¡Consiga un McJob! (Na del Na del Na de Sha)

Un artículo en CNN.com me estimuló recientemente al pensamiento (que como sabemos es una cosa peligrosa hoy en día):

Mientras que los trabajadores soñolientos saben que no se están realizando tan bien como podrían durante el día, el trabajo es qué los está guardando encima de noches, según el examen, que encontró días laborables está consiguiendo un funcionamiento más largo y tiempo pasado de los promedios caseros cerca de horas de la cuatro-y-uno-mitad cada semana.

Se parece que la gente también está intentando exprimir en más hora para sí mismos y sus familias, aunque él significan menos sueño. Según el examen, la época media de despertar está en 5:35 mañana. y ha seguido por cerca de dos horas y 15 minutos en el país antes de dirigir hacia fuera a trabajar.

El estudio que éste viene de fue hecho por la fundación nacional del sueño. Había solamente 1.000 personas examinadas, aunque, así que puede no ser totalmente exacto o comprensivo. Sin embargo, plantea algunas preguntas resistentes.

Como esto: ¿en nuestra avaricia e inseguridad, somos adictos como cultura a la productividad, y es consumición gemela malvada de la hermana? ¿Comprometemos constantemente nuestra calidad de la vida, somos nosotros forzamos para hacer así pues, porque tenemos que trabajar para el dinero en vez del dinero que trabaja para nosotros? ¿Y es realmente ese esencial continuar con el Joneses, o con JonesCorp?

Nota lateral: ¿Hay histórico y las razones filosóficas el promedio industrial de “Dow-Jones” se llama eso… y puesto que el portalámparas gigante australiano de la derecha Rupert Murdoch de los medios ahora es el que está gleefully que tira de las secuencias en el diario de Wall-Street, él es clase adentro de una posición para fijar el paso para el Dows y Joneses, no es él?

Pero déjenos consiguen de nuevo a la edición del sueño. Que haga un promedio de despertar el tiempo, 5:35, es lo que realmente cogida mi atención más. It’s a bit later than 5:10, which is the time my wife, a public high school departmental administrator, gets up. Now, one might ask why a teacher or department head at a school which starts classes at 8:10 has to get up so early? I know I’ve asked–for years now. So here’s some hints: it’s not the commute, which for her is only 20 minutes; it’s not the actual start time of school, even though “Early Bird” classes, sports, and extra-curriculars now routinely start at 7:20am; and it’s not the “family time” in the morning, as she’s pretty much getting up, making coffee, cleaning herself up, and driving to work by 6:10.

What I think is happening, for my wife and millions of other Americans, is that the expectation of productivity for the middle class within a given workday (or schoolday) has steadily gone up in the post-agricultural, post-industrial era. And a school is nothing if not a rehearsal for life in corporate America. Historically that’s what school was meant to convey: a work ethic, a set of economic (not academic) values, and a regimented way of organizing one’s life. It’s true, we don’t go to school to learn information or gain knowledge in the classical sense. We go to school to learn and practice culture — especially industrious, productive behaviors, individually and in groups. We go to school to learn how to assimilate. Any educator, historian or philosopher will tell you this (if they’ve done their homework). That’s not an altogether bad thing, either –the role of school in socialization. But it is definitely a thing that many students and parents fail to fully comprehend, especially if they are first-generation Americans.

Now, I’m not proposing that we slow down so much that we fall behind, or that we re-format every classroom so that it is tri-lingual all day, or that it only lasts until 1pm. Convenience is always a major factor in middle-America, and that is acceptable. What I’m saying is that we need to re-think schools, and the workplace in general, so that we work smarter and healthier. If not, then our compulsive need to constantly make everything better, stronger, faster, and more cheaply (like they did for the Six Million Dollar Man, who’s now worth just $550,000) has the potential to send our children’s physical and mental health into a downward spiral that will only ensure their failure in a changing global marketplace. Witness the immense growth in childhood obesity alone for strong evidence that our kids’ leisure lives (and our own, by implication), need a major overhaul.

Back to our example: my wife. What that drive to pack more work into a workday translates to for her is that she has to get about half of her individual paperwork and class preparations done between 6:30 and 8:10, because she knows that the flurry of new school-wide or departmental needs will begin in earnest as soon as the actual school day begins. At that point, large time blocks for concentrated work sessions become very difficult to create — what with having to deal with various meetings, phonecalls, and semi-urgent on-the-fly situations. Thus in helping everyone else do their work more effectively– which is the role of most “middle managers”or department heads– she has very little time to write reports or do her own work during the standard workday.

And unless I’m mistaken, that 8:10am start-time for my wife’s high school is at least a half-hour to fifty minutes later than school started when our parents went to high school. In an informal poll I took of some teachers over 50, they all said their school day was typically from 9am to about 2:30. So what has happened to the world in 50 years, that we now need to pack two or more extra hours of schooling into a day? I know, I know… for one thing, more mothers have gone to work, which is mostly a good thing. But it’s more complicated than that. Why, for example, haven’t more fathers stayed home, or downshifted to part-time jobs? Why has our culture gotten so caffeinated in such a short time? What does the violence that coca growers and little militias in Colombia perpetrated last weekend have to do with me or my tax dollars?

