Bible and Theology from the Underside of Empire [1 ed.] 9781928355113, 9781928355106

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Editors Vuyani Vellem Patricia Sheerattan-Bisnauth Philip Vinod Peacock

Bible and Theology from the Underside of Empire Published by SUN MeDIA MeTRO under the SUN PRESS imprint. All rights reserved. Copyright © 2017 SUN MeDIA MeTRO and Authors The authors and the publisher have made every effort to obtain permission for and acknowledge the use of  copyrighted material. Please refer enquiries to the publisher. Views expressed in this publication do not necessarily reflect those of  the publisher. First edition 2017 ISBN 978-1-928355-10-6 ISBN 978-1-928355-11-3 (e-book) DOI: 10.18820/9781928355113 Scriptural quotations follow the New International Version (NIV). Set in 10.8/15 Ehrhardt MT SUN PRESS is an imprint of  AFRICAN SUN MeDIA. Academic, professional and reference works are published under this imprint in print and electronic format. This publication may be ordered directly from www.sun-e-shop.co.za. Produced by SUN MeDIA MeTRO www.africansunmedia.co.za africansunmedia.snapplify.com (e-books) www.sun-e-shop.co.za

Contents Acknowledgements  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 Preface  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Foreword  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 Introduction  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 Contributors  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27

Broken Bodies 1

Justice is the heart of faith: Truth in a world of propaganda Graham Adams  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33

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Globalisation and corporatisation: A case for the state of our global health Eleazar S. Fernandez  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47

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Gender justice in times of empire Rev. Patricia Sheerattan-Bisnauth  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61

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The failure of Empire to protect and honour Rev. Feiloaiga Taule’ale’ausumai Davis  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71

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Doubting Empire: Growing as faithful children Graham Adams  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83

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Trafficking and violence against children: A real-life story Marsha Nathalee Martin  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93

Colonised Spaces 1

Sea of creation: Beneath the horizons of Genesis 1:6-23 Jione Havea  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99

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Anamnestic solidarity: Celebrating dangerous memories in the midst of Empire George Zacharia  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109

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The fire behind the branding Rev. Philip Vinod Peacock  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119

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Economic and political justice John Samuel  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123

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Preaching Jubilee in the post-industrial city James W. Perkinson  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137

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Iziko: Insurrection and resurrection  Vuyani S. Vellem  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153

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God’s world is not an ‘Animal Farm’, or is it? Re-reading Matthew 20:1-16 in the face of workplace economic injustices Rev. Lilly Phiri  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163

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Mineral resources and multinational corporations and its impact on African people Kuzipa Nalwamba  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 175

Transgressive Bodies 1

Look out Tioti Timon   . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 185

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A gift not withstanding its abuses: Studying Genesis 19 and Judges 19 in the context of Empire-sponsored violence against LGBTI persons Massiwa Gunda  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 195

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The politics of resistance: From welcomed immigrants to alleged terrorists  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 207

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Reuniting sexuality and spirituality  Dr Un Hey Kim  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 213

Conclusion  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 223

Acknowledgements Mission in the midst of Empire is a key theme for the Council for World Mission (CWM) and its member churches. The process of developing this book began with a consultation in Durban, South Africa, which sought to create a platform where theologians from various regions gathered in a spirit of fellowship as they presented Bible studies, sharing of insights on life-affirming theology as they discerned the signs of the times. We recognise the work of the CWM in the conceptualisation and facilitation of the development of this book. Special thanks to Rev. Dr. Collin Cowan, General Secretary of CWM for his commitment, passion and laying the ground work with his remarkable presentation at the Durban consultation. Thanks to the Office of the Mission Secretary, in particular Rev. Dr. Sudipta Singh and Ms Maria Fe Ceballo Labayo who organised the consultation and supported the process of the development of the book. We are grateful to all the writers who contributed to this book and who have dedicated their time, scholarship, stories and their commitment to addressing the issue of Empire. Thanks to the editorial team: Rev. Prof Dr. Vuyani Vellem, Rev. Prof Philip Peacock and Rev. Patricia Sheerattan-Bisnauth for coordinating, editing and finalising the book. Much appreciation is extended to Prof Vuyani Vellem for his arduous work in sourcing and liaising with the Publishing House and for the overall review and editing of the document. He demonstrated great enthusiasm, commitment and passion for this work. We are grateful to Wilna Oosthuizen and Wikus Van Zyl at SUN MeDIA for their professional assistance, this project would have not been possible without them.

