Living with Evil II

The dramas of Denis Ferguson’s housing situation show a clash of two very different ways of treating “the other”. Our governments are committed to inclusion as a means of reintroducing offenders into communities (see the last post), however, what is clear from Ferguson’s brief stint in Ryde is that many within our communities are committed to exclusion as the only means of treating “the other”, and particularly, “the evil other”.
Look at the way Volf describes this process of exclusion:

Others are dehumanised in order that they can be discriminated against, dominated, driven out, or destroyed. If they are outsiders, they are “dirty,” “lazy,” and “morally unreliable”; if women, they are “sluts” and “bitches”; if minorities, they are “parasites,” “vermin,” and “pernicious bacilli” (Hirsch 1995, 97-108). In a sense, the danger of “dysphemisms” is underplayed when one claims, as Zygmunt Bauman does, that these labels take the other outside “the class of objects of potential moral responsibility” (Bauman 1993, 167). More insidiously, they insert the other into the universe of moral obligations in such a way that not only does exclusion become justified but necessary because not to exclude appears morally culpable. The rhetoric of the other’s inhumanity obliges the self to practice inhumanity.
Exclusion and Embrace 76.

I think this is a really clear picture of what has occurred in Ryde, and other places Ferguson has found himself. The thought of including ‘one like him’ into the community is repulsive. But what drives people (us) to so quickly dehumanise others to justify our exclusion of them? To this, Volf says:

Sometimes the dehumanization and consequent mistreatment of others are a projection of our own individual or collective hatred of ourselves; we persecute others because we are uncomfortable with strangeness within ourselves (Kristeva 1990)… We assimilate or eject strangers in order to ward off the perceived threat of chaotic waters rushing in. We exclude because we want to be at the center and be there alone, single-handedly controlling “the land.” To achieve such “hegemonic centrality,” we add conquest to conquest and possession to possession; we colonize the life-space of others and drive them out; we penetrate in order to exclude, and we exclude in order to control—if possible everything, alone.
Exclusion and Embrace 78-79.

You might think these are useful criticisms of cases racial exclusion like that of colonial Europeans, or of gender exclusion. But I think Volf’s critique of exclusion also offers a profound approach to the question of ‘what do we do with child sex offenders?’
Exclusion, Volf would argue, is always an act of dehumanising, performed out of a fear of including the evil ‘other’ into our communities. And the basis of this fear is in what the inclusion of such an evil one might say about our communities—and ourselves.
This raises the issues of guilt, innocence and justice—aren’t there clear examples of such repulsive guilt that the only right thing to do is to deny their place within communities? Isn’t this a necessary act of justice? We’ll look at this next time

Living with Evil I

Over the last two weeks the NSW government has been under massive pressure to remove Denis Ferguson from his public housing unit in the Sydney suburb of Ryde. On Wednesday new legislation was passed that will allow the termination of public housing leases of registered child-sex offenders. Yesterday Dennis Ferguson was evicted. Under the new legislation the state Government must provide ‘permanent’ accommodation for the remainder of the tenants  lease. But what happens then? Where will Denis Ferguson move after that initial placement? How does a community go about living with a known child sex offender? If Denis Ferguson’s previous stints in public housing are anything to go by, then it appears impossibly difficult for any community to achieve this.
Miroslav Volf’s Exclusion and Embrace has much to say to communities faced with the possible inclusion of ‘the other’, and particularly, when ‘the other’ is seen as evil. In the coming posts I want to focus on the relation of Volf’s categories of ‘exclusion’ and ‘memory’ and try and relate them to the present situation with Denis Ferguson.

But first, have a read of Volf’s thoughts on inclusion—the path our state government has committed to—as the answer to these questions:

One could argue that the barbarity within civilization and evil among the good arises from inconsistency. We simply need to press on with the program of inclusion, argument could continue, until the last pocket of exclusion has been conquered. Exclusion would then be a sickness and inclusion undiluted medicine. Could it be, however, that the medicine itself is making the patient sick with a new form of the very illness it seeks to cure?
Exclusion and Embrace 60.

