Reflections on Good Friday with Herbert McCabe

Two years ago I wrote a number of reflections during Holy Week drawing from the late Dominican priest Herbert McCabe’s sermons. You can find his sermons in God Matters. I’ve decided to re-post these (slightly revised) reflections once again here.

I have heard a lot of complaints about so-called penal substitutionary atonement. Now it is important to remember that there is not one way to understand “the atonement” or God’s saving work in Christ. Certainly, some ways of understanding the atonement are better than others. Nonetheless, I do suspect that penal substitutionary atonement is usually misrepresented and not all that well understood. There may very well be problems with this “theory,” but all theories of atonement are problematic precisely because they are always theories. God’s saving work in Christ is truly a mystery. This is not to say that we cannot reflect on it or attempt to articulate what it might be about, but we must understand that our language and our analogies will always fail.

To be sure, we can say that the Father in no way punishes his Son. The Father is nothing but “well pleased” with the Son. I think that we can also say that the Father is not interested in divine child abuse. Yet, the Father “knew” the Son would be killed because he knew his Son was entering a crucifying world, a world that rejects God. As Herbert McCabe noted, “The mission of Jesus from the Father is not the mission to be crucified; what the Father wished is that Jesus should be human…And this is what Jesus sees as a command laid on him by his Father in heaven; the obedience of Jesus to his Father is to be totally, completely human” (93). Thus, Jesus was crucified because he was human not because the Father planned to have him killed for some greater cause. We must always remember and never shy away from the fact that we crucified Jesus, not the Father. We have created a world that is characterized by suffering and death—by oppression, torture, and even crucifixion. We must not become confused on this point: God never causes suffering. God is always God for us, always for human flourishing, always for love.

Jesus was killed not because God wanted him to be killed but because we wanted him to be killed. He posed a challenge to the ruling powers, to the establishment, and to each individual and he continues to do so—and we continue to respond by crucifying him. The cross signifies humanity’s rejection of God and, indeed, of all humanness. It reveals the depth of our sin. Jesus pours his heart out and quite literally his blood for the sake of humanity. This is an invitation to love, to enter into a relationship with a person who is love.

The cross reveals that each of us rejects God; we reject love daily. This is what is meant by “original sin.” The rejection of God is built into the very structures of the society we have constructed. The cross of Christ reveals what we have made with God’s creation, what we have made with the world. We have a made this world a place, structured by fear and violence, in which it is dangerous, perhaps even fatal, to be human. The cross of Christ reveals to us that there is a basic wrong, persistent through history. This wrong is, as McCabe put it, “the rejection of the love that casts out fear, the fear of the love that casts out fear, the fear that without the backing of terror, at least in the last resort, human society and thus human life cannot exist” (97).

It is important to note that Jesus refuses to take up arms, to resort to violence in the building of his new society, the church, which is to be defined by self-giving love, forgiveness, and the sharing of life together. Instead, he trusts in the work of the Holy Spirit. Yet, he was killed. So, Jesus on the cross represents the failure of human life. The cross shows us the reality that all of our efforts to love, to struggle against the oppressors of this world, finally end in failure, even in death. We continue to struggle just as Jesus did out of obedience and love, but even despite some gains we continue to fall short. It is important to remember that whatever the political significance of Jesus’ death may be it did not transform the world—killers continue to kill and torturers continue to torture. The establishment continues to oppress the weak and marginalize the poor. Yet Jesus’ prayer to the Father is to work through his failure. As McCabe said, “Before his death Jesus had tried, but in the end failed, to bring the Spirit of love to a small group of disciples; now through him the Father pours the Spirit through the world; by this the world is to be transformed into a community of love, the Kingdom of God” (100). The Father’s response to the prayer of Jesus is the resurrection.

All quotes taken from Herbert McCabe, God Matters (London: Geoffrey Chapman, 1987).

Reflections on Holy Thursday with Herbert McCabe

Two years ago I wrote a number of reflections during Holy Week drawing from the late Dominican priest Herbert McCabe’s sermons. You can find his sermons in God Matters. I’ve decided to re-post these (slightly revised) reflections once again here.

