A Process Response to Crockett & Robbins’ New Materialism

As part of the Homebrewed Christianity blog tour for Religion, Politics, and the Earth: The New Materialism by Clayton Crockett and Jeffrey Robbins, it was suggested that I write a post in response to just one of the chapters. However, as I read the book I became more and more interested in the connection between the New Materialism and Process Theology. As such, I will be using this opportunity to engage various parts of the book from the perspective of one shaped by the process-Whiteheadian tradition. As a Claremont student, I learned from John Cobb, Marjorie Suchocki, Philip Clayton, Monica Coleman, and Roland Faber – not to mention my good friend Tripp Fuller, process evangelist extraordinaire! This fall I will be heading to Drew University to work with Catherine Keller for my PhD in Theological and Philosophical studies. Clearly my interests are tied to process theology, although I am very interested in exploring the connections between process and radical theologies. Keller and Faber have both done great work to do just this in various publications that bring together Whitehead with Badiou, Deleuze, Butler, Derrida, etc.

All of that goes to say that this new and exciting book from Robbins and Crockett resonates with my current academic interests even though they do not directly engage process theology. On the other hand, both of the authors are very influenced by Deleuze, who was himself influenced by Whitehead. Both Keller and Faber are poststructuralist process theologians working to re-energize the process tradition, largely by reading Whitehead through Deleuze. As such, I am curious to know more about how Crockett and Robbins respond to such a project as radical theologians – no doubt with great appreciation, but I’m sure they have some concerns as well. Is there room at the Radical Theology table for 'radical process theologies', especially in light of the fact that they claim in the book that Radical Theology (as with process theology) is not merely one school of thought but is made up of multiple streams of thought? The New Materialism certainly has some interesting points of connection to the process tradition that I would like to highlight in this post, and indeed, the authors admit that some forms of Radical Theology are informed by the process tradition (xvi). While there are differences between the two schools of thought to be sure, I’m more interested in the common ground between them and will concentrate on some of those in this post. I will not be able to go in depth here and must assume some familiarity with process thought, but I do hope that this provides a short overview of some points of contact I discovered between Crockett and Robbins’ proposals in this book and process theology in general.

First of all, this book reminded me of John Cobb’s prolific work in quite a few ways.  The ability to tackle such a wide variety of key issues with such intellectual intensity is something that Cobb shares with Crockett and Robbins.  With economist Herman Daly, Cobb has written extensively on developing alternative economics in response to the ecological crisis that is informed by a very particular (Whiteheadian) philosophical perspective. I fully expect that Cobb would also be very interested, perhaps even applauding the bold nuclear energy proposal made in chapter 7 of Crockett and Robbins’ book. With biologist Charles Birch, he has written a great deal about the need to rethink science in ways that are nonreductionist as far too much mainstream science tends to be – and of course, this is by way of Whitehead as well. He has collaborated with other philosophers and theologians to develop new ways to think about a truly democratic politics in confrontation with American imperialism and corporate capitalism. He also maintains a deep and respectful conversation with his close friend Thomas J. Altizer, the theological grandfather of the current resurgence of Radical Theology who essentially put Death of God theology on the map decades ago. In his own way, Cobb calls for a secularizing theology from his perspective as a process theologian that is primarily concerned with material existence in this world – a notion that certainly resonates with Radical Theology.  In fact, I believe that all of Cobb's work that I just listed would resonate to a great extent with Crockett and Robbins' New Materialism.

To get a little more specific, it seems to me that Cobb’s Whiteheadian-process metaphysics has a number of interesting connections to the New Materialist ontology developed in chapter 8 of Crockett and Robbins’ book, which is informed by Hegel and Deleuze. Like process theologians, their ontology is nondualistic (118), nonreductionist, pluralistic (though not atomistic), and emergentist (119). And like Whitehead, they see matter as “not really matter at all but matter-energy” (xx).  Cobb regularly explains process metaphysics in almost identical terms to illustrate Whitehead’s central notion of actual occasions, which are more like energy - thus moving away from more static notions of matter or substance. Crockett and Robbins again sound very much like Whitehead when they write, “…we can approach an understanding of being as an irreducible multiplicity that is nevertheless not atomist…Being is the becoming or evolution of space and time and takes the form of energy” (114). And again in the following similar quote: “…spacetime is nothing but an evolving system of relationships” (116). They also join Whiteheadians in their concern to bring philosophy into closer contact with the natural sciences (118) and by rejecting a sharp line between living and nonliving, organic and inorganic things (119). Finally, Crockett and Robbins agree with Whiteheadians in their perspective on thinking/minds/consciousness as “an emergent property” that cannot be subjected to either a traditional dualism or hardcore reductionism (132).  These are not insignificant points of connection between the New Materialism and Process Theology!

