A few weeks ago my husband and I arrived home from a rare evening out to see a homeless man camped out in the driveway of the empty house next door. I had seen this man wandering the neighborhood and had taken to referring to him as “the wizard” on account of his pointy beard, the wide-brimmed hat and long duster-coat he wore, and staff he carried with him. My husband went out to offer him some food and ended up having a lengthy conversation with this man who even goes by the very wizardly name Hawkeye. He declined the offer of food and mentioned that he has set himself up as the protector of the neighborhood and had information that the empty house next door needed someone to watch over it that night.

This encounter with Hawkeye served as a reminder that homelessness is not just some abstract issue for which the church needs to develop a response, but that the homeless are real individual people with real stories. Yet all too often in our modern economy it is easy to lose sight of these stories. The message that the culture feeds us is that our highest priority should be pursuing our individual security. We participate in the economy for our own sake, assuming the responsibility of providing for ourselves and protecting that which we manage to obtain. Those that fail to make it are viewed as issues to be dealt with (such as the homeless) and rarely as fellow beings made in the image of God that we are to be in solidarity with. In fact the cultural assertion that we are responsible only unto ourselves has led to our ignoring the stories of others that are suffering often because of our own prosperity.

In contradiction of this cultural trend, the biblical witness and the tradition of the church hold that Christians have a responsibility to care for the needs of all people. This mandate goes beyond simply the giving of alms, but to the ensuring that as people of God the church is expressing righteousness by pursuing justice in all of its relationships. In the Gospel of Luke, Jesus in his mission to proclaim the kingdom of God describes his role as one who brings good news to the poor and proclaims release to the captives (Lk 4:18). Earlier in the Gospel Mary described the kingdom of God as a place where the powerful are brought down from their thrones and the lowly lifted up (Lk 1: 52) and John declared that to truly follow God “whoever has two coats must share with anyone who has none; and whoever has food must do likewise” (Lk 3:10). Jesus also told Zacchaeus that salvation had come to his house once he repented of his economic exploitation of others. To live in the ways of the kingdom of God as revealed in scripture is to be in right relation economically with others.

In a culture that encourages its members to look after their own needs first, the equality and other-centeredness of the kingdom of God is generally perceived as a threat to the status quo. Instead of developing an awareness of how our economic practices are perhaps contributing to the oppression or defrauding of others, the culture encourages us to assume that economics is a morally neutral area. But without knowing the stories of others and understanding how our economic practices are actually affecting them, it is impossible to be in right relation with others. Our business, our striving to gain security in this world, must concern itself with the others we do in fact interact with as part of that process. Like Zacchaeus who in engaging in the expected role of a tax-collector had defrauded those he did business with, all of us need to be aware of the ways we harm others in our economic transactions.

We as the consumer of a good or as an investor in a business need to know if the workings of that business serve to uplift the lowly or to keep them down. Were the workers mistreated or paid insufficient wages? Were they given a just price for their product that not only covers their production costs but also pays them fairly for their labor? Were they forced to work under inhumane conditions or treated in ways that disrespected their dignity? All these are questions that need to be addressed if one is to live out the equitable norm of the kingdom of God.

But in a culture that encourages individualism, it is far too easy to ignore not only the stories of others but this responsibility to treat them properly as well. The poor, like the homeless, are not just issues to be dealt with but are real people already intimately connected to our everyday economic actions. To live into the norms of the kingdom of God where the lowly are lifted up requires action on the part of the people of God. Those who claim to follow God must accept both relationship with the neighbors with whom we interact with economically and the subsequent responsibilities such relationship entails. As the biblical narrative attests, this may mean repenting of ways we have cheated others, working to bring good news to the poor, and leveling out economic relationships as the mighty are brought down while the lowly are lifted up.

