First, just a little history.
In the year 313 the Roman Emperor made Christianity a licensed religion. Constantine said licet, let it be permitted. For the first time in its history the movement of Christianity had official and final Roman approval, and it was already older then than the present U.S. Republic. Imagine that: 275 years without any secure government recognition, without having a king or an emperor at your back, without a sure place in society, without public symbols and celebrations to declare your right to exist. 275 years of civic contempt, mixed with oblique influence when people of status became Christian, then punctuated at other times by outbursts of lethal persecution.
When Constantine gave state permission to Christianity he had just won a decisive battle in which he had invoked the Christian god—a voice had spoken to him in a dream (in a later account it became a vision) telling him that he should emblazon the heavenly sign of Christ on the shields and helmets of his soldiers. He thus began the process of the militarization of Christian faith. True, there were already Christian soldiers in the Roman army, but they were there because they had been pressed into service, and seemed faithfully to adhere to the church’s absolute prohibition on killing--if not why was there no hint of a rebellion when Christian soldiers were subject of a harsh purge from the army under Diocletian about twenty years before? In other words they were there as a formal fill-up-the ranks presence, ready the moment the war was over to abandon the profession. Constantine realized somehow that it would be possible to enlist the support of this radical yet influential movement by calling a halt to the bitter persecution of his predecessors and then progressively according rights and privileges to the church, and at the same time creating the self-serving myth that the Christian god had spoken to him directly pledging his support. Christians of course had to want the end of persecution, and they probably shared a general desire for the peace of Roman society rent by continual civil war. Whatever the reasons the combination of Constantine’s moves got the Christian movement to accept the deal he offered and progressively they saw all this as the work of God. (There is at least one monumental image of Constantine’s vision adorning the walls of the Vatican.) A fateful hour had dawned, the seduction of Christianity by the state and its military apparatus. Within the space of one year the bishops were ordering Christians to remain in the army (Council of Arles, 314), within a decade there were religious wars with Christian orthodoxy on one side and heresy on the other, and within a century Augustine had formulated his doctrine of “just war”. The rest is history.
Or a kind of history.
When the emperor says licet Christianity is licensed. It’s allowed to exist by the say-so of the archaic human system built on the death of the victim. And then very quickly it appears that Christianity agrees reciprocally with the state’s mode of existence, with its violence. Christianity becomes franchised by the state, by a human system of violence. And in return Christianity franchises the state, its relentless natural violence. A separation-of-church-and-state motif does not overcome this, rather it effectively masks it. Within the separation lies a mutual collusion. And if biblical people invoke Romans 13 (submit to civil authority) as proof of apostolic support for this situation they conveniently overlook both the vastly different condition of Christianity at the time of Paul’s writing (a tiny apolitical group) and Paul’s more basic theological distinction between the Christian body and the wrath of this present world order.
As is obvious all this has been hashed out before. The discussion between the Christian peace tradition and the position of the mainline “just war” churches is old, bitter and unresolved. What I’m saying, however, wants to add something different. The franchising of Christianity by the state is breaking down from within. The crisis of violence in our 21st century world is of itself dissolving the implicit alliance of Christians and the state, instead opening up a new space where Christians are unfranchised, unlicensed, unofficial…unchained.
A new possibility is emerging, created by our contemporary historical crisis of elective wars that never end and the parallel systemic experience of destruction of the environment. The world system can be seen to be terminal and this puts people in a new situation, especially Christians who can recognize that this new situation is, in an amazing upside-down way, the transforming work of Christ. If Christians have colluded with the state and its just wars, Christ and the gospel of the forgiving and innocent victim never have. And so the more and more the world resorts to violence the more and more its violence is seen as...violence. The act of violence becomes implausible, inconclusive, inept, crazy. Our history is spinning into greater and greater chaos because of the refusal of the true answer--the forgiveness and compassion of Christ, which at the same time become the more evidently necessary the more they are refused. Thus Christ has opened up a new opportunity for his followers to return to their original unfranchised, unchained state, to find the gap in the world order where they can truly exist.
In this gap the gospel is free to speak itself in boundaryless transformative terms, without distinction of friend or foe, terrorist or freedom fighter, us and them, righteous and impure. I quote Scott Hutchinson, from his comment on the previous post. “The forgiveness at the heart of gospel life removes barriers, loosens bonds, unburdens, sets people free, leads to the mutuality of gifting and being gifted. Exhilarating, fulfilling, and terrifying! The source, of course, is God, whose radical self-giving transforms and endlessly offers life.” And progressively the actual space that Christians occupy is no longer demarcated by the built walls of their franchise but by this new open unmediated space that Christ has created in our time, dissolving the historical nexus of 313.
Thursday, May 20, 2010
Wednesday, May 12, 2010
The Gospel in a Time of Drones
Recent media comment on the Times Square bomb attempt (May 1st) underlines the background to this particular piece of terrorism is Taliban, not Al Qaeda, and a stand-out cause of radicalization of individuals in this context is the U.S. campaign of aerial bombing by drones in the tribal areas of Pakistan. Whether the confessed bomber, Faisal Shahzad, is giving a sincere account of his motives or not, he has presented this as the justification of his actions. The conclusion by a number of bloggers and opinion-makers: the aerial campaign has had as its consequence not the suppression of terrorism but the opening of a new seam. You don’t say!
Nothing enrages and radicalizes more than aerial bombardment. It had that effect in Britain. I remember the bomb sites when I was a child, still there in the late fifties. Aside from not having much money the British were in no hurry to clean them up because in their own stark way they were a monument to bitter resolve and victory. They said you may bomb us to the ground but we will never give in. Bombardment creates a Promethean will to defy whatever god comes from the sky to force us to submit. (You really have to kill everyone—or at least show you’re willing—to produce defeat from the air; hence the bumper-sticker logic “Nuke ‘em all!”.)
Bombardment from the air is one of those things that stops war being a gentleman’s game as it seems to have been viewed before, and gets everyone involved. This is a key part of Girard’s argument in Battling to the End—whole populations are mobilized psychically and physically in modern war so there is nowhere to escape bottomless rivalry between peoples. Thus we truly are battling to the end. But where is Christianity in all this?
In the same book Girard’s answer is that historical Christianity has failed. The gospel has removed sacrificial restraints but Christian churches have failed to persuade people to abandon rivalry in favor of forgiveness. I think this is the world-weariness of a thinker who has thought long into the night and is carried away on the tide of his own thoughts. Human logic cannot trump the gospel. Historical Christianity is historical Christianity. Contemporary Christianity is something else, and that is what is failing but it has not yet failed.