On religion, process thinkers like Cobb would have much to agree with Crockett and Robbins on as well. While taking the critique of religion by the masters of suspicion seriously, process thinkers can strongly agree with the authors when they assert that "with the New Materialism, religion might become a source of empowerment and political mobilization…the revolutionary potential is found not by ridding the world of religion but by thinking religion otherwise” (25-26).  Both groups of thinkers, radical and process, also agree that the significance of Jesus has much more to do with material existence in this world, standing in opposition to all exploitative systems such as neoliberal capitalism, than with another world after death. In other words, both are "secularizing theologies" (Cobb's idea explained in his book Spiritual Bankruptcy). Although Cobb is unapologetically committed to theism, unlike Radical Theology, it seems to me that his process framework addresses many of the concerns of materialist critiques of religion in general and theism in particular. For example, Crockett and Robbins write “we do not oppose religion, but we do oppose fanaticism and fundamentalism, including the fairy-tale expectations that a God or gods will rescue us from our predicament and punish the evildoers while rewarding the righteous” (xvi). Process theologians could not agree more with this statement as they do not affirm a form of theism that has room for an interventionist God or even a final eschatological cleanup of the mess we have made of the earth.  Responsibility thus falls back upon human beings rather than placed entirely upon a supernatural and omnipotent being.

I hope this post is useful to those who find both process and radical theologies of interest.  I will continue to explore the various points of contact between these two schools of thought (likely on this blog in the near future) which to me seem to be the most fruitful and interesting conversations going on in theology today.  While representatives of radical and process theology have started conversing more in recent years, I hope that we can deepen this discussion as some of the misunderstandings between them are dismantled and bridges are built.  Crockett and Robbins have done much to do just that by writing this great book.  I am very grateful for the opportunity to review this fascinating text and recommend it to all who find these issues interesting.

Click here for a list of other great bloggers on the HBC blog tour for this book!

Things I Loved in 2012: Books, Movies, & Music

BOOKS: I didn't read a ton of books this year that were technically released in 2012, but here are five worth mentioning.  Below these four is a short list of a few more books that were not 2012 releases but were also favorite reads this year.

Democracy at Work: A Cure for Capitalism by Richard Wolff - This is perhaps my favorite new book of 2012, which I had been anticipating for quite some time.  It did not disappoint.  Anyone familiar with Wolff's brilliant work in Marxian economics will want to read this highly persuasive book, even if they think they have a grasp on his ideas.  He presents his arguments so clearly and with great intellectual force.  Certainly one of the best living economists.   

The Predicament of Belief by Philip Clayton and Stephen Knapp - Philip Clayton was my advisor for my master's program at Claremont School of Theology, so I admit my bias in favor of loving this book.  But seriously, what a brilliant work of constructive theology in dialogue with modern science.  This is an absolute must-read for anyone concerned with developing a coherent argument for (noninterventionist) theism and (progressive/revisionist) Christianity.  If you want to read my review of the book, go to Imaginatio et Ratio and check it out for free in our first issue that is embedded on the website.

Occupy Religion: Theology of the Multitude by Joerg Rieger and Kwok Pui-lan - I am a huge fan of these two authors who write within the broader field of political theology, and this new book that I just finished reading on the Occupy movement and its relation to religion is absolutely fascinating and so very necessary for our time. 

Preaching After God: Derrida, Caputo, and the Language Of Postmodern Homiletics by Phil Snider - A wonderful book for those who have ever read and been challenged by Peter Rollins, John Caputo, and/or Slavoj Zizek but were left wondering how these postmodern theologies "after God" might translate into the life of the church.







The Rich and the Rest of Us by Cornel West and Tavis Smiley - As a regular listener of the Smiley and West podcast and a long time fan of Dr. West, not much of this book surprised me.  But it is a great read with a powerful message about economic inequality, democracy, and justice.  Plus, it's accessible enough to give to just about any of your non-academic friends.

(Older books I read or re-read in 2012: On The Mystery: Discerning Divinity in Process by Catherine Keller, Spiritual Bankruptcy: A Prophetic Call to Action by John Cobb, God and the Philosophers by Keith Ward, Literary Theory: An Introduction by Terry Eagleton, Discovering Girard by Michael Kirwan)


MOVIES: I've been watching a lot of movies this year, and fortunately quite a few great ones.  I picked six of the best and a few more honorable mentions below.