Yet as biblical scholar Walter Brueggemann comments, “amid the limitless prosperity of the U.S. economy (an expectation when not a fact), it is profoundly problematic to hold to a tradition that features sacrifice for the sake of holiness and justice for the sake of neighbor.” Individualism is the antithesis of self-sacrificial actions that care for the needs of others. Individualism ensures that I not only have enough but all I desire without bothering to ensure if others have enough as well or if I am harming others in amassing the things I want.

To undo such harmful effects of individualism that neglects to care for the real stories of others what is needed is a significant mental shift. Treating homelessness, hunger, and poverty just as issues that need solutions imposed upon them instead of relationships we have that demand us to act responsibly fails to live in the ways of the kingdom of God. For Christians to engage in economics as Christians we must not only listen to the stories of Jesus but also the stories of those we interact with economically.

Today is a day of remembrance. We recall the Passover meal shared by Jesus and his disciples and their participation in remembering the story of their people’s release from bondage. And we remember the death of Jesus at the hands of the Romans. What the Romans intended as an intimidating example intended to quell any other messianic uprisings in this backwater land they occupied instead became the greatest symbol of hope for the world. A symbol that another way of life is possible, that the Kingdom of God is far greater than the empire of Rome, and that even death cannot contain this offer of hope.

The need to remember and tell the stories of the past to find hope or to mourn what has been lost is a necessary part of human development. Yet all too often we want to move on too quickly, hide from the painful moments in the past, or deny the embarrassing parts. We fail to remember well.

So for me, the idea of remembrance was one of the most poignant themes in The Hunger Games series. At the end of the third book, Katniss, who has repeatedly had to suppress the painful memory of what she has done and what she has lost, finally must embrace those memories and it is in that process that she finds healing. As I wrote in The Hunger Games and the Gospel -

Her healing is slow, and the comfort she finds doesn’t change the fact that horrible things have happened, but it makes living with the memory of those things more bearable. As part of that process of mourning and healing, she and Peeta start compiling a book to remember the things “it would be a crime to forget.” Stories of those who died, the memory of her father’s laugh, an image of her sister being licked by the cat. The entries go on and on, and they “seal the pages with salt water and promises to live well and make their deaths count.” … Katniss intuitively knew that telling the stories of what has been lost is a vital part of the process of mourning.

Yet it is not just the small stories that must be remembered. Allowing the human moments to not be forgotten and the sacrifice of individuals to be recognized is a vital part of that process of telling the story, but so is the act of telling the truth about the bigger things. About the sins of the past and the acts of oppression in the present. Naming the systems that cause pain and remembering the stories of those who have been hurt not only allows those people’s stories to be recognized and mourned, it holds the perpetrators accountable for their actions. There is a comfort in knowing that the people who have hurt you accept responsibility for your pain. There is even greater comfort when they humbly repent of their actions and start the process of reconciliation. But sometimes the best that those in pain can hope for is to ensure that things that it would be crime to forget are not forgotten. And that means telling the truthful although sometimes difficult and embarrassing stories of the past.”

There are things in our world which it would be a crime to forget. For people to be able to find hope in its fullest form that allows for mourning and reconciliation to occur, the painful actions of the past cannot be forgotten. Like the Passover meal that calls the Jews to remember that they were once slaves in Egypt but that God delivered them, the story of where we have come from must be remembered and wrestled with in order for hope and healing to be present now.

So the hard questions The Hunger Games left me with are –

What are the things it would be a crime for us to forget?

What must we force ourselves to remember if we truly care about healing and reconciliation in this world?

What are the stories of oppression, genocide, and slavery that must always be told?

When have we like the Capitol citizens forgotten that the people we use are human?

How can we tell those stories so that we too can be delivered from bondage?

In reflecting on the events of Holy Week, I find it interesting that one of the common interpretations of why Judas handed over Jesus to the authorities is because Judas desired to push Jesus to assume the political role of the Messiah and lead a rebellion against the occupying Romans. Looking to the historical example of the Maccabees who purged Israel of the evil influence of the Greeks through violent rebellion and ethnic cleansing, perhaps Judas thought that when confronted with political arrest and trial Jesus would too come to the rescue of Israel and save them from the Romans. The other disciples' tendency to carry weapons and their attack of the soldiers arresting Jesus hint that they too expected something more akin to violent rebellion. Jesus obviously had something different in mind – calling them to a way of life that did not use power to overcome but love to subvert and undo.