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Preface Collin I. Cowan, General Secretary, Council for World Mission

This book is a product of a consultation held in Durban in 2014, focusing on the CWM vision statement: Fullness of life through Christ for all creation. Attending scholars were invited to focus on what it means to experience life-affirming communities throughout the length and breadth of this beautiful world in which we are privileged to share space. In the CWM, we understand that we are required to live out this vision in the context of Empire and it is for this reason that our attempt at enabling our members to develop missional congregations becomes so central and strategic to our priority at this time. This consultation thus sought to benefit the CWM through inputs meant to assist the organisation give content to its vision and mission and to read Scripture with hermeneutical lenses informed by our various social locations, thereby enabling us to view and engage the social landscape that defines our context. The CWM vision statement came about through a process of wrestling with the question of what it means to do God’s mission in the context of Empire. We agonised over the blatant and bare-faced death-dealing, life-denying forces that are desecrating and destroying God’s creation, causing groaning of irreconcilable proportions. We admitted that we are on a journey of death, caused largely by humans’ doing the very things we desire which are those that destroy us; because our insatiable appetite for personal advancement, at any cost, placed us at odds with other human beings and with the rest of God’s creation, on whom we depend for the very life we desire. We asked ourselves what window there is for our liberation and how might we manage to lay sight thereon and then claim its freeing winds. In discovering our utter futility in this respect, we turned to Scripture and heard afresh the affirmation of Jesus: ‘I am come that you might have life, and have it in all its fullness’ (John 10:10). The fullness of life for all creation is how Jesus interpreted his mission in the context of the Roman Empire. And the particular instance in which these words were uttered responded to the way in which a person with a disability was relegated to the dumps, by those who colluded with power at the expense of the marginalised. In Chapter 9 of the Gospel of St John ‘a man born blind’ was healed by Jesus but could not be received into the community because they were not ready for him. Not only had he been given sight, he was also given voice and his voice vexed the community, whose interest and responsibility it was to protect the status quo. This nameless man had found his true identity with the freedom Jesus released in him, and he was prepared to live as

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a free man with acute insights and the audacity to speak. In his speech he challenged the narrow-minded, short-sighted, myopic perspectives of the community of elders and called them to see in Jesus, the one who healed him, new ways of seeing and being. They did not like this message and so they threw him out of the temple. Jesus saw him on the fringes and opened the door to an alternative community so that he could walk in and take his place. But on that same occasion, Jesus also highlighted the destructive force of the other community, those who conspired with the Roman Empire against Jesus and his mission of liberation and reversals. He called them ‘thieves and robbers’ and declared that their purpose was to ‘kill, steal and destroy’ (John 10:10a). Today the thieves and robbers are as rampant and fierce as they were then; and they are intent on killing cultures, economies, the environment and anything or anyone who stands in the way of their quest for the spoils of the land. In naming as our vision, Fullness of life through Christ for all creation, therefore, CWM declares its desire, even commitment, to be part of the Jesus community and to trust him to assist us in our quest to achieve this goal – life in fullness for all creation. This theme of life in fullness actually started with the then World Alliance of Reformed Churches, now merged into the World Communion of Reformed Churches (WCRC), which at its 2004 General Council in Accra, Ghana, explored its meaning within the context of economic globalisation and emerged from such exploration with the ‘Accra Confession’ – a confession that has had a widespread transformative impact on the way churches and ecumenical organisations have understood and engaged God’s mission since. In articles 7 and 8 of the Accra Confession, the picture is painted for us of a world gone mad in every sense of the word. It states very categorically that ‘God’s call to life for all’ is not only compromised but ‘denied’; and that those who are most severely affected are the ‘poorest’ among us for whom access to basic necessities of life is unreachable (WCRC 2014). From Article 7: We live in a scandalous world that denies God’s call to life for all. The annual income of the richest 1% is equal to that of the poorest 57%, and 24 000 people die each day from poverty and malnutrition. The debt of poor countries continues to increase despite paying back their original borrowing many times over. Resource-driven wars claim the lives of millions, while millions more die of preventable diseases. The HIV and AIDS global pandemic afflicts life in all parts of the world, affecting the poorest where generic drugs are not available. The majority of those in poverty are women and children and the number of people living in absolute poverty on less than one US dollar per day continues to increase. (Art. 7) 4

Preface

From Article 8: The policy of unlimited growth among industrialized countries and the drive for profit of transnational corporations have plundered the earth and severely damaged the environment. In 1989, one species disappeared each day, and by 2000 it was one every hour. Climate change, the depletion of fish stocks, deforestation, soil erosion, and threats to fresh water are among the devastating consequences. Communities are disrupted, livelihoods are lost, coastal regions and Pacific islands are threatened with inundation, and storms increase. High levels of radioactivity threaten health and ecology. Life forms and cultural knowledge are being patented for financial gain. (Art. 8) In its confession, in Article 16: [T]he ‘General Council of the World Alliance of Reformed Churches affirms that global economic justice is essential to the integrity of our faith in God and our discipleship as Christians. We believe that the integrity of our faith is at stake if we remain silent or refuse to act in the face of the current system of neoliberal economic globalization and therefore we confess before God and one another. (Art. 16) At the heart of the Accra Confession is the conviction that God is the ‘Creator and sustainer of all life,’ and that God calls us ‘as partners in the creation and redemption of the world’ (Art. 17). In response to the Confession, CWM accepted that life is in danger and made bold to declare that the context in which we understand ourselves to be carrying our God’s mission is to assemble thinkers, poets, scholars and activists in one place to reflect theologically and Biblically. Our definition for Empire came out of the Globalisation Project – ‘Uniting Reformed Church in South Africa and Evangelical Reformed Church in Germany’ and stated in the CWM Theology Statement 2010, Mission in the Context of Empire: We speak of Empire, because we discern a coming together of economic, cultural, political and military power in our world today, that constitutes a reality and a spirit of lordless domination, created by humankind yet enslaving simultaneously; an all-encompassing global reality serving, protecting and defending the interest of powerful corporations, nations, elites and privileged people, while imperiously excluding even sacrificing humanity and exploiting creation; a pervasive spirit of destructive selfinterest, even greed – the worship of money, goods and possessions; the gospel of consumerism, proclaimed through powerful propaganda and 5

