On 29 September, 2004, the British Labour Party received a jolt. Bono (Paul Hewson) of U2 fame called upon the party to credibly bear the “weight of expectation,” and do something historic with the Prime Minister’s Africa Commission.[1] He urged them to replace verbal wrangling with money, lots of money, in response to the 6,500 Africans who are dying every day of treatable and preventable diseases. He called it not a cause, but an emergency. It was unnerving because it challenged a spirituality that “makes a fool of our idea of justice, mocks our pieties, doubts our concern and questions our commitment.” It is not about charity, he said, but justice.
The Journey Down
Introducing his own involvement in the plight of Africa, Bono rehearsed what he described as “a journey” that began in 1984 when he spent a month in Ethiopia. It culminated at an orphanage where a man handed him his baby and said, “Take him with you.” This father was desperate that his child have a chance of survival. It opened up an entirely new and different world to Bono.
In so many words, I think Bono is describing a journey down. The journey down is, in part, taking up and owning the reality of 6,500 Africans who die every day of measles and small pox, without even touching on the numbers who die of AIDS. It owns some sort of responsibility for the short-lived existence of people who “don’t have a pound a day to pay for the drugs that could save their lives.”
Bono’s speech jarred me as well, so I conducted an informal survey of twenty random individuals at Glasgow University whose only qualification was that they had watched the bulk of the Labour Party Conference on television. Six of these were students between the ages of 18 and 25. Eight of them were PhD students between the ages of 30 and 40. The remaining six were professors of one stripe or another. I asked them only one question. “What, if anything, made the biggest impact on you as you watched the conference?” Sixteen of them said the speech by Bono.
Why? It is a question that raises the specter of the spiritual. I think there is a type of spiritual resonance that occurs in the heart of people who care when they are subtly, or not so subtly challenged to embark on the journey down. The journey down invites people to willingly bear the weight of expectation by promoting a spirituality that takes the dreams of the marginalized seriously and offers them hope for the future. It is a joyful descent in order to identify with the least of these (Mt. 25:40), rather than pander to cultural hegemony. The invitation to step down gives notice to something latent. It may be universal in dimension. It harkens of spirituality nonetheless.
Cruciform Spirituality
Spiritual formation that genuinely entertains a model of downward mobility will necessarily fly in the face of a mentality that is more apt to envision the franchise potential of ardent faith in the interest of personal and corporate aggrandizement. This brand of faith development lauds ascendancy in ways that are so thoroughly utilitarian that it cannot help but ignore the faceless mass of the marginalized.[2] Ascendancy, after all, is the much more natural inclination of human nature regardless of latent resources that would lead in the opposite direction. Apart from some counteracting model, such resources remain in genuine, yet unproductive latency.
An alternative model is happily supplied in a Christian spirituality that is not apologetically, but rather deliberately and thoroughly Christocentric. As such, it promotes the paradoxical nature of the incarnation by insisting that the strength of God (especially as it points forward into the future) be demonstrated in the fully contradictory terms of weakness. Bruce Chilton, for example, considers this model to be inherent in any language of transcendence or immanence, contending that the incarnation (inclusive of the cross) displays divine action and presence “through weakness, humiliation, and renunciation of power.”[3] Forms of spirituality, therefore, that follow these contours necessarily assume a similar model of the rejection of manipulative power in the concordant interest of the powerless. It is a spirituality, in other words, that takes on a decidedly cruciform shape and thinking.
The specifically downward mode the cross invokes is blatantly in view in the well-known Pauline kenosis passage recorded in Philippians 2:5-11. The capacity for broad application is surely intended in the hymn’s sweeping introduction with the emphatic imperative, touto phroneite, “Have this frame of mind…in you which was also in Christ Jesus.” Moreover, the purpose of Paul’s inclusion of the hymn here goes far beyond a spirituality of niceness within interpersonal relationships (as some have suggested with reference to 2:3[4]) but has the much grander goal of proposing that the very identity of God can only be detected commensurate with the self-abnegation of Jesus.[5] In Richard Bauckham’s terms, therefore, we are talking about a frame of mind and a form of life predicated upon the implications of God Crucified, who is (by virtue of the cross and proceeding out of the incarnation generally) “the God of the lowly and the humiliated, the God who hears the cry of the oppressed, the God who raises the poor from the dust.” It is this God who “dwells in the depths, not only with but as the lowest of the low.”[6]
In a sociological sense, I am advocating a way of living that does not shrink from contradicting the common proclivity towards ascendancy and its concurrent disdain for the radical demands of dwelling with and as the lowest. In essence, it entertains the life-situated reality of what Barbara Babcock understands as symbolic inversion, defined as “any act of expressive behavior which inverts, contradicts, abrogates, or in some fashion presents an alternative to commonly held cultural codes, values, and norms be they linguistic, literary or artistic, religious, or social and political.”[7] Intrinsic to inversion of this kind is the dialectic of power and weakness which is theologically grounded in the death and resurrection of Jesus. The inversion inherent in the cross (see 2 Corinthians 12:9-10 and 13:10), therefore, negates acceptable standards of evaluation (for Paul, Greco-Roman values) and insists on the transcendent value of love in action.
