Tag: Kingdom of God

Do You Hear the People Sing?

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Obama inaugurationThere has, of course, in the past couple of days been much talk about Obama’s inauguration speech (and just about as much talk about Michelle Obama’s haircut and dress, but that’s a whole different issue). It is difficult to even begin to comment on the speech because as soon as you say anything supportive or positive you get labeled as an Obama-worshiping fanatic. So just to be clear – I have some serious issues with Obama, especially with his record of violence and for sometimes being too weak to stand up to bullies and just get stuff done already.

That said, I was fascinated with the tone of his inaugural speech.

I honestly could care less that he used the language of the right to promote leftist (actually, more like centrist) ideas. What I loved was the language of action and hope.

Choir w_Name B_11.40_0As I was watching the inauguration I cringed a bit as I heard the Brooklyn Tabernacle Choir start to sing “The Battle Hymn of the Republic.” The triumphalist eschatological imagery of “Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord: He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored; He hath loosed the fateful lightning of His terrible swift sword: His truth is marching on” isn’t exactly the sort of Christianity (even in a civil religion guise) that I want to see on display, especially at an event like this. Then I was reminded that this was an abolitionist hymn. The coming of the Lord was in fact the Union soldiers trampling the South. In its odd postmillennial theology this hymn teaches that the crushing of the South was in fact part of a much larger series of events—the very Second Coming of Christ and the realization of God’s kingdom on earth. The hope is that we, with our own actions, can bring about the realization of the full and complete reign of God on earth.

But barely a decade after writing those lyrics Julia Ward Howe had changed her tune. She had witnessed a bloody war and the detestation it wrought. No longer was she advocating violence as the means of bringing about the reign of God, but instead was a proponent of peace. For anyone with open enough eyes to see the realities of war and the pain in the world, it is hard to hold onto such a vision of hope through military conquest.

As I heard that song sung at the inauguration I could not help but be reminded of the final song from Les Miserables –

Do you hear the people sing?
Lost in the valley of the night
It is the music of a people who are climbing to the light
For the wretched of the earth
There is a flame that never dies
Even the darkest nights will end and the sun will rise

They will live again in freedom in the garden of the lord
They will walk behind the ploughshare
They will put away the sword
The chain will be broken and all men will have their reward!

Will you join in our crusade?
Who will be strong and stand with me?
Somewhere beyond the barricade is there a world you long to see?
Do you hear the people sing?
Say, do you hear the distant drums?
It is the future that they bring when tomorrow comes!

While in stage productions of the musical this song is sung by the entire cast, the recent movie had it sung on the barricades by those who had died. That disturbed me. Here are the miserable of the earth, those who suffer under the system that cares little for their needs, and the message of hope is that someday after death in the garden of the lord the chains of oppression will be broken and all will have their reward. After seeing Cosette and Marius have their “hey look we are rich and happy now” wedding this message that someday the miserable will escape and find comfort did not play well. It doesn’t matter if we hear the people sing or dream of a world beyond the barricade (much less work to make it a reality) if all that matters is that reward comes in heaven someday after we die.

This message is just the flip side of “The Battle Hymn of the Republic.” Hope – the realization of the Kingdom of God – in these views must be fully here and now or only in the world to come.

The problem is that neither view is actually hopeful and both are a bit dangerous. Either one assumes responsibility for saving the world (which is never our responsibility to bear) and becomes discouraged and disillusioned when it doesn’t fully happen or one doesn’t see the need to work for change in the present since what matters most is the life to come. Meanwhile the poor are always with us and the miserable remain.

So it was with these thoughts about the failings of such eschatology that assumes either an already or not yet view of the Kingdom that I listened to Obama’s speech and found in his words a balance of these extremes. That is not to say that I liked everything he said or that I think Obama or politics is our only hope (so don’t even go there). What I liked was that he modeled a way of talking about hope that admits to the realities of suffering in the here and now and that doing what we can for those who suffer is a never-ending process. There were no promises of a perfect world or guarantees that we can eradicate poverty, hunger, or prejudice in our time, but instead a reminder that our job is to join in on the ongoing struggle to put into effect our values. We are following that guiding star, Obama noted, just like those before us did at Seneca Falls, Selma, and Stonewall. Working on the side of hope is never something that we ever finish doing or something we can put off for another day, but the essence of our very day to day journey.

That, sadly, is a message that many in the church seem to have forgotten. Hope can be present here and now, but it is also always something to be seeking as well. God’s Kingdom is both to come and made present now when we live in its ways.

I applaud the President’s speech for highlighting that reality. But I also wonder, why does it take a Presidential address for this message to be stated? Why isn’t the church the one known for speaking of hope in such ways?

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Terrified of Mercy

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I’ve always been fond of those illusion pictures (like the old woman or young lady image). There is always an image that one sees first and it takes time and training to see the other perspective – but once one does it is impossible to not see both. That shift in part describes my experience with Christian art after having encountered Rita Brock’s work.

