Thank you. I agree wholeheartedly with your perspective on this; so much so that I have nothing else to add!
jurisnaturalist
· 1 year ago
The only appropriate response to sin is grief. We grieve for the nations. We grieve for the oppressed, and for the oppressor. Symbolically, we might don sackcloth and ashes, to recall Ezekiel. Yet we are no longer stuck in grief. We have relief from our grief. We are a celebratory people. We have beauty rather than those ashes. Symbolically? I don't know. Do we need symbols? Thank you for keeping us from becoming smug.
hewhocutsdown
· 1 year ago
Thanks muchly....it's such a difficult balance to strike. I probably lean too far over the other direction - caving too much into the social pressures my environments dictate. But to speak hate of anyone is a lost cause....it fuels the fire.
I just finished watching the movie The Kingdom last night (brilliant, by the way) but the most tragic part was at the end - when one hoped for a light that would bring peace to the darkness - each side (U.S. and Saudi militants) comforted themselves with the reassurance that "we're going to kill them all".
What kind of hollow hope is that?
Danny Kam
· 1 year ago
I had a little smile too when I first saw the story as if I thought, "Well, you got what's coming to you."
But as I watch Bush in outgoing interviews, I do feel great pain for him. He knows how unpopular he is, he knows that he made major mistakes, and I can guarantee (almost 100%) that we will hear about all of those mistakes in forthcoming memoirs after he comes out of office. He is not a perfect man, and he made a number of mistakes because he surrounded himself with people who made the situation seem a way that it actually might not have been. This is what happens when you surround yourself with a unilateral voice that casts out of the diversity (like when they casted out Powell).
pdxfudge
· 1 year ago
Great article. It catches one in surprise. I wasn't expecting the switch towards symbols of love as our resistance. Shoe throwing seems like such an innocent symbol, but I believe the association of it with the symbols of violence and revolution in 1st c. Palestine is appropriate. Using the world's methods to scream our opposition sorely misses the mark. Yoder sums this up well in, "The Original Revolution", "When He called His society together Jesus gave its members a new way of life to live. He gave them a new way to deal with offenders - by forgiving them. He gave them a new way to deal with violence - by suffering... He gave them a new way to deal with a corrupt society - by building a new order, not by smashing the old." We have a new pattern in Jesus, and we need to resist the "innocent" symbols of resistance (like shoe throwing), recognizing them for what they are in being patterned after this Old Age, and instead deal with corruption, tyranny and empire-building by being the community of Jesus, who lives and acts in the love of Jesus. Your last lines sum up my feelings well, "God’s revolution is so much bigger, deeper, and stranger than I feel ready for. But I want it. I want his revolution of love even for those being most overtly used by the powers." May our resistance be of the kind that is motivated by the love of Jesus.
Jason Winton
· 1 year ago
Walter Wink talks about Jesus' Third Way in undoing violence and injustice--neither fight (violence) nor flight (passivity), he says. Having said that, it seems appropriate to also mention his warning to fellow pacifists about the potential misuse of language:
""Reconciliation" also has been misused. Reconciliation is necessary, and it must be engaged in at all stages of the struggle. The human quality of the opponent must be continually affirmed. Some kind of trust that can serve as the basis of the new society to come must be established even in the midst of conflict. But when church leaders preach reconciliation without having unequivocally committed themselves to struggle on the side of the oppressed for justice, they are caught straddling a pseudo-neutrality made of nothing but thin air. Neutrality in a situation of oppression always supports the status quo. Reduction of conflict by means of a phony "peace" is not a Christian goal. Justice is the goal, and that may require an *acceleration* of conflict as a necessary stage in forcing those in power to bring about genuine change.
"Likewise, blanket denunciations of violence by the churches place the counter-violence of the oppressed on the same level as the violence of the system that has driven the oppressed to such desperation. Are stones thrown by youth really commensurate with buckshot and real bullets fired by police?"
Now, I'm NOT saying Brandon has even hinted at either of these misunderstandings, but I do have a few questions. I'm asking myself (like Brandon did in the article), what symbolic actions could be used to bring about genuine change? If not a shoe, what would get the attention (or create enough conflict) to expose the Powers and make another world possible? As well, and not to defend a symbolic action I really don't understand, but wouldn't the shoe tossing, in addition to being a show of disrespect, put them (Iraqis and Bush) on the same level to face each other as equals?
