As I sit here reading, a thought comes to mind: how many people would be satisfied with a justice system where 9 out of 10 people excecuted were not guilty? And yet in modern warfare 90% of casualties are civilian.

This is my first attempt at “Moblie-Blogging” from my new cell phone. Here’s cute-as-ever Kara at my PowerBook. Look forward to many “Mullet Updates” in the future, as mullet hunting will become my new favorite pasttime!

Eric just told me that, D. Brent Laytham, the author of my most recent read, God is Not, wrote an article for the Christian Century titled “Loyalty Oath: a matter of ultimate allegiance” that I thought was really good. Check it out here or read the whole article below.

Loyalty Oath
A matter of ultimate allegiance
by D. Brent Laytham
Two years ago one of my students wrote a master’s thesis defending just war, then joined the U.S. Air Force to train as a fighter pilot. I suppose you could look at this as pedagogical success: I’m a teacher who helped one of my students turn the corner from theory to practice. But as a pacifist, I took it pretty hard.

Time doesn’t heal all wounds, but it’s a pretty good salve for injured pedagogical pride. So I hadn’t given Aaron much thought until I was asked to come down to the college president’s office to meet with an officer of the Department of Defense. She showed me her badge and a pile of papers, all of which asserted that she was authorized to interview me about the character of my former student. Apparently, before you can get behind the controls of a multimillion-dollar fighter plane, the U.S. runs a high-level security check.

There were a number of mundane questions about how long and how well I had known Aaron. The questions became more interesting as they turned to relationships and to character. “Did Aaron associate with disreputable people?” she asked. “Yes,” I said, “he hung out with Jesus.” I was thinking, of course, about Jesus’ habit of associating with radicals like Simon the Zealot, cheats like Zacchaeus and riff-raff like the woman at the well. Worse, as Christopher Marshall has pointed out in Beyond Retribution, Jesus populated his parables with criminals and was finally condemned as one himself. But what would my interviewer think? “I know what you mean,” she confided. “I sometimes serve meals at my church’s soup kitchen.” Apparently Jesus is not disreputable enough to disqualify you from being trusted with high-tech weaponry.

“Does Aaron belong to any organization that puts him in contact with foreign nationals?” she asked. “Yes, he’s a member of the church.” I wasn’t trying to be coy, but catholic. In Christ we find ourselves placed in a body politic without territorial borders—the holy catholic church. The Letter to Diognetus puts it this way: for us “every foreign country is [our] fatherland, and every fatherland is foreign.” Thus, we have no foreign nationals in the church, or we are all foreigners; either way, we cannot imagine that some of us are “us,” while others are “them.” At least we shouldn’t be able to imagine this.

“But did he associate with foreigners?” “Well,” I replied, “we have a number of international students here at the seminary. I’m sure that Aaron had classes with them.” I could have added that we intentionally seek to foster an awareness of global issues, hoping students from California will get to know students from Chile, wanting students from Korea to learn with students from Kansas, expecting that Mexicans and Minnesotans will pray together in every chapel.

She pursued the question, “How closely did he associate with them? Was it more than a normal amount?” How could I answer such a question, given the church’s calling to show the world that its version of “normal” simply isn’t? All I said was no. But I should have added, “The church is a ’sign, herald and foretaste’ of the coming kingdom; we refuse to allow national borders to be mapped onto the body of Christ.”

There were many other questions, the hardest of which was, “Is he a loyal American?” I had little doubt that for Aaron the answer is yes. But what could that attestation mean coming from me, who relishes Dorothy Day’s retort “Of course we’re un-American; we’re Catholic”? I thought of Patrick Miller’s recent pamphlet on the first commandment. In The God You Have he differentiates between loyalty to others and obedience to God. Loyalty, he says, may appropriately be given to spouse, family, neighbor or country. It roots in and expands on the fifth commandment. Obedience, on the other hand, belongs to God and God alone. It is rooted in the absolutely fundamental claim of the first commandment. First commandment first; obedience before, beneath and beyond every loyalty.

The problem with Miller’s categories is that, in Caesar’s hands, they can too easily become a distinction without a difference. In the U.S. there is assumed to be a smooth fit between discipleship and killing. That assumption, held so easily and unreflectively, trespasses against our obedience to God alone. I wonder whether my questioner understands that for descendants of Jeremiah and followers of Jesus, obedience to God may require us to refuse the state’s claim to our loyalty. Does the Department of Defense grant that my fundamental obligation is not loyalty to country but obedience to God? I doubt it. In such circumstances, where Caesar cannot distinguish between our proper subjection and our ultimate allegiance, it may be best to say bluntly, “A loyal American? Of course not. I’m a Christian!”

But Aaron is a Christian too, and there’s the rub. My testimony now contributes to the testing of his discipleship. Will he manage to live by the moral restraint of just war, to embody its refusal of easy congruence between killing and Christ, to always remember that obedience to God trumps loyalty to country or comrade? I can only pray that he will.
D. Brent Laytham teaches at North Park University in Chicago. He recently edited God is Not Religious, Nice, One of Us, an American, a Capitalist (Brazos).

