Gran Torino...yes, I just finally watched it.

If you have never seen Gran Torino you need to see it.  It is a film with a clear gospel message.  I want to blog about this movie, however, I am letting you know that I am about to tell you the entire story.  Spoiler alter. 

A crusty, old white guy named Walt, who hated people about as much as he hated life, lived in an urban neighborhood that was becoming a minority neighborhood filled with gang violence.  He can only be described as crude and abrasive.  He eventually softens to his Asian neighbors, taking a young boy he prefers to call Toad under his wing.

Toad comes under pressure to join a gang, and is assaulted by his gang member cousin.  Walt retaliates on Toads behalf, beating up one of the gang members.  The gang members in return shoot up Toad’s house, and they beat and rape his sister.  She and her family are terrified to call the police, and they now feel powerless and afraid in light of the power of this evil. 

An experienced killer from his Army days in Korea, Walt gives every appearance of planning revenge.  We see him cleaning his guns and suggesting to Toad that he was planning how to take out the gang.  Toad wants part in the revenge killing, but Walt locks Toad in the basement.  Walt tells him he has his whole life in front of him, and, based upon Walt’s experience in Korea, he knows Toad cannot live a life of guilt like he had lived.  Justice is crying out, and Walt sets out to “put the world to rights.”

At night Walt stands outside of the gang’s house and confronts them with a barrage of foul language.  This cowboy, wild, wild west confrontation draws the attention of the whole neighborhood.  With multiple armed gang members looking out the windows and doors, Walt reaches inside his jacket, and the gang members unleash their fury, finding their mark many times over through Walt’s chest.  Walt falls dead with only a lighter in his hand.  Walt lays still with his arms stretched out as if in the position of one crucified.  Toad is freed from Walt’s basement by his sister, and they rush to the gang house to find Walt dead.  The police have all the gang members in custody, and the police comment that, due to some many neighborhood witnesses to the shooting, these gang members will spend much of their life in prison.  Justice is served.

That in short is the gospel.  The story is one of humanity oppressed and victimized by evil and violence, and they lack the power to overcome this evil.  In fact their attempts to return fire with fire only makes it worse and evil grows stronger.  Humanity attempts to deal with evil the best it knows how, but they most we can do is to take the life of the perpetrators.  Certainly, we all feel some sense of relief and justice when a Ted Bundy or Osama Bin Laden is killed for the awful things they have done, but it is temporary and incomplete.  Everyone has felt the desire to take matters into their own hands.  Most of us have experienced what it is like to hit back or retaliate with a sharp word.  It feels good but only for a while.

Jesus did something incredible.  He confronted the evil of this world.  Like Walt he stood in plain sight of the powers of evil, the Roman Empire, the corrupted Temple leaders of his day and the Powers and Principalities that operated behind them, and Jesus dared evil to do its worst.  They crucified him and buried him.  Hell spent its fury upon him.  But in their seeming victory they were defeated.  The cross that intended to harm instead brought life.  Like a cosmic jiu jitsu move Jesus became the victor instead of the victim.  He laid down his life so that the enemy of all of humanity might forever be defeated, and his resurrection sealed their fate.  I Corinthians 15:20-28 makes this very point. 

Like Jesus, Walt laid down his life so that evil would be defeated and the world could be put back to rights.  While evil still holds sway in this life, it is on life support, and its days are numbered.  Jesus promised to return, and he promised to consummate what was inaugurated in his resurrection.  While we await his return the power to defeat evil is accessed when we choose, like Jesus and Walt, to lay down our lives for others.  Jesus said that if we want to follow him we must pick up our cross and die, and in this dying we identify with Christ and we are put into union with Christ, ensuring that we will be able to participate in the celebration of his return rather than fleeing in fear at his return.  Maranatha.  

Chapter 3; “Coding and Decoding: Postcolonial Criticism and Biblical Interpretation”

            “What postcolonialism makes clear is that biblical studies can no longer be confined to the history of textual traditions, or to the doctrinal richness embedded in texts, but needs to extend its scope to include issues of domination, Western expansion and it ideological manifestations, as central forces in defining biblical scholarship.”[1]

            Post-colonial criticism is a diverse field with diverse methods, but its two main thrusts stem from the text based analysis of post-structuralism (decoding texts to discover the interests of power at work in and through them) and critical theorizing (not a theory as much as a way of continual questioning of dominant paradigms).  This third chapter is focused on explaining how the text based analysis works in the field of biblical studies.

