The Battle Raging Within
a Response to Damian Palmer for the Radical Discipleship Group meeting, 11 August 2006
“This ‘politics of contested formation’ is where (at least in part) the battle rages" – Damian Palmer
“Church leaders do not speak for all their members on this issue” – John Howard
Introduction
On Friday night I was telling my wife about Damian’s essay as we walked to a friend’s house in Paddington. When we arrived she admitted to our friend that as I was speaking about the curse of affluenza and the struggle of contested formation between Christ and Consumerism, she was looking at the houses we walked past, thinking “wow, wouldn’t it be great to live there!”
I tell this story not to be lynched by Ann-Maree (nonviolently, of course), but because I believe Damian’s concluding observations about the ‘politics of contested formation’ are indeed the key issue for the church today. If I were braver I would have started with what happens when I walk past the NSW Lottery office two doors down from here or about how much I enjoyed driving a Falcon last year, or even some of the thoughts that come into my head when I see ‘the leader of the free world’ on television. I will go out on a limb and suggest these are the sorts of struggles all of us face. And as a church, we face the stark reality that even on issues such as recent industrial relations laws, inhumane refugee policy, and the invasion of Iraq that John Howard is absolutely correct in asserting we are a church divided.[1]
If so, it seems to me this points to two key conclusions that lie at the heart of any ‘radical discipleship’ project: first, that nothing less than a total effort at discipleship formation will save the church; and second that we cannot expect anyone, even ourselves, to be free from temptation. We need both zeal and humility.
From Contested Formation to Church Complicity
Before exploring these themes further, I believe we need to add an additional problem to the daunting list outlined by Damian. That is, that in some cases the church itself has been one of the very drivers of the mythologies that threaten the life of the world. The two examples of this I will briefly take up are wealth and violence.
Damian has already detailed much of the curse of affluenza on the world, including those of us who choose to follow Christ. I think it is also worth reminding ourselves that the institutional churches themselves have often promoted the hoarding of wealth in practice. While we no longer (one hopes) live in a time in which the corruption of the church is so rank as to include the selling of indulgences, it remains true that ‘church’ and ‘wealth’ are synonymous in many people’s minds.
This is most starkly visible in the type of schools we run. The cheapest Uniting Church school in New South Wales charges over $11,000 per year in tuition fees alone. Anglican and ‘independent’ Catholic schools are similarly unaffordable. Even systemic Catholic schools, despite very large government subsidies, charge more than the poorest third of their own members can afford to pay. What gospel is preached by the presence of these places? The gospel of radical inclusion of those whom society would exclude? Or the gospel of middle-class white flight from the great unwashed?
The preaching of a prosperity gospel is not condemned as heresy by any mainstream churches in Australia, as far as I can see. It is not clear if this is out of Christian ‘niceness’ or because we don’t really believe it is harder for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God than for a camel fit through the eye of a needle. Unlike the rich young man who turns away in an honest admission of unwillingness to embrace such costly grace, our churches gloss over these inconvenient details or make up absurd archaeological fantasies in the hope nobody will pay too much attention. But the world has found us out. Ask any non-Christian in Australia why they are suspicious about the church and the word ‘hypocrisy’ will come back every time.
When it comes to violence our history is even worse. We don’t just act hypocritically, we have actively embraced the myth of redemptive violence, even if it means inventing wrathful atonement theologies to make it fit with the unfortunate reality of the Cross. It seems the myth was too strong even for Jesus’ death to overcome, because we do not even realise it for what it is:
Violence is so successful as a myth precisely because it does not seem to be mythic in the least. Violence simply appears to be the nature of things. It is what works. It is inevitable…[2]
Thus we have the ‘just war’ tradition, the Crusades, Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ (which found the Biblical accounts of Jesus’ suffering inadequate, such was its elevated blood lust), and a Catholic chaplain’s blessing of the Atomic Bomb that vaporised Hiroshima.
The Oklahoma Catholic Worker House recently published an open letter to the US Catholic Bishops Conference asking why, in a time of illegal war, they were spending all their energies on a more literal translation of the Latin Mass. They noticed that numerous Bishops had declared their refusal to serve communion to any politician who supported the right to an abortion, but none had done the same for supporting (or even involvement in) the war. In doing so, they exposed the anti-war messages of the Bishops as being completely devoid of real conviction. Australian churches of all denominations have similarly failed to take any real action against the most egregious international crime in recent history, despite passionate statements.
