguing are the questions brought up in this. Why didn't anyone -- especially Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il, from whom all political legitimacy flow -- see Jang for what he was prior to this? It may be he was able to hide his ambition until "the generation of the revolution was replaced," but this piece is written in such a way as to cast aspersions on the entire Kim clan for its failure to figure out who Jang really was. Yes, most likely, Jang wanted to be king, and organized toward that end after Kim Jong Il died. But that's not all the report says. It calls him a bad man, from the beginning. And someone reading between the lines might wonder why no one figured it out earlier.

And what good is on-the-spot guidance from the Leader if he can't find traitors in his own midst?

The piece speaks in the language of "us" and "we," of a whole people, a whole party, a whole army, rising up in outrage. But in quoting Jang, the piece states he hoped to persuade high-ranking officers to his side. Why, if the country, people, party, and army are so united, would Jang have thought he might have a chance convincing high-ranking officers to his side? It names of a couple of allies, like Ri Ryong Ha, who had been a senior party figure. What has become of them? This might also cause some doubt for thoughtful readers.

We also do not know how we know this. How did the state find out about Jang's treachery? That's left unsaid. And it is probably the most interesting part of the story.

You'll note that Jang's relationship to Kim Jong Un is not stated. This is not unusual for North Korean news. Kim Jong Il's relationship to Kim Il Sung was rarely ever stated, if ever. And Kim Jong Un's relationship to Kim  Jong Il is also never stated. I suspect North Koreans know they live under a hereditary leadership. But the organs of the state almost never note that. I'm not sure why. It has nothing to do with Marxism-Leninism, a phrase which was dropped by the Worker's Party of Korea several decades ago. It might have something to do with Juche, or North Korean society, but really, I have no idea why.

On Being Told By God

I have been receiving of late weekly Bible commentaries from the Aleph Institute (the link to the institute itself is broken), a Jewish chaplaincy outfit based in Florida that specializes in military and prison chaplaincy as well as "family ministry." (I put that in quotes because I'm not sure what it means. I'm not suspicious -- I like just about everything I get from these folks -- I just don't know what "family ministry" is.) And I get these because I have befriended Dr. Joel Dreyer, a former employer of mine who is currently in Federal Prison.

He'd been sentenced to 10 years after pleading guilty to drug offenses, but his sentence was tossed out more then a year ago, and now he's doing indeterminate time until a federal court judge rules on whether he is competent enough to assist in his own defense.

Aleph is associated with the Chabad Lubavitcher, and Doc Dreyer recently sent me a couple of a Lubavitcher pamphlets -- Geulah (literally, "Redemption," though it refers specifically to the coming of Messiah) published by the Chabad World Center to Greet Moshiach, and a little thing called "Reflections of Redemption: Essays on the Weekly Torah Reading and Moshiach, Based on the talks of the Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Menacham M. Schneerson" and published by Moshiach Awareness Center, an operation of Enlightenment for the Blind.

Before I quote what I want to quote, a couple of things. It's interesting just how much these Jewish pamphlets reminds me of a certain kind of Islamic publication I saw a lot of long ago when I was Muslim. (I'm thinking specifically of some of the material that came out of South Africa.) It's very heavy in Hebrew cognates, so much so, that parts of don't really feel written in English. This is very true of the "Reflections on Redemption," which has the following sentence:

[T]he Shabbos of Re'eh is also Shabbos Mevarchim -- the Shabbos on which is recited the blessing for the new month.

Not so bad, except that the use of the transliterated Hebrew words is something of a stumbling block. There's a lot of that in this short essay, mostly because the essay deals with a word-by-word examination of a particular Hebrew phrase from the Torah, "See, I am setting before you today a blessing and a curse," though the pamphlet leaves off the curse bit of the verse. (As an aside, I wrote a song on this passage.) Still, there are a lot of Hebrew transliterations in the essay, and I find myself wondering what value something like really is to someone who doesn't already have some understanding of Hebrew. There were Muslim publications that used so many Arabic transliterations that there was almost no point in their being written in English.

But this is all so beside the point. This comes from the "Point of Light" essay in Geulah. There is no date, but the number on the upper corner says "469" it lists candle lighting times for Brooklyn, Cincinnati, Chicago, Los Angeles, Miami, and Montreal for the week of October 11, 2013 (7 Cheshvan 5774). No author is noted, but there is a picture of what appears to be the Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem Schneerson. And this is what sticks out for me in the essay:

Our forefather Abraham was not asked. He was told. 