I’ve heard Rita speak and have read some of Saving Paradise. In her work, she explores the ways early Christian art focused less on the crucifixion of Christ and instead on the ways Christ redeems and baptizes the world. While later Christian art is full of crucifixion images and accompanied a theology that saw this world as an evil from which we must escape, earlier art presented Christ in his glory using baptism as an entry point into the paradise of this world. This baptized world is not perfect of course, but it is a place to struggle together in the process of becoming more like God. As Brock suggests, this early art — which included images of water flowing from Christ over the earth — conveys the theology that everlasting life begins at baptism (not when we die and escape) and invites us to live as Christ lived even in the present.

Brock points out that most commentaries on Christian art ignore these images of baptism and the theology they imply. But after seeing her point out in images the presence of water flowing from Christ, it is hard now not to see it. And it is exactly what I encountered when I was in Los Angeles recently and had the opportunity to visit the Heaven, Hell, and Dying Well: Images of Death in the Middle Ages exhibit at the Getty Museum.

My experience of the exhibit began as I was walking in and overheard a child asking her father what the title of the exhibit meant. His response was that the church used to use the idea of hell to frighten people into doing what they wanted and that these were some of the images they used to do so. I cringed at his explanation, but then encountered basically the same idea in the commentaries posted by each image. Each one seemed to be explained as “Christ sending sinners into everlasting punishment in hell. Used to convince people to obey the church so that they could avoid such when they died.”

The problem is that is not what I was seeing in those images. I was seeing the baptismal waters of Christ. Even as people were being pulled into the torment of hell by death, the baptismal waters were still covering them and in some it was obvious Christ was rescuing them (see my rather blurry examples). I found it fascinating that these aspects were not mentioned in the commentaries, but that the narrative of Christ punishing bad people by sending them to hell has so infiltrated our cultural imaginations that it is near impossible to admit to alternative narratives. We in our retributive and manipulative culture seem to relish the idea of the wicked getting what they deserve and those who follow the “right” set of rules being rewarded. But, I wonder, how much more poignant (in the full heart-wrenching sense of that term) is the idea of Christ redeeming the world and inviting all into abundant life beginning now?

Forgiveness and mercy aren’t cheap or easy. The wicked are never let off the hook when they are redeemed. If we ignore life in this world and focus on just the punishment or reward of some afterlife, we miss the struggle that walking in the way of Christ involves. If baptism invites us to enter into the earthly paradise where although evil is yet present, we still can struggle along together toward our mutual spiritual flourishing, we are not in for an easy journey. Living in the way of Christ instead of the greedy consuming ways of the world is the hardest path we can ever follow. Punishment is easy because we can remain our selfish selves as we are cast out; mercy is hard because it forces us to change. Not getting what we deserve is truly the most devastating yet beautiful thing that could ever happen to us.

There is a fantastic scene near the end of the Doctor Who episode Last of the Time Lords that illustrates this devastating baptism of mercy perfectly. After the character The Master attempts to take over the universe and nearly destroys the earth in the process, the Doctor yet again saves the day. At one point the Doctor is filled with the glory of all space and time and appears transfigured in all his power before the Master to confront him with his deeds. The Master first tries to attack the Doctor and yet his attacks are futile. He then cowers in a corner as the Doctor hovers above him with a look of infinite sorrow on his face and they have this exchange –

The Doctor: I’m sorry. I’m so sorry…
The Master: You can’t do this! YOU CAN’T DO THIS! IT’S NOT FAIR!
The Doctor: Then you know what happens now.
The Master: [scared] No! NO! NO! NO!
The Doctor: [serious] You wouldn’t listen…
The Master: [cowering] NO!
The Doctor: [serious] ‘Cause you know what I’m gonna say.
The Master: [terrified] No!
[the Doctor touches down, the glow of light vanishes, the Doctor kneels next to the Master and puts his arms around him]
The Doctor: I forgive you.

The Master is heartbroken to unfairly receive mercy and an invitation to live differently with the Doctor – healing instead of dominating worlds. As I watched that episode recently, that scene reminded me of that exhibit at the Getty where the obvious in art is ignored because we simply do not want to accept that perhaps it is mercy and invitation instead of death and punishment that Christ is actually offering. We are terrified to think that perhaps this life does matter, that we must choose a much harder path than merely assuming we chose the right religion. Accepting the baptism of this life is devastating, so we ignore it in our art, label it heresy in our churches, and go on living exactly as we wish. Yet, Christ is there baptizing us anyway, saying “I’m sorry, I am so sorry. I forgive you.”

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Talking about The Hunger Games and the Gospel

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Things have been a bit crazy around here with the release of my book The Hunger Games and the Gospel. I loved the books (and can’t wait to see the movie), so it’s been a blessing to be able to write about the ways this powerful story can help us better understand our faith. As I wrote in the book –

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.
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The Hunger Games and the Gospel

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My new book, The Hunger Games and the Gospel, is soon to be released as an ebook through Patheos Press and I’m excited to finally get to share the cover. Pretty awesome.