Contemporary Christianity is under a unique set of challenges, such that it really cannot look to the past for answers. Benedict XVI said recently that the most serious attacks on the church come from within and I think that is the most infallible thing he ever said. His words go way beyond the pedophile crisis and resonate with the accommodations that Christians have made with a world of violence. Christians look back to arguments of just war, of separation of church and state, of “spiritual” things being their concern and the world having a different set of rules. But a world that has been radically destbilized and deconstructed by Christianity cannot have its own rules. It can only survive with Christian “rules”, i.e. forgiveness, compassion, nonviolence. At the moment, however, formal Christianity seems to be the last to understand this. As a result Christianity today fails to come to the level of its own meaning in the world. In a world where the core cultural dynamic is the revelation of the victim the only future is to turn the other cheek. You would think that Christians who read the Sermon on the Mount would “get this,” but they are so filled up with the tortuous compromises that have defined the church since Augustine they cannot grasp the intense relevance and vitality of their own message.
But as Benedict hinted “the center cannot hold” and all those old formulations are failing. In their place something new is coming, a direct encounter of the ordinary average Christian with the text and spirit of the gospel in all its historical rawness, challenge, wonder and power. Small groups are springing up and they are engaged with the gospel in its full re-creative significance at the heart of the contemporary crisis. They are springing up everywhere and they alone are the way forward. As the drones pollute our skies with the rumor of total war the gentle wind of the Spirit speaks to the hearts of Christians the promise of new heavens and a new earth.
Nothing enrages and radicalizes more than aerial bombardment. It had that effect in Britain. I remember the bomb sites when I was a child, still there in the late fifties. Aside from not having much money the British were in no hurry to clean them up because in their own stark way they were a monument to bitter resolve and victory. They said you may bomb us to the ground but we will never give in. Bombardment creates a Promethean will to defy whatever god comes from the sky to force us to submit. (You really have to kill everyone—or at least show you’re willing—to produce defeat from the air; hence the bumper-sticker logic “Nuke ‘em all!”.)
Bombardment from the air is one of those things that stops war being a gentleman’s game as it seems to have been viewed before, and gets everyone involved. This is a key part of Girard’s argument in Battling to the End—whole populations are mobilized psychically and physically in modern war so there is nowhere to escape bottomless rivalry between peoples. Thus we truly are battling to the end. But where is Christianity in all this?
In the same book Girard’s answer is that historical Christianity has failed. The gospel has removed sacrificial restraints but Christian churches have failed to persuade people to abandon rivalry in favor of forgiveness. I think this is the world-weariness of a thinker who has thought long into the night and is carried away on the tide of his own thoughts. Human logic cannot trump the gospel. Historical Christianity is historical Christianity. Contemporary Christianity is something else, and that is what is failing but it has not yet failed.
Contemporary Christianity is under a unique set of challenges, such that it really cannot look to the past for answers. Benedict XVI said recently that the most serious attacks on the church come from within and I think that is the most infallible thing he ever said. His words go way beyond the pedophile crisis and resonate with the accommodations that Christians have made with a world of violence. Christians look back to arguments of just war, of separation of church and state, of “spiritual” things being their concern and the world having a different set of rules. But a world that has been radically destbilized and deconstructed by Christianity cannot have its own rules. It can only survive with Christian “rules”, i.e. forgiveness, compassion, nonviolence. At the moment, however, formal Christianity seems to be the last to understand this. As a result Christianity today fails to come to the level of its own meaning in the world. In a world where the core cultural dynamic is the revelation of the victim the only future is to turn the other cheek. You would think that Christians who read the Sermon on the Mount would “get this,” but they are so filled up with the tortuous compromises that have defined the church since Augustine they cannot grasp the intense relevance and vitality of their own message.
But as Benedict hinted “the center cannot hold” and all those old formulations are failing. In their place something new is coming, a direct encounter of the ordinary average Christian with the text and spirit of the gospel in all its historical rawness, challenge, wonder and power. Small groups are springing up and they are engaged with the gospel in its full re-creative significance at the heart of the contemporary crisis. They are springing up everywhere and they alone are the way forward. As the drones pollute our skies with the rumor of total war the gentle wind of the Spirit speaks to the hearts of Christians the promise of new heavens and a new earth.
Monday, May 3, 2010
Souls Not Stones
Where does a Christian pray?
In her soul. In the soul of her neighbor. In her dreams.
When I say soul I also mean body. I mean soul as the dense neural life of the body itself, not another entity. But I say soul because this dense life is also expansive and imitative and connects itself with all other beings. “Soul” captures this meaning while “body” sounds more individual. So it is the body/soul or soul/body which prays.
What then is the value of the physical space designated for prayer: a church, a shrine, a temple?
The only value of the physical space, it seems to me, is that it allows the soul to gather with her neighbor souls to do publically what she does all the time. Art and architecture may help, but they may also hinder. A physical space can carry the soul on pathways which other souls have imagined for her, along which she may glimpse things she never met before. But for the same reasons they can become confining, or, worse still, an end in themselves. We can begin to believe that only with the set of responses modeled by this place can a soul pray. Jesus said, “Believe me, the hour is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem… But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and truth…”
Thinking about architecture, what is the most vital human architecture today? Surely the internet, a vast cathedral where all souls meet! And its very indifference to all particular religious forms, to all local architectures, renders Jesus’ words more relevant than ever. The internet displaces human imagination from stones to the soul itself, to the endless medium of communication that is the very essence of human being.
A Christian prays in her soul, in the souls of her neighbors, in her dreams.
At the core of a Christian’s dreams is a yearning and a foretelling—of the time when the whole earth will be a universe of united souls.
Now is the time, therefore, when Christians search more and more deeply in their souls, in their neighbors’ souls, in their dreams, for the living connective tissue that will make that dream a reality.
Now is not the time, therefore, to put confidence in the stones of place, but rather in the meeting of souls, wherever that takes place. Now is the time even deliberately to abandon the stones of place in order to discover the meeting of souls.
To be free for the dream.
In her soul. In the soul of her neighbor. In her dreams.
When I say soul I also mean body. I mean soul as the dense neural life of the body itself, not another entity. But I say soul because this dense life is also expansive and imitative and connects itself with all other beings. “Soul” captures this meaning while “body” sounds more individual. So it is the body/soul or soul/body which prays.
What then is the value of the physical space designated for prayer: a church, a shrine, a temple?
