The Relevance Of Our Irrelevance (And Vice Versa)

by Chris Haw

The Judeo-Christian tradition, then, at its core represents a radical reorientation — or even deliberate disorientation — toward what is “in.” Jesus accepted none of the cynical acquiescence of the cultural “joiners”; he did not care that Rome represented “where the world was headed,” nor did he buy into the zealous urge to “save” Israel by fighting for it. Both of those shallow options fail to join into the creative nature of God, which is marked by enemy-love and peculiar difference from the world. Otherwise, one is still blinded by the false hopes of defending civilization — which, judging from the Bible, is not the highest of God’s priorities. Jesus’ cynicism and hope were more radical: if you seek to save your life you will lose it, and only those who lose their life for God’s Way will find it.

For those who are concerned about some of the currents of postmodern philosophy — of which I know only little — the above perspective seems to be a hopeful offering to the discussion. Continental philosophy has been dominated for some years now by the discussion of the “other” and “difference.” Among the many reasons for the presence of this trend, I suppose, is a desired liberation from the universal and dominating power of Christendom. People are eager for diversity — a principle based on peculiarity, on being different, on having something weird and unique to offer the world. The Babel-Tower story mentioned above represents only the tip of the iceberg for revisiting the Bible’s preference for diversity and decentralization.¹⁵

But “diversity” is not an easy tension to figure out. Many of us are aware of the fact that Christianity, especially in its period of power- Christendom, has often included European culture intrinsically with the gospel package. To become a Christian often meant speaking, eating, working, and worshiping like the Roman or Byzantine elite wanted — and often, paying taxes to them. Is there any way to dissolve that dubious partnership without divorcing Christianity from its necessary economic/political embodiments? After all, there is a doubtless majority emerging in the church: that Christianity must affect one’s entire life in every way. This entails a radical reconstruction of what is known as “religion.” It can no longer remain a special category of holiness in one’s life. It must include where you get your food, how you transport yourself, and how you conduct your daily business.

This is an important point for the church today. I have heard many Christians proudly proclaim that they are spiritual but not religious. While I understand the sentiment, I interpret this to often mean that they leave their religious and economic affairs up to global capitalism. This is the life-pattern that all of us are swimming in, for better or worse, and there is no simple way to come out of it, or even exist in some tension with it. I suppose after determining how difficult it would be to maintain any lifestyle of integrity in the face of global industrial capitalism’s power, most of us assume that it cannot be a hill to die on. Surely “religion” is not worth it. Purity codes and prohibited activities are for the old school. We want clean, robed, sophisticated Platonism — a divorce of the sacred and secular — not that messy, Hebrew, locusteating, desert-wandering style. We want the salvation of “spirituality,” a matter not burdened with concerns around actual economic activity.

So, in talking about peculiarity, I am trying to talk about agriculture and economy. I know that sounds weird, but that’s where much of the Torah needed to turn to elaborate a creative alternative vision. Economy — as with the Babel-Tower story and Revelation¹⁶ — represents one of the premiere places where the integrity and health of communities is at stake. It is the place where sin is most publicly and habitually committed. I am taking cues here from one of my favorite writers, Wendell Berry. Because he is talking about what he considers “the most urgent posed to those would adhere to the Bible,” I would like to quote him at length:

‘The sense of the holiness of life’ is not compatible with an exploitive economy. You cannot know that life is holy if you are content to live from economic practices that daily destroy life and diminish its possibility. And many if not most Christian organizations now appear to be perfectly at peace with the military-industrial economy and its ‘scientific’ destruction of life. Surely, if we are to remain free, and if we are to remain true to our religious inheritances, we must maintain a separation between church and state. But if we are to maintain any sense or coherence or meaning in our lives, we cannot tolerate the present utter disconnection between religion and economy. By ‘economy’ I do not mean ‘economics,’ which is the study of money-making, but rather the ways of human housekeeping, the ways by which the human household is situated and maintained within the household of Nature. To be uninterested in economy is to be uninterested in the practice of religion; it is to be uninterested in culture and in character.