 The Master, directed by Paul Thomas Anderson

A rare, controversial, and painfully brilliant film by one of the best living directors.  It is perhaps my favorite movie of the year, a true work of art - though by no means is it easy viewing.  J. Phoenix and P. Seymour Hoffman are so good in this it hurts.  And Johnny Greenwood's (Radiohead guitarist) minimalist score is perfection.  Be sure to listen to the Film Talk podcast (Episode 212) to dig in to the film's themes and symbolism a bit more with Gareth Higgins and Jett Loe as your guides.

Cloud Atlas, directed by the Wachowski siblings and Tom Tykwer

This enormous piece of work from the Wachowki siblings (directors of The Matrix) surprised me by, well, not being terrible.  It easily could have gone that way by trying to do far too much in one film.  Indeed, it divided critics on this point.  I do not claim that this movie is flawless - not even close. But in the end, I just didn't care about its many shortcomings.  It's a beautiful, moving, thrilling exploration of meaning, purpose, and relationships.  I also love how it resonates with process philosophy (as Bruce Epperly points out)! 

Django Unchained, directed by Quentin Tarantino

I was surprised to love this movie as much as I did.  I expected to respond to it in the same way I did to Tarantino's previous film, Inglorious Bastards (with which I have a love/hate relationship).  It turns out that Django works on a number of levels for me: on the one hand, it's incredible entertainment.  Tarantino makes movies that he wants to watch and enjoy, and that is definitely to our benefit as the viewers.  This film is long, but you never notice because it is so engaging, thrilling, and well-crafted.  On the other hand, it provides a lot of opportunity for fruitful discussions about violence - if you are so inclined to consider such themes in film.  Yes, it is extremely violent, but there is something different about the violence in this film, having to do both with the way that the violence means to call attention to itself as absurd and symbolic, but also with the way that violence is used by former slaves, not so much against individuals but the entire despicable system of slavery.  I couldn't help but think of reading Franz Fanon's Wretched of the Earth in which he advocates for the colonized to use violence against the colonizers in order to recreate or reassert their humanity.

Beasts of the Southern Wild, directed by Benh Zeitlin

This debut film from director Zeitlin is quite simply astonishing: a gorgeously shot, perfectly acted movie with a wonderfully original story and a great musical score.  I have now watched it twice in order to get at the many layers of meaning that this film carries.  The film's main character is only perhaps 5 years old, but by the end of the film you find yourself identifying with her as if she is an adult because of the transformation she undergoes through an existential crisis of sorts.  Indeed, while watching this film and considering its cosmic themes, I couldn't help but think of Tillich's classic book on existential theology, The Courage To Be.  My interpretation of the film has to do with coming to terms with both the beauty and violence of nature and the anxiety of death and contingency.  We see in the film a young girl gain the courage to be in spite of the ever-present threat of nonbeing.   It is certainly one the most theological films I have ever seen.

Moonrise Kingdom, directed by Wes Anderson

Even though Wes Anderson has made better films (The Royal Tenenbaums), his lesser films are still a joy to watch and certainly better than many other director's best films.  With his signature style, a charming story, and a wonderful cast (especially Francis McDormand), Anderson has given us a gem with this one that is filled with careful attention to detail.  Like his other films, it merits repeated viewings.

Lincoln, directed by Steven Spielberg

A bit like watching a longer episode of the West Wing set in the 19th century (I mean that in a good way), this is a truly amazing film that is - so far as I can tell - surprisingly faithful to the historical record.  Spielberg resisted his old formula to make a grand epic with overblown action sequences and went for a more subtle approach to story-telling.  Daniel Day Lewis is magnificent as Abe Lincoln, but Sally Field and Tommy Lee Jones are equally impressive.




(Honorable Mentions: Liberal Arts, Les Miserables, Skyfall, Looper, and Dark Knight Rises)


MUSIC: There has been a lot of great music in 2012, and I only wish I could have listened to more that just haven't made it on to my playlist yet.  But here are six albums that I loved this year, plus a few honorable mentions below.

Lost in the Trees - A Church That Fits Our Needs

I was lucky enough to see this band live not too long ago.  They won me over as an amazing live band and then their most recent album turned out to be gorgeous indie pop/folk rock with a unique classical influence throughout.

Of Monsters and Men - My Head is an Animal

Iceland continues to provide us with wonderful music! While this album received mixed reviews from critics, I have listened to it many, many times since discovering it earlier this year. Truly a great debut album from start to finish.

