On Superheroes

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My children have discovered superheroes.

They’ve always known about superheroes of course, but over the past few months they have jumped fully into the world. So we’ve been watching the movies, reading comic books, and listening to my trivia-obsessed daughter repeat all the details from entries in her X-Men or Justice League encyclopedias. I am even sewing capes for my son’s superhero birthday party in a couple of weeks.

So with all that said, I have a confession to make – I’m honestly really conflicted about the whole superhero thing. Oh, I too loved superheroes as a kid and like any good child of the 80’s I ran around my neighborhood in my Wonder Woman underoos. But while I love the idea of heroes working to help make the world a better place, there is just too much baggage that comes along with the genre for me to be comfortable with it. It is hard to get past the imperialist propaganda of Superman or Captain America out there fighting for “truth, justice, and the American Way.” It is even harder to accept as heroes the billionaire, playboy, philanthropist types who essentially must work to save the world from the fallout of their own participation in the military industrial complex and finance schemes. And while I recognize that more recent comics explore the complex ethics and struggles these conflicts present, that’s not the story my children are discovering.

But beyond those philosophical issues, my biggest struggle with superheroes is the portrayal of violence as the answer to everything. Even the characters that try to resist violence always end up facing a bad guy so evil that they have no choice but to respond with violence. Any commitment to peacemaking is cast as essentially choosing to side with evil. And on a visceral level, this is what the audience wants from this genre. It comforts people to have the world cast as good versus evil where the good guy is stronger and can beat the bad guy in the end. People want the solution to all the world’s problems to be as simple as the Hulk shutting up Loki’s endless prattling by smashing him back and forth into the floor. Who cares what Loki was actually saying (or that it sounded eerily similar to what a lot of theologians and politicians are saying these days), it’s funnier and more cathartic to have him beat into a pulp through mindless anger.

This issue arose with my seven year old daughter recently when after seeing The Avengers she asked me what “avengers” meant. I told her that to avenge means to get back at someone, to hurt someone because they hurt you or something you care about. Since this of course conflicts with everything we (and her school) are trying to teach her about how to respond to others, I asked her if she thought avenging wrongs was a good thing or not. After agreeing that it was wrong to avenge, she commented that it seemed like “The Avengers” was a bad name for that group of superheroes. She said that they don’t avenge as much as protect, so they should really be called “The Protectors.” She then told me that I need to email the people who created it and tell them they got the name wrong (cuz in her mind why wouldn’t Marvel and Stan Lee listen to her mommy?). So despite the violence “The Protectors” use, I at least got to discuss with her the impulse behind that violence – distinguishing defense from revenge and rage.

That conversation then led to another discussion a few days later about a t-shirt I was wearing (shown here). She asked about the symbols and I explained what they were and how each of them worked. I then asked her which would she choose. Interestingly, she immediately ruled out Excalibur and the lightsaber since those are only used for fighting others. She then had a hard time choosing from the remaining “magic wands” of Gandalf’s staff, the Elder Wand, and the Doctor’s Sonic Screwdriver. The potential to alter and fix the world held far more appeal than simply fighting the evil it contains.

I think it is that impulse to do good in the world that attracts my kids to superheroes, but I remain conflicted with how the genre portrays building a better world as being simply the need to defeat absolute evil. There are demons that need to be fought in our world today (and all too often they look more like Tony Stark and Bruce Wayne than Loki or the Green Goblin), but the superheroes we need are those willing to work to fix problems and not simply those that avenge and destroy. It might not be as sexy or entertaining as blowing things up or smashing arrogant gods, but those are the hero traits I’d prefer my kids to be admiring.

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Wild Goose Festival 2012

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In just a few short weeks my family will be making the journey cross-country to the Wild Goose Festival in Shakori Hills, NC (June 21-24). This festival of spirituality, justice, and art is in its second year and we are excited about returning. My kids especially have been asking since last summer when we would get to return. This year I will be leading a discussion around the themes I explored in The Hunger Games and the Gospel as well as participating on a panel focused on people with disability in the church.

