For years, the abuse of Scriptural passages to justify the aggressive exploits of nations has driven me nuts.  Whether it’s the the account of the conquest of Canaan, used by European colonists to take the New World and exterminate or marginalize its indigenous population, or the same story repeated by the Afrikaaner Dutch in South Africa, it’s always repulsed me.  And when revisionist American Christians use the covenental and missional language of the Bible to justify –even advocate for– the interventionist behavior of the United States, I positively want to scream.  Now Braden P. (Brad) Anderson has published a theological response to this abuse, and it’s an important work.

Chosen Nation is the product of Brad’s doctoral dissertation.  In this book, Brad takes on the topics of nationalism and faith through the discipline of theopolitics…an academic focus that looks at how theology is worked out in political frameworks…and does so with a rigor that few have bothered to master.  In doing so, Anderson makes a compelling case that we need to understand both Biblical claims and nationalist narratives before we all-too-lightly mash the two together.

Drawing on the work of William T. Cavenaugh, among others, Anderson takes a hard look at the American notion of exceptionalism, in which the United States is perceived by many to be chosen and ordained by God to perform a special function in the world, typically one that involves the projection of American power and the replication of American-style ideals and governance through the exercise of that power.  Already in the nineteenth century, but also seized upon by modern theologian Stephen H. Webb, Anderson describes a nation that arrogates to itself the role God intended for the church.  Quoting Cavenaugh, the nation “does not simply seek to follow God’s will, but acts as a kind of substitute God on the stage of history.”  The nation, Anderson says, “worships its freedom to worship, which is inherent to its identity, and thus worships itself.”  The resulting nationalism, he writes in his preface, “…is a challenge that rewrites the Christian salvation narrative, reconstructs Christian politics, and reorients disciples of Christ away from solidarity with each other and with those suffering around them.”

One of Anderson’s most important contributions in “Chosen Nation,” I believe, is his analysis of the meaning of God’s covenant with Israel in the Old Testament.  Beginning with the Puritans coming from England to the New World, right through the nineteenth century and into the nationalism of Evangelical Americans today, there has been a tendency to claim elements of that covenant language, and appropriate them to bless–even to promote–American hegemony.  But as Anderson leads us through the Biblical account, he shows us how God established Israel as a set-apart people with himself as the sovereign.  As the prophet Samuel testified, when the people of Israel chose to emulate the nations around by demanding a king and taking on the role of a nation-state, they willfully abandoned God’s sovereignty and abrogated the terms of God’s covenant with them.  “With the expansion of empire [under King David] and its attendant utilization of foreign alliances, slavery, and a standing army, realpolitik becomes institutionalized in the state, and Israel becomes that from which it had been delivered in the exodus.” (emphasis mine)

Paradoxically, then, as Americans (and others) appropriate to their own nations the covenantal language of the early Old Testament, they fail to recognize that the structures and conduct of the nation state are themselves incompatible with the God-directed people for whom that language was intended.  As Anderson says, “To the degree that Christians residing in various nations seek to (1) identify themselves according to a syncretized theopolitical narrative of identity, and (2) secure that national identity through the political ways of the powers, they participate in a form of Israel’s own error, directly altering their identity in the church of Jesus Christ.”

Later in the book, Anderson looks at the Biblical case for the church of Jesus Christ being the heir to God’s divine covenant with Israel (see 1 Pet. 2:4-10 among other foundational passages).  Since the church, rightly seen, is a transnational entity, it is therefore a fundamental error to apply to any modern nation-state that sense of chosenness that rightly belongs to the church.  The church, Anderson writes, “cannot be supplanted from this role without fundamentally altering the salvation narrative it proclaims.  Insofar as nationalists claim for their nation the mantle of the definitive community witnessing to God’s salvation and prefiguring the kingdom of God on earth, they distort the Christian gospel and make their nation a simulacrum or parody of the church.”  More pointedly, he later states about several Christian Right authors in the US that “…by misappropriating biblical Israel as they do, that is, by making the nation America the extension of Israel as central to God’s plans for global salvation, these authors supplant the church, and by implication, Jesus Christ as Lord.” (emphasis mine)

Anderson’s concluding chapter is not so much a conclusion as a challenge for the church to re-engage with its own identity as God’s chosen people on a transnational level.  As an American, his questions are directed particularly at his own people:  “What does it mean to be American when the very origin of the country is rooted in the act of Christians killing other Christians?  What does it mean to be American when the United States constitutes an earthly empire by most measures of the term, that is, military, economic, ideological?”  And perhaps most challenging of all:  “Can we be American as we live in robust solidarity with non-Americans (or even anti-Americans), especially as Christ has rendered any such divisions or exclusions null and void?”

Difficult questions, indeed, and questions Anderson does not attempt to answer in any great detail.  The challenge is left for the reader to take up.  This book is not a quick read, and if you’re at all like me you’ll need to take your time to properly grapple with Anderson’s analysis and with the various theologians–conservative and progressive–with whom he engages.  It’s an important exercise, and well worth the effort.

Disclosure: This review is done on a copy of the book provided to me by the publisher.

The killing of Trayvon Martin by George Zimmerman earlier this year has brought out the usual political punditry.  Everyone “knows” the “real” reason Martin took a bullet, even though they can’t seem to agree on what that real reason actually was.  As with theology, so with politics: the conclusion to which one comes seems more easily predicted by one’s prior beliefs, than by the facts in the case.  Conventional wisdom says Trayvon was killed because he was a black kid in a hoodie.  There’s probably some truth in that, though I suspect it’s more accurate to say he was confronted because he was a black kid in a hoodie, and his death was the result of an unfortunate escalation of the confrontation.  Bill Cosby and CNN commentators counter that the proliferation of guns and gun rights are also to blame, perhaps more so.  They too have an element of the truth…certainly if George Zimmerman wasn’t packing heat he couldn’t have used it.

But lurking in the background is a deeper question that I don’t hear being discussed, and that is the value of already-born human life.  I say this because, as we all know, the stage upon which the current drama is playing out includes Florida’s “Stand Your Ground” law.  As represented in the media (and I have heard this characterization on both Fox and NPR), if a person “feels threatened” he or she has the right to use deadly force against a would-be attacker, and has no “duty to retreat.”