Sigur Ros - Valtari

Sigur Ros has been one of my favorite bands after discovering their great album in 1999, Agaetis Byrjun.  I've seen them live twice, which remain some of the most intensely emotional musical experiences of my life.  Their new album does not disappoint, with their signature layering of guitars, samples, strings, and other sounds with Jonsi's otherworldly vocals.

Lana Del Rey - Born To Die

Following in the wake of other indie pop female songwriters like Florence + the Machine, Ellie Goulding, and Ingrid Michaelson, the debut album from Lana Del Rey is packed with wonderfully original songs in a style that is all her own.  She has a very unique way with lyrics, managing to fill the album's songs with dozens of pop-culture references to great effect.  Her follow-up EP, Paradise, is equally impressive.

Dave Matthews Band - Away From the World

What a surprise to discover Dave Matthews Band releasing a new album that reminds me of some of their best work from the 90s.  While they may never make an album as great as Crush (1996), this one certainly qualifies as one of their best studio albums to date.





(Honorable Mentions: Mercyland: Hymns for the Rest of Us, Alabama Shakes - Boys and Girls, John Mayer - Born and Raised, Jack White - Blunderbuss, Mumford and Sons - Babel, The Killers - Battle Born)

Confronting The Violence of Capitalism

It is often said that capitalism is preferable to Marxism or socialism, if only because the latter has been responsible for far more violence throughout history.  Those who falsely assert this point to Stalin and Mao as primary examples.  Following on arguments from Terry Eagleton's brilliant Why Marx Was Right and Richard Wolff's Occupy the Economy, here are two main problems with this kind of claim:

1) Stalin and Mao were not socialists in the sense that Marx argued for - not even close!  

That is, they were not democratic socialists who insisted on economic democracy for the sake of authentic political democracy (genuine self-government), but dictatorships that simply shifted ownership of the means of production from capitalists to an oppressive and violent state.  It merely shifted from private capitalists to state-appointed ones.  This left the exploitative capitalist mode of production (which Marx obviously criticized) essentially unchanged in what Wolff provocatively calls "state capitalism."  The workers remained in a subordinated position to a competing class; the fundamental contradiction inherent to capitalism (class conflict) remained in place with Stalin and Mao.  Their top-down approaches to developing so-called "socialism" in the Soviet Union and China, respectively, went against the bottom-up approach advocated by Marx.  As Wolff writes, "[The Soviet Union] got rid of the private boards of directors, they got rid of the private shareholders, they closed the stock market.  But they did not turn over these enterprises to be run by the workers in them through institutions and mechanisms of democracy.  What they did instead was dismiss the old, private boards of directors and they replaced them with state officials.  So instead of 15 people running the company who were selected by the shareholders, you had 15 people who were selected by the government or by the Communist Party."
       A final important and relevant issue here, as Eagleton points out, is that Marx never imagined socialism could be brought about under conditions of poverty (as in the Soviet Union and China): "You cannot reorganize wealth for the benefit of all if there is precious little wealth to reorganize...all you will get is socialized scarcity...without the material resources [socialism] will tend to twist into the monstrous caricature of socialism known as Stalinism."



2) The history of modern capitalist nations is just as horribly violent as Stalin and Mao, and even today it continues on a path of (mostly) silent destruction of our planet.  