It’s the economy, stupid. And the values of the specific culture where a family lives. In China, for example, it’s worse: a full 9am to 5pm day for school kids (sometimes more), with very few breaks and little or no physical activity or creative outlets. (Sound familiar to you parents of urban students caught in the No Child Left Behind, teach-to-the-test trap?) But at least in China they have some nap/free time scheduled in the middle of the day, not unlike in Europe.

And as for adult workdays, the U.S. is not even the worst offender. It’s common knowledge that in Japan, 10-12 hour workdays are common. This is not unlike the length of workdays in the 19th century, when the agrarian economy and it’s dawn to dusk schedule ruled the day. But at least in that case, work time often coincided with family time, and few people traveled very far–if at all–to get to where they worked. In modern Japan, Dad commutes home, arriving after 9pm, and often has little interaction with his family (unless he’s a very energetic saint). Poet, priest and men’s movement guru Richard Rohr, OFM talks about this phenomenon creating a huge “father hunger” within the youth of Japan’s middle class. These “Hello Kitty kids” often end up alienated and angry, filling the void with the consumption of pop culture “candy” like manga and computer games.

Once upon a time, labor unions and well-intentioned civic and religious leaders helped to abolish child labor and establish the eight hour workday as the humane standard worldwide. But we seem to be losing ground in that struggle again. What so-called pragmatists might say is that we can’t afford to work less, nor to pay 1.5 workers to do the job that a single worker now does. That’s a specious argument, though, as it assumes that everything that is presently being accomplished absolutely must be done. But time is a limited resource, as is individual human potential. Who is to say what we can back off on? If there are losses in certain fields (and there probably will be), won’t those be offset by job gains in new, heretofore unrecognized fields? I think so. It just takes some outside-the-box thinking.

So why can’t we employ twenty teachers for every soldier? Or maybe we do now, but if so… why do so many of my poorer or less-educated students end up joining the military, or taking crappy service sector jobs, as the only alternatives they can see ahead of them? Looked at another way, why can’t we employ twenty factory workers (with good working conditions, to cut healthcare, turnover, and company overhead costs) for every middle manager, … and do it without making that middle manager have to do too much of the work of those supposedly well-trained employees on any given day?

Most importantly, in an era where the only growth in employment is the increase of McJobs, why can’t we move toward training and employing five hundred skilled professionals (like an X-Ray technician, or a CAD expert to work with an architect) for every hundred counter-workers at Starbucks? Why are we dumbing down or kids, or sitting idly by while the consumerist marketing moguls who run this culture dumb them down?

The bottom line is this: can we really afford NOT to adjust our lifestyles and economies to the realities of the globalized, post-modern world? We need not agree to be cogs in a machine that only seeks to grind up our individual dreams. We need not continue to be the victims of chaos, circumstance, and the obvious population explosion. It is our own human history, our own story to write or change as we see fit. Let’s take it back.

Maybe then we’ll stop losing so much sleep over the disintegration of our civilized way of life.

Author Bio:: Mark Nielsen is a “once-and-future Catholic”, presently a square-peg Mennonite/evangelical at Reba Place Church, Evanston, IL.

A founding member of Generation X (b. 1965) , he’s “younger than that now”. Married, one young son. Currently working as a grade school teacher, though with a background in video/multimedia, and with aspirations to publish both fiction & nonfiction.

White. Italian-American/Mutt. See blog/website for further details. Offer not valid in the U.S. Virgin Islands or Guam.

Zizek, Obama and the Emerging Church

I had made the editorial decision to avoid political articles for a month or so…but David Fitch wrote a great article today that has already stirred up some important feedback. Here’s some of the juicy stuff from his article:

…In essence, we listen to all the new political speeches and new political options given the electorate and we know nothing will really change. Yet we participate in it anyway, because in essence subconsciously this is what we really want: we wish to protect our own specific pieces of the economic social pie yet feel good about doing it (there’s the classic Freudian split in the subjective consciousness). Political ideology serves a cynical function now, giving us a Big Other to participate in, making us feel better about ourselves (morally), all the while we hope for keeping the status quo in place protecting our own personal pieces of the pie.

And here’s more Fitchy goodness:

When it comes to Christians of my evangelical tradition, I would suggest this “ideological cynicism” could work another way. We participate in National politics, its political ideologies of a more just society, even though we deeply suspect the corporate national machine insures nothing will change. We do this because it is much harder to think of the church itself as a legitimate social political force for God’s justice in the world. It is simply a lot less work to support Barak Obama for president than it is to lead our churches into being living communities of righteousness, justice and God’s Mission in the world.