Yet the question has remained throughout history as to whether it is ever okay to respond to such oppression and occupation with acts of violent rebellion. It is the question that tormented Dietrich Bonhoeffer under the Third Reich with him eventually deciding that even though it was wrong to murder, he had no choice but to attempt to assassinate Hitler. And it is the hard question that The Hunger Games trilogy proposes as well. Panem is a country where a rich and luxurious Capitol rules the surrounding districts through oppressive and exploitative practices. The people in the districts live in dire poverty, exist on the brink of starvation, and have had all freedoms denied to them. They must labor to meet the insatiable demands of the Capitol and every year send two of their children as tribute to be sacrificed for the Capitol’s entertainment. It is no surprise that when Katniss, the girl of fire, provides the spark, the country erupts into violent rebellion in response to the injustices of the Capitol. But as the story unfolds, it becomes obvious that the Rebellion commits many of the same injustices as the Capitol once did and causes just as much emotional pain to the people of Panem.
So here’s the hard questions that I found The Hunger Games posing –

In the face of starvation, oppressive government, economic inequalities, the people of Panem have very little hope. And the ruling Capitol knows that. As the Capitol reaps children from the districts as tribute for its sick and twisted spectacle of the Hunger Games, it dangles the smallest thread of hope in front of those who have no choice but to go along with the Capitol’s mandates. For even as twenty-four young people are sent into an arena to fight to the death, the Capitol offers the hope of a life of luxury for the victor. All that person has to do is play the Capitol’s game, slaughter the other contestants, and give the watching world a good show and he or she can grasp that better world he always dreamed of.

So I loved this scene with President Snow and Head Gamemaker Seneca Crane that was added to the film version of The Hunger Games –

“Hope… it is the only thing stronger than fear. A little hope is effective; a lot of hope is dangerous. A spark is fine – as long as it’s contained.”

A little hope can keep people in line. Offer people rewards in heaven someday after they die as long as they are good submissive people now and you keep them subdued. Promise people a secure society as long as we write them a blank check to invade other countries and torture people and you can do whatever you want. Encourage people with, “may the odds be ever in your favor,” and some will actually train for the chance to win the Games.

The Capitol knows how the play the Games. It is a festival in the Capitol and something to be endured in the districts – a perfect balance of entertainment and dread that ensures nothing will ever change. One of the most disturbing images in the film was not of the Games themselves, but of a child in the Capitol opening a gift of a toy sword from his father and then using it to play-act at slaughtering his sister as if he were in the Hunger Games. When death is celebrated to the extent that it is truly child’s play or it is something that must be endured for the chance of survival and freedom – the people are effectively contained.

And we wonder why Jesus made Rome so uneasy that they publically executed him as a warning to others. He offered people real hope. Not just the hope of a happier future someday in heaven, or the empty hope of violent rebellion – but a completely different way of living where no one went hungry, the oppressed were set free, and the marginalized welcomed. His followers were accused of turning the world upside-down and they sparked riots for how they disrupted unjust economic systems. Instead of encouraging the poor that if they too exploited others they could be rich someday, Jesus called the rich to end their practices that took advantage of others. His wasn’t a hope that ensured the status quo never changed; he offered dangerous hope, a spark that kindled into a movement that truly did turn the world upside-down.

This scene with President Snow in The Hunger Games of course sets up the story for the next two movies. The girl on fire becomes the spark that sets the world aflame – plunging Panem into violent rebellion. It is a hope in a better world that cannot be contained. Yet ultimately, as Katniss discovers, it is not the fires of rage but the hope of love that is most needed. The violence only continues the Capitols’ Games, with the districts play-acting like that child with the sword. But just like the Capitol citizens who were so brilliantly portrayed in the film as brightly colored and made-up facades – devoid of any substance or character at all – the violence too proves to be an empty hope.

