Saturday, September 22, 2007

Body-Snatched Nation

By BRENDAN COONEY

As scary as it is to watch someone electrocuted for speaking his mind, the most horrifying parts of the Andrew Meyer incident at the University of Florida are the things happening on the periphery. (The video can be seen here: http://youtube.com/watch?v=HgrFSHZfD1o)

There is the face of the woman on the right of the aisle, staring obediently ahead to Sen. John Kerry as Meyer is pinned to the ground just behind her. Or the man on the left smiling as the action comes right past him like actors tearing down the fourth wall.

The only person with the power to stop the assault was the man with the microphone, and his affect never rose above flat. Shortly before the cops pressed the volts into Meyer's chest, Kerry can be heard droning, "Folks, I think if we all just calm down." The folks he is addressing, of course, are not the police but the few audience members who have risen from their seats.

It's as if one is watching the end of "Invasion of the Body Snatchers," with Meyer coming out as the last human who has not been struck by the pods that replace people with emotionless doubles.

Perhaps half the comments of Youtube viewers support the Tasing as an apt treatment for someone so disruptive. Meyer may have been loud, attention-hungry and an awkward presence in the room, but the awkwardness is nothing compared with that of people trying to work out the concept of free speech in their online comments.

"The First Amendment does not guarantee anyone the right to make a public ass of oneself at the expense of others..." writes Russ Thayer. Joseph (comment 87 on the New York Times site) agrees: "I hate to tell you, but the meaning of Freedom of Speech doesn't mean you can scream and shout at people. To exercise your right to Freedom of Speech you need to remain calm." Says Dusty Bottoms, also on the Times site: "Freaking idiot deserved it.... [H]ow many times does one have to be warned? I'm all for free speech, but do it in an intelligent way."

The proportion of voices sympathetic to Meyer was altogether different among readers of the Times of London. Thirty-three thought the Tasing was wrong, and only three supported it. Should it be any surprise that readers of the foreign press are less authoritarian than readers of our mainstream media?

Duncan Roy, a United Kingdom resident, posts this comment on the New York Times site: "If shouting and agitation were the criteria for tasing then our entire british parliament would be tazed! What is it with you Americans that you have become so frightened of free and passionate speech?"

Police tasing students and others without cause is nothing new. A video of an even scarier incident at UCLA last fall can be watched on youtube at: http://youtube.com/watch?v=AyvrqcxNIFs

Police Tased this student because he didn't have his student ID in the library. The cell-phone video shows an eerily passive group of zombies, inching slowly forward as the victim cries for help. Only after the student is hauled out of the library, still being tased, do a couple students start asking for badge numbers, to which the reply is: "Back up or you'll get Tased too."

The alien pods haven't gotten us all, however. Based on the volume of comments people posted on the Meyer incident, watching the video clearly hit many Americans a lot harder than it did mainstream journalists.

Mike Bellman of Columbia, Missouri, wrote, "I am ten times ashamed for the spectators who watched this debacle slack-jawed and motionless like they were watching the you-tube video online. Shame on citizens who idly watch this kind of abuse and not recognize it. Shame on all of them including John Kerry who didn't relieve the police of their duties. And finally shame on anyone who doesn't have the courage to question authority or believe that another American has the right to speak freely in an open forum. I am ashamed to live in this America and I weep for the US Constitution."

And an "ECartman" wrote that a "lot worse happened in Berkeley in late 60's and early 70's.... Wish these students could get more incensed with what we are doing in Iraq everyday.... Don't expect this to happen though as these kids really got no soul."

There's a whole racially charged aspect to the question of police authority that I can't begin to unpack here, but "Jargon" says on the Times site: "I am so sick of this blind, unquestionable trust that whites hold for police."

On the spectrum of eeriness, watching Jimmy Kimmel laugh about the incident on late-night TV was strange, but not as bad as reading dismissive accounts of it in the mainstream press.

Shameful ad hominem reporting appeared in The New York Times, Washington Post, and Salon.com. It's as if these reporters can't keep these two concepts separate: "he was annoying" and "he deserved to be arrested and assaulted." This confusion reminds me of people I sometimes meet overseas who can't treat me as an individual because I come from the loathsome United States. The fact that Meyer's website features pranks and skits, notably that he carried a "Harry Dies" sign after the release of the last Harry Potter book, seems to have persuaded many people that he deserved what he got.

Someone who exudes such a reclining air that he will probably never be on the receiving end of a Taser is The Washington Post's Emil Steiner, who writes, "Kerry's voice, however, was no match for Meyer's, who despite not having a mic continued to hog the audience's attention with such glib catch phrases as: Help me! Help!'..."

This smug tone is jolted awake by the first comment below the piece, by a "Mark" from Rhode Island: "One word: FASCISM! Be afraid to ask vital questions in our free republic."

Steiner refers to the "mysterious" yellow book Meyer recommended for Kerry. The book was Armed Madhouse by Greg Palast. Meyer identified the author as a top investigative journalist; the senator said he'd already read it. What's the mystery, aside from the stunning disconnect between body-snatched reporters and the citizenry they putatively inform?

In observing the cultural milieu in which this incident took place, from the blank reaction of students and Kerry to online comments to press reports, there was an atavistic smack of the taste of what it was to be living in the United States in 2002 and 2003. It was the most haunting time I have known, when story after story in the mainstream press sold the war, and when friends of mine with college and law and medical and doctoral degrees jumped on the bandwagon, and I looked all around me and saw only pods.

The question is when does it happen; when do the pods take over our souls in this land? Is it in adolescence, when we have individuality pounded out of us by the mob so eager to squelch any deviant thought or behavior? Is it in classrooms or in front of televisions? What is the pod?

Surely Kerry was alive in Vietnam, when he saved his fellow soldiers, and when he came home to protest the war; but somewhere in 37 years of public life he got the lobotomy needed to win elections here. (Politicians with a pulse, such as Ralph Nader and Jessie Jackson, don't stand a chance.) Even after he had time to reflect, Kerry offered the Associated Press this safe pablum: "Whatever happened, the police had a reason, had made their decision that there was something they needed to do. Then it's a law enforcement issue, not mine."

Lost in the melee was one of Meyer's questions: "Why not impeach Bush before he has a chance to invade Iran?" It's a question that, if seriously considered, would Tase the brains of zombies everywhere.

Brendan Cooney is an anthropologist living in New York City. He can be reached at: itmighthavehappened@yahoo.com

Wednesday, September 19, 2007

How the World Works

[Brilliant writing and analysis from the blog 'AfterTheFuture'. click title above to read full post]

...this is the way the world works. Power uses power to consolidate power. The power system is self-perpetuating because it only hires and promotes people who serve its interests without questioning them. And the system and those who serve it co-opt or threaten anybody who would question it. The beltway media are full of people who have been threatened or coopted, and they may or may not be consciously aware of their acquiescence.

They live in a culture of acquiescence to power, and so it is normal and expected behavior for them to acquiesce to it. They do it without thinking, taking their cues from whoever it is whose job it is to give such cues. And they take the cues because their careers and lifestyles depend on it. They would not have risen to the positions they hold now if they were not ambitiously good cue takers. And so they have a vested interest in praising and supporting those who, like them, take the cues and squelching anybody who refuses to take them, because their livelihood and wellbeing depends on the charade continuing.

And whether we approve or disapprove makes no difference because we don't hire them, and our criticisms have little or no impact on their performance. They perform for their bosses and for one another in this self-reinforcing fiction that keeps them all in the positions they worked so hard to obtain. The self-perpetuation of the system doesn't require conspiracies and evil geniuses, just a lot of people pursuing their self interests and forming alliances with others who understand the game and will help you out so long as you serve their interests and play by the rules. Challenging the rules is out of the question, and gets you kicked out of the game. A guy like Ralph Nader will never be taken seriously because he challenges the rules--and Liberals who want Nader thrown out of the game are basically acquiescing to the rules as they are set up. The problem with Liberals is basically their naive belief that the system still works.

Kamiya and Greenwald are like wide-eyed boys who are telling us the emperor has no clothes, but it doesn't matter because there are too many people with a vested interest in the charade continuing, and everyone who sees the truth of the situation has no imagination about what to do about it. And if they do, if they express their understandable outrage, they will get ridiculed, ostracized or even tasered and arrested. And for what? Will it change anything?