The only value of the physical space, it seems to me, is that it allows the soul to gather with her neighbor souls to do publically what she does all the time. Art and architecture may help, but they may also hinder. A physical space can carry the soul on pathways which other souls have imagined for her, along which she may glimpse things she never met before. But for the same reasons they can become confining, or, worse still, an end in themselves. We can begin to believe that only with the set of responses modeled by this place can a soul pray. Jesus said, “Believe me, the hour is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem… But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and truth…”
Thinking about architecture, what is the most vital human architecture today? Surely the internet, a vast cathedral where all souls meet! And its very indifference to all particular religious forms, to all local architectures, renders Jesus’ words more relevant than ever. The internet displaces human imagination from stones to the soul itself, to the endless medium of communication that is the very essence of human being.
A Christian prays in her soul, in the souls of her neighbors, in her dreams.
At the core of a Christian’s dreams is a yearning and a foretelling—of the time when the whole earth will be a universe of united souls.
Now is the time, therefore, when Christians search more and more deeply in their souls, in their neighbors’ souls, in their dreams, for the living connective tissue that will make that dream a reality.
Now is not the time, therefore, to put confidence in the stones of place, but rather in the meeting of souls, wherever that takes place. Now is the time even deliberately to abandon the stones of place in order to discover the meeting of souls.
To be free for the dream.
Tuesday, April 27, 2010
John #3
As well as the Gospel and letters of John this Bible study uses the book “Written that you may believe: Encountering Jesus in the fourth Gospel” by Sandra M. Schneiders (2003) Crossroad Publishing Co. New York, NY.
Background reading to study #3 Written that you may believe Ch. 6.
04/22/10
Women in John’s Gospel
Women play an important role in John’s Gospel. They have much greater prominence here than in the Synoptics. Luke brings women into his accounts, but in John they have extraordinarily prestigious roles. There is a subtle undermining of the male hierarchy found in the early tradition and even the other Gospels. In Paul’s account of the resurrection appearances of Jesus found in 1 Cor 15:5 (an account that he himself received – most probably from the Jerusalem church) Jesus appears first to Cephas, then to the twelve, then to five hundred brothers, then to James, and lastly to Paul himself. In this account the message is only given to men. In Matthew and the longer ending of Mark the first witnesses of the resurrection are women, but in John the first witness is exclusively Mary Magdalene and an extended scene of recognition is devoted to her. In John all the key moments include women with individual roles.
In Chapter 4 there is the account of Jesus’ encounter with the Samaritan woman at the well. In v. 28-30 & 39-42 she is described as the person who leads people to faith. “Come and see a man who has told me everything… can he be the Messiah?” In this she appears to fulfill Jesus’ commission made the night before he died. At that time he prays for his disciples (the “priestly prayer of Jesus”). In this prayer he leads his disciples into communion with himself and with the Father, through him. Then in Jn 17:20 he prays for those who will believe through the word of these disciples. The Samaritan woman has already modeled this for the disciples. In v. 24 he also prays that people will enter into a direct relationship with him, “to see (his) glory”. This woman, who is not even Jewish, has achieved this for her townspeople. Through her they have entered into this relationship, have believed for themselves and begun to see the glory of Christ. She stands in contrast to Nicodemus from the previous chapter who seeks Jesus by night and while he enters into conversation with Jesus, does not move forward in faith as she does.
The confession of the Christ Mt 16:16 by Peter at Caesarea Philippi is seen as the turning point of the Synoptic gospels. It gives Peter a tremendous prestige. In John’s Gospel this role is assumed by Martha of Bethany. In Jn 11:27 after the death of her brother, Lazarus, it is Martha who proclaims Jesus “the Messiah, the Son of God”. The woman at the well in Samaria makes a tentative question “Can he be the Messiah? For Martha there is no doubt. No man in John’s Gospel does anything equivalent.
The woman who anoints Jesus as Messiah ahead of his crucifixion is Mary of Bethany. She does not wait for an official priest or prophet but takes the role upon herself. Jn 11:5 identifies the only named persons in the Gospel whom Jesus loved – Mary, Martha and Lazarus. To some theologians they are therefore the best candidates for the historical figure of the beloved disciple. It is noteworthy that two of the three are women, and the man is placed last.
The key woman in the Gospel appears at the beginning and end of the Gospel. In Chapter 2:1-11 we have the account of the wedding at Cana. The wedding itself evokes the final image of the New Testament: the new Jerusalem descending like a bride adorned for her husband (Christ). The wedding at Cana is the first of the signs and marks the re-beginning of the Gospel (following the Prologue and the calling of the disciples). It takes place on the third day, the day of resurrection, anticipating the end of the Gospel. Conversely the garden scene at the end of the Gospel evokes both Eden and the New Jerusalem with its trees of life and healing.
The scene opens with the wine running out and Jesus’ mother asking Jesus to intervene. He replies “Woman what is this to you and to me?” adding that his hour has not yet come. This sounds like a semi-rebuke – we should not be getting involved. This semi-rejection reflects other accounts in the Synoptics where Jesus keeps his mother and brothers at a remove in order to establish a new community not based on ties of blood.
Strangely Jesus then acts counter to his words by working the miracle. The woman prompts him to act before he wants to. He produces an enormous quantity of wine (about 600 liters) and his glory is revealed. This seems to indicate that his hour has indeed come. The transformed wine is a symbol of the transformed earth. It symbolizes the joy of the resurrection.
So who is this woman? This figure’s primary importance is in her symbolism not as an historical figure. Traditionally this passage has been understood as Mary, the mother of Jesus, displaying her influence over her son. Why then does Jesus call her “Woman”— a term that would have been as strange then as today when addressing one’s mother?
At the foot of the cross in Jn 19:25-27 Jesus addresses the two key figures of the beloved disciple and the woman. He says “Woman here is your son” and to the disciple “here is your mother”. From that moment the beloved disciple “took her into his own” - that is brought her into close relationship. This has been read traditionally as Jesus looking out for his mother, Mary, as a dutiful son. Instead (as so much in the Gospel) this passage can only be read symbolically.
The word for disciple is masculine – there is no female form. Some modern scholars say that the male pronoun “he” and also the word “son” is used as a substitute for this male noun. There is no way of knowing from the text the gender of the beloved disciple. This had led some to identify Mary Magdalene as the beloved disciple here. This is corroborated by the Gospel accounts that state that all the male disciples scattered after Jesus’ arrest –with only the women remaining at the foot of the cross.
The significance of Jesus’ words is that the beloved disciple should enter in to a relationship with the woman. Theologian Raymond Brown argued that by bringing the woman into his home, this makes the beloved disciple a brother of Jesus. This seems trivial. If read at a wider level of symbolism, however, the meaning becomes deeper. The figure of the beloved disciple symbolizes both the reader, the one entering into relationship with Jesus through the Word, and also the new redeemed human community. The Woman is both Jesus’ mother (Mary) from whom Jesus was born. But she also stands for more than this – for the natural created order – the earth, nature, physical motherhood and God’s feminine Wisdom poured forth into all of this. At Cana she is the created order that brings forth Jesus. At the cross she becomes the earth redeemed from violence – embraced and transformed by the beloved disciple in a new creation in the shadow of the cross. She therefore represents the old creation on the way to transformation. The Christian disciple brings creation into relationship with her/himself in order to bring it to the perfection God intends.