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religiously justified, believed and followed; the colonisation of consciousness, values and notions of human life by the imperial logic; a spirit lacking in compassionate justice and showing contemptuous disregard for the gifts of creation and the household of life. (CWM 2011:4) We acknowledge that there are many people who have a major problem with the use of the word ‘Empire’ as if to suggest that by its use we are creating division among peoples of the world. But as I pointed out in a recent presentation at the tenth anniversary of Accra, ‘Empire is and has always been divisive’ and that it is ‘our unwillingness to admit this fact, to own up to its divisive and destructive influence and impact that continues to divide’. In the opening paragraph of our Theology Statement we state: God’s mission has always taken place in the context of Empire. God becomes incarnate through Jesus in an imperial world. From the time of his birth Jesus’ life was threatened by Empire and we learn in the gospel accounts that it is the Empire and its allies who eventually execute him. (CWM 2011:4) Now, if this is not divisive then I would be much obliged if someone would tell me what is. CWM is a mission organisation, which exists to ‘mutually challenge, encourage and equip churches to do God’s mission’. In the way God communicated it to Moses, context was defined and mission clearly described. ‘My people are suffering under the harsh bondage of Pharaoh; now go to Egypt and tell Pharaoh to let my people go’ (Exod. 3:7-8, paraphrased). Moses could be under no delusion; it was abundantly clear that the context of his mission was a hostile one and that there could be no compromise for naming it as it is. By naming context, we clarify the nature and scope of God’s mission and open ourselves to its consequences. Accordingly, we are obligated to define our context and to describe that context as it is so that we may truly demonstrate faithfulness to the God who calls us into mission, irrespective of how uncomfortable that may be for ourselves and others. We call it Empire; in the Book of the Revelation, John calls in Babylon; in Jamaica, Mutabaruka calls it ‘the system’. In a world where 1 billion people cannot read or sign their names and 22 000 children (24 000 in 2004) die every day due to poverty, we continue to play with words. Africa’s children alone account for 80 percent of malarial deaths although that which Americans alone spend on ice cream in a year could take care of the required vaccine to deal with this problem. West Africa at the time of the Consultation was faced with the dreadful virus, Ebola; and is it of no surprise at all that a disease that broke out in March of 2014 and claimed almost five thousand lives, with great threat to life and the future of those communities, was drawn to the world’s attention only when people from the global north

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were infected by this epidemic. The scandal is no less today than it was ten years ago. Food is becoming increasingly scarce and expensive – a commodity barely affordable to millions of people. The world’s 200 wealthiest people have as much money as about 40 percent of the global population, and yet 850 million people have to go to bed hungry every night, a calamity which the former UN Secretary General, Kofi Annan, has called ‘one of the worst violations of human dignity.’ For every $1 given in aid to a developing country, the country spends $25 on debt repayment, and the poorer the country, the more likely it is that debt repayments are being extracted directly from people who neither contracted the loans nor received any of the money. Agencies such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and powerful governments use debt as a tool to extract resources from developing countries and control their governments. The IMF has seemingly unfettered access and control over government policies, many of which are designed to transform developing countries and resource bases for Western countries under the guise of development. In a speech before the American Society of Newspaper Editors on 16 April 1953, then US president Eisenhower was quoted saying: Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its [labourers], the genius of its scientists, and the hopes of its children … This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron. (Eisenhower 1953) Six decades later, the following statistic still prevails: Less than 1 percent of what the world spent every year on weapons was needed to put every child into school by the year 2000 and yet it didn’t happen. For good or bad, corporations have a far-reaching impact on communities everywhere in this globalised world. However, if left unchecked, corporations have shown tendencies of sacrificing the needs of communities to satisfy the wants of the top few even at the cost of humanity. These are examples of corporations working for profit maximisation and against humanity: When the South African government tried to produce generic drugs for the treatment of HIV and AIDS locally at a cheaper cost, large pharmaceutical companies lobbied the US government to impose sanctions on them. Medical research responds to the demands of the market’s ability to afford their drugs rather than to their health needs. The same lethargy can be observed in the Ebola epidemic. 7