Nothing is going to happen in Washington until serious power coalitions develop that have weight enough to counter the enormous entrenched and unaccountable corporate and bureaucratic power that is the driving force behind, particularly, the M/I complex. There are other power centers, but this one is the most deeply entrenched and the most resistant to political control.

I don't think the people who serve these power centers are evil, but they are the banal servants of evil. What is needed are heroes. These servants of power are just ordinary human beings like the media types described above. They are ambitious, and they do what they are told in order to get ahead. Petraeus is the archetype of this kind of person. The media recognize one of their own--he's a talented brown-nose, nothing more. That's what is so facetious about his being lionized last week. People like him don't think about the big picture. They are given assignments, they complete them, and they are rewarded. They mostly believe they are doing good work, serving their country. They don't think about the implications too much, and they are too willing to believe the propaganda justifying their mission because to question it would undermine their career aspirations, and, anyway, what good what that do?

The power system is self-perpetuating in this way. To change it would require a high level of awareness and a level of heroic commitment from millions of people inside and outside of government. And what citizens do in the ballot box is irrelevant until a slate of candidates arise who say that they are willing to confront and subject this system to the will of the people. Until that happens, the charade continues, and while Republicans are the more obsequious in serving these power centers, the Democrats, as we've seen, haven't the political will to confront them. They, too, are careerists, and first and foremost is the fulfillment of their own and their consultants' ambitions, and that requires that they, too, play by the rules. That's what it takes to be taken seriously, and that's just how the world works.

P.S. The whole Greensapn Iraq was "largely about oil'" statement in his new book is an interesting breach of the rules that even he, the most serious of serious Beltway types, felt he had to back away from by convolutedly talking about the threat Saddam posed to the Straits of Hormuz (?!). Just say anything, Alan--Americans don't know where the straits are anyway, and don't care. Of course Iraq was and continues to be largely, if not most importantly, about oil. But it's against the rules to talk about oil. What was he thinking? Did Andrea know he slipped it into his book?


Tuesday, September 18, 2007

Wars and Rumors of Wars

By Bob Waldrop

September 17, 2007

The article linked here, Red October, from the secular news source Stratfor.com , is troubling. The gist of the Stratfor analysis below is that Russia is making a move to oust the US from its present influence in the former Soviet Union countries like Georgia, Ukraine, and the Baltic republics. This would be in exchange for Russia not providing the Iranians with air defense and nuclear technology. Today's news also has articles about the French warning the Iranians that war may be coming their way. Stratfor.com of course is a "real-politik" news source. They don't ask or answer moral questions about our policy, they just report and comment. But as part of the "being wise as serpents and harmless as doves", I think we need to keep an eye on what they are saying.

And what they are saying is that we may be moving towards an old-fashioned super-power confrontation, US versus Russia, with Iran as a surrogate battlefield. "The more things change, the more they remain the same." See also "those who do not learn from the mistakes of history are doomed to repeat them."

If nothing else, read with "Catholic Worker" eyes, it seems to me that the American Empire's "last man standing" strategy seems to be moving to a new stage and may expand to include an "air war" in Iran.

I note that the US bishops haven't had much to say about Iran, and they remain fixated on their "responsible transition" newspeak, even though the whole idea of "transition" in the nationalist conversation about Iraq is passe, "last year's news". We are in Iraq to stay, and even if the Democrats sweep the nationalist elections in 2008, I think we will continue to stay until we are forced to leave (either military force or circumstances such as money/resource constraints). The Empire is "all in", as they say down at the Texas hold-em poker tables. Victory or bust.

It would be nice if the Catholic Church could play a heroic role in a movement for peace, but alas, that ain't happenin'.

Even so, we know which side the Lord Jesus Christ and his most blessed Mother are on. . .

Fecit potentiam in brachio suo, dispersit superbos mente cordis sui.
Deposuit potentes de sede et exaltavit humiles.
Esurientes implevit bonis et divites dimisit inanes,

He has shown strength with his arm and has scattered the proud in their conceit,
Casting down the mighty from their thrones and lifting up the lowly.
He has filled the hungry with good things and sent the rich away empty.

Note that in this equation, the United States is not the "lowly" nor are we the "hungry". We are the mighty who will be cast down, the conceited proud who will be scattered, and the rich who are sent away empty.

Meanwhile, the price of oil hit another all-time high in trading earlier today, and in England, a major bank run continues that has seen $4 billion withdrawn from one banking institution in only 4 days. There are fears that the crisis of confidence in the banking system could spread.

We've spent over a trillion dollars on the Iraq war, as well as an additional trillion on other "war" expenditures since Sept 11, 2001.

So it comes to pass that the rich are getting richer, and everybody else is getting poorer. But note how the financial press regularly blames the mess on "sub-prime loans" made to lower income people with higher credit risks. We're not supposed to think about the 2 trillion dollars squandered on war and destruction. Nor should we focus on the hundreds of billions we pay for our petroleum gluttony. Everyone is clearly instructed to ignore the man behind the curtain. Where is Toto when we need him?

Well, possessed by the spirit of the intrepid Toto, in England, some bank depositors have decided they don't like the looks of the man behind the curtain and they are in "take the money and run" mode. I am not sure where they can run to with it, but they are certainly moving right along with it. They are being blamed by the "Establishment" for their "irrational fears about the banking system". "How dare you lose faith in one of our Fine Honest Banks!"

A bank run here, a few record high prices for oil over there, and a new "splendid little air war" as icing on the cake. This is what it looks like as a great empire edges towards the ash heap of history.

Please pray for peace on all military and economic battlefields.

Please continue to build new structures among these collapsing ruins of the old. The day is coming when we will desperately need them.

Bob Waldrop, picketing St. Joseph in Oklahoma City

Eugene McCarraher nails it again...

















From a discussion at dotCommonweal:

Posted by eugene mccarraher
on September 17, 2007, 7:36 am

The reason the Democrats have not shown any interest in exploring the reasons for the invasion is that they already know the reasons: oil, Israel, the desire to establish a U.S. strategic presence. The fact is that they share these objectives no less than the Bush Administration does. They understand full well what's imperialist about what the U.S. has done. (It's worth recalling that the first Congressional resolution supporting "regime change" in Iraq -- which was, admittedly, non-binding -- was passed in 1998, with the full support of the Clinton Adminstration and Senate Democrats.) What else explains, for instance, Obama's stated willingness to unilaterally bomb Pakistan? Or Clinton's dithering about what she would do? The Democrats are the left wing of the military-industrial complex: get the oil, make some noise about Palestinian rights, "oppose the war and support the troops" (a pathetic rhetorical evasion of serious debate about the war), vilify Bush's "incompetence" for the umpteenth time, chicken out when it comes to civil liberties and cutting funding for the war, which is the only serious way to get this President to do anything.

What's truly sobering is that, given the persistence of U.S. economic, diplomatic, and strategic interests, we're not leaving Iraq. Getting out would require, not only that we have an open and unfettered debate about our relationship with Israel (don't hold your breath on that), but that we get serious about finding substitutes for oil (don't hold your breath on that either).

I must say I find it amusing that Powers has, in effect, confirmed what the radical left has been saying about the war all along. Many contributors to this and other blogs have been characterizing us as a bunch of wackos for quite some time, and now we have one of the nation's premiere analysts of foreign and military affairs saying, gee, those wackos got it right. We'll all learn a lot more from Chalmers Johnson than from Thomas Friedman, that overrated blowhard who, when once confronted on NPR with his support for the invasion, said, "Yes, there were no WMDs. I'll have to live with that." While thousands have died with that.

"How (Not) To Speak of God," by Peter Rollins














"The emerging [Christian] thought is a self-acknowledged form of heresy insomuch as it is aware of its failure to describe that of which it speaks. This recognition acts as an effective theological response to fundamentalism, as it unsettles the dark heart of its self-certain power. Very briefly, fundamentalism can be understood as a particular way of believing one's beliefs rather than referring to the actual content of one's beliefs.