Importantly, Florida’s actual Stand Your Ground law is a bit more tightly worded than either conservative or liberal media suggest.  Most of it involves defense of a residence or vehicle, the so-called “Castle Doctrine,” which in essence allows a homeowner to shoot on sight anyone who breaks into his/her home, vehicle, tent, etc.  The part of Florida’s law that might apply to Zimmerman’s defense is XLVI 776.013(3), which reads:

A person who is not engaged in an unlawful activity and who is attacked in any other place where he or she has a right to be has no duty to retreat and has the right to stand his or her ground and meet force with force, including deadly force if he or she reasonably believes it is necessary to do so to prevent death or great bodily harm to himself or herself or another or to prevent the commission of a forcible felony.

It is this “no duty to retreat” clause that causes me the greatest concern. The concept of a duty to retreat, historically, has meant that a claim of self-defense to justify homicide would only be sustained if the defendant not only feared for his life, by also had no reasonable means of escape.  In other words, if retreating could have de-escalated the situation without resulting in death or serious injury to either the defendant or a third party, then the defendant had a duty to extract himself from the scene rather than resorting to lethal force.

I’m not going to argue the history of the laws. My question is not a legal one, but rather moral: what is a human life worth? The Florida law explicitly states that anyone who has forcibly entered your home (i.e., broken in) can be presumed to have violent intent…therefore, in essence, the inviolability of your threshold is worth a life. Stand Your Ground says you need not leave the scene if threatened, even if the only wound you might sustain by retreating is to your ego. Bluntly, your pride is worth a life.

This is not unusual in our culture. Listen to conservative American commentary on our wars and foreign policy–heck, listen to our presidents–and it is clear in numerous circumstances that we as a people are perfectly willing to take human lives, at times in great numbers, for no greater cause than our pride in our greatness as a nation.  As goes the people as a whole, so go many as individuals.

Christians disagree about the appropriate boundaries for the legitimate use of deadly force. I myself am not an absolutist in this regard, though my criteria are stricter than most. But I see no rationale whereby the follower of Jesus can justify or defend the doctrine of Stand Your Ground, rooted as it is in the presumption that one man’s ego could ever justify taking another man’s life.

How does this apply to Zimmerman?  Well, he’s likely to be tried either against the state Stand Your Ground law, which even former governor Jeb Bush said is not applicable, or on federal civil rights charges.  Neither is likely to address what I think is the root cause of ego-vs-life, but nor will they address the other relevant question, which is training for those who are armed.  This is the practical side of the Martin/Zimmerman story, and it’s likewise getting no play.  We can argue all day about whether guns, or concealed carry, should be legal in this country.  Bottom line, those arguments will garner lots of donations to the NRA and to gun control groups, but they’ll accomplish little else.

I think we ought to try for a little common ground by requiring that those who have the permission to carry a weapon–particularly a concealed handgun–must undergo regular training.  I don’t mean how to shoot, though they certainly should be proficient with their weapon.  I mean when to shoot.  I rather suspect that in most situations where a weapon is involved, the escalation to the pulling of a trigger happens incredibly quickly.  I know many police departments require their officers to undergo shoot/no shoot simulation training on a regular basis.  So ought civilians.  Evaluating the danger of a confrontation is tricky business, and there are no simple answers.  But those who hold in their hands the power to take life, owe to the rest of us the discipline to have thought, and practiced, and thought some more about just when that power ought to be used.  I’m neither judge nor jury, but I’m guessing that neither George Zimmerman nor the vast majority of his supporters have exercised that discipline.

The following is a guest post by my father, Aaron Martin, who just returned from a project installing a windmill to bring water to a village of displaced people in Papua New Guinea.  For more information about the “Model Village” project in PNG, please see the website of my brother Dave’s company M-CAM.

Dad’s account covers a lot of ground.  I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

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Introduction
The following is my summary of my experience in Papua New Guinea (PNG) during Feb. 11 – 23, 2012.  It is not an attempt to detail all of our experiences or to give a complete chronology of the time.  Instead I have attempted to give you a taste of some of the experience.  The trip included such amazing experiences that it almost seemed as if we lived a lifetime in that short time span, hence my title.

To the reader, my training is in mathematics and the physical sciences, and I am very grateful for that training.  I have found it to be very helpful and useful.  My bachelor’s degree was in mathematics and my master’s degree was in astronomy.  Some of what follows will not sound very “scientific” but I remind you that the sciences are limited to the repeatable, the predictable, and the measurable.  Not all of our lives fall into these areas.  So enjoy the following for what it is, an amazing story.
March 9, 2012

A Lifetime in Two Weeks

The Background
For my wife Ruth and for me, this all began in the end of May, 2011.  Our son Dave wrote a posting on his weekly blog about a group of five tribes in Papua New Guinea (PNG)who had been driven from their ancient, ancestral home lands by Exxon and dumped in Port Moresby, the PNG capital, with no place to reestablish themselves.  Dave working with Clemence Kanau and others acquired a tract of about two square miles of unused land about three miles east of the Port Moresby airport.  The tract with very fertile soil could support several thousand of the displaced families, except for one problem, there was no potable water on the site.  The closest accessible water for most of the site was around three miles or more of walking distance from locations on the site, and that single tap water source was only available in mornings and evenings, if it was available at all.

(The following is a lesson I taught for our Advent series at my church Dec. 18th)

When Jesus announced the beginning of his ministry, the first prophetic reference he made was to the book of Isaiah:

The Spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me,
because the LORD has anointed me
to bring good news to the poor;
he has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted,
to proclaim liberty to the captives,
and the opening of the prison to those who are bound;
to proclaim the year of the LORD’s favor,
and the day of vengeance of our God;
to comfort all who mourn;
to grant to those who mourn in Zion—
to give them a beautiful headdress instead of ashes,
the oil of gladness instead of mourning,
the garment of praise instead of a faint spirit;
that they may be called oaks of righteousness,
the planting of the LORD, that he may be glorified.
They shall build up the ancient ruins;
they shall raise up the former devastations;
they shall repair the ruined cities,
the devastations of many generations.
Strangers shall stand and tend your flocks;
foreigners shall be your plowmen and vinedressers;
but you shall be called the priests of the LORD;
they shall speak of you as the ministers of our God;
you shall eat the wealth of the nations,
and in their glory you shall boast.
Instead of your shame there shall be a double portion;
instead of dishonor they shall rejoice in their lot;
therefore in their land they shall possess a double portion;
they shall have everlasting joy.