Joel M. Lancaster
· 11 months ago
Let us not forget the harshness of the seven woes. They were spoken in love, no doubt, but they were just as, if not more, affronting as a shoe throwing. Flipping tables and throwing shoes are both done as a symbol of digust, just as the seven woes were uttered. Christ did all in love, but tough love he did not lack. Just because you love doesn't mean you don't feel disgust. In fact, all of Christ frustration aimed at those he loved. I think throwing the shoe was a wise act, in that it obviously was a healthy alternative to shooting or suicide bombing. Seeing all imperial opposition switch to shoe throwing rather than truly violent retaliation would be a very Christ-like turn of events. Christ did not slaughter those in the temple but he definitely destroyed some property.
Daniel
· 11 months ago
Brandon--thanks for the perspective. It sounds like you've done a great job balancing historical consciousness and Anabaptist convictions. :-) (thank you NT Wright?)
Joel--unless I'm much mistaken, the target audience of Jesus' 'woes' was Israel, not Rome. And the Temple he purged was Israel's. This is a sharp disanalogy. It'd be like throwing shoes at a would-be suicide bomber, not at Bush. The sword of division which Jesus brought divided Israel. So before we 'accelerate' conflict to bring injustice to light, perhaps we ought to challenge *the Church* to be faithful. That would be step 1, it seems to me...
All Comments
Symbolically, we might don sackcloth and ashes, to recall Ezekiel.
Yet we are no longer stuck in grief. We have relief from our grief. We are a celebratory people. We have beauty rather than those ashes.
Symbolically? I don't know. Do we need symbols?
Thank you for keeping us from becoming smug.
I just finished watching the movie The Kingdom last night (brilliant, by the way) but the most tragic part was at the end - when one hoped for a light that would bring peace to the darkness - each side (U.S. and Saudi militants) comforted themselves with the reassurance that "we're going to kill them all".
What kind of hollow hope is that?
But as I watch Bush in outgoing interviews, I do feel great pain for him. He knows how unpopular he is, he knows that he made major mistakes, and I can guarantee (almost 100%) that we will hear about all of those mistakes in forthcoming memoirs after he comes out of office. He is not a perfect man, and he made a number of mistakes because he surrounded himself with people who made the situation seem a way that it actually might not have been. This is what happens when you surround yourself with a unilateral voice that casts out of the diversity (like when they casted out Powell).
""Reconciliation" also has been misused. Reconciliation is necessary, and it must be engaged in at all stages of the struggle. The human quality of the opponent must be continually affirmed. Some kind of trust that can serve as the basis of the new society to come must be established even in the midst of conflict. But when church leaders preach reconciliation without having unequivocally committed themselves to struggle on the side of the oppressed for justice, they are caught straddling a pseudo-neutrality made of nothing but thin air. Neutrality in a situation of oppression always supports the status quo. Reduction of conflict by means of a phony "peace" is not a Christian goal. Justice is the goal, and that may require an *acceleration* of conflict as a necessary stage in forcing those in power to bring about genuine change.
"Likewise, blanket denunciations of violence by the churches place the counter-violence of the oppressed on the same level as the violence of the system that has driven the oppressed to such desperation. Are stones thrown by youth really commensurate with buckshot and real bullets fired by police?"
Now, I'm NOT saying Brandon has even hinted at either of these misunderstandings, but I do have a few questions. I'm asking myself (like Brandon did in the article), what symbolic actions could be used to bring about genuine change? If not a shoe, what would get the attention (or create enough conflict) to expose the Powers and make another world possible? As well, and not to defend a symbolic action I really don't understand, but wouldn't the shoe tossing, in addition to being a show of disrespect, put them (Iraqis and Bush) on the same level to face each other as equals?
Joel--unless I'm much mistaken, the target audience of Jesus' 'woes' was Israel, not Rome. And the Temple he purged was Israel's. This is a sharp disanalogy. It'd be like throwing shoes at a would-be suicide bomber, not at Bush. The sword of division which Jesus brought divided Israel. So before we 'accelerate' conflict to bring injustice to light, perhaps we ought to challenge *the Church* to be faithful. That would be step 1, it seems to me...
Peace,
-Daniel-