"It can be described as holding a belief system is such a way that it mutually excludes all other systems, rejecting other views in direct proportion to how much they differ from one's own. In contrast, the a/theistic approach can be seen as a form of disbelieving what one believes, or rather, believing IN God while remaining dubious concerning what one believes ABOUT God (a distinction that fundamentalism is unable to maintain). This does not actually contradict the idea of orthodoxy but rather allow us to understand it in a new light...

"This a/theism is not then some temporary place of uncertainty on the way to spiritual maturity, bur rather is something that operates within faith as a type of heat-inducing friction that prevents our liquid images of the divine from cooling and solidying into idolatrous form."

Sunday, September 16, 2007

An Open Letter to the New Generation of Military Officers Serving and Protecting Our Nation By Dr. Robert M. Bowman, Lt. Col., USAF, ret.

Dear Comrades in Arms,
You are facing challenges in 2007 that we of previous generations never dreamed of. I'm just an old fighter pilot (101 combat missions in Vietnam , F-4 Phantom, Phu Cat, 1969-1970) who's now a disabled veteran with terminal cancer from Agent Orange. Our mailing list (over 22,000) includes veterans from all branches of the service, all political parties, and all parts of the political spectrum. We are Republicans and Democrats, Greens and Libertarians, Constitutionists and Reformers, and a good many Independents. What unites us is our desire for a government that (1) follows the Constitution, (2) honors the truth, and (3) serves the people.
We see our government going down the wrong path, all too often ignoring military advice, and heading us toward great danger. And we look to you who still serve as the best hope for protecting our nation from disaster.
We see the current Iraq War as having been unnecessary, entered into under false pretenses, and horribly mismanaged by the civilian authorities. Thousands of our brave troops have been needlessly sacrificed in a futile attempt at occupation of a hostile land. Many more thousands have suffered wounds which will change their lives forever. Tens of thousands have severe psychological problems because of what they have seen and what they have done. Potentially hundreds of thousands could be poisoned by depleted uranium, with symptoms appearing years later, just as happened to us exposed to Agent Orange. The military services are depleted and demoralized. The VA system is under-funded and overwhelmed. The National Guard and Reserves have been subjected to tour after tour, disrupting lives for even the lucky ones who return intact. Jobs have been lost, marriages have been destroyed, homes have been foreclosed, and children have been estranged. And for what? We have lost allies, made new enemies, and created thousands of new terrorists, further endangering the American people.
But you know all this. I'm sure you also see the enormous danger in a possible attack on Iran , possibly with nuclear weapons. Such an event, seriously contemplated by the Cheney faction of the Bush administration, would make enemies of Russia and China and turn us into the number one rogue nation on earth. The effect on our long-term national security would be devastating.
Some of us had hoped that the new Democratic Congress would end the occupation of Iraq and take firm steps to prevent an attack on Iran , perhaps by impeaching Bush and Cheney. These hopes have been dashed. The lily-livered Democrats have caved in, turning their backs on those few (like Congressman Jack Murtha) who understand the situation. Many of us have personally walked the halls of Congress, to no avail.
This is where you come in.
We know that many of you share our concern and our determination to protect our republic from an arrogant, out-of-control, imperial presidency and a compliant, namby-pamby Congress (both of which are unduly influenced by the oil companies and other big-money interests). We know that you (like us) wouldn't have pursued a military career unless you were idealistic and devoted to our nation and its people. (None of us do it for the pay and working conditions!) But we also recognize that you may not see how you can influence these events. We in the military have always had a historic subservience to civilian authority.
Perhaps I can help with whatever wisdom I've gathered from age (I retired in 1978, so I am ancient indeed).
Our oath of office is to “protect and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic.” Might I suggest that this includes a rogue president and vice-president? Certainly we are bound to carry out the legal orders of our superiors. But the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ) which binds all of us enshrines the Nuremberg Principles which this country established after World War II (which you are too young to remember). One of those Nuremberg Principles says that we in the military have not only the right, but also the DUTY to refuse an illegal order. It was on this basis that we executed Nazi officers who were “only carrying out their orders.”
The Constitution which we are sworn to uphold says that treaties entered into by the United States are the “highest law of the land,” equivalent to the Constitution itself. Accordingly, we in the military are sworn to uphold treaty law, including the United Nations charter and the Geneva Convention.
Based on the above, I contend that should some civilian order you to initiate a nuclear attack on Iran (for example), you are duty-bound to refuse that order. I might also suggest that you should consider whether the circumstances demand that you arrest whoever gave the order as a war criminal.
I know for a fact that in recent history (once under Nixon and once under Reagan), the military nuclear chain of command in the White House discussed these things and were prepared to refuse an order to “nuke Russia .” In effect they took the (non-existent) “button” out of the hands of the President.. We were thus never quite as close to World War III as many feared, no matter how irrational any president might have become. They determined that the proper response to any such order was, “Why, sir?” Unless there was (in their words) a “damn good answer,” nothing was going to happen.
I suggest that if you in this generation have not had such a discussion, perhaps it is time you do. In hindsight, it's too bad such a discussion did not take place prior to the preemptive “shock and awe” attack on Baghdad . Many of us at the time spoke out vehemently that such an attack would be an impeachable offense, a war crime against the people of Iraq , and treason against the United States of America . But our voices were drowned out and never reached the ears of the generals in 2003. I now regret that I never sent a letter such as this at that time, but depended on the corporate media to carry my message. I must not make that mistake again.
Also in hindsight, President Bush could be court-martialed for abuse of power as Commander-in-Chief. Vice President Cheney could probably be court-martialed for his performance as Acting Commander-in-Chief in the White House bunker the morning of September 11, 2001 .
We in the U.S. military would never consider a military coup, removing an elected president and installing one of our own. But following our oath of office, obeying the Nuremberg Principles, and preventing a rogue president from committing a war crime is not a military coup. If it requires the detention of executive branch officials, we will not impose a military dictatorship. We will let the Constitutional succession take place. This is what we are sworn to. This is protecting the Constitution, our highest obligation. In 2007, this is what is meant by “Duty, Honor, Country.”
Thank you all for your service to this nation. May God bless America , and sustain us in this difficult time. And thanks for listening to the musings of an old junior officer.
Respectfully,



Robert M. Bowman, PhD, Lt. Col., USAF, ret.
1494 Patriot Dr , Melbourne , FL 32940
home phone (321) 752-5955; cell (321) 258-0582

"We're almost there now"

[This is a comment that was posted after the linked article at commondreams]

by Cee Miracles September 16th, 2007 8:52 pm

How many Germans sat around their kitchen tables and tried to find sense and reason and ways to stop what was underway? How many Germans lay in bed at night talking in worried tones with their spouses and lovers wondering what would happen to their lives and the lives of their children and families? How many Germans became fearful as the signs were everywhere of punishment and incarceration if one actively opposed the Fuehrer and his “government”? How many Germans began to walk with their heads down trying to be as unobtrusive as possible? How many walked on with poker faces as old Jewish men and women were assaulted by young Nazi soldiers because it was the safest thing to do?
We’re almost there now. Hitler’s plans were in the works for a decade or more. So have the plans been in the works of the Bush cartel of family, Right Wingers, NeoCons, elected ones in the hallowed halls of Congress, corporate and media whores, and all the rest of the greedy, ambitious-for-empire, psychopathic devils from this country and across the seas where the arrogant White, racist Colonialists are still firmly entrenched, and in Israel where the Zionist cabal has planned, acted and dreamed of this day and are now rubbing their collective hands together as the dream seems to be coming to fruition.
We are the Germans now, … and the Italians and the Japanese … and even many of the French, who have now voted in Sarkozy as Premier, a man cut from old, familiar cloth.
The world blamed the citizens back then for doing nothing, and now U.S. of A. Americans for allowing what is happening to happen.
It is not easy evidently for us of the U.S. of A. who understand and know what is happening to figure out what to do. The old ways of marches and protests, letter writing, appealing to elected officials … none of it is working. The media is purposefully blind and silent and distorts snippets of truth. We have been propagandized to death … to accept the deaths of others.
Iraqis, the Palestinians, the Somalians, the Darfurians, the Lebanese, and the peasants in Columbia and so many others caught in the crossfire of brutal, vicious insanities … GENOCIDE is happening and more is planned.
We are the Germans now … and all the others. The detention camps are ready. … And so are the bombs.
Reasoned, compassionate thinking is lost on those who have no conscience and are driven by their irrational, insane compulsions. Brutality is nothing to them.
Our governmental mechanisms are failing.
Who are you and who am I? We have entered the hours and days of our individual and national and spiritual testing. And the anvil is hot and the coals are glowing redder and redder...