For I the LORD love justice;
I hate robbery and wrong;
I will faithfully give them their recompense,
and I will make an everlasting covenant with them.
Their offspring shall be known among the nations,
and their descendants in the midst of the peoples;
all who see them shall acknowledge them,
that they are an offspring the LORD has blessed. (Isaiah 61:1-9)

So reads the prophecy in Isaiah.  Now take a look at how Jesus quoted it:

And he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up. And as was his custom, he went to the synagogue on the Sabbath day, and he stood up to read.  And the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written,

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
because he has anointed me
to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives
and recovering of sight to the blind,
to set at liberty those who are oppressed,
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”

And he rolled up the scroll and gave it back to the attendant and sat down. And the eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. And he began to say to them, “Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” (Luke 4:16-21)

Jesus Proclaimed Who He Was

The first important thing to recognize is that by appropriating this passage from Isaiah, Jesus was making an unmistakable declaration.  The word translated “anointed” in the Isaiah passage is the Hebrew מָשַׁח֩, which I’ve seen transliterated as either “masah” or “mashach” (sorry, I have to depend on others for the Hebrew as I’ve never studied it).  The Greek word for “anointed,” in both the Septuagint Old Testament and the Greek New Testament, is ἔχρισέν, “echrisen.”  It doesn’t take much squinting to see (correctly) that we get our English words “Messiah” and “Christ” from those two words.  It’s a simple realization, perhaps, but when Jesus states in Luke 4:21 that “today this Scripture has been fulfilled,” he is making an unequivocal claim to being Israel’s Messiah…the Anointed King.  This is not just a label that others laid on Jesus…according to the gospel of Luke it’s a title he claimed for himself from the beginning of his ministry.

Jesus Also Proclaimed Who He Wasn’t

Things get interesting when we compare the Luke and Isaiah passages.  Take a look at them side by side, and at first one would think Jesus was simply quoting Isaiah 61:1-2 with the bits slightly rearranged…but then we notice a glaring “omission.”  He completely left out “the day of vengeance of our God.”  As if that wasn’t “bad” enough, read the rest of the story in Luke 4:22-30.  Jesus’ claim of Messiahship was warmly received at first (v. 23), but then Jesus went on to foretell that his hometown folks were going to be unhappy with him for not doing more for them.  He even had the gall to point out two specific instances in which Gentiles received miraculous intervention from God to the direct exclusion of needy Israelites (v. 25-27).

An uncomfortable element of Jesus’ message was also unmistakeable:  The Messiah you are looking for is not the Messiah you’re getting.  The Messianic passage in Isaiah 61 looks like a restoration of the kingdom of Israel, complete with God’s vengeance (v. 2), the restoration of destroyed ruins (v. 4), foreigners serving Israel (v. 5), Israel serving God as priests (v. 6), and the world finally acknowledging Israel’s greatness (v. 9).  But not only did Jesus leave out all of that, he explicitly told of Gentiles getting blessings that his hearers would have expected to be reserved for Jews.  No wonder the crowd tried, for the first of many times, to kill him!  Jesus was spoiling all their restorationist, exclusionary dreams!

Jesus Announced His Purpose

In selecting from the first two verses of Isaiah 61, Jesus gave his hearers a master plan of the work he was sent to do:

• Preach good news (Greek “evangelize”) to the poor
• Proclaim liberty to the captives
• Proclaim sight to the blind (Septuagint; Hebrew scripture “release from bondage”)
• Liberation of the oppressed
• Proclaim the “Year of the LORD’s favor”

Although the order varies between Luke’s account and Isaiah’s original, the combination of these elements occurs in both places, and we can see in these elements a powerful theme.  If Isaiah and Jesus had only mentioned liberty to captives and those who are oppressed, and maybe even the release from bondage part, then the notion of God’s Anointed One coming to throw off Roman rule and lead Israel to political greatness, might even make sense.  But taking all five of Jesus’ bullet points, and particularly the “Year of the LORD’s favor” reveals a decidedly different focus.  Though he was not blowing a trumpet, Jesus was announcing that God’s Jubilee had finally arrived.

Jubilee and God’s Economics

Jubilee is a concept we don’t think about too much.  We Christians like to talk a lot about the parts of the Jewish Law that provided for atonement (though we usually get those wrong too in my opinion), and we occasionally look at the more arcane bits about sexuality or ritual purity, but the economics of ancient Jewish law aren’t often examined.  They should be.  The two key passages for understanding Jubilee economics are Leviticus 25 and Deuteronomy 15.  Let’s have a look, starting with Lev. 25:1-7.  In this section we learn that God declared a seventh-year “Sabbath year” in which the land and the vines are to be given rest and neither cultivated nor harvested.  The practical implications of this are teased out in Lev. 25:18-22, in which God promises a bumper crop in the sixth year, enough to sustain the people through the seventh year and up till the harvest of the eighth year.

Deuteronomy 15:1-11 adds to the provisions for the Sabbath year:  “At the end of every seventh year you shall grant a release” (sound familiar?).  The release described in Deuteronomy is a cancellation of monetary debts, particularly any loan to “a brother who becomes poor.”  Deut. 15:12-18 further provides that in the the Sabbath year any Hebrew debtor slave must be released (in other words, it was not so much slavery but rather indentured servitude which was permitted for economic reasons).  “Good news to the poor” indeed!

Back to Leviticus 25:8-17.  Here we have the introduction of the Year of Jubilee itself.  The “sabbath of sabbaths” is to follow on the fiftieth year…a special year of Jubilee in which even land must return to its family owners.  Not all real estate, as Lev. 25:29-31 states that a house in a walled city is not subject to Jubilee release; however the means of production (that is, agricultural land) and homes in rural areas were to return to their familial owners.  As Lev. 25:15-17 makes clear, it is not productive land, but rather potential crop-years, that may be sold in the rural areas.

Jubilee and the Sabbath years were not merely occasional interruptions on the calendar, as the latter part of the chapter makes abundantly clear.  In Lev. 25:35-42, Israelites are commanded to care for their poor brethren.  Though there are a variety of provisions, the most stunning is v. 36-37:  Take no interest from him or profit, but fear your God, that your brother may live beside you.  You shall not lend him your money at interest, nor give him your food for profit (see also Deut. 23:19 and Exod. 22:25).  In powerful counterpoint to the economics by which we live, in God’s economy the poor are not an acceptable profit center.  Period!