Winning the games costs everything you are as Peeta later confesses to the people of Panem. It is not worth gaining the world and losing your soul. There is no hope in that. Where hope is found in The Hunger Games is in the image of the dandelion in the spring – the image of rebirth that sustains life. The dandelion is the symbol that one need not trust the Capitol for one’s daily bread, that self-sacrificial love is better than revenge, and that goodness survives even destruction. This is dangerous hope that declares freedom from being a piece in the Games. This is the sort of hope that got Jesus crucified. This is hope that cannot be contained.

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For more about how The Hunger Games can help us understand Jesus' message of hope, see my book The Hunger Games and the Gospel: Bread, Circuses, and the Kingdom of God.

To explore the intersection of The Hunger Games and the Gospel is to discover echoes of the good news in the pages of these young adult science fiction books. The good news that Jesus taught of the Kingdom of God offered tangible ways for how a world full of injustice and oppression can be transformed into one of hope—which was a message of good news back when Jesus first preached it and still is for us today. And it’s a message that resonates all throughout the imaginative narrative of The Hunger Games. The Hunger Games is not the Gospel, or even an allegory of the Gospel story, but it reflects the good news, helping to illuminate the path of Kingdom living for readers today.

I wanted to share here a few of the things I have posted elsewhere about The Hunger Games as well as some of the things others have been saying about it. And for all my readers here – thank you so much for your support!

From my article The Hunger Games: An Allegory of Christian Love – Huffington Post Religion (their title, not mine).

After first reading "The Hunger Games" series, I was surprised to encounter the "Team Peeta" and "Team Gale" rivalry on many of the fansites. Maybe it is because I am not a teenage girl, but I was dismayed to see such a profound story reduced to the trivial level of Twilight's love triangle. Yes, in this tale of young Katniss Everdeen's struggle to survive in the dystopian world of Panem, her friends Peeta and Gale are presented as potential love interests. But "The Hunger Games" trilogy is not a mere love story; it is a story about Love.

While it might seem strange to say that a dystopian young adult novel about children killing each other for the entertainment of an indulgent privileged class is about love, as the trilogy unfolds love emerges as the theme holding the narrative together. This is not simply romantic love, but the kind of love that nurtures and sustains life. Those familiar with the teachings of Jesus would recognize it as the sort of love he requests of his followers. Love that sacrifices itself for the sake of others, that sees the hurt and pain in the world and offers healing, and that sees the hungry and feeds them.

From my article Life Under Empire – Sojourners April 2012

THE HOPE IN the face of oppression that Jesus offered is still good news for the world today. Defiant hope may be one reason Katniss’ story resonates with so many readers. We in the United States could be the new Roman Empire or the real Capitol. The districts that labor to meet our needs, often under harsh conditions and for little pay, are the countries of the developing world. Our wealth and power allow us to impose unfair trade laws and build unregulated factories in other countries so that we can live in relative opulence while others toil to provide our food, clothing, and electronics. And as in Panem, anyone who questions our supremacy may face dire consequences.