Saturday, September 15, 2007

Jim Martin, SJ on Colbert

Check it...

What Are Theologians Saying About Christology? ['America' magazine, Sept 17, 2007]

the cover of America, the Catholic magazine

Editor’s Note: After the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith published a notification March 14 on some works of the liberation theologian Jon Sobrino, S.J., the editors wondered how we might inform our readers about the questions at stake. We concluded that the most useful approach would be to set the issues in the context of contemporary Christology, explaining what major theologians, Scripture scholars and schools of theology are saying regarding the six questions about Jesus to which the congregation drew attention in its notification: method, divinity/humanity, incarnation, the kingdom of God, Jesus’ self-consciousness and soteriology (explanations of how Jesus achieved our salvation). We have asked six theologians to explain what the tradition and their colleagues are saying today about the church’s confession of Jesus as Christ and Son of God.

Alejandro Garcia-Rivera, Kevin Burke, Robert P. Imbelli, John R. Donahue, William Thompson-Uberuaga, Robert A. Krieg

Faith and the Poor

By Alejandro Garcia-Rivera

Recently I had the honor of listening to Metropolitan Kallistos Ware as he gave a talk on the Orthodox understanding of the Holy Spirit. During the question-and-answer session, a young Roman Catholic seminarian asked him what he thought of the recent Vatican notification on the works of Jon Sobrino, S.J. Bishop Ware smiled, thought for a minute and quoted this famous passage from St. John Chrysostom:

Would you see his altar?... This altar is composed of the very members of Christ, and the body of the Lord becomes an altar. This altar is more venerable even than the one which we now use. For it is…but a stone by nature; but become holy because it receives Christ’s body: but that is holy because it is itself Christ’s body…[which] you may see lying everywhere, in the alleys and in the marketplaces, and you may sacrifice upon it anytime…. When then you see a poor believer, believe that you are beholding an altar. When you see this one as a beggar, do not only refrain from insulting him, but actually give him honor, and if you witness someone else insulting him, stop him; prevent it.

Homily 20 on 2 Corinthians

Wisely Bishop Ware refused to elaborate on the quotation and left us to ponder its meaning. Its relevance to the Sobrino notification, however, has become more and more evident as I have studied the text by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. The notification questions first the methodological presuppositions of Sobrino’s Christology. Father Sobrino emphasizes the social setting defined by the “church of the poor”; the notification identifies the proper context as the “faith of the Church.”

The C.D.F. apparently thinks Sobrino is playing fast and loose with the nature of the church. By identifying the church with the poor instead of with the faith, the C.D.F. warns that Sobrino’s Christ is being wrenched from his ecclesial matrix. What is feared, I suppose, is a Christ who emerges out of a social setting instead of a communion of faith. Such a Christ could be subject to political and ideological currents that have little interest in faith. Indeed, Sobrino’s method of taking the social context as the ecclesial matrix from which Christ emerges may lead to an unabashed theological pluralism where the one Lord can become a Christ of a thousand faces, each depending on its own social setting.

Such a scenario might be one reason this notification was issued. Sobrino’s method opens up a postmodern Pandora’s box of theological speculation. To ask if Jon Sobrino’s Christ is too postmodern is to ask if the C.D.F.’s primary concern is the role that truth plays in theological reflections. The notification, referring to Donum Veritatis, suggests as much: “Thus the truth revealed by God himself in Jesus Christ, and transmitted by the Church, constitutes the ultimate normative principle of theology.” Trust in the normative power of truth claims is at odds with the postmodern zeitgeist, which questions not simply the truthfulness of statements but truth itself. Such faith and the deep value it holds can legitimately be offended by the skepticism over normative claims so prevalent today. Does the notification assert that Sobrino’s Christology falls prey to such skepticism? There is reason to think so, namely, the concern for “the manner in which the author treats the major Councils of the early Church.” The notification lifts out this particular quote from Sobrino’s Christ the Liberator: “While these texts are useful theologically, besides being normative, they are also limited and even dangerous, as is widely recognized today.” While recognizing the limited character of dogmatic formulation, the notification insists that “there is no foundation for calling these formulas dangerous, since they are authentic interpretations of Revelation.”

Here the wisdom from the Orthodox tradition and the relevance of Chrysostom’s text become evident. The Orthodox warn against making dogmatic claims with too much confidence. While truth is behind all such claims, the ecclesial setting for truth is not objectivity but love. Truth is not simply about objectivity but also solidarity. And this is one of the lessons I learned from Chrysostom’s text. The Christ the church worships at its altar is also the Christ found at the altar of the world’s poor. In this sense both Sobrino and the C.D.F. appear to speak truthfully and accurately. Christ’s ecclesial matrix is the church that worships in faith. It is also the church of the poor. This is the famous both-and that marks the church as Catholic.

Having a both-and Christology is not the same as postmodern skepticism. It is the very nature of a faith that proclaims that God is one and three, that Jesus is human and divine. There is something more dangerous to the faith than a Christ who can only be grasped through multiple views; it is a view of truth as either-or.

“Definitive” truth that is not loving can bring only despair to an already nihilistic world. Postmodernism thrives precisely because it sees the suffering of this world as having reached horrendous and senseless proportions. A church that is methodologically indifferent to senseless suffering is at odds with the methods of Jesus himself. Only a Jesus who belongs to a church that is not afraid to identify itself with the suffering of this world can have any rational claim on the world itself. In other words, the normative character of the truth of the church’s faith is protected, defended and nurtured by a praxis that will not regard as normative the senseless suffering of billions. The church has two altars. The C.D.F. points rightly to one; Sobrino points to the other.

Balancing Human and Divine

By Kevin Burke

Christology is a complex discipline. It requires an intricate balancing act among assertions perennially in tension with one another. One of my first theology teachers, Brian Daly, S.J., emphasized this point in a course tellingly entitled “The Christological Controversies.” He noted how every orthodox Christological claim tends toward one or another heresy and needs to be complemented by other claims. Moreover, this process of complementing and balancing involves more than rehearsing the facts of church doctrine, for the language of faith often explodes like a riot of color in a wild garden or a true poem. As such, Christology involves evocation. Its arguments turn on the subtlest of metaphors.

And the work is always unfinished. Theology itself has to grow to stay alive. Theologians betray their vocation if they simply repeat word-for-word definitions taken from Scripture or doctrine, as if formulas could contain faith or words exhaust mystery. Every age, every culture needs to find access to Jesus Christ from within its own distinctive language and worldview. But the future of theology does not undermine the importance of its past. Theological growth needs direction to remain authentically alive. It needs Scripture (the normative witness to apostolic faith) and the Christological dogmas formulated by the theologians of the early church.

However, the teachings of Scripture and tradition are not self-interpreting. For this reason, Christology is not only complex but dangerous. Even devout believers can lose their way in the thickets of Christological reasoning. Even clear and apparently unambiguous statements like “Christians believe in the divinity of Jesus Christ” need to be interpreted in relation to other statements. Taken in isolation, without reference to the full humanity of Jesus, this statement is misleading and potentially harmful. In contrast, the classic formula developed at the Council of Chalcedon in A.D. 451, affirms the full divinity and full humanity of the one person, Jesus Christ, “without confusion, without change, without division, without separation.” And even this profound and balanced definition is not the end of the matter, for inquiring minds want to know: How do we make sense of this?

In the effort to make sense of the language of faith, the choice of where to begin is crucial because it shapes the way we imagine Jesus. This, I believe, represents the key difference between the Christology of Jon Sobrino, S.J., and the logic of the Vatican notification that criticizes his work. The notification implies that theology should start “from above,” with the Nicene Creed’s affirmation of Jesus’ divinity (“one in being with the Father”). Sobrino, by contrast, begins “from below” where the synoptic Gospels begin, with Jesus as he appeared to his contemporaries (“Is this not the carpenter’s son?”). The one approach starts with doctrine. The other begins in history.