And still more…

I know some expect me to get on the Obama bandwagon, especially those who know of my criticisms of the current president. Yet I continue to want to press for the church to be the primary political instrument of true justice in the world. The church must be FIRST as initiator for social justice, from which we can then push for governmental cooperation. I have always been concerned about the marginal status given the church as the foundational center for justice in society by my various spokesmen/women/friends of the Emerging Church (I hope to review Brian McLaren’s Everything Must Change in this light). I know many fear fundamentalist sectarianism. I fear the democratic capitalist Symbolic Order (ala Foucault) shall subsume us all. More and more however, people like Jim Wallis are seeing the insights of a tempered vision of what is possible in national politics (see The Great Awakening). More and more, people are understanding a new possibility for a Hauerwas radical politics (see for example Mark Van Steenwyk here and here). SO GO AHEAD AND BY ALL MEANS VOTE FOR OBAMA, but do not allow false ideology to sap our energy or distract us from the task of being God’s people, his embodied Kingdom in submission to His Lordship, birthing forth His justice amidst the world that was made possible in His death and resurrection until He comes.

There is a lot more in the article…and I’ve got to say that I’m tracking with him on this stuff. We see a rising Christian Left that is likely to fall into all the same traps of the Christian Right. And in the midst of this shift among Evangelicals, is the Church learning to be the Church? Maybe my hope in the Church as the primary location for Christian political action is misplaced? After all, Tony Jones, in his reasonable response to David’s article writes:

David and Mark: You accuse any of us who have hope that a US president might actually be an ally in overcoming the disparities in society of being blinded by our love for him. But I wonder: Is your ecclesiophila blinding you to the fact that the church has rarely been the counter-cultural force that you want it to be? I hope you’ll see in my book, David, that I think the church’s role in society is unique and important, but I’m also a realist that it’s always going to be just as screwed up as it is now. The church is great. I love it. But it’s just not the end-all-be-all. We also have to be engaged in society in myriad other ways: jobs, politics, hospitals, volunteerism, athletics, etc. All sphere’s are God’s.

This is dialog is what blogging is all about! Here we have two men that I know and respect–both very thoughtful people–pinpointing a clear area of disagreement. I am clearly with David on this stuff, but I appreciate Tony’s perspective.

I could say more here, but I will instead chime in on the conversation over there, and I encourage you to jump into the fray! And, if you want to add more fuel to the fire, check out the conversation brewing over an email Tony recently posted on his blog.

An Emerging Pentecost?

From USA Today (HT: Michael Kruse)…

The U.S. population will soar to 438 million by 2050 and the Hispanic population will triple, according to projections released Monday by the Pew Research Center.

The latest projections by the non-partisan research group are higher than government estimates to date and paint a portrait of an America dramatically different from today’s.

…Even if immigration is limited, Hispanics’ share of the population will increase because they have higher birth rates than the overall population. That’s largely because Hispanic immigrants are younger than the nation’s aging baby boom population. By 2030, all 79 million boomers will be at least 65 and the elderly will grow faster than any other age group.

The report predicts that in 2050, 19% of the US population will be foreign-born and 29% of the population will be “Hispanic” (with 47% being White, 13% being Black, and 9% being Asian).

I keep beating this drum, but this is a changing reality that we must anticipate in our ecclesiology. I know the emerging church isn’t simply a group of white-dude intellectuals, but I don’t see significant discussion about this. Most denominations and groups aren’t engaging this reality either, except in those areas that have had a large latino population for decades.

And, whether we like it or not, when one talks about latinos and faith, one must grapple with Pentecostalism and Catholicism–and the particular ways in which latinos embrace these traditions.

At Pentecost, people from all over the known world were united together by the Spirit of God. It was a reversal of the Tower of Babel. If the emerging movements that we are experiencing today are to be faithful to the Spirit of God, we need an emerging Pentecost–a great ingathering of diverse voices coming together as to witness the new thing the Spirit of God is doing in our land.  

What am I suggesting? Well, I have some scattered ideas I want to toss out at you. And I would love it if you could comment and also add some scattered ideas of your own. Let’s get generative here:

•  I would love for Spanish-language articles to be posted on Jesus Manifesto. I’m going to look into finding a way to have a little toggle image that lets people choose what language they read in. Sure, there will be some odd translation issues, but if more and more articles are written in Spanish, I’m more than happy to try to figure out an inadequate translation of it into English–it is worth the effort. Of course, if anyone wants to volunteer their translation abilities, I’d love that too
• I am eager to post anything that anyone wants to write about how we can learn from latino cultures in our doing of theology or our doing of church.
• I’m wondering if any of you have any stories you can share (positive or negative) about anglo/latino engagement within church or culture.
• How does the changing landscape of USAmerica make you all feel?
• For those of you who don’t know, I’ve been working (not as much as I’d like) on a book called “the Jesus Manifesto.” I also have a follow-up book in my mind called “the Subversive Spirit.” That book would be a contemporary exploration of pneumatology from a practitioner’s perspective. And I would love to have it be something I edit, rather than something I write all by myself. If you are interested in contributing to such a project, let me know. I want it to explore global Christian perspectives, Pentecostalism, etc with a strong emphasis on praxis and community. My hope is that this book would help alleviate the lack of reflection about pneumatology within the emerging church in particular, but within the USAmerican context in general.