To blame Marx for the atrocities of Stalin and Mao is rather like blaming Jesus for the horror of the Crusades.  Of course there is a historical connection, but one would be hard-pressed to justify such actions through the teachings of Jesus or the writings of Marx.  But those who are naive enough to say such things also tend to go on to whitewash the bloody history of capitalism.  As Eagleton writes, "Modern capitalist nations are the fruit of a history of slavery, genocide, violence and exploitation every bit as abhorrent as Mao's China or Stalin's Soviet Union.  Capitalism, too, was forged in blood and tears; it is just that it has survived long enough to forget about much of this horror, which is not the case with Stalinism and Maoism."  America, the world's leading capitalist nation, was built on stolen land and on the backs of slaves through genocide and its original sin of racism.
        Beyond this, we must look at the effects of capitalism in contemporary America where the rhetoric of freedom and liberty often serves as a cover for harsh realities.  By privatizing its health system, it has destroyed the lives of countless individuals on the alter of the The Market.  Meanwhile, almost every developed country has a single-payer health system that results in better overall health, longer life expectancy, and lower stress and depression levels for its citizens.  America - the most powerful and wealthy nation on earth - ranks embarrassingly low (37th) by the World Health Organization when it comes to these criteria, thanks to the truly immoral effort to make enormous profits off of people's health and well-being.  As Richard Wolff also explains, America is today the most unequal in terms of wealth and income of all advanced industrial nations (even just thirty years ago this was not the case!).  America is clearly not a democracy, but is in fact a plutocracy - rule by the rich.  So however well capitalism generates wealth - and indeed it does, as Marx himself clearly recognized - it comes about at an enormous human cost, largely today because of ever-increasing wealth and income inequality where the top CEO now makes over 200 times the lowest paid worker -it was only around 25 times more than the lowest paid worker just 30 years ago.  Things have gotten much worse for the poor thanks to neoliberal capitalism, even in America, where (brace yourself) almost half of the population - over 150 million - lives near or below the poverty line.  As Cornel West and Tavis Smiley write in The Rich and the Rest of Us, "There are more than 150 million poor and near poor people living in America who are not responsible for the damage done by the Great Recession. Yet they pay the price.  The poor did not create the deindustrialization of America, unmatched corporate profiteering and greed, more than a decade of foreign wars, and unregulated tax benefits for the wealthy."  And yet the right in this country continue to insist on slashing social welfare programs and giving tax handouts to the rich and transnational corporations.  But in all of this discussion of the many atrocities of capitalism, we certainly cannot forget the cost to the non-human world either.  Make no mistake about it: the blame for our ecological crisis falls heavily on the ideology of neo-liberal capitalism (deregulation, privatization, free trade, etc).  The anthropocentrism of capitalism is plainly obvious, so those who recognize the need for limits to growth and a sustainable economics argue (rightly) for much greater regulation of the market - or even alternatives to the market.  The profit (greed) motive that drives capitalism will only continue to destroy the earth without radical shifts in our economics.  Do not let the lack of a Stalin-type dictator fool you: capitalism is violent in all kinds of ways.

So what is a genuine alternative to capitalism?  Democracy at Work.  I have not found a more persuasive argument for an alternative to neoliberal capitalism than Richard Wolff's idea of economic democracy, which he explains briefly in Occupy the Economy and is releasing a full treatment of in the forthcoming Democracy at Work: The Cure for Capitalism. As Wolff writes, "It was always a mirage to imagine that you could have a political democracy expressed in elections and not also have an economic democracy.  It's really simple.  If you allow an economic system in which 1 percent of the people have more than half the wealth and the other 99 percent have to share the other half, then the 1 percent are not going to be so stupid as to not realize that one of the ways you secure yourself is to control the political system.  And they accomplish that with their money, because that's what they have in abundance...If we want political democracy to work beyond the formality of elections, then we have to change the economic system.  The basic way to do that is through organizing mass movements that can change the organization of production.  We need democracy in the workplace, real worker control of decision-making."

Watch Wolff lecture on Democracy at Work below:

Doug Wilson's Disturbing Views of Sex & Slavery

I'm not going to add much commentary to this since, well, the horror of these statements should be plain to persons with any sense of reason, understanding of history, and respect for others.  But I'm also not going to mince words here: Doug Wilson is a misogynistic apologist for southern racism.  I say this as a progressive Christian who is disgusted by the most conservative wing of my tradition today (which unfortunately gets most of the attention in the media, thus making Christianity as a whole look bad).  For me at least, to not speak out against such dangerous words would be irresponsible.  He is a prominent example of how the Bible can far too easily be used to support oppressive ideologies.  Even today, Wilson continues to defend the content of these two quotes that were written some years ago.  If you missed it somehow, there has been quite a backlash against the quote about marital sex, but little has been mentioned about his truly despicable defense of slavery in the south (I recommend reading Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States for a more honest account of southern racism and slavery that does not make excuses for the sins of white America).  I decided to juxtapose Wilson's quotes from two different books he wrote in a single post.  These are the sad and disturbing words of a white man obsessed with justifying power and privilege over women and non-white persons by attempting to speak on their behalf and white-wash/sugar-coat their histories of oppression:

Slavery as it existed in the South was not an adversarial relationship with pervasive racial animosity. Because of its dominantly patriarchal character, it was a relationship based on mutual affection and confidence. There has never been a multi-racial society which has existed with such mutual intimacy and harmony in the history of the world. … Slave life was to [the slaves] a life of plenty, of simple pleasures, of food, clothes, and good medical care.” (Southern Slavery As It Was, 23-25)