Praise for The Hunger Games and the Gospel

• "It shouldn’t surprise anyone that Julie Clawson finds everyday justice in the Hunger Games trilogy, but what may surprise and delight is that she reads the story so well and writes so beautifully about the lessons she finds there. Everyone who loves The Hunger Games should read this book."
  – Greg Garrett, author of Faithful Citizenship, One Fine Potion: The Literary Magic of Harry Potter, and The Other Jesus
• "Are we living in the United States of Panem? The Hunger Games trilogy’s depiction of a wealthy, totalitarian regime that exploits its conquered neighbors is more than fiction. The series brings to life the Roman Empire of Jesus’ day and suggests a searing indictment of contemporary American imperialism. Using a framing structure of the Beatitudes, Julie Clawson powerfully explores Katniss’s suffering as a lens for understanding Jesus’ passion for loving our neighbors and building a better world."
  – Jana Riess, author of Flunking Sainthood and What Would Buffy Do?
  Jana posted further comments at her blog as well.
• "What happens when the dystopic world of Panem, ancient biblical faith and contemporary life in a consumerist culture all meet? You get a book like "The Hunger Games and the Gospel." And it all comes down to living under the oppressive power of empire. Suzanne Collins’ wonderful Hunger Games trilogy cries out for precisely this kind of Christian cultural engagement. Always honoring the integrity of Collins’ work, Julie Clawson plays with the resonances and analogies that can be drawn between the trilogy, the Bible and contemporary life in empire. Working from a breadth of biblical knowledge and taking the virtue ethic of Jesus (usually named the Beatitudes) as her starting point, Clawson offers us a reading rich in wisdom, prophetic insight and hope for living a subversive life in the face of empire. I am very excited about this book–and it is sending me back to the original trilogy for yet another read."
  – Brian J. Walsh, author of Kicking at the Darkness: Bruce Cockburn and the Christian Imagination and co-author of Beyond Homelessness: Christian Faith in a Culture of Displacement

  Brian also posted about the book at the Empire Remixed blog.

• "There is no questions that The Hunger Games Triology has touched something deep in the psyche of its millions of readers, stirring up the questions and uncertainties that we all foster about our future. With sharp clarity and stunning insight, Julie Clawson not only helps us understand our visceral response to the series, but does so by interweaving it with Jesus' Beatitudes. The result points realistic a hope for today and for the future."
  -Jamie Arpin-Ricci, author The Cost of Community: Jesus, St. Francis & Life in the Kingdom
• A great review from Marty Alan Michelson
• Rachel Held Evans writes –
  "I admit I am usually skeptical about books that claim to offer a "Christian perspective" on popular culture. But I trust Julie Clawson. And she does not disappoint. Not unlike the Hunger Games series itself, I read The Hunger Games and the Gospel in one sitting. Clawson does a fantastic job of reminding readers that Collins’ world of occupation, oppression, excess, and poverty is not so far removed from our own, and that it is exactly the kind of world in which Jesus himself lived."
• And mentions in the Desert News and the National Review.

I’m a fan of Daniel Kirk’s writing. After meeting him at the 2009 Emergent Theological Conversation, I’ve enjoyed following him online. He is one of the few academics that Tweets about all aspects of life – from theological questions to what he’s making his family for breakfast. As a good postmodern who values authenticity, that’s something I admire. I like the questions he asks and his way of presenting possible answers. I don’t always agree with him, but I always respect how he engages in the conversation – which also sums up my reaction to his book. There are places in the book where I have quibbles (and a few outright objections), but on the whole I appreciate his overall vision that Paul is presenting a narrative theology of how the identity of the people of God gets formed which very much holds together with both the story of Israel and Jesus’ teachings.

Growing up as an evangelical, I received heavy doses of Paul (and little of Jesus), but the Paul I received was a Paul who was both quick to criticize and dismiss his Jewish roots and offer the hope of escaping this world soon by shuffling off the despised mortal flesh. But once I started paying attention to the Old Testament and the teachings of Jesus, this Paul no longer made sense. I was one of those that the book suggests needs “a healthy deconstruction of their understanding of Paul” (5). And this book does that and does it well. In rescuing Paul from his forced isolation by demonstrating how he contributes to the ongoing narrative of God working to redeem the world, it transforms the often uncomfortable dogmatic statements and rules into vital (albeit often contextual) parts of that story.

