Colossians Remixed, Walsh and Keesmaat, Chapter 12: A Suffering Ethic.
May 9, 2006 by Graham Doel
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for those of us that live at the heart of the empire, this raises an uncomfortable question. If as Paul asserts through his letters, we are called to share in the sufferings of Christ, and if such suffering is for the sake of the body of Christ, where does that leave a church community that seems to avoid any sort of suffering. Page 229.Their closing emphasis is to a call to the reader to make the story of Christ live in the community that they inhabit.
Colossians Remixed, Walsh and Keesmaat, Chapter 11: An Ethic of Liberation
May 9, 2006 by Graham Doel
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The language of inevitability is he language of the empire. Wherever we hear "we have no choice" our ears should perk up. It is precisely the strategy of the empire to take our imagination captive so that we should think we have no choice. When a certain lifestyle seems to be inescapable, you need to realise you are imprisoned. Page 213
Colossians Remixed, Walsh and Keesmaat, Chapter 10: An Ethic of Community
May 2, 2006 by Graham Doel
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A post modern culture wants us to keep our options open. Page 170Brian and Sylvia see the moral choices that their characters have to make like the supermarket of the empire of consumerism. They set the call of Colossians as a call to a different kind of community. A community that reflects God by imagining him. One that takes on the story of God and becomes that story in the light of the empire. A subversive community is one that has allowed the "word of Christ to dwell richly" (3:16) and become an alternate to the domination of the empire.
The word of Christ dwells in his community richly when the community indwells the liberating narrative as it engages in the mutual ministry of teaching and admonishing each other "in all wisdom". Page 176The Christian life is an alternate to the multiplicity of options. It is a subversive way of living in an individualised world.
An alternative to the empire requires different dreams, animated by a different narrative. (Page 171)The life of the reimagined community transcends the taboos of race and gender, of politics and wealth. It is a community immersed in the story of Christ. That kind of community living under that kind of narrative begins to have a different political vision. We should observe that Brian and Sylvia live in the context of a "war on terror". The book begins to take an anti war stance as they see the peace making nature of the community envisioned by Paul. Anticipating reaction from their readers they return to the imaginary reader-author dialogue. Thankfully the imaginary dialogue leads us away from war to a discussion about alternate ways of living. They suggest that Christians should think hard about the way they live, particularly in relation to where they spend their money and how they travel. An ecological ethic Discussion about an ecological ethic comes from engagement with the principles of community and secession that they have drawn from the book of Colossians. They suggest that Paul's thoughts about compassion, meekness, patience, forgiveness, love and worship can be directly applied to an ecological ethic.
Pauls ethic in the third chapter of Colossians is routed in the narrative of Christ - died, buried, risen, ascended and coming again. This is not a narrative that imposes a series of absolutes to oppress us; it is a story of liberation from an empire that would take captive our imagination while it rapes and plunders the earth. Page 200
Colossians Remixed, Walsh and Keesmaat, Chapter 9: An Ethic of Secession
May 2, 2006 by Graham Doel
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Elanna and Eric are both postmodern, but they respond to the postmodern shift differently. They both live in a plural universe in which choice reigns supreme and life is void of any final legitimation. For Elanna, the multiplicity of choice and cacophony of voices result in anxious paralysis. (Page 150)Eric is a different character who embraces the choice offered to him by the change in culture. He attempts to live his life without "illusion or pretence" (p.151). The little introduction to these characters leads to a discussion about the ethic of Colossians chapter 3. Reminding us of the context of the Roman empire they see it in different lights:
- a resurrection ethic it refuses to bow the knew to the empire.
- an ascension ethic it is not bound to the view of normality that the prevailing culture espouses.
- a liberated ethic it is liberated from the prevailing culture.
- an eschatological ethic
- a relational ethic it reflects a way of life with Christ.
- a narrative ethic it involves the the community in the life of Christ.
- an ethic of secession it leads them from one thing to another.
Sexual sin is not sin because it is sexual but because it is invariably covetus (Page 160)The talk turns to relationship and community, suggesting that the sexual liberation that has been pushed on to us by late modernity has created an atmosphere of predation and recrimination (p.161). The ethic of sexuality is moved into the arena of idolatry.
There is no point getting all morally absolute about sexual promiscuity of Christians are screwing around with the same comsumerist way of life as everyone else.Seceding from imperial idolatry. The context of empire worship sets the scene for a call to be empowered by taking control of your own destiny. Being subversive by being faithful. The violent nature of the language used by Paul is used to illustrate the difficulty of secession. It is set against the context of the empire where violence is the means of domination. It is the life once followed by the readers of Colossians but now they are called from.
The anger, wrath and malice he warns us against all entail the reduction of another person to an object of contempt with whom we have no connection, no compassion and no community. (Page 165)It is the language of empire to which they return as they conclude the chapter. The call of Paul through Colossians is to have our eyes opened to the empire that dominates our lives, to become uncomfortable with it and leave it behind.