Background reading to study #3 Written that you may believe Ch. 6.
04/22/10
Women in John’s Gospel
Women play an important role in John’s Gospel. They have much greater prominence here than in the Synoptics. Luke brings women into his accounts, but in John they have extraordinarily prestigious roles. There is a subtle undermining of the male hierarchy found in the early tradition and even the other Gospels. In Paul’s account of the resurrection appearances of Jesus found in 1 Cor 15:5 (an account that he himself received – most probably from the Jerusalem church) Jesus appears first to Cephas, then to the twelve, then to five hundred brothers, then to James, and lastly to Paul himself. In this account the message is only given to men. In Matthew and the longer ending of Mark the first witnesses of the resurrection are women, but in John the first witness is exclusively Mary Magdalene and an extended scene of recognition is devoted to her. In John all the key moments include women with individual roles.
In Chapter 4 there is the account of Jesus’ encounter with the Samaritan woman at the well. In v. 28-30 & 39-42 she is described as the person who leads people to faith. “Come and see a man who has told me everything… can he be the Messiah?” In this she appears to fulfill Jesus’ commission made the night before he died. At that time he prays for his disciples (the “priestly prayer of Jesus”). In this prayer he leads his disciples into communion with himself and with the Father, through him. Then in Jn 17:20 he prays for those who will believe through the word of these disciples. The Samaritan woman has already modeled this for the disciples. In v. 24 he also prays that people will enter into a direct relationship with him, “to see (his) glory”. This woman, who is not even Jewish, has achieved this for her townspeople. Through her they have entered into this relationship, have believed for themselves and begun to see the glory of Christ. She stands in contrast to Nicodemus from the previous chapter who seeks Jesus by night and while he enters into conversation with Jesus, does not move forward in faith as she does.
The confession of the Christ Mt 16:16 by Peter at Caesarea Philippi is seen as the turning point of the Synoptic gospels. It gives Peter a tremendous prestige. In John’s Gospel this role is assumed by Martha of Bethany. In Jn 11:27 after the death of her brother, Lazarus, it is Martha who proclaims Jesus “the Messiah, the Son of God”. The woman at the well in Samaria makes a tentative question “Can he be the Messiah? For Martha there is no doubt. No man in John’s Gospel does anything equivalent.
The woman who anoints Jesus as Messiah ahead of his crucifixion is Mary of Bethany. She does not wait for an official priest or prophet but takes the role upon herself. Jn 11:5 identifies the only named persons in the Gospel whom Jesus loved – Mary, Martha and Lazarus. To some theologians they are therefore the best candidates for the historical figure of the beloved disciple. It is noteworthy that two of the three are women, and the man is placed last.
The key woman in the Gospel appears at the beginning and end of the Gospel. In Chapter 2:1-11 we have the account of the wedding at Cana. The wedding itself evokes the final image of the New Testament: the new Jerusalem descending like a bride adorned for her husband (Christ). The wedding at Cana is the first of the signs and marks the re-beginning of the Gospel (following the Prologue and the calling of the disciples). It takes place on the third day, the day of resurrection, anticipating the end of the Gospel. Conversely the garden scene at the end of the Gospel evokes both Eden and the New Jerusalem with its trees of life and healing.
The scene opens with the wine running out and Jesus’ mother asking Jesus to intervene. He replies “Woman what is this to you and to me?” adding that his hour has not yet come. This sounds like a semi-rebuke – we should not be getting involved. This semi-rejection reflects other accounts in the Synoptics where Jesus keeps his mother and brothers at a remove in order to establish a new community not based on ties of blood.
Strangely Jesus then acts counter to his words by working the miracle. The woman prompts him to act before he wants to. He produces an enormous quantity of wine (about 600 liters) and his glory is revealed. This seems to indicate that his hour has indeed come. The transformed wine is a symbol of the transformed earth. It symbolizes the joy of the resurrection.
So who is this woman? This figure’s primary importance is in her symbolism not as an historical figure. Traditionally this passage has been understood as Mary, the mother of Jesus, displaying her influence over her son. Why then does Jesus call her “Woman”— a term that would have been as strange then as today when addressing one’s mother?
At the foot of the cross in Jn 19:25-27 Jesus addresses the two key figures of the beloved disciple and the woman. He says “Woman here is your son” and to the disciple “here is your mother”. From that moment the beloved disciple “took her into his own” - that is brought her into close relationship. This has been read traditionally as Jesus looking out for his mother, Mary, as a dutiful son. Instead (as so much in the Gospel) this passage can only be read symbolically.
The word for disciple is masculine – there is no female form. Some modern scholars say that the male pronoun “he” and also the word “son” is used as a substitute for this male noun. There is no way of knowing from the text the gender of the beloved disciple. This had led some to identify Mary Magdalene as the beloved disciple here. This is corroborated by the Gospel accounts that state that all the male disciples scattered after Jesus’ arrest –with only the women remaining at the foot of the cross.
The significance of Jesus’ words is that the beloved disciple should enter in to a relationship with the woman. Theologian Raymond Brown argued that by bringing the woman into his home, this makes the beloved disciple a brother of Jesus. This seems trivial. If read at a wider level of symbolism, however, the meaning becomes deeper. The figure of the beloved disciple symbolizes both the reader, the one entering into relationship with Jesus through the Word, and also the new redeemed human community. The Woman is both Jesus’ mother (Mary) from whom Jesus was born. But she also stands for more than this – for the natural created order – the earth, nature, physical motherhood and God’s feminine Wisdom poured forth into all of this. At Cana she is the created order that brings forth Jesus. At the cross she becomes the earth redeemed from violence – embraced and transformed by the beloved disciple in a new creation in the shadow of the cross. She therefore represents the old creation on the way to transformation. The Christian disciple brings creation into relationship with her/himself in order to bring it to the perfection God intends.
John #2
As well as the Gospel and letters of John this Bible study uses the book “Written that you may believe: Encountering Jesus in the fourth Gospel” by Sandra M. Schneiders (2003) Crossroad Publishing Co. New York, NY.
Background reading to study #2- Written that you may believe chapters 1&2.