Probably the most urgent question now faced by people who would adhere to the Bible is this: What sort of economy would be responsible to the holiness of life? What, for Christians, would be the economy, the practices and the restraints, of ‘right livelihood’? I do not believe that organized Christianity now has any idea. I think its idea of a Christian economy is no more or less than the industrial economy — which is an economy firmly founded upon the seven deadly sins and the breaking of all ten of the Ten Commandments. Obviously, if Christianity is going to survive as more than a respecter and comforter of profitable iniquities, then Christians, regardless of their organizations, are going to have to interest themselves in economy — which is to say, in nature and in work. They are going to have to give workable answers to those who say we cannot live without this economy that is destroying us and our world, who see the murder of Creation as the only way of life.¹⁷

The contradicting power of this quote lies in the fact that we in the church have little to no capacity to think of the world in any other way than it exists now. We are not only guilty of that lack of imagination, but we also find numerous ways to justify in God’s name all of the iniquities of our civilization. In other words, Christians have dramatically, dangerously, and radically lost the vision that Abraham and Sarah received from God. It is time to regain it. The loss of Christianity’s status in the political and social realms only helps clear the ground for this regaining; we don’t need to feel responsible to run the world’s empires and markets, but simply to be faithful in the small daily acts of integrity.

VOTING EVERYDAY

But on these counts I am barely crossing the threshold; I am only beginning to see the connections. For me, blessing the world in the small-mustardseed- Abrahamic style has sometimes meant a literal practice of applying seed. When I have taken the time with my community in Camden to plant vegetables I not only track back to Jeremiah’s injunction to those in exile (see below), but I feel that I am making the world better. By contributing that little bit less to the toxic cartel of agribusiness (and agro-chemicals), the world is given one more chance to breathe. Whenever I take my bike instead of a car, I believe I am taking direct action for the sake of Darfur — as increased desertification is one of the many complications that we in affluent countries promulgate while sending off well-intentioned e-petitions and email forwards.¹⁸ (And I feel so much healthier!) When I buy local milk or eggs, I know that I have not produced demand for another complicated and polluting process to take place for the sake of my stomach — rather, I have chipped in a tiny vote for a saner world. If I hang out my laundry, I think about the polar bears that God so loves and would rather not have them swim longer than they need to (due to rising water temperatures and melting ice caps). Or, I just think about how polluted my city is and how it doesn’t need another person using more energy he needs. Some would call me an idealist, but in the spirit of Jeremiah, it is the small acts of goodness that build a world of integrity and goodness: “build houses and settle down; plant gardens and eat what they produce. Marry and have sons and daughters...Also, seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you into exile. Pray to the Lord for it, because if it prospers, you too will prosper.” (Jeremiah 29:5-8 TNIV).

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Comments

Tim Leonard

My understanding of Jesus is that he was of Israel, the Northern Tribes, not Judah, the southern tribes that insisted upon a King and a temple. Israelites, as I recall, tried to be faithful to the desert, where God was -- exemplified in the feast of Succoth. When he entered Jerusalem on an ass, it was guerilla theater shining a light on the fact that Temple Worship and the corruption of the priests would destroy Israel. Some Jewish friends of mine understand the current State of Israel in the same way.

The Torah, then, written during the period of and within the culture of Judah is an admixture of justice, peace and bellicosity. (Kind of like Irish Catholicism.)

After 75 years of unprecedented peace with the indigenous tribes of Pennsylvania, the French and Indian War broke out, and the Pennsylvania Assembly was under pressure to join in. The Quakers who had dominated the assembly until that time withdrew, and became a people "apart." And yet, they did not abandon their commitment to the gospel, educating girls, blacks, and Indians, and writing tracts that eventually caught the attention of the British Parliament to abandon the slave trade.

Being in the world but not of the world is far from easy. Individuals and communities need to sort out how to resist the Powers -- how to be Israelites, as was Jesus.

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