"Go forth from your land, your birthplace, and your father's home, toward the land that I will show." G-d command Abraham to forsake anything that is comfortable and familiar to him, and set out on a harsh journey, with no clear idea of his final destination. 

Abraham had already established himself in Ur Kasidim. In one moment, G-d appeared to him and commanded him to leave everything that he had built up, and move to a strange land. Before sending him on this journey, G-d blesses Abraham: "I will make you a great nation." 

At that moment, who was in control? Was Abraham taking control of his life, or relinquishing it? Abraham realized that while he might have been living a successful, conventional life, there was something missing. He was grounded in the habits of his land, his birthplace, his father's home. By choosing to follow that Divine voice, Abraham willingly and consciously let go of his past. He opened himself to live a life without boundaries, without limitations, without expectations. And is doing so, he made himself a vessel to receive G-d's blessings, to become a great nation. 

I'm inclined to quibbled with some of the wording here. I'm not sure Abraham really chose to follow. Could he have said no? Or did God go trolling Ur, commanding many until one -- Abram -- said yes? We don't know. The biblical story we have says God spoke, and Abraham followed. I don't believe he could have said no. Not really. No more than Mary could have.

Again, besides the point. The Rebbe's essential point here is important -- Abraham was not asked. He was told. 

In our democratic modernity, we have made an idol of choosing. We choose what we will do. Wo we will be. Who we will love. Where we will live. We choose what we consume. We can even, at the edges, choose how to consume. But we choose. Choosing is what we do. Choosing, and the ability to choose, has become the essence of human freedom in Enlightenment Modernity. Someone who can choose is free. Someone who cannot choose is a slave.

The church is no stranger to this ideology of choice. Of giving people choices. Of believing God gives us choices. After all, in that Deuteronomy passage discussed above, God gives Israel a choice -- life or death, good or evil. So, God gives us choices. Choices to follow. Choices to believe. Choices to be grateful.

Except I'm not so sure. Abraham was not asked. He was told. Our best stories of Jesus in the New Testament shows a God incarnate who chooses, who calls disciples. And not by saying, "whoever wants to follow me can follow." But by telling -- "Follow me." "You shall be fishers of men." "Feed my sheep." "Baptize and teach and make disciples of all nations." Not a "please?" or "would you like to?" in the whole bunch. Commands. All of them.

The one time that comes to mind when someone actually asked Jesus "What do I have to do to earn eternal life?" Jesus answers his questioner in such a way that he walks away, despondent. Jesus gives ambiguous answers to all those who ask. And maybe a lot of people saw what he was doing, what his disciples did, and actively choose to follow.

But not the disciples. They experienced what Abraham in the Rebbe's account experienced -- the overwhelming call of God. They were not asked, they were told. And there is no saying no to God. To be a disciple, as opposed to one who merely follows, is to know there is no choice, no choosing, no options, no alternative. Just the overwhelming presence of God to which "no" is not an answer. Here's where I love the two short verses which are the call of Levi-Matthew (this is the Luke account):

After this he went out and saw ca tax collector named Levi, sitting at the tax booth. And he said to him, “Follow me.” And leaving everything, he rose and followed him.

There's so much story that just isn't there. Like the Good Rebbe, we can fill some things in with our imaginations. I suspect Levi had watched Jesus and his disciples doing their thing for weeks. Perhaps he was curious, interested, perhaps he even admired them. But I suspect he also watched them as they worked and concluded, "they will not end well." And yet he knows when Jesus walks into his life, and command him to follow, he cannot say no. There is no "no." Not anymore. Just the yes of God, which tore his life to shreds and left him with absolutely nothing save for the promise of God.

Whatever happened, both Luke and Matthew say the tax collector got up and followed, leaving everything he had. Everything. He. Had.

This is hard experience to speak of in our day and age. It is unreasonable, and Enlightenment Modernity disdains unreason. It sees the call of God as compulsion, and compulsion may be necessary, but we've done everything we can to remove raw power from compulsion, hiding it or burying it in social structures that seem to (or sometimes even really do) offer choice. It sees the call of God as overwhelming, and aside from sexual passion, we have banished the overwhelming from our lives.