Our tacit support for both wealth and violence comes because we are addicted to the fruits of each. Before we can meaningfully call the people of this country to a conversion to Christ, we must confront the harsh reality that the churches themselves desperately need such a conversion. As Fr John Dear writes,
We need to recognize our addiction to violence, and the heresy and blasphemy of such complicity, and make a complete about face. Such a conversion will cost not only millions in contributions and dramatic declines in attendance of religious services, but possibly even some lives. But it will be the beginning of an authenticity that we all long for deep down. The recognition and rejection of our religious violence will, more than anything, bring all the religions of the world back to new and greater life.[3]
The Road to Recovery
If Christ is to win the struggle of contested formation, the church must first overcome the complacency it holds regarding matters such as consumerism and the myth of redemptive violence, which not only threaten the life of the world, but the soul of the church as well. The battle must rage within the church, as much as in the world.
Stanley Hauerwas writes of the ‘conspiracy of cordiality’ that suffocates the prophetic witness of the church today, in which parishioners attend for personal gratification and become upset if either the sermon or liturgy suggest they look beyond themselves.[4] According to Dorothy McRae-McMahon, one of the reasons why the clergy have failed to pass on their theological education to lay members of the church is that they are afraid of the response.[5]
At the same time, even an armchair psychologist can tell you that berating a congregation for choosing ‘cheap grace’ is not a winning strategy for bringing them with you. Nor is much of the church interested in academic theological education. The church needs to be both theologically sophisticated and capable of reaching the minds and hearts of the humblest people, encouraging ‘a simple trust’[6] that the deeper we go into Christian discipleship, the more alive we will become. And we need to start by confessing our own complicity, our own hypocrisy, and our own joy in the Risen Christ. More than anything, we need to walk our talk.
Somehow we need to challenge the church and yet find language that is invitational. This is a struggle that faced all of the prophets, not least the One who goes before us on the Way. In that there is hope.
References
[1] A senior person in the Uniting Church Assembly recently suggested privately that half of the church membership would vote Liberal at the next election, despite the recent spate of anti-poor and anti-refugee legislation that the church has formally declared ‘totally immoral’.
[2] Walter Wink, Engaging the Powers, Minneapolis, Fortress Press, 1992, p. 26
[3] John Dear, “Our God is a God of Nonviolence”, p3. Available from www.johndear.org
[4] Stanley Hauerwas, Resident Aliens
[5] Dorothy McRae-McMahon, “Democracy in the Church”, speech to the New Pentecost Forum, Sydney, May 2005
[6] Br Roger of Taizé often referred to this phrase as the heart of the message he wanted to pass on to the church. At the same time, the brothers are not simplistic in the slightest about their theology, which is quietly radical.
“This ‘politics of contested formation’ is where (at least in part) the battle rages" – Damian Palmer
“Church leaders do not speak for all their members on this issue” – John Howard
Introduction
On Friday night I was telling my wife about Damian’s essay as we walked to a friend’s house in Paddington. When we arrived she admitted to our friend that as I was speaking about the curse of affluenza and the struggle of contested formation between Christ and Consumerism, she was looking at the houses we walked past, thinking “wow, wouldn’t it be great to live there!”
I tell this story not to be lynched by Ann-Maree (nonviolently, of course), but because I believe Damian’s concluding observations about the ‘politics of contested formation’ are indeed the key issue for the church today. If I were braver I would have started with what happens when I walk past the NSW Lottery office two doors down from here or about how much I enjoyed driving a Falcon last year, or even some of the thoughts that come into my head when I see ‘the leader of the free world’ on television. I will go out on a limb and suggest these are the sorts of struggles all of us face. And as a church, we face the stark reality that even on issues such as recent industrial relations laws, inhumane refugee policy, and the invasion of Iraq that John Howard is absolutely correct in asserting we are a church divided.[1]
If so, it seems to me this points to two key conclusions that lie at the heart of any ‘radical discipleship’ project: first, that nothing less than a total effort at discipleship formation will save the church; and second that we cannot expect anyone, even ourselves, to be free from temptation. We need both zeal and humility.
From Contested Formation to Church Complicity
Before exploring these themes further, I believe we need to add an additional problem to the daunting list outlined by Damian. That is, that in some cases the church itself has been one of the very drivers of the mythologies that threaten the life of the world. The two examples of this I will briefly take up are wealth and violence.
Damian has already detailed much of the curse of affluenza on the world, including those of us who choose to follow Christ. I think it is also worth reminding ourselves that the institutional churches themselves have often promoted the hoarding of wealth in practice. While we no longer (one hopes) live in a time in which the corruption of the church is so rank as to include the selling of indulgences, it remains true that ‘church’ and ‘wealth’ are synonymous in many people’s minds.
This is most starkly visible in the type of schools we run. The cheapest Uniting Church school in New South Wales charges over $11,000 per year in tuition fees alone. Anglican and ‘independent’ Catholic schools are similarly unaffordable. Even systemic Catholic schools, despite very large government subsidies, charge more than the poorest third of their own members can afford to pay. What gospel is preached by the presence of these places? The gospel of radical inclusion of those whom society would exclude? Or the gospel of middle-class white flight from the great unwashed?