When we quarrel with the way the world is, we find that the world has ways of getting back at us. In other words, however we try, the sexual act cannot be made into an egalitarian pleasuring party. A man penetrates, conquers, colonizes, plants. A woman receives, surrenders, accepts. This is of course offensive to all egalitarians, and so our culture has rebelled against the concept of authority and submission in marriage. This means that we have sought to suppress the concepts of authority and submission as they relate to the marriage bed.  (Fidelity: What it Means to be a One-Woman Man, 86)

For critical responses to the latter quote:

Sexual Conquering is Rape by JRD Kirk
The Gospel Coalition, sex, and subordination by Rachel Held Evans

Christianity Must Be Secularized - and Liberated

That is the provocative thesis of a recent book by John Cobb, Spiritual Bankruptcy: A Prophetic Call to Action.  What does this mean?  Secularizing (a dynamic term) is contrasted with secularism on the one side and religion on the other (both of which are more static sounding terms).

Religion or religiousness tends to be supernaturalist and otherworldy to the point that it lessens concern for this world.  On the whole, it refuses to secularize its tradition.  It tends to be overly cautious about innovation and stubbornly, even unreasonably committed to the past (tradition, creeds, texts, historical individuals).  Innovation is something to be feared more than embraced.  It is constituted by an "us" vs. "them" way of thinking: we have it, they don't - we're in, they're out - we get it, they don't.

Secularism is concerned almost exclusively with contemporary experience and understanding, especially through the sciences, philosophy, higher education, and economism.  It is concerned to define and categorize based on presently available information.  As such, it accumulates vast amounts of information but is "barren of wisdom" through the critical appropriation of a traditional body of knowledge.  Unlike secularizers, secularists are open to other Ways but committed to none of them.

Secularizers are those who are primarily concerned about making the world a better place for everyone to live in, but they do so with the knowledge resources of the past and present in dynamic interaction.  They are fully open to the influence of other Ways, other wisdom traditions, even as they commit to their own.  They affirm their tradition even as they understand that tradition itself to make a secularizing imperative: critical, reasonable appropriation and transformation rather than fearful, unreasonable, and stubborn commitment to past modes of thought, wisdom, and action. They embrace innovation in conversation with their own heritage.

The great secularizers (who Cobb makes a short list of that includes Plato, Aristotle, the Hebrew Prophets, Jesus, and Paul) agree that "It is possible to recover, refine, and reappropriate the wisdom of the past and clarify its relevance to the present...it does not discard the past, but it [does] not take any one past formulation as beyond further critical discussion.  On the contrary, thinkers critically examine the inherited ideas, clarify their valid meaning and use for life in the real world, and organize the resulting thoughts so as to ensure their mutual coherence."  As an example, Cobb points out that the true prophets (as opposed to the false prophets) were those who did not accept past formulations or the present culture on face value but "were the most critical of society and of the economy of the time and particularly of its religiousness."  Jesus was similarly extremely critical of the political-economic situation of his time, as well as the religious status quo.  He proclaimed and created alternative communities of nonviolent resistance against the Roman empire.  The way of Jesus drastically differed from the violent way of the Zealots as well as the way of other Jewish sects who avoided innovation in favor of reverent obedience to the past, even at the expense of human well-being in the present.

But secularizers, especially those from the First World, from the West, must also be committed to the revolutionary Pauline experience of radical conversion, rebirth, the absolute paradigm shift.  Why? Because they also recognize the possibility that many aspects of their heritage may be so profoundly mistaken and aligned with those in power rather than 'the least of these', the poor (who are consistently given a preferential option in the Bible while the rich on the other hand will not even be a part of the kingdom without giving up their possessions and exploitative way of life) that it might need to be trashed rather than merely fixed, so to speak.  A revolution comes from below rather than from above - a point that cannot be missed in any talk of 'revolution.'  Christian secularizers attempt to recognize their privileged positions and to respond accordingly to the voices of the oppressed, the colonized, the marginalized.  Especially in today's globalized economy - which is merely another disastrous stage in a long colonial project - those of us who are secularizing Christians must recognize the need for more radical revolutions than reformist projects, a more complete conversion in solidarity with the subaltern.  This is what it means, I believe, to be a disciple of Jesus today: a commitment to both secularizing and liberation.  We critically appropriate the wisdom of our tradition for the sake of the common good.  But we also live in the humble and even uneasy awareness that perhaps our vision of the 'common' good must be radically challenged from the perspective of those upon whose backs we have built our Western identities, our economic and national projects, and - dare I say it - even our religious tradition as received from Christendom to the present.