Inclusion, is not a simple, sustainable option, for Volf. It’s a relic of modernist misplaced hope in the story of progress. ‘The logic of the modern story of inclusion suggests that “keeping out” is bad and “taking in” is good… A consistent drive toward inclusion seeks to level all the boundaries that divide and to neutralize all outside powers that form and shape the self.’

The presupposition here is that difference, and particularly evil, should be removed, all of it. But there is a problem

Does not such a radical indeterminacy undermine from within the idea of inclusion, however? I believe it does. Without boundaries we will be able to know only what we are fighting against but not what we are fighting for… The absence of boundaries creates nonorder, and nonorder is not the end of exclusion but the end of life…boundaries are part of the creative process of differentiation. For without boundaries there would be no discrete identities, and without discrete identities there could be no relation to the other.
Exclusion and Embrace 63, 67

As long as our governments aim to reform and reintroduce offenders into communities there will be moments of exclusion and anger – as there has been in Ryde over the last two weeks. Inclusion, in and of itself is not sufficient. Communities need to be highly differentiated to be able to include, not just, the child sex offenders, but also, the immigrant, the poor, the homeless and anyone else thought of as ‘the other’. But how?

Barth on the constancy and omnipotence of God II

In the last post, I was reflecting on how Barth portrays God’s ‘unchangeableness’. He is the One who exists totally without deviation, and this is in no way being in conflict with his ‘movement’, with his life and freedom. This shows that while God can be unchanging he cannot be immobile. Look at the way Barth puts it:

If it is true, as Polanus says, that God is not moved either by anything else or by Himself, but that, confined as it were by His simplicity, infinity and absolute perfection, He is the pure immobile, it is quite impossible that there should be any relationship between Himself and a reality distinct from Himself.

But Barth goes on to say that there is one pure immobile;

For we must not make any mistake: the pure immobile is—death. If, then, the pure immobile is God, death is God. That is, death is posited as absolute and explained as the first and last and only real. And if death is God, then God is dead.
CD II.1 493-494

If God is immobile  there can be no life, all new things come from him and exist in dependence of him. Can you see Barth’s logic? If God is not mobile, creating and sustaining out of his eternal self-constancy, his life, then the only possible solution is death. And God would be dead.

Barth on the constancy and omnipotence of God

Is God’s life and freedom in conflict with his unchangeablness? How does the immutable One bring about genuinely new things?
Some of us at MTC recently undertook an essay (the chief cause of my lack of blogging) dealing with this tension.  I found Barth’s II.1 to be immensely helpful. Look at how he describes the constancy of God:

There neither is nor can be, nor is to be expected or even thought possible in Him, the One omnipresent being, any deviation, diminution or addition, nor any degeneration or rejuvenation, any alteration or non-identity or discontinuity. The one, omnipresent God remains the One He is. This is His constancy.

And this, says Barth, is not in conflict with God’s freedom, life or love.

But as the living God, He is not Himself subject to or capable of any alteration, and does not cease to be Himself. His life is not only the origin of all created change, but it is in itself the fullness of difference, movement, will, decision, action, degeneration and rejuvenation. But He lives it in eternal self-repetition and self-affirmation. As His inner life and His life in all that is, it will never sever itself from Him, turn against Him, or possess a form or operation alien to Him. In all its forms and operations it will be His life.

It is precisely because of God’s eternal self-constancy, self-repetition and self-affirmation that his life brings about newness and change;

His life with its very alteration and movement can, and does gloriously, consist only in His not ceasing to be Himself, to posit and will and perfect Himself in His being Himself. He does not do this of necessity but in freedom and love, or, one may say, with the necessity in virtue of which He cannot cease to be Himself, the One who loves in freedom.
CD II.1 491-492

Pilgrim’s Podcast Episode 14

Mark and I had the great privilege of sitting down in the warm Sydney sun and chatting with Dr. Ashley Null. Ashley is the world’s foremost scholar on Thomas Cranmer and a recognised expert on all things ‘Anglican’.