Abraham was not asked. He was told. "Follow me." He left everything. And followed.

Humanity vs. The Machines

Well, I just finished reading Kurt Vonnegut's first novel, Player Piano, after reading this, which compared the world in which we are currently living to Vonnegut's early 1950s vision.

I love dystopian novels. I regularly re-read Brave New World, and occasionally will re-read 1984 just to reacquaint myself with Orwell's world. Brave New World is the better predictor of the human future, a world of meaningless hedonism and consumerism, than Orwell ever wrote. I also think Zamyatin got the role of science in organizing society better in We, which is such a bracingly strange novel that I had to read it three times just to finally grasp how the narrative works.

None of these novels by itself adequately predicts the future -- assuming that was their job. Orwell was worst, since he looked into a world of Stalin and Hitler and saw only the darkness of party-states seeking to annihilate humanity. That has not happened, nor is it likely to. Not so brutally. Better is Huxley's humanist scientism (also at work in We), which rather than investing the future of humanity in a sole, ruling political party that monopolizing anything resembling meaning, is a life given over to pointless, never ending pleasure. I'd rather live in Huxley's world, not because I'd love to drink soma all the time and have "everybody belongs to everybody" sex (making the sign of the T right now), but rather the World Controllers of Huxley's novel appreciate there is at least some room for malcontents and the maladjusted -- "Thank God for islands!" I believe is what Mustafa Mond says.

Mostly, what I really appreciate about these novels is their pessimism. There is no not loving Big Brother, no not acting like a child, no not appreciating the gifts of the One State in the great glass city. If Ayn Rand makes any kind of mistake, it's believing heroic human beings can triumph in the face of such things. We can't. We can only perish. Or find some corner to be human in.

Which is why I'm going to put Player Piano on my list of books to reread on a regular basis. There is so very much prescient about this 1952 novel. Vonnegut conducts a thought experiment -- what if machines made most human labor redundant? What would happen? And there's an amazing amount he gets right.

The managers and engineers are the privileged class (which is true of all the mid-century dystopian novels save for 1984, which privileges the party hacks), and make inordinate salaries (the lead character, Dr. Paul Proteus, makes around $50,000 a year as the chief of the Ilium Works, I think, an exorbitant sum when considered in the early 1950s) when compared to the take-home pay of most "employed" either in the Army or the Bureau of Reconstruction and Reclamation in fairly pointless, make-work jobs. There is the class division, the sense of privilege on the part of the managers (who, at the same time, realize their jobs will eventually face being made obsolete as machines get better at planning and managing), and the use of a compulsory summer camp ("The Meadows") to foster group cohesion and class identity among the managerial class. (Which also allows constant opportunities for networking, though Vonnegut doesn't call it that.)

There's even an amazingly funny bit at Cornell University dealing with the professionalization and gross ostentation of college sports. An athlete being recruited to play football there, for the princely sum of $36,000 a year, asks if he can also take classes (wanting something other than a future filling potholes with the Wrecks and Reeks when he his football career is over), and is told, "We used to allow that sort of thing, but it didn't work out so well."

At stake is the dignity of human labor, and what happens when whole swaths of people no longer have meaningful work to do. At first, it seems like the labor being denigrated is solely that of people who work with their hands, who run machines, who work on assembly lines. They have become meaningless, pointless people, who know they have become meaningless. They exist solely to consume, being provided all they need through their make-work jobs (all paid for out of deductions, so most only take home $30 a weeks).

But the labor also denigrated is that of the managers. It doesn't seem that way at first -- after all, they have all the power. But most don't really know anything. And they know so little of the world, of art, of history, of anything of real value. (Everything of that nature is eventually demolished to make way for factories and power plants.) At the same time, however, their positions and lives are given inflated pseudo-value through a credentialing process that even requires secretaries have doctorates. (One character, a property managers, is a "Doctor of Realty," for example.)

Because the whole point of Vonnegut's novel is that when the machines are allowed to structure society, human beings will always be bent so they can be made of greatest use to the machines, or broken, and thrown away. To compete with machines in this way is to become their slaves.

There's a lot Vonnegut couldn't see. He didn't imagine the transistor, or the integrated circuit, so vacuum tubes make his player piano work. A giant computer, EPICAC, fills up some substantial portion of New Mexico and plans America's industries. And government. The gender roles are still very much grounded in early 1950s bourgeois norms -- men work, women are wives (or secretaries). And no one, and I mean no one, seems to have ever envisioned the mobile phone.