When Church and State Play Footsie Under the Table

The Minneapolis Star Tribune reports on an upcoming gathering of progressive Baptists:

Weary of Southern Baptists’ dominance in American Protestantism, a new push is starting by other Baptist groups aimed at working on social justice issues, and showing their religious tradition is broader than the conservative SBC. Former President Jimmy Carter is leading the effort.

…The meeting is taking place just days before Feb. 5, when 24 states hold delegate-rich presidential primaries and caucuses. Baptists organizers say the timing is coincidental; they began planning the Atlanta event about two years ago before the primary schedule was set.

“This has not anything to do with Super Tuesday,” Carter said.

Yet the biggest Baptist names at the event are prominent Democrats. Along with Carter, major speakers include former Vice President Al Gore and former President Bill Clinton, who has played a leading and provocative role in the presidential race of his wife, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Republican Sens. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and Charles Grassley of Iowa will also address the meeting. Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, a Southern Baptist minister and GOP candidate for president, had agreed last year to participate, then canceled.

The large gathering of some 10,000 progressive Baptists isn’t an attempt, they say, to start a new denomination but to help “develop common ministries that would have a big impact.” Hmm. Right.

This “Celebration of a New Baptist Covenant” seems like a page out of the Religious Right play book. I’m never a fan of a group of high-profile politicians meeting with high-profile pastors. This looks like a pep rally for the Religious Left. And I do not believe for one moment that Carter’s assertion that “this has not anything to do with Super Tuesday.”

Enemies of Empire?

Mark’s wonderful recent post “is America an Empire” has stirred the waters quite well. So I thought I would wade into the swirling poorl and talk a bit more about Empire and Enemies. For the idea that the Empire is our Enemy didn’t seem to sit well with some readers. “Aren’t we supposed to love our enemies?” “Should the Church really understand itself as having enemies, such as the State or Empire?” “Isn’t this dangerous exclusionary language?”

To such questions I would answer, the State/Empire is the enemy because it is an enemy of Repentance. It is impossible for the State to repent. And conversely, repentance is resistance to Empire.

It is all the rage among liberals to point out the pathological nature of President Bush, that he is incapable of admitting error in his decision to go to war with Iraq (among many other decisions). But I would say this is not some idiosyncratic pathology particular to Bush. Rather, the presidency as such and the entire State apparatus IS constituted pathologically, requiring a subjective commitment to its current form. As the French political philosophy Alain Badiou says, “It’s simply not true that you can participate in a system as powerful and as ramified as parliamentarism without a real subjective commitment to it…In order to participate in electoral or governmental representation, you have to conform to the subjectivity it demands.” And I would say part of this ‘subjective commitment’ to the State entails the inability to show the weakness of repentance.

The inability to practice repentance requires that the Enemy is always something else, somewhere else, and someone else. Perhaps the Enemy has crossed our borders (as illegal immigrants and terrorists), but conceptually/ideologically the Enemy is always outside the State. After 9/11, it was impossible for the USA to repent of the American Dream, to repent of it consumer habits, or repent of its tacit domination of the developing world (or should we say, kept from developing world). Indeed, President Bush only reasserted this commitment to consumerism when he told the nation to go out shopping to show our Enemies that we will not be defeated.

But for Church, the Enemy is always lurking within, clawing at the doors of our heart, and in fact, always already part of us. In the practice of repentance the Enemy is named, acknowledged, and turned from. Only in repentance is a gap and a division opened, into which God can act, between what we are and what we are becoming. Only in the weakness of repentance do we admit we are powerless to change anything. And it is for all these reasons that the Powerful do not (can not) repent. And for this, the State must be understood as an idolatrous Enemy.

Is America an Empire?

Recently, in the comments of Mike Cline’s excellent article Christians: Haters of Humanity, a reader (jazzact13) responded negatively to the insinuation that the USA is an empire. He listed a bunch of criteria from dictionary.com. While I hardly think of dictionary.com as an authority for the definition of “empire,” it could be EASILY argued that America fits the bill under the first definition on the list:

a group of nations or peoples ruled over by an emperor, empress, or other powerful sovereign or government: usually a territory of greater extent than a kingdom, as the former British Empire, French Empire, Russian Empire, Byzantine Empire, or Roman Empire.

Am I being overly cynical here, or does indeed the USA exercise powerful sovereignty over a group of nations? This works on at least two levels:

• Uh…we still rule over a number of territories and a plethora of indigenous peoples. And this doesn’t include those nations over which we have profound influence (though not legally).
• The 50 STATES are each separate STATES ruled over by a central, government. This argument doesn’t work for me, but it might if I were southern.

But the USA is an empire in other ways:

1. Though we are not currently in an era of vast territorial expansion, we have, historically, used military means to expand our boundaries, often citing “manifest destiny.” And we currently use our military might to police the world. Perhaps this isn’t a traditional definition of “empire,” but it makes the US at least a “neo-empire.”
2. We are in an age where influence seems to advance through global consumer-capitalism. I think our understanding of “empire” should be revised to include emerging economics. To use a nerdly example: are the Ferengi an empire because of military power or trade? Now, it isn’t fair to point the label of “empire” at America alone in this. Many nations contribute towards the current global economic climate; but it is fair to say that the USA is still the primary power-broker in international trade.
3. Besides having military and economic influence, the US has huge cultural influence. The USA has helped shape the imaginations of many in the world. We have exported our aesthetics, our definition of the “good life,” and our religion.