Furthermore, the inversion we see in the cross of Christ must obviously move away from the merely symbolic and into the realm of transformative power that has the capacity to foster a spirituality that displays (active) incarnational love.[8] It is in this context that Paul’s preoccupation with “the word of the cross” (1 Corinthians 1:18) is primarily aimed at those who are more susceptible to modes of ascendancy. Gerald Hawthorne rightly asserts that Paul’s approach in the Corinthian correspondence is essentially a reinterpretation of Old Testament texts (specifically, Isaiah 43:3-23 and 52:13-53:12) in order to advance an ethic of incarnational service on the Corinthian congregation.[9]
Rather than incidental, the contextual background of the Corinthian correspondence, in fact, proves to be highly significant when considering how the word of the cross informs spiritually determined behavior. Graham Tomlin, for one, argues convincingly that the “some” (tines) referenced by Paul at significant points throughout the letters make up only one faction of those who oppose him and, more importantly, can be characterized as nouveaux riches whose chief ambition is to rise to the top of the social pile.[10] Such a reading only adds to the starkness of the contrasts invoked by Paul in 1 Corinthians 4:8 (and also in 4:10), which serve to highlight an unhealthy attraction to satiety (kuros), wealth (ploutos) and power (basileus). It is indicative of an elitism predicated upon superior status.[11] Marshall likewise concludes that this terminology is couched in the rhetoric of status against which the apostle deliberately accentuates his own social inferiority.[12]
The logical question, of course, is what the word of the cross was intended to communicate in this context? In contrast to an elitist spirituality displayed in satiety, wealth and power, Paul offers the inversion of contradiction by confidently exhorting a spirituality premised on imitating him (4:16) because his “ways” are “in Christ,” wholly cruciform in shape and thought and action (1:17-18). Thus, Bauckham concludes that this is a healthy example of the apostle’s deliberate conformity to a movement of identification with the least, rejecting the image of the eminent traveling philosopher and refusing to pander to the wealthy.[13] The word of the cross projects a reversal into the midst of social clamoring, “turning the prevailing notions of weakness and power, and honour and shame upside down.”[14] The implications of this kind of inversion for a broader social context are noted by Stephen Barton who contends that the cross, then, becomes “a potent symbol for community formation” as it inspires “a basis for individual and communal identity…quite at odds with contemporary social classification.”[15]
Any serious approach to spirituality, therefore, that attempts conformity with what might be described as cruciform ought to be grounded in truly incarnational realities as displayed in vulnerability and weakness. It is, however, contradictory weakness that has the power to be provocative and creative and transformative.[16] It is an ongoing expression of what Tomlin refers to as theologia crucis that “presents an alternative understanding of power by grounding it in an understanding of God as one whose character and economy are revealed in the scandalous choice of the Christ crucified as the means of salvation.”[17] It is paradigmatic not only for Paul, but for all who are followers of the way of Jesus.
Responding to the Collapse of Self in Postmodernity
Ludwig Feuerbach (1967) took the Christian community to task by raising the objective question, “What distinguishes the Christian from other honourable people?” His answer was a harsh though honest indictment. “At most a pious face and parted hair.”[18] Behind it is the failure of the Church to adequately account for and respond to the rise of a culture benighted by suspicion and characterized by the casting aside of Enlightenment categories. A spirituality of surface piety simply does not have the resources, let alone the authenticity to interact with a culture in which the self is increasingly distrustful of any form of hierarchical order.