Over the next few days (until midnight May 27th) any of my readers who are interested in attending can get a 15% discount off the ticket price by entering the promotional code CLAWSON at – http://wildgoosefestival.eventbrite.com. I can’t wait to get there and I look forward to seeing some of you there.

To help you get glimpse of what the Wild Goose Festival is all about, here’s a bit from my reflections on last year’s gathering –

I love the use of the Celtic “wild goose” as the symbol of this gathering exploring creativity, justice, and spirituality. It evokes that other distinctly Celtic idea of peregrinati – journeys or wanderings of an undefined but spiritual nature. It is the wild goose flying where it will, exploring new territories and discovering new horizons amidst even the everyday and the familiar landscapes of home. The Celtic monks followed that call of the wild bird on their peregrinati, journeying with the spirit on undetermined paths. They served, and worshiped, and reflected along the way but often had no real goal or destination beyond the journey itself. They embodied Tolkien’s famous “not all who wander are lost” phrase, for it was their wanderings – their wild goose chases -that held the meaning in themselves.
…
If anything, Wild Goose was a gathering of those who dream of a better way. A better way to be human, a better way to be the church. Not in a “we want to be better than you” sort of way, but more of a deep felt recognition that the world is not as it should be. It was that wrestling with trying to live into the lives God created us to live that became the conversation at Wild Goose.

While the church of course has a long way to go in regards to becoming balanced and healthy in such ways, it was encouraging to get a small taste of what that might look like at the Wild Goose Festival. I can’t speak for everyone there, but from the conversations I was a part of it truly did seem to be a gathering of folks who deeply dreamed of a better way. People who desired for our faith to mean something tangible. People, who, as Richard Rohr said there, don’t want to settle for the easy shallow faith of merely worshiping God – putting God on an idealized but distant pedestal to be admired but not known. They want to follow God in ways that transform their lives and therefore the lives of others as well. People who desire to follow God in ways that bring about justice, that seek to restore broken relationships, that always orient around caring about the needs of others. But also people who don’t trust in their own strength to do such things, who know the world and the church are messy, and that we need time for lament and repentance as part of our experience of following Jesus.

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Theology in the Dressing Room

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With the school semester finally over and summer rapidly approaching, I recently embarked on the dreaded task of shopping for a new swimsuit. While I could easily rant about that process, I wanted to share my encounter with a very interesting dressing room attendant.

To remind my readers who have never actually met me, I am missing my left arm below the elbow (hence the name of my blog – onehandclapping). When I walked walked into the dressing room this lady immediately saw my arm and started offering to do everything for me. She took all the suits, walked me to the handicapped stall, took everything off the hangers for me, undid all the fastenings, and then offered to help me try on the items. While it was a bit infuriating that she assumed that my disability meant that I could not dress myself, I tried to just appreciate her helpfulness. Then she chose to stand right outside my dressing room and talk to me the entire time I was in there. And this wasn’t just small talk either, she essentially delivered a sermon to me about how Jesus had brought me to her to allow her to help a person in need. She then went on about how God has given me strength and grace to manage in this world with just one arm and how blessed I must feel that I have had such grace bestowed upon me.

By that point, I was feeling rather uncomfortable. I hadn’t told her my faith choices, but I did know that the woman who came in before me was Muslim and was having to listen to this sermon. And while I believe that we are all blessed by God, I am not a fan of being pitied because I am “abnormal.” But then this woman started describing a homeless man she had seen on the way in to work. She described how he seemed to have created a home out of a shopping cart and that it was his choice to be living in such misery. She said as she passed him, God told her that she didn’t need to help him because if he chose to he could do something with his life and be blessed too. She then praised me for choosing to live in such a way that I can receive God’s blessing.