The preaching of a prosperity gospel is not condemned as heresy by any mainstream churches in Australia, as far as I can see. It is not clear if this is out of Christian ‘niceness’ or because we don’t really believe it is harder for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God than for a camel fit through the eye of a needle. Unlike the rich young man who turns away in an honest admission of unwillingness to embrace such costly grace, our churches gloss over these inconvenient details or make up absurd archaeological fantasies in the hope nobody will pay too much attention. But the world has found us out. Ask any non-Christian in Australia why they are suspicious about the church and the word ‘hypocrisy’ will come back every time.
When it comes to violence our history is even worse. We don’t just act hypocritically, we have actively embraced the myth of redemptive violence, even if it means inventing wrathful atonement theologies to make it fit with the unfortunate reality of the Cross. It seems the myth was too strong even for Jesus’ death to overcome, because we do not even realise it for what it is:
Violence is so successful as a myth precisely because it does not seem to be mythic in the least. Violence simply appears to be the nature of things. It is what works. It is inevitable…[2]
Thus we have the ‘just war’ tradition, the Crusades, Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ (which found the Biblical accounts of Jesus’ suffering inadequate, such was its elevated blood lust), and a Catholic chaplain’s blessing of the Atomic Bomb that vaporised Hiroshima.
The Oklahoma Catholic Worker House recently published an open letter to the US Catholic Bishops Conference asking why, in a time of illegal war, they were spending all their energies on a more literal translation of the Latin Mass. They noticed that numerous Bishops had declared their refusal to serve communion to any politician who supported the right to an abortion, but none had done the same for supporting (or even involvement in) the war. In doing so, they exposed the anti-war messages of the Bishops as being completely devoid of real conviction. Australian churches of all denominations have similarly failed to take any real action against the most egregious international crime in recent history, despite passionate statements.
Our tacit support for both wealth and violence comes because we are addicted to the fruits of each. Before we can meaningfully call the people of this country to a conversion to Christ, we must confront the harsh reality that the churches themselves desperately need such a conversion. As Fr John Dear writes,
We need to recognize our addiction to violence, and the heresy and blasphemy of such complicity, and make a complete about face. Such a conversion will cost not only millions in contributions and dramatic declines in attendance of religious services, but possibly even some lives. But it will be the beginning of an authenticity that we all long for deep down. The recognition and rejection of our religious violence will, more than anything, bring all the religions of the world back to new and greater life.[3]
The Road to Recovery
If Christ is to win the struggle of contested formation, the church must first overcome the complacency it holds regarding matters such as consumerism and the myth of redemptive violence, which not only threaten the life of the world, but the soul of the church as well. The battle must rage within the church, as much as in the world.
Stanley Hauerwas writes of the ‘conspiracy of cordiality’ that suffocates the prophetic witness of the church today, in which parishioners attend for personal gratification and become upset if either the sermon or liturgy suggest they look beyond themselves.[4] According to Dorothy McRae-McMahon, one of the reasons why the clergy have failed to pass on their theological education to lay members of the church is that they are afraid of the response.[5]
At the same time, even an armchair psychologist can tell you that berating a congregation for choosing ‘cheap grace’ is not a winning strategy for bringing them with you. Nor is much of the church interested in academic theological education. The church needs to be both theologically sophisticated and capable of reaching the minds and hearts of the humblest people, encouraging ‘a simple trust’[6] that the deeper we go into Christian discipleship, the more alive we will become. And we need to start by confessing our own complicity, our own hypocrisy, and our own joy in the Risen Christ. More than anything, we need to walk our talk.
Somehow we need to challenge the church and yet find language that is invitational. This is a struggle that faced all of the prophets, not least the One who goes before us on the Way. In that there is hope.
References
[1] A senior person in the Uniting Church Assembly recently suggested privately that half of the church membership would vote Liberal at the next election, despite the recent spate of anti-poor and anti-refugee legislation that the church has formally declared ‘totally immoral’.
[2] Walter Wink, Engaging the Powers, Minneapolis, Fortress Press, 1992, p. 26
[3] John Dear, “Our God is a God of Nonviolence”, p3. Available from www.johndear.org
[4] Stanley Hauerwas, Resident Aliens
[5] Dorothy McRae-McMahon, “Democracy in the Church”, speech to the New Pentecost Forum, Sydney, May 2005
[6] Br Roger of Taizé often referred to this phrase as the heart of the message he wanted to pass on to the church. At the same time, the brothers are not simplistic in the slightest about their theology, which is quietly radical.
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