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The bottom line often gets prominence over the cost to the environment. Most corporations only worry about the environment up to the point where it affects their profits. However, issues like displacements of villages to get to what lies beneath them, pollution of ground water and the devastation of ecosystems for the local population go unchallenged for the most part. For instance, Nestlé continues to face accusations of keeping poor communities off their groundwater to reserve it for extraction to supply their bottled water brand, which made up to $90 billion in their 2011 profits. Corporate advertisement targets children, changing the culture to teach consumerism at a young age. In spite of the wealth amassed by big companies, they are notorious tax evaders and spend millions of dollars on crafting ways to avoid paying tax by seeking tax havens or lobbying governments, such as the Bush administration in the United States, for tax breaks leaving the burden of taxes on smaller companies and individuals. It is for certain that the scandal is no less today than it was ten years ago. The massive financial meltdown of 2008 had little impact on the systems and structures. The ones who felt the pain of that disaster were and are the ones who are always required to pay – the poor, the vulnerable, and the marginalised. So in calling the member churches of the CWM to be missional, we are encouraging, even challenging a shift in mind-set and a movement from the paralysing influence of mere maintenance to soul-searching, integral, cutting edge ministries, living and acting in community with those who hurt and hope, despair and dream struggle and search for meaning. The CWM Theology Statement carries stories of those who have been wronged by the system, where policies are enacted to deprive people access to their earned entitlements; where economic imperialism continues to create benefits for a few business people and huge corporations at the expense of small enterprises and the people; where domestic violence, supported by religious fundamentalism and patriarchy, wreak havoc on the security of women and their quest for life of quality; and where the devastating impact of climate change breeds fear of dislocation, dismemberment and displacement, a catastrophic and colossal loss of culture, community and consequently, identity (CWM 2011:6-9). And yet these stories are amazingly punctuated with visions of a ‘different world’, God’s ‘new heaven and new earth’ (Isa. 65:17-25), a world where ‘justice rolls on like a river and righteousness like a never-failing stream’ (Amos 5:24).

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It is that hope that springs forth from the belly of discontent that keeps on pulling at us. We struggle to remain consistent in our passion for a better world; we fall short of our own ideals to live the example of our proclamation; we give up too quickly when disappointment interferes with our expectations; but though beaten, battered, bruised, a missional church must keep on praying that God will help us never to surrender because to surrender is to give up on that last speck of dignity that enables us to keep on fighting, to keep on believing, to keep on dreaming, and therefore, to keep on proclaiming. In an article in The Nation, Ken Silverstein writes: Almost three times as many people, most of them in tropical countries of the Third World, die of preventable, curable diseases as die of AIDS. Malaria, tuberculosis, acute lower-respiratory infections – in 1998, these claimed 6.1 million lives. People died because the drugs to treat those illnesses are nonexistent or are no longer effective. They died because it doesn’t pay to keep them alive. (Silverstein 1999) Jeremiah once turned to God and found freedom. I have been deprived of peace; I have forgotten what prosperity is. So I say, ‘My splendor is gone and all that I had hoped from the Lord.’ I remember my affliction and my wandering, the bitterness and the gall. I well remember them, and my soul is downcast within me. Yet this I call to mind and therefore I have hope: Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. (Lam. 3:17-23) Taking our cue from Jeremiah, we have to conclude that there is a healing potion to be experienced when we take hold of Scripture and trust God to give us the word in season and for the moment. We believe that if the church is to be missional it must be relevant. And for it to be relevant in today’s world there is a need for us to explore new ways of reading Scripture, where the Jesus of Nazareth is interpreted as the courageous agitator and advocate for God’s liberation in the face of oppression and enslavement; for God’s justice in the face of corruption and abuse of power; for God’s shalom in the face of social discord and disarray; and for God’s hope in the face of disillusionment, cynicism and the temptation for quick fixes while ignoring the bone of contention, the root cause of the problem. For the church to be relevant, we must prepare women and men for leadership within the church. Women and men who are able to make connections between the words of Scripture and the world of struggle; who are able to read the signs of the time and relate 9

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such reading to the passion of God for what South African theologian, Allan Boesak calls, ‘compassionate justice’, to the call of God for the freedom of the afflicted, and to the plan of God to ‘give us a hope and a future’ (Jer. 29). We need leaders with the capacity to resist the temptation to collude with power, irrespective of the consequences; to rise above the insatiable appetite for the convenient and the comfortable at the expense of a groaning creation; and to raise a standard, marked by an informed understanding of a complicated world and a conscious leader. For the church to be relevant, we need worship that is rooted in the spiritualties’ of a sojourning people – a people who know the struggle they see and the God who walks with them; we need prayers that constitute litanies of hope – the cries of lamentation and discontent and the search for life-giving alternatives. We need new songs – songs reflecting the people’s narratives, with theologies that elevate us beyond the boundaries of the cheap prosperity gospel where God can only be interpreted in a privatised one-on-one vertical relationship, me blessing God and God blessing me in return. This is the kind of missional congregations that we are calling for and our reading of Scripture and narration of stories over these days should assist in giving support to this quest. In the end, CWM would have made a contribution to the living out of God’s mission in the world if we were able to position our member churches to participate in building lifeaffirming communities as our vision statement calls forth. I dare to suggest that life-affirming community is not simply another expression for the old tried and tested epistemology. Rather it bespeaks a yearning for a community experience in which life is full and fruitful. For this new way of being to emerge, CWM invites the church to position itself as a credible partner in the process. This act of positioning is about cultivating a disposition to be different and to act differently, to become and to behave as ‘Light of the world and salt of the earth’ (Matt. 5:13-16). But to act differently requires us to think differently, to listen differently and to engage differently by first believing that we do not have the total answer; and therefore we do not have to act alone. Indeed we too are sojourners, students, searching for more truth and light. I am grateful to the Empowerment and Training Team for organising a consultation that produced this work. But allow me to close with these words from Allan Boesak’s recent volume on hope in which he is ‘searching for a language of life in faith and politics’: Our capacity to hope is truly astonishing; it is something deeply, intimately, uniquely human. It affirms in the most emphatic way our connectedness to the divine; for God, in whose image we are made, cannot be a God of love