I didn’t want to argue with her, so I gave her a quick thanks and walked away as she called out to me to always remember to trust in and praise Jesus. But it was such a strange encounter that it’s been hard to stop thinking about it. I don’t know her and don’t want to so readily judge her as she did me and the homeless man, but I couldn’t help but see her as the perfect example of why so many Christians are reluctant to love their neighbors. We create categories that allow us to help those we can pity and see as helpless but which excuse us from helping those we find difficult or uncomfortable – and we do so in the name of Jesus. We create tribes and in-groups and then rationalize that God only desires for us to love our neighbors within the tribes we have created in our own image. We theologize ourselves out of following the greatest commandments and then praise God.

The tendency these days for Christians to pick and choose who they will love is sadly becoming the defining characteristic of what it means to be a Christian. My awkward dressing room encounter simply reminded me of this trend. I just wonder what it will take for that to change?

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Responsible Relationships

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I have not had much time to blog recently as I am in the midst of end of the semester craziness, but I thought I’d post this excerpt of a paper I wrote for my ethics class –

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.

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Letters to a Future Church

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I had been anticipating the release of the book Letters to a Future Church: Words of Encouragement and Prophetic Appeals (IVP), so I eagerly said that I would participate in a blog tour related to the book. As a collection of letters to the church from both leaders and laity alike, the book lives up to its subtitle as it offers both encouragement and prophetic calls to embrace various ways of being a Christian in the 21st century. What I found most intriguing was that in its intent to address the future church, what this collection provides is a helpful snapshot of the diversity of voices in the North American Evangelical church today. So, for instance, some of the letters uphold right doctrine and culture wars as the path forward for the church and others the embracing of social justice. Some voices both question and mock the perceived problems of the church today while others rejoice in the blessings the body of Christ is offering the world. With authors as diverse as Rachel Held Evans, Tim Challies, Shane Claiborne, and David Fitch these differences are not surprising. At the same time it is immensely encouraging to read these diverse voices coming together under the common vision of imagining what it means to be the church in the years ahead.

While I found a number of the letters personally challenging, the most poignant word for the church (for me at least) was in Peter Rollins’ letter. He writes –

It is not enough for you [the church] to say that you are falling short of your beliefs, for this very confession plays into the idea that there is a difference between your various beliefs and your actions. Rather, if you will permit, I ask you to remember the radical Christian insight that one’s actions reflect one’s beliefs. That you cannot say that you believe in God if you do not commit yourself to what Kierkegaard referred to as the work love.

As part of this blog tour, I was asked to write my own letter to the church which I have found to be more difficult than I thought it would be. There are a million things that I could say to the church, most of which are simply evidence of my own failings and hypocrisy. But as I thought about it over the past few weeks, one theme in particular kept coming to mind which echoed Rollins’ letter in many ways. Hence my letter –

Dear Church,

I’m tired. I just don’t have the ability to keep up with the façade of “church” anymore. Oh, I love Jesus, I am crazy about living into the Kingdom of God, and I desperately want to be with the body of Christ, but I just can no longer keep up with the systems and structures that go along with all of that. I know it’s cliché to talk about wanting to be the church as opposed to merely doing church, but right now all I see are the structural façades and they are overwhelming.

It’s not that any one branch of the church is to blame – megachurch, mainline, or housechurch – all seem bogged down with the idea that the church exists for its own sake. The point seems to be to perfect the performance, hone the ritual, grow the structure so that the church can survive and thrive. It’s all (in theory) so that the church can bless its members and be able to serve the world, but all too often it seems like the forms of church become the purpose of church consuming all of our vision and energy. The actions of church don’t reflect the things I claim to believe and yet they demand all our attention. And I just have to confess that right now I am worn out.

I’m not interested in building structures right now. Or defining boundaries or expressing unwavering loyalty to a tribe. Or even in the survival of any group or gathering (even as I respect and cherish the need for such). Instead of constantly shoring up structures, I feel like I need the space to mourn. Not just for my own personal stuff as it seems every structure in the world exists to help me deal with me, but instead to be able to focus less on strengthening particular forms and more on taking the time to lament the fracturing amidst the forms. To listen to the stories of the body that have been kept silent, to hear the groanings of the body that our choruses and chants drown out, to strip away our beautiful facades in favor of sackcloth and ashes. I need the space to hear of the struggles of the body of Christ and the trials of inhabiting God’s Kingdom without the distractions of having to protect a structure.