On the surface, starting from doctrine appears to be the strongest way to safeguard the faith. But throughout Christianity’s history, it is the return to Jesus that consistently protects theology from the greatest danger of all—the temptation to use its own logic to misrepresent God. Concern for this danger lies behind the commandment forbidding false images of God: God cannot be described by analogy to what we think a god ought to be like. For his part, Sobrino is wary of the assumption that “we already know what divinity is” when we apply the term to Jesus. Rather, Jesus reveals what divinity means. Starting with Jesus and moving from there to an interpretation of his being the eternal Word of God unmasks the temptation to manipulate his image (and thereby God’s image) for our own ends.

Furthermore, Sobrino begins with Jesus precisely to “make sense” of Christian faith in a world burdened by “senseless” suffering, especially the suffering that results from inhuman poverty and violent oppression. Starting with Jesus and his scandalous love for the poor provides the best way today to lead people to authentic faith in Jesus Christ. It empowers Christians to live as disciples of Jesus while confirming their claim to be advocates of a universal, integral justice. Finally, it provides a credible way of holding the tension between the divine and the human natures of Jesus. Sobrino directs the imagination to that which is most easily imaginable: Jesus as he appeared to his contemporaries. He then leads it beyond its normal limits, as theology must, in order to give a complete account of Christian hope.

The Vatican notification warns that Sobrino’s method might scandalize believers who are not sophisticated enough to follow his subtle theological ascent. If people begin by imagining Jesus in his humanity, they might remain there, with a “merely human” Jesus. Of course, a corresponding risk exists for those who start with the Nicene Creed and utilize a dogmatic imagination. This approach can lead simple believers into a heretically high Christology like Docetism, in which Jesus, the Son of God, only appears to be human.

Christology wrestles with difficult questions. In-deed, its own use of reason can be dangerous. But not every danger can be addressed by authoritative pronouncements. More-over, while it may be prudent to warn believers about the possible dangers of Sobrino’s Christology, it seems equally necessary to call attention to corresponding dangers in Christologies that begin with Jesus’ divinity. At the very least it is a mistake to think that Christologies “from below” pose the only or the greatest danger to Christian faith.

Word Incarnate

By Robert P. Imbelli

Pressed to choose but one New Testament verse to recapitulate the Good News, the Gospel within the Gospel, one might opt for the climax of the Prologue of St. John (1:14):

And the Word became flesh

and made his dwelling among us, and we saw his glory, the glory of the Father’s only Son, full of grace and truth.

The Word, the eternal Son of the Father, who precedes and “pre-contains” all creation, became part of created reality, entered into human history, lived a complete human life, became one of us—even unto death.

So stupendous is this mystery that already in the first century some demurred. Surely it was unseemly for the divine to enter into the muck of humanity, confined in a body, subject to the indignities and torments to which flesh is heir. So began the perennial Gnostic revulsion against the flesh, and especially against the flesh-taking of the Holy, Immortal One.

The First Letter of John stands at the origin of the ecclesial tradition of discernment of spirits. It reiterates with insistence: “Beloved, do not trust every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they belong to God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world. This is how you can know the Spirit of God: every spirit that acknowledges that Jesus Messiah has come in the flesh belongs to God” (1 Jn 4:1-2). The incarnation of the Word is not adventitious to God’s saving action; it is the very heart of salvation.

The Letter to the Hebrews sealed the canonical New Testament’s incarnational conviction. “In the days of his flesh, Jesus offered prayers and supplications with loud cries and tears to God who was able to save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverence. Son though he was, he learned obedience from what he suffered; and having been made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him” (Heb 5:7-9).

Almost 400 years later, the great Christological Council of Chalcedon articulates, in the language of its culture and time, this core discernment and persuasion of the New Testament. Jesus the Christ is “perfect [Greek teleion] in divinity, perfect in humanity, truly God and truly human, of a rational soul and body.” In a famous formulation the council confesses the one Lord Jesus Christ “in two natures with no confusion, no change, no division, no separation...the property of both natures is preserved and comes together into a single person and a single subsistent being.” Here the mystery of the Incarnation is neither explained nor reduced, but confessed and celebrated. Chalcedon enunciates the “deep grammar” that governs the church’s preaching, catechesis and theological reflection.

Fast-forward 1,500 years. As part of the commemoration of the anniversary of Chalcedon, Karl Rahner, S.J., wrote an essay that stands at the origin of renewed Christological reflection in the Catholic tradition. The essay, in revised form, appears in the first volume of his Theological Investigations under the title “Current Problems in Christology.” In the context of the Catholic theological world of the 1950s, these sentences rang like a manifesto:

We shall never cease to return to this formula [of Chalcedon], because whenever it is necessary to say briefly what it is that we encounter in the ineffable truth which is our salvation, we shall always have recourse to its modest, sober clarity. But we shall only really have recourse to it (and this is not at all the same thing as simply repeating it), if it is not only our end but also our beginning.

Rahner lamented that there was far too much mere repetition of creedal formulae, rather than genuine appropriation of the council’s insight. Moreover, he also judged that some of what was said in standard textbooks and in popular preaching was, often inadvertently, not consonant with Chalcedon’s measured doctrine. In particular, Rahner discerned a “crypto-monophysitism” that emphasized the divinity of Christ to the virtual exclusion of his full humanity.

In retrospect, this article (published in German in 1954 and in English in 1961) anticipated the direction of much of post-Vatican II Christological reflection by Catholic theologians. It stressed the need to do full justice to the humanity of Jesus, to return anew to the canonical range of New Testament witness rather than relying, almost exclusively, on the Gospel of John. It advocated complementing a “Christology from above” with a “Christology from below,” one that takes with utmost seriousness “the human experience of Jesus.”

Rahner already anticipated that this commitment would entail not only a focus on the human nature of the Word in some abstract, timeless fashion, but a consideration of the “flesh-taking” in its concrete historical, religious and social setting. This commitment, supported and promoted by the experience and teaching of Vatican II, led to a profusion of works in Christology: from Hans Küng to Edward Schillebeeckx, from Hans Urs von Balthasar to Walter Kasper, from Jon Sobrino to Elizabeth Johnson. Though the works of these authors certainly differ among themselves, all would echo Rahner’s claim that Chalcedon marks not only an end, but also a beginning of the church’s never-ending reflection on the mystery of its Lord.

In the present situation of Catholic theology, at least in its university setting, I think few would contend, as Rahner did 50 years ago, that there flows “an undercurrent of monophysitism.” The acknowledgement of the humanity of Jesus, of his immersion in the Jewish religious-cultural world of his time, has become an indisputable given (see Elizabeth Johnson, Consider Jesus; N. T. Wright, Jesus and the Victory of God; Gerald O’Collins, Christology: a Biblical, Historical, and Systematic Study of Jesus). New archeological findings continue to “flesh out” the flesh of Jesus of Nazareth (see James H. Charlesworth, ed., Jesus and Archeology, Eerdmans, 2006). The present danger may lie, rather, in an inclination to present a Jesus who is fully, but only, human: a “Christology from below” that never quite manages to get off the ground. The church’s foundational faith in the incarnation of the only Son risks being reduced to a vague avowal of the divine inspiration of one who is a provocative prophet. Indeed, some even hint that the church’s dogmatic tradition distorts the reality of the first-century Jewish figure.

I read the recent notification of the C.D.F. on some writings of Father Jon Sobrino as a call to accountability to the grammar of Chalcedon, even as theologians probe new insights and forge new language. In the spirit of 1 John, it offers guidelines for discernment. I do not think Karl Rahner would object in principle to this admonition, though he might differ, of course, with regard to the congregation’s specific findings.

The challenge before us all, not only theologians, but preachers and parents, artists and educators, is to rekindle in our day and place the Christic imagination: to appropriate and extend Vatican II’s confident confession that Jesus is “the light of the nations” (Lumen Gentium, No. 1), that he is “the mediator and fullness of all revelation” (Dei Verbum, No. 2) and that the Holy Spirit offers to everyone “the possibility of being associated with Christ’s paschal mystery” (Gaudium et Spes, No. 22).