Vonnegut is also writing a mid-century novel. So he sees the New Deal welfare state logically extending itself to "caring" for those displaced by providing them a very generous social welfare in exchange for their pointless jobs filling holes or guarding the far flung bits of America's global empire. He couldn't imagine, as a hypothetical (cough cough), a world in which human labor is made redundant  by machines but then the same people made pointless are blamed for their circumstances, and not given anything except payday loans. (I think Ayn Rand would have needed to write THAT novel...) It is still a novel of management triumphant (and yes, Rand wrote those TOO), and would need some rapacious financiers making a lot more than $50,000 a year in order to work for today. At least Player Piano's managerial class perceived themselves as having an obligation to those they'd made redundant (though Proteus comes to understand that as the condescending liberalism which it is). Which is more than we can say for ourselves today.

Finally, the novel ends badly. An uprising rapidly spreads, breaks the machines, but is quickly crushed. Ilium is besieged. Eventually, Proteus and several of his co-conspirators prepare to hand themselves over to the authorities, having done what they could, having stood their ground and failed. It ends the way it should have. The only other possible, and realistic ending, was one in which some amount of dissent and non-conformity to the economic order would have been accepted or tolerated -- a kind-of "Galt's Gulch" or St. Helena of artisan crafts people who lived on their own, made the things they used and consumed, and where an alternative meaning to human existence could have been constructed. A small thing, but a real thing.

That, however, would have been predicting hipsters. And I'm not sure Vonnegut was up to that.

Quite Possibly the Worst Sermon I've Ever Heard

As some of you know, Jennifer and I have been rambling a bit, staying with friends and seeing the country. We've been in Eastern Texas for a while, and last Sunday took in a worship service at a church in the small East Texas town where we live.

I won't say where, or what church, save that it was a small, local, non-denomination, politically and culturally conservative church in the small town where we are staying outside Austin.

The pastor was a confident speaker, and began by showing his largely mainly white audience slides of various and Sundry buildings in Rome. He pointed out the crosses everywhere, even in the Coliseum, where Christians during the time of the Roman Empire huddled in fear that they might be arrested, tortured and thrown to the animals. Christians had no power, no influence, no standing, were a tiny, persecuted minority in the Roman Empire. Yet, within 300 years (and thanks to the declaration of "Emperor Constantinople"), Christianity became the official ruling faith of that very same empire.

"How?" the pastor asked?

Because Christians had an ethics grounded in the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5:1-16 seemed to be the text he was preaching on; there was no reading, just praise music and whatever moved the pastor to preach), an ethic which stressed being "poor in spirit, mourning, meekness, hungering and thirsting for righteousness, mercy, being pure in heart, peacemaking, and being persecuted." Because the Kingdom of Heaven belongs to them.

More importantly, such people are "salt of the earth" and "light of the world." When the culture becomes pagan, corrupt, based on "might makes right," it is the call of the church to save the culture be being salt. There was a fascinating subtext here, and I suspect this sermon would never have been delivered in this way, using imperial decadence and power in such an up front way, had George W. Bush been president. But the pastor said nothing overtly political, at least nothing partisan.

Because Christians are the meek, persecuted "salt of the earth," the pastor said "You have no standing politically, but you are the last stand." To save the culture of death and make it a culture of life. (My phrasing, not his.)

At this point, he got his most overtly political. Condemning the recent deal to raise the debt limit, he said that all this empowered Christians to say "Enough is enough!" and to take a stand. The "ethics" of the Sermon on the Mount led to this, he said. This is Christian love in action. (Again, not his phrasing.)

Along the way, he did give some advice for daily living. That the ethics of the Sermon on the Mount begin in our daily lives, in how we live our lives at work, in school, wherever. But we did this not so much to show God's love, but to do our part in the larger work on reclaiming the Empire and saving the society.

"Because it's not about us. It's about who gets the glory," the pastor said.

Because the final goal of all this ethical action is take control of the Empire. Christians did it once, they can do it again, the pastor said. And to make being Christian respectable again.

The world wants to listen to what Christians have to say, he concluded. But the question for us is: are we going to act in a way that fills the world's hunger and answers the desire to "make us believe," or are we simply going to act in such a way that says we just "make believe."