            One of the features of texts that have been lost to the American reader steeped in the Enlightenment perspective is the very contextual nature of text.  In our “common sense” and literalist readings of text we tend to think of text as possessing the ability to communicate simply, clearly without significant distortion.  However, texts are born out of a particular context, and that context (historical, religious, political, economic, social and philosophical) deeply shapes the nature of that text.  Texts are not neutral descriptions that provide windows to see the world “as it really is.”  Recognizing this contextual nature of texts, post-colonialism seeks to highlight and critique the ideologies in a text and the power structures they reinforce.

            To this end, there are four codes that are detectable in a text: hegemonic, professional, negotiated and oppositional.  The hegemonic code in the text seeks to promote the dominant values and ideological interests of the powerful, ruling class.  A notable case of this code in the biblical text, according to Sugirtharajah, is the narratives in Kings and Samuel of the transition of power from David to Solomon.  These narratives seem to describe how one establishes power, destroys enemies and successfully transfers power to the next generation of the ruling class.

            The professional code attempts to establish and maintain customs, rules and norms to preserve their professional class and the law and order of society.  A prime example of this type of code in the biblical text would be the various laws and regulations found in the Torah and the New Testament household codes.  Sugirtharajah points out, however, that prophetic and priestly accounts could also cut against the dominant powers of culture.  In the Old Testament the Jubilee laws and Sabbath seems to cut against the interests of the economically powerful.

            The negotiated code acknowledges the right of the hegemonic influences of culture to prevail, but it takes a narrative into a new context to address a particular need of the community being addressed.  The best example of this type of code is found in the gospels.  Think of how many stories about Jesus are told with some rather different contexts based upon which synoptic gospel it appears.  Think of the story involving a lawyer asking Jesus which of the laws was greatest found in Mark 12, Matt. 22 and Luke 10.  Each gospel tells this story in a different context to emphasize various angles of the text to address their unique community and their interests.

            Lastly, the protest or oppositional code brings the marginalized into the text even if it is at the periphery of the text.  For example, Numbers 27 mentions the complaint of the five daughters of a deceased father complaining to Moses about the inheritance laws that dispossess women.  The text mentions that an exemption is made in their case.  Sugirtharajah points out that the decision is later restricted in Numbers 36 when these women are not allowed to marry outside of the clan, making sure the property remains part of the clan.

            The value of these codes to post-colonial criticism, Sugirtharajah argues, is that they help the reader become sensitive to the interests of power in the text by those who produce the text.  When applying these to the gospel narratives it becomes clear that ambiguity surrounds the stories about Jesus.  Sugirtharajah points out the lack of clear statements about the colonial situation found in Judea, although some hints of a critique from Jesus are present they are certainly not central to the text.  One example of the highlighting of the colonial presence in the text can be found in the story of Jesus healing the Gerasene demoniac found in Mark 5.  Most commentators find a connection between the 10^th Roman legion located in the nearby town and the textual reference to the demons’ name as Legion and casting the demons into the swine (boars) that is the symbol of the 10^th Legion.

            The project of decoding the text utilizes the traditional tools of the critical-historical schools of the Enlightenment (textual, form, source and literary criticism), but the aim of the project is to discover new readings of the text as against the dominant powers and traditional (Western) readings of the biblical text.  Post-colonial criticism seeks to “liberate” people groups from traditional interpretations of the text that have oppressed.  It also seeks to highlight the contradictory material of the text, undermining its authoritative position.

            The benefits of a post-colonial examination are that it allows the Christian West to remove their (unnoticed) lenses of traditional interpretation to see things in the text that our wealthy and privileged contexts tend to ignore or diminish.  It also enables the Protestants that are genuinely committed to the original Protestant task of protesting secured, dominate readings of the biblical text to continue to ongoing task of the Reformation, always reforming.  It helps the church ask again the question, “Are we sure our understanding of the text is legitimate?”

            However, there are obvious detriments to this approach to the text as well.  Springing from post-structuralist concerns, the original intent of the author is irrelevant to the reading of the text.  That particular approach to any text is ungenerous at best, and in the case of the biblical text it recapitulates the original sin of Eden, attempting to dethrone the God of the text.  Taking no care for the ability of the Author of the text to speak His message to all of humanity, even through the politically and economically dominant powers of the world that produced the text, is to ignore the power of the Author to inspire the human authors.

            Also, given the post-colonial reading the biblical text, it looses its power and authority to actually and forcefully challenge the illegitimate powers in our culture, since the text is seen as merely another product of dominant powers.  The meta-narrative of scripture, Fall, Crucifixion/Resurrection and Final Restoration/Defeat of Evil, is lost in such a reading, and the very power of the divine, cosmic gospel (good news of a distant battling being won/birth of a new King) is replaced by a toothless human project to bring progress to all through manipulation of the text.