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and mercy, of justice and peace, or of endless compassion and infinite grace if God is not also, in the most emphatic way, a God of hope. (Boesak 2014:25) Boesak is right. Our capacity to hope is inextricably intertwined in a relationship with God, and it is God in the first instance, and not we, who inspires and enables hope in the human spirit. For this reason we can consider ourselves blessed because it is God who first hears the cry of the wounded spirit; it is God who first sees the suffering of the oppressed daughters of the earth; it is God who first agonises at a groaning creation; it is God who first expresses concern at the broken world in which we find ourselves; it is God whose heart is first broken at earth’s destruction, who weeps at the world’s injustice, who is displeased with the excessive greed of human beings; and indeed it is God who calls us to be disturbed and discontented and determined to pray, and struggle, and search, and believe, and imagine, and hope for a different world. This book is an offering for our time of walking with God in God’s uncompromising commitment to ‘create a new heaven and a new earth’.

References Boesak AA. 2014. Dare we speak of hope? Searching for a language of life in faith and politics. Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing. CWM (Council for World Mission). 2011. Mission in the context of Empire: CWM theology statement 2010. Singapore: Council for World Mission. Accessed 22 July 2016, http://www.cwmission.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/mission-andempire.pdf Eisenhower D. 1953. The chance for peace. Accessed 1 August 2016, http://www. edchange.org/multicultural/speeches/ike_chance_for_peace.html Silverstein K. 1999. Millions for Viagra, pennies for diseases of the poor. Accessed 22 July 2016, https://www.thenation.com/article/millions-viagra-pennies-diseasespoor/ WCRC (World Communion of Reformed Churches). 2014 . The Accra Confession. Accessed 8 August 2016, http://wcrc.ch/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/ TheAccraConfession-English.pdf

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Foreword What the Council on World Mission is doing is amazingly remarkable. Unique in the ecumenical movement, in my view, CWM has recaptured the vision, mission and above all the passion of liberation theology and is placing these in a new context: the context of a 21st century imperial reality. Because CWM is so unapologetically rooted in Scripture and the realities of the people on the ’underside of Empire’, CWM understood that theology cannot be neutral, as if its academic debates and conclusions have no consequence for the life of people. Rather, it is what South African prophetic theology used to call ‘a site of struggle’: a struggle for understanding, interpretation, and active participation in the life and death struggles of God’s children. Our struggle is a struggle against Empire, as much as it is a struggle for the authenticity of Scripture, constantly abused to serve the interests of Empire, as it is a struggle for life in all its fullness for God’s people on earth. And Scripture is what this book turns to and is calling to our attention. Empires have always understood that their own existence depends upon the creation of myths: not only the myth of benevolence, beneficial commonality, and most importantly the myth of redemptive violence which space does not allow us to discuss. Crucial also are the myths of invulnerability, invincibility, and irreplaceability, all fairly well captured in Margaret Thatcher’s well-known but infamous phrase: ‘There is no alternative.’ These myths are all meant to underscore the inevitability of our reality, the overwhelming power of Empire and the futility of dissent and resistance. CWM has set upon a path to expose these myths, to prove them wrong and to inspire new and creative forms of resistance against imperial domination. This book is a wonderful example of what CWM and the authors are inviting us to join. CWM General Secretary Collin Cowan makes it clear: CWM has recognised and is at the heart of the struggle against ‘the blatant and bare-faced death-dealing, life-denying forces that are desecrating and destroying God’s creation, causing groaning of irreconcilable proportions’ as Rev. Cowan writes in the first pages of this exciting book: We asked ourselves what window there is for our liberation and how might we manage to lay sight thereon and then claim its freeing winds. In discovering our utter futility in this respect, we turned to Scripture and heard afresh the affirmation of Jesus: ‘I am come that you might have life, and have it in all its fullness’ (John 10:10). Fullness of life for all creation is how Jesus interpreted his mission in the context of the Roman Empire.