Just in case anyone was getting the idea that all this theology was getting to me and feared that I would become a hermit and read books (really really good books) upwards of 20 hours a day… worry not. Madden is coming, and it’s only 13 days away.

Check out the latest video preview as well as a video of the new passing mode here.

This morning we heard from a pannel of 6 congregation members from two churches. Church of the Sojourners and Grace Fellowship Community, both in San Francisco, CA. The Sojourners folks talked to us about living in Christian community, simplicity, living on a small fixed income and other really facinating and attractive practices. The folks from Grace Fellowship talked a lot about membership as Catechism. Good stuff!

Congregations on the Frontlines.mp3 (1:20 – 40 MB)

Last night here in Chicago. It’s been a great conference so far, met some great people and possibly most importantly I now have faces and voices to imagine when I read. Reading Michael Budde will never be the same… I mean the guy looks like grey-haired Teen-Wolf! We heard from all three of our presenters tonight. Questions were asked of them all by our moderator, then they got to discuss some stuff with each other and ended by answering questions from the rest of us.
Plenary Panel Discussion.mp3 (1:20 – 34MB)

Tonight we heard from our second Biblical scholar, Sylvia Keesmaat, author of the new commentary titled Colossians Remixed. While AKMA took us through the first three commandments, Syliva took us through the entire biblical narrative stopping to look at a few stories where scripture speaks to Empire. She traces the theme of power and violence through the bible.

She begins with Exodus 1, where Israel is in the heart of Egypt. The empire seeks control and oppresses by killing babies. But there is a small movement of resistance by four women, Moses’ mother, sister and two midwives. It is God who defeats the empire. This sets the stage for understanding God as King.

Before the Israelites deny God as king and demand a king like the other nations have come the books of Judges and Ruth. In Judges a woman is gang-raped by raiders, she is chopped up into 12 pieces by her lord and sent out to Israel as he protests this affront to his property. The story ends in 600 12-year old girls being stolen to provide wives for the Benjaminites. The story ends in a plea for Monarcy, as if having a king would solve all these problems. BUT, Sylvia points out before Samuel comes the book of Ruth. Boaz protects Ruth, and when she comes to him in the night ready to sleep with him, he instead of taking advantage of her, follows Torah and goes before the elders to wed her. Sylvia gives this example of Boaz as someone who acts honorably according to Torah (even without a king). Then comes Samuel, and Sylvia points out that now that we have a king, the king himself rapes a woman then murders her husband. Later when David’s firstborn rapes Tamar (2 Sam:13) he refuses to do anything about it. The sexual and military violence has become a part of the heart of the monarcy.

She moves on to Daniel, to give an example of how a follower of God can remin faithful empire. Syliva points out that Joseph is not the example, since he drew his people into slavery by driving such hard bargins over food. Daniel however resists empire in small ways that make a difference. They start eating their own food (rather than the imperial food) and eventually Daniel resists in even more overt ways by refusing to stop praying.

Sylvia ends with Luke (and since my battery ran out this is where my audio and notes end as well. I’ll update this later when I get the full audio from the EP site.

The Bible and the Empire.mp3 (33 min – 15 MB)

This morning we heard from AKMA, his talk was called “The Strong Right Arm That Holds for Peace: Godliness a an Alternative for Empire” He spent a lot of time speaking about the insistence of the first three commands in the Decalogue that we hold no other God or loyalty over, above or against the LORD. We cannot have God on our terms, we cannot devise semi-gods that we can easily mold to our image, God cannot be rallied to our causes…

God is utterly useless to us.

That is, God is in no way to be used for our purposes. God is not our cheerleader, God is the LORD to whom all praise, worship and allegiance is due. God does not tolerate anything that comes between God’s creation who is beloved and God’s self.

This is especially clear in reference to symbols of idolatry. As AKMA pointed out in his presentation the Israelites would not tolerate foreign symbols of other Gods. They didn’t just say you can put your symbols in our cities, but we refuse to worship the Roman Gods, they flat out did not tolerate the existence of Roman symbols within the Holy City. Fast forward to today when the strongest supporters of American symbols (the flag, the pledge of allegiance) are Jews and Christians. At one time we would not tolerate the presence of the symbols of other gods in our communities, much less giving loyalty to them. Now we actually fight to maintain our idolatry!

AKMA goes on to pass out a handout of an old advertisement for a soap called SAPOLIO. This ad had Lady Liberty stretching her arm out over the US and the colonies it was subduing at the time; the Philippines, Cuba, and Puerto Rico. The ad reads,

The strong right arm that holds for peace
Shall with our nation’s emblem go
To darker lands beyond the seas,
And light them with SAPOLIO.

