Feature Post: In this Scotland's 'Year of homecoming' I'm using me blog to look at what's a happening around a scotland coming out of the mists of an auld world - a world where christianity was in bed with empire - into raging economic meltdown (thaw?). Can this christianity be rehabilitated in time? it has a crackin story! can it be unfrozen from its entombment to stand before world empires in its robes of comedy and humanity?
To kick off, here are 3 things we lost under the snow that are erupting all over the world right as acts of defiance and tools of resistance to empire in a global age: 1. outrageous prayer, 2. gift-economy and 3. imaginative comic non-violent guerilla action... ring any bells with an ancient near east movement sparked off by a young activist called Jesus and brutally put down by the empire of their day? check it oot!..
Tool 1: Prayer: as an act of defiance and resistance to empire - prayer? wha? I hear you ask! in old texts of the ancient near east and hebrew writings: when slaves at last find ''THEIR VOICE' and let rip, cry out empires crack! and a wild God gets out of the religious temples and civic prisons we've made for him/her and roars into action! - why? When slaves recover what was stolen from them their dignity their voice their rage their dreams - they release not only themselves but God (eg. read story of scottish and welsh and US revivals - post clearance fishermen and crofters (peterhead and islands revivals), miners (welsh revival), refugees (azusa st revival) this is first step, the. first tool for your wee toolkit. Revival is about the 'recovery of resistance' to industrial economic dehumanisation of empire. And it always starts when slaves have had enough and cry out!! - watch out! it can change the very atmosphere of your town, sphere, scene, locality...
jesus the dreamer, cryer, protester
when they dare to give full voice to their rage - their dreams - aloud - God is attracted - 'like a moth to a flame' (brueggemann) the cry gives permission (even if not addressed to God) to act in the land in the prisons, the kids homes, oil rigs, the estates, the media, the parliament, schools, hospitals, shops and markets - in all these spaces where empires and pharoahs pile on pressure, squeeze and control until the slaves cry out - and when they do.. God roars into action!
when they dare to give full voice to their rage - their dreams - aloud - God is attracted - 'like a moth to a flame' (brueggemann) the cry gives permission (even if not addressed to God) to act in the land in the prisons, the kids homes, oil rigs, the estates, the media, the parliament, schools, hospitals, shops and markets - in all these spaces where empires and pharoahs pile on pressure, squeeze and control until the slaves cry out - and when they do.. God roars into action!
this is the second step...a second tool.
Jesus the imaginative economist
kickstart a revolution: start a gift economy in your city: search for and fund good dreams and turn prayers into action in every sphere of your city or locality - create an economy NOT based on 'generosity' but 'justice' and debt-cancellation - no strings!!! no debt- no empire (the oxygen of empire IS debt hence forgiveness ie cancelling of debts IS central to jesus good news), the future of the land is in the dreams of its saints! So far so good! But to stop the above 'good works' being stolen, coopted, crushed, eaten by self-serving centralising powers around us, we need to learn the practice of resistance...
Jesus the comic, clown activist
For saints today facing the existing centres of christian power: be encouraged and
For saints today facing the existing centres of christian power: be encouraged and
learn: Jesus may have become more and more aware as he and his young movement
turned toward the centre of power in his locality: Jerusalem - a city fuelled by an empire in love with itself; a smiling empire thirsting for new
slaves, markets and taxes. (throws interesting political social and economic light
on: 'Satan prowls around seeking to devour'- stuff in the new testament). This new spanking temple system at its beating heart now was becoming the engine of empire and turning saints into slaves; no longer acting as the 'father's house: a house of dreams, protest and prayer but of theft of dreams, protest and prayer.
What stung the young jesus to the core here though, was that this wholesale selling out to the 'powers that be'- which was happening across the ancient world was now here in his own land - bigtime! Even worse: the powers, already well versed in the use of redemptive violence and seduction technologies to achieve domination and colonisation (walter wink) were now getting sneakily good at what scott peck calls: the pretence; using God as a cloaking device for empire. This cheated not only the east but the whole gentile world of their birthright in this story of God's world being about justice and mercy not domination and worship- and leaving this story, the poor and YHWH to rot in the rubbish tips of gehenna (hell) in the southeast of the city and the rubbish tips and housing estates and ghettos around our global world today. This 'pretence' was becoming an impenetrable cloak - a stronghold! outrageous prayer and gift-economics was still not enough .....to pierce and unmask such armour
Jesus now needed the axe! - time for a bit of edgy imaginative public theatre - this temple was coming down baby!
His shocking PUBLIC display of rage at the temple and its economy (den of wolves and thieves, coming down in 3 days etc.) in front of so many people - was the final straw: provoking the religious and civic roman powers to finally move in for the kill.... the rest is history! Similar direct action tactics were used in India, africa and USA to imaginatively challenge more recent empires and their structures of colonialism, apartheid and civil injustice.
Why? By provoking a 'public response' - 'the powers that be' unwittingly unmask their 'true' colours on the stage of the world. Their main armour, in Jesus context, was their 'righteous brand' camoflaging a whole system of power and privelege - a system that spoke of YHWH and Torah but in reality used as a cloak to hide the true nature of their captivity to the roman empire -from 'the people'.