It was a culturally conservative sermon from top to bottom, one that spoke to the anxieties and fears of some reasonably well-off white Texas Christians, one that didn't challenge them or invite them to participate in God's actions in the world. Because aside from "creating an ethical system," God doesn't act at all. There was no saving Grace, no love, no sin (except in the culture), just a call to work to redeem the world. (The closest the pastor got to acknowledging anything like grace was noting that, "Some of us are messed up. But God is bigger than your mess!") Because the saving work of God remains undone, and the call to discipleship is simply a call to organize the world the way God demands and finish God's work of salvation.

While this approach is a problem I have with conservative Christianity, particularly cultural conservatism, this kind of sermon and this kind of thinking -- God sets out an ethics that empowers us to act to (effectively) finish God's salvation for the world -- is not merely a conservative problem. It's why I don't like much of Liberal or Progressive Christianity as well. (Walter Wink wrote about redeeming "the powers" in a book I found annoyingly self-righteous and just plain deluded.) It privileges human action over anything God has done. It takes the ethics of the Book of Esther and places them front and center, and not what God speaks through Moses to the Israelites at sea as they witnessed Pharaoh's army advancing upon them:

And Moses said to the people, "Fear not, stand firm and see the salvation of the Lord, which he will work for you today. For the Egyptians whom you see today, you shall never see again. The Lord will fight for you, and you have only to be silent." (Exodus 14:13-14)

 וַיֹּאמֶר מֹשֶׁה אֶל־הָעָם אַל־תִּירָאוּ הִֽתְיַצְבוּ וּרְאוּ אֶת־יְשׁוּעַת יְהוָה אֲשֶׁר־יַעֲשֶׂה לָכֶם הַיּוֹם כִּי אֲשֶׁר רְאִיתֶם אֶת־מִצְרַיִם הַיּוֹם לֹא תֹסִיפוּ לִרְאֹתָם עוֹד עַד־עוֹלָֽם׃  יְהוָה יִלָּחֵם לָכֶם וְאַתֶּם תַּחֲרִישֽׁוּן׃ פ

This theme, "watch what God will do for you today, God will fight for you" is echoed throughout scripture -- water from the rock, manna from heaven, Joshua defeating Jericho merely by tooting of a trumpet, Gideon's 300 to conquer the Midianites, David's defeating Goliath with a rock (read what David says right before he tosses the stone), Elisha's increasing the widow's oil or battling the prophets of Baal, gathering the exiles from Babylon, other examples I'm certain I have forgotten. It is central to Israel's experience of its relationship with God. It's even, I believe, the unstated words of Calvary, to those of us who gaze upon our awful work on Good Friday -- Fear not, Stand firm, behold the saving grace God is working for you today.

This is not an ethical system. It is... well, I'm not sure what it is. Shared mystical experience, maybe. But it isn't an ethical system. We who God calls aren't given an ethical system, not really. The Torah is not an ethics, but an attempt by God to show us -- God's people, not humanity -- what it means to live in relationship with God and with each other given that God has called us together as a people. If pressed, I would admit this IS an ethical system (given that ethics is inescapable), but my problem here is that ethics as we do them don't need or require the relationship with God. They make man the focus, and human action the focus. And as in the Book of Esther, God is not necessary. You don't need God when you have ethics. You don't need God when you have culture. You don't need to stop, to wait, to watch, to be silent. You need to act. Now. Or all is lost.

(If I am sensitive to this, it is because this approach to the human calling is the Islamist approach. God has called humanity, particularly Muslims, to finish saving the world, organizing the world, in the way God wants it organized, so that virtue may be maximized and the opportunities to sin reduced or eliminated.)

To be salt is to trust that we are preserving the world even if we aren't sure how. That we are light, shining brightly, even if we have no idea what that means. To trust, as Abram trusted, that God will make us a blessing to the world, even if we have no idea what that means or how it will happen.

Human action is not the point of the Bible story. God's love for Israel, for God's people, for the world, is the point of the Bible story. We can live into that love, or not, and some form of it may conquer the empire (Thomasite Christians did not conquer India, and Nestorians did not conquer China), but whatever ends up ruling -- whatever ends up "redeeming" the powers or the culture -- is only a shadow of that saving grace. As long as we live in that moment between Eden and Eschaton, we will only experience that grace sideways, in scattered brilliant moments where God's grace meets us and overwhelms us and includes us in God's already completed salvation for the world.