            I suspect there will be much we can learn from the post-colonial school, and I am looking forward to growing in my hermeneutic of scripture.  But like most good art school films, in spite of an interesting twist to film making, much will need to be left on the cutting room floor.

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[1] R.S. Sugirtharajah, Postcolonial Criticism and Biblical Interpretation (Oxford: Oxford Press, 2002), 75.

Chapter 2; “Redress, Regeneration, Redemption: A Survey of Biblical Interpretation”

            This chapter is rather brief, and it is only tangentially related to post-colonial interpretation.  The author provides a summary look at alternative readings of the biblical text utilized by the marginalized prior to the arrival of post-colonialism.  There is not much to react to in this chapter as it is merely descriptive of some ways to use and read the biblical text in a culturally subversive manner.

            Dissident readings were practiced by some of the colonialists themselves.  Most known of this class is Bartolome de Las Casas, a Dominican friar, who took part of the Spanish colonization of South America.  His writings are available online for free.  They are very shocking in their explicit description of the Spanish treatment of the native Indians.  Upon arriving in the new world and seeing how his fellow countrymen treated the native population.  The biblical text then became the text by which to challenge the dominant reading of scripture available in his cultural context that were used to justify subjugation of the Indians.  However, the native population was not involved in this theological discussion due to their illiteracy and lack of training, and, therefore, the dissident readings were strictly a product of the colonizers.  The dissident readers held that Western cultural norms could blend easily with egalitarian impulses, never questioning the dominant rule of the West over non-western worlds.

            Resistant readings were the production of the colonized, yet these readings did not repudiate colonial rule.  Instead, these readings took the scriptures into their context, made them their own and used them against the West to critique their interaction with and treatment of the non-western cultures.

            Heritagist readings were the attempt of the colonized to recovery their cultural memory by finding analogies with the biblical text and their past cultural texts (written or otherwise).  They sought to interpret the Bible and their culture together in an inter-textual dance.   Often these readings will look to prior cultural religious metaphors and mine them for pre-gospel nuggets, and then use their cultural metaphors to express the gospel rather then utilizing Hellenistic or Semitic metaphors.  The goal of this type of reading is to recover from the cultural destruction that accompanies colonization.

            Nationalistic readings were attempts by the formerly colonized to rebuild their culture in the early period after independence.  The church operates in a mode of establishing egalitarian norms and leveling the playing field of those in power.

            Liberationist readings were grounded in leftist politics.  Gutierrez’s A Theology of Liberation made this type of reading popular.  Given the context of a newly politically independent yet economically “enslaved” nation, this reading seeks to theologize from the point of praxis, desiring radical, systemic change to bring about real economic justice and opportunity.  To see this reading in action rent Romero, a film about the archbishop of El Salvador that was assassinated by the right wing government at the time due to his increasingly critical remarks about government policies and their unjust impact upon the people of El Salvador.

            Dissentient readings were from the marginalized in societies that were formerly colonies.  These marginalized people criticized their governments for excluding or inappropriately limiting their involvement in the early periods of postcolonial rule.  Typically, these marginalized people would find biblical apocalyptic literature to be of significant value.  The book of Daniel especially with its focus on the vindication of the oppressed people of God as over the monstrous rulers of this earth was a favorite.

            These various readings are not mutually exclusive and there is often over lapping between these methods of reading the biblical text.  These readings are still found in a mission context and a Western context (even it is a reaction to), but post-colonial hermeneutics seeks to move beyond Christendom, placing biblical scholarship outside it usual Western, Enlightenment or Post-Enlightenment context.   

Introduction to Post-Colonial Criticism

            This semester I am taking a class titled World Christian Perspectives, and the class is designed to survey the theological reflections of what we often refer to as the Third World (Latin America, Asia and Africa).  What I have taken away from the class thus far is that the particular questions, needs and concerns of each culture tend to drive theological reflection upon the scriptures. 

            For example, when Western culture (marked by a quest for the rational and legal/formulaic understandings of all reality) seeks to understand and explain the work of Christ on the cross it tends to see the atonement in terms of a legal substitutionary model.  In contrast, tribal cultures have a primordial worldview, and by that I mean they see the world of the spirits rather involved and cohabitating in the material world with us.  Evil in the material world then is understood as the manifestation of the evil spirits.  In their culture the need and question for them is who or what can subdue or defeat these evil powers.  When this culture reflects upon the cross and resurrection they see this complex of events as the victory over the powers, principalities and authorities. (Eph. 1:21, Eph. 6:12, I Cor. 15:20-28)  They see the atonement in terms of the Victory of Christ over the enemies of mankind or evil powers.