In pursuing this inexhaustible blessing and mission, we can do no better than take as a sure guide the Letter to the Hebrews, which so forthrightly celebrates the humanity of the Lord. For it also, with equal boldness, proclaims his unsurpassable uniqueness (Heb 1:1-2):

In times past, God spoke in partial and diverse ways to our ancestors through the prophets, but in these, the days of fulfillment, God has spoken to us through a Son, whom he has made heir of all things and through whom he created the universe.

Jesus and the Kingdom of God

By John R. Donahue

The kingdom of God assumes a central place in the notification on the works of Jon Sobrino, S.J., as it does in contemporary New Testament scholarship. A wide spectrum of New Testament scholars of all denominations significantly agrees that the central theme of the public proclamation of Jesus was the arrival of God’s powerful reign. Beyond this consensus is a virtual storm of scholarly discussion and debate. The kingdom is a major topic in three recent scholarly tomes: Jesus: A Marginal Jew, Vol. 2, by John P. Meier (reviewed in America, 4/8/95); Jesus and the Victory of God, by N. T. Wright (Am. 3/8/97); and Jesus Remembered, by James D. G. Dunn (Am. 12/3/03).

The Greek term itself, basileia tou theou (literally, “kingdom of God”), expresses the power of God active in the ministry of Jesus, but it also implies a spatial or local dimension, as in “United Kingdom.” The expression is a tensive symbol, evoking a host of associations rather than a single referent. The proclamation has a clear eschatological dimension—the final and definitive rule of God is at hand.

A host of problems accompany interpretation of this proclamation. There are three principal groups of sayings. The first stresses the presence of the kingdom; the second, its future coming; the third, its demands on people who wish to accept or enter it. A seemingly endless debate centers on which sayings are closest to the actual statements of Jesus (his ipsissima vox). Advocates of the presence of the kingdom interpret Jesus primarily as a prophet of reform (John Dominic Crossan), while the future sayings form the basis of interpreting Jesus as an apocalyptic preacher (Albert Schweitzer). Current exegesis leans toward some version of the thesis of Joachim Jeremias, that Jesus proclaims God’s reign as already at work in his ministry, while anticipating its fullest realization in the future.

Evidence for both positions is ample. Jesus inaugurates his public ministry by proclaiming that the kingdom of God is at hand and summoning people to reform and renewal (metanoia, Mk 1:16-17). Jesus also proclaims that the kingdom is “among you” (Lk 17:21), not “within you,” a translation that spawns many inaccurate appropriations. His mighty works of healing, confrontation with demons and his power over nature are the signs of God’s power now at work in his life and teaching. The kingdom is “of God,” both as gift and challenge; despite common parlance, nowhere does the New Testament speak of “building the kingdom of God.” For his part, Jesus speaks often of the kingdom in parables drawn from the ordinary lives of his hearers. Human experience is the path toward the transcendent.

Future expectation is also strong. Disciples are to pray that the kingdom will come, just as they pray for God’s will to be be done on earth as in heaven (Mt 6:10). Other sayings of Jesus reflect Jewish apocalyptic thought, with its emphasis on the end of the world, when the exalted Son of Man will reign as king to judge evildoers and restore justice to the elect (the sheep and the goats, Mt 25:31-46). According to Paul, eschatological fulfillment of the reign of God will come when at the end time the risen Jesus will hand over his kingdom to “his God and Father” (1 Cor 15:24).

The radical challenge of the kingdom is crystallized in a series of sayings on conditions for “entering” the kingdom. Rather than scandalize a child or commit other sins, one should be willing to enter the kingdom of God blind (Mk 9:47). Those who wish to enter the kingdom should be powerless like children (Mt 19:14); riches provide an overwhelming obstacle to entering (Mt 19:23-25). Disciples who seek the prestige of sitting at the right hand of Jesus in the kingdom are urged instead to become servants and slaves (Mt 20:21-25).

The powerful reign of God is not otherworldly, but embodied in history. Its arrival brings special hope to the poor, the suffering and the marginal. When Jesus calls the poor happy because “the kingdom of God is yours” (Lk 6:26), he is declaring that God’s reign is on their behalf. After the rich young man fails to heed Jesus’ call to give his wealth to the poor, Jesus comments to his disciples about the young man’s reluctance, “How hard it is for the rich to enter the kingdom of God” (Mk 10:23).

Jesus’ personal consciousness of the reign of God constitutes an enduring problem. Though, apart from John 18, Jesus never refers to “his kingdom” and does not accept the title “king,” he has a unique relationship to God’s reign. For decades scholars have called attention to Origen’s description of Jesus as autobasileia (literally “himself the kingdom”). Recent magisterial statements have frequently appealed to this text. While reflecting on Matt 18:23-35, Origen says that “king” refers to the Son of God. He goes on to ask: Since Jesus is “wisdom itself” (autosophia), “justice itself” (autodikaiosyne) and “truth itself” (autoasphaleia), is he not also autobasileia “the kingdom itself” (In Mt. Hom., 14:7)?

Origen prefers the spiritual sense over the literal, and his commentary is allegorical and Christological. The phrase “the kingdom itself,” therefore, is a theological expression on the trajectory that leads to the councils of Ephesus and Chalcedon. It is an interpretation, rather than a description of the historical Jesus.

Jesus’ Self-Consciousness

By William Thompson-Uberuaga

Regard for Jesus’ human identity and consciousness is not new. Luke 2:52 tells us that Jesus grew in wisdom. The Gospels attest to threshold moments in which Jesus’ consciousness unfolds, such as his baptism (which brings a heightened awareness of his relationship with his Father and his mission, tutored by John the Baptist), his desert experience (when he confronts his “demons” and readies himself for the struggles to come), his anointing by the Spirit (bestowing the gift of bringing good news to the poor), his transfiguration (opening up further depths of his particular person and mission) and his struggle in Gethsemane (about the will of God for him unto death).

In the second century Irenaeus wrote that the Son established a genuine communion with us through passing “through every stage of life” (Against Heresies). Still, early church councils found that they had to defend Jesus’ authentic human soul, intellect, will and vital energy against some who would deny them, so counterintuitive did it seem that God would come among us as a human being.

Since the connection between persons and their consciousnesses is an intimate one, it is reasonable to think that any special qualities of personhood would also shape one’s consciousness. Such thinking brings special challenges to our understanding of Jesus the Christ. His person, according to Christian doctrine, possesses two natures, divine and human. The communion between Jesus’ divinity and humanity, as a true communion, would entail an exchange of attributes between the two: God truly sharing the human condition. All of this is attested to by Scripture and taught by church councils. But does his divine identity and nature affect Jesus’ human consciousness? If so, in what way(s) can this happen without tampering with an integral human nature and human mind, and so risk being inconsistent with the doctrines of Chalcedon and Constantinople III?

The question is difficult and brings us to one of the fault lines among theologians today. We might argue a case deductively, based on a view of how God would act. God would never do anything to harm Jesus’ consciousness, we might say, but rather would create it and sustain it. That position uses the theological principle that God as the creator always enhances rather than curtails creation. We cannot do much without general principles like that from which to make deductions.

But we reach a limit here. For how well do we know who God is and how God should act? Some early heretics thought they knew God’s being well enough to argue that it would be inappropriate for Jesus to have a truly human intellect and will, because that would diminish the sovereignty of his divine nature, giving too much independence to his humanity. This sounded reasonable. Yet the church, following Scripture, could not accept such a view. The Word truly became human in Jesus, and being human entails the presence of a fully functioning human intellect and will. Apparently God was trying to reveal to us a different view of who he is and how he acts.

Other theologians take an inductive approach, led by the witness of revelation. Scripture teaches that Jesus was sinless (Heb 4:15), for example. Sinlessness is one of the special ways in which Jesus’ divinity enhanced his humanity. It coheres with Jesus’ mission, too, which is to be the way out of humanity’s sinful condition. Scripture teaches that Jesus possessed an extraordinary ability to discern the depths of the human heart, like the hearts of Judas, Peter and the Samaritan woman at the well. Sinlessness and deep discernment of the human heart exemplify the exchange between Jesus’ divine and human natures.