As most of you know I am a huge sci-fi/fantasy geek and fell in love with the Hunger Games trilogy as soon as I read it. Writing this book not only allowed me to spend time with a story I deeply appreciated, but to connect it to my Christian convictions and passion for justice. Stay tuned for more details, but for now I’ll leave you with a brief overview of the book –

In a globalized world full of uncertainty and injustice, Suzanne Collins’ Hunger Games series has captured the imaginations of readers looking for glimmers of hope. The tale of Katniss Everdeen’s journey of survival in the post-apocalyptic country of Panem, where bread and circuses distract the privileged and allow a totalitarian regime to oppress the masses, parallels situations in our world today. Our culture’s hyper-consumerism and obsession with constant entertainment as well as the worldwide economic and political systems that prey upon the weak and the poor are evidence that the imbalances and injustices described in Panem don’t just exist in speculative fiction. At the same time, the series’ themes of resistance to oppression and hope for a better world, portrayed honestly as messy and difficult endeavors, echo the transformative way of life Jesus offered his followers.

The Hunger Games and the Gospel explores these themes in the Hunger Games that have resonated so deeply with readers by examining their similarity to the good news found in Jesus’ message about living in the ways of God’s Kingdom. Taking the rich statements of the Beatitudes which serve as mini-pictures of God’s dreams realized on earth as in heaven, each chapter reflects on how those pictures are exhibited both in the narrative of the Hunger Games, and in Jesus’ time, and then explores their significance for our own world. Readers are invited to allow the inspiration of the Hunger Games help them live in the ways of the Kingdom of God by discovering how they too can work towards to possibility of a better world.

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Anti-American Christian

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I’ll admit, I follow a few celebrities on Twitter – especially the writers and actors of my favorite sci-fi shows. If I didn’t love Firefly/Serenity and Chuck, I probably wouldn’t be following Adam Baldwin (@adamsbaldwin) – pictured here at Austin ComicCon. At the same time it’s sickly fascinating to read his extreme right-wing hate speech on a regular basis. I’m still not for sure if his Twitter persona is an extension of his characters or if he simply plays himself in his shows – as his gun-loving Ronald-Reagan-obsessed characters mirror what he posts on Twitter. So whether or not his tweets are caricature or the real deal, they serve as my reminder of the extremes of individualistic nationalism that stands in direct contrast to the ways of the Kingdom of God.

A few days ago, he posted the following Tweet –

anti -American Blog! | RT @washingtonpost “Why do we overlook civilians killed in American wars?” – http://wapo.st/xhLko2 ~ #FreedomIsNotFree

At first it pissed me off. What sort of people are we if it is considered not only unpatriotic but actually anti-American to care about the innocent people our country kills? Are the deaths of children on their way to school or of a mother in the marketplace really simply the cost of the freedoms we enjoy? To not expect them to pay that cost or to even mention that they are paying that cost, is therefore a betrayal of our country? Who are we that anyone would argue that such things define our national identity?

But as I considered the idea of national identity, I realized that the very notion of rooting one’s identity in one’s nation requires that the nation be valued before all else. If who one is at their core is a citizen of the United States (as opposed to say a Christian), then defending and protecting the manifest desires of the nation must form a person’s core identity as well. What is right (what is ethical) is therefore what serves the nation no matter who it harms or uses. Freedom, defined as the nation always getting what it wants when it wants, is of course not free as anyone who stands in the way of the nation’s ascendency must pay.

As a pure philosophy, it holds together and I respect the right of others to hold to that philosophy. The problem is of course when that religion of nationalism is sold as the right and true path for Christians. Few people would admit to rooting their identity in the nation or placing the needs of the nation at the forefront of their lives. But if they are told that in doing so they are actually serving God, then they easily jump on that bandwagon. In this way to care about the death of innocents or to question why others must pay for our expensive lifestyles is not just un-American it is unchristian. But as Walter Brueggemann has written, nations and empires “lack both patience and tolerance toward those whose ultimate loyalty belongs to someone or something other than the empire itself.” The clever way to deal with such impatience is to turn the worship of that other thing into worship of the empire. So if the nation can get those that claim to worship God to actually worship the nation in the name of God, then there is no conflict of interest. It’s idolatry of course, but it keeps the peace as it serves the nation.

So I realized that it is not so much the words of Adam Baldwin’s tweets that upset me so much, but that they echo the idolatry I hear on the lips of so many professed Christians (and, yes, before you accuse me of partisanship, liberal Christians can be trapped in idolatry as well). More and more therefore I want to embrace the anti-American label. I appreciate my country and am grateful to live here (and don’t foolishly believe anywhere else would be better). I also desire to embrace the call Jeremiah gave to the Israelites to seek the peace and prosperity of the land of their exile. But if being American means finding my identity in the nation and situating my ethics in my loyalty to it, then as a Christian I have no choice but to be anti-American. My ethics must be based on “blessed are the poor and those who hunger and thirst after righteousness” instead of “We’re #1” and “freedom (for us) isn’t free.” So thank you, Adam Baldwin/Jayne/John Casey for reminding me of my identity and what it means to give my allegiance solely to the Kingdom of God.

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