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The Taming of God (Obama’s Religion, pt 2)

Written by Christopher Brenna : November 21, 2008

Yesterday, I shared an essay about a speech Barack Obama gave on religion in democracy. Posted here is another paragraph of that speech, where Barack Obama gives us an exposition of what the story of Abraham sacrificing Isaac means theologically, and what it means (by contrast) politically. His distinction is very indicative:

“We all know the story of Abraham and Isaac. Abraham is ordered by God to offer up his only son, and without argument, he takes Isaac to the mountaintop, binds him to an altar, and raises his knife, prepared to act as God has commanded. Of course, in the end God sends down an angel to intercede at the very last minute, and Abraham passes God’s test of devotion. But it’s fair to say that if any of us leaving this church saw Abraham on a roof of a building raising his knife, we would, at the very least, call the police and expect the Department of Children and Family Services to take Isaac away from Abraham.”

Abraham will have arrived at that place, on the roof of a building (or mountain), raising a knife to his son, by remaining silent, Kierkegaard says. He will have allowed himself to speak of any other possible thing: “He can say everything, but one thing he cannot say, and if he cannot say that—that is, say it in such a way that the other understands it—then he is not speaking.” In other words, if the one thing Abraham cannot speak to Sarah, or to Eliezer, or to Isaac himself is the one thing that could eliminate the terrifying void of anxiety and fear he faces in violating universal ethics: “I’m going to kill my son because God is telling me to,” then everything else he could say enacts nothing of any substance. Nothing else can reduce his anxiety except the one thing he cannot say. Kierkegaard says, “At every moment, Abraham can stop; he can repent of the whole thing as a spiritual trial; then he can speak out, and everybody will be able to understand him—but then he is no longer Abraham.” But that is precisely where we approach Abraham’s experience without feeling his fear and anxiety. We know killing your son is supposed to be wrong, so we believe that God would never have really let Abraham go through with it. But if Abraham knows that, then his entire experience is absurd and immoral.

Barack Obama here is focused on that moment where Abraham’s anxiety is eliminated, just as most of us are. He says “of course.” Of course God intercedes. Of course Abraham does not violate the universal. Of course the test of devotion would never have included this. That is the “of course” of a member of the civic religion, who believes only in the values of faith that can be universalized. He appeals to our desire to tame God, to believe that God has a belief system, that he has rules. To Barack Obama, one individual encountering God himself above the universal is the highest abnegation of the civic religion. To us, there should be no scintilla of our faith that is not particular, that does not express the audacity of hoping for true communion with God no matter what anyone else values.

This is why Barack Obama is right about democracy and right about religion. We cannot bring faith in a God who transcends everything we hold in common as good and noble into the congregation of democracy. We cannot create laws to express the anxiety of God calling us into a relationship that defies all reason or force of law. An absurd leap, the kind a person makes when falling in love, or that a woman makes if she risks her own life to give birth to a child, or that any Christian makes in believing a man rose from the dead, has no place in democracy. In the midst of the temptations we face, where the vicissitudes of a relationship with a God who inhabits us with a spirit we cannot fathom clash with the ossified ethical structures of society, our best chance at imitating Christ remains a willingness to be terrified. We must be terrified by the prospect of an all-loving God asking us to depict his love against all we are asked to hold dear by that grasp at control we call ’society’. That terror has no place in this society, and so we really are left with a choice. Will we believe in a suffering Christ, believe in a resurrected Christ, against the lack of value suffering holds in American life, or against any proof that resurrection of the dead actually happens? Will we defy the most deeply cherished values of American society because God has invited us to? Or will we be looking up from the open doors of the church, calling the police, because a man is about to murder his son?

Author Bio: Christopher Brenna is a graduate student in History of Christianity at Luther Seminary and holds a master of divinity from Bethel Seminary. He was a member of Missio Dei in the early years, but now lives in Rochester, MN.




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Comments

Viewing 18 Comments

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    Chris,

    I really liked your articles on "Obama's Religion." The example of Abraham clearly illustrates that the civil religion called for by a pluralistic democratic society does not mesh neatly with the call on the life of a disciple; but then,no societal structure ever did (or will).

    I believe our government, at best, is simply a platform on which the localized church can run. Like Linux, Mac or PC. Running the church in a democratic environment has advantages and disadvantages. For instance,the freedom to practice and promote our faith without serious repression is an advantage that we should try to preserve; however, we must also learn to exist peacibly with people who's beliefs and values differ from our own. Would the church run better on another social platform? Maybe, maybe not - But I think we will not advance the mission of the church if we spend all of our time arguing about the platform it is running on. The real work of the church should be learning to work in the environment we are in - know its strengths and weaknesses and optimize our praxis.