When Complementarianism is More Problematic Than Patriarchal Hierarchy

It's been interesting to see the debate on complementarianism take off around the blogosphere lately (see Rachel Held Evan's great post, and another over at Femonite).  Glad to see it happening, as this remains an important issue in the church today, especially for those of us who have a background in evangelicalism.  I have been in conversations many times with well-meaning evangelicals who just don't see the problems with complementarianism, either from a biblical or practical perspective.  In other words, they think that complementarianism 'works' for some couples, so why challenge it? But I think Rachel Held Evans was right to point out that in actual practice, complementarianism is nothing more and nothing less than patriarchy. I've been thinking about this statement a lot for the last week or so and want to add a few theological comments.

If gender dualism is accepted, as complementarianism demands it must be, it raises all kinds serious issues.  It supports the simplistic and dangerous stereotypes of what a 'real man' and a 'real woman' should be.  Any man who is more stereotypically feminine or any woman who is more stereotypically masculine are criticized by complementarians for not conforming to their supposedly God ordained nature - married or not.  Thanks to the dualism inherent in the views of prominent complementarian Christian leaders like Mark Driscoll, John Piper, Tim Keller, and Al Mohler (wow, that's a lot of straight white conservative men!! hmmmm...), both sexism and heterosexism are alive and well in the evangelical culture today.  It seems to me that complementarianism simply can't handle the actual multiplicity that is characteristic of real life.  Its advocates fear genuine difference because their simplistic ideology is grounded in a Western theology obsessed with order - especially that sticky order of dualism or binaries.  But as Brazilian liberation theologian Vitor Westhelle writes, order is "most often an ideological disguise for domination, repression, and persecution."

Catherine Keller

When you think about it, Christian theology is often saturated with an obsession with order - but why is this so, and how can we move beyond it without creating a nihilistic mess?  Feminist process theologian Catherine Keller shows in her book Face of the Deep how the doctrine of creatio ex nihilo can in fact be used to legitimate gender dualism by creating an ultimate foundation: an absolute cosmic origin and a dictated order of nature from an omnipotent deity.  The problem is that there actually isn't such an absolute order/origin to be found in the Genesis narrative (nor in the views of postmodern science, for that matter).  In fact, what we have in Genesis is God's creation out of the Deep, a dense multiplicity that is always already there, and God lures it toward greater harmony and intensity: and God said "Let there be differences! But the difference itself will have preceded its Word."  The biblical word for this Deep is tehom, as in "the earth was tohuwabohu and darkness covered the face of the tehom."  As Keller writes, "Might tehom henceforth suggest the chaoid (so not necessarily chaotic) multidimensionality of a bottomless Deep: the matrix in which the creation becomes?  In which the strange inter-fluencies of creatures - in ecology, predation, genetics, cultures - crisscross the abyss of difference?"  She brands homogenizing ideologies like complementarianism that fear the "chaoid multidimensionality" of creation as tehomophobia, while on the other hand calling for a more tehomophilic theology that can embrace the multiplicities of life.

Joerg Rieger

Another important critique of complementarianism that I want to mention is from political theologian Joerg Rieger in his book Christ and Empire, who sees this ideology as a symptom of the 'Spirit of Empire.'  He points out that while Paul largely affirmed the equality of men and women in his writings, as in Galatians 3:28, his egalitarian views often were distorted when read through certain Deutero-Pauline writings, like 1 Timothy 2:12, that are much more patriarchal (I am reminded here of Marcus Borg and Dom Crossan's great book The First Paul in which they argue similarly by differentiating the radical Paul from the conservative and reactionary Paul).  While these Deutero-Pauline texts support hierarchy and/or complementarianism, we might return to the question considered at the beginning (and in the title) of this post: what is more problematic?  We might assume patriarchal hierarchy, but in fact, Rieger points out, complementarianism can be worse because it conceals unequal relationships by naturalizing and absolutizing gender differences.  It uses softer language ("complement") that takes some of the edge off of a troubling perspective.  I conclude with Rieger's provocative response to our initial consideration:

"Complementarity in this context is a more insidious concept because, like the idea of hierarchy, it naturalizes differences, but unlike hierarchy, it tends to hide power differentials.  If women and men are seen in hierarchical relationships, the power differential is clear; if women and men are seen in complementary relationships, however, each appears to fulfill an important role as part of a larger whole and even the most subservient roles of women are justified.  The question of power is thus covered up."

