Monday, June 16, 2014

The politics of Jesus (16 June 2014)

What would the politics of Jesus say to the crisis in Iraq over the ISIS advance through Nineveh?

I have already pointed out the relevance of the Book of Revelation (here). On further reflection I want to suggest a 'political hermeneutic' for reading the New Testament.

There are ordinary times when ordinary wisdom, instruction and principles apply. The obvious contrast to Revelation is Romans 13 where Paul takes a benign view of state power and instructs Christians to go along with it, submit to its authority and generally live sensible yet compassionate lives within civic society.

Then there are extraordinary times when the rules of Christian life go out the window. Even Jesus in the last moments of his life told his disciples to find swords! It is simply impossible to treat ISIS as it imposes its murderous thuggery on the people of Nineveh as a fledgling new state as an authority appointed by God. That is not to say that some licence is then given for those opposed to ISIS to take up arms themselves (I am not arguing for or against that here and now.) But the instruction of Jesus seems to be at least to flee (see the verse prior to this coming Sunday's gospel reading, Matthew 10:23).

In terms of Revelation such forces are expressions of the angel of death sweeping across the face of the earth and, to mix metaphors, the beast arising out of the sea.

Of course this hermeneutic is not without its problems. Who is to judge when we live in ordinary times and when we live in extraordinary times? Though we might at least recognise that if we can go to bed at night without fear of the police (or 'police') knocking on our doors in order to drag us out into the street to kill us then we might just be in an ordinary situation.

Further, there is an important analysis of Revelation which says that it is an extraordinary book for ordinary times in the sense that it is an unveiling of the dark malign reality of the apparently benign state. The Roman Empire both guaranteed peace on its roads and seaways even as it imposed idolatry on Jews and Christians. In our day, we could say, with Revelation in mind, capitalism both provides a means of income and imposes the idolatry of materialism on its citizens.

Yet the whole of Revelation goes beyond such analysis. Its visions go beyond the pressure of idolatrous Rome on Asia Minor congregations. It foresees days of terror, of death and destruction beyond the possibilities of Christians being squeezed out of participation in ordinary civic life. For such days it does not envisage the renewal of something like 'ordinary' life. It looks beyond death to new life, beyond pain to healing, and beyond evil to pure goodness.

It is a book for extraordinary times. Meanwhile I need to take a car to the garage to conform to state requirements for a Warrant of Fitness and make some effort to get this year's taxes sorted out!


2 comments:

Caleb said...

I take serious issue with your interpretation of Romans 13: "There are ordinary times when ordinary wisdom, instruction and principles apply. The obvious contrast to Revelation is Romans 13 where Paul takes a benign view of state power and instructs Christians to go along with it, submit to its authority and generally live sensible yet compassionate lives within civic society."

I've written essays on Romans 13:1-7 and on Paul's counter-imperial stance. I wrote them about five years ago and would probably express myself a bit differently now, but you can read them if you would like further elaboration on what I discuss here.

I think you're right to point out that Revelation "is an unveiling of the dark malign reality of the apparently benign state," and to draw comparisons with the contemporary capitalist empire (you could also add the American empire - though that of course has a lot of crossover with the capitalist empire). The Pauline corpus also carries this apocalyptic theme strongly, though usually with allusions the modern reader tends to miss.

I don't know if you can make such a clear distinction between "ordinary" and "extraordinary" times... for a start, it's very optimistic about what "ordinary" politics are like (how many states in the world now would you designate as "ordinary"? How many across history?). Also, seeing an empire as benign (and, even more, "ordinary") usually requires you to be in a place of privilege within that empire and/or be highly influenced by the ideology of that empire. There were some, mostly in the centres of power, for whom the Roman Empire seemed benign (even if it lured them into lazy idolatry), while others, mostly outside the centres of power, suffered greatly for it. The exact same is true of the American and capitalist empire(s).

It's also worth noting that Paul's audience were probably more on the suffering fringes than the privileged centre like we are. The early churches attracted broad cross-sections of society, and society was mostly slaves and the poor. Romans was probably written in the reign of Nero, and although Nero may not have been actively persecuting Christians yet, Paul does directly contradict Nero's boast that he bore an "idle sword" (Rom 13:4).

tbc...

Caleb said...

cont...

[I can't remember if I included this first paragraph in the last comment. Sorry if it's repeated]
It's also worth noting that Paul's audience were probably more on the suffering fringes than the privileged centre like we are. The early churches attracted broad cross-sections of society, and society was mostly slaves and the poor. Romans was probably written in the reign of Nero, and although Nero may not have been actively persecuting Christians yet, Paul does directly contradict Nero's boast that he bore an "idle sword" (Rom 13:4).

In any case: as you say, "Who is to judge when we live in ordinary times and when we live in extraordinary times?" South American Catholic socialists and North American evangelical capitalists no doubt have the exact reverse opinion of whose state is a "good one" and whose is a bad one.

Unfortunately for either party (and for your interpretation in this blog), nothing in Romans 13 indicates that it is only to be applied to "good" governments (whether or not good governments are "ordinary"). That is just a convenient way of dealing with the fact that a face-value interpretation of Romans 13 is in direct contradiction to how the same empire is portrayed in Revelation 13 (and most of the New Testament). But the text does not allow for such a convenient explaining-away.

Any honest interpretation of Romans 13 has to deal with the fact that not only does it appear to contradict many other things said in Scripture (including the strong counter-imperial streak throughout Paul's writings), it doesn't offer a convenient demarcation of which situations to apply which passages - ie be loyal when they're good, prophetically challenge when they're bad. I for one am glad of that, because if it did, it would simply allow the North American capitalist to assume Romans 13 applied to the US and Revelation 13 applied to South American socialist states, and the South American socialist to assume the opposite.

I think a better interpretation is to say that there is something much more subversive and pragmatic going on in Romans 13, which suggests the benign and conservative attitude that seems to appear there is certainly not the "ordinary" Christian stance to empires (see my links above).