Colossians Remixed, Walsh and Keesmaat, Chapter 8 : Faithful Improvisation and Idolatrous Lies
March 15, 2006 by Graham Doel
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Fidelity to the Scriptures, attempting to indwell this story and embody it in our lives, requires creative improvisation, and that improvisation, if it is to be Christian, requires fidelity (Page 136)They want the reader to understand why they deploy Targum as a means for explaining and presenting the scriptures to the contemporary reader. They commend what they call a "double immersion" firstly with the scriptures and secondly with our culture and environment. To do this in the faithful way that they suggest means taking the underlying message that is presented through the images that the text uses and translating the images to ones that are familiar to the context in which the ancient text is now being applied. They offer two Targums to illustrate their point. The targums on Colossiand that they use can be found in a pdf document here: http://crc.sa.utoronto.ca/articles/Targums.pdf
Colossians Remixed, Walsh and Keesmaat, Chapter 7 : What is truth?
March 1, 2006 by Graham Doel
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We should not be committed to rationality for two reasons. First, we should be committed to Jesus, not rationality. And second, once we become committed to rationality we are engaging in idolatry, and promiscuous copulation with idols bears bad fruit in our lives. (Page 119)They paint rationality as a modern idol suggesting that it has become an entity that has tried to overrule all other historical perspectives and traditions, in its name. Modernity its self receives a slamming:
Modernity is a cultural movement rooted in reaction against Christian faith. Two things that Christianity has a high regard for are finitude and fallibility. Modernity attempts to erase the limitations of finitude by means of a scientific method that seeks near infallibility. This is the path of idolatry. (Page 122)While the pillars of the modern Christian faith are brought down by Brian and Sylvia, there is never the feeling that post-modernity is affirmed without a similar sense of criticism. When discussing with the reader the thought that faith may exist within its own realm, with no outside reference they turn to the biblical theme of judgement. "It is God who sits as judge" not reason. They offer five criteria for testing the truthfulness of a world view (Pages 127-8). The beliefs that control the view need to:
- be comprehensive in scope.
- be coherent.
- sensitize its adherents to justice.
- be humble about its own claims and therefore open to correction.
- be able to generate a praxis that puts into action the vision of life that is at the heart of the world-view.
Remember, from a biblical perspective truth is not a correspondence between ideas and facts. Truth is embodied in a person. If incarnate truth is to be known in its fullness then it is to be met in the flesh. (Page 130)
Colossians Remixed, Walsh and Keesmaat, Chapter 6 : Regimes of Truth and the ord of truth.
February 28, 2006 by Graham Doel
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- Truth in the Colossian context.
Followers of "the Way" - that is, people like Nympha and Lydia, Onesimus and Tychicus who embrace Jesus of Nazareth as the Messiah of Israel - are a controversial and sometimes despised group in the eyes of Judaism of the first century... ... It is one thing to be heretics within a community that is its self a minority within the Roman empire. It is quite another thing to hold to a faith that is seditious to the empire. (Page 96)
- Truth in the 21st Century Western Context.
How do you confess with integrity that Christ is Lord of the Cosmos when global Economics and the cybernetic revolution seem to demonstrate decisively that economic determinism fuelled by information technology is sovereign over the affairs of the world. And if you could find a way to make this confession in the face of such conflicting evidence, then how do you have the audacity to claim that the Christian gospel is true when the violent history of Christendom seems to demonstrate that such "truth" has often made common cause with violence and repression. (Page 97)
- Christian truth proposed by Paul.
Given the tenuous relationship the early Christian community had to both its Jewish forebears and the imperial regime of Rome, it is not surprising that the epistle to the Colossians seems to be preoccupied with questions of truth and knowledge. (Page 97)
A kingdom of loving inclusion must be established in a radically different way from regimes of truth. It is not surprising therefore that, in profound contrast to regimes of truth with their multiple forms of constraint, the kingdom of the beloved Son is a kingdom won not through violence imposed upon others but through violence imposed upon the son. (Page 110)The overcoming of the powers expressed in Colossians is done through a subversive victory. A victory through sacrificial love. They quote NT Wright "New Tasks for a Renewed Church", Saying that the cross was:
"The victory of weakness over strength, the victory of love over hatred. It was the victory that consisted in Jesus' allowing evil to do its worst to him, and never attempting to fight on its own terms. When the power of evil had made its last move, Jesus had still not been beaten by it. He bore the weight of the Worlds evil to the end, and outlasted it" (Wright p.72)Painted within the letter is not only the theme of sacrifice but a comprehensive view of the redemption of the whole of creation:
Here is a vision of the radical, creation wide inclusiveness of the kingdom, in contrast to the dismissive exclusiveness of the regime. All things are to be reconciled - even the thrones, dominions, rulers and authorities that put Christ on the cross and continue to wreak havoc in countless human lives. But that redemptive inclusion comes via the path of the cross, the embrace of pain. (Page 113)Brian and Sylvia see the view that Paul is communicating to them as a counter-ideology. It has been, and will be, co-opted to add authority to a regime of violence, but that is not the intention of the gospel or the text of Colossians.
Colossians Remixed, Walsh and Keesmaat, Chapter 5 : Subversive Poetry and Contested Imagination
January 31, 2006 by Graham Doel
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- Back at the context that they have set.