The self of postmodernity, both individual and corporate, as a genuine agent of decision and hopeful destiny, feels preempted by management theorists, economists, political agendas and religious programs. It is utterly suspicious of anything, in other words, that requires it to function as a performer in pre-determined roles. The result has been a collapse into what Thiselton refers to as an “imposed functionalism” that is inbred in social and symbolic systems.[19] In personal terms, what it leaves in its wake is fragmentation, indeterminacy, and whole scale and overt suspicion of any forms of totalizing discourse.[20]
Unfortunately, rather than interacting with and appropriately responding to a questioning and critical culture, Christian thought has historically contributed to the sense of collapsed selfhood by erroneously encouraging the disembodied self. In so doing, it blindly bought into Greek ideals of dualism that gave a disparaging look at organic existence and thus was disdainful of human delights, drives, needs and capacities.[21] This is all the more unfortunate as it ignored the plea of Barth that true selfhood is derived from being addressed by the creator, so that “our life as Christians is our life as organic constituents of the crust of this planet.”[22]
In the absence of an alternative agenda, the postmodern self has stumbled headlong into a fray that is epitomized by severe disconnectedness and a slew of uncomely social consequences. Foremost among these is the total repudiation of truth claims (seeing them as having become absorbed into both structures and spheres of power), to the point that healthy argument and reasonable reason have likewise collapsed into a rhetoric of force.[23] The dominant tone of dialogue in this context deteriorates into persuasive technique and, more heinously, coercive pressure. Alasdair MacIntyre rightly reminds us that the measurement of not only the rational, but the moral as well is only effective in the context of some commonly held tradition. Apart from it, accusation and blame and ultimately conflict ensue.[24]
I am endeavoring to promote an approach to Christian spirituality that is adequately equipped to offer a socially effective (formidable, in the right sense of the word) alternative. What might be the outcome if communities of faith were empowered to energize spirituality to such a degree that a rhetoric of force were countered with demonstrations of service? If, for example, communities of faith were peopled with many who not only articulate but also pursue downward mobility, could they not renew the current self, now in evident collapse? Could rhetorical jousting be replaced with renewed life in a fashion that satisfies those who legitimately question the postmodern hunger for diversity, plurality, and freedom from totalizing narratives (all concerns only viable to those with measurable levels of leisure and luxury) while disproportionate numbers of human beings struggle for daily survival?[25] The collapsed self, as Moltmann reminds us, in terms of actual human suffering, is neither modern, nor post-modern, nor ultra-modern, but simply a “protest against the surface progress of civilization.”[26]
It is all the more urgent given the urban context that has become the cauldron of postmodern insecurities. Recent statistics suggest that eighty per cent of the population of Western Europe is now unquestionably urban.[27] City sprawl of this magnitude raises questions of self-identity and social standing that could potentially lie dormant in other more pastoral settings. In the concentrated confines that defines city as city, however, the lament that generates them cannot be muffled. They are questions prompted by the unique problems associated with international blending, as well as the stark and persistent reminders of economic disparity that make up the unofficial boundaries in any city. Faith communities in this context have the opportunity to live out what Orlando Costas calls “true communion” (demonstrable spirituality) in order to contravene various representations of self-incapacitating systems that are endemic in urban situations.[28] Among other things, it is an opportunity that requires the church to descend in order to be the church for the poor.[29]
It is, moreover, a context in which to laud hermeneutical suspiciousness rather than quarantine it. This is especially the case when suspect readings of texts (far from being benign) generally and generously produce panaceas and utopias that only exacerbate already existing social disparity. Arne Rasmussen, in fact, encourages a hermeneutic of distrust, particularly with regard to “ecclesial theological politics” which fail to meet the compelling needs of the city by limiting Spirit empowered social transformation to categories that are largely passive.[30] A vision of broad transformation in urban affairs evolves only under the auspices of the captivating Spirit whose goal is always emancipation (2 Corinthians 3:17), especially as it might relate to social constructions that demonstrate the presence of God and the freeing of the communal imagination to envision it.[31]
Spirituality as Eschatological Practice
The capacity of the Holy Spirit to captivate and invigorate a communal imagination has clear eschatological implications. It is only the empowering work of the Spirit that enables the altering of perceptual conceptions of what is fully possible (future) in present actuality. Amos Wilder refers to this as a theopoetic that involves a spiritual battle for the hearts and wills of people via the imagination.[32] The emancipation of imaginative power is best located in the context of Christian eschatology where the “inventive imagination of love” serves as an anticipation of all the possibilities of God’s open future in such a way that it can transform the present.[33] It is dependant, in other words, on the Spirit’s role in stimulating a creative imagination in order to envision alternative (downwardly mobile) ways of participating in the world with a clear picture of the future in view. Trevor Hart thereby concludes, “Imagination is thus a vital category in eschatology as in theology more generally.[34]
We must not forget, however, that the goal of Spirit-released creativity includes and highlights real living (spirituality) in terms of God’s vision of the way things will be. Bauckham explains it as the “concrete, day-to-day world seen in heavenly and eschatological perspective.”[35] It is a perspective fully capable of impacting the entirety of the Christian experience, including notions of conversion and rebirth.[36] But its objective is to invoke a spirituality that anticipates, demonstrates and projects the future into the present. Hart’s metaphor of musical modulation is a helpful one in this regard. Modulation is a simple technique that involves using a chord belonging to an old key, but in such a unique way that it anticipates the eventual arrival of a new one. In the process, it completely transforms the present melodic moment, but always with a view to pointing ahead of itself to the new which is soon to be heard.[37]
Eschatology so embraced contributes to the notion of inversion by contradicting the baser elements of the present world which corrupt all that is meant to bear the image of God. Spirituality, likewise, has the potential to embrace the contradiction of corruption when it is motivated (at least in part) by the tension that is generated by the call of God to live in the here-and-now shaped by the power of God’s future actively at work in communal settings.[38] As such, it becomes incarnational as it portrays the life of God and preserves His image in the present world. It is a spirituality that is fully aware of present corruption, but stands in contradiction to it, inspired by the God of promise.