Not just leftist “America haters” use the word “empire.” Conservatives have begun to use the word as well. After all, the word “empire” isn’t necessarily a negative word.

I’m not using the word “empire” just to rip on America. And, in fact, I think we should cast the net wider when we use the word “empire” so that we include our consumer/cultural allies. I mean, Britain has had a role in all of the things that qualifies the US as an Ampire.

Why do we throw the word “empire” so much at Jesus Manifesto? It is helpful for us to realize that the anti-imperial flavors of the NT (especially Revelation) can still speak into our current context. Just as Paul and John and Luke, etc. pushed against the narratives and practices of Rome, we too can push against American narratives and practices. Books like Colossians Remixed, Unveiling Empire, and Mustard Seed Versus McWorld are all great books to read to delve into this further.

By naming America as an “Empire” we name the reality that the USA is not the Kingdom of God…and that it isn’t even an ally in the Kingdom of God. It is, in fact, an enemy to the Kingdom of God. Before you start quoting “render unto Caesar” and “submit to the governing authorities” let me remind you that (even if I thought that these passages argue for support of government) Paul called Rome an enemy in Romans 12. He names Rome as an enemy right before he argues that we ought to submit. I’ve already written about this, so I don’t want to belabor the point.

So, I’m convinced that America is an empire. And I’m convinced that it is the enemy, but it is an enemy I’m called to love. I don’t struggle against the flesh and blood residents of the American Empire. But I will name and resist the Powers of America.

Martin Luther King Jr. and the Politics of Jesus

…Martin Luther King Jr’s comment that 11 o’clock is the most segregated hour in America is not only a true sociological observation, but it is also a deeply disturbing theological assessment of a Church that has long given up on the challenge to embody an alternative imagination…Martin Luther King Jr’s observation reflects a more global phenomenon of a Christianity that has become comfortable–too much at home–within the dominant cultures of our time.

From Greeting: Beyond Racial Reconciliation, by Emmanuel Katongolf (p 80 of the Blackwell Companion to Christian Ethics)

***

King depersonalized the target of the nonviolent resister’s attack. The opponent is a symbol of a greater evil. Nonviolence is to be directed against the forces of evil rather than against the persons who commit the evil. Evildoers are victims of evil as much as are the individuals and communities that the evildoers oppress.

From p.115 of Bonhoeffer and King: Speaking Truth to Power by J. Deotis Roberts

***

What King also knew was that America is a society at least partially constituted by some people whose forebears were once slaves aby by other people whose forebears owned slaves. He knew that black people bore a history of discrimination in the name of race. He knew that white people did not think they were racist. He sought to mitigate the most obvious injustices of those histories. But he also knew that such mitigations were not sufficient. The issue finally was not justice, but memory. The crucial question remains whether Americans can ever acknowledge what it means to be a slave nation. That is what Martin Luther King Jr never forgot and what we who would follow him must remember.

From Remembering Martin Luther King Jr by Stanley Hauerwas in the Journal of Religious Ethics, 1995

I’m convinced that, before Dr. King can be heralded as an American civil rights hero, he must first be heralded as a servant in the church. His ability to speak to power, love his enemies, and rally his brothers and sisters in Christ grew out of his embeddedness in a community–a Christian community.  May we remember his example. And, more importantly, may we do likewise.

Liquid Modernity, Scapegoating, and The Cross

In Shirley Jackson’s short story The Lottery, a commonplace American town gathers together to draw scraps of paper from an old black box. Jackson curiously keeps the reader from determining the meaning of the lottery, the only hint being a pile of rocks that had been organized. The story goes through the narration of each person picking until at last it is decided that Tessie Hutchinson has received the sheet marked with the black dot. It is then that the town, and most notably the children, surround her and she is stoned to death.

In Zygmunt Bauman’s book Liquid Modernity, he discusses the result of the current times in which the solid state of modernity has become “liquefied.” Noting that “fluids travel easily”, he dissects how the five basic concepts upon which “the orthodox narratives of human condition tend to be wrapped… emancipation, individuality, time/space, work, and community” and are changed by this process of being “liquefied.” Each theme builds upon the other as he writes, but in the final section on community he explains what he later calls, “the explosive community.”

It is here Bauman interjects the story of communal violence that comes from the work of Rene Girard. Girard, a literary critic who has studied just about every topic, offers an explanation of communal violence that holds the gospel as its possible solution. Girard argues that from the earliest times human have been drawn between a struggle of “imitation and rivalry.” If I have a house, my natural response is to convince people that mine is the best, thus forcing admiration that leads to a fight. Communities have to avoid this and maintain a measure of peace through, as Girard argues, scapegoating.