Wrestling with the Bible

The last time I went to a school that taught me to read the bible as a conservative was in my elementary school, which was run by a conservative baptist church.  Between that and growing up deeply rooted in a pentecostal church, I assumed that the bible had to be read strictly and literally.  If I ever came across an inconsistency in the bible, it was obviously a problem with our human understandings rather than with the text itself.  We assumed the bible was without error, that it was literally dictated by God to the authors of the bible.

But when I turned sixteen, I started taking some classes at a community college and learned about how mainstream biblical scholars read the bible.  As it turned out, Genesis wasn't written by Moses, it was stitched together from multiple sources, and Adam and Eve weren't historical individuals.  Seeing this 'secular' reading of the bible was rather shocking for me, to say the least.  I wasn't really sure what to do with it, so I started reading conservative apologetics like Ravi Zacharias and Josh McDowell to defend my faith from 'liberal attacks.'  This didn't work very well.  I gave up biblical inerrancy, but remained basically conservative in most ways.  But curiosity sent me further down the rabbit hole...

I ended up going to another university a few years later as a religious studies major where we learned about the quest for the historical Jesus, reading works from the Jesus Seminar and other critical scholarship.  Between a deeper reading of biblical scholarship and learning about other religions, I lost my confidence in conservative beliefs.  I then started engaging philosophical questions like the problem of evil at a whole new level.  To make a long story short, this process sent me drifting in and out of faith - never actually leaving church, but rarely sure what 'faith' meant to me anymore.  The rug had been pulled out from under my feet and I often felt lost in a sea of relativity.

At some point, I found myself able to embrace faith again, largely due to discovering the rich tradition of progressive Christian thought.  While it was always there, I just didn't take it very seriously - after all, conservatives often despise liberal Christians more than non-Christians.  But now I'm finishing a master's degree in theology and philosophy of religion at a liberal Protestant seminary where mainstream biblical scholarship is taken for granted.  So things have changed a lot for me as a 'biblical' Christian over the past twelve years or so.

What do I think of the bible, twelve years into this slow and sometimes painful journey out of conservative Christianity?  While for years I sometimes lost sleep over questions of biblical interpretation to know precisely how to believe and act as a pious evangelical, today that's thankfully no longer as much of dilemma.  I love the bible, I read it often and also want to know what the best scholars say about it - but it is not an inerrant or infallible book, in my view.  Few things are more obvious to me than that the bible is a human product, filled with a variety of voices that sometimes do not agree.  That does not mean it is not inspired as well - indeed I really believe it is as a witness to the Christ event that continues to be of central importance to me.

But sometimes the bible is wrong, not simply on external grounds like modern science, but (as my Hebrew Bible professor at CST often said) on internal grounds of other voices in the text and the approach to such a multi-voiced text should thus be dialogic.  Sometimes the very things that one voice in the text criticizes as wicked are upheld as righteous by a competing voice - and this is not about the New Testament vs. the Old Testament!  Take for example one famous feminist reading of the bible.  It is difficult to deny the patriarchal/androcentric aspects of the text, but as Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza has pointed out, one also finds alternative, more redemptive and affirming views of the full humanity of women in the text upon critical examination.  Rosemary Radford Reuther thus argues for the 'critical principle of feminist theology': "The critical principle of feminist theology is the promotion of the full humanity of women. Whatever denies, diminishes, or distorts the full humanity of women is, therefore, appraised as not redemptive...presumed not to reflect the divine..." (Sexism and God-Talk, 19)  Similarly, one can also point to postcolonial readings of the bible that "operate with more troubling ambivalence, tracing decolonizing and colonizing themes within scripture."  While they "mine the bible for liberative strands" they also point out that the same bible "contains elements of bondage and disenfranchisement." (Postcolonial Theologies, 10)

All of that goes to say that the diversity of voices in the text refuse to be watered down into an easy, harmonious whole to extract a neat set of logical propositions.  And I really thank God for that.  Seriously, the idea of having an inerrant book dropped from heaven (so to speak) creates far more problems than it solves.  We really don't want that kind of omnipotent God who could arrange such an unquestionably inerrant situation. 

Maybe a truly 'biblical' Christianity, then, is one that boldly enters in to a surprisingly dynamic conversation in the text, forfeiting the dogmatic certainties of conservatism for a more lively approach to biblical faith.  As Christians, we need not drop our primary commitment in the text to the Christ event to see the bible in this more critical way.  In fact, to follow the way of Jesus, taking seriously his prophetic critique of injustice, may actually mean bringing a similar critique against parts of the text.