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We are being asked to join this struggle and with CWM we are discovering not just an open window, but an open door, and this is because of Jesus of Nazareth to whom we look, the pioneer of our faithful struggle against Empire and the finisher of our faith in the victory over Empire because he ‘endured the cross, disregarding its shame’ so that he could take his seat at the right hand of God. (Hebr. 12:2) He is the One, the holy One, the true One, who has the key of David, who opens a door and no-one can shut it, who shuts and no-one can open. ‘Look,’ this holy One says, he who was crucified because of his resistance to Roman imperial power and its collaborationists in the Jerusalem elites, ‘I have set before you an open door, which no one is able to shut’ (Rev. 3:7, 8). And then that holy, crucified, resurrected One says, ‘I know you have little power, and yet you have kept my word and have not denied my name.’ This is a promise this book is intent for us to believe in. This is a promise this book is holding God to: if the prophetic church, having little power, but great faith, refuses to deny the Name by being faithful in the struggle for the life of God’s children and the earth, shall share in the victory of the Lamb. Admittedly we are on a journey of death, says Rev. Cowan, because of human selfishness, greed, and the lust for domination of the world. But that is a path chosen by Empire. People of faith can discern the possibility of another, different journey however, one that does not lead to death but to life. It is a journey not of submission and surrender, of complicity and compliance, but one of dissent and resistance, of hope and faith and the affirmation of life. The Bible calls it ‘walking with God.’ Walking with God is learning to read the heart of God, to hear the voice of God in the cries of the victims of our ferocious and destructive sinfulness, and in so doing to understand what Yahweh requires. And that cannot be done but in utter humility before God and before the ones we have hurt and damaged through our arrogance, greed, injustice and our complicity with Empire in its love of violence. It is walking with God through Egypt, hearing, seeing and knowing both the oppressive, heartless might of the Pharaoh and the pain and suffering of God’s people (Exod. 3:7). It is standing in the midst of the slaves, counting the blows, bending under the weight, feeling the pain. It is understanding the power of the Pharaoh and the mercilessness of his slave drivers, and it is ‘to come down’ to rescue, to liberate, to end the violence and the suffering. Walking humbly with God is walking from the brick-making yards through the palace gates to the throne, speaking truth to power, telling the Pharaoh with a clarity not subject to ambiguity and misunderstanding, ‘Let my people go!’ It is breaking down the wall of resistance between the will of the Pharaoh and the longing of the people, between the power of the Pharaoh and the cry for justice. It is acknowledging 14

Foreword

the difference between making bricks for the Pharaoh and breaking down the walls of hatred, enmity, and exclusion. Walking with God is resisting the Pharaoh, even as we discover, as in these times and in many places, that the Pharaoh looks like us. Walking with God is walking with Jesus, restoring life to the bodies of the abused, making the wounded whole, healing the sick, touching the untouchables and nullifying the power of the untouchables; empowering and restoring women to their rightful place, weeping with those who mourn, releasing the life-giving power of God’s love, challenging and confronting the powerful on the doing of justice and mercy, in their temples and their palaces, giving notice that the reign of God has come. Walking with God is to stand where God stands, to fight for whom God fights: the poor, the weak, the defenceless, the despised, the threatened and the excluded. It is to have the courage to know that trepidation before the might of the powerful is overturned by the fear of the Lord and the love of Christ. It is to understand, unequivocally and with a clarity that is both humbling and liberating, that justice is what Yahweh requires. Walking with God is knowing that our souls tremble before God so that our knees do not tremble when we face the powerful and the mighty of this world. Walking humbly with God means being humbled by what we see, by what we are doing to others, by our capacity for harm and destruction in what we are wreaking upon the earth and all of God’s creation. Walking with God is learning to let the Holy Spirit have her way, to let us be astounded by what we can do in God’s name, for Jesus is Lord. The Belhar Confession adopted by the then Dutch Reformed Mission Church in 1986 is well-known for its central themes: unity, justice and reconciliation. What has received less attention is what I hold to be the conviction that flows out of what is both the edifice, the foundation and the heart of Belhar, namely the affirmation of the earliest confession of the church: that Jesus is Lord. I refer to this singular, crucial affirmation from Belhar: that God, (the God of Jesus of Nazareth, not the false, gold-leaf-crowned god appropriated by Empire); the God of the poor, the oppressed, the weak and the wronged, (not the god that blesses slavery, apartheid, exclusion, genocide and oppression), is a God of justice, (the justice Yahweh requires, not justice as revenge, retribution or affirmation of systemic inequities; the compassionate justice Yahweh requires, not the kind of justice to suit our private, communal or ecclesial bigotries, and affirm our politics of delusion); and that God calls the church (that is, those of us who call upon the name of Jesus and seek to follow him as his disciples), to follow God in this.