Jesus said those who mourn will be comforted and that the weary will be given rest, but dear Church, how can we ever find the comfort that comes from mourning or the rest from burdens when we must constantly be working to hold up your façade? So what I simply ask is this – provide space for us, as the church, to mourn; let us please rest.

Your Sister,
Julie

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If you could write a letter to the church what would you say? InterVarsity Press and Patheos would love to hear your thoughts. Now through May the 4th anyone who is interested is invited to submit a letter to the IVP Letters to the Future Church Campaign for a chance to have your letter posted at Patheos and get some of the latest IVP books. So what is the message that you think the church needs to hear?

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Worship and the Other

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In my ethics class in seminary we’ve been discussing the problems of race and racism and the challenge of respecting the dignity of the other. As part of that discussion, my professor mentioned that the diversity task force had discovered that most of the minority students who attended the seminary over the past decade felt like they never truly belong at the seminary – that the culture of the seminary never welcomed them for who they were. I didn’t find this surprising in the least, but one of my classmates seemed rather taken aback by the report. She asked if specific examples of how the seminary was unwelcoming could be shared.

It was one of those really uncomfortable moments for me as just minutes before I had sat there feeling like a completely unwelcome outsider as my fellow classmates joined in on mocking the church tradition I come out of. The banter had been meant in fun, more as a way to make fun of themselves than others, but it had still been an awkward exchange. Per new seminary policy, all the ordination track students had to participate in the seminary’s Triduum services over Easter – a very old-school high-liturgy that consumed their whole weekend. The purpose, as they explained to me, was so that they could be trained in the right way of doing vigils since the parishes they serve will rarely know the correct forms for such things. So as they came off of the Easter frenzy exhausted as classes started again, the joke that morning was that next year they should petition to do the whole thing low-church style. This started everyone in on joking what sorts of appalling low-church stuff they could do – from spending the whole service doing announcements to giving into the congregation’s consumer demands to sing hymns people actually know. It was all meant in fun so I just sat and listened to them mock the cultural church traditions I am used to, but as the only non-Episcopalian in the class it was hard not to feel like an outsider.

And then we started class and the question was raised as to how minorities at the seminary might not feel welcome. It was difficult to not speak up about the discussion before class – . Or to mention that every time I hear my classmates discuss things like Enriching Our Worship (liturgies that include prayers and hymns from other cultures) it is only to mock it. Or the incredulous gossip-like statements of “have you heard, there are some churches that actually use grape juice and crackers for Eucharist?” Or the arguments I’ve heard that only 17th century high-liturgy done with the finest of serviceware available is proper worship. Or that what feminists and blacks do is not true theology, but merely an expression of Christian spirituality. When one form of culture is upheld as the God-ordained norm and everything else mocked, then of course those who differ from that norm are not going to feel welcome.

The seminary is very white and reflects one segment of cultural worship practices of white middle class Americans. I knew as a post-evangelical I was an outsider going into seminary yet even as an outsider I respect the culture forms of worship practice that most of my classmates find meaningful and beautiful. But I struggle when such forms of worship get in the way (even unintentionally) of respecting the dignity of others. It is one thing to choose to participate in a particular cultural form of worship, but quite another to mock the forms of others or expect them to convert to your ways in order to be a proper Christian. This goes far deeper than silly worship wars, but gets at the very core of what it even means to worship God at all.

