What Are You Reading and Why?

This is a wonderful compilation of 29 theologians and comments on their work as seen in the empires they wrote in. They range from Paul, through Calvin, Luther, Bonhoeffer and Niebuhr, and end with several present-day African theologians. The rationale of the anthology is to see how differing imperial and cultural perspectives affected their writing. The editors point to the tensions between the Christian tradition and the empire in the infancy narratives—the presence of Caesar Augustus and of Herod.

The convening of church councils focused the tensions of the empire and the book details the intersection of theology and empire. “Without understanding how we are shaped by empire, we cannot properly identify those institutions, and insights that point us beyond the horizons of empire” (pp. 10, 13).

I will touch only on St. Paul and on east African theologian John Mbiti, but each of the people surveyed demonstrates the effect his or her particular empire had on their theology. Paul is an interesting example; Tatha Wiley points out how her readers’ perspectives, shaped by their empire, affected the interpretation of Paul, and she points out two Pauline analyses, the one reflecting the early church’s empire influence. The empire’s influence is driven not only in the writer (Paul) but in the interpretation (pp. 56, 57). Perkinson’s summary of Mbiti focuses on the concept of “time”: “present future” that extends only six months hence, and the “present” that is “yesterday” (p. 463)—time is largely two-dimensional, focused on past and present. Or how would one gain concrete perspective on the precise place where “Christianity” can be distinguished from “imperial violence” (p. 460)?

In these essays, Leslie Jamison is Frida Kahlo on the printed page. Pain is her subject; her objective is to feel her way into somber communion, a common sharing.

As a medical actor Leslie works to transcend the script: "I am not just an unmarried woman faking seizures for pocket money." In her portrayal of sundry sicknesses unto death, Leslie strives to make the medical students realize "a root system of loss stretches radial and rhizomatic under the entire territory of my life." This is not an act; this is the journey.

As a teachers/tourist in Nicaragua, Leslie is accosted by a purse snatcher in Granada, who smashes her in the face with his fist. "My nose was broken. The bones of the bridge got shifted. The flesh swelled like it was trying to hide the fracture beneath. This is how speech swells around memory. How intellect swells around hurt."

Brueggemann emphasizes the force of words in molding the nation: Words generate a cultural/historical movement, words are advocates for specific tasks, words identify the central features of the community’s story and self awareness, words are warnings against ignoring consequences. Sometimes words explode in remarkable imagination (e.g., the impact of Rachel, whose story is told in Genesis but which comes again in Jeremiah and in Matthew), and to the community of faith today. Brueggemann cites the Holocaust as a point along Rachel’s story, but her weeping goes well beyond even that, to the homeless of our cities, and to the tragedies of children caught in Syria and Iraq (or in the treatment of aboriginal cultures faced by forced abduction of their children as a result of assimilationist ideologies). The text keeps surfacing as a weapon of the weak (p. 9).  It is a powerful reminder that the “prophetic tradition preserves for us those staggering enactments of redemptive madness” (p. 19). And that’s only the first chapter of the book.

Brueggemann deals equally devastatingly with other texts. He draws attention to Amos 9:7, where Amos confronted his listeners with the pointed reference that Yahweh was not really just a tribal god; Ethiopians, Philistines, Arameans and Israelites are all part of Yahweh’s redeeming act, a radical pluralism (p. 97). And he emphasizes the task of words in Israel (in their liturgy, in their festivals) in remaining an intentional, distinctive country in the world dominated by Egypt, Assyria, Babylon and Persia, and of how Israel maintained its identity in and under the empire with the gifts of texts and words.  The church needs to keep its identity vibrant through the “daily discipline and practises” of our Christian faith story (p. 87).  Wow!  What a book! —Vern Ratzlaff, pastor and professor of historical theology at Lutheran Theological Seminary in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada

This collection of 13 essays was compiled when the United States was still the virtually unchallenged player on the world political scene, in the aftermath of Bush and 9/11; today, sharply reduced political and military influences puts these essays into a different perspective.  But some of the essays remain remarkably prescient, speaking to the issues of “loving neighbours in a globalized world,” “international justice,” “being Christian in an Age of Americanism” and emphasizing the “transnational nature of Christian discipleship.”  The essays still raise the basic issues of what the church’s message is and what discipleship urges on us.

Two essays especially focused my agenda. (Mennonite) Arthur Paul Boers draws on pastoral leadership as a component of counter-empire living, emphasizing the contribution of worship and of community; underscoring the need for mentors, saints and models, of testimonies of those who have stood against the empire and its war making preoccupation; the need for strategies in dealing with media (including the personal aspects of fasting and abstinence, p. 168).  Lillian Daniel outlines how the ordo (the typical Sunday morning order of worship), through text and liturgy, focuses on how “many of the questions about empire get hit upon with frightening regularity (p. 174).”  Through, e.g. the psalms, we in the empire are reminded that “we come from a long lineage of life’s losers” (p. 175).  The announcements, prayer requests, confession, passing of the peace, the offertory, the communion table—remind us that in the “bones of worship each Sunday we find the tools with which to recognize blasphemy when we walk the streets on Monday or watch the news on Tuesday. . . . Our salvation lies in the practices of worship that subverts the paltry promise of empire” (p. 182).

