Matt Shafer's blog

[Originally published here]

Today, I read My Name is Rachel Corrie. This short play, edited by Katharine Viner and Alan Rickman, is drawn from the diaries and emails of Rachel Corrie, an American killed in Palestine while nonviolently defending a civilian house from destruction by the Israeli military in 2003. The play was performed on London's West End and has seen some limited productions in America, though it has engendered controversy because of its frank attitude towards the reality of the ongoing violence being perpetrated against civilians in Israel's occupation of Palestine.

The work is deeply moving: a sad yet inspiring look at the life and death of a passionate child who became an equally passionate adult. The text of the play comes directly from Rachel's own journals and letters (with the exception of a few letters sent to her, and minimal stage directions). Her writing comprises sometimes prose, sometimes lists, sometimes poetry -- but whatever the form, it remains throughout poignant and compelling, drawing the reader into Rachel's world and into the development of her ideas and emotions. At the end, I felt not as though I had met a character on a stage, but had actually grown to know, in whatever small way, the person behind the words.

Theses on the American Church and the health-care crisis.

1. The current system of health care in America is broken. It is driven by profit, not by people; our application of greed-based capitalistic principles to this basic human need has succeeded only in creating structures that place the financial gain of insurers above the medical needs of patients. This is, undoubtedly, a great evil.
2. The Jesus of the canonical gospels emphasized both ministry to and solidarity with the downtrodden, the marginalized, and the poor.
3. Those among whom Jesus walked included the sick, and indeed in Luke 4:18-19, where the social implications of Jesus' message become clear, the giving of sight to the blind is listed side-by-side with the preaching of good news to the poor and with the liberation of the oppressed.
4. In America today, the health-care crisis has marginalized many, struck others into poverty, and taken its worst toll upon those who are already among the "least of these". These are precisely the people with whom Jesus expressed solidarity. We too, as the Church in America, must take their side.
5. Thus, the American Church must unite around the cause of providing adequate health care for all according to their need.

to all the happily married fathers, devoted to wife and children in a happy home –
to all the single fathers, striving alone to meet the needs of their children –
to all the remarried fathers, parenting as best they can in the tumult of modern divorce law –
to all the widowed fathers, raising their children in the midst of loss –
to all the gay fathers, dedicated to their children despite a culture that questions the legitimacy of their parenthood –
to all the adoptive fathers, fostering a love no different from any other –
to all the fathers by marriage, navigating with love the uncertainty of step-parenthood –
to all fathers, of all kinds, in places –

Happy Father’s Day.

Robert Jensen (not to be confused with Robert Jenson) is a journalism professor at the University of Texas in Austin. His most recent book, All My Bones Shake, is a departure from his previous works: it is a book of political theology, whereas most of his previous works have been on more secular topics. He writes now explicitly as a layperson rather than an expert, bringing a fresh perspective to divisive and complicated issues.

Subtitled "Seeking a Progressive Path to the Prophetic Voice", All My Bones Shake presents a new approach to the integration of faith and public life. Jensen has a unique perspective, having been an outsider to the Church for much of his life. The book is very thought-provoking, containing a diversity of valuable insights and intriguing analysis. Much could be discussed in a review of the book, but I want to focus primarily on two aspects: Jensen's unconventional theology, and his fascinating analysis of fundamentalism.

1. The Nature of Jensen's Personal Faith

Being the dork that I am, I went to see Star Trek last night. It was very well-done; the effects were spectacular, the characters were instantly recognizable, the acting was superb. The movie gave new life to Kirk, Spock, and the other heroes of the original series, and opened up a lot of possibilities for future exploration. In my Theology of Watchmen post a couple months back, I wrote that "like any narrative of artistic merit, Watchmen, as both film and graphic novel, raises profound theological questions." The same, of course, is true of the new Star Trek film.

Properly understood, the Church functions as a community that:

1. Embodies an alternative ethics of nonviolence and transformation, rather than violence and destruction. We overcome evil through good. (Matthew 5.38ff; Luke 6.27ff; Romans 12.14ff)
2. Embodies an alternative identity and allegiance in a Kingdom that is not of this world but is present in it. We act as witness to and dissident from Empire and Nation-State. (John 18.36; Luke 17.20f)
3. Embodies an alternative economics of generosity rather than greed, of Jubilee rather than exploitation. We give freely and forgive debts as ours have been forgiven. (Matthew 6.19; Luke 4.19; Acts 2.44ff)

Recently I've been reading J. Denny Weaver's The Nonviolent Atonement, an exploration of atonement from an Anabaptist perspective that assumes the nonviolence of God. Weaver discards both traditional Anselmian substitutionary atonement and Abelardian Moral Influence atonement, embracing instead the earlier conception of atonment (popular with the church fathers) "Christus Victor". In Christus Victor, Christ's death is seen as a ransom to the Devil; Weaver reformulates this theory as "narrative Christus Victor", explains the death of Christ not as a desirable facet of God's plan for humanity or as instance of "divinely-sanctioned violence", but rather as the inevitable result of a life lived in opposition to the violent powers of oppression in the world. The Resurrection thus demonstrates that the rule of these powers is shattered forever, and that the Kingdom of God is breaking into the world. Narrative Christus Victor emphasizes the entire life and work of Christ as central to the concept of atonement -- not just the crucifixion and resurrection, which are here viewed as the natural result and final victory, respectively, of Christ's message.

Crossposted from here.

Invariably, whenever a pacifist Christian reveals her stance to a non-pacifist Christian, the first question she must answer is "What about the Old Testament?" Indeed, many Christians today use Israel's wars recorded in the Hebrew Scriptures as a justification for the stance that war is consistent with Christian ethics.

A careful consideration of the relevant biblical texts reveals that this is not the case. As John Howard Yoder discusses in The Politics of Jesus, while it is certainly true that in some cases wars occur apparently with YHWH's blessing, ancient Israel consistently denies that war is what saves them from their enemies. Rather, redemption from the threat of oppression is always seen as a result of the special intervention of God himself, not of human military exploits. As Yoder writes:

Originally published here.

Madeleine L'Engle's A Wrinkle in Time is a wonderful book, a classic of science fiction and fantasy. I read it first a long time ago, but I decided to re-read it a couple months back when I saw it mentioned in Walter Wink's The Powers That Be. In Powers, Wink had written much about the Myth of Redemptive Violence, the dominant (and false) theme in literature that violence can save us, and had described how it seeps into every aspect of our culture and is an unquestioned assumption in most art and media. Wink had mentioned L'Engle's work as a rare challenge to this meta-narrative: a story wherein hate, violence, and oppression can be overcome only through the power of love. Reading A Wrinkle in Time again, I found this to be exactly true. L'Engle's story utilizes totally different archetypes than those conditioned within the Myth of Redemptive Violence, presenting an utterly opposing view of the nature of violence and how to counter it.