            This cultural, hermeneutical and biblical study is deeply fascinating to me.  It touches on the broader issues of interpretation, text, hermeneutics, philosophy and the role of the church and the scripture in these disciplines.  This area of study seeks to address not only how we know (epistemology), but it seeks to address why we know the way we do.

            As part of this class we are going to take a look at the post-colonial movement and its integration into the biblical studies and theology.  As I am on spring break this week I purchased an additional text to deepen my exposure to this material.  I will be taking one chapter per day of spring break and posting a summary and reflection upon this text.  This exercise is more for my profit, but as long as I was writing to strengthen my retention and critique of the material I thought I would post it for the one person that might what to know something of post-colonial criticism in biblical studies without having to read a book or take a class.

            The author is R.S. Sugirtharaja, Professor of Biblical Hermeneutics at the University of Birmingham.  He is the author of numerous texts that are searchable and available at Amazon.  The text is titled Postcolonial Criticism and Biblical Interpretation, and it is published by Oxford Press.  The book is intended as introduction to the subject matter, and it is rather accessible for most readers.

            Chapter One “Charting the Aftermath: A Review of Postcolonial Criticism” serves as an introduction and history of postcolonial studies.  In the 1960’s many of the nations, tribes and peoples that had been under colonial rule of various European powers were beginning to gain their independence, and postcolonialism began as a political, literary and cultural expression of the colonized to be free.  It was never intended to be a grand, unified theory about colonialism and how to become free, but it was born as a multi-disciplinary critique of powers and their oppressive tendency.  Because of this origin, postcolonialism is best understood as a criticism rather than a theory.  A theory is an abstract model, deduced from certain axioms, that is applicable in any number of circumstances, but a criticism is “a style of enquiry, an insight or a perspective, a catalyst, a new way of life.”[1]  Thus, post-colonialism (with the hyphen) is a reference to the criticism, and postcolonialism is a reference to the broader history of freedom and its literary expression.

            As an academic tool post-colonialism became rather fashionable in various disciplines during the 1980’s.  The cultural and literary perspectives of the colonized were adopted as the means to sensitize the Western academy to marginalized voices and perspectives and to question the dominant paradigms (colonial views).  Key to understanding this project is their working assumption that knowledge is power, an idea popularized by French philosopher Michael Foucault.  Foucault and post-colonial criticism sees colonial powers and dominate voices as establishing the rules by which knowledge is assessed, valued and defined.  This process defines what counts as knowledge in such a way that marginalized, colonized claims to knowledge are discounted as myth, fancy or subversion.  Creating such narrow (Western) definitions of what counts as knowledge is an act of power leading to the marginalization or persecution of alternative perspectives.  As a criticism, post-colonialism allows for a leveling of the playing field in the realm of knowledge and understanding, in theory.  The result was knowledge becames deeply political.

            Now that the European and American powers are out of the colonizing business one would think that this post-colonial criticism would fade away, but two realities keep this perspective alive.  First, there is now a concept of neo-colonialism.  This idea holds that European, and mostly the United States, is creating a new form of colonialism that is economic in nature rather than primarily political.  Instead of conquering new people groups and territory for direct political rule, the United States seeks, through use of policy and military muscle, economic relationships with other nations that benefit the economic structure of the US.  The consequence for the Third World nation is a forming and orienting of their political and economic life around the needs and demands of the US, or neo-colonialism somewhat reminiscent of the mercantilism of the 18^th century.  Take for example Libya.  Since Gadhafi surrendered his nuclear ambition in the last decade, the US has been supportive of his regime to keep Islamic radicalism at bay and oil flowing freely.  The US economic interest in keeping Gadhafi in power has resulted in devastating reality for the people of his country, and after too much repression the Libyan people have finally had enough.  Another example would be the policies of the US in support of extreme right wing governments in El Salvador in the 1980’s.  On this subject see the film Romero.

            Second, a question has been raised as to whether post-colonialism can include domestic “colonial” impulses and their effects.  International post-colonial critics ask whether American Women’s studies, African-American studies and other minority studies in the university setting should be included in the post-colonial discussion.  There are some international postcolonial professors that do not want to include the struggles of the American minorities in this discipline because their view on such struggles still involves a colonizing impulse as Americans, but it seems there is a broader consensus to include such voices in the postcolonial discipline.