04/15/10
The Prologue
The Prologue to John’s Gospel is found in Jn 1:1-18. In the pre-Vatican II Catholic Church this passage was included as part of the ritual at the end of every mass – demonstrating its importance. John’s prologue is often compared with the beginning of Genesis, “In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was a formless void…,” describing the beginning of the world. The Johannine Prologue has traditionally been used as the underpinning for doctrine – the teaching that Jesus pre-existed with the Father even before the creation of the world.
The Prologue gives Jesus immense status. Unlike the Synoptics, Jesus is not baptized by John in the Jordan – there is no need, his authority has already been proclaimed.
John’s prologue says that in the beginning was the Word. The Word essentially means communication. The end of John’s Gospel sees an inclusion re. the Word – though this time in written form—when it says that “these [signs] are written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah” (20:30-31; this is also reiterated in the revised ending in Chapter 21:24 “This is the disciple who is testifying to these things and has written them…”). (The inclusion leads you back to the beginning of the Gospel. Read in this way the Gospel is saying that the beginning of Christian life begins with the communication of the gospel message. Everything begins with the Word…
The Evangelist probably intended both meanings – the cosmic and pre-existent Christ and the concrete, present, life-transforming Jesus. By placing Jesus in both paradigms the evangelist describes the mystery of Jesus.
However, the Prologue, suggesting the pre-existence of Jesus, gave credence to the dualistic Gnostic heresies emerging at that time. These made Jesus more spiritual and removed. They believed that Jesus wasn’t really human. The subsequent letters of John seek to counter this belief. In the prologue of the first letter of John (1John1:1-4) the author takes pains to state that what is written comes from witnesses who saw, heard, touched and watched the human Jesus. The emphasis is on the physical senses. The message is that Jesus was real. The gospel is totally available to the physical realm and it is only through the physical world that fellowship with God is achieved. It is almost like a correction to the tendency towards the “spiritual” found in the Gospel’s prologue.
The Johannine letters proceed to challenge the Gnostic claims . In 1 John 1:8-10 the author states that those who say that they have no sin deceive themselves and make Jesus a liar. Gnostics, who divided the world into spiritual (good) and physical (bad), could make that claim. If truth and meaning is found only in the spiritual world then the physical realm is meaningless and whatever takes place in it insignificant. This is a belief that continues today in Christian fundamentalism and in new age religions; in any religion or faith that seeks escape into the purely spiritual and fails to see the spirit at work in and through the world. What makes you a Christian is love, and this love in communion with the concrete other (koinonia).
In 1 John 4:1-3 the author states that the Spirit of God is known because it confesses that Jesus came in the flesh. Flesh here is used to denote the physical body, not the Pauline understanding of the powers and systems of world.
In 2 John 7 the author calls those that do not confess that Jesus came in the flesh to be deceivers and antichrist.
In 1 Jn 3: 11-17 the message of the gospel is of love. We know we have passed from death to life because we love one another. This is not a hidden knowledge or a spiritual sense. Rather it is a lived experience. In v.17 it goes on to say that you can’t be spiritual and be unjust to the poor.
The Gnostic crisis was the first that the Johannine community had to face. A second crisis can also be discerned from the Johannine letters. This was a crisis in its relationship to the emerging hierarchical church. The second letter opens with an address to “the elder to the elect lady and her children”. The Johannine community would be the elect lady (with Jesus as her Lord). The local community understood itself in intense relational terms as the bride of the Lord. 3 John 2-8 paints a picture of people being sent from one community of the beloved to another, sharing a message of brotherhood and sisterhood. In v. 9 a figure (Diotrephes) is discussed. He is an official of the church (possibly the Petrine Church) who refuses to recognize the status of the Johannine sisters and brothers and refuses to welcome them as friends. They are not officially licensed – and are therefore expelled. The letter goes on to reaffirm the Johannine community – it is through love rather than obedience to an organization that true authority comes.
This letter illustrates the tension between the Johannine community and the emerging hierarchical church. On the one hand the community understands the need to establish a relationship with the Petrine church – standing with them against Gnosticism. On the other hand they have a very different focus and anti-hierarchical structure founded in Christian fellowship. John does not use the word church (ecclesia), except in 3 John 6 and 9 (which is possibly distant in tone), preferring “communion” (koinonia) and love. In the second ending to the Gospel (Ch 22) Peter is reinstated and his pastoral role recognized (although he is not the shepherd); but in v.22 there is a hint in Jesus’ response to Peter of a continued difference in the Johannine community. When Peter asks about the Beloved disciple Jesus replies “what is that to you?” suggesting that the Johannine community should be given space to retain its identity and sense of communion—i.e. “remain until I come.” Peter should focus on following the Lord. There is a subtle critique of Petrine authority. Similarly in the empty tomb narrative, while Peter is the first to go inside the tomb, it is the Beloved disciple who gets there first!
Background reading to study #2- Written that you may believe chapters 1&2.
04/15/10
The Prologue
The Prologue to John’s Gospel is found in Jn 1:1-18. In the pre-Vatican II Catholic Church this passage was included as part of the ritual at the end of every mass – demonstrating its importance. John’s prologue is often compared with the beginning of Genesis, “In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was a formless void…,” describing the beginning of the world. The Johannine Prologue has traditionally been used as the underpinning for doctrine – the teaching that Jesus pre-existed with the Father even before the creation of the world.
The Prologue gives Jesus immense status. Unlike the Synoptics, Jesus is not baptized by John in the Jordan – there is no need, his authority has already been proclaimed.
John’s prologue says that in the beginning was the Word. The Word essentially means communication. The end of John’s Gospel sees an inclusion re. the Word – though this time in written form—when it says that “these [signs] are written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah” (20:30-31; this is also reiterated in the revised ending in Chapter 21:24 “This is the disciple who is testifying to these things and has written them…”). (The inclusion leads you back to the beginning of the Gospel. Read in this way the Gospel is saying that the beginning of Christian life begins with the communication of the gospel message. Everything begins with the Word…
The Evangelist probably intended both meanings – the cosmic and pre-existent Christ and the concrete, present, life-transforming Jesus. By placing Jesus in both paradigms the evangelist describes the mystery of Jesus.
However, the Prologue, suggesting the pre-existence of Jesus, gave credence to the dualistic Gnostic heresies emerging at that time. These made Jesus more spiritual and removed. They believed that Jesus wasn’t really human. The subsequent letters of John seek to counter this belief. In the prologue of the first letter of John (1John1:1-4) the author takes pains to state that what is written comes from witnesses who saw, heard, touched and watched the human Jesus. The emphasis is on the physical senses. The message is that Jesus was real. The gospel is totally available to the physical realm and it is only through the physical world that fellowship with God is achieved. It is almost like a correction to the tendency towards the “spiritual” found in the Gospel’s prologue.