It is of course a cause of some concern to many readers, and was deeply abused in our own country, that the Levitical law does provide for slavery of non-Hebrews.  A closer examination of these provisions is still worthwhile.  Lev. 25:42 explains why Hebrews could not be enslaved:  because God himself had already bought them (or redeemed them, see Deut. 15:15) from Egypt.  And this is where Jesus’ extending the “good news” of Jubilee to the Gentiles comes into play:  Now that God through Jesus has redeemed all of humanity, there are no longer any “strangers and aliens” available to be enslaved.  In Jesus, all of humanity has been purchased by God and is no longer for sale to anyone else!

Tragically, most of the provisions of God’s law of Jubilee may never have been practiced.  We certainly have no record in any Biblical account of a year of release–Sabbath or Jubilee–ever happening.  A few rabbinical websites I’ve been able to find do describe the way of counting the Jubilee year and imply that some elements may in fact have been practiced, though as this site explains, rabbis and Talmudic scholars seem to agree that the land provisions of Jubilee only apply in the land of Israel proper, and that none of it now applies since the majority of Jews do not live in Israel.  We do know that there was at least some historical awareness of the prohibition of interest, since more than once the people of Israel are criticized by the prophets for charging interest of their brethren (see Neh. 5:10, Prov. 28:8, Ezek. 18:8-13 and Ezek. 22:12).

Part of why much of this law may never have been practiced is a harsh reality:  actually doing Jubilee is not practical…in fact, absent God’s provision it’s economic suicide.  That’s why the promise of provision in Lev. 25:18-22 is so crucial.  Jubilee is impossible except by depending upon God to keep his word.  And it’s much harder for most of us to “have faith” in God when it comes to our homes and our stomachs than it is for something as amorphous as our “souls.”  ‘Twas ever thus, I suspect.

Recognizing Jesus’ Jubilee Kingdom

Any good Evangelical can tell you that the Law has been fulfilled in Jesus the Anointed One (Messiah/Christ).  What we are far less likely to recognize is that the Kingdom Jesus declared is not devoid of laws.  These laws aren’t the way we are “saved” (though that question isn’t as relevant as it is often preached), but there is nonetheless a character and conduct expected of Jesus’ subjects, quite different from that of the world in which we live.  In his declaration of Jubilee, I believe Jesus aligned himself and his followers firmly with the testimony of Moses and the prophets for thousands of years before:  there is a radical, decidedly material, economic component to living in his Kingdom.

I can’t describe with certainty what this economic component ought to look like.  That’s something that needs to be worked out with prayer and much dialog within the local body of believers.  But I think we can glean some universal truths that must be part of Jesus’ economy:

1. God’s people are to see the poor as the objects of God’s particular concern and love, and to use our abundance to help them.  There is nothing wrong with business in God’s economy, but Jubilee Christians may not conduct business whose profit is derived from the poverty of others.  (for more on this you may want to check out my post Would Jesus Occupy Wall Street?)
2. Most of us are no longer farmers, so it’s harder to think what the sabbath of the land might look like.  I do think it suggests a balance to the notion popular among some, that when God granted humanity “dominion” over the earth, he gave us a blank check to exploit it for all it’s worth.  Rather, trusting in God to provide our needs, we should be gentle in our use and stewardship of the natural resources with which we’ve been entrusted, and learn to let those resources have a rest from time to time.
3. We do not live in a place with hereditary land ownership as Israel did.  But within the seven-year debt forgiveness cycle and the fifty-year land return cycle, I see a general principle that the aggregation of wealth must have limits.  Both the poor and the rich need some sort of periodic reset button to prevent the permanent marginalization of some and the permanent aggrandizement of others.
4. Bondage comes in many forms.  We Christians like to concentrate on spiritual bondage, and it’s a real thing…not for one moment do I mean to minimize it.  But there’s still real physical slavery in this world (check out this post and the links on it for just a few examples), and we ought to be doing everything in our power to fight it.  There are also many who are in bondage precisely because of their economic poverty.  We need to look closely at how our lifestyles may add to (or at least enable) that bondage, and what we can do to proclaim liberty to the captives, whatever form their captivity may take.

Luke 19:1-9 gives us an interesting insight into what Jubilee can look like.  This is the story of when Jesus went to the home of wealthy tax collector Zaccheus.  Ol’ Zach must have really gotten smitten by the notion of Jesus kingdom, as his response to Jesus was to give away half of everything he owned, and to pay quadruple damages to anyone he’d ever wronged.  That, my friends, is Jubilee in action!

Jubilee is as radical an idea today as it was in Moses’ time, and in Jesus’.  Spiritual, yes in some ways, but with a nuts-and-bolts practical application that we cannot ignore.  God has always had a different economy than the world’s.  God’s people have rarely, if ever, trusted him enough to follow it.  But just maybe, this is part of what Jesus meant when he said:

Seek first the Kingdom of God, and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.  (Matt. 6:33)

May we welcome the advent of Jesus Christ not just with Christmas bells, but with the ram’s horn of Jubilee!  The Kingdom of God is at hand!

“The poor you will always have with you…”  So said Jesus according to the accounts of three of the four Gospel writers (Matt. 26:11, Mark 14:7, and John 12:8).  He said it in the context of someone objecting to a woman pouring perfume on his feet, when the value could have been given to the poor.  (aside…Matthew says the disciples objected and doesn’t identify the woman; Mark identifies neither; John identifies the woman as Mary, sister of Lazarus & Martha, and the objector as Judas Iscariot).

Anyhow, I have run across this verse abused by conservative Christians, who were objecting to liberal Christians’ attempts to actually fight poverty, particularly using political means.  The argument seems to go something to the effect that if Jesus said we’d never get rid of the poor, it’s foolish for the liberals to try.  Of course that’s specious; Jesus finished that very sentence by saying “and whenever you want, you can do good for them.”

But I just discovered something that I had never noticed before.  Jesus wasn’t just making a random commentary about life when he said “the poor you will always have with you.”  I didn’t realize this, but he was quite probably referring to the Law of Moses…specifically Deut. 15:11:

For there will never cease to be poor in the land. Therefore I command you, ‘You shall open wide your hand to your brother, to the needy and to the poor, in your land.’