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Bible and Theology from the Underside of Empire

That the church must stand where God stands, and therefore, as an inevitable consequence, stand by people in any form of suffering and need, (all people who suffer, not the people who are the cause of their suffering and need, those from whose power we seek benefit, those who confirm and conform to our prejudices and who comfort us in our irrational phobias); in any form of need (not just those needs we respond to with superficial deeds of charity in order to satisfy our need for self-righteous self-satisfaction) which means that the church must witness against any form of injustice, (no excuses, exceptions, or modifications and no compromises) so that justice may roll down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream. All this is followed by what I consider to be some of the most crucial words in the Belhar Confession, mostly overlooked, and hence not completely understood in their import and power: ‘The church is the possession of God.’ The church is the possession of God, and not the possession of the privileged and powerful, the moneyed and the entitled; of God, and not of the wilful, the strong and the loud-mouthed, the arrogant and the self-satisfied. This is who we are, this is what we believe and confess, this is how we speak and act, and this is what this wonderful book is calling us to remember as we join the struggles for justice, peace, freedom and true, reclaimed humanity. We are the church and as such, We are the possession of God, not the possession of the Empire, the strong and the mighty; We are the possession of God, not the possession of a racist, or homophobic, or patriarchal bigotry; We are the possession of God, not the possession of imperialist greed and hunger for power and domination; We are the possession of God, not the possession of baptised bigotry and sanctified political phariseeism; and As the possession of God, not the possession of fear-filled, blinded people who do not know Jesus, the Light of the world, the One crucified by the Empire, but resurrected by the power of God, we stand where God stands, fight for whom God fights, discerning in our humble walk with God a journey in faith toward hope and life. 

16

Allan Aubrey Boesak

Introduction Bible and Theology from the Underside of Empire Empire as a concept that generally defines the signs of the times in which the Council for World Mission (CWM) responds to its calling as a global mission body in the twenty-first century. Empire leaves faith in a precarious state. Theological imagination and Biblical interpretation in this context do not become matters of luxury, but matters of life and death. CWM, which is a product of the modern missionary movement with its colonial heritage, has since emerged as a community of churches in mission, witnessing relevantly and courageously in the context of Empire. The metamorphosis of CWM, namely, its change from a missionary paradigm of mission associated with the modern missionary movement to one of a roundtable of churches happened as a result of the Council’s bold theological transgressions informed by the communities who are forced to bear the weight of the imperial oppressive systems unjustly. The Mission Theology Statement of 2010 articulates succinctly, the theological rationale for CWM’s revolt against all manifestations of Empire in our context (CWM 2011). God’s mission in history has always been a celebration of bearing witness in the midst of Empire. God became flesh in Jesus Christ in an imperial world and Jesus lived out his life in accordance with the will of God as a counter-imperial praxis. The mission of the church is, therefore, to continue the praxis of Jesus to contest the claims of the Empire by affirming, protecting, and celebrating movements of life. Empire is that which claims absolute lordship over God’s creation and commodifies all relationships between human beings and human beings, human beings and creation, human beings and faith, human beings and work, and human beings and sexuality; thus the commodification of the whole creation and the disablement of moral agency. The violent face of the Empire is exposed in systems and practices that exclude and discriminate people based on class, race, ethnicity, gender and sexual orientation. Empire is hence a god that rejects God and the flourishing of the community of creation. Mission in the context of Empire demands our absolute allegiance to the blossoming of life, exposing and confronting imperial forces. It is an invitation to resist the temptation to be co-opted by the Empire and the nerve to come out of the Empire, creating counterimperial alternatives. With this renewed vision, CWM began to search for new expressions of Christian public witness in a broken world. The Theology Statement of 2010 provides us with the theological 17

Bible and Theology from the Underside of Empire

basis for CWM’s existence today. The Theology Statement 2010 identifies Empire as the context in which we are called to be partners with God in God’s mission to transform the world. Colonialism is part of our history and there are still unhealed wounds of imperial plunder on the body of our nations. Today we think that we live in a post-colonial world. But we continue to live under the sway of neo-colonial forces. Engaging in mission in the midst of Empire is not a new slogan. God’s mission has always taken place in the midst of Empire. God became flesh in Jesus Christ in an imperial world. From the time of his birth, Jesus’ life was threatened by Empire. We learn from the gospels that it is the Empire and its allies that eventually killed him. So we are called to continue this mission engagement in the midst of Empire. Here we need to understand and name the manifestations of Empire in our midst. And also, we need to contextualise the mission model of Jesus in confronting the Empire as we engage in the mission of God. Mission is integrally connected with the church; the body of Christ. In the context of Empire, we are called to participate in the ministry of equipping the saints for witnessing to the living God in truthfulness. So our vocation is to enable the church to be experienced as a healing and empowering presence in the lives of the victims of Empire. How do we rediscover the church in the context of Empire? How do we transform our faith communities – our own congregations – into missional congregations? As stated in the CWM Annual Report of 2014, the adoption of the concept of a missional congregation is a call to local churches to become transformative communities, ‘manifesting the reign of God in their midst as lives are made new and justice is realized for those who have been denied fullness of life.’ The report goes on: Such a call challenges the congregations to see mission as ‘the practical outworking of our faith, so that it is rooted in our communities, and grows from there, engaging and transforming the challenges we face, gradually realizing the fullness of life that God promises.’ Mission is no longer a delegated activity that is done elsewhere; ‘but as part of the lifeblood of the congregation as they engage with the life experiences of their own members and the experiences of the people who comprise their neighborhood, witnessing to their faith in God’s promise of life.’ A congregation cannot be missional if it is not attuned to those on the margins, either within its midst or beyond. At the heart of the Christian life there is community.’ It is an expression of what our faith calls us to, the celebration of life in all its fullness, which can only be realized in community, in the company of other people. Mission is not something we can outsource, it should be the very essence of congregational life.’ So the challenge before us is to re-imagine mission as developing life-affirming 18