            Since post-colonialism began as a literary movement it was only a matter of time before it washed up upon the shores of the land of biblical studies.  As a biblical discipline, post-colonialism seeks to grant voices of interpretation that have been hereto marginalized by the Western cultural domination of the biblical studies programs.  It seeks to give attention to parts of the biblical text and narrative that have gone unnoticed or undeveloped as areas of study and reflection.  This discipline of post-colonial biblical studies, in the history of ideas, is rather new and a developing phenomenon.  Since Western culture is in the throws of a post-Christian era and the Third World is the new center of Christianity, post-colonialism criticism will not be going away any time soon.  Therefore, any theological education must provide some interaction with these ideas, interpretations and hermeneutical understandings unless we as Western theologians are going to remain isolated in our Western Evangelical ghetto.

             

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[1] R.S.  Sugirtharajah, Postcolonial Criticism and Biblical Interpretation (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), 13.

Liberation Theology

WOW! It's been a long time since I have done this blogging thing.  I have been crazy busy, and I just have not made time to post.  This opportunity to post comes as a result of a class I am taking this semester called World Christian Perspectives.  I just finished reading a book by Gustavo Gutierrez called A Theology of Liberation.  His context is Roman Catholicism in Latin America, and he is writing about doing theology in that context.  At points it is not easy to read, but after completing the book and discussing it in class I am very appreciative of the opportunity to engage his ideas.  FYI - he is the most widely known voice in Liberation Theology, but he is not the only voice.  As with all movements, there is no one singular expression of a movement, and Guiterrez is merely a representative in this group.  There are others that are much more evangelical in their orientation.  Nevertheless, the following is a brief book review that will hopefully inspire you to pick up Gutierrez, Padilla or some other book of theology from outside of your context to help you sharpen you understanding of the global nature of the church and her theology.


By the end of the book I very much appreciated this read as a challenge to my paradigm for understanding and doing theology.  The first half of the book is a little slow, but there are key moments wherein his methodology is revealed and his interests are disclosed.  While it is poorly written, in the first half, lacking clarity, it is necessary to read to understand his theological project.

Essentially, Gutierrez is a Roman Catholic that wants to think through the implication of salvation, assuming the Word, the Roman Catholic tradition and the tragic history of the Latin American people in Latin America.  Methodologically, he wants to begin his theological reflection with orthopraxis rather than orthodoxy.  He wants to avoid the traditional Western approach whereby our right beliefs are the central starting point and then only to we move to right action.  His criticism is that in our beloved Western tradition wherein we cherish the rational individual we do not sufficiently, sometimes ever, get around to orthopraxis involving the community.

Key to understanding his theology is the central nature of incarnation, the Exodus as the model for salvation, and eschatology.  He sees in Christ's ministry the fulfillment of the Jewish (human) hope for salvation as expressed in the Exodus, a New Exodus so to speak.  For him the model of salvation is material and changes the material nature of the world.  Therefore, the eschaton has indeed come in Christ's death and resurrection.  Therefore, our work is about working out a material salvation for all the earth and its oppressed people's.

There is much to admire in his theology.  It emphasizes the realized nature of the eschaton in Christ's first advent, the need to take much more seriously the material nature of salvation in scripture and the obvious, but neglected, theme in scripture that God sides with the poor.  However, his theology raises some difficult issues as well.

First, it appears that there is little room for a future eschaton.  He seems to see all the benefits of Christ available in full right now.  If so, why does the church need to look forward to Christ's return?  In fairness, he probably downplays the "not yet" nature of the eschaton since for so many it becomes the intellectual excuse to do little about social injustices, expecting these things to become resolved at some point in the future.

Second, he sees the material liberation of the oppressed as part of salvation even if the church plays no role in the liberation.  For example, the events in Libya these months represents a salvific act wherein the people are throwing off the chains of evil.  This idea stems from some his Catholic tradition wherein grace and nature are not seen as separate spheres.  There is grace from God outside of the church in nature "supranaturalizing" nature.  He does not see this liberating activity as necessarily an expansion of the Kingdom, but it can be a prepatory action for the Kingdom.

Third, his theological project is an attempt to do theology from his own context which is a context deeply suspicious of Western interests.  However, his political and economic critiques and corrections stem directly from Marx, the prototype of Western Modern, albeit leftist, thinking.  He offers no rationale for challenging the Western way of doing theology but not challenging an increasingly popular Western critique of the politics and economics of capitalism.

Theology is always culturally contextual.  If you doubt that assertion I would challenge you to read the early church fathers and find out how different there concerns and questions were, shaping their view of scripture rather differently from our 21st century American views.  It is a healthy exercise to read theologies from different cultural and theological traditions to makes us sensitive to our own contextual blind spots.  Gutierrez will go a long way to challenging your tradition.