Empires today still make the same mistake; their achilles heel is their dependancy on the implicit 'belief' of everyday folks in their power and authority. Once that fragile cover is blown via some shock (from gas chambers to riot police shooting defenceless protestors, bombing of civilians, tanks facing down students in china to global economic meltdowns) - they may still allow these positions of power to hold sway but no amount of bread and circuses will tempt them back into the comfort of blind belief in these powers - well not for a while.
Prayer as the enslaved finding their true voice, unleashes energy and attracts a power way beyond that of nations and governments and empires, creating gift economies puts flesh on the bone - but it's tool 3 that brings everything to a head and challenges (the belief in) 'empire' to its core: imaginative, comic, non-violent direct action like jesus modelled. He gave some great hints and tips re: soldiers bullying of civilians and lawcourts that favour rich/powerful in his context. But we have many more examples...today... Happily, the 20th century is awash with examples: non-violent resistance movements from civil rights in US. to aparthied in s Africa and ghandi's salt marches and resistance movement to reclaim india from british empire rule to south american land movements to buying back scottish islands to street art in gaza/bethlehem and protest in canada and all kinds of artists, comedians and activists poking fun at the lengths our current powers go to protect their interests and fail to serve the people and creation around them (walter wink, bruegemann).
Conclusion
The 20th century gave us the worst excesses of empire but also it is the century that gave
us back the best of our christianity as eruption of voice creativity and imaginative
resistance of slaves a christianity and an earthy jesus of palestine and israel, challenging
both hill and temple as locus of God's favour. Instead locating it most vitally among
the poorest, the reviled, the misunderstood, refugeed, and scapegoated/demonised which we lost in europe when we became enthralledto the status and rewards of empire from constantine onwards and swopped the wounded God of the slave for the velvet glove of 'the leader' .Lately, however we are seeing a resurgence of interest in this wandering healer, this comic irrepressable torah-loving troublemaker and justice-making troubadour; this anti-messiah with an anti- empire, who eshewed the temptations of 'landlordism' and 'leadership' in the caves outside his city and became a massive dose of good news to the poor instead. (alastair macintosh)
How did Jesus & his troubadour friends do this? they did some cracking comedy that's what!!
they began to go around the maddest places in the land- acting as if the anti-empire, God's own mad economy of debt cancelling and giving away and gifting with no strings
- was already here!!! right now!!! HERE.. in their neighbourhood, fishing boat, rubbish dump,
back alley, their ane doric n gaelic and scots their ane croaking vernacular voices that leak God, irrepressable dreams that let his world come about, black comedy and muddy hands ... power was to be shared, debts written off, education, learning, healing and justice belonged to everyone - right under everyone's noses in oor ane back yards... in our very own forgotten people, burnt towns and broken places...
And today it's ours too - we can act this out now: what young Jesus and his friends did: everyone can do - whether christian or not... - whether outcast or in gehenna or prison - or in some kind of hell
- everyone can get in on this: finding voice, releasing dreams and resisting empires.
Even God and the poor and a donkey - are welcome to eat at Jesus revolutionary table.
'the true revolutionary is guided by strong feelings of love'
che guevara
'this is the great task of the... oppressed: to liberate themselves and their oppressors as
'the true revolutionary is guided by strong feelings of love'
che guevara
'this is the great task of the... oppressed: to liberate themselves and their oppressors as
well'
paulo friere
'sting and run - like a mosquito in a darkened tent'
'yank' levi
'bind (disempower/exhaust energies of) the strong man... in order to liberate the goods'
Jesus of Nazareth
so what are ye waiting fer? get cracking!
'Go! into all creation': to where the cries break open the skies - honour every croaking voice, release every buried dream, and let's work oor asses off tae turn
'sting and run - like a mosquito in a darkened tent'
'yank' levi
'bind (disempower/exhaust energies of) the strong man... in order to liberate the goods'
Jesus of Nazareth
so what are ye waiting fer? get cracking!
'Go! into all creation': to where the cries break open the skies - honour every croaking voice, release every buried dream, and let's work oor asses off tae turn
every one of them into imaginative earthy holy action. Until a flood grows and swells and
exposes the powers and cracks the fantasy of empire that has been holding captive those
in your land, in your village, in your city, your work, your family, your history, your
entertainment, your religion - like ours- for a very long time ((;-))
for more on urban saint survival hints n tips see: tartan theology and urban saint survival guide
refs and further reading: (some of these are on the my book list on this blog)
walter brueggemann, texts that linger words that explode
walter wink, the powers that be
scott peck, people of the lie
paulo friere, pedagogy of the oppressed - (also: oppressor's preference for generosity v justice)
alastair macintosh, soil and soul
che guevara, Venceremos
'yank' levy, guerilla warfare (ww1 and 2, spanish civil war - adapt for non-violent approach)
and- anything on direct action tactics from India, south america, africa and USA