As theologian William Placher paraphrases:

Just as mutual conflict reaches the brink of chaos, we avoid crisis by ganging up on certain individuals, blaming all the problems on them, and killing them or driving them out of the community. Suddenly the opposition of everyone against everyone is replaced by the opposition of all against one.

Thus in the image of Leviticus 16, Aaron lays his hands upon goat for their sins and sends it into the wilderness, Germany turns on the Jews, and Pat Robertson detests the Homosexuals. As Bauman states, “What unites the numerous forms of ritualistic sacrifice is its purpose of keeping alive the memory of the communal unity and its precariousness.” So in Shirley Jackson’s short story awareness of the innocence of the scapegoat is not a factor, the Lottery is what unifies the community and provides itself with a narrative of how the community is maintained. The role of the children being involved is perhaps one of the most shocking parts of the story, but people are less likely to recognize the innocence of the random person, because from a young age they already have the blood of many victims upon their hands.

Bauman, however correctly notes that the explosive community is by “no means necessary and certainly not universal.” He thinks that in this time of ‘liquid modernity’ we more likely to see a kind of “cloakroom” or “carnival” community. In both of these models he doesn’t explicitly state the role of violence, but mentions that “spectacles have come to replace the ‘common cause’ of the heavy/solid/hardware modernity era–which makes a lot of difference to the nature of new style identities and goes a long way towards making sense of the emotional tensions and aggression-generating traumas which from time to time accompany their pursuit.” His examples of such spectacles are the “cloakroom” of a play, the carnivals of which we temporarily escape into some other reality, and the adoration of television news under which we “gather and march (virtual) shoulder to (virtual) shoulder.” In his conclusion of this section he remarks that while these types of communities (which Girard would argue all communities are) lack the “genuine” and are just “symptoms and casual factors of the social disorder specific to liquid modernity condition.”

Yet one must take issue with the reality of Bauman’s conclusion and the fact that during his application of these theories the word violence is hardly mentioned, and the word “moral” makes a brief appearance. If his conclusion of ‘carnival and cloakroom communities’ is correct he makes a large mistake in not exploring the practical implications that plays out in virtual culture. Malcolm Muggeridge once stated that, “If God is dead, somebody is going to have to take his place. It will be megalomania or erotomania, the drive for power or the drive for pleasure, the clenched fist or the phallus, Hitler or Hugh Heffner.” Separating the notion of God being dead (for now) this statement is a radical indictment of our reality-television, celebrity-obsessed, pornographically-driven, violent culture. While many men would like to think of the woman who is a stripper as a woman who has just found a profitable way to pay for college (as many movies attempt to state) the reality of situation is usually much more dire. And in the virtual culture many people are letting off this violent scapegoating streak into realities that don’t exist. Whether it be the videogame Grand Theft Auto, or the nightly news, violence is still the key to the system. We trick ourselves into even believing the reality TV contestants are not innocent, because they merely chose to be in this position. Thus we have our enjoyment at their expense, it is merely “a moral”. Even his simple example of the ‘Nightly News’ that unities us fails to take into account that someone must be dying (whether through murder or war), being exposed for struggling as a parent (see Britney Spears recent debacle), or being the object of a sex scandal (Bill Clinton and numerous Senators) for the average member of society to receive his/her unity with others. We truly are forced to choose between as Muggeridge stated above, “Hitler or Hugh Heffner.”

Yet the victims of this virtual world are innocent, and Bauman errors in just taking this as a casual factor. Even recent research and study suggests even if people are taking these forms of violence simply through their eyes, it is very likely that the objectification of another (whether through a strip club or video game) allows them to see others as less than human in their daily experience. The violence is not contained to the virtual world, but spills over into reality in the form of rape, murder, violence, and adultery. Although Bauman is unwilling to admit it, we still live under the shadow of ‘scapegoating’.

However, we didn’t finish our Girardian analysis above. Girard goes on to assert that it is in the biblical text we find a God who proclaims the victims of ‘scapegoating’ innocent. The height of this analysis comes in the shape of a cross, in which the scapegoat, is not merely proclaimed innocent, but righteous and resurrected. In light of this we as the Christian community cannot continue in the societal impulse to crucify the innocent, but as Christ did we must take our place with those who are suffering and being abused as the result of this fallen humanity (Philippians 2). But the church cannot ignore the powerful uniting ability these spectacles have for the uniting of people. Our answer to such a spectacle must be our worship, in which “there is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female” and certainly no scapegoat. And the highlight of this event which we hold in the place of the spectacle must be the Eucharistic table, in which we remember the death of the truly innocent, Jesus Christ, who was taken, broken, and crucified, to proclaim all scapegoats innocent, and set forth a community of people who recognize this new reality and will no longer participate in the violent system of the world.

Author Bio:: Matt Shedden is seminary student at Mars Hill Graduate School, and his inspired by Anabaptist values. He blogs at mshedden.com about life, theology, and culture.

10 Reasons to Vote: A Sympathetic Challenge to Mark’s 10 Reasons NOT to Vote

Editor’s Note: My good friend Casey (who is, by the way, a part of Missio Dei) posted 10 good counter-reasons to vote as a response to my recent article in which I explain why I don’t vote. I think his counter-argument is one-part compelling, and one-part humorous. And so I’m posting them as an article without his permission. His thoughts show that I have to do a lot better job of indoctrinating my friends at Missio Dei.