In this sense, then, the potency of truly Christian eschatology is measured by its ability to erupt in and energize social practice that is genuinely transformative. Among other things, it ought to generate what Yoder refers to as “a posteriori political practice” which lends social activism its sincerely evangelical eschatological significance.[39] Furthermore, an eschatological vision adds impetus to a spirituality of transformative social practice by highlighting the importance of temporal plot in such a way that the promised future is always in view.[40] The Christian story, after all, is one that promises a definite and exhilarating conclusion.
How the Story Winds Down
Narrative-theory has, indeed, reinforced the centrality of plot in any storyline that is worth the read. The question that is now up for grabs, however, is which story is being developed and which storyline should we follow? Postmodernity’s disdain for any sort of meta-narrative cannot be swept under the carpet, but must be contended with and explored for reasons why. In his discussion of “white myth,” for example, Jacques Derrida echoes Nietzsche in viewing metaphor (evidence of a creative storyline) as generally concealing values and power-bids under the guise of promoting truth-claims.[41] When religious narratives play into bids for power, they limit the scenario to only winners and losers and are justifiably suspect. On the other hand, perhaps it is appropriate (while happily conceding revulsion toward will-to-power episodes) to question whether there is not a healthier and more exciting storyline available.
When, in fact, the narrative is theologically credible it alludes to a storyline that is profoundly and distinctively different. Moltmann suggests that it “is grounded not in the will to dominate, but in love to the future of things” and engaged in a process that calls forth “practical movement and change.”[42] I am contending that in order for movement to genuinely assume practicality, and in order for love to replace the domination of the will, downward mobility must be seriously considered as the general direction our storyline takes. By its nature, I suggest, spirituality that demonstrates itself in descending rather than ascending modes always honors localized stories even in the midst of a new creation metanarrative that cannot (biblically) be surrendered.
The storyline I am suggesting explicates a critical directional theme Bauckham considers essential to the broader theological story that he refers to as “to all by way of the least.” It is a good news story that “engages with the injustices of the world on its way to the kingdom of God. This means that as well as the outward movement of the church’s mission in geographical extension and numerical increase, there must also be this (in the Bible’s imagery) downward movement of solidarity with the people at the bottom of the social scale of importance and wealth. It is to these – the poorest, those with no power or influence, the wretched, the neglected – to whom God has given priority in the kingdom, not only for their own sake, but also for the rest of us who can enter the kingdom only alongside them.”[43]
Among other things, taking this downward direction as we follow the narrative flow of the story allows us to answer the question, “How can the rich be saved?” It is a pertinent question given the priorities of the Bible in general, to say nothing of the warnings of Jesus in particular. As Bauckham contends, it is only as they come alongside the poor and the marginalized. After all, the personalized stories of the rich are worthy (perhaps we should say they have the potential to be worthy) as well. How? Zaccheus (Luke 19:1-10) is their (our) model of conversion and ensuing spirituality, not by reason of his stature, but by virtue of his wealth. Jesus declares that he must (dei) stay at the home of this overly prosperous tax collector. This Christological “must” is the only hope of the rich. It means their story has a future. Jesus does stay with him and the aftermath is radical. Zaccheus immediately offers half of his possessions to the poor and whomever he has defrauded he offers to pay back four times over. What is Jesus’ evaluation? “Today, salvation has come to this house.”
At the heart of the Zaccheus account is a hermeneutic of justice that must inform true spirituality and is especially provocative for those in positions of privilege. Similarly, James 1:27 suggests that visiting widows and orphans is indicative of pure religion. The prophet Amos (5:21-24) declares that worship is no more than noise if it does not solicit a flood of justice. The eschatological Christ (Matthew 25:31-46) metes out judgment based on what has been done to the least of these and avows that in so doing true homage has been rendered to him. And Isaiah (58:6-8) calls for fasting (spiritual fervor) that produces freedom for the oppressed and food for the hungry and homes for the poor.[44] Beyond this, as Wolterstorff contends, a biblical understanding of justice is not limited to a basic sense of rights, but is intended to insure the “enjoyment” of shalom (completeness) and so requires an ethical community that freely acknowledges God’s priority for those who have been relegated to the margins, whether economically, socially, racially or culturally.[45] Behind it is a hermeneutic that understands the world itself as sacrament.[46]
And yet, there is more to the story. Given the overarching biblical narrative that looks forward to and anticipates the creating of all things new (Revelation 21:5), there is a sense in which the paradoxical becomes reality, inversion itself is inverted, and so down is up. As the story winds down, in other words, it is really only winding up.
