Spent my long weekend quarantined in my room and reading William T. Cavanough’s Migrations of the Holy: God, State, and the Political Meaning of Church. It’s a reasonably quick read, comprised of 9 interconnected essays that explore the way nationalism in the West has more or less replaced religion. Perhaps the most intriguing aspect of his argument was in his dealing with America, a nation where many might argue that the Christian religion is still alive and well.

Cavanough suggests that America as a nation came to view itself as God’s blessing to the world, replacing the priority of the church. In this way, American style freedoms are thrust upon the rest of the world with evangelistic zeal. In a particularly acute moment Cavanough suggests that “[America doesn’t] worship God, we worship the freedom to worship God.” This subtle distinction, I believe, really starts to help diagnose the state of American evangelicalism. It idolizes itself.

In a later essay he outlines the rules that allow this idolatry to perpetuate:

“American civil religion can never acknowledge that is is in fact religion: to do so would be to invite charges of idolatry. Here liturgical gesture is central, because gesture allows the flag to be treated as a sacred object, while language denies that that is the case. Everyone acknowledges verbally that the nation and the flag are not really gods, but the crucial test is what people do with their bodies, both in liturgies and in war.”

There’s a passage in the book of Isaiah that Jesus references. In it, the prophet condemns Jerusalem for coming near to God with their mouths and honouring God with their lips while their hearts were elsewhere. The thing about self-deception is we usually can’t diagnose it ourselves. I also think it’s fitting that that judgement is communal and not individual. Cities, communities, and especially nations often have narratives of self-deception woven in. These are places of belonging and identity making.

Cavanough’s overall brilliance in these couple essays is in highlighting the way the development of the nation-state generally has replaced the role of religion across Europe and North America and specifically how in the case of America, it has blurred the lines between nation and god.

Continuing with my read through Bretherton and came across a fascinating concept he is calling impatient endurance. It's an essay where he is talking about how we exist in the space where certain systemic or structural injustices prevail. Rather than tolerate these injustices, we "endure them impatiently" as we attempt to tear them down. He calls this

"A concrete form of hope. Impatient endurance entails 'cold' or 'righteous' anger, which points to God's anger for sin and idolatry. Such anger is born out of grief for the gap between the world as it is and the world as it should be and hope that things can change."

Of course, the tension is in determining what qualifies as this sort of evil. Certainly different groups will have opposing answers to this. This tension seems to be core to Bretherton's whole argument, we must seek to build a common life across diverse groups with different views on what practices or beliefs are objectionable. This is where he offers hospitality as a way forward.

Great little bit here in Gutierrez' Theology of Liberation that really ties together my worldview quite well.

"Contemporary theology does in fact find itself in direct and fruitful confrontation with Marxism, and to a large extent due to Marxism’s influence that theological thought, searching for its own sources, has begun to reflect on the meaning of the transformation of this world and human action in history. Further, this confrontation helps theology to perceive what its efforts at understanding the faith receive from the historical praxis of humankind in history as well as what its own reflection might mean for the transformation of the world." (emphasis mine)

Part of what I'm trying to explore in this course is the intersection of Marxist thought with theological reflection on the role of the church. This is a really nice framing of the relationship between the two.

I've been on a small disaster movie kick over the last week, watching in short nightly instalments. Started with the Day After Tomorrow, which I've seen and mostly enjoyed. Then I watched 2012, which I've never seen and found to be a bit over the top. I also realize that "over the top" might be silly way to assess a movie about the end of the world but I stand by it.

What both of these movies have in common is a strange sort of optimism towards humanity as a collective in the face of massive adversity. Roland Emmerich, the director of both films, seems to believe in people ultimately doing the right thing. It's a theme that comes across very heavy handed in 2012; but I think Emmerich is intentionally doing so. There's a whole subplot about John Cusack's character being a writer whose work is criticized for being too optimistic about the way humanity would work together. He's held in deep contrast with Oliver Platt's character, the White House's Chief of Staff who represents self-preservation at all costs. Guess which POV wins in the end?

There is a sort of dissonance watching a movie like that in 2023. Most of our narratives have turned highly cynical - and for good reason. However, I think there's an interesting meta lesson to be learned from 2012 and Emmerich's charitable view of people. It was, in part, Cusack's writing that saved humanity. His work helped inspired Chiwetel Ejiofor's character to plead for the people with the means to save as many as they could. Despite being dismissed as naive, it made a difference in the overall trajectory of how that group of people chose to act as a society. Maybe we need those stories even if they feel out of place or overly simplistic. Maybe we need to choose to let narrative of what humanity can be find a spot in our future.

Better that than letting the other narrative win.

One of the first major books I'm reading for my Directed Reading course is a book by Luke Bretherton called 'Christ and the Common Life: Political Theology and the Case for Democracy.' It's basically an overview of political theology, which is the stream that the rest of my readings and writings will fall within.

Anyways, I came across this interesting idea while reading this morning; Bretherton makes a distinction between politics and war, suggesting that war and violence signals the end of politics and the start of something else.

"The bullet and the ballot box are mutually exclusive routes to solving shared problems."

He gets there because his view of politics is based in relational power with others rather than power over others. It is an understanding of power that requires a commitment to listening and negotiating rather than coercing and dominating.

It also requires a commitment to non-violence, something that is largely lacking in our society these days.