We had such a great time chatting with Ashley that an hour went by without us noticing, so we’re putting up in two parts.

In part 1, we ask Dr Null about a whole range of things including, his early life, how his interest in Anglicanism developed and what relevance Anglicanism has today. Fascinating stuff. He has some particularly insightful thoughts on what Anglicanism can offer post-denominatinal Christianity.

Get part 1 here.

Reflections on Holy Saturday IV

Reflecting on the sheer darkness and hopelessness of Holy Saturday, I have argued, is necessary for working out a distinctly Christian worldview that has the strength to deal with the necessary problem of suffering. Every worldview must say something about this problem. What does Christianity offer? and particularly, what does Holy Saturday have to offer such a worldview?

The Long Silence, offers us a helpful start in answering this question. The thing that gives Christianity credibility when faced with the open wound of suffering is the fact that God has suffered. At this point, Christianity offers a unique approach to the problem of suffering. Every other worldview falls short. Think of the following examples.

Buddhism — In a nutshell, attempts to offer a solution to suffering by suggesting that it is not real, it is an illusion. Suffering only exists as long as our desires do, so eliminate desire and you will eliminate suffering.

Hinduism — Its solution suggests that individual acts of suffering are the direct result of a person’s acts from a previous life. Every act of suffering in this life is evidence of Karma.

Islam — Doesn’t offer a solution, in the same way the other examples do, but insists that every instance of suffering and horror is the direct will of Allah. It is Allah’s chosen will that these things happen in this way.

But think for a moment; what do each of these worldviews have to say to parents who find themselves burying their two year old daughter after a horrible battle with Leukemia?

‘Its not really happening’, ’she deserved it’, or, ‘God wanted this to happen.’

God knows her pain and the pain of her parents, he is with that little girl in death. God is in solidarity with us when we experience the pain this world offers. Of course, this isn’t the whole story of Christian worldview. But, to say it again, before we move on, it is worth pausing and asking what God was doing on Holy Saturday. Because there in the tomb, is something distinctly Christian.

Reflections on Holy Saturday III

How does pausing to reflect on Holy Saturday help form a Christian worldview? Particularly, how do we form such a worldview in the face of the ‘open wound of suffering’? That is the task of the next two posts.

I hope this story will help. Its called The Long Silence.

At the end of time, billions of people were scattered on a great plain before God’s throne. Some of the groups near the front talked heatedly — not with cringing shame, but with belligerence.
“How can God judge us?” “How can He know about suffering?” snapped a joking brunette. She jerked back a sleeve to reveal a tattooed number from a Nazi concentration camps. “We endured terror, beatings, torture, death!”
In another group, a black man lowered his collar. “What about this?” he demanded, showing an ugly rope burn. “Lynched for no crime but being black!” “We have suffocated in slave ships, been wrenched from loved ones, toiled till only death gave release.”
Far out across the plain were hundreds of such groups. Each had a complaint against God for the evil and suffering He permitted in His world. How lucky God was to live in heaven where all was sweetness and light, where there was no weeping, no fear, no hunger, no hatred. “Indeed, what did God know about what man had been forced to endure in this world?” “After all, God leads a pretty sheltered life.” they said.

So each group sent out a leader, chosen because he had suffered the most. There was a Jew, a black, an untouchable from India, an illegitimate, a person from Hiroshima, and one from a Siberian slave camp. In the center of the plain they consulted with each other. At last they were ready to present their case. It was rather simple: Before God would be qualified to be their judge, He must endure what they had endured. Their decision was that God “should be sentenced to live on earth — as a man!”

But, because He was a god, they set certain safeguards to be sure He could not use His divine powers to help himself.