The rectifying of inversion is certainly in view in texts that generally laud paradox: James 4:10, “Humble yourselves in the presence of the Lord and He will exalt you;” 1 Peter 5:6, “Therefore humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you at the proper time;” 2 Corinthians 12:10, “…when I am weak, then I am strong;” and Matthew 10:39, “He who has found his life will lose it, and he who has lost his life for My sake will find it.” The journey down, therefore, is not pessimistic, but joyful because we are moving toward the renewal of all things when inversion is no longer necessary and every paradox has proven itself true. Likewise, as inversion comes full circle, either side of paradox is equally valid so that we can credibly maintain that the way up is also the way down. Then, as Walter Wink rightly asserts, the real issues that infringe upon communal spirituality are not so much epistemological as they are ethical.[47]
Furthermore, inversion come full circle makes room for the rich when their resources are deployed in the interest of justice for the marginalized who are often at their very doorsteps.[48] Saint Paul, after all, does not decry money itself (1 Timothy 6:10), but improper attachments to it. Pragmatic compassion must be resourced, and people of privilege are critically situated to provide for it. Healthy eschatological practice, therefore, requires of the rich a loose attachment to their wealth for the sake of a piety that entertains a hermeneutic of justice as much as anything else.
Story and journey are but two metaphors for a potentially engaging spirituality. The one suggests plot developing toward conclusion. The other prescribes movement in a descending direction. But each of them begs the question as to whether or not missional communities (in the interest of mission) can afford to aspire to anything less than a spirituality of inclusiveness for all by the way of the least. Apart from this, evangelical attempts at “postmodern ministry” will continue to foster elitism and cater to middle and upper classes who are already upwardly mobile, educated, detached and white. We will continue to populate faith communities with people who can afford to argue over the mere aesthetics of spirituality. Mission itself will suffer for it.
I am urging, on the other hand, that Spirit-captivated imagination can paradoxically empower us toward a spirituality that propels us in an entirely different direction. I think it has the capacity to re-engage the shrunken self of postmodernity by replacing a rhetoric of force with demonstrations of service. It is also invigorated by a clear vision of the promised future that puts eschatology into social practice with transformative goals. And, fundamentally, it is spirituality that is cruciform in thought and behavior and attitude. Thus, it beacons us in an inverted way to deliberately aspire to downward mobility which is above all incarnational. And mission will be the beneficiary as we live in the storyline of God, for all by way of the least.
Wesley White
Scottish Universities Theological Forum
[1] For the complete text of Bono’s speech, go to www.labour.org.uk/ac2004news?ux_news_id=ac04bono.
[2] For examples of this, see John Drane, The McDonaldization of the Church: Spirituality, Creativity, and the Future of the Church (London: Darton, Longman & Todd, 2000), 89-95. Drane suggests that a biblically robust spiritual development will, on the contrary, challenge utilitarianism on all fronts. Stuart Murray denotes the same inclination towards utilitarian interests in terms of the current phenomena of pax Americana which is suspiciously similar to the pax Romana that so engulfed the mindset of the New Testament era. See his, Post-Christendom: Church and Mission in a Strange New World (Carlisle: Paternoster Press, 2004), 287.
[3] See, Bruce D. Chilton, God in Strength: Jesus’ Announcement of the Kingdom (Freistadt: Plochl, 1979), 98.
[4] See, Toward Moral and Religious Maturity, ed. James Fowler (New York: Silver Burdett Co., 1980), 60-61. Fowler argues for an approach to constitutive-knowing of others in a social context that focuses on the identity of worth of another, appreciates how this can be religiously maximized by passages like Philippians 2:3, and produces nice relationships in which all are worthy.
[5] That the identity of God is critically in view in the kenosis hymn is readily apparent when we note its insistence on Jesus’ equality with God. N.T. Wright, The Climax of the Covenant: Christ and Law in Pauline Theology (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1991), 58-66, reminds us that there is no question as to Christ’s equality with God. The point of the apostle is simply His attitude towards it.
[6] Our identity with God’s identity, according to Bauckham, turns on Christ’s pouring out of himself, incarnationally, in living and in dying. “He did not understand his equality with God as a matter of being served by others,” he writes, “but as something he could express in service, obedience, self-renunciation and self-humiliation for others. Therefore he renounced the outward splendor of the heavenly court for the life of a human being on earth, one who lived his obedience to God in self-humiliation even to the point of the particularly shameful death by crucifixion, the death of a slave.” See, Richard Bauckham, God Crucified: Monotheism and Christology in the New Testament (Carlisle: Paternoster Press, 1998), 57-77.