As I’ve come to understand it, to commit oneself to ascribing worth-ship to God one must embrace the patterns of life that God deems worthy. As the biblical prophets repeatedly assert, rituals of worship that seek to draw us close to God or that proclaim God’s worth are meaningless if we are not actually living in the ways of God. The purpose of worship is this pursuit of righteousness – being in right relation with God and in relation to all that God has created. As Isaiah declares, this involves more than just fasting or participating in convocations, but engaging in actions that work to right those relationships. We might be strengthened, or shaped, or comforted by our community’s rituals, but those are forms that should never be mistaken for the deeper function of worship. More significantly such forms should never prevent us from engaging in the ways of life God deems worthy. Ritual should never stand in the way of our caring for those in need, of respecting the dignity of others, or loving our neighbors.

It is difficult to see the pain of my classmates who do feel unwelcome at my seminary especially when it is it cultures of worship creating the division. Yet as an outsider myself it is similarly difficult to know how to work to help resolve this tension.

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The Things It Would Be A Crime To Forget

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This week I am reflecting on some of the difficult questions The Hunger Games trilogy raises for readers – today the focus is on the things we remember.

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?

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If We Burn, You Burn With Us?

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This week I am reflecting on some of the difficult questions The Hunger Games trilogy raises for readers – today the focus is on violence and oppression.

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 –

  • Is it ever okay to respond to oppression with violent rebellion?
  • Is it inevitable that rebellion will descend into injustice as well?
  • How does the example of Jesus factor into our responses to those questions?
  • Is it possible to change the “game” without giving into violence?
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What Are Our Bread and Circuses?

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Good stories are more than just stories – they can open our eyes and force us to ask the hard questions about our world. This week I will be posting a series of the hard questions that The Hunger Games series forced me to ask and I invite you to respond.

One of the dominant themes in The Hunger Games books is that of bread and circuses. Here’s an excerpt from my book The Hunger Games and the Gospel where I explain what it is all about –

In ancient Rome – “Politicians would distribute bread or host games to win the favor of the population. It was in frustration at this shallowness among his fellow Romans that the 1st century CE satirist Juvenal coined the terms “panem et circenses” (bread and circuses) to mock those who were too distracted to care about justice or the needs of the oppressed.

The handful of Hunger Games readers who happened to take Latin in high school would have been clued in that the series was directly referencing the bread and circuses of ancient Rome. Early on, we read that the country itself is named Panem (bread) and has a tesserae system that provided the districts both food and a higher chance at a ticket to the games (but as participants, not as spectators). But it isn’t until the final book that Plutarch, the ex-Head Gamemaker turned rebel, explains to Katniss that “in the Capitol, all they’ve ever known is Panem et Circenses,” and, like the Romans, they “in return for full bellies and entertainment … [gave] up their political responsibilities and therefore their power.”

The people in the Capitol can gorge themselves on gourmet foods, have the latest electronics, and obsess over a game show where children fight to the death. The people of Panem must (under threat of death) send the fruit of their labor as well as their children to provide for the insatiable consumerism of the Capitol. Their suffering, starvation, and brokenness supplies the bread and circuses that keep the citizens of the Capitol diverted enough to not be bothered enough to care about the hidden costs of their lifestyle.

The comparisons to our modern world couldn’t be more obvious. In the United States, our consumptive lifestyle similarly comes at the expense of suffering people around the world…

So what do you think?

  • Are we in the United States distracted by bread and circuses like the Capitol?
  • What are our bread and circuses?
  • Do we care more for our entertainments than the suffering of others?
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Interpreting Adam and Eve – Part 2

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The second part of my personal history of relating to the Adam and Eve narrative
(Read Part 1 here)

In college I also first encountered the significance of the Adam and Eve narrative in regard to gender roles. While I was at Wheaton College, the college, in partnership with the Council for Biblical Manhood and Womanhood, held a series of lectures on the biblical roles for men and women. Key to many of those lectures were discussions regarding the correct translation and interpretation of the term “ezer kenedgo” in Genesis. What I heard them argue was that the term meant that women were created to help and serve men. While not ontologically different than men (women are created in God’s image) women and men have complementary roles. Men therefore have the burden of leading and providing for the family and the church while women are to submit to that leadership as they help men with that difficult task.