I will likely vote again this election as I have in most since I first cast my ballot for Jimmy Carter back in 76. I voted for Reagan in 84, but became thoroughly disillusioned after the Iran/Contra affair and the discovery that Nancy Reagan consulted astrological charts to schedule Ronnie’s important meetings. Since then I have either voted for quixotic third party candidates, written somebody in, or left parts of the ballot blank.

Why do I vote? Clearly the exercise of my franchise has had zero affect on the nation over the last 20 years. Still, it is my ritual to show up (albeit with less enthusiasm) every two years to go into the booth and mark my ballot. For those of you struggling for an excuse to vote after reading Mark’s convincing arguments (which I don’t totally disagree with, by the way), here are my top ten reasons to vote this coming November 4th.

10. If you don’t vote you’ll likely have to explain to friends and relatives ( quickly summarizing Mark’s convincing arguments above) why you didn’t vote. No matter how eloquent you are they will not understand and will probably think you a slacker, or worse.

9. Failure to vote will be particularly hard to explain to recent citizens coming from places like China, Somalia, or Pakistan, who are ecstatic about their newly acquired rights. Frankly, it’s just easier to go in and write Pedro on the ballot than it is to swim upstream on Election Day. This may be a lame reason, but I had to come up with ten so be patient.

8. Voting is a constitutionally guaranteed right and responsibility. Like free speech, freedom of the press, freedom of religion, freedom to assemble, freedom to petition and the right to bear arms (I don’t own a firearm, but support the right to do so), voting is a right that should be exercised and supported. Our responsibility is to do what we morally, ethically and peacefully, can and leave the results to God.

7. You can vote and still be prophetic. You can vote and still be a witness against the system. Imagine if 100 people in your precinct voted for, say, a pastor of a particular small submergent church in Minneapolis. The ballot counters might end up doing a Google search and who knows where that might lead?

6. We owe it (the exercise of our vote) to our ancestors who left the tyranny of their homelands across the sea, or who struggled out of slavery and oppression here. When I think about the Freedom Riders of the 60’s who peacefully fought for voting rights in the Jim Crow South, often sacrificing their lives and livelihoods, I’m humbled and convicted by their courage. Voting to honor the memory of these heroes is sufficient reason for me.

5. Voting can divide Christians, but so can not voting. Does it cause more division among our Christian brethren to vote our conscience, or refrain from voting? I think this is a toss up.

4. Yes, voting is part of the world’s system, but so are many other things we do (like paying taxes, a far more coercive thing than voting). Unlike paying taxes, however, it is possible to vote and still prophetically challenge the system; voting for Pedro is always an option, not filing by April 15th is not. I think we would all agree it is not a sin to vote, (yet).

3. The Constitution is law written by flawed men for the purpose of establishing peace, security and prosperity for the people of the United States. It is not a perfect document, but in as much as it aligns with God’s Word we support it and abide by it. I don’t see the Constitution as the problem, but rather men and women who have co-opted or usurped it for their own greedy and immoral purposes: another reason for the proclamation of the Gospel. Regardless, we always remember our allegiance is first and foremost to Jesus Christ and His Kingdom.

2. Voting is a community undertaking and as people who are called to be salt and light our participation in this community activity can be Kingdom and community-building. Waiting in the voting line is a great way to meet your neighbors (and maybe find a date?).

1. When you vote you get a nifty sticker.

I completely understand and sympathize with Mark’s arguments. There are good reasons for not voting and good reasons for doing so. We need to express grace and mercy, however we believe on this issue, even towards our brethren who have staked Huckabee signs in their front lawn.

Thanks Mark for another thought-provoking essay.

Author Bio:: Casey Ochs is a husband, a father, and a member of Missio Dei.

Ten Reasons Why I’m Not Voting

This is the time of year that I get into all sorts of conversations about my non-voting. In early 2007, those that disagreed with my non-voting stance were polite. But with the primary electricity in the air, an increasing number of those formerly polite people have become irritated with me. Before, I was simply challenging an idea, now I’m challenging their favorite candidate (usually Barack Obama or Ron Paul).

I was planning on ignoring the issue this year, but my new friend Mike Cline recently left this comment at Political Action and the Kingdom of God:

Ok Mark, time to talk about voting.

Would Jesus vote?

Should we vote?

I’m particularly interested in the idea that a libertarian type candidate would be a possible good vote for the Christian community, in as much as he/she lets the “State be the state, and the Church be the Church.”

I can certainly see the appeal of Ron Paul. Libertarianism allows greater freedom for religious folks while, at the same time, keeping the State out of our business. This would certainly bring a much-needed corrective to the unholy union between conservative politics and the religious right.

But I can also see the appeal that Obama has–young, open-minded, willing to spend government money for the least-of-these. He has lived throughout the world and has, it seems, an objective view of the United States. And, of course, I find it exciting to have a black president.