Whoa, what’s that?  Because there will always be poor, God always expects his people to be generous to the poor!  Not because we can ever “cure” poverty, though the reset-buttons of the Sabbath Year and Jubilee would certainly reduce the generational effect of poverty (see Deut. 15:1 and Lev. 25).  But no, the reason we are to treat the poor with kindness is in verse 10:

You shall give to him freely, and your heart shall not be grudging when you give to him, because for this the LORD your God will bless you in all your work and in all that you undertake.

Hmm…how’s that for an economic stimulus plan?

I have just finished Lee C. Camp’s book Who Is My Enemy?   This is a book every American Christian should read–full stop.  It is also a book everyone who’s frustrated with the public political stance of American Christians should read.  And it’s also a book anyone wrestling with the questions of war and peace with regard to the church and/or teachings of Jesus Christ should read.  And it’s also … oh, forget it, just go buy and read the book already! (and no, I get no remuneration for this…I bought my copy on Amazon!)

Camp wrote this book out of a journey he undertook to attempt to see America through Muslim eyes, as well as to get to know Muslims first-hand, as he contemplated Americans’ fear of Islam in the post-9/11 world.  Along the way, he learned a lot about his own faith as well.

I have had conversations with more than one Evangelical Christian about Islam.  I’m sad to report that most of those discussions seem to get mired down in the notion that Islam is essentially a violent religion bent upon the destruction of any and all who do not convert to the Muslim religion and subject their nations to the Islamic “Shariah” law.  Most of those friends, frankly, discount my own personal experiences with any Muslim who might have ever treated me with anything like respect or even love…they are convinced that any such person was either deceiving me in order to eventually convert me, or else he wasn’t really a committed Muslim.  Maybe my faith is weak, but I don’t know how many of this particular subset of my friends would even hear Lee’s message.  But for the rest, I believe he’s drawn out some important insights.

Camp makes a compelling historical case that when Christians claim Islam is a violent religion, they’re suffering a serious case of collective amnesia regarding Christianity’s own history.  We all know that the “Christian” Europeans launched the Crusades during the medieval era; I did not know that not only Muslim history, but also written records from the crusaders themselves, document at least one instance of the crusaders actually boiling Muslim adults, roasting their children and eating them.  Camp recounts records from the crusaders’ own accounts as well as those of Arab historians, of whole towns slaughtered, mosques filled with people burned alive, and similar accounts of wanton slaughter that frankly horrified the Muslims who survived.

But then, in answer to the claim that Christians became more enlightened since the Middle Ages, Camp also relates the history of the colonial and early American slaughter of Native American people, including one event where hundreds of Indians were massacred over a period of weeks on the provocation of one settler being murdered.  In the 17th century, the Christian Puritans who came to America well-trained in Calvinist Christianity, stated following their wanton slaughter “Thus was God pleased to smite our enemies, and to give us their Land for an Inheritance.”

He carries the tale to the twentieth century, and the U.S. invasion of the Philippines under Theodore Roosevelt’s presidency, where civilians “stood along the side of the road, took off their hats, touched their foreheads with their hands.  ‘Buenos Dias, Senors’ (means good morning),’ and then the soldier boys proceeded to kill the residents and destroy the village.”  Even the most-justified (in American eyes) war in our history, World War II, had a dark side we rarely discuss:  the British and American firebombings of Hamburg and other German cities where the civilian residential areas were deliberately targeted in a strategy designed “to destroy the morale of the enemy civilian population, and in particular, of the industrial workers” (attributed by Camp to Sir Charles Webster and Noble Frankland, British historians of the war).  The same rationale, it may be said, also was used in our firebombings and ultimately nuclear attacks on Japan, justified by many in the American Christian world.

All this is not–and Camp makes this clear–an attempt to justify Muslim violence by positing some sort of “moral equivalency…” a “sure, they’re bad, but so are we” argument. Camp is rather confronting those who claim that Christians are peaceful and Muslims are violent, with the harsh evidence of violence in our own ranks.  As he says:  “I intend no rationalizing or excusing or justifying on anyone’s part.  My concern instead is that we practice honest self-examination rather than the dishonest procedure of comparing an idealized form of our faith tradition with the messy historical record of Muslims.”

This then is where Camp’s work becomes more theological.  Though not a proponent of Augustine’s criteria for “Just War,” he calls to mind a significant part of Augustine’s teaching that I most emphatically have not heard taught in American churches.  Augustine promoted several criteria for Jus ad Bellum, justice in deciding to go to war (this comes from pp.71-72 of the paperback edition of the book).  These are the well-known criteria that

• War is declared by a legitimate governing authority
• War must be engaged for just cause, such as self-defense, defense of innocents, restoration of order;
• War must be undertaken for right objective intentions…peace and justice as opposed to territory or resources;
• War must also be undertaken with right subjective intentions…justice and mercy not hatred and vengeance.

There is also the notion of due process in war:

• It must be undertaken as a true last resort after other options have been exhausted;
• The enemy must always be allowed to sue for peace on the grounds for which the war was started; the demand of an unconditional surrender is ipso facto unjust;
• The cause must be winnable
• Force must be proportional to the cause and the harm being prevented (this of course runs counter to the “Powell Doctrine”)
• Treaties & international law must be respected;
• Enemy combatants must be treated justly if captured.

But interestingly, Augustine also provided some other guidelines for Jus in bello, the just conduct of the war:

• Immunity of the innocent; noncombatants must not be targeted;
• Weapons must discriminate between the innocent and the combatant (this is often taken to state that land mines, which are completely agnostic to their targets, are unjust);
• Methods must be only what is necessary to achieve the objective;
• Human dignity must be respected; torture, slander, rape, poisoning of wells, are forbidden, and keeping truces and giving quarter are required.