What I appreciated most was how Kirk interpreted Paul’s writings on the hope of the resurrection. He straightforwardly demonstrates that this hope has nothing to do with escape from or rejection of creation, but instead is all about living into the new creation. This hope means that the kingdom of God is now and that Jesus is reigning over it putting it in order. As Kirk writes, what this means is that “The kingdom of God is at hand in the undoing of all the sin and death and brokenness and disorder that mar the very good world of God” (39). The advice that Paul gives in his letters is not about perfecting oneself so that one day one might be worthy of heaven, but practical advice for how the community of God lives in the kingdom here and now as part of God’s work restoring creation.

I appreciate this eschatological interpretation of Paul’s narrative theology that values the present as much as it does the future. It is hard to love the world enough to desire its transformation (as Jesus and the Old Testament prophets did) if one simply desires to escape it someday. But as the book argues, Paul is presenting a vision for how people continue in the way of Jesus and live transformativly in the present. And this is possible because “new creation is not simply something that we look forward to; it is something in which we already participate. The culmination of the story is exerting a sort of backward force, such that the future, by power of the life-giving Spirit, is intruding on the present and transforming it” (47). As one who has had Paul imposed on me as apology for why I shouldn’t care about seeking justice in the world, this rescuing of Paul from his escapist captivity is refreshing. For those who have been uneasy with the Paul they were taught (who seemed to have little to do with the Jesus they love) and who respect the Bible too much to simply reject Paul’s writing, this returning of Paul to the larger narrative context of scripture is a blessing making the book well worth the read. I will be engaging specifically the books’ perspective on Paul’s writings on women next week where I will address a few of my minor concerns with the book, but I wanted to highlight here the book’s exceedingly helpful presentation of Paul in light of the rest of scripture. I encourage readers to follow the blog tour and engage in the conversation as it unfolds.

Be sure to stop by the Blog Tour Hub for a chance to win a free copy of the book!

We somehow seem to have forgotten the earth-shattering reality of that which we await. Advent is more than just a coming; it is the breaking in of the divine into the everyday patterns of this world. It is the hope of the future incarnate in the present making all things new. To live expectantly into the incarnation is to affirm the eschatological hope of the future while at the same time be transformed by that very hope already at work in the present. To observe Advent isn’t simply to reenact a memory of the past or look towards a second coming someday, for both would implicitly assume a present absence of the divine. The Word became flesh and dwelt among us, forever transforming possible modes of being in this world. To anticipate the fulfillment of this hope is to accept the new way of being that broke into our world with the incarnation of the long expected Jesus.

It is safe to in remembrance await the coming of a powerless child or to simply tinker with the language and rituals that comfort us with the promise that the liberating hope of Christ is something we can only await. What is seemingly far more difficult is to actually live into the alternate reality that the advent of Christ ushered into the present. To anticipate hope by actively going out to meet it. To await the coming of the Kingdom of God by living in it right now. To declare that the status quos of injustice, oppression, and suffering have no place in the transformed new creation of Christ.

We are not the ones creating hope, but neither are we the ones simply awaiting a future hope. Advent reminds us that hope in the form of Jesus has already broken into our world. To live in expectation of that hope is to live into it – to embody the alternate reality Jesus made possible. The world and even the church may resist this subversion of the status quo even as they incant the very refrain “Come thou long expected Jesus,” for they have safely bracketed off hope in the past and future. Expecting to encounter the transforming and liberating hope of Jesus in the present is the far more difficult aspect of the incarnation to await.

“This being caught up into the messianic sufferings of God in Jesus Christ takes a variety of forms in the New Testament. It appears in the call to discipleship, in Jesus’ table-fellowship with sinners… in the healing of the sick, in Jesus’ acceptance of children. The shepherds, like the wise men from the East, stand at the crib, not as ‘converted sinners’, but simply because they are drawn to the crib by the star just as they are… The only thing that is common to all these is their sharing in the suffering of God in Christ. That is their ‘faith.’ There is nothing of religious method here. The religious act’ is always something partial; ‘faith’ is something whole, involving the whole of one’s life. Jesus calls men, not to a new religion, but to life.