Overlapping the fault line is the theologians’ tendency either to maximize the ways in which Jesus’ divinity enhances his human consciousness or to understate them, in a more reserved way. For example, did Jesus enjoy the “full” beatific vision from the moment he was conceived—did he know as a fetus in the womb all that he would know after the resurrection? Was Jesus the only human ever able to see the Father continually creating his humanity, thus making it easier for him to be faithful to his Father’s will in accepting his death, as Bertrand de Margerie holds (“The Double Con-sciousness of Christ”)? When does the divine enhancement go too far, reducing Jesus’ humanity and leaving him with only one nature, the divine nature?

Other theologians choose to be reserved about the divine effects, unless compelled by revelation. Jesus, they suggest, enjoyed some vision of his divine nature and of his Father and the Spirit, but not the full, beatific vision of the resurrection state. Jesus’ earthly vision likely started out dim and grew in clarity as he passed through threshold experiences and matured. These theologians suggest that along with his special visionary knowledge as the Son in obedience to his Father, Jesus still was a person of faith, albeit of a unique kind. Such reasoning can be found in the work of Karl Rahner (Theological Investigations, Vol. V), Hans Urs von Balthasar (Theo-Drama, Vol. III) and Walter Kasper (Jesus the Christ) as well as Jon Sobrino (Jesus the Liberator: A Historical-Theological View and Christ the Liberator: A View from the Victims). Gerald O’Collins (Christology) offers one of the more developed analyses of the types of faith manifested by Jesus, that of trust and that of believing certain truths, such as those about God taught him as a Jew.

My impression is that the magisterium reflects the spread of views noted among the theologians. Reflecting the reserved, inductive tendency, the Catechism of the Catholic Church, so far as I can tell, rather than attributing the beatific vision to Jesus, speaks of his knowledge of everything pertaining to God, such as an “intimate” and “immediate knowledge” of the Father and a full understanding of those plans of God he had come to reveal (Nos. 472-74). This knowledge of his Father entails his knowledge of his own unique sonship (No. 444), of course. The catechism also attributes to Jesus a “trusting commitment” to the Father (No. 2600), which seems to be faith-as-trust. By contrast, the “Notification” sent to Jon Sobrino reflects a maximalist perspective, attributing the beatific vision to Jesus and arguing that it obviates the need for any faith by Jesus.

The views expressed on both sides of the fault lines fall within a legitimate spread of interpretations of the Catholic faith. From time to time we theologians may go too far, but doing so results in error rather than heresy in faithful theologians. Occasionally “some magisterial documents might not be free from all deficiencies” either, as Cardinal Ratzinger has written (Instruction on the Ecclesial Vocation of the Theologian, 1990, No. 24).

Jesus as Savior

By Robert A. Krieg

How did/does Christ bring about our salvation? The question comes to mind when reading the recent notification by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith concerning the theology of Jon Sobrino, S.J. In the C.D.F.’s judgment, Sobrino’s writings contain an inadequate account of the “salvific value” of Jesus’ death.

In theology an entire subdiscipline, called soteriology, is devoted to such matters. Soteriology means critical, systematic reflection on the mystery of God’s saving activity on our behalf. In particular, it inquires into the redemptive significance of Jesus’ life, death and resurrection by examining Jesus’ own proclamation as found in the New Testament and as interpreted and transmitted in the Christian tradition, in specific church teachings and in the witness of contemporary Christians.

Today six widely held convictions shape soteriology.

1. Jesus saw his suffering and death as the price he would need to pay for remaining faithful to his proclamation of the coming of God’s reign (Mk 1:14-15). He judged his passion to be part of his mission and, along with his entire life and ministry, it had redemptive significance (Mk 8:31-33).

2. Jesus did not, however, explicitly offer a complete explanation, much less a doctrine concerning the salvific value of his life, death and resurrection. Rather, he spoke of his passion using such images as a “ransom” (Mk 10:45), a “grain of wheat” that dies and “bears much fruit” (John 12:24), the “beloved son” sent by his father to reclaim the vineyard (Mk 12:6), and his body “that is for you” and his blood “poured out for many” (1 Cor 11:24; Mk 14:23).

3. To elucidate the redemptive meaning of Jesus’ life, death and resurrection, the New Testament writers employ a wide range of metaphors. Paul speaks of Jesus Christ as the “new Adam,” who lived and died in unswerving faithfulness to God, bringing grace “for the many” (Rom 5:15). Mark depicts Jesus as succumbing to death and thereby “tying up the strong man,” Satan (Mk 3:27). Matthew portrays Jesus’ passion as the death of an “innocent” and hence truly “righteous” person (Mt 27:19; Wis 2:12; 3:1). Luke perceives Jesus’ death and resurrection as the releasing of the Holy Spirit into history (Lk 24:49; Acts 2:4). John presents Jesus’ entire life, culminating in his suffering and death, as the revelation of God’s love (Jn 10:11).

4. The Christian tradition in the West similarly contains at least five different types of models or “theories” concerning the salvific value of the cross. The Christus-Victor view of St. Gregory of Nyssa (d. 395) speaks of Jesus Christ freeing us from Satan’s grasp. The “satisfaction theory” of St. Anselm (d. 1109) presents Jesus Christ initiating the restoration of right relationships in creation. According to the “penal-substitution” theory of John Calvin (d. 1564), Jesus Christ deliberately became the victim of the wrath of God that we all deserve. The sacramental view of Abelard (d. 1142) perceives Jesus’ cross as the definitive revelation of God’s love. And the representative theology of St. Irenaeus (d. 200) holds that Jesus Christ brought about the cosmic breakthrough of human faithfulness and love in response to God’s grace.

5. Although God’s saving activity in Jesus Christ happened once and for all, it is at the same time an ongoing reality. Thus it can be mediated through the sacraments, the act of faith, participation in the life of the church and care for people in need.

6. God’s redemption in Jesus Christ is a mystery, a reality that we can increasingly understand but never fully fathom. For this reason it is best understood by means of a variety of metaphors and models. In the Second Vatican Council’s “Pastoral Constitution on the Church and the Modern World” (Gaudium et Spes), four distinct “theories” of how Christ saved us occur all within the same article (No. 22). Jesus Christ saved us because he is “the very revelation of the mystery of the Father and his love” (sacramental model); he is also identified as the “new Adam,” who “has restored in the children of Adam that likeness to God which had been disfigured ever since the first sin” (representative model). Moreover, Christ “merited life for us by his blood, which he freely shed” (satisfaction model), and he united us with God by “freeing us from the bondage of the devil and of sin” (Christus-Victor Model).

As the C.D.F. rightly states, Catholic theologians must uphold “the normative value of the affirmations of the New Testament as well as those of the great Councils of the early Church” (Explanatory Note, No. 3). Yet the C.D.F. neglects to clarify that theologians serve the church by exploring the soteriological implications of these “affirmations,” especially since the church possesses no complete and final doctrinal formulation concerning the theological value of Jesus’ life, death and resurrection.

An evaluation of an individual theologian’s soteriology is a complex endeavor. It requires analyzing the scholar’s entire use of redemptive metaphors and classic theories, and then locating this theological configuration within the spectrum of soteriological positions contained in Scripture, tradition and church teachings.

On the one hand, Sobrino’s work contains some soteriological statements that are inadequate or ambiguous, especially when they are extracted from their texts. For example, Sobrino wrote in Jesus the Liberator, as the C.D.F. notes, “Let it be said from the start that the historical Jesus did not interpret his death in terms of salvation....” This statement by itself is inadequate. When it is completed by its subordinate clause, it becomes more acceptable, but remains ambiguous: “Let it be said from the start that the historical Jesus did not interpret his death in terms of salvation, in terms of the soteriological models later developed by the New Testament, such as expiatory sacrifice or vicarious satisfaction” (P. 201). Also problematic, as the C.D.F. has observed, is the following statement concerning Jesus’ death: “This saving efficacy is shown more in the form of an exemplary cause than an efficient cause” (P. 230). Is Jesus Christ no more than an example or role model of a life of love?