Introduction

communities, through the agency of the marginalized, in the midst of death and destruction. (CWM 2014:8) In the Indian context our re-imagination of mission would provide us with two discernments: First, mission is sangharsh; a struggle informed by the silenced voices at the margins, to understand and expose the life-threatening forces in our midst; and second, mission is nirman, developing alternative life-affirming ethos, systems, practices, and communities. Let us briefly make an attempt to analyse the life-denying systems and forces which continue to colonise our life world, and to propose alternative missional expressions that transform our faith communities into God’s beloved communities of abundant life and grace. Mission in the midst of Empire is the Christian praxis of engaging in the public affairs of our times, offering critiques, insights and alternatives to transform our social relations, based on the vision of the reign of God. It invites us to listen to the margins, the wretched of this earth. We see a new politics brewing in the seashores, the forests, the fields, the mountains, the river valleys, the urban slums, and the campuses. In her book, The End of Imagination, Arundhati Roy writes: At a time when opportunism is everything, when hope seems lost, when everything boils down to a cynical business deal, we must find the courage to dream. To reclaim romance. The romance of believing in justice, in freedom, and in dignity. (Roy 2016:103) The new social movements are born out of this dream. Christian mission in our times requires from us an unwavering commitment to be in communion with the social movements in our midst. ‘Mission’ is a contested term. Our dominant mission discourses are founded on exclusive truth claims. It is our sense of call and burden to reach out to the unreached to bring them to light from the bondage to darkness is that which inspires us to engage in mission. This understanding of mission stems from the presupposition that the beliefs and practices of the other are heathen and sinful. So it is our mission to intervene in the life stories of the other and impose our beliefs and practices on them and convert them into our understanding of truth. Over the years, attempts were made to redeem mission of this negative legacy of conquest and violence. New paradigms were proposed to widen the horizons of mission. In spite of all those attempts, mission continues to be interventions in the life of the other to forcefully incorporate them into our fold. External interventions

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reduce people to the level of objects to be acted upon. It is in the light of this critical discernment that we need to look for alternative mission paradigms. The alternative mission paradigm is to become partners in the praxis of God. In the creation story, narrated in the book of Genesis, we see the divine hovering over the chaotic order like a mother bird and creating life and beauty. Creation as a beautiful community of life connected to each other in a deep sense of communion and relationality is the consequence of the creative transformative praxis of God. The creativity that is given to us is to continue this process of creation and transformation. The command to till and to keep the earth is to engage in transformative interventions on earth which will enhance the quality and sustenance of life on the face of the earth. Divine creativity, the very image that we share in ourselves, is the ability to transform our surroundings according to God’s will. Hence our commitment to transform the world is a commitment to participate in God’s redemptive work in history. Transformation of the world is not a social work. It is the collective expression of our commitment to God and our earnest attempt to live out our faith. Traditionally, we tend to understand faith and Christian life as a subjective reality that we experience at the innermost recesses of our hearts. But the God whom we meet in the life stories of our ancestors of faith narrated in the Bible is a God who is Emmanuel; a God who is ever present in the everyday living experiences of the community; a God who laments with the oppressed and the exploited; a God who liberates the oppressed from the shackles of bondage; a God who travels with them in their journey towards the Promised Land; a God who becomes flesh in history and accepts human frailty; a God who laughs, dines, walks, and weeps with the people; a God who undergoes the experience of utter God forsakenness along with a multitude of people. So faith in God from a Christian perspective is not to search for a God who is aloof from our world of tears and sorrows; rather our faith in God invites us to discover God afresh in the most unexpected times and places in our history. So faith is to meet God at the bleeding points of history, and to participate in the salvific praxis of God. Christian mission is not a rescue operation of airlifting believers from a sinful world; rather Christian mission is to believe in the promise of God to transform the world and to participate in the divine project to realise that promise. In the context of the Empire, we are called to transform our churches into missional congregations to spearhead this mission of transformation. CWM is committed to equipping the churches to live out this subversive gospel through radical social engagement. Bible being the primary source of revelation, together with other sources of faith is central to the faith formation of our

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Introduction

communities – a new ‘grammar’ of doing theology in the context of Empire. Contextual and anti-imperial reading of the Bible and alternative theological imaginaries place a huge responsibility on CWM to enