CYOA: Luke 24 - The First Apostles

1 On the first day of the week, very early in the morning, the women took the spices they had prepared and went to the tomb. 2 They found the stone rolled away from the tomb, 3 but when they entered, they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus. 4 While they were wondering about this, suddenly two men in clothes that gleamed like lightning stood beside them.5 In their fright the women bowed down with their faces to the ground, but the men said to them, “Why do you look for the living among the dead? 6 He is not here; he has risen! Remember how he told you, while he was still with you in Galilee: 7 ‘The Son of Man must be delivered over to the hands of sinners, be crucified and on the third day be raised again.’ ”8 Then they remembered his words.

9 When they came back from the tomb, they told all these things to the Eleven and to all the others. 10 It was Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and the others with them who told this to the apostles. 11 But they did not believe the women, because their words seemed to them like nonsense. 12 Peter, however, got up and ran to the tomb. Bending over, he saw the strips of linen lying by themselves, and he went away, wondering to himself what had happened.

I just want to reiterate what I heard NT Wright point out last year when he was in town. The first witnesses of the resurrection are women. The first to deliver the message "Jesus is risen!" are women. And the first people to reject the good news are the majority of Jesus' male disciples.

May I forever be humbled before the gender whom God has honoured so highly
May I be blessed to learn from their theological insight and experience
May they be empowered and encouraged to speak boldly and may their words be honoured and accepted
Lest we not receive the good news God has prepared them for and entrusted them with

Egalitarianism!

CYOA: Luke 24 - Suffering

This weeks CYOA is Luke 24, but my head is not totally in it. I have spend the last number of days working on graduate applications in order to go back to school next year. I am also not fully finished thinking about the occupy movements (even though I did not post much). In that strain of thought I just finished watching some of the horrendous scenes of violence and brutality coming out of Oakland. As a result I am in a place of stress and grieving for the world. All of this comes on the heels of Danielle's last post, where she focused on validity of suffering. So as I scrambled tonight to think about Luke 24 I did what all Bible College grad can do, that is go back to what I have previously written about Luke 24 to see if there is something valid to share. I was pleasantly surprised.

I have chosen to share an excerpt from a paper I wrote last year. In the paper I argue the narrative of Luke-Acts contains a clash of worldview, that of Empire vs Kingdom. This segment is a look at the theme of suffering within the text,specifically how suffering can be better understood when viewed through a lens of Empire vs Kingdom. Luke 24 is vital for understanding the shift that occurs in the person of Jesus. Suffering enables a different world to take hold, a world of forgiveness.

"Another theme that assists in understanding the dialectic of Empire vs. Kingdom is that of suffering. Suffering is endured by those in the Kingdom at the hands of those in Empire. Jesus articulated this stating that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, and chief priests, and scribes (Luke 9:22). In other words, Kingdom suffers at the hands of those conspiring with the Empire. Suffering is not in correlation with the sinfulness of the person (Luke 13:2). Rather, suffering is something that needs to take place to those within the Kingdom (Luke 17:25, Acts 3:18, 17:3), as it is inevitable for those who choose to live like Jesus, which Paul depicts through his followership. It is through this life of suffering that one comes to be glorified (Luke 24:26), and once those in the Kingdom follow in suffering they are enabled to usher in the economics of forgiveness (Luke 24:46-47). The way through this suffering is in intimacy and relationship as both are present before suffering (Luke 22:15) and there is the hope of being presented alive after suffering (Acts 1:3). The Apostles rejoice as they join in suffering dishonour for the Name (Acts 5:41). A key attribute of the Kingdom is to suffer rather than be the oppressor like the Empire. Paul was chosen to suffer (9:16) and did so in prisons, shipwrecks, etc. because he, like Jesus, suffered to proclaim the Kingdom to both to Jews and Gentiles (Acts 26:23), and in so doing ensured the Kingdom remained centrifugal. Luke-Acts seems to depict that the hands of another human always cause the suffering experienced, as suffering is not in reference to normal pains like the bite of a snake (Acts 28:5). This understanding of suffering shows that the Kingdom takes a different method to reach out than Empire does, as Empire expands by causing suffering, while the Kingdom expands by persevering through suffering."

Judges Revisited

For those of you disappointed by our #occupy interlude you will be happy to know we will return to regularly scheduled posting this week. There are a number of thoughts in my head that I would like to post such as my penchant for the thrill of deadline chasing, to reading church history through the lens of old testament narrative...

However, as I am deadline crashing as we speak, I will provide an insight from my school readings of such brilliance it is incomprehensible to me I have not heard it earlier. The insight is that the narrative in Judges 19 - 21 provide an apology for David and against Saul directed toward the Northern tribes. Note that the Levite is from the North (Ephraim) and that his concubine runs away to Bethlehem (David's home town). When the Levite comes to Bethlehem he is treated with lavish hospitality. On his journey home he doesn't stop in Jebus (Jerusalem)...too bad the Benjamites didn't do a good job occupying the land... it sure would be nice if someone would conquer it... maybe someone nice from Bethlehem will conquer it so nice Levites can stay there and receive hospitality...(DAVID!). So the Levite goes on to Gibeah (Saul's home town), where no one takes him in except a man from Ephraim. We then have the Sodom and Gomorrah episode etc. Rather than Saul providing any sort of redemption to this story, as I suggested in my post, this story rather foreshadows and prepares for the kingship story very directly. As readers, when we hear that Saul is from Gibeah, we should receive the hint that this is not awesome...

Canada Needs Economic Reform Too!

'We are the 99 per cent," the protesters chant, eyes aflame with reformist zeal. It's a compelling slogan, well-suited to the times and to the social-media soup in which we are increasingly immersed.

The wrinkle: It's not true. North America and Europe, geographic epicentres of the Occupy Wall Street movement, are the fattest of fat cats, globally speaking. For any North American, least of all a Canadian, to claim economic kinship with the globally disadvantaged is silly. - 'We are the 99 per cent' is just not true

After reading this article in the Vancouver Sun and glossing over a few more anti-occupy articles, I have some push back of my own to offer.

Firstly I want to point out that the #OccupyVancouver statement of unity is a working document, meaning that it is subject to change as the movement evolves.

This Vancouver Sun article in particular points out the fact that we (Vancouverites) are richer than other nations and therefore have nothing to complain about.

I want to point out that our working statement of unity also includes the sentence "injustice anywhere is injustice everywhere".

This movement is speaks out against the growing global disparity of wealth. Simply because there is a smaller gap between the average Vancouverite adult and the top 1% than the average African adult and the top 1% does not mean we are disqualified from protesting. We have noticed this trend in disparity and do not like it. We want something different to be done for all people!

To be clear, there is a growing disparity of wealth in Canada. So while it is true we are in the top 10% globally, 90% of even North Americans do still qualify as part of the 99%. The idea that since we have it pretty good, we should therefore shut up is unbelievable bullshit. The critique that our complaint must also address our complicit behaviour in exploiting the world is absolutely fair.

I once visited a doctor at a walk-in clinic to talk about anti-depressant medication. This doctor asked me if I was suicidal? If I was ready to jump off a bridge at any moment. He asked if I was imagining things like ants crawling across walls or if I constantly felt like I was being chased. With my negative response he proceeded to tell me that all I need to do is think more positively. He then compared my situation to that of people across the globe who were suffering from natural disasters, drought and war. In my headstrong state I responded fiercely.

"How dare you diminish my suffering based on your incorrect conception of others who have suffered more than I?" "How dare you inflict your prejudice judgement on me!" I was offended to the core. Based on being born and raised in Canada this doctor immediately wrote of all of my life experiences without knowing me or taking the time to inquire and listen and decided that I had not suffered enough to possibly be close to depression.

This is the source of my push back. Simply because we have more of the world's wealth than Africa does not mean that there is not a growing disparity that needs to be addressed here. Yes the disparity is larger elsewhere but that in no way negates the local reality or the validity of complaint. The global reality reinforces rather than undermines the message of #Occupy. Injustice anywhere is injustice everywhere! How will this globe change if change is never instigated or supported? We can not leave it up to someone else. We can not leave it up to the other nations.

We have been affected and we need to speak up!

Occupy Vancouver has Found Love

Along with Silas and Duncan, I was also able to visit Occupy Vancouver last weekend and would agree that it was the most hopeful and active congregation that I have witnessed in a long time. We made it in time for the general assembly which I too thought was both beautiful and frustrating. One of the moments I enjoyed most was the reading of the working statement of unity using the human mic.

Occupy Vancouver - A Non Violent Movement for Social, Economic and Political Change

We, the Ninety-Nine Percent, come together with our diverse experiences to transform the unequal, unfair, and growing disparity in the distribution of power and wealth in our city and around the globe. We challenge corporate greed, corruption, and the collusion between corporate power and government. We oppose systemic inequality, militarization, environmental destruction, and the erosion of civil liberties and human rights. We seek economic security, genuine equality, and the protection of the environment for all.

We are inspired and in solidarity with global movements including those across the Middle East, Europe, and the Occupy Wall Street / Occupy Together movement in over 1000 cities in North America. Injustice anywhere is injustice everywhere.

We humbly acknowledge that Occupy Vancouver is taking place on unceded Coast Salish territories.

We are committed to an inclusive and welcoming space, to addressing issues of oppression and discrimination, and to creating an environment where all the 99% can be heard and can meaningfully participate. We are also committed to safeguarding our collective well-being – including safety from interpersonal violence and any potential police violence.

Reading this statement aloud reminded me not only of a liturgical church service but also of the statement of diversity which I have argeed to abide by upon accepting a new position of employment.

We are children, youth, adults and seniors.

We are of all races, all religions, 
all cultures, all abilities,
 all sexual orientation, and all economic levels.

We speak many languages.

We value diversity.
We endeavour to reflect this diversity in our volunteers, board and staff. We respect all our neighbours and clients 
and extend our respect to them in all that we do.
Therefore, we will act to promote
 inclusion of all in our agency and in our community.

Something I find interesting about these two statements is that they center on the value of all people.

One of my good friends wrote his protest sign on the back of his jacket; it reads “People before Profit”.

During the general assembly I can recall at least two people calling out to the crowd through the human mic “I love you all”.

Currently, my favourite song is “We Found Love” by Rihanna. Aside from one other verse, the song repeats the words “we found love in a hopeless place” to a sweet techno beat. At the next general assembly I might suggest that we adopt this as the Occupy Vancouver theme song because the protestors are creating love in a hopeless place by committing to inclusion, practicing consensus and hearing all voices. They have me amped!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=djHm2ljLYbY&feature=related

#OccupyVancouver - On the ground

Ok so I have attended two general assemblies, went on the march on Saturday and just hung out a bit. On the first day there was 3-5000 people who showed up. Which was both amazing and I think overwhelming. We had great weather and a great march and the village was established. People are learning on the ground why democracy is slow and not everyone is excited. But there was another significant turnout on Sunday as the group continues to work to nail down a consensus process. Part of this process involved breakout groups which allow crowd discussion and ideas to happen and move to the mic. This was the best part of the day. People worked hard at actually communicating - speaking and listening - it was respectful, empowering and effective. There was also an interesting win for free speech when a participant was able to disagree with the movement's non violent position from the microphone reasonably articulately.

I had the opportunity to talk about #OccupyVancouver last night to a friend and failed miserably to communicate the fascinating and inspiring and moral nature of this movement. While in some respects so far it has been a protester convention, everyone with their own pet project and priorities, protesting is not the primary focus of what the group is trying to do. #OccupyVancouver is literally recreating society in microcosm, from scratch. While they are united in discontent, the movement is incredibly proactive. I say movement because occupy camps now exist in 900+ cities globally. By looking at the created microcosm societies in New York and Vancouver (the only two I have significant information on) it is easy to see what they/we want.