- Examines the passage 2:15-20 with further targum
- Thinks about the contrast between the dynamic community that the authors paint of the community addressed in the letter with the contemporary church.
It's like the folks who were saying, "He's the real thing," meaning Jesus, when Coca-Cola were running the "It's the real thing" ad campain. Christians picked up on the cultural discourse and set their faith directly in the midst of that discourse in a potentially subversive way. Page 80Having clarified that the recipients of the letter would have heard the language of the empire re-interpreted in to the Christian context they go on to show how the poem in Colossians 1:15-20 would have been heard.
While rich in echo and allusion- image, firstborn, creation, and reconciliation all have clear echoes in the Torah, the Prophets and wisdom literature -this poem leaves little doubt as to who is sovereign in creation, who images the invisible God, who holds the cosmos together in peace and who brings about reconciliation of all things. And it isn't Caesar! Page 84.They offer a targum on the poem that applies the concepts to the contemporary western culture. By engaging the reader in the culture and context of the Colossian letter Brian and Sylvia aim to inspire the reader to lift their eyes from the dominant imagery of their culture and apply the gospel by evoking an alternative imagination:
Our suggestion is simple. Follow Paul, who was following the prophets. Write and perform evocative and subversive poetry that provides and imagination alternative to the empire's. The point is to so immerse ourselves in the scriptures, so indwell their narrative, to be so permeted by their images, that ourimagination is tansformed according to the image of Christ. Page 84.Brian and Sylvia are encouraging the reader to use imagery that connects with the people to whom it is aimed. Drawing on the vast scriptural resource they are attempting to help us see the connections that can be made with our communties and culture. They don't want us to leave their work and go an explain everything in simple terms but to go and evoke the imagination towards a reality from different perspective.
Colossians Remixed, Walsh and Keesmaat, Chapter 4 : Contested fruitfulness in the shadow of empire
January 20, 2006 by Graham Doel
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- The exodus is seen as an escape from empire.
- The wilderness as a calling to a community built on opposite principles of empire.
- The entrance into the promised land and desire for monarchy as a battle with empire.
- The prophetic voice as a critique of empire.
- The exile as Gods judgement on Israel's empirical ways and a calling to the counter community.
In the face of empire, Jeremiah proclaims a subversive word of the Lord that completely counters Israel's imperial experience. Under the oppressive rule of Babylon and Assyria, the Israelites are still called to build a faithful community and to live subject to a a different kind of rule and kingship, one where imperial might and power is used for feeding the hunger of people and binding up their wounds. (Page 69)Jesus life and ministry is also interpreted in the context of empire. They point out that:
- Luke's Gospel identifies its self in terms of the empire.
- Luke is concerned with setting the context of power.
- "Almost everything that Jesus did or said was an implicit challenge to the empire and its way of working in the world." (Page 70)
- Paul's writing would have come from this Jewish framework.
- In the Old Testament Fertility and Fruitfulness are linked with Peace and Security,
- Jesus teaches and envisions a community that is a manifestation of Yahweh's fruitfulness.
For those in the community who had learned the history of Israel vis-a-vis other empires, together with the counter-testimony of the law and the prophets, Paul's language of community would have evoked a whole other way of political and economic being in community, rooted in Torah and God's calls to justice and care for the disenfranchised. This path of covenant faithfulness leads to a fruitfulness for the whole earth that God alone can provide. For those who knew the story of Jesus, Paul's language suggested a call to an alternate ethic in the face of the empire, and ethic rooted in Jesus and his act of reconciliation on the cross. (Page 75-76)
Colossians Remixed, Walsh and Keesmaat, Chapter 3 : Placing Colossians
January 19, 2006 by Graham Doel
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- Colossae was farmed for wool.
- Wealthy women held positions of power, but had chaperones.
- The way the story of the Jewish people was told within the empire cast them in a suspicious and failing light. Quite different to the way Jewish people and Christians told their story.
- The Roman empire dominated through the use of images. Wherever an individual went they would see the Emperor and things that reminded them of the way in which they subjugated people to their rule.
- The church met at great personal risk, not participating in the worship of the emperor was considered divisive behaviour.
"But that's the point," she said, "I don't believe Caesar is our saviour. I don't believe that he has brought peace or prosperity. And I don't worship him or any of the other Gods any more." I must have had a stunned look on my face because she continued more gently. "Look, Nympha," she said. "Look at the Roman peace. Yes, it is peaceful here, but at what price? Only if we promise subservience to the empire, only if we pay our taxes." (Page 52)They step aside from the historical drama to make some final points about the context:
- The Colossian context was one of dominating empire.
- The empire dominated through centralising power.
- The empire dominated through military control.
- The empire dominated through the false myth of bringing peace the nations.
- The empire dominated through imperial images to capture imagination.
As we saw, these stories gripped the imaginations of followers of Jesus such as Lydia and Nympha, who began to see that the stories of Israel and Jesus offered a compelling critique of the life of the empire. (Page 64)I wonder if the case for critique of the empire is overstated in order to add weight to the reading of Colossians that is to come.