The point that Camp makes in all this is that American Christians tend to claim Augustine’s “Just War” mantle in determining that the decision to wage war is just (although even there, our voice is rarely heard in a critical manner), but then Augustine’s further guidance is left entirely by the wayside in the pursuit of a war once engaged.  Here, the history Camp has recounted in previous chapters comes back to devastating effect, as time after time, the American position has been to win the war at all costs because we have adjudged the cause to be just, but with little regard to the justice of the means.  “This is not merely an argument about pacifism.”  Camp writes.  “This is about the fact that the church ignores JWT [Just War Theory] too.  This is about the move toward ‘total war,” in which we are told we must wage merciless war on behalf of the good news of democracy and free-market economies and political liberalism so we might be free to worship the Lord who in Jesus taught us to love our enemies.” (p. 96)

But here, then, is where Camp gets to the meat of his discovery.  The Christian theory of Just War is far more similar to the teachings of Mohammad in the Qur’an, than it is to the teachings of Jesus in the Bible. Islam also has a rich “Just War” tradition in both scripture and history…although certainly it has been violated in history just as the Christian tradition has.  But nobody who has read the texts can argue that Mohammad did not condone warfare in some form, while that argument is quite compelling not only for Jesus himself, but for at least the first two hundred years of Christianity.

Camp unpacks an association I thought I had seen before, but had yet to put into words, when he actually associates Christian warmaking as a logical extension of the Christian doctrine of penal-substitutionary atonement.  He explains it through the eyes of a Muslim theologian with whom he met (and this is Camp’s explanation, not that theologians exact words):  “The Christian myth gets to ‘redemption’ through a crucifixion, a violent, abusive act; ‘justice’ demands such punishment; and redemption requires the shedding of blood in exchange for the sins and hostilities committed.  This myth…ironically depicts the cross in such a fashion that it becomes easily co-opted by Crusaders of any and all sorts.”  (p. 114)

He then takes a clear-eyed look at the Muslim denial that Jesus ever died.  Camp is no synchretist.  His chapter “Good Friday” is absolutely clear in the centrality of Jesus’ death and resurrection to Christian doctrine and practice.  But he shows the truth of the cross as the counter-worldly way in which God chose to deal with evil…not by killing those infected by evil but by dying to give them life…so that resorting to the violent way of the world is actually to deny the way of the very Lord we claim to serve.  “Thus, we come to this ironic observation, that while the Muslim may deny the historical fact of the crucified Jesus, we Christians have often denied the ethical relevance of the crucified Jesus.”  And later, “…when the crucified Jesus becomes yet one more ‘doctrine’ merely to be believed, stripped of its narrative force, stripped of its ethical significance for the disciple of that Jesus…when the cross becomes an emblem, or the Scriptures that testify to this Jesus become the morale booster to go off and kill the enemy whom Jesus commanded us to love, then the Christian has denied the crucified Jesus every bit as much as the Muslim has, but less honorably so.”

The Muslim denies with his words,

because of what the Qur’an says;

the Christian denies with his deeds,

despite what the Bible says.

Camp’s concluding paragraphs are powerful.  “Wherever we Christians come out upon the question of ‘pacifism’ or ‘just war,’ we all will need immense courage to speak up and speak out:  against nationalism and militarism, against fearmongering and hatred of enemies, against praying for ‘our troops’ instead of praying for peace….[We need] to stop counting the United States, for all the many things about this country we may savor and know to be genuinely good, as the savior of the world, for the world already has a Savior…”

“Freedom is the gift of God and is enabled by cross and resurrection, not by the United States’ Constitution, or Declaration of Independence, or well-intentioned and honorable soldiers.  It is Jesus who gives us freedom…”

I hope I’ve whetted your appetite.  This is an important book!

And he told them a parable, saying, “The farm of a certain rich man bore well.   And he talked it over with himself, saying, ‘What shall I do? I don’t have space to store my crops.’   And he said, ‘This is what I will do: I will take down my storehouses and build bigger, and there I will gather all my grain and my good things,   and I will say to myself, ‘Self, you have many good things laid by for many years. Take it easy, eat, drink, and enjoy it.’   But God said to him, ‘Fool! This night your life will be demanded from you. Then whose will be what you’ve prepared?’   Thus (is) the one who accumulates treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God.” (Luke 12:16-21, Pioneers’ New Testament)

This parable is well known in Christian circles, but at least in the Sunday Schools I went to, the message is usually something to the effect that “you can’t take it with you” (well, when it’s not fear-mongering of the “where would you go if you died tonight” variety).  Less common is to examine the lessons Jesus offers us on the economics of the Kingdom of God.

Jesus’ story begins with the statement that the man’s farm “bore well.”  This concept will be blindingly obvious to anyone who’s ever depended on the land for their livelihood, but perhaps not to the rest of us.  Any farmer knows that no matter how skilled he is, no matter the technology he brings to bear on his agricultural efforts, and no matter how hard he and/or his employees work, there is an element of the outcome of any harvest that is simply out of his hands.  The godly farmer knows that “it is God who gives the increase,” while others ascribe their harvests (good or bad) to luck, the weather, or other forces…but all know that success or failure are not entirely their own doing.

The rest of us, particularly in the West and most particularly in the United States, seem to have lost this awareness.  Listen to any “self-made man,” or to any of the many apologists for the American capitalist system, and you would think that wealth is directly correlated to hard work and creativity.  Rarely do the financially-successful acknowledge the extent to which they owe their wealth to accidents of birth, environment, and external forces.  Rarer still is any admission that the poor they so easily disparage work as hard and as creatively as they.  Even here in the U.S., not many of us can realistically hope for a significant uptick in our financial status, but most of us are one unforseen disaster away from financial ruin.  Surely, we stand or fall in part through nothing but the mercy of God.

This, of course, calls us to think about how we ought to respond if we do achieve success.  The farmer in Jesus’ parable responded in good American form:  enlarge the storehouse, diversify the investments, maybe arrange a tax shelter or two, and get ready to enjoy “the good life.”  I love what Rick Warren, author of The Purpose Driven ™ Life, had to say in a video I saw once (and sorry, I don’t have a link):  “If you write a book that starts ‘It’s not about you,’ and you make millions off of the sales, it might occur to you that the money isn’t FOR you.”  Rick had a point, and it’s Jesus’ point too.  If God does in fact give/enable wealth, he intends it to be used his way, not stored up for the party.

One of Jesus’ most compelling–and perhaps frightening–sayings is found at the end of the chapter, Luke 12:48.

Much is demanded from all to whom much is given. They will ask much more of the one to whom much is entrusted.

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Note: Biblical quotations are taken from The Pioneers’ New Testament, an original translation from Greek done by my Mom.  If any of you are interested in a different take from the average Bible translation, I encourage you to check it out at The Pioneers’ New Testament blog.