Consensus participatory direct democracy is the format in which the community thinks through and decides things. What does this say? I believe it is a critique of partisan politics and Canadian elected dictatorships, which is effectively what a majority government is. Furthermore, it is the demand for greater direct access, control or voice in our communities and countries. I think there is a sense that the ballot once every few years has become an ineffective way of voicing political opinions or communal desires. I think that the successful overturning of the HST is a clear indication that citizens want clear accurate information and a voice and will not have things foisted on them any longer. Regardless of your opinion on the HST, the results demonstrate the power of direct democracy, people's willingness to participate and their distrust of government. Furthermore, the consensus model emphasizes the desire for unity and the good of everyone AND a belief that this is possible. It fairly questions the idea a 51% majority in the house of commons should have the right to make decisions for everyone. Interestingly, the other places where consensus models of governance and decision making exist are the Orthodox Church, a number of First Nations tribes and the Quakers (Please add more that you know of in the comments). There is the political question at stake: Do we just want stuff to happen or do we want the right stuff to happen? And also how do we know or find out what the right stuff is? I think the financial, and environmental crisis highlight the increased perception that taking the time to really make good decisions that really represent everyone and the good of the planet are what is needed, rather than efficient political structures that exempt personal voice or responsibility, encourage passivity and apathy and are influenced by corporate voices more than community voices. Furthermore, the democratic ideals are founded on the belief that together we can make better decisions - if you think that the majority of people are stupid and shouldn't have a voice then go live in China because that's how they run things over there.

To the end of creating a community that is safe and inclusive and takes care of everyone, #OccupyVancouver provides free food - everyone is fed, everyone is kept warm, everyone has a voice, everyone participates. They claim they are the 99% and they offer a vision of what society could look like if the 99% re-evaluated their goals of wealth and luxury, continually chasing that 1%. #OccupyVancouver, minus some prayers and songs, looks more like the Acts 2 church than any church I know of...

The #Occupy movement has successfully imagined the possibility of imagining a better society with economic and social justice. They are actively working to not just offer ideas and suggestions, which there are lots of, but to also actually create it on the ground. This is exciting and inspiring I encourage you to find out more and get involved.

#OccupyWallStreet - "the right to peaceful assembly"

As I am intending on going to the art gallery tomorrow to visit/participate in #OccupyVancouver I thought I should check into some of the legal issues at stake in protesting. As Canadians we have the right to peacefully assemble. Note that we do not have the right to assemble as such, only peacefully assemble. In fact even the right to peaceful assembly may limited with "good reasons." The way all this is written up in both the charter and related legal documentation results in the reality that the police have HUGE amounts of discretion in both their interpretation of the laws regarding protests as well as the physical situational realities.

Laws regulating protests in Canada give the police a lot of discretion in deciding, first, what assemblies are peaceful, and second, when peaceful protests are not allowed. Police discretion contradicts the values of accessibility and precision that gave rise to the s. 1 requirement that limits on Charter rights be prescribed by law. The idea is that citizens should have a “reasonable opportunity to know what is prohibited” (Peter W. Hogg,Constitutional Law of Canada, Student Ed. 2007 at p. 798)—that’s accessibility of law, and that officials must not engage in discriminatory and arbitrary breaches of rights—that’s precision of law.

But in R. v. Hufsky and R. v. Ladouceur, the Supreme Court held that as long as police discretion comes from law, it meets the s. 1 standard of “prescribed by law,” even if the discretion is unfettered. - lawiscool.com

Does anyone else find this disconcerting? Throughout the related legal documents the ambiguous terms like peace, reasonable, justified, tumultuous, are used repeatedly. The result of Canada's failure to more specifically define words like peace and tumultuous is that the police have all the power in protest situations because it is at their personal and corporate discretion whether your actions and language are peaceful... The bottom line is that they can effectively disperse a protest or assembly whenever they want because they are granted enough discretion under the law to be able to act first and explain later. The result is that they may be influenced significantly by personal or government or even corporate influence rather than the public or social good or opinion. When in doubt the police enforce "peace" not freedom but peace without freedom is no peace at all, it is soulless mandatory order. Real peace, the peace that we want and need, must be more than a lack of physical violence.

The final analysis by lawiscool.com:

Canada is not a police state—far from it. Our ideal is the rule of law and protection of civil liberties. But just like with ideals, we shouldn’t take our eyes off frightening possibilities. In a police state, armed agents of the state are free to limit freedoms and rights as they please. Their discretion is completely unfettered, almost like the discretion our laws grant to the police in dealing with street protests.

Our police forces are professional, highly trained, and generally honest. But it is not their job to determine the content of the Charter freedom of peaceful assembly. Provincial legislatures and the federal parliament must step in and give clear guidance to the police when they can break up street protests. The police can make mistakes and may have its own institutional interests that are not necessarily the same as the public interest. The people have a right to clear notice of what is lawful, and we all have a fundamental freedom of peaceful assembly. Our legislators must set out with much greater precision what the police powers are in regulating street protests.

All of this is particularly interesting due to recent Vancouver riots and the Toronto G20 fiasco... Tomorrow will be interesting. I'll be out there in the morning, Silas and Danielle are hopefully driving in after work, let us know if you will be there. Get your church involved.

#OccupyWallStreet - Diversity

“The time has come to deploy this emerging stratagem against the greatest corrupter of our democracy: Wall Street, the financial Gomorrah of America.” – July Adbusters issue

As I checked out the Occupy Vancouver website this evening, I noticed that the film Gandhi was playing on the media stream. I then read on the #OWS site that the NYPD has planned to foreclose the occupation on Oct. 14, tomorrow, at 6am. #OWS is now calling for emergency action, instructing and encouraging all participants to hold their ground peacefully using non-violent resistance. One of their peaceful resistance tips includes letting one’s body fall limp while being arrested because it is not legally considered resisting arrest. I vividly remember watching this tactic employed in the Gandhi film and the protesters receive severe beatings for their non-compliance. I do not have a strong grasp on the study or evolution of social movements but I am curious to understand how this movement compares to others in history. I would find it interesting to understand what they have borrowed and to note what new ground they are treading.

Also as I was perusing the occupation websites, I noticed that diversity is one of the key values of the movement. The #OWS site specifically states that all colours, genders, and beliefs are welcome to participate in the fight against social injustice. Recently, I was asked to define diversity in a job interview and even more recently I have been asked to sign a statement of diversity as a condition of employment. Part of the job description for this position includes reaching out and bringing together community members from diverse faith groups, socio-economic status, and cultures to get involved in diversity education. This has me thinking about what caused such diverse peoples to unite to #OWS. Is it because they have something over which to unite against, the elite 1% of America? Or is it the common financial suffering and persecution? What unites people to work together on such a large scale yet allows them to remain diverse?

#OccupyWallStreet - An Issue of Choice

Complex, malleable, uncertain, passionate, misunderstood, confused. These are all words that come to mind as I ponder the "occupy" movement. I have many thoughts about what is going on in New York and around the US (and now Canada). With regards to those thoughts, what stands out to me is how much my thoughts have changed and morphed day-by-day as this protest continues to unfold. My emotional responses have ranged from cynicism to self-righteousness to support. I have yet to settle into one opinion. I think I am just as amorphous as the movement itself, I am unable to pick a side. Picking a side, well one can hardly do that with a movement like this because it does not have the same sides of the debate we have grown accustom to in our civic dialogue.

There are no sides. As I read a number of articles tonight and pondered what is occurring in the world around me I began to dwell on the concept of choice. As a result of my pondering, I am proposing that the heart of the issue is the desire to choose. I believe we were created for choice, it is innate within us to want to choose. Whether we are good at choice or not is beside the point, we all choose. This desire to choose, for a long time, has been satiated by the binary mode of thought we have grown accustom to in the west. We choose to be liberal or conservative, white collar or blue collar, religious or non-religious, we are products of the either/or. But we are entering, and have been entering for a long time, an era where the choices are less well defined, a movement into the both/and. We are in a time of challenge. A time where our post-modern outlook on life challenges the binary choices. When this occurs we often discover the choices we have been making are not really choices at all, or at best have been limited choices. We are forced to consider that the limited choice offered by both/and is just that, limited. One chooses democrats or republicans only to find they are more similar than they are different. One chooses Mac or PC, but they are both computers. One chooses to buy x or y only to find there is no choice in the system. Both/and is beginning to feel like a non-choice when we consider things such as economics, or a financial reserve that is beyond choice, or a capitalism that has become empire as it exhibits the trait of totality. We feel like we have lost choice.

It is my opinion that at the heart of the occupy movement people are desiring true choice. As a result, we are confronted by an amorphous protest that appears to be incoherent and unable to articulate what it wants. I suggest this is precisely because it is attempting to redefine the parameters of choice in the macro structures and ideology that govern our time.

I am not sure what the end result will look like, but I do know I am in favour of being along for the ride that takes our society to its redefinition.

#OccupyWallStreet - Zizek

So far to my knowledge, Cornel West, Slajov Zizek and Shane Claiborne among others have all given speeches at Occupy Wall Street. They are like three of my favourite people!

Here is the transcript of part of Zizek's speech:


…2008 financial crash more hard earned private property was destroyed than if all of us here were to be destroying it night and day for weeks. They tell you we are dreamers. The true dreamers are those who think things can go on indefinitely the way they are. We are not dreamers. We are awakening from a dream which is tuning into a nightmare. We are not destroying anything. We are only witnessing how the system is destroying itself. We all know the classic scenes from cartoons. The cart reaches a precipice. But it goes on walking. Ignoring the fact that there is nothing beneath. Only when it looks down and notices it, it falls down. This is what we are doing here. We are telling the guys there on Wall Street – Hey, look down! (cheering).
In April 2011, the Chinese government prohibited on TV and films and in novels all stories that contain alternate reality or time travel. This is a good sign for China. It means that people still dream about alternatives, so you have to prohibit this dream. Here we don’t think of prohibition. Because the ruling system has even suppressed our capacity to dream. Look at the movies that we see all the time. It’s easy to imagine the end of the world. An asteroid destroying all life and so on. But you cannot imagine the end of capitalism. So what are we doing here? Let me tell you a wonderful old joke from communist times.
A guy was sent from East Germany to work in Siberia. He knew his mail would be read by censors. So he told his friends: Let’s establish a code. If the letter you get from me is written in blue ink ,it is true what I said. If it is written in red ink, it is false. After a month his friends get a first letter. Everything is in blue. It says, this letter: everything is wonderful here. Stores are full of good food. Movie theaters show good films from the West. Apartments are large and luxurious. The only thing you cannot buy is red ink.
This is how we live. We have all the freedoms we want. But what we are missing is red ink. The language to articulate our non-freedom. The way we are taught to speak about freedom war and terrorism and so on falsifies freedom. And this is what you are doing here: You are giving all of us red ink.
There is a danger. Don’t fall in love with yourselves. We have a nice time here. But remember: carnivals come cheap. What matters is the day after. When we will have to return to normal life. Will there be any changes then. I don’t want you to remember these days, you know, like - oh, we were young, it was beautiful. Remember that our basic message is: We are allowed to think about alternatives. The rule is broken. We do not live in the best possible world. But there is a long road ahead. There are truly difficult questions that confront us. We know what we do not want. But what do we want? What social organization can replace capitalism? What type of new leaders do we want?
Remember: the problem is not corruption or greed. The problem is the system that pushes you to give up. Beware not only of the enemies. But also of false friends who are already working to dilute this process. In the same way you get coffee without caffeine, beer without alcohol, ice cream without fat. They will try to make this into a harmless moral protest. They think (??? unintelligible). But the reason we are here is that we have enough of the world where to recycle coke cans…

Part Two

….Starbucks cappuccino. Where 1% goes to the world’s starving children. It is enough to make us feel good. After outsourcing work and torture. After the marriage agencies are now outsourcing even our love life, daily.
Mic check
We can see that for a long time we allowed our political engagement also to be outsourced. We want it back. We are not communists. If communism means the system which collapsed in 1990, remember that today those communists are the most efficient ruthless capitalists. In China today we have capitalism which is even more dynamic than your American capitalism but doesn’t need democracy. Which means when you criticize capitalism, don’t allow yourselves to be blackmailed that you are against democracy. The marriage between democracy and capitalism is over.
The change is possible. So, what do we consider today possible? Just follow the media. On the one hand in technology and sexuality everything seems to be possible. You can travel to the moon. You can become immortal by biogenetics. You can have sex with animals or whatever. But look at the fields of society and economy. There almost everything is considered impossible. You want to raise taxes a little bit for the rich, they tell you it’s impossible, we lose competitivitiy. You want more money for healthcare: they tell you impossible, this means a totalitarian state. There is something wrong in the world where you are promised to be immortal but cannot spend a little bit more for health care. Maybe that ??? set our priorities straight here. We don’t want higher standards of living. We want better standards of living. The only sense in which we are communists is that we care for the commons. The commons of nature. The commons of what is privatized by intellectual property. The commons of biogenetics. For this and only for this we should fight.
Communism failed absolutely. But the problems of the commons are here. They are telling you we are not Americans here. But the conservative fundamentalists who claim they are really American have to be reminded of something. What is Christianity? It’s the Holy Spirit. What’s the Holy Spirit? It’s an egalitarian community of believers who are linked by love for each other. And who only have their own freedom and responsibility to do it. In this sense the Holy Spirit is here now. And down there on Wall Street there are pagans who are worshipping blasphemous idols. So all we need is patience. The only thing I’m afraid of is that we will someday just go home and then we will meet once a year, drinking beer, and nostalgically remembering what a nice time we had here. Promise ourselves that this will not be the case.
We know that people often desire something but do not really want it. Don’t be afraid to really want what you desire. Thank you very much!

Reposted from: http://www.occupywallst.org/article/today-liberty-plaza-had-visit-slavoj-zizek/

#OccupyWallStreet - Freedom and Oppression

Will freedom always give way to oppression? I ask this question because idealism in relation to freedom always must allow the possibility of oppression... Free speech, for example to be truly free must uphold individual rights to speak loudly against free speech itself even as well as anything else. So in relation to freedoms in general: the preserving of freedoms seems to naturally lean toward self negation since preserving freedom either requires the oppression of those who would seek to destroy it or its sublation into the oppressive desires and designs of free people. We love and hate freedom because our world exists between the dialectic of freedom/chaos and law/order. As we attempt to order and inscribe freedom into law we attempt to hold the thesis and anti thesis in tension but fail at true synthesis...

Is the natural conclusion of development always self negation? The capitalist becomes philanthropist (eg Bill Gates)

Žižek sees in this process evidence of Hegel's "negation of the negation", the third moment of the dialectic. The first negation is the mutation of the content within and in the name of the old form. The second negation is the obsolescence of the form itself. In this way, something becomes the opposite of itself, paradoxically, by seeming to strengthen itself. - Wikipedia

So are we doomed to a cycle of democracy negated by totalitarianism, which births democratic revolution? Is it possible to critique democracy without negating it? Is the combination of capitalism and globalization produce necessarily negative results due to human nature? How does globalization affect personal responsibility? Did you know that Britain does not have a constitution? At what point is a system bad enough that we are willing to endure worse in hopes of better? Can creation occur without destruction/chaos?

#OccupyVancouver ?

Hopefully you are aware that there has now been close to a month long protest in wall street...

http://occupywallst.org/

What is more is that this ambiguous and amorphous protest of a variety of things is spreading across the continent...

The first general assembly for Occupy Vancouver is tomorrow:
W2 Media Cafe - 111 W. Hastings St. Saturday, October 8 - 1:00pm

http://occupyvancouver.com

They intend on staging their occupation beginning on Oct 15th in front of the art gallery...(not in protest of art but based on space and proximity to Howe)

Garret Menges posted the following quote from adBusters in a satus update:

The rat-bastard Capitalist scum who are telling you to "reach out and touch someone" with a telephone or "be there!"--these lovecrafty suckers are trying to turn you into a scrunched-up, blood-drained, pathetic, crippled little cog in the death-machine of the human soul. Fight them--by meeting with friends, not to consume or produce, but to enjoy friendship--and you will have triumphed over the most pernicious conspiracy in EuroAmerican society today--the conspiracy to turn you into a living corpse galvanized by prosthesis and the terror of scarcity--to turn you into a spook haunting your own brain.

I posted this Oscar Wilde quote a while ago:

It is immoral to use private property to alleviate the horrible evils that result from the institution of private property.

There is clearly a growing discontent and critique of of our post modern consumer capitalism and the inevitability of its failure...

There has certainly been significant anti-empire language used on this blog... 

I feel like, maybe, we are standing on the precipice of something big...

So is Occupying Vancouver fighting the empire?

Can we please define empire before its too late?

Are we going to participate?

How is global economic failure going to effect society?

I think that our generation has been raised on stories of glories of the protests of sixties over Vietnam and civil rights...

I think that we have been raised watching Star Wars and know instinctively to fight those who would dominate the world with fear and violence...

The generation that fought in WWI remembered glamourized war. The generation that fought in WWII idealized war.  Vietnam destroyed moral superiority. The cold war killed idealism. The war on terror is ending fear? Every generation forgets, every generation believes, every generation remakes the world, is this that moment? The moment of revolution... A revolution of what and to what?

According to Occupy Vancouver:

It is time to come together and educate each other. We will stand in solidarity with these other movements and we will create a platform for people to speak and provide an audience that will listen.
Let them gawk, let them ask questions, let them wake up. 

We realize that our social, economic, and political structures are broken. This is more than just a protest "against" something. It is about coming together as people, acknowledging things are broken, and working together to fix them.

If you are thinking that that very ambiguous you are correct.

"This protest cannot be boiled down to a simple soundbite because this protest is ambitiously seeking a complex, fundamental, philosophical change in the social, political, and economic infrastructure of our country... The strength of Occupy... lies in the ambiguity of its mission. There is no laundry list of specific, unreasonable, and untenable demands. There is only the demand for change. Change of, by, and for the people, enacted by our elected officials. If the powers-that-be respond with absolutely nothing, then it is clear that they will never, ever be interested in effecting substantial change of our financial system, no matter how strong public support may be."
- Edward Murray, Huffington Post

Silas articulated via something he heard that the ambiguity is positive in that it does not allow itself to be co opted to single agendas or groups - the ambiguity forces conversation and dialogue as a starting place. 

Clearly the ambiguity has allowed for a unity in discontent. 

However, there is an emptiness to the demand for change that offers no plan, no solution and continues to look for the "powers" to satiate their thirst for change...

Zizek has suggested that the lack of actual coherent voice in the protests across the world, from greece to london to New York to Vancouver, other than complaint is the breeding ground for support for totalitarianism. That the blind support for change is liable to support a dictator who offers salvation... that between the financial crisis and the social unrest we are writing a story that is starting to sound like 1930's Germany...

Here is an article by Zizek on the London riots:

Shop Lifters of the World Unite

Clearly the Occupy movement is different but is it different enough?

Based on the immanence of this we are going to spend this week exclusively writing, thinking and researching this and will probably show up on the 15th to have some conversations...

Thoughts? Questions? Concerns? Rhetoric? Propaganda? Hope? Alternatives?

CYOA: Judges 19-21 - Microcosm

I find this story fascinating. First of all, chapter 19 bears striking similarity to the account the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah (Gen. 19!), which definitively highlights how far Israel has fallen short of it's calling to be a nation of priests and a blessing to the whole world - the have consummated that which Sodom attempted. The other horrific detail is the cutting up of the concubine into twelve pieces and sending the pieces to all the tribes and leading to the near total destruction of one of the tribes. The cutting and sending part occurs again with oxen in 1 Samuel. They are cut up and sent by Saul right after he is made king in the previous chapter:

1 Samuel 11:
6 When Saul heard their words, the Spirit of God came powerfully upon him, and he burned with anger. 7 He took a pair of oxen, cut them into pieces, and sent the pieces by messengers throughout Israel, proclaiming, “This is what will be done to the oxen of anyone who does not follow Saul and Samuel.” Then the terror of the LORD fell on the people, and they came out together as one.

I think it is fascinating that Saul is from Gibeah, which is precisely the city in which the atrocity to concubine is committed. Furthermore, he is responding to a cry for help from Jabesh Gilead, which is where wives for the few remaining Benjamites are found in Judges 21! Furthermore, Samuel, who annoints Saul, is given to the Lord at Shiloh, where the other wives are taken from (Ju. 21).

The cutting into pieces seems connected to the practice of burnt offerings, which are cut into pieces (Lev. 1). Furthermore, the burnt offering is the type of offering that Abraham was called to make of Isaac (Gen. 22). Interestingly, burnt offerings are for atonement (Lev. 1) but are distinct from sin offerings (Lev. 4)... So apparently atonement has to do with more than just sin... hmmmm....

Anyway, Israel has become as sinful as Sodom and Gomorrah. Therefore, the Levite cuts up his dead concubine and sends the pieces to the twelve tribes of Israel as a sign of a plague of judgement. I suggest this because the response is one of reference to the day Israel came out of Egypt (Ju. 19:30) - the plague of the first born when there was not a house without someone dead (Ex. 12). It must have had the connotation of "we shall all be destroyed."

Judges 20:1
Then all Israel from Dan to Beersheba and from the land of Gilead came together as one and assembled before the LORD in Mizpah. (emphasis mine)

Previous to this verse all of Israel has done only a few things things in unity: They inquire of the Lord (Ju. 1:1), they weep at Bokim (Ju. 2:4), all Israel prostituted themselves in false worship (Ju. 8:27) and everyone did what was right in his own eyes (17:6, 18:1, 19:1, 21:25).

However, despite everyone doing what is right in their own eyes and forcibly reliving the exodus story now in Canaan, in Judges 20 all Israel assembles before the Lord (sort of). To be fair, Israel, rather than being destroyed or oppressed by another nation is now destroying itself. Clearly not a prefect picture of unity. Eleven tribes to one, Benjamin refuses hand over the criminals but unites with them against Israel. Just like in Judges one, Judah is chosen to attack first but unlike in Judges one, they lose badly. God calls them to attack again, again they lose and so all Israel goes and weeps at Bethel. Then on the third try, again by the word of the Lord, Israel destroys Benjamin and burns their towns. Then Israel returns to Bethel and weeps again (Ju. 21:2) about the destruction. Then there is the elaborate and murderous plan to get the few remaining Benjamites some wives without breaking an oath. However, in all of this the Lord is not mentioned. And so the book ends again stating: In those days Israel had no king; everyone did as they saw fit.

So it would seem that Judges 19-21 provide a definitive microcosm of the pattern of the whole book: United faithfulness, failure, weeping, victory, and then everyone does what is right in their own eyes leading again to horrifying destruction... What is different in this case is that Israel is turned inward rather than outward and briefly act in unified obedience for the first time since Joshua was around. God seems to, as with the other Canaanite tribes, now render judgement on Benjamin and Israel by their own hands. Is there a house without someone dead?

It seems to me that Samuel being given to God at Shiloh, Saul's kingship and defence of Jabesh Gilead marks some sort of restoration to the damage that occurs here in Judges... We have this repeated cycle of creation and destruction and restoration giving way again to destruction: Genesis, flood, Noah, Babel, Abraham, Egypt, Exodus, and then the judges but followed by Samuel but then Saul but then David and so on...

This is not just the story of the Bible but our own stories. Failure and success are often closely linked in our lives. It is the hope of scripture that God is ultimately restorative and that history is moving, in some fashion, toward a perfected consummation, toward a final restoration that was definitively begun in Jesus. It is the hope of scripture that even God's judgement, sometimes destructive, is ultimately restorative in nature...

I think the questions that I come back to in this story are - what is the relationship between destruction and restoration? and how do I make sense of this in my own life? how do we cope with god sending us to die fighting evil? and do we hope for an end to the cycles of destruction and restoration?


Check out: Beautiful Destruction - as one way that we have wrestled with these questions...

CYOA - Judges 19: To Study the Bible or Not To Study the Bible.

Two days ago, I had an exceptional day with Duncan at Regent College. It started with chapel.

The service was a celebration of thanksgiving and harvest. The chapel host began with an introduction to this Canadian holiday for those of whom it may not be familiar. I appreciated the sensitivity to a diverse multicultural audience.

The theme of chapel centered on creation, provision and gardening. One of the songs we sang was titled I Will Lift Your Name, based on Habbakuk 3.

Though the fig tree does not bud

There are no grapes on the vines

Though the olive crop has failed

And the fields produce no food

I will lift your name

All I have is from Your hand
And it’s yours to take away
In all thinks You work for good
In all things I’ll praise Your name

Not only did this song bring to mind images of Israel (terrace fields built on hillsides, ancient olive trees at Gethsemane, and grapes growing on overhead trellis’) but also it brought to mind the idea of thankfulness and worship in the midst of darkness and hardship.

One of the responses to suffering I find the least helpful and downright discouraging is the advice to “dwell on the positives” or to “find something to be thankful for.” For me, this has always implied forgetting the darkness and dismissing struggle, which leads to a false sense of reality and sets one up for an explosion when positive thinking no longer suffices. The woman who led the prayers of the people during the service prayed that we might be able live in hope without being naive to darkness. She acknowledged that brokenness and darkness has touched every life. I have spent so much time worrying about becoming naive to darkness that I now find it hard to see hope. Yet I found a unique hope in this service because there was a move towards holding the both the cup of joy and the cup of sorrow together.

After chapel many students gathered for the weekly twonie soup lunch and I was lucky enough to join Duncan’s art focused ‘soup group’. After sharing our soup together we sat down to participate in an art lesson led by one of the group members. Based on the tree theme we used pencil, pen, watercolor, charcoal, and pastel in a series of guided drawings, which taught us about post-modern art. It was thrilling.

I then joined Duncan for his Christian Thought and Culture class where Father Lawrence delivered a dynamic lecture, history from an Orthodox perspective: Pentecost to today. I found his lecture refreshing and enlightening for three reasons. 1) It was the first lecture I had been to since graduating and I am a nerd who really loves school. 2) His view on history was different than any view I have heard before. There are certain historical figures which he views in fondness that I was taught were detestable. 3) He did not shy away from a student’s question about his view of the Protestant church. He told the class that one of the problems he sees in the Protestant Church is a lack of tradition and a swaying with new trends (he used the book The Shack as an example).

By the end of this wonderful day my mind was exhausted. I was bombarded with new ideas and perspectives. I could not help but think about what I might study and what life might be like as a Regent student. But then I sat down to write on Judges 19 and I was at a loss of what to think or what to say. I was not sure how to read it or what questions to ask and I could not figure out its larger role in scripture. I fear that I do not have what it takes to read and understand the Bible, that I would never succeed as a student at Regent and that God will not help me.

CYOA: Judges 19 - Genocide *Exasperated Voice*

"In those days Israel had no king"
Judges 19-21 is a gong show. I remember reading it and thinking "I wish this would end because it is painful to read!" But beyond the painful story, there is more going on. It is not just sexual sin or any one event, the story articulates the degeneration of society. I believe this is a common practice in the Bible, to use sexuality to depict more than sexual acts. Think Sodom and Gomorrah (then tie it into Ezekiel 16:49). Or the slide into sexual depravity after the purge/flood, think Noah. Or 2 Samuel being a Chiasm centering on Amnon and Tamar in Chapter 13, a story that is not unexpected after one has watched the growing depravity to that point. So that is a thought I have mulled over for the past number of years. I think it has wide and diverse implications for Biblical interpretation and Christian consciousness.

As for genocide...I did not have any breakthrough moments this week about how to wrestle with the topic. I think we have said a lot about it. Therefore, instead of adding something new, I want to encourage you to read what we have already said. Maybe there is a post you did not read, maybe there is still some gold hidden in those caves waiting to be discovered.

Presidential Devo
Extremist Religion
Pulling a Jephthah
To Deny or Explain
Devastating
Redemption is Inadequate
Choosing our Language
Look to the Snake
To War or Not to War? That is the Question
Missing the Point
Obedience
Genocide is Difficult

Those are the blogs I think relate. They do not answer specifically to Judges 19, but I think many of the idea help me grapple with passages like the concluding section of Judges.

PS. I am sick of writing about genocide, maybe you are sick of reading about it (or watching me just re-post ideas already blogged). If there are any other passages you would like us to write on post the passage in the comments section. They will be added to the hat we pull from each week for CYOA.

Safety

Thanks to Mark Klausen for coming over for breakfast and inspiring this post.

Life is filled with risk, uncertainty and randomness. In North America we have insurance to try and create a sense of safety amidst the chaos. However, those of you who have dealt with insurance companies will know that they may or may not actually be the source of comfort and support they claim to be since they are likely to make every effort to avoid paying (hooray capitalism). I think that we often can become obsessed with safety and that this leads us probably into isolation, and either anxious paranoia or delusion. Ultimately, no matter how much insurance you have, things can still go wrong in ways that will screw over your entire life. What did people do before there was insurance? Well two things: sacrifice to the gods, and depend on family/community. Before the false community that insurance companies created through the corporate idolatry of money - before that, people relied on real communities and actual relationships to support, protect and help them.

Safety can become a debilitating obsession. However, we also often use safety measures in order to take risks. It is interesting that often safety measures fail to make life safer because there is a tendency for us to absorb the risk. So if we are in a car with a five point harness, wearing a helmet, with a roll cage we are more likely to drive 'more dangerously.' This was statistically demonstrated during study of the addition of ABS brakes to a fleet of trucks. While in theory, if everyone were to drive the same, the new brakes ought to prevent some accidents and thus decrease the accidents overall. However, it takes very little time for drivers to adjust there driving to the new technology and thus the benefit is absorbed into efficiency rather than safety.

What we discussed over breakfast was the usually required social support to take the risks required to pursue dreams or even dream them to begin with. Without a safe community to dream in and be encouraged by it is all too easy to get stuck in the dead end job - because dead end jobs, more than anything else, provide safety.

We escape dead ends with the help of friends.

Also since insurance companies are like churches, in that they don't really sell anything tangible and often prey on people's fear, they should, like churches, be not for profit organizations.

An Intro to the Book of Daniel

This post was inspired by a request from a friend. She was reading the book of Daniel and was finding it very complex. She asked to hear some of my thoughts about the book of Daniel, specifically how I understand it. As I pondered how best to respond, I realized my response was not going to be small because the book is wonderfully complex. I had some initial thoughts I wanted to share, but I as I pondered what I should say I realized it has been a long time since I actually read all of Daniel. I proceeded to sit down and read Daniel in my study Bible. I soon realized the study Bible was not going to be sufficient help. The notes were fluff and completely ignored the implications of a late date of authorship, so I went and pulled out “How to Read the Bible Book by Book” by Gordon Fee and Douglas Stewart. The following is some of my thoughts about how to read and understand Daniel while considering the book to be intertestamental history and literature, apocalyptic in genre, and prophetic in nature given its place in the Christian cannon (it is in the writings/history in the Hebrew Scriptures).

• First, Christian prophecy is best understood as proclamation. The vast majority of Hebrew prophecy and consequently Christian prophecy is the prophet proclaiming something to his/her current situation. It is a matter of forth-telling NOT foretelling the future. Think about Amos, he critiques the economics of his time - “selling the poor for a pair of sandals”, he does not tell what will occur two millennia in the future. The prophet’s task was to critique and teach the current population. The teachings are understood to be timeless in that they continue to teach the ethic or lesson that drives such critiques.
• Given this understanding of prophecy, one runs into the question of authorship. Was the book written in 535BC by Daniel, its namesake, or was it written in 165 BC at the time of Antiochus IV (Epiphanies) (11:21-32). Given the nature of Christian prophecy, I hold to the late date authorship. I believe the book was written/compiled at the time of the Abomination of Desolation (11:31), Antiochus Epiphanies sacrificing a pig to Zeus in the temple in Jerusalem. By taking a late date, one can understand Daniel to be largely a Jewish reflection on history and the acts of God in such a history.
• I think Daniel must be read in the context of the intertestamental period, so reading 1 & 2 Maccabees, of the Apocrypha, will help one understand the context in which Daniel was written.
• Apocalyptic literature is an unveiling; it is therefore inherently metaphorical. One experiences this in the second half of the book where the author uses images and visions to communicate and underlying message. The form of Apocalyptic was often used to state things that if stated outright would have been reason for the author to be killed. The images and visions depict a critique of the current socioeconomic and political reality the author was experiencing.
• Apocalyptic literature uses numbers symbolically. I.e. 7 is completeness, 4 is the natural order, 3 is a number of God, one is unity. Daniel uses these numbers in combination 3x7=21 or 2100. Whatever the case, numbers are used to convey a concept not specific chronology or time as we conceive chronology and time today.
• Horns represent power, specifically in Daniel they refer to kings.
• The genre of apocalyptic literature is meant to offer hope. Thus, there are depictions of the supremacy of God, the promises of a future kingdom, and hope that justice (maybe even revenge) will come on behalf of those who are being oppressed (the Israelites in exile in Babylon and those being harmed in the time of Antiochus IV). This hope is also conveyed in the consummation of all things, that eventually there will be an end to empire domination (12:1-4).
• A second way apocalyptic literature offers hope is to give reprieves in between depressing segments. Chapter 10 comes as hope of a larger reality after the depressing segments of chapters 7 and 8. The reader/listener is reminded of a reality that is bigger than his/her own existence. Chapter 7 and 8 tell the story of the succession of empires that the people in Judea had experienced. Both end with Antiochus IV (Epiphanies). He is the little horn, the 10th king of the Seleucid Empire. Three kings were murdered or died for him to come to power. Antiochus is also the figure referred to in 8:12 as he was the one who stopped sacrifices in Jerusalem.
• Chapter 7 and 8 show the trait of repetition in apocalyptic literature. They repeat the same information, which is again repeated in chapter 11. Each time the repletion focuses on something slightly different. But they all conclude emphatically with Antiochus IV. Notice the threefold repetition, three being a number of God, in other words, God has been in sovereign over and above all of these empires.
• The one great king refers to Alexander the great. The four heads of the beast, refers to Alexander’s four successors. The winged lion was a symbol of Babylon etc.
• Judah in the time leading up to the Maccabean revolt was experiencing oppression by a divided yet joined empire (Dan 2:41) the Seleucids (north) and Ptolemy’s (South (e.g. 11:25) – Egypt). A divide that occurred after Alexander the Great’s Empire was split between his generals. One of the boundaries between these factions just happened to go through Palestine. Thus, Judah experienced the push and pulls of competing, yet joined empires.
• Daniel is unique in Biblical literature, as it tells stories about Daniel rather than recording sayings of Daniel (this may be one reason why it is considered a writing in the Hebrew scriptures). Whatever the case, the reader/listener must consider the a twofold context, both the context of the stories (Babylon/Persia) and of the time when written (Antiocus IV). Themes of exile and the rebellion (Maccabean revolt) surface throughout the text.
• In addition, note the Chiastic structure of the first half of the book. Chapter 2 and 7 being similar looking forward to the Kingdom of God/messianic hope/revolt against Antiochus IV. Chapters 3 and 6 being similar in miraculous deliverances out of the hand of oppressive empires, by individuals being faithful and resisting the socio/economic/religious syncretism the empire is forcing. Chapters 4 and 5 being the center of the chiasm, both recording the demise of two Babylonian Kings. Both of which are forced to recognize the greatness of God.
• As I was reading, I was confronted by my tendency to read Jesus and the proclamation/coming of the Kingdom of God into the text. An example of this is 2:45, thinking Jesus is the rock. At the time of writing, I would argue this section was referring to the Maccabean revolt, or the growing messianic undercurrent in Jewish self-understanding. Whatever the case, that understanding did not prevail, and with time, we can state that this rock refers to Jesus. That, however, is only done by the fluidity of the text, allowing it to mean one thing at the time it was written and then be re-defined in a similar fashion later. An example of this redefining is Peter interpreting the coming of the Holy Spirit in Acts back into the Joel text about visions and dreams and prophesying. This historical understanding guards against the text being primarily understood as foretelling of things to come. This is important because such interpretations lead to crazy predictions such as the rapture that supposedly occurred last May. The only aspect that is foretelling is the offer hope through a depiction of a spiritual reality. It is offered as a future hope yet in so doing it is made available to be realized as a present hope.

So how do you read Daniel? With great care and a lot of study. I think the starting point is to read it with a good commentary (something that is NOT dispensationalist). Or read it with Wikipedia open trying to understand the history that is being told. The difficulty in finding meaning, specifically with the visions of the second half of the book, is to understand the history to which they refer. Meaning then is derived from the perspective the stories are told from. What I have shown is that the history of living under oppressive empires is told from a perspective that offers hope. Hope that there will be an end to the oppression; hope that life will again have meaning, hope that Judea will stop being a pawn in global affairs, and hope for justice to come (12:9-10).

It is my understanding that the book of Daniel is trying to convey hope in order to spur on the reader/listener to resist dominating empires through trust in God. The book then means the same to us today, it is to us give hope that the world will not always be as horrible as it was at the time when the book of Daniel was written, or as horrible as we experience it now. In the first half of the book, there are stories about how to resist the empire by remaining truthful. These stories provoke trust in the power of God as they show he will enable the faithful to overcome the empire, just like Daniel and his friends did.

PS. Go find a copy of the Apocrpha and read the additions to the book of Daniel. “The Prayer of Azariah (Abednego) and the Song of the Three Jews”, it fits in the story of the fiery furnace. “Susanna” a story of wisdom, and “Bel and the Dragon”. All of which are great reads.