Is There a "Common Good" in America?

Nichaolas Lemann, in a review of Ira Katznelson's Fear Itself: The New Deal and the Origins of Our Time, which is a legislative, administrative and social history of the New Deal, notes something very interesting about America politics:

Political scientists use the term “pluralist” to describe a system in which interest groups compete incessantly for advantage, and there is no overarching, determinative notion of the public interest. The side that wins gets to define the public interest, and the system’s moral commitment is to the procedure, not the outcomes. The final product of the New Deal, Katznelson argues, was a pluralist, “procedural” state in domestic affairs, and a far more expansive and less democratic state—corporatist, committed to planning in the “national interest”—in military affairs. This amounts to a liberal nightmare (and also demonstrates that one should not be confident that reducing interest-group influence in politics would necessarily produce pleasing results): the aspect of government liberals focus on was constrained, the aspect conservatives focus on was unbridled. And it was the South’s doing.

Katznelson deals mostly with how the New Deal was implemented, and why it took the shape it did. I've not read the book, but Lemann's review is fascinating, and it's why I pulled the above graf out.

One of the political and social arguments I've long been most suspicious of is "the common good." I've said before I don't believe there is any such thing as the common good, and I generally stand by that statement.

But I would like to nuance it a bit. There is no common good in the American context. Not really. The common good is not an abstract statement of fact, but rather an arrived-at social consensus that, in order to be effectively realized politically, must pre-exist politics. A particularly defined community may say to itself "we care for each person in this community" and then express that care in any number of ways.  The American Left much admires very liberal Scandinavia, all the while ignoring most Scandinavian states are small and very homogenous, and have arrived at their welfare states less through deliberate policy than through shared social understanding of obligations to others -- others who are an awful lot like themselves. (We also see a fraying of this in Northern Europe as migrants who do not share the social understanding don't completely assimilate to it.) So a common good requires a common understanding, and that understanding is a communal feeling or sensibility that precedes political action.

Absent that, all you have are assertions. "Every American child should be educated in a state school," for example, was an assertion of a common good from the late 19th century that was strongly opposed just about everywhere it was asserted (if John Taylor Gatto can be believed). It has become a "common good," though one widely questioned (and frequently challenged, and a "good" I would suggest we are forever uncomfortable with). And as Lemann notes, "the side that wins gets to define the public interest." The "common good" is a product of who can bring the most brute force (in political terms) to bear in a struggle.

This is the risk of a pluralistic society. It is my understanding that in history, most pluralistic societies were empires, ruled by a tight but sometimes very open ruling class that very definitely rules. Non-majority communities were subject, but also had some degree of autonomy, to rule themselves according to whatever traditions they had, so long as those traditions did not threaten (or were not seen to threaten) the empire. In trying to build a pluralistic, multicultural democratic society, we are doing something that has never been done before. That may be possible, but I'm something of a conservative when it comes to human organization: there are only so many ways people can organize themselves. If the kind of society we are trying to build doesn't show up in history, well, there's probably a reason for that -- it cannot be done. It is likely, I think, that such a state will become democratic in procedure only, as any outcome that challenges multicultural pluralism will simply not be allowed. If what you are making is an empire, than empire will eventually out itself.

I'm not sure how asserting a "common good" and then imposing it via political fiat isn't authoritarianism. (This is why I am deeply mistrustful of progressivism, because of its authoritarian bent.) On the other hand, it has become clear that contentious political impositions in this country have become part some notion of "common good," although they remain disputed and challenged.

But in the end, I do not believe you can create with politics and ideology the things that need to hold a society and nation together, if those things -- language, culture, shared outlook and understanding, shared stories -- don't already exist. Politics can shape all that, and over time, even create it (much of Europe exists because of someone's say so, whether it be the nation of France or surnames), and those changes can become very stable and durable. But not when they are frequently challenged, even by a tiny but vociferous group. That usually ends in bloodshed.

My personal preference is for bottom-up organizing, not top-down. Which is why I am generally suspicious of most grand attempts to remake the world using political power. Or assertions of the "common good," especially on a national level. I'm not sure what a "common good" for 300 million people looks like. I'm not sure there can be such a thing.