The other day, a Facebook friend of mine posted a big caption on his profile:  “JESUS Is With the 99%.”  Predictably, he got a bunch of “likes” from his liberal buddies, and just as predictably, he got some major pushback from his conservative friends.  The Christian camp has divided along the usual lines, with one side loudly shouting that Jesus would join the rowdy crowd occupying the parks of our major cities, and the other side decrying the suggestion that Jesus might be even a tiny bit “socialist.”  Sadly, if not entirely surprising, the proclamations on either end of the spectrum seem to reflect the political biases of the speaker with little, if any consideration for what Jesus actually said.

Whether or not Jesus would be with the whistle-blowing, bucket-thumping folks camped out in the parks is an interesting thought exercise, and one I’ll address in a bit.  Quite apart from this question, any reasonable reading of the gospels and the prophets should make it patently obvious that Jesus would absolutely NOT be defending the Wall Street bankers and financial elite against whom the protesters are shouting.

In this regard, the biases of conservative American Christians have gone unchallenged for far too long.  For the most part, I try to stay away from obviously partisan issues on this blog, but sooner or later we have got to face the fact that the Bible message is blunt and troubling:  when their interests collide, God sides with the poor and marginalized against the rich and comfortable.  When American Christians attempt to wrap a mantle of divine blessing around those in the upper strata of capitalism, they do violence to the clear message of scripture.  Let’s take a look at some examples:

Usury Even before they entered the promised land, God explicitly forbade his people from charging interest when they loaned money to each other.  Exodus 22:25 is the first such command, and in verses 26-27 it goes further to state that a cloak given in collateral for a loan must be returned at night so the debtor can stay warm.  One might be tempted to say this only applies to charging interest to a fellow-believer (Jew in those days) who is poor, but just before in verses 21-24, God forbids other sorts of oppression of the sojourner, the widow, and the orphan.  That context suggests to me that God might see anyone who is at economic disadvantage as “my people who are poor.”  Leviticus 25:35-37 and Deuteronomy 23:19 reinforce the prohibition against charging interest to “a brother,” although Deut. 23:20 explicitly permits charging interest of a foreigner.

Lest we think this is just an antiquated concept from the Mosaic law, take a look at Ezekiel 18:5-18.  Here, Ezekiel repeatedly refers to taking interest as an “abomination” worthy of death right up with robbery, adultery, and idolatry (see verses 8, 13, and 17).  These verses echo strongly the Levitical law both in forbidding usury and in criticizing those who fail to return collateral.  Nehemiah chapter 5 relates a similar account.

In stark contrast, the “financial services sector” embodied in Wall Street depends heavily upon the charging of interest…often exorbitant interest.  While mortgage rates are at historic lows (for those who can qualify, that is), credit card interest is another matter, ranging from 10-14% for normal usage, but jumping as high as 30% for delinquent accounts.  Factor in the myriad fees banks are now piling on top of their interest charges, and “usury” is not an unreasonable noun.  There was a time when we actually had anti-usury laws in the U.S.  More accurately, we still do in State law, but Federal law supersedes it for “National” banks.

What is more, the most usurious of rates and fees are most likely to fall on the poorest and least-educated of borrowers.  This is in part due to the fact that they are deemed the highest-risk and most likely to default, and the usual defense of usury on the part of lenders is that the rates are high to compensate lenders for the risk of losing their money to default.  I would counter that the recent rates of profit (and compensation packages) posted by the large banking institutions in this country suggest that whatever risk exposure they may have has been more than countered by the rates they charge, and of course mitigated even further by the taxpayer-funded bailout of the banking sector.

Likewise, the foreclosure of homes, cars, and other collateral clearly runs counter to the Biblical injunction to return a man’s cloak to him at night.  Again, one may respond that the lender is only carrying out the terms of a loan contract into which the borrower freely entered.  But is this true?  I actually read the terms of my home mortgage before I signed it…all 30 or 40 pages of fine print.  But how many, particularly among the less-educated, could understand those terms even if they did take the time to read them?  And how freely have they entered into a contract when they see the loan as the only thing between them and hunger or homelessness?

No, the Biblical injunction is that, at least where the poor are concerned, lending should be done not for the investment benefit of the lender, but for the moral and vital support of the borrower.  The world sees otherwise, to be sure.  God’s math is different, and no amount of free-enterprise posturing can defend Christians from the fact that we are complicit in an industry that blatantly disregards the law of God.

Interestingly, we could learn a thing or two from Islam in this regard.  When American Christians hear the word “Shariah,” they usually think of oppressed women, thieves getting their hands cut off, and all manner of capital offenses including converting from Islam.  It is indisputable that some countries do implement Shariah in this manner.  However, there’s another side to Shariah that, if Christian Americans knew about it, might scare them even more, and that’s laws guiding finance.  I encourage interested readers to check out this article on Shariah-compliant investment to learn more, and even Google “shariah investment” to see how it’s being implemented.  While some Christians might get lost in the legalism of the above article, the key elements are:

• Muslims must choose investments only in companies whose business activities do not violate the principles of Islam;
• Muslims may not invest in a company or fund that either charges interest or borrows money on interest;
• If a Muslim invests in a company (for capital growth or operating purposes), he may not do so on terms of a guaranteed return (i.e. interest), rather he must take what amounts to an equity position where he will share in the profit OR LOSS of that company.  In other words, a Muslim investor must have “skin in the game.”

I’m not sure how this would work in the case of a home mortgage.  I don’t have an Imam to whom I could ask this; perhaps someone reading can help me here, but if I understand these principles correctly, I’m guessing if a Muslim were to lend money to someone else (Muslim or not) to buy a house, he’d have to do so solely on the basis of shared equity…that is he’d share in the gain or loss in value of the property at resale.  Perhaps he could also charge rent to the homeowner in proportion to his ownership share in the house, and maybe work out a declining-balance calculation whereby ownership gradually transfers from the lender to the borrower.  However, I’m pretty sure the American model where the primary risk rests with the borrower who may lose his home and assets, and where only the lender is protected by tax-funded bailouts, is in violation of Muslim Shariah.  I think it’s in violation of Judaeo-Christian principles as well.