The Johannine letters proceed to challenge the Gnostic claims . In 1 John 1:8-10 the author states that those who say that they have no sin deceive themselves and make Jesus a liar. Gnostics, who divided the world into spiritual (good) and physical (bad), could make that claim. If truth and meaning is found only in the spiritual world then the physical realm is meaningless and whatever takes place in it insignificant. This is a belief that continues today in Christian fundamentalism and in new age religions; in any religion or faith that seeks escape into the purely spiritual and fails to see the spirit at work in and through the world. What makes you a Christian is love, and this love in communion with the concrete other (koinonia).
In 1 John 4:1-3 the author states that the Spirit of God is known because it confesses that Jesus came in the flesh. Flesh here is used to denote the physical body, not the Pauline understanding of the powers and systems of world.
In 2 John 7 the author calls those that do not confess that Jesus came in the flesh to be deceivers and antichrist.
In 1 Jn 3: 11-17 the message of the gospel is of love. We know we have passed from death to life because we love one another. This is not a hidden knowledge or a spiritual sense. Rather it is a lived experience. In v.17 it goes on to say that you can’t be spiritual and be unjust to the poor.
The Gnostic crisis was the first that the Johannine community had to face. A second crisis can also be discerned from the Johannine letters. This was a crisis in its relationship to the emerging hierarchical church. The second letter opens with an address to “the elder to the elect lady and her children”. The Johannine community would be the elect lady (with Jesus as her Lord). The local community understood itself in intense relational terms as the bride of the Lord. 3 John 2-8 paints a picture of people being sent from one community of the beloved to another, sharing a message of brotherhood and sisterhood. In v. 9 a figure (Diotrephes) is discussed. He is an official of the church (possibly the Petrine Church) who refuses to recognize the status of the Johannine sisters and brothers and refuses to welcome them as friends. They are not officially licensed – and are therefore expelled. The letter goes on to reaffirm the Johannine community – it is through love rather than obedience to an organization that true authority comes.
This letter illustrates the tension between the Johannine community and the emerging hierarchical church. On the one hand the community understands the need to establish a relationship with the Petrine church – standing with them against Gnosticism. On the other hand they have a very different focus and anti-hierarchical structure founded in Christian fellowship. John does not use the word church (ecclesia), except in 3 John 6 and 9 (which is possibly distant in tone), preferring “communion” (koinonia) and love. In the second ending to the Gospel (Ch 22) Peter is reinstated and his pastoral role recognized (although he is not the shepherd); but in v.22 there is a hint in Jesus’ response to Peter of a continued difference in the Johannine community. When Peter asks about the Beloved disciple Jesus replies “what is that to you?” suggesting that the Johannine community should be given space to retain its identity and sense of communion—i.e. “remain until I come.” Peter should focus on following the Lord. There is a subtle critique of Petrine authority. Similarly in the empty tomb narrative, while Peter is the first to go inside the tomb, it is the Beloved disciple who gets there first!
John #1
Welcome to the new Bible study - this one on the writings of John. We meet every week and my plan is to post a summary within a few days of each of the studies. Here to begin are the first three study summaries ...
As well as the Gospel and letters of John this Bible study uses the book “Written that you may believe: Encountering Jesus in the fourth Gospel” by Sandra M. Schneiders (New York, NY: Crossroad Publishing, 2003).
Background reading to study #1- Written that you may believe chapters 1&2.
04/08/10
The Johannine Community
John’s Gospel is the last of the canonical Gospels to be written and stands apart from the Synoptics in style and material. (For example the ministry of Jesus in Matthew, Mark and Luke lasts a year, in John three years). It offers a non-hierarchical and non-traditional source of New Testament authority, apart from the figures of Paul or Peter. This authority lies in the witness and relationship with Jesus of the beloved disciple.
In John’s Gospel the beloved disciple is the central figure apart from Jesus. S/he is the witness to the material – the person around whom the material gathers and who guarantees its authenticity. The beloved disciple takes a pivotal role but is not identified in the Gospel. Traditionally the beloved disciple has been associated with John, the son of Zebedee. In John’s Gospel Jesus uses signs to communicate his message. This has especially loaded meaning in John, but also in the Synoptics Jesus works through signs. Jesus chose twelve men to represent the twelve tribes of Israel. However, in contrast to the Synoptic Gospels the twelve are only mentioned once and not in association with the initial call of disciples. And no authority is given them. In light of this, recent scholarship tends not to associate the beloved disciple with one of the twelve.
The beloved disciple was most probably someone who lived for many years in a Christian community which was originally based in Palestine (Israel) but perhaps later relocated to Ephesus in Asia Minor. The Gospel, though based on the reflections and memories of this individual, was probably written by someone else. The evangelist was probably a younger, second generation member of the Johannine community. Gospels emerge within the context from which they are written. They are shaped by the needs of these communities and the audience they are targeting. The features of the Johannine community identified by the theologian Raymond Brown are as follows:
The original community was probably made up of highly motivated Jews such as the followers of John the Baptist described in Jn 1and 3. Though highly religious they were not zealots. They would most likely have included Galileans and lived outside of Jerusalem. At some point a significant number of Samaritans joined the community. Samaritans were some of the first to receive the gospel (Acts 8:4-8) – the story of the woman at the well provides the Gospel’s evidence for this. Also joining the community were Diaspora Jews – Jews who had settled outside Israel without ties to Jerusalem. Gentiles were the final group to join.
Brown argues that because of the prominence given to women in the Gospel of John that the original community would likely have had a strong female leadership. Sandra Schneiders argues that the beloved disciple was a woman – possibly Mary Magdalene. The Evangelist could also have been a woman – or if not, then an enlightened man, sympathetic to women. (The role of women in the Gospel will be explored more fully in a later study).
The beloved disciple, while based on a historical figure, is not identified, creating an open set or cipher. The “beloved disciple” becomes a literary device – a representative figure with which the reader can identify. In this way the beloved disciple becomes the means by which the reader is drawn into the Gospel and into a relationship with Jesus. This relationship lies at the heart of the Gospel.
The Johannine community was, therefore, a non-hierarchical community that existed independently from the Jerusalem church. It did not promote priesthood or hierarchical leadership but instilled a direct communion with Christ.
Probably after the death of the beloved disciple the text is edited and an additional ending added – Chapter 21. This story – of Jesus meeting the disciples on the sea of Galilee and the rehabilitation of Peter – is an attempt by the Johannine community to build a relationship with the emerging hierarchical church. In part this was an effort by the Johannine community to counter the growing challenge of an early form of Gnosticism. Gnosticism, influenced heavily by Greek thought, believed that the body was an empty shell. This form of thought typically denied the bodily incarnation of Jesus – that Jesus was really human, suffered and died. The Johannine letters, written after the Gospel around 100 CE/AD, address this by stressing the human, physical Jesus.