On Holy Thursday the church remembers Jesus’ Last Supper with his disciples and so also the mystery of communion, or what the church has traditionally called the Eucharist. The Eucharist and indeed everything that the church is about points to the “mystery of unity,” that is, the being-together of people. The church proclaims that all of our efforts toward human unity find their apex and indeed culminate as we participate in the life of the triune God. As the late English Dominican Herbert McCabe pointed out, “The ultimate unity of people is only to be found in God, and the real God is only to be found in unity between people” (God Matters, 78). Needless to say, humanity has not reached a point of unity. Today, we solemnly remember our utter estrangement and alienation from one another. As a result of our persistent disunity our concepts of God constantly slip into idolatry. As McCabe put it, “God becomes for us the God of our class, our nation, our race or time, the tutelary deity, perhaps, of the ‘free world’” (78). When we recall the launching of an illegal U.S.-led war in Iraq seven years ago we still hear the voices of those who said, “God is on our side.” Lord Jesus Christ, forgive us, the church, for our complicity in this idolatry and our collusion with nationalist politics. To recognize the disunity of humanity and our own complicity in this is to recognize our role in the pervasiveness of sin, which is our continual denial of God’s loving grace.

In the church’s celebration of the Eucharist the Last Supper is made present, but we are also flung into the future, for the future of the world is nothing less than participation in the mystery and life of the triune God. It is the unity, the communion that we long for; it is being-together in freedom and truthfulness. Holy Thursday is the celebration of being together as people, as human beings, and so we also celebrate the unity that is to come with the Father, in the Son, and through the Holy Spirit. Yet, Holy Thursday, like all the church’s traditional sacraments, only exists because of sin, which is to say that these things are temporary and incomplete.

Our only hope for unity is in God. As the church, our effort toward this unity is nothing other than solidarity with “the poor and the exploited against their oppressors,” for “the only God we know is the God of the poor, the God who takes sides in the struggle, and that any God of consensus who is supposed to belong to both sides is an illusion and a dangerous one” (79). God takes sides. But we do not. And so we can never say “God is on our side.” Let me be clear, this is not because God is somehow neutral to injustice, but because we are, in fact, compromised. Because God is on the side of the poor, so the church if it is to be a sign of the kingdom must be the church of the poor.

What we experience in the United States is not freedom, peace, or unity primarily because it is born out of fear, indifference to truth, and based on violence. The unity that we have as citizens of a nation, that which constitutes the United States as a public, for instance, is a false unity because it is not grounded in the God who is love and truthfulness. The very structure of the United States and the false catholicity that “globalization” seems to offer is built on human antagonism and violence. The depth of human sin is so severe that all our efforts to dismantle structural violence will not finally bring about unity. Indeed, the human race is in need of a much greater transformation, a more radical revolution than the overthrow of systems of injustice: we are in need of forgiveness.

And so, when the local church gathers together on Holy Thursday, the whole church is present, just as the whole Christ is made present in the Eucharist. This gathering is never private. Whenever the church gathers it gathers as a public in its own right. There is no such thing as private worship. The Eucharist, the Lord’s Supper, is thus a sign of the mystery of unity. The Eucharist as a meal is a sign of community and hospitality—the hospitality of God. Each and every human being is invited to the table to share in the food that is a sign of our present and future unity in God. And so we give thanks for the gift of life and nourishment, for God’s sustaining love and God’s Word made flesh in whom we were made and to whom we are destined to share in life together.

All quotes taken from Herbert McCabe, God Matters (London: Geoffrey Chapman, 1987).

International Day for Conscientious Objectors

Today is the International Day for Conscientious Objectors.

Let us give thanks for the witness of conscientious objectors to war and military participation. In my own life I am blessed and inspired by the witness of my wife, Marcia, who refused to cooperate with the standard process for gaining United States citizenship.

Because of her deep convictions, Marcia refused to say the US oath of allegiance in her citizenship ceremony and she became a conscientious objector to U.S. military service. She is a witness to the peace of Christ in the world.

What are the neocons up to?

From the folks who brought you the Project for the New American Century, check out The Foreign Policy Initiative.

What they promote across party lines:

The Foreign Policy Initiative (FPI) is a newly formed, non-profit, non-partisan organization intending to qualify as a tax-exempt organization under Section 501(c)(3) of the U.S. Internal Revenue Code that promotes:

• continued U.S. engagement–diplomatic, economic, and military—in the world and rejection of policies that would lead us down the path to isolationism;
• robust support for America’s democratic allies and opposition to rogue regimes that threaten American interests;
• the human rights of those oppressed by their governments, and U.S. leadership in working to spread political and economic freedom;
• a strong military with the defense budget needed to ensure that America is ready to confront the threats of the 21st century;
• international economic engagement as a key element of U.S. foreign policy in this time of great economic dislocation.