I found the passage so intriguing because it challenges the Christian assumption that encountering Jesus is an end in itself. For many in the church, “finding Jesus” is the point of conversion and salvation. This encounter is presumed to result in the involvement in religious activities such as attending church (which does not necessarily imply being part of the community of church), acts of personal piety, and the elimination of certain sins like sexual immorality. This encounter is what guarantees one a place in heaven and is often assumed to also grant one financial and social success in this life as well. In a dualistic sense, one’s souls’ eternal destiny is changed by this encounter, while physical life continues mostly as before (just in perhaps a better way). There is the encounter that in theory changes everything and in practice changes very little. For unless one’s whole life gets caught up in that suffering of Jesus, the encounter just affects the partial religious acts.

While some might say that ensuring one’s entrance into heaven is to have one’s life caught up into Jesus, it is still a partial event since it ignore the pre-converted life and often the entirety of physical life as well. As the God who suffered Jesus was already present though in the lives of all – the sick, the children, the shepherds, the wise men. He didn’t encounter them and change them so they could now be part of his story; his story became their story as they moved as they were towards him. To find Jesus in a moment is to assume that one was without God and then suddenly has God. Discipleship though is a journey where as people created in God’s image we move ever towards the people we were created to be.

The journey is our conversion as it was for the wise men drawn by the star. That shaping and forming of our selves into Christ-likeness is not a momentary wave of the magic Jesus wand, but the ongoing process of coming to reflect the image of the one in which we live and move and have our being. It is an entirely new life, like Bonhoeffer states, not simply a religious act we join into when it is convenient to us. And it by necessity involves being caught up in suffering. The suffering of Jesus frees us to reject the systems of the world that leave no room for the suffering (or are the cause of that very suffering). Instead of concentrating on our momentary encounters with Jesus, we are free instead to journey towards that shalom of all. The discipline of participating in Christ, the suffering of Christ, leads us not toward more acts of religion but toward standing in solidarity with the suffering. That is simply part of our conversion as we participate in ever fuller ways in our creator.

So on the morning of September 11, I arrived at the country club where the retreat was being held and situated myself at the conference table in a room with a panoramic view of the far west Chicago suburbs. We dove right into discussing the submitted articles, but about an hour later when the waitress came in with more coffee and danishes she mentioned that a plane had just flown into the World Trade Center. We all assumed it was another personal plane incident like the one that had flown into the Empire State Building a few years before and continued working. When we broke for lunch the head editors called the office and then quickly left. The rest of us stayed on and even watched a Bibleman episode for possible review, fairly oblivious to the events of the day.

It wasn’t until I left the country club in the late afternoon and turned on the car radio that I began to have an inkling of the magnitude of the day. I rushed home to my tiny basement apartment which had no TV reception and tried futilely to get online but the dial-up lines were all busy for hours. I recall going out to get the special evening edition of the newspaper and crashing the Wheaton College student lounge (with their TV and cable hookup) just to get some idea of what was happening. The next day I was scheduled to host my church’s table at the Wheaton College ministry fair, which meant I spent the day surrounded by not only college students but also representatives of every church and parachurch ministry in the Wheaton area. It was a surreal day as people attempted to process the shock and openly shared the subsequent anger and hatred that had started to develop. That evening my church held a prayer meeting, and I recall praying that this act of terror would not lead to people lashing out against the innocent as a form of revenge. I was informed afterwards that my prayer was inappropriate. Three weeks later I heard back from Christianity Today informing me that they had a hiring freeze and the position I was applying for was eliminated in favor of restructuring the department.

It’s strange to reflect back on the day the world changed. And a bit eerie to recall that I spent the afternoon of September 11 watching the Bibleman episode about how good Christian students need to stop hanging out with their non-Christian peers because they can be a bad influence on their faith and then spent the next day listening to Evangelical leaders responding to their enemy in hate. I couldn’t have know it at the time, but within those first two days after the attack I caught a glimpse of how the events of Sept. 11th would shape the church over the next ten years. The world has irrevocably changed – despite the ongoing attempts to pretend that that the false security and pride of American exceptionalism is still a viable option in a globalized world. Over this past decade this new world has forced me to abandon a naïve faith that cared only for the state of my own soul, and embrace the fact that I am connected to others as a child of God. Who I am is as much dependant on how I honor the image of God in them as it is on any acts of ritual or piety I engage in.