A wonderful book. —Vern Ratzlaff, pastor and professor of historical theology at Lutheran Theological Seminary in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada

Katanacho is dean and faculty member at Nazareth Evangelical College, located in the city the Gospels identify as Jesus’ boyhood home in northern Israel. He was the co-author of "The Palestinian Kairos Document" which addresses the issues of Israel, Palestine, the Occupation, and Christian theology, faith, and practice. In speaking of the "Theology of Resistance,” Katanacho writes about Jesus' command to love our enemies:  "Love opens the channels of communication. It should provoke Palestinians and Israelis to talk to each other, instead of killing each other. It should help them to pursue justice and security together for love is not an excuse to abandon justice, but an opportunity to pursue it." Given the support of “Christian Zionism” in many US churches, especially among evangelicals, Katanacho’s voice needs to be heard. —Dan Buttry is a global missions consultant for peace and justice with American Baptist Churches International Ministries

Many of us have known about the work of Morris Dees and the Southern Poverty Law Center which tracks the activities of a host of white supremacist hate groups. This book spells out the story of a remarkable man. His journey as a southerner in the civil rights struggle is an amazing story. He took on the big boys (KKK) with their threats to his life and was able to bring them to their knees. He did not confine his activities to the south. One major case was in Portland, Oregon. Clearly the “civil rights struggle” is not ended and Dees continues his work with the assistance of some dedicated people. Dees and Millard Fuller were collaborators during the college and following. They were true entrepreneurs.

—Bernie Turner is a retired pastor living in McMinnville, OR.

In some ways this book is an encyclopedia of non-profit organizations around the world. The information was collected by a husband wife team, who have written other significant books.  I was greatly moved by their book Half the Sky, which speaks to the oppression of women. This book is a book about hope.  The “path” referenced in the title is a path of hope.  The authors have identified hundreds of organizations who are doing humanitarian work around the globe and given us information about those organizations and what we can do to join them. Those organizations offer hope to millions of people—they are providing a “path” which we may follow or join.  The authors say, “Our efforts at altruism have a mixed record of success at helping others, but they have an almost perfect record of helping ourselves.  They can also be a way of asserting our values, or responding to pain or horror by reaffirming a higher standard of humanity.”

—Bernie Turner is a retired pastor living in McMinnville, OR.

"In the West we have a long history of hostility towards Islam that seems as entrenched as our anti-Semitism,” but now “for the first time in Islamic history, Muslims have begun to cultivate a passionate hatred of the West. In part this is due to European and American behaviour in the Islamic world" (p.11). "It is as impossible to generalize about Islam as about Christianity; there is a whole range of ideas and ideals in both" (p.13). "We shall see that Muhammad's spiritual experience bears an arresting similarity to that of the prophets of Israel, St. Teresa of Avila and Dame Julian of Norwich" (p.15).           

Muhammad is in the tradition of the Old Testament heroes like Moses, David, Solomon, Elijah and Isaiah—flawed and passionate and complex. We see him sometimes laughing, playing with his children, trying to placate his wives, weeping over a friend's death.

He had almost no contact with Judaism or Christianity. His monotheism was a challenge to the tribal Arabs who had little reason to give up their gods.

I have been reading White’s work in preparation to teach a religious education class for youth. White, the former director of research for the Youth Theological Initiative at Candler School of Theology, speaks directly about the ways modern youth ministry has failed to effectively engage young people in the costly journey of discipleship. In response to youth ministry programs that, like many high schools, are concerned with preparing children to be good participants in the marketplace rather than risk-takers in the name of what is just and beneficial for creation, White lays out ways to engage youth in deep, serious discernment that accounts for their inherent gifts and insights. This last point, that youth are not incomplete adults but congregants with valuable offerings specific to their particular phase in life, changes not only how we must see youth ministry but how we must see all ministries. As White says at the outset of this book, “Congregations, adults and youth who engage each other in discernment…find that in discerning together, they are in fact doing much of the work of youth ministry (and adult ministry).”

—Hillary Brownsmith is the pastoral apprentice at Circle of Mercy Congregation, Asheville, NC.

The Jewish-Christian movements have not always exemplified high moral standards.  Horsley points out that the American founding ‘fathers’ ‘not only took the land away from the peoples already living on it, but they slaughtered those peoples’ (p x).   Exactly what the Jewish people did in Canaan!  Horsley then articulates the framework of covenant economics that stood over against the Egyptian empire, tracing that covenantal society through the monarchy (and its economic centralization) and the prophetic condemnation when the covenantal perspectives were forgotten or ignored.  He then summarizes the Roman imperial economy, and sketches the framework of covenantal renewal that Jesus sought to bring; he finishes with a good summary of covenantal renewal emphasis in Mark, Paul and Matthew.

The Jewish economy was based on covenantal law codes:  the land belonged to Yahweh, land allocated was inalienable, the poor were provided for (gleaning, sabbatical fallow years, generous lending principles—no interest, realistic collateral, periodic cancellation of debts.  The Roman system subverted this economic perspective, with their repeated wars, their demand for tribute and their use of client rulers with no economic limits (e.g. Herod).

Jesus sought to restore the covenantal community (Matthew 5 and Luke 6 are covenant renewal speeches).  “Jesus and his envoys were building a movement village by village, not just calling individual followers” (p 109).  And Mark particularly articulates the characteristics of covenant community: marriage and family, children as models (westerners have romantic notions of children; for the ANE, children were the human beings with lowest status; for Jesus to declare that ‘the kingdom of G-d belongs to children emphasizes that the kingdom of G-d is present for the poor villagers, as opposed to the wealthy and powerful’ (p 119).  And Jesus’ declaration of principles governing community relations (leadership, Mark 10:42-45), constitutes a covenantal charter for the community of the Markan Jesus movement (p 123).