[7] See, Barbara Babcock, The Reversible World (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1978), 14.
[8] The notion that symbolic inversion is inadequate unless it is capable of propelling adherents into action that has a transformative effect is suggested by Alexandra Brown, The Cross and Human Transformation (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1995), 150-57. Brown’s concern rightly gives expression to some feminist’s fears that certain uncritical theologies of the cross merely perpetuate the acceptability of suffering and the justifying of injustice.
[9] See, Gerald F. Hawthorne, Tradition and Interpretation in the New Testament (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1987), 195-215.
[10] In determining the demography of the Corinthian situation, too much weight can be attached to the description supplied in 1 Corinthians 1:26, which suggests that certainly some were considered wise, powerful, and noble, or at least wanted to be considered so. Tomlin, to his credit, is quick to recognize this. See, Graham Tomlin, The Power of the Cross: Theology and the Death of Christ in Paul, Luther and Pascal (Carlisle: Paternoster Press, 1999), 41-46.
[11] Some have suggested that such terminology of elitism was part and parcel of a much more widely spread Greek hybristic tradition in which excessive behavior along this order was valued. See, S. Pogolov, Logos and Sophos: The Rhetorical Situation of 1 Corinthians (SBLDS; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1992), 228-30.
[12] See, Peter Marshall, Enmity in Corinth: Social Conventions in Paul’s Relations with the Corinthians (Tubingen: Mohr, 1987), 210. Further corroboration of the validity of Marshall’s conclusions is to be had in B. Malina, The New Testament World: Insights from Cultural Anthropology (Atlanta: John Knox Press, 1981), 25-35, wherein attention is drawn to the importance of honor and shame in the Mediterranean world. Pickett argues against any eschatological approach to 1 Corinthians 4:8, in favor of a purely sociological one that suggests a situation in which certain factions were intent upon clamoring up the social ladder. See, Raymond Pickett, The Cross in Corinth: The Social Significance of the Death of Jesus (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1997), 45, 181-82.
[13] See, Richard Bauckham, Bible and Mission: Christian Witness in a Postmodern World (Carlisle: Paternoster Press, 2003), 52-53. Bauckham suggests that “the powerful people and the upwardly mobile people had to take Paul as they found him, just as they had to take the crucified Christ as God’s radical contradiction of their values.”
[14] Pickett, The Cross in Corinth, 211.
[15] Symbolic behavior, as it relates to Paul’s focus on the word of the cross in the Corinthian letters, is legitimated by the Christ who was “crucified in weakness” (1 Corinthians 13:4). See, Stephen Barton, “Paul and the Cross: A Sociological Approach”, Theology 85 (1982), 17. Paul’s call for mimesis (4:16) is seen contrarily by Elizabeth Castelli, Imitating Paul: A Discourse of Power (Louisville: Westminster/John Knox Press, 1991), 129, as simply imposing repressive hierarchical models of power. This analysis, however, fails due to lack of contextual astuteness.
[16] This is precisely what John Howard Yoder understood as “evangelical” social practice. It is a mode of spirituality that communicates news, and it is news that is attested to be good. Yoder describes it as adhering to the primordial way that has the power to “transform culture.” See, John Howard Yoder, The Royal Priesthood: Essays Ecclesiological and Ecumenical (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1994), 373.
[17] Tomlin, The Power of the Cross, 100.
[18] Ludwig Feuerbach, ‘Epigrams’, in Thoughts on Death and Immortality (Eng. Berkeley and London: University of California Press, 1980), 214, 205. Feuerbach argued that theism invariably reduces the humanness of humanity by allowing it an easy route to escapism.
[19] See, Anthony C. Thiselton, Interpreting God and the Postmodern Self: On Meaning, Manipulation and Promise (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1995), 122.
[20] The reaction to these developments, according to David Harvey, has been an inordinate preoccupation with self-protection, self-interest, and desire for power and the recovery of control. These are fostered by a sense of loss of stability, loss of identity, and complete loss of confidence in whatever purports to be norms of a global scale. See, David Harvey, The Condition of Postmodernity: An Enquiry into the Origins of Cultural Change (Oxford: Blackwell, 2nd edn., 1989), 101.
[21] For a very helpful review of this sad history, see Nancey Murphy, ‘Emodied Selfhood’, in James Wm. McClendon, Jr., Witness: Systematic Theology, vol.3 (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2000), 124. Murphy also offers a more appropriate response by suggesting a healthy Darwinism and the insightful findings in the advances in Neuroscience.
[22] Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics, vol. III, Trans. G.W. Bromiley et al (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark), 42.2.
