Jesus was a Democrat

Below are some highlights from the lyrics to the song "Jesus was a Democrat" by Everclear.

Jesus Was a Democrat - Everclear

I bet you think of him
As a nice clean long haired Republican, nah
He would be all locked up in Guantanamo Bay
If he were alive today
He would have been a revolutionary
Wanted by the CIA

I picture him in all the wrong places
Finding diamonds in the dirt
A Star of David tattoo
And a Che t-shirt
Jesus Christ was a left wing radical Jew
Murdered by people like you

If Jesus was a Democrat like the bible says he was
I don’t think he’s going to want to take the blame
For all the awful things you say and do in his name
I am pretty god damned sure ……
He is going to be angry
He is going to be angry

You say Jesus loves the little children
And I say I know that’s true
I say he loves all the Muslims and the Jews
All the addicts and the porn stars too
You say Jesus died to save us all from a fiery hell
I say Jesus died to save us
Save us from ourselves
Will you save me from myself?

If Jesus was a liberal like the red letters say he was
I know he would have big love for all the killers and the racists
And the bullies in this world

If Jesus was alive today
And you had a chance to meet him face to face
I’m pretty God-damned sure that you and your friends
Would find some way to kill him all over again
You would kill him all over again
Again and again and again
Just like you always do
You do just what you always do

Biblical Literalism & Conservative Values

It's common for people to link authoritarian conservative values with biblical literalism. I'd say however that the opposite is the case: strict biblical literalism leads away from authoritarian conservative values and towards compassionate redemptive values because (hold onto your hat) authoritarian conservative values are anti-Gospel.

Before I explain what I mean, let me first define biblical literalism. Of course it does not mean taking every part of the Bible literally. It does not mean "in accordance with... the primary or strict meaning of the word or words; not figurative or metaphorical". No one thinks for instance that when the Bible describes God as "a rock" that God is literally an inanimate stone composed of minerals. We all get that this is a metaphor. So what does it mean? A literal interpretation of the Bible is "adhering to the primary meanings of a term or expression," the "plain" or "unadorned" meaning. The confusion with the term "literal" is that the meaning of the word has changed over time. It used to mean "plain meaning" and now it means "non-metaphorical"

All biblical literalists interpret the Bible by looking for the plain meaning and intent of the author. So while all get that when David says "My heart has turned to wax; it has melted away within me" that he is being melodramatic not literal, a literal interpretation would claim that Jesus really did raise from the dead because all indications say that the authors did not intend for this to be taken as a metaphor, but as historical fact. A literal interpretation is all about the intent of the author. When Jesus says to a young man "Go, sell everything you have and give to the poor" a literal interpretation would think that he really meant that.

The funny thing is that the verses quoted to back up an authoritarian conservative view of morality - strict adherence to the law, severe punishment as a consequence of transgression, no mercy without payment, a low view of humans as evil, etc - invariably come from the Old Testament. If you read the New Testament literally the clear picture you get is of grace. Its a picture of God loving his enemies, of God coming among us in Christ "not to condemn sinners but to save them." It is a picture of God valuing redemption over retribution, and taking any blame, condemnation, humiliation, and damnation upon himself at Calvary. It is a clear message to us that grace should likewise be our ethic, that love trumps everything, that we should always seek redemption, and rather be wronged than seek an eye for an eye. This is absolutely everywhere throughout the New Testament. The picture is not of a strict Father God who demands unquestioned obedience or responds with corporal punishment, it is the picture of God the Father in the story of the Prodigal son who is so loving that it is humiliating to the older son and to the values people held at the time focused on upholding honor. It was a scandal, and still is, but that amazing shocking counter-intuitive picture of grace is the Gospel, it is the image of God incarnate. Read the New Testament literally, and you get a morality based on grace that is in stark opposition to an authoritarian conservative morality. That morality is described as the sinful flesh, as the way of the world.

Now this does not mean we can simply toss out the Old Testament, but you will not find a conservative theologian who would not agree that the New Testament contains a superior and fuller revelation of God's heart than the Old. All would agree that we read the Old Testament in the light of the New, as seen through the eyes of Jesus. Yes, the OT lays out the basis upon which the fuller revelation of the NT is laid, but that does not means that when Jesus says "you have heard it said... but I say to you" that we can ignore his words. We are followers of Jesus the Christ, not followers of Mosaic law. Grace trumps law.