    After all, the Gospel should be capable of running in any environment. And I personally would prefer to have a say in Govt. policy. I think Christians get into trouble when we expect too much of the civil governemnt. We will never get a representative democracy to reflect our values exclusively, unless we are willing to change the character of our government. (That game has been played out many times already - and the results are not promising).

    If God called me to sacrifice my son, I am glad to know that I live in a country where people would call the police on me. That means we can strive for a predictable - generally just society. God can call Abraham to sacrifice his Son - faith is trusting that though God is incomprehensible, he is ultimately good - and can resolve the seemingly conflicting messages we get in the moment. We are not called to put that kind of faith in the government. So long as the Government is morally predictable we can work within it - I do not mind that my faith will at times come to odds with it.

    Thank's for your thoughtful and well written piece.
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    Mike, to carry your platform analogy further in my own thinking, The mistake I think most Americans make is in thinking of "church" and "state" as two different kinds of things. In your analogy, the state is a platform, and the church is a program. However, I would say that the church is a platform, as is the state. The question should then be, how are these systems able to communicate with each other? If we are simply a social organization within the "state," then your analogy holds sway. But if we are a sovereign state, then we have to ask what comity exists between our nation and the American nation.

    "the freedom to practice and promote our faith without serious repression is an advantage that we should try to preserve"

    Is it an advantage?

    Thanks for your thoughts, Mike.
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    Chris,

    Here are some reasons I would hesitate from drawing the platform analogy the way you do. First, the Church is most clearly affected by the environment it is running in. This is not just a question of communication; rather, certain bugs and fixes exist in every environment, and these have a direct effect on the church's appearance and performance in the culture. Second, history bares out the fact that when we identify the Church as a state it invariably leads to the exaltation of one visible form of the Church. Rather than seeing the Church as a rival state I see the Church as the Avant-garde or 5th Column of the advancing Kingdom (the Kingdom of God being the rival state).

    You also ask if the freedom to practice and promote our faith without serious repression is truly an advantage we should try to preserve?

    You can make an argument that the Church thrives under persecution (e.g. blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church), but its not like we are supposed to long for it or seek it out. We should take advantage of the situation that we are in. If we are serious, we will find the walls our own culture erects.
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    I think I'm not familiar enough with computer terminology to continue using your analogy, Mike, but I will say that identifying the Church as a state does NOT invariably lead to the exaltation of one visible form of the Church, and I can certainly provide numerous examples of that if you wish. I think if the Church were to mimic the secular State, that would be unwise and unhelpful, but I'm not proposing that.

    We're not supposed to long for persecution or martyrdom?
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    I have difficulty thinking of the church as a subset of "society." It is, perhaps, better to think of the State as something subordinate to the Kingdom of God. After all, the government is upon Christ's shoulders. And Christ the King simply allows various states to exist. Those in Christ, ie, the church, I believe are to be properly anarchistic...their government is Christ.
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    Man - both of you guys. Where are you guys getting that this conversation was ever about authority and subordination etc. You are definitely reading that into what I am saying.
    Let me try and explain what I was trying to say.

    Pretend for a moment that I am not saying what you think I am saying. That the church is a subset of society. That's not what I'm saying at all. It is not, as a professor I had once said "the church is one of the pillers of our social order". While the church is not a subset of the society, it does exist within many differing social Milieu, and those human societies present a variety of differing challenges for Christians. OUR experience differs from believers in China? Europe? Latin America? The middle east? The prevailing culture for each milieu has different rules, vices, strong points, weak points, forms of social organization, ways of connecting with strangers. We must not assume that we can have a one size fits all approach to the world? There is no objective vantage point from which we engage the world. We are not OF THE WORLD but we are IN THE WORLD.

    My initial response to Chris' article was only to point out that I have a certain affinity for our social milieu, because it allows us to engage people of differing viewpoints peacefully on the merits of what we proclaim. What we have to overcome is apathy, greed, materialism etc. These are unique to our environment. In another place or time, where violent repression existed and there was not such a large consumer class, our challenges would be different and so would our approach.
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    That all makes sense. I think the operating system metaphor threw me off.
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    good thoughts.