By aligning with the Petrine church, the Johannine community was affirming its belief in the fully human Jesus and the bodily resurrection. The second ending gives Peter a pastoral role and in so doing indicates that the Johannine community were accepting the pastoral role of the Petrine church. However the ending is also written in such a way that it allowed the community to retain their own unique identity and spiritual independence.
As well as the Gospel and letters of John this Bible study uses the book “Written that you may believe: Encountering Jesus in the fourth Gospel” by Sandra M. Schneiders (New York, NY: Crossroad Publishing, 2003).
Background reading to study #1- Written that you may believe chapters 1&2.
04/08/10
The Johannine Community
John’s Gospel is the last of the canonical Gospels to be written and stands apart from the Synoptics in style and material. (For example the ministry of Jesus in Matthew, Mark and Luke lasts a year, in John three years). It offers a non-hierarchical and non-traditional source of New Testament authority, apart from the figures of Paul or Peter. This authority lies in the witness and relationship with Jesus of the beloved disciple.
In John’s Gospel the beloved disciple is the central figure apart from Jesus. S/he is the witness to the material – the person around whom the material gathers and who guarantees its authenticity. The beloved disciple takes a pivotal role but is not identified in the Gospel. Traditionally the beloved disciple has been associated with John, the son of Zebedee. In John’s Gospel Jesus uses signs to communicate his message. This has especially loaded meaning in John, but also in the Synoptics Jesus works through signs. Jesus chose twelve men to represent the twelve tribes of Israel. However, in contrast to the Synoptic Gospels the twelve are only mentioned once and not in association with the initial call of disciples. And no authority is given them. In light of this, recent scholarship tends not to associate the beloved disciple with one of the twelve.
The beloved disciple was most probably someone who lived for many years in a Christian community which was originally based in Palestine (Israel) but perhaps later relocated to Ephesus in Asia Minor. The Gospel, though based on the reflections and memories of this individual, was probably written by someone else. The evangelist was probably a younger, second generation member of the Johannine community. Gospels emerge within the context from which they are written. They are shaped by the needs of these communities and the audience they are targeting. The features of the Johannine community identified by the theologian Raymond Brown are as follows:
The original community was probably made up of highly motivated Jews such as the followers of John the Baptist described in Jn 1and 3. Though highly religious they were not zealots. They would most likely have included Galileans and lived outside of Jerusalem. At some point a significant number of Samaritans joined the community. Samaritans were some of the first to receive the gospel (Acts 8:4-8) – the story of the woman at the well provides the Gospel’s evidence for this. Also joining the community were Diaspora Jews – Jews who had settled outside Israel without ties to Jerusalem. Gentiles were the final group to join.
Brown argues that because of the prominence given to women in the Gospel of John that the original community would likely have had a strong female leadership. Sandra Schneiders argues that the beloved disciple was a woman – possibly Mary Magdalene. The Evangelist could also have been a woman – or if not, then an enlightened man, sympathetic to women. (The role of women in the Gospel will be explored more fully in a later study).
The beloved disciple, while based on a historical figure, is not identified, creating an open set or cipher. The “beloved disciple” becomes a literary device – a representative figure with which the reader can identify. In this way the beloved disciple becomes the means by which the reader is drawn into the Gospel and into a relationship with Jesus. This relationship lies at the heart of the Gospel.
The Johannine community was, therefore, a non-hierarchical community that existed independently from the Jerusalem church. It did not promote priesthood or hierarchical leadership but instilled a direct communion with Christ.
Probably after the death of the beloved disciple the text is edited and an additional ending added – Chapter 21. This story – of Jesus meeting the disciples on the sea of Galilee and the rehabilitation of Peter – is an attempt by the Johannine community to build a relationship with the emerging hierarchical church. In part this was an effort by the Johannine community to counter the growing challenge of an early form of Gnosticism. Gnosticism, influenced heavily by Greek thought, believed that the body was an empty shell. This form of thought typically denied the bodily incarnation of Jesus – that Jesus was really human, suffered and died. The Johannine letters, written after the Gospel around 100 CE/AD, address this by stressing the human, physical Jesus.
By aligning with the Petrine church, the Johannine community was affirming its belief in the fully human Jesus and the bodily resurrection. The second ending gives Peter a pastoral role and in so doing indicates that the Johannine community were accepting the pastoral role of the Petrine church. However the ending is also written in such a way that it allowed the community to retain their own unique identity and spiritual independence.
Saturday, April 17, 2010
Mother Teresa's Foot
I think I finally got it figured out. No, really. This whole thing with the RC church, and using Girard’s theory of course, it’s made me focus down on the problem of desire.
There can be no doubt that desire is imitative and violent. (Quick big frame example: Mr. Ahmadinejad wants a nuclear weapon. Why? Because everyone else has one. If you’ve never encountered Girard before check the study page on this site.)
Way back, in the very first springs of human development this violent desire gets impacted into human culture through myth and ritual forms of all sorts. Rules and hierarchy are very important too. What results is that humans don’t know which end is up. They think violence is part of the order of things. In fact it is divine. You can know the gods by their cosmic violence. And so the whole of society follows suit.
Something new had to come into the world in order to break wide open this rigged system. The name of the new thing is Jesus and the fore-giveness he shows. Because of Jesus it is always possible for individuals to live in a Holy Spirit of love, free of the kingdoms of death that rule this world. But, exactly, the whole world remains a dense system of violence. It takes centuries and centuries to break down its apparatus of falsehood, let alone the violence by which it lives.
I believe that is actually happening, but in the meantime it does not solve the problem of desire for a believer, and that’s what the focus is here.
Imitation of the other could not happen unless there was an even more primordial unity with the other. How would we want what the other wants unless we’re somehow already linked, unless somehow I am already the other person and the other person is me? So there is in fact a more original at-traction or drawing together of me and the other. The fact that it quickly becomes competitive does not negate its original condition. At the organic and sub-organic level it goes without saying that this huge force of attraction exists. I will call this primordial attraction “eros” to distinguish it from desire.
In the past Christians, once they have learned the message of forgiveness and love, have pointed their eros at heaven. That’s the place where it will be possible to release and experience fully the aboriginal unity of all things. In the RC church this has been the case but, at the same time, they also pointed the eros toward themselves, toward their concrete forms, and that is one of the key things that marked out this tradition and has led to its profound crisis.