Perhaps it took 9/11 and the response of fear and hatred I found in the church to push me to finally realize that my faith had to be more about God than myself. I don’t know if I will ever know for sure, but it has assuredly been a decade of change from which there is no going back. And sadly, constantly living in a culture of fear has prevented many in the church from wondering what sort of people we are being changed into. But the questions need to be asked. Are we more Christ-like now? Is God’s Kingdom more visible ten years later? Maybe simply asking those questions this Sept. 11th can help us turn a day that could easily kindle new waves of hatred into one that pushes us outside of our all-consuming selves and back to the sort of people Jesus calls us to be.

That sort of denial of the created world in favor of escaping it all someday was difficult to hear, but it wasn’t surprising. As much as a few more moderate evangelicals attempt to deny that such “pie-in-the-sky-when-we-die” theology is still around, it still shapes the faith experience of the typical evangelical church most Sundays. What has surprised me recently is hearing similar dualism preached in churches that would never self-identity as being anywhere near such evangelicals theologically. But despite having disparate views on the Bible, justification, and inclusiveness, the outcome of such dualism in those churches is the same – a disparaging of the body and elevation of the soul. Be the roots a shallow neo-Gnosticism or popular Buddhism or simply a theology that starts with the Fall instead of creation, what get preached is that we are not our bodies.

It’s a way of viewing the world that makes that bumper sticker, “We are spiritual beings having a physical experience,” so popular. What gets valued is not the actions of faith – caring for others, studying the word, serving the poor, tending to creation, feeding the hungry – but finding spiritual contentment deep down in one's soul. While evangelicals admit that life now is messed-up and so look forward to escaping it all someday, progressive dualists want to escape it now through meditating, unplugging, and letting-go of any obligation to help build a better world.

And therein lies the problem. When faith is all about a dualistic escapism, it sadly allows no room for mercy. Evangelicals often mock calls to work to save the environment or end extreme poverty because this world is not our home and is all going to burn anyway. Progressive dualists similarly mock calls to work for justice as imposing unnecessary shoulds upon them that get in the way of them being present with their souls. Both forms of denying our embodiment in this world provide convenient excuses for ignoring the needs of others as individuals are allowed to focus solely on their own personal spiritual needs. It’s easier to opt out of loving one’s neighbor when one’s theology is built around such a hierarchical view of creation that not only divides our body and souls, but privileges the one over the other. And with such views held by those in power, the bodies of the marginalized (women, the poor, the racially other, the queer, the old, the disabled) continue to be oppressed and ignored by those whose theologies assume they aren’t worth being bothered about.

These are theologies that I can’t reconcile with the way of Christ. With the story of a God who, challenging the dualist religious assumptions of the time, became flesh and dwelled among us. Who broke bread, healed bodies, and suffered on the cross. Who says he despises our religious gatherings if all we do is pray and worship and neglect caring for the bodies of the hungry and the oppressed. I have to affirm creation in its wholeness – undivided body and soul included. My theology is embodied because spirituality encompasses all creation, not just the parts I happen to prefer. I think Elisabeth Moltmann-Wendel phased it best as she described what it means to live out this embodied theology –

Disembodiment is lovelessness. Insecurity, coldness, power and weariness are hidden behind abstraction. A theology of embodiment mistrusts all self-made fantasies of the beyond which are engaged in at the expense of the healing of people here and the realization of the kingdom of God on this earth. It is committed to a this-worldly expectation which here already looks for full, complete life, for wide spaces for women and men, and from this work derives the hope that nothing can separate us from the life and love of God.