Peace/Violence

White Poppy

Posted on by stephen t berg / 1 Comment

It seems to me, for those who take exception to the White Poppy–and reading the newspaper over the last few days there seems to be a good deal of exception taking–a consideration of the origin is in order.

The idea of an alternative poppy dates back to 1926, just a few years after the red poppy came to be used in Britain. A member of the No More War Movement suggested that the British Legion should be asked to imprint ’No More War’ in the centre of the red poppies and failing this pacifists should make their own flowers.

In 1933 the Co-operative Women’s Guild produced the first white poppies to be worn on Armistice Day (later called Remembrance Day). The Guild stressed that the white poppy was not intended as an insult to those who died in the First World War – a war in which many of the women lost husbands, brothers, sons and lovers."

Consider the sacrifice of those who remain alive after losing the relationship that was in fact their life. poppy-web-front-04

Isn’t it possible to respect and honour veterans of war and care deeply about the welfare of our troops and at the same time be passionately committed to non-violence?

’My pacifism is an instinctive feeling, a feeling that possesses me because the murder of men is abhorrent. My attitude is not derived from intellectual theory but is based on my deepest antipathy to every kind of cruelty and hatred.’ Albert Einstein

Technorati Tags: , , , , , ,

Atonement/Christianity/Peace/Violence

Unpicking Atonement’s Knots

Posted on by stephen t berg / 2 Comments

I remember sitting in my truck, in the parking lot of a Baptist church, reading James Alison’s "On Being Liked," specifically the essay, Unpicking Atonement’s Knots, when the whole penal substitution thing finally collapsed for me and I was set on a path of trying to understand atonement, not as substitution theory, not as satisfaction of a debt, not as appeasement, not even as God’s suicide on our behalf, but as a liturgical undergoing. That is, as God’s occupying the place of victim of our wrath, exposing not God’s, but our victimizing and sacrificial ways.

Now, more than a couple years later, I’m still somewhat off-balance and dizzy from the emancipation, and no doubt the emancipation of my understanding of a semi-peaceable God.

That chapter, Unpicking Atonement’s Knots, to answer a previous question, is a wonderful (and accessible) place to start in understanding God as non-sacrificial. And in seeing the ongoing organic, creative, and lively connection between atonement and Creation as opposed to a more static Creation, Fall, Redemption schema.

(I’ve also listed related books on another post)

Technorati Tags: , , , , ,

Atonement/Christianity/Peace/Religion

Girard, Christians, and Violence

Posted on by stephen t berg / 2 Comments

An article in Christianity Today’s 50th Anniversary with the promising title "The Church’s Great Malfunctions," written by Miroslav Volf and colleagues from the Yale Center for Faith and Culture, is a refreshing self-critique of modern Christianity. It’s good, and as I said, refreshing, but it doesn’t go far enough.

The essay begins by conceding that too often, "Christian faith neither mends the world nor helps human beings to thrive. On the contrary, it seems to shatter things into pieces, to choke what’s new and beautiful before it has chance to take root, to trample underfoot what’s good and true."

This was refreshing because the 152 page special edition of CT consulted 114 leaders from 11 ministry spheres about the future of Christian evangelical priorities, and only Volf was this candid. Among all the concern about getting back to scriptural basics, connecting to culture while being counter-cultural, and the repeat warnings about the gay agenda, only Volf’s article, (with the exception of one or two others leaders who drew attention to poverty and AIDS) asks an apt question. That is, why is it that Christians who embrace a peaceable faith have often been so violent?

who_would_jesus_bombHis answer laid out under three rubrics; a thin faith, an irrelevant faith and an unwillingness to walk the narrow path, was however disappointing. It provided nothing new other than an appeal to renew Christian character. It never reached into the underlying cause that this blog, when given opportunity, will go banging on about. And that is the sacrificial reading of scripture and substitutional atonement theory.

Please, Yale Center for Faith and Culture, you say it takes hard intellectual and spiritual work to learn to understand and live faith authentically. Then don’t ignore the implications of Girardian thought, the most exciting theological thinking since Augustine and the most fruitful anthropological thinking since the arrival of anthropology.

All quiet on the Eastern front
story

Any question on violence in reference to Christianity and the gospel must take Girard into account. Is it because entrenched statements of faith rooted in medieval theology are too layered over by time and tradition to be overcome?

As long as we ignore our sacrificial ways, already exposed by Christ, as long as we continue to unconsciously justify them through our uncritical acceptance of a flawed theory of the atonement we remain imprisoned by them. And so we go on acceding to so-called redemptive violence and wonder why we fit a violent culture.

But by excavating our error, by undergoing the all together non-violent way of God which is the peace of Christ, we may then find that symptoms like thin faith etc., lose their grip.

Technorati Tags: , , , , , , ,

Christianity/Politics/Religion/Spirituality

Ambivalent about Ted Haggard

Posted on by stephen t berg / 5 Comments

Until the recent "revelation" I’d never heard of Ted Haggard. I knew about Merle Haggard but not Ted. And I now know there’s not much in common between them.

I didn’t know Ted Haggard was listed as one of the 25 most influential men in America. Didn’t know he was president of National Association of Evangelicals. Didn’t know he was friends with presidents and top Christian leaders.

Well Ted’s going down and all that remains is the fading echo of the derby shoe heels of his erstwhile friends Pat Robertson, James Dobson and Jerry Falwell.

In doing a bit of digging I’ve found that it’s true that the NAE webmaster has taken off all Ted Haggard links; but it’s not true that the only thing that’s working on the site is the donation link.

It’s true that Ted’s fall is a huge deal for American evangelicals but it’s not true that most regular folks care. Most people will think that Ted probably needs some education about his own homosexuality. And that he might want to revise his stated literalism on the Leviticus 20:13 passage: If a man lies with a man as one lies with a woman, both of them have done what is detestable. They must be put to death; their blood will be on their own heads.

Up until today, you could still view Ted Haggard’s website where I found something I liked. When conflict flared after the 2001 terror attacks, Haggard said that Christians’ first duty is to "serve the Islamic people" by protecting them from angry backlash.

As well, although there is more than a hint of elitism, he a least doesn’t come across quite as one-dimensional as some of his powerful Evangelical friends. For example, he says, "Whether Hindu, Buddhist, Muslim, Jew, Christian, if we give them government accountable to the people, give them free-market economics and let them worship according to their conscience, and a greater opportunity to raise their families as they believe, we will have a better society."

But on the other hand I found something I didn’t like. In an interview last year with Harpers he said, “I teach a strong ideology of the use of power, of military might, as a public service.” He is for preemptive war, because he believes the Bible’s exhortations against sin set for us a preemptive paradigm, and he is for ferocious war, because “the Bible’s bloody. There’s a lot about blood.”

Yes Ted has some issues he’ll need to take care of. Perhaps during this time he’ll rethink some of these weightier gospel issues.

There is, as there is for all of us, mercy for Ted Haggard. It remains to be seen whether the Evangelical community will extend the kind of mercy that often flows easier from people outside the fold.

Technorati Tags: , , , , ,