Let him be born a Jew.
Let the legitimacy of His birth be doubted, so that none will know who is really his father. Let Him champion a cause so just, but so radical, that it brings down upon Him the hate, condemnation, and eliminating efforts of every major traditional and established religious authority.
Let Him try to describe what no man has ever seen, tasted, heard, or smelled — let Him try to communicate God to humanity.
Let Him be betrayed by His dearest friends.
Let Him be indicted on false charges, tried before a prejudiced jury, and convicted by a cowardly judge.
Let Him see what it is to be terribly alone and completely abandoned by every living thing.
Let Him be tortured and let Him die! Let Him die the most humiliating death with common thieves.
As each leader announced his portion of the sentence, loud murmurs of approval went up from the great throng of people. When the last had finished pronouncing sentence, there was a long silence. No one uttered another word. No one moved. For suddenly all knew……..God had already served His sentence.”

Pilgrim’s Podcast Episode 12

This week we interviewd Bishop Glenn Davies, grab it here. It was a really helpful and interesting chat. We talked about Glenn’s theological education at Westminster in the Sates, his role as Bishop of the Northern Region of the Sydney Diocese and heard a little about Glenn’s ideas on Baptism and covenental theology. Great stuff! We did not have the time to do justice to the issues we raised so we are hoping to do a part 2 some time down the track.

Have a listen, its not too often a Bishop enters the hallowed MTC media room…next week we’re interviewing the Queen.

Reflections on Holy Saturday II

Then Joseph bought a linen cloth, and taking down the body, wrapped it in the linen cloth, and laid it in a tomb that had been hewn out of the rock. He then rolled a stone against the door of the tomb.  Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of Joses saw where the body was laid (Mark 15.46-47 NRSV).

Holy Saturday is a day of total bleakness, there is no future, only pain and broken hopes. Israel, it would appear, is not going to be redeemed. The Christ has been nailed to a tree and now buried under the earth, Joseph, who had been expecting the Kingdom, gathered the body of his messiah and laid him in his tomb. Right here is a problem. The problem of suffering and broken promises.We can learn much about the problem of suffering by pausing and reflecting on that dark day, between Good Friday and Easter Sunday.

Here resurrection is not permitted to verge upon the cross, instantaneously converting its death into life, still less to trespass death’s own borders and thus to identify the cross with glory. Instead, death is given time and space to be itself, in all its coldness and helplessness. (Lewis: 2001, 37)

Too often Christian theology makes light of suffering by immediately jumping to the future glory, or by looking for the ‘greater good’ that can be seen in the present. The problem of suffering remains a problem, and it must remain a problem. It is inevitable and indiscriminate, it disturbs our existence, invades our peace and destroys hopes. What is needed is a worldview that doesn’t pretend this isn’t the case. Rather, we need a worldview that acknowledges the inevitability of suffering and darkness.

God and suffering belong together, just as in this life the cry for God and the suffering experienced in pain belong together. The question about God and the question about suffering are a joint, common question… It is not really a question at all, in the sense of something we can ask or not ask, like other questions. It is the open wound of life in this world. It is the real task of faith and theology to make it possible for us to survive, to go on living, with this open wound. (Moltmann: 1981, 49)

By pausing and feeling the darkness of Holy Saturday much can be achieved in helping us to survive ‘with this open wound.’ How such a task will help form such a worldview is the goal of the next post.

Pilgrim’s Podcast: Episode 11

Episode 11 of the Pilgrim’s Podcast is now available. Its our best one yet. We chat with Andrew Katay, senior minister of Christ Church Inner West, about his life, church experiences and preaching.

A particular highlight was hearing Andrew’s thoughts on the future of CCIW. If you’re interested in church growth or church planting, be sure to check it out. If you’re looking to get involved in a new and exciting church plant, then have a listen for how you can get on board.

In this episode we also launch another (legitimate) competition. We are throwing out a challenge for someone to create the most entertaining limerick about ‘the other college’ (let the reader understand).

Enjoy and stay tuned…