I do think scripture intends us to recognize and actively seek earthly eros. It can only be done in a heart free of violence and it will express itself in service, justice and peace, but it is real, physical and intended for creation. I think the “woman” of the Johannine writings, in all her multiple realizations, is a figure of this physical eros. At the point of the cross, standing under it, creation is freed from violence, and the disciple is brought into relation with her as his mother. The disciple accepts the woman into his/her closest life. Then at the end of the bible the whole earth becomes this woman, the New Jerusalem come down out of heaven as a bride of Christ. God and Christ are themselves in the most powerful erotic relation with the earth.
So now back to the crisis in the RC church. The RC tradition in some measure relied on this eros to make celibacy work. The priest loves the people and the people love the priest. But it was all mixed up with power and militancy against the world, and with societal changes in the 20th century it became more and more actively corrupt. That’s the way I see it. I think the crisis in the RC church is a crisis of eros and it simply cannot be resolved in the present set-up of the church in this present moment of history. The forms of eros in our contemporary world are far too diverse, multiple, subtle and generative to be ever contained in the strategy of celibacy devised in the eleventh and twelfth centuries.
But that does not mean that true Christian eros for this earth has gone away. No, it is more vital and real than ever. Against the collapse of clericalism on the one hand and Left Behind violence on the other communities of emerging Christianity will practice a true physical eros, a closeness to the earth and to each other, without violence but also without separation. Only communities of such fullness of life will be able to embrace the rampant eros of the modern world and transform it into love, through and through. I look forward to a time when Christian leadership will express itself in real Christ-like humble proximity to the physical, to the world’s pain and, even more deeply, to the world’s joy, its longing for union with itself.
I once had a long one-on-one conversation with Mother Teresa. We talked about the church for over an hour. It was my big moment, my dancing-with-the-stars in the Catholic stratosphere. The content of the conversation doesn’t much matter—in fact I didn’t really get answers—but what was fascinating was being with this woman who had an immense passion for the physical world expressed in service to the poor. The most impressive thing was the power of her passion, which was humble but galactic in weight. Being next to her was how I would imagine the experience of being a small spaceship circling a giant star, being pulled into her orbit. At one point I noticed her foot extending beneath her sari. I could see the bones and the blue veins and I became fixed on it. She saw me looking and quickly pulled her foot back. But the image is sealed in my mind and I think it’s because it was so physical. The whole weight of this woman’s eros was expressed in it. I’m always longing for Mother Teresa’s foot.
Tony
There can be no doubt that desire is imitative and violent. (Quick big frame example: Mr. Ahmadinejad wants a nuclear weapon. Why? Because everyone else has one. If you’ve never encountered Girard before check the study page on this site.)
Way back, in the very first springs of human development this violent desire gets impacted into human culture through myth and ritual forms of all sorts. Rules and hierarchy are very important too. What results is that humans don’t know which end is up. They think violence is part of the order of things. In fact it is divine. You can know the gods by their cosmic violence. And so the whole of society follows suit.
Something new had to come into the world in order to break wide open this rigged system. The name of the new thing is Jesus and the fore-giveness he shows. Because of Jesus it is always possible for individuals to live in a Holy Spirit of love, free of the kingdoms of death that rule this world. But, exactly, the whole world remains a dense system of violence. It takes centuries and centuries to break down its apparatus of falsehood, let alone the violence by which it lives.
I believe that is actually happening, but in the meantime it does not solve the problem of desire for a believer, and that’s what the focus is here.
Imitation of the other could not happen unless there was an even more primordial unity with the other. How would we want what the other wants unless we’re somehow already linked, unless somehow I am already the other person and the other person is me? So there is in fact a more original at-traction or drawing together of me and the other. The fact that it quickly becomes competitive does not negate its original condition. At the organic and sub-organic level it goes without saying that this huge force of attraction exists. I will call this primordial attraction “eros” to distinguish it from desire.
In the past Christians, once they have learned the message of forgiveness and love, have pointed their eros at heaven. That’s the place where it will be possible to release and experience fully the aboriginal unity of all things. In the RC church this has been the case but, at the same time, they also pointed the eros toward themselves, toward their concrete forms, and that is one of the key things that marked out this tradition and has led to its profound crisis.
I do think scripture intends us to recognize and actively seek earthly eros. It can only be done in a heart free of violence and it will express itself in service, justice and peace, but it is real, physical and intended for creation. I think the “woman” of the Johannine writings, in all her multiple realizations, is a figure of this physical eros. At the point of the cross, standing under it, creation is freed from violence, and the disciple is brought into relation with her as his mother. The disciple accepts the woman into his/her closest life. Then at the end of the bible the whole earth becomes this woman, the New Jerusalem come down out of heaven as a bride of Christ. God and Christ are themselves in the most powerful erotic relation with the earth.
So now back to the crisis in the RC church. The RC tradition in some measure relied on this eros to make celibacy work. The priest loves the people and the people love the priest. But it was all mixed up with power and militancy against the world, and with societal changes in the 20th century it became more and more actively corrupt. That’s the way I see it. I think the crisis in the RC church is a crisis of eros and it simply cannot be resolved in the present set-up of the church in this present moment of history. The forms of eros in our contemporary world are far too diverse, multiple, subtle and generative to be ever contained in the strategy of celibacy devised in the eleventh and twelfth centuries.
But that does not mean that true Christian eros for this earth has gone away. No, it is more vital and real than ever. Against the collapse of clericalism on the one hand and Left Behind violence on the other communities of emerging Christianity will practice a true physical eros, a closeness to the earth and to each other, without violence but also without separation. Only communities of such fullness of life will be able to embrace the rampant eros of the modern world and transform it into love, through and through. I look forward to a time when Christian leadership will express itself in real Christ-like humble proximity to the physical, to the world’s pain and, even more deeply, to the world’s joy, its longing for union with itself.
I once had a long one-on-one conversation with Mother Teresa. We talked about the church for over an hour. It was my big moment, my dancing-with-the-stars in the Catholic stratosphere. The content of the conversation doesn’t much matter—in fact I didn’t really get answers—but what was fascinating was being with this woman who had an immense passion for the physical world expressed in service to the poor. The most impressive thing was the power of her passion, which was humble but galactic in weight. Being next to her was how I would imagine the experience of being a small spaceship circling a giant star, being pulled into her orbit. At one point I noticed her foot extending beneath her sari. I could see the bones and the blue veins and I became fixed on it. She saw me looking and quickly pulled her foot back. But the image is sealed in my mind and I think it’s because it was so physical. The whole weight of this woman’s eros was expressed in it. I’m always longing for Mother Teresa’s foot.
Tony
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