Have You Lost Your Faith?

The Clinton Nomination

And you voted for him because you thought his foreign policy was less hawkish than hers? Stupid.

Thoughts on the future of Liberation Theology

Although the phenomenon commonly known as “liberation theology” is extremely diverse, there seems to be some common methodological threads running through the work of its proponents. What I want to highlight here is how self-proclaimed liberation theologians almost always identify experience as a highly appropriate methodological starting-point for theology. In particular, for many liberation theologians the experience of the poor, the suffering, the oppressed, is primary and methodologically fundamental. In much of the literature, the role of experience becomes such a priority that it is identified as the central criterion of adjudicating between good and bad theologies. If theology does not directly and explicitly address the plight of the poor and complicity of the rich in oppressive policies, than theology is seen as, ultimately, irrelevant to the poor, and irrelevant to politics. For much of liberation theology the emphasis is on the priority of praxis over theory. It does not assert that theory is unimportant, it is just simply accorded a secondary role. In the words of Jon Sobrino, “theology is a second act, within and in the presence of a reality.” Liberation theology is thus essentially reactive–it is a reaction, in the mode of reflection–on both the concrete experiences of an oppressed people and God’s revelation in Christ.

(Caveat: I am aware of the generalizations taking place in this post. Liberation theology is not univocal and I don’t want to treat it as such, but I’m trying to draw out some key elements that I’ve noticed in much of the literature).

Here’s my question: Doesn’t the role accorded to experience, as the primary theological category, appear deeply strange and problematic when liberation theologians watch it receive equally high status as it is employed to bolster the efforts of right-wing ideologues?

The debate, then, becomes centered on questions of experience–which quickly heads into who has the best evidence from the social sciences to prove, for instance, that collectivism works better than capitalism to relieve poverty, to create happiness and wealth, etc.

For those of us influenced by Barth, or more broadly what is some times referred to as “postliberalism” a la George Lindbeck, or for those influenced by MacIntyre or Milbank–even for those of us who have been influenced by Foucault and the geneaological tradition, we tend to find ourselves quite skeptical of appeals to experience to ground or frame theology. Interestingly, many of these thinkers also claim to stand firmly on the radical Left.

Let me be clear, when I say experience I do not mean to suggest that we really have a choice in the matter. I am not suggesting that we can somehow choose to not use experience in our theological reasoning. Of course, we are all shaped by and use our experience. It is totally absurd to think that we can reflect outside of our own particular history. What I am calling into question is something altogether different–it is the specific move made by much of liberation theology (a move which seems to me to owe more than a little to modern theological liberalism and therefore also to capitalism) that sees experience–or the natural–as more fundamental than revelation.

Again, I want to make clear that my concerns about liberation theology come from a very specific place. I am highly sympathetic to their concerns, but I am highly skeptical of their method at times. This became clear to me at this years AAR Consultation of Liberation Theology session. I’m not going to get into the details here, but I got the feeling that if this is the future of liberation theology it is doomed. If liberation theology works within a framework of modern theological liberalism it is finally a doomed enterprise. I say this because of my conviction that modern theological liberalism is disciplined by capitalist logic through and through, which is of course the very thing liberation theology seeks to resist.

Michael Novak at St. Thomas

Michael Novak, the Catholic neoconservative theologian comes to town on Wednesday, October 29 to deliver a lecture at 7:30 p.m. entitled, “Career or Calling? Business as a Vocation” at the Thornton Auditorium of Terrence Murphy Hall on St. Thomas’ downtown Minneapolis campus. It is free and open to the public.

Novak is one of the most painful theologians to read, and I’m sure it will be worse listening to him spout off on how capitalism and America are God’s gifts to the world. In his perspecitve, America is not quite the kingdom of God, but it is damn close. Novak has been a staunch supporter of U.S. involvement in Iraq, Afghanistan, and indeed all over the world, militarily and economically.

If you want to join me let me know! It will be great fun!

On the financial crisis

A couple interesting articles on the current financial crisis: “Welcome to the faith-based economy” by Arjun Appadurai and Slavoj Zizek’s “Don’t Just Do Something, Talk”

Reflecting on American “politics”

H/T Thomas