As much as I like some of the candidates, I’m not voting. Here’s why:

1. I don’t like being forced to choose the lesser of two evils. Voting is the biggest intentional way in which Americans affirm the current political system. To vote is to put faith in the change that can come through American Democracy.
2. Voting is always exercising power over others. And voting for president is to bestow a power that carries coercive force. I know, I know: by my status in the world (especially my purchasing power) I already have power over others). Just because I’m already wielding my power consciously and unconsciously elsewhere, doesn’t mean that I should just acquiesce to vote now. THat is like saying it is ok for a professional thief to make that one, last, big score. It may make the act easier, but it doesn’t make it right.I think it is possible for a faithful Christian to vote. Whether we like it or not, we’re enmeshed within the system. We must make thoughtful attempts to live counter-culturally, thoughtful (and often strategic attempts) to extricate ourselves from the system, and thoughtful attempts to speak prophetically into the system. But must only do so AS Kingdom people. I think local-level voting is a good thing, because of the nature of political engagement at a local level, but it gets dicier the higher up the ladder you climb.
3. Even if I felt like I could vote with a clear conscience, I would still consider not-voting as a prophetic act. Before you dismiss that stance as a stupid one, let me say this: because of my odd stance on voting, I’ve had dozens (perhaps hundreds) of conversations about this. And it always leads to the same place: people may disagree with my position on voting, but they almost always agree that the Church needs to be more involved in direct action and take a stronger role in bringing systematic change. As long as I see the Church predominately trusting in Consumer-Capitalism and Liberal Democracy as the primary systems of change in the world, I will opt out of voting as a prophetic challenge to the church. The last time I looked, Jesus commissioned the Church to be his agent in the world, not governments.
4. It seems dishonest for me to vote for president. We get upset when immigrants vote. I am, fundamentally an expat. I wouldn’t vote if I lived in France either.
5. Voting divides Christians. I know that my stance could be seen as divisive too, but you’d be surprised. I’ve only ever gotten into arguments over my position a few times, and I found that it brought me closer to my “opponent.” You reading this dlw?
6. My candidate isn’t on the ballot. I suppose I could go to the polls and just write-in “Jesus of Nazareth.”
   
7. Voting reinforces the current party system. Alasdair MacIntyre says it better than I can:Try to promote the pro-life case that we have described within the Democratic Party and you will at best go unheard and at worst be shouted down. Try to advance the case for economic justice as we have described it within the Republican Party and you will be laughed out of court. … In this situation a vote cast is not only a vote for a particular candidate, it is also a vote case for a system that presents us only with unacceptable alternatives. The way to vote against the system is not to vote.I like this argument. People usually challenge my non-voting by saying: a no-vote is still a vote. Indeed. Not voting is a vote against the system.
8. Voting can indirectly support the killing of Christians by Christians. Related to #2 and #5: When you vote, you are electing a person who, as commander-in-chief, will use his military powers to kill others. In particular, it is likely that s/he will use military powers to send Christian troops to a place where Christian adversaries will be killed. I know that this argument doesn’t do it for everyone. But the truth that Christians have slaughtered other Christians for the past 2000 years because of their conflicting affiliations to different States is evil. And I, for one, would like to resist that as much as possible. Sure, one way of getting at this would be to vote for someone like Ron Paul, but another way would be fore all Christians to opt out of military service.
9. Voting is often a waste of energy. And the amount of time and money that goes into campaigns is a waste that I wish Christians would forgo. We are ruled by an aristocracy. Since McCain–Feingold, it is even harder for an outsider to get elected. The presidential elections only give the appearance that we have a real choice. But the truth is, our choice is limited to the handful of candidates who make it to the primaries…and from there, our choices shrink. The alternative is, of course, to write-in your own candidate.
10. I don’t believe in America or its constitution. Sure, we have a better system than most (if not all) other nations. But I don’t believe in the American Dream or that American makes the world a better place. All candidates will only expand the American Empire. And even Ron Paul is interested in expanding the Empire economically.

I know that I come off as an extremist. But the fact that I sound like an extremist to so many Christians simply proves out enmeshed we are in Americanism. 100 years ago, my position wouldn’t have sounded as extreme. Even Mennonites–those Anabaptists who have long resisted the political system–have become increasingly politically active.

In the end, however, I don’t want to known as that-guy-who-doesn’t-vote, but as that-guy-who-wants-the-church-to-embrace-her-birthright. Vote if you must, but please be a part of making the church an active people who confront the Powers and problems of this world head-on.

By the way, for those of you with ample time on your hands, I wrote a series on Church and State that provides a foundation for my perpective:

Church and State 1: Give back to Caesar what is Caesar’s (but to God what is God’s)
Church and State 2: Subject to the Governing Authorities (a Christian Anarchist’s Look at Romans 13)
Church and State 3: Subject to the Governing Authorities (a Christian Anarchist’s Second Look at Romas 13)
Church and State 4: What Paul is Saying in Romans 13
To End All Wars: A Quick Thought about Church and State
Church and State 5: Transitioning to Practical Implications
Church and State 6: Initial Explorations of Practical Implications

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