An American product that has won the patronage of the civilized world. The use of Sapolio is a distinguishing mark of enlightened people. Darkness, dirt and disease are driven before it. No nation is stronger than its homes. Sapolio makes bright clean and happy homes, and a powerful, progressive, peaceful nation is the result. Sapolio must clean, that the flag may civilize.

Imitations Disappoint.

the Flyer

AKMA points out that the ad agency apparently wasn’t concerned with offending the religious community at this obvious distortion and there apparently wasn’t any uproar. He goes on to point out the strength of the state to co-opt our language. Words such as justice or freedom are quickly redefined for and by the powers. Many pacifists have spent many a useless hours (myself included) telling people that “if you only understood that’s not the real definition of justice/freedom.” These explainations very rarely make any difference. AKMA points out that we do still have a term that isn’t easily co-opted by the powers, and that is Godliness. Godliness is not a term that can be taken in service of unGodly things (at least for now).

I especially liked AKMA’s challenge that we not solve differences by voting. The idea that some things are not really better than others, and we must decide these differences by numbers is not a Christian idea and rejects the claim that we are really under the authority of God even if God’s will is not popular or is a minority viewpoint. Voting is in a way saying that we hold ourselves and our ability to choose based on how many of us agree over and above God’s commandments.

The Strong Right Arm That Holds For Peace (1:02 – 28 MB)

It’s the end of day one at the 2005 Ekklesia Project Conference here at DePaul University in Chicago. It’s been a great time of meeting like-minded people and making new friends. They have a nice section of books here that is NOT helping me with that whole trying to live simply or not coveting stuff, not that I was doing that great, but 50% off Brazos books… good Lord! So I limited myself to just two books, I picked up Brent Laytham’s book God is Not as well as Rodney Clapp’s Tortured Wonders.

To begin with we heard from Rev. Lillian Daniel who brought us the word from Exodus and helped us to see Moses’ smashing of the 10 commandments as itself disobedience to the 1st commandment. She also spoke on the importance of reclaiming our Christian language, as trained “idoaltry-finders” we should point out when our culture steals our divine language and use it to deify its own consumerist ideologies. She brought a pastoral tone to our gathering and was quite funny in doing so.

Our first session was done by William Cavanaugh, it was titled “The Empire of the Empty Shrine.” He started by illustrating the uniqueness of the American political system as one that said, we refuse to have a God on our throne, our throne will be empty and this promises to be a good thing because countries that have had state churches, etc. often resort to violence. This empty throne of course is not empty, but instead of having one God is available to almost any, especially ourselves. At one point Cavanaugh said that our freedom to choose any God has become our God. So freedom (or in capitalist language, choice) becomes the God we worship, and because we have created this God, we essentially worship our own “virtue” of being the most universal people in the world.

He also spent some significant time at the begining speaking about the myth of a “Reluctant Empire.” Most Americans today don’t think that our global dominance came from an agenda to do so, instead believing the myth that we reluctantly fought facism in Germany and then Communism not because we sought these things out but because we have a responsibility to others to do this. After the fall of Communism the ideology of “openness” that apparently sets us apart from the world (in that it makes us the world’s savior) didn’t bring world peace, and that’s because (we’re told) that our very openness and rationality actually make us vulnerable to attack by our fragmented enemies such as Al Queda. It is much eaiser for a few dozen terrorists to cross a border than for a nation to do so, etc. And so when these “religous fanatics” come here and commit acts of violence (which shows their lack of openness and rationality) we see that peace isn’t here yet, but can be achieved if we expand our military power further and wider and if we bomb the radicals into a higher rationality.

Finally Cavanaugh explored the use of battle in the OT and showed the corelation of God’s blessing on the battlefield to military weakness. Craig Carter in The Politics of the Cross also addresses that the OT battles that God blesses and causes Israel to triumph are just that, battles that God won, not the might of the military. I mean one battle was won by banging on pots for Pete’s sake! And when Israel begins to turn away from God to their own military might the Prophets rise up against such Idolatry, and when it is ignored Israel is defeated on the battlefield and eventually conqurered. But trusting in God doesn’t seem to make for a good National Security policy to a lot of Christians… but trusting in the CIA and Militarism is most definitely idolatry.

Well that’s just a short list of the highlights of what was a great presentation by William Cavanaugh. If you’d like the whole thing check it out here… I’ll be recording all of the sessions, so that you poor Left Behind folk can join us here if only audibly.

The Empire of the Empty Shrine.mp3 (1:14 – 25 MB)

Other EP homies currently blogging the Conference: Kaz and Akma

Yesterday I got to hang out with some of the teens in my Sr. High group at church and make a short film. We’re doing this “Pink Flamingo” fundraiser for our teens where people in the church can prank one another by having us put these pink flamingos in their friend’s yard. Well we thought we needed something to get the attention of the parents, so we made this short film to get the word out.

Pink Flamingo Short Film