Central to this complementarian position is the situating of the establishment of women’s identity as a helper before the Fall. Male headship and women’s role as helpers cannot then be blamed on sin, but must be accepted as God’s design for men and women. Given this interpretation of the creation of Adam and Eve and the heightened awareness of that interpretation the series of lectures promoted at my college, it became very difficult to hold to any divergent interpretation. If one spoke of egalitarianism, one was told that to be a Christian who believed in the Bible one had to be a complementarian. It was the same argument based on an inerrant foundationalist approach to the Bible that I had heard used to argue against evolution, but now it was used to silence any questions about women’s roles. Similarly, girls who dared to ask a guy out on a date were mocked for usurping the leadership in the relationship. Once when a girl was asked to say a prayer during a chapel service, she was shouted down by someone who quoted Bible verses at her about women not being permitted to speak in church.

As one with emerging egalitarian leanings at the time, I struggled with this interpretation of Genesis. Yet at the same time, I believed that to question the Bible was a sin. I felt that to affirm the full equality of women I had to reject the Bible (and therefore my faith) entirely. Genesis became a battle ground. Either one accepted Genesis or one accepted science and the equality of women, there was no middle ground. It eventually took me leaving the world of conservative evangelicalism behind before I could admit that such choices presented false dichotomies.

For years after I rejected the evangelical approach to Genesis (as I had been taught), I treated the Genesis narrative with ambivalence. I knew I did not have to interpret it in light of creationism and complementarianism, but the way those ideologies had been used to silence and control questions left me with lingering uncertainties about Genesis. I finally found my way back to Genesis through my reading of authors like N.T. Wright and Brian Mclaren who focus on the Jewish cultural and theological roots of the New Testament story. Such a perspective rooted the narrative arc of the Bible in the Abrahamic Covenant of the people of God being blessed so as to be a blessing to the nations. This approach opened up for me the possibility to approach scripture, and even the Adam and Eve story, as part of a theological narrative that emerged out of a specific cultural setting. I find myself therefore recently both engaging the Genesis narrative as response to Ancient Near-Eastern mythology that shaped the Hebrew faith and as a narrative grounding for Christian theology. The historical approach fascinates me, but it is in the theological approach that I find the most meaning.

For example, instead of reading the Adam and Eve story as a story about science or gender roles, I see in it the basis for why humanity is to be valued and treated with dignity. The affirmation in this religious text that humans bear the image of God implies for me that to treat another person with injustice is to mock and mistreat the very image of God. I’ve similarly come to interpret the narrative of the Fall through a theological lens as well seeing Adam and Eve’s act less as an infraction that has to be punished, but as a failure to trust in God’s timing as they seek their telos of becoming ever more like the God they image. It is a story telling how humans are both image-bearers of the divine and yet must accept the limits of creation, time, and space. Like the tale of Pandora’s Box, Adam and Eve’s impatience and attempt to tap into instant godlikeness brought disaster. The moral of the tale is a reminder that we must accept the embodied life we have and relationally journey toward more fully reflecting the image of God as the finite creatures that we are.

This theological interpretation subsequently informs practical living. Given that the world is hurting and because our very being is to reflect God’s image we are to love the world just as God loves us. This isn’t just some inner warm-fuzzy that makes us feel close to God – it involves action. If we are moving closer to God then we will act like God and care for that which is made in God’s image – in short God’s creation. Hurting others, destroying the environment, being greedy, achieving at the expense of others – all these things don’t acknowledge our identity as being made in God’s image. Accepting who we are, our vocation as image-bearers, involves a responsibility to live for others and work for their good. God has blessed us abundantly, so by nature we are to bless others.

From the literalism of my youth to the contextual and theological lenses of my present readings, how I have interpreted the story of Adam and Eve has shifted dramatically over time. I look forward to being shaped in yet more ways as I continue to engage the text in the years to come.

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