[23] Thiselton, Interpreting God and the Postmodern Self, 134.
[24] See, Alasdair MacIntyre, Three Rival Versions of Moral Enquiry (London: Duckworth, 1990), 57. MacIntyre is cautioning as to the dangers inherent in sociality when only internal criteria are turned to when addressing moral sensibilities. When such is the design, it is always the underprivileged who pay the price for postmodern disconnectedness.
[25] Moltmann is a case in point. In his estimation, the preference for the local over the global aspires well, but still ends up with free market uniformity that caters to “Coca Cola-ized” and “Macdonald-ized” stories. Talk of pluralism, he suggests, is obscene when diversity is, in reality, an expression of the extremely diversified existences of the rich and poor. See, Jurgen Moltmann, ‘Can Christian Eschatology Become Post-Modern?’, in God Will Be All In All: The Eschatology of Jurgen Moltmann ed. Richard Bauckham (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2001), 263.
[26] Moltmann, God Will Be All In All, 261.
[27] See, Robert Calvert, City Snaps: Pastoral Resources from Isaiah (Edinburgh: Saint Andrews Press, 2003), 19.
[28] At stake is the credibility of the message of love. Demonstrable spirituality, according to Costas, must provide communal models that give visibility to the real possibility of social relations that do not conform to classist, racist, or sexist divisions. They are able to construct a “vision of a far better future.” See, Orlando Costas, Liberating News: A Theology of Contextual Evangelization (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1989), 139-40.
[29] A priority for the poor specifically and the marginalized generally cannot be overlooked in the Bible. Karl Barth, ‘The Christian Community and the Civil Community’, in Against the Stream (London: S.C.M Press, 1934), 36, suggests the ecclesiological implications of this with typical lack of restraint. “The church is witness of the fact that the Son of God came to seek and save the lost. And this implies that, casting all false impartiality aside, the church must concentrate first on the lower and lowest levels of human society. The poor, the socially and economically weak and threatened, will always be the object of its primary and particular concern.”
[30] Rasmussen has in view an inadequate praxis that is made so by restrictive rather than interactive and radical piety. Because of it, the marginalized remain marginalized, only more so because of stricter and more defined alienation. The backdrop to his thought is the revolutionary notion that Spirit empowerment must be socially provocative if it is to be understood as spiritual at all. See, Arne Rasmussen, The Church as Polis: From Political Theology to Theological Politics as Exemplified by Jurgen Moltmann and Stanley Hauerwas (South Bend: University of Notre Dame Press, 1995), 375-82.
[31] The congruence of significant transformation, social and personal, with particular pneumatological nuances is a major contribution of Moltmann, It effectually locates the power of the future in the present via the Spirit of the resurrection, and as such is nothing less than a paradigmatic anticipation of the new creation within the old. See, Jurgen Moltmann, The Spirit of Life: A Universal Affirmation Tr. M. Kohl (London: SCM Press, 1992), 153.
[32] See, Amos Wilder, Theopoetic: Theology and the Religious Imagination (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1976), 122. Such a notion must be seen in contrast to the purely sociological approach of, for example, George Steiner, who referred to “axiomatic fictions” in which language serves to energize our living towards tomorrow. In the sense that Steiner conceives it, a hopeful reality is simply a social, linguistic construct. See, George Steiner, After Babel (2nd edition, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992), 167.
[33] See, Jurgen Moltmann, Theology of Hope: On the Ground and Implications of Christian Eschatology Tr. J.W. Leitch (London: SCM Press, 1967), 34-35.
[34] See, Trevor Hart, ‘Imagination for the Kingdom of God? Hope, Promise, and the Transformative Power of an Imagined Future’, in God Will Be All In All: The Eschatology of Jurgen Moltmann ed. Richard Bauckham (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2001), 75. Eldin Villafane, A Prayer for the City: Further Reflections on Urban Ministry (Austin, TX: AETH, 2001), 18, likewise contends for the liberating Spirit’s (italics mine) desire to free from all enslavement. This is distinct from Freedom/Liberation as defined by liberal and enlightenment heritage, but as Biblical promise.
[35] See, Richard Bauckham, The Theology of the Book of Revelation (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), 8. Here, of course, Bauckham’s point is how an eschatological perspective serves to counter the imperialistic program of Rome which was the contextual framework of John’s revelation.
[36] Moltmann contends that the eschatological notion of the future made present is radically demonstrated in the Christian experience of conversion and rebirth, for “mere interruption just disturbs; conversion creates new life.” See, Jurgen Moltmann, The Coming of God: Christian Eschatology Tr. M. Kohl (London: SCM Press, 1996), 22.
[37] See, Trevor Hart, ‘Imagination for the Kingdom of God?’, 73-74.