On the other hand, the notification understates the merits of the Jesuit theologian’s critical, systematic reflections on salvation in Jesus Christ. In Jesus the Liberator Sobrino unites three of the classical “theories” of Jesus Christ as redeemer—Christ the victor who remained faithful to the true God amid “the battle of the divinities and their mediators,” and thereby overcame death by “bearing the evil from which we have to be redeemed” (Pp. 219, 217); Jesus the new Adam, “the revelation of the homo verus, the true and complete human being...depicted by the New Testament as one who ‘goes about doing good,’ who was ‘faithful and merciful,’ who came ‘not to be served but to serve’” (P. 229); and the cross as sacramental: “Jesus’ cross is the expression of God’s love.... And God chose this way of showing himself, because he could not find any clearer way of telling us human beings that he really wills our salvation” (P. 231).

Taken as a whole, Sobrino’s writings express a rich—though not flawless—Catholic soteriology. Father Sobrino deserves the church’s gratitude, not its suspicion.

Alejandro Garcia-Rivera is a professor of systematic theology at the Jesuit School of Theology in Berkeley, Calif.

Kevin Burke, S.J., is academic dean of the Jesuit School of Theology in Berkeley, Calif.

The Rev. Robert P. Imbelli, a priest of the Archdiocese of New York, teaches systematic theology at Boston College, Chestnut Hill, Mass.

John R. Donahue, S.J., is the Raymond E. Brown Distinguished Professor of New Testament Studies (emeritus) at St. Mary’s Seminary and University, Baltimore, Md., and was author of America’s The Word column from 1999 to 2002.

William Thompson-Uberuaga is a professor of systematic theology at Duquesne University in Pittsburgh, Pa.

Robert A. Krieg is a professor of theology at the University of Notre Dame.

Wednesday, September 12, 2007

The Message of Blessed Teresa of Calcutta to Atheists





















From "TheWesternConfucian"

Capuchin Father Raniero Cantalamessa, preacher to the papal household, asks, "She became poor to serve the materially poor — did she similarly share the sufferings of the spiritually poor?"─The ‘Atheism’ of Mother Teresa. An excerpt:

The world of today knows a new category of people: the atheists in good faith, those who live painfully the situation of the silence of God, who do not believe in God but do not boast about it; rather they experience the existential anguish and the lack of meaning of everything: They too, in their own way, live in the dark night of the spirit.Albert Camus called them “the saints without God.” The mystics exist above all for them; they are their travel and table companions. Like Jesus, they “sat down at the table of sinners and ate with them” (see Luke 15:2).This explains the passion in which certain atheists, once converted, pore over the writings of the mystics: Claudel, Bernanos, the two Maritains, L. Bloy, the writer J.K. Huysmans and so many others over the writings of Angela of Foligno; T.S. Eliot on those of Julian of Norwich.There they find again the same scenery that they had left, but this time illuminated by the sun. Few know that Samuel Beckett, the author of Waiting for Godot, the most representative drama of the theater of the absurd, in his free time read St. John of the Cross.

The word “atheist” can have an active and a passive meaning. It can indicate someone who rejects God, but also one who — at least so it seems to him — is rejected by God. In the first case, it is a blameworthy atheism (when it is not in good faith), in the second an atheism of sorrow or of expiation. In the latter sense, we can say that the mystics, in the night of the spirit, are “a-theist,” that Jesus himself on the cross was an “a-theist”, without-God. Mother Teresa has words that no one would have suspected of her: “They say people in hell suffer eternal pain because of the loss of God. ... In my soul I feel just this terrible pain of loss, of God not wanting me, of God not being God, of God not really existing. Jesus please forgive the blasphemy.”But one is aware of the different nature, of solidarity and of expiation, of this “atheism” of hers: “I wish to live in this world that is so far from God, which has turned so much from the light of Jesus, to help them — to take upon myself something of their suffering.”

The clearest sign that this is an atheism of a completely different nature is the unbearable suffering that it causes to the mystics. Normal atheists don’t torment themselves because of the absence of God. The mystics arrived within a step of the world of those who live without God; they have experienced the dizziness of throwing themselves down. Again, Mother Teresa who writes to her spiritual father: “I have been on the verge of saying — No. ... I feel as if something will break in me one day. ... Pray for me that I may not refuse God in this hour — I don’t want to do it, but I am afraid I may do it.”Because of this the mystics are the ideal evangelizers in the post-modern world, where one lives etsi Deus non daretur (as if God did not exist). They remind the honest atheists that they are not “far from the Kingdom of God”; that it would be enough for them to jump to find themselves on the side of the mystics, passing from nothingness to the All. [link via The New Beginning]

The Simpler Way

From "TheWesternConfucian" blog


From Australia, a book that advocates a return to the above─Review: Renewable energy cannot sustain a consumer society. An except from the book:
…the essential factor in our global predicament is over-consumption… [so] we must move to far more materially simple lifestyles…We have to come to see as enjoyable living frugally, recycling, growing food, ‘husbanding’ resources, making rather than buying, composting, repairing, bottling fruit, giving surpluses and old things to others, making things last, and running a relatively self-sufficient household economy. The Buddhist goal is a life ‘simple in means and rich in ends’.I'm reminded of the most famous chapter of Small is Beautiful by E.F. Schumacher, explained in this 1977 article by Charles Fager─Small Is Beautiful, and So Is Rome: Surprising Faith of E.F. Schumacher:
He readily owned up to being a Catholic, a certified convert as of five years ago. This item is not mentioned in his book; in fact, one of the most frequently cited chapters, “Buddhist Economics,” almost made it appear as if he were deeply involved in Eastern religions. But wasn’t this chapter, I inquired, really more informed by the Catholic writings and thinkers he mentioned so frequently elsewhere in the book -- the papal encyclicals, Newman, Gilson and, above all, Thomas Aquinas?Schumacher grinned. “Of course. But if I had called the chapter ‘Christian Economics,’ nobody would have paid any attention!” [emphasis mine]

American Workers being Overworked



H/T VoxNova:


And then we wonder why there are so many divorces and broken families…

From CNN:

• The American worker has the least vacation time of any modern, developed society.
• In 2005, 33 percent of workers said they would be checking in with the office while on vacation.
• One-half of workers reported they feel a great deal of stress on the job.
• Forty-four percent of working moms admit to being preoccupied about work while at home and one-fourth say they bring home projects at least one day a week.
• Nineteen percent of working moms reported they often or always work weekends.
• Thirty-seven percent of all working dads said they would consider the option of taking a new job with less pay if it offered a better work/life balance.
• Thirty-six percent of working dads reported they bring work home at least one day a week and 30 percent say they often or always work weekends.

Monday, September 3, 2007

Heavenly Hurling


Sunday, 02 September 2007 15:30
More from this writer..
Chronicles

Heavenly Hurling

There is a perennially sun dappled corner of Heaven where the hurling people gather, writes An Fear Rua…Whenever your turn comes, I hope you’ll mosey round there. True, you may be tempted to linger along the way by the opportunity of shaking the hand of the great Abe Lincoln and chatting about his Gettysburg Address or spend endless hours with a truculent Bonaparte as he – yet again – pores over the map of a little Flemish village called Waterloo and wonders where it all went wrong. Sipping cool white whine by the banks of a babbling brook with Helen of Troy, no doubt, has its attractions as indeed might a few sessions with the flame-haired Grace O’Malley as she recalls her greatest military exploits against the invader.Still, if it has to be for an eternity, wouldn’t it be better to spend it pucking around a sliothar, coaching an Under Fourteen side to success in Féile or discussing the relative merits of, say, Ring and Mackey with the great men themselves?It won’t be too hard to find that hurling corner. You’ll probably hear the distinctive ‘tick … tock’ of ash on leather through the still warmth of evening air. The intermittent shouts from beyond the high hedgerows. Sometimes of approval or encouragement. Occasionally, with a hint of derision. If there’s a game on, there may be an oul lad at the gate, with a bit of a limp, a heavy overcoat and a flat cap thrust close to his pate, even though the sun is splitting the proverbial rocks nearby. More than likely, he’ll be standing beside a kitchen chair with a Jacobs ‘Marietta’ tin box plonked on it and a few forlorn notes and coins nestling in its silvery bosom. ... CONTINUE