This comment by Marin Pastor on Eric’s blog on the discussion in my previous post about theocracy is resonant with something I also said in that post, and something I learned from JKA Smith, that ALL “secular” “common sense” ideologies are , in the end, “theology”; based on and dependent upon what is REALLY important to that “community”; and there are systems in place to drive home the “natural” and “common sense” qualities of those assumptions. JKA calls it theology-1

Eric’s Tasty Morsels of Thought – Blurring the lines

all organizing strategies whether the modern state or what have you are, at the end of the day, parodies of the church. In that sense, all such strategies whether they realize it or not are attempted “theocracies.” The modern liberal state tries to avoid this and ends up descending into nihilism but it is still centered on an ultimate desire–even if that desire is perverted and turned completely inward–we worship ourselves.

The discussion over on Generous Orthodoxy Thinktank that got me revisiting some of my initial impressions of Radical Orthodoxy and my remaining irritiations with what I have decided, for the moment,. are signs of “impatience” and some “misunderstanding” of the “Telos” of these “Sojourner types”.

ONe bit of evidennce to which I might point that seem to back up my notion that many “Sojourner types” end up as deeper RO-oriented theologians is how my own journey has led me down that path. Eric has a similar path. We were all charged up last summer and early fall about the absolute neccessity of getting Bush out (I still thknk it would have been a good idea , but it is not SO ultimately important now in the larger scheme of things. My reading of Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States even contributed to that in that I was given a birds eye view of the way in which the U.S. government and its ancestors have always, without fail, done and justifed precisely everything and anything it damn well pleased, starting from its driving out and murdering millions of native people, because they were there and they wanted the land and saw it as “obvious” that these backward savages were in no way suited to instigate “progress” as it was known in the Western world. So , electing Kerry would have been no “Mission accomplished” (Indeed, it would have been about as close to “mission accomplished” as the now infamous photo-op with BUsh on the aircraft carrier has proven to be)

My beef is with the tendency amongst some RO-ers to assume that the use of certain language is indicative of a faulty “telos”, when I know otherwise. The difference comes in the debate over “obligation” (such as in the Steve Bush paper and the comments reacting to it. )

My desire is to see each side give the other its due “love and affirmation” as brothers (and sisters, though I haven’t seen too many women involved in this— what is there about this discussion that does this? That question just ocurred to me as I started to say “brothers and sisters” ) in Christ. I CLEARLY see in both a notion of “City of God” and “Kingdom of God”; a longing for an expression and embodiment of what it looks like for a people to see the world as one in which God is active and working in and amongst us. For me, this is an important BASE from which to deepen our theological underpinnings. When I read Hauerwas and Willimon affirm how “embodiment” is the key, my thoughts turn to The Church of the Saviour, or a people who serously pursue a radical notion of deep relatedness which goes against the grain of our “indepedence” and self-sufficiency notions of “freedom”, which the church in America has fully adopted into its “event” mentality (where church is a program that feeds our ego and teaches us to how to relax about our anxieties)….and it turns also to those who seek some sort of engagement with what they see as structures polluted by the “Principalities and Powers”. While I agree with RO’s assesment that there is a danger that all this “activism” is based on a misplaced trust in “the process” , I can see that as a “resignation” of sorts in that the same could be said of trying to institute change in the churches of America, even the “ecclesiological” ones. From where do we start? When I look at the history of the Church of the Saviour, and their initial decision to start from scratch instead of becoming a part of an existing demoninational tradtion, I wonder how much trust or credence we can place in having our politics emanate from “worship and the eucharist”, if the eccesiology underlying that “worshipping community” is ultimately in service of the state and the status quo, regardless of how “liturgical” and how “faithfully” they invoke the “Triune God”.

I’m not mocking those who speak of “Triune God” at all. The point is, when the “ethos” and “communality” being expressed are based in faitfulness and embodiment is the goal, then to speak of the Triune God is an act of worship, devotion, and celebration. My sense is that the RO folks who abstain from engagement with the nation state (or any of its “vestiges” or appendages as identified by certain strains of RO) can learn from those who come back to “worship” with a load of experience dealing with the “powers that be”—- some of them may begin to sway the way of the the deepest RO proponents and repudiate activism of this sort. Others may eschew the ecclesiological (to their detriment, I might add) in favor of what they see as “more deeply engaged and more compasionate” approach to those in a place that is not explicitly religious but nevertheless “not far from the Kingdom of God” (like the Judeo-sympathizers who were involved in Synagogues in mostly port cities in the Roman empire; People who are “seekers” who see somethign attractive in the community of believers).

Is there some paralle to be drawn here between the RO-Sojo dichotomy and the issue of the “Judiaizers” which Paul addressed in Galatia? If “ecclesiology” is “the law” and “activism” is “the Gentiles”, is there some lesson here? I don’t know, but it seems like such a parallel could be instructive. Of course, the fact that most would assume that Paul’s stance as presented or accepted is in the right, and that the Judaizers were wrong sets up a kind of a presumption that this analogy woudl reflect unfairly on RO. I’m just trying to think of precedents in theological history for handling theological controversies (although it seems that this debate is taking place almost exclusively in academia, and most of my theological teachers and contempraries have never heard of Radical Orthodoxy. I never heard a word of it since my first Seminary experience in 1978-81, nor in my second go-round in 1990-91

I will no doubt have further reflections on this, but I think it would help if there are people from a variety of traditions of ecclesia in this in order to gain some sense of how “quickly” one should be expected to “see the light” in RO’s revelations and recognize how errant their path of decades has really been (I say that kind of tongue in cheek, but it is I think an important consideration in trying to learn from one another.) There ARE in this world VERY ACTIVIST “Sojourner types” who are deeply ecclesiological and also deeply skeptical of the nation states ability or willingness to really participate in what changes might be envisioned by those whose vision of the Kingdom of God won’t let them “stand by”, and their first reaction is to embody this in the “traditional” activist channels. I’m not sure all hope is exhausted in ALL of those channels. But I can see signs of that in many places where I admittedly once placed a great deal of trust. Likewise, the “Sojourners types” can do with a much larger dose of ecclesiological grounding. Here again, The Church of the Saviour is one which I believe has gotten it right. They just simply go out and do it, and don’t start with trying to get the state to do it for them. Neither do they eschew any and all efforts to win support from the “seekers” and the concerned in the halls of government. Some government folks ARE there becuase they feel they can (MIGHT) make a difference for a significant amount of folks, and that makes it “worth it” for them. I don’t want to tell them that they are engaging in “statecraft” as an initial assesment right off the bat.