    I think of Paul's dream that made him go to Macedonia instead of East. If he had not had that dream, the initial center for the development of followers of Christ would have been quite different. I also think of the time in Babylonian captivity and how other people groups were similarly moved to Babylon and then allowed to return home after the Persians defeated the Babylonians without extensive blood-shed. If this truly was the time of Daniel/Deutero-Isaiah and the time of spiritual renewal for the Jews(when most of the OT was edited/compiled) then it stands to reason that seeds/(points of contact) were planted and scattered among the Greeks and other nations. Not the whole, but important parts, w. different parts scattered in different areas, thus creating quite different tasks for followers of Christ in communicating the identity and significance of Christ using the native tongues.

    dlw
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    Wonderful, thought provoking, and challenging piece this. Solid.
    Well done Christopher.
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    You're faulting Obama for not affirming Kierkegaard's reading of Abraham? What's next, faulting Obama for not affirming Derrida's reading of Kierkegaard's reading of Abraham?
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    No, I don't fault Obama in the slightest. He's not a theologian or a philosopher, he's a politician. He's made a perfect exposition of his belief in universalizing religious beliefs in the public sphere of a democracy. I think he's done a fine job expressing himself.
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    Come on now, be fair. The next thing Mr. Obama says in that speech is: "We would do so because we do not hear what Abraham hears, do not see what Abraham sees, true as those experiences may be. So the best we can do is act in accordance with those things that we all see, and that we all hear, be it common laws or basic reason."

    While I have many of my own frustrations with Mr. Obama's rhetoric, I don't think we get to et this be one of them. His point is, we've got to be patient with one another in a pluralistic society, and that is true whether it's democratic or not. Pluralism -- any degree of any difference in a given setting, really -- compels patience and an imagination to understand where another person is coming from. We don't have to agree with that, we don't even have to respect it. But we've got to at least look at Abraham and, not hearing the voice wonder, "I wonder what experiences are leading him to that." And often (usually?) we'll still wind up intervening in the situation. That's what happens in society; if we see some dangerous thing happening, we do something about it.

    Now, Mr. Obama's suggestion that DH&S should resolve it is fair game for debate. But this example seems, to first blush for me anyway, a splendid way of demonstrating this need for patience and listening in public discourse in ANY pluralistic society, democratic or not.

    Indeed, in many ways pluralism seems like a good thing, a way for us to learn how to engage the genuinely-Other sincerely and in love. If God is a diversity-in-unity, or a plurality-in-unity, or something like that which these phrases are just clumsy signposts toward, then that means "How-We-Deal-With-Otherness" is going to be a huge part of our task as his Image-bearers. We, too, are to be "Those-Who-Deal-with-Otherness" because the Trinity is like that too. Sure the analogy presses against some apparent barriers in that in a pluralistic society we're dealing with entire ideological and worldview-level differences, whereas the Trinity is, well,... trace it out, you see what I mean. (nothing challenges language like the Trinity).

    So, while it's immensely doubtful that Obama had this "otherness" trinitarian thing behind his quip, I do think the general point holds: we Christians have GOT to learn how to engage one another in public discourse better and more thoughtfully. Just before your quotes he was talking about people who are anti-abortion but vote pro-abortion-rights, and immediately afterwards gives the example of those who oppose gay marriage, but also oppose amending the Constitution to that end. The humorous glance off of the Abe-Isaac story was just one way of explaining what's going on in these situations.
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    While it's possible that one of his points may be that we've got to be patient with each other in a pluralistic society, I was pointing out that in the public sphere, there is no allowance for an act of faith such as the one in which Abraham is engaged. I think Barack Obama is addressing that as well. I'm not trying to condemn the man, I'm simply using a part of his speech to show how following Christ may require peculiar things of us. Those peculiar things cannot be shared in a pluralistic society unless they conform (as Barack Obama says in the passage you quote above), to "common laws or basic reason." Certainly, we can seek to understand the "otherness" of those who don't follow Christ.
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    I got that chris and I think it was a great point. We have to be very careful when thinking about how our ethics and morals are "universal" or not. I think I've been finding that they are less universal than I'd like them to be when voting.
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    I'm a believer that as Christians we can express our beliefs differently publicly and privately (among other committed believers). Obama typifies a good example of how we can stand by our faith without (mis)aligning it with what is universal or what we are objectively justified in bringing down to bear on all others. In my mind, this uses State-Churchy speak to subvert State-Churchiness.

    dlw
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    well I certainly didn't mean to exposit Obama's speech to show that it is subversive. On the contrary, I was trying to show that it is a perfect example of civil religion. I would say that we should express our beliefs with different purposes and with a different tenor in public, but I think the essential content of our beliefs should not change when expressed in public. But it is the impulse to have a public voice in full that has led us to bend our faith to fit the rules of public discourse in this country. That was my point.
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    I appreciate both BHRhodes and Chris's comments in response to each other, i have to say that at first i was seeing the same thing as BHR. I felt a little proof-texting almost, or pulling things out of context, and really felt that there was an important line or two afterwards. But Chris thanks for the response it pulled things together well, and I've enjoyed both of your articles. I think I understand both the points on plurality and that The Call will most likely involve things outside of what is permitted by law and acceptable to society.
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    not sure human sacrifice would have been considered universal in Abraham's day....

    A lot of things we take for granted are due to the extent that the kingship of God has been advancing, often in ways we aren't so aware of.
    dlw
 

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