So if that's the case, why is it that so many evangelicals quote almost exclusively from the Old Testament? It's almost as if they have never even read the New Testament(!). My theory is that this is because most sermons focus on Old Testament narratives. If you go to a conservative church like I do, then I'm sure you've noticed this. Most sermons do not preach out of the New Testament, they preach out of the Old. The reason is that pastors are taught in seminary that narratives preach better, and the Old Testament has lots of narratives. So they tell a story from the Old Testament and connect it with a moral. But half the time these are sub-Christian morals. Why they do not preach a narrative from the Gospels is frankly beyond me... maybe they want to save them for Christmas and Easter. But my prescription is going to sound very traditional: we need better biblical preaching, and we need to read our Bibles, we need to let the way and heart of Jesus sink into our bones, we need to have his eyes to see, have his heart, have his values. And those values, taken literally and strictly, and doing the same with the teachings of the Apostles will not lead to authoritarian conservative values, they will lead to grace. Go literalism!

The Emerging Relational Theology #4

Hans Frei's narrative theology focused on a hermeneutic through which to understand Scripture interfaces with the ethics based narrative theology of Stanley Hauerwas as we allow God's story - God's Heilsgeschichte - to become our story.

This ethical narrative theology of Stanley Hauerwas is heavily influenced by Alasdair MacIntyre's "Virtue Ethics". Virtue ethics is an ethics based on the development of character. In contrast to deontological and utilitarian ethics which following the Enlightenment attempt to form an objective and detached universal ethics based detached reason, and free from the biases of culture or tradition, an ethics based on character says that morality is formed in a person as they develop character in community. This differs from relativism because it is not my story, but our story, and for those who follow Christ, God's story that we are a part of. We are relative in the sense that we are God's children, connected to relationship - our story tied up in Christ's.

A big part of this shared narrative in a community forming character in a person has for Hauerwas to do with a counter-cultural understanding of the body of Christ as salt in the world. Coming from the United Methodist Church, Hauerwas speaks out against what he calls "Christiandom" in books like "Resident Aliens" and calls for us to model another way that is in the world but not of the world. Joining him in this is the Radical Orthodoxy of John Milbank. Like Hauerwas, Milbank is concerned about the church being co-opted by culture, specifically the spirit crushing values of modernism. Because of this Milbank's Radical Orthodoxy speaks in the context of a post-modern critique on modernism, but it would be a mistake to see it as postmodern theology, rather it is an attempt to return to the roots of Christianity focusing on the patristics (the early church fathers) applying this to the post modern context we live in today.

One person who has championed Radical Orthodoxy in an easy to understand way (Milbank and others have a habit of overloading their work with mind numbing histories of philosophy), and addressing this directly to the emerging church is James K.A. Smith. In his book "Who's Afraid of Postmodernism?" Smith argues that rather than promoting relativism, postmodernism as the death of modernism also heralds the death of secularism, which is indeed good news.

As you can see, the emerging relational theology that began with narrative theology has taken on many different bannersn(narrative theology, postmodern theology, radical orthodoxy, ancient-future faith, neo-evangelicals, the emergent church) and a host of names - Hans Frei, Gerorge Lindbeck, Stanley Grenz, John Milbank, James K.A. Smith, Robert Webber, Stanley Hauerwas, and Nancy Murphy just to name a few. What they all have in common is a shared understanding of a relational theology, of people as relational beings in community with each other and a social God.

These growing critiques reflect a move away from modernist assumptions from both the left and right, each respectively critiquing their own traditions. As a result Christians on both sides of the theological fence are finding commonality and space for conversation rooted in a new shared relational approach to theology. In contrast to a modernist tendency (found among both liberals and conservatives) to break from the past and tradition, this approach is characterized by (1) a deep appreciation for history, (2) a recognition that there is no neutral ground and that we all speak out of a cultural context, and that (3) faith is not an individual intellectual project, but rather is formed in a communal context: Spiritual formation comes through relationship and discipleship. It is always incarnational: a faith lived out in relationship that cannot be detached from this communal context. As social beings we cannot live in the general, but are always situated within a specific world and history that shapes us. Relational faith entails a specific faith contextually rooted in the unique narrative of Scripture and the Christian community that forms a person in Christ – an identity rooted in social context to God, community, and history.

Perhaps the clearest voice here has been that of Robert Webber and his "Younger Evangelicals", but that will have to wait until next time...