Infinite Accumulation A repeated refrain among Christians when they are faced with Biblical challenges to their wealth is to respond that God does not forbid or curse wealth itself, and this is true.  The patriarchs were rich.  The kings of Israel were rich and at least with David and Solomon, those riches are portrayed in the Bible as God’s blessing…however it’s important to remember that the prophet Samuel warned against the king and his cronies accruing wealth (see 1 Sam. 8:10-18).  Some of Jesus’ followers were rich, too.

But the law of Moses has some interesting provisions that would have prevented the permanent creation of a wealthy class such as we see throughout history.  I refer, of course, to the laws of sabbatical and Jubilee.    Take a look at Deuteronomy 15:1-11.  (I mean it.  Take a break from this article and go read the law.) God provided in his law that debts (except to foreigners) would be canceled every seven years.  He also provided that generous assistance to the poor was a non-negotiable requirement.

Now go read Leviticus 25–the whole chapter.  In addition to the Sabbatical year described above, in the fiftieth year, any non-urban real estate that had been acquired over the last 49 years reverted to its familial ownership (and property was to be valued pro-rata by the number of years till Jubilee).  Taking interest or profit from the poor is expressly forbidden (Lev. 25:36).  (as an aside, have you notice that conservative Christians who advocate lower taxes on the basis of the Mosaic tithe, seem to have collective amnesia about Jubilee?  Coincidence?  I doubt it…)

Fast forward to Jesus.  I have never encountered a Biblical scholar, conservative or liberal, who disputes that the “year of the LORD’s favor” Jesus announced in Luke 4:18-19, refers to the year of Jubilee.  They may try to spiritualize it, but they don’t deny the allusion.  Jesus himself said very little else about debt, though I can think of no reason “forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors” somehow excludes debts of the financial sort.  Of all the “you have heard it was said/but I say to you” statements Jesus made, however, I can think of none that justifies the infinite pursuit of acquisition –and indifference to the poor– that marks American society today.

WJOW? So…would Jesus occupy Wall Street?  Obviously I don’t know.  I suspect he would not be camping in the park and thumping drums with the protesters, but I rather think he’d show up there just the same.  He’d blast the corruption and greed of the bankers with every bit of the zeal he showed when he cleansed the temple (John 2:13-17)  or when he lambasted the Pharisees for their nitpicking on the edges of the law while neglecting justice (Luke 11:39-44).  I do think he might encourage the folks who are there to at least be nice to the poor schmucks who will have to clean up the mess, and encourage people to keep the place neat while they’re protesting (after all, he did have his disciples clean up after the crowd in John 6:12).

I do know this…he’d be more likely to be in the park than in the boardroom at Goldman Sachs.  If the Goldmans were ever to invite him in, he’d go, but if they listened to him, I think they’d wind up behaving rather like Zacchaeus in Luke 19:8.  If you ever see bankers giving half of what they own to the poor, and returning fourfold anything they’ve taken by unjust means, then you’ll know that Jesus has …finally… been to Wall Street.

My brother Dave’s blog is primarily about economics, mine primarily about theology.  But I have got to highlight to you guys, this post in which Dave quite properly calls out some of the ways in which church institutions seem to have forgotten which deity they ought to serve (Matt. 6:19-24).

Churches sometimes talk a good game about justice, and even do great works for justice.  But who stops to think about what their investment and property holdings say about justice?  Dave points out some flagrant examples in New Guinea where he’s done extensive work. . .I would suggest that a look closer to home, even to the lavish “worship centers” we build and equip, would be equally valid.  Where, then, is our treasure?

I’ve just finished the book Roger Williams by historian Edwin S. Gaustad.  Loaned to me by a friend from church, this brief book is an overview of the life and writings of the man who founded the colony of Rhode Island in the early 17th century.  I recommend it to anyone who, like me, is frustrated by the frequent drumbeat among conservative Americans, as to the intent by America’s founders to create a Christian nation.  Though it’s true that some were, Williams (along with William Penn some seventy years later) offers a fascinating counterpoint.

Simply put, Roger Williams was one of the guys that the Massachusetts Bay Colony folks persecuted for not toeing the spiritual line.  A devout follower of Jesus, Williams believed firmly in liberty of conscience, and was therefore as offended by the theocratic tendencies of the Massachusetts leaders, as he was by those of the European despots they had fled.  Among his particularly interesting positions:

• Williams held that the English Crown’s grant of land patents was immoral, as the land was already owned by the natives who lived there.  If the colonists wanted land, they should buy it from the Indians, not seek it from the King.  “In doing this, Williams questioned the very foundation of the colony’s government and legitimacy.  Williams was especially troubled by the use of the Christian religion to do a very un-Christian deed: namely, depriving the Indians of their own property without due compensation or negotiation. . .Christian kings somehow believe that they are invested with right, by virtue of their Christianity, ‘to take and give away the Lands and Countries of other men.‘”  (p. 9)

• Williams also believed that requiring the phrase “so help me God” in an oath in court, was wrong in the case of anyone who was not himself a believer in God.  In fact, he argued that to so require was to force the unbeliever, not only to violate his own conscience, but to break the third commandment (against taking the Lord’s name in vain) in the process.

For his unorthodox beliefs, Roger Williams was banished from the colony of Massachusetts, and forced to leave to parts unknown in the middle of winter in 1636.  He wandered for a while in the wilderness, was offered hospitality by the Narragansett Indians, and finally established residence in what would become the town of Providence, Rhode Island (on land he purchased from the Indians).  The colony which grew from these humble beginnings, required as part of its original laws and charters, absolute freedom of conscience in matters of religion.  No anarchist, Williams made clear that citizens were still subject to civil governance, but that in matters of the state, the church would have no voice, and vice versa.

Interestingly, his convictions regarding freedom of conscience led Williams to found the first Baptist church in America in 1638.  Though he himself left the church after a few months (concluding that the true church would only be re-established when Jesus returned to earth and appointed new apostles), he remained firm in his conviction that membership in both church and faith was a choice to be made by deliberate action of the individual–not a result of birth, christening, or residence (he actually wrote a tract “Christenings Make Not Christians” in 1645–though vitriolically anti-Catholic, it’s worth a read considering it challenges the Christianity of good Protestant Englishmen).
 
There’s much more, and I encourage you to get and read the book. . .and next time your friends trot out the writings of Patrick Henry to prove that America started out a Christian theocracy, remember the persecution and struggles of Roger Williams.