[38] For a more detailed explanation of the concept of contradiction of corruption, see Trevor Hart, Faith Thinking: Dynamics of Christian Theology (Gospel and Culture) (London: SPCK, 1995), 107. Hart’s idea of contradiction of corruption resounds with echoes of Moltmann’s theological approach in which the present “stands in contradiction” with what God has promised. See, Moltmann, Theology of Hope, 103.
[39] Spirituality is in view here, as well, as Yoder uses posteriori in reference to the political impact of Jesus and those who follow the way of Jesus. Adherence to the way of Jesus defines what it means to be evangelical. See, John Howard Yoder, The Royal Priesthood: Essays Ecclesiological and Ecumenical (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1994), 360.
[40] The idea of “temporal plot” borrows from recent innovations in narrative-theory. For a fuller examination of these innovations, see Mark Stibbe (ed.), The Gospel of John as Literature (Leiden: Brill, 1993), 156. The critical nature of temporal plot is likewise argued by Pannenberg. See, Wolfhart Pannenberg, Basic Questions in Theology (London: SCM, 1970) vol.I, 96-136.
[41] Cited in Anthony C. Thiselton, New Horizons in Hermeneutics: The Theory and Practice of Transforming Biblical Reading (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1992), 141. Renewed attention to will-to-power themes is evident throughout the sensibilities of the mosaic generation, and they are justified in treating harbingers of it as suspect.
[42] Without resorting to the vernacular of narrative-theory, Moltmann nonetheless offers theological concepts that can only contribute to a compelling story as they “do not limp after reality”…”but they illuminate reality by displaying its future.” See, Theology of Hope, 36.
[43] All of the critical lines in the biblical story, according to Bauckham, are assumed under the broad directional focus of moving from the one to the many. This approach, he suggests, allows us to read the narrative holistically without sacrificing commitment to the metanarrative. See, Richard Bauckham, Bible and Mission in a Postmodern World (Carlisle: Paternoster Press, 2003), 49-54. R. Fung suggests that the biblical emphasis on the least of these calls the church to a “spirituality of involvement.” See, Raymond Fung, The Isaiah Vision: An Ecumenical Strategy for Congregational Evangelism (New York: WCC Press, 1992), 48.
[44] Brueggemann understands Isaiah 58 to be promoting a spirituality marked by lowered standards of living so that the needs of the underprivileged might be met. See, Walter Brueggemann, Using God’s Resources Wisely: Isaiah and Urban Possibility (Westminster: John Knox Press, 1993), 67.
[45] Shalom primarily has to do with completeness in relation to God, self , others, and nature. See, Nicholas Wolterstorff, Until Justice and Peace Embrace (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1983), 69-71. God’s siding with the poor is intoned in the now-famous statement of Barth: “…God always takes His stand unconditionally and passionately on this side and on this side alone: against the lofty and on behalf of the lowly; against those who already enjoy right and privilege and on behalf of those who are denied and deprived of it.” See, Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics Tr. T.H.L. Parker et al. (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1955), vol.2, 1:386. Similarly, Julio de Santo Ana, Towards a Church of the Poor (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1981, 3: “In a world of scarcity in which everyone is in want, poverty would be a common challenge to everybody. But in a world of abundance in which many people are poor in order that a few others stay rich, poverty – or better, wealth – is an infamy. Where the rich refuse to give up their privileges and share their plenty, their situation asks for reproach.”
[46] The world in a sacramental sense is more common in the Eastern approach to orthodoxy. It is helpful when considering what is an appropriate response to the needs of the world. Schememann suggests that under the weight of this sacramental view an informed spirituality is not optional but ineluctable. See, Alexander Schememanne, For the Life of the World: Sacraments and Orthodoxy (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1973), 118.
[47] For example, Wink suggests that in dealing with the powers in control, we are invited into a “journey toward spiritual awareness” enacting that “the way up is the way down” in ethical dimensions. See, Walter Wink, Naming the Powers: The Language of Power in the New Testament (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1984), 143-45.
[48] For example, New Haven, Connecticut, in the American context, though situated amidst the Ivy League class of Yale University, is now the fourth-poorest city in the United States. As far back as 1990, poverty rates ran as high 40 and 50 percent. William Finnegan suggests that relational supports suffer the heaviest toll in the wake of this kind of social breakdown. “There’s more to downward mobility than decreased purchasing power. No dollar figure can be placed on the loss to individual members when a community declines, or a family breaks up, or a closely knit village must be left behind.” Because of relational loss of this magnitude, entire neighborhoods fall prey to “the profusion of quasi-tribal arrangements generically known as gangs.” See, William Finnegan, Cold New World: Growing Up in a Harder Country (New York, NY: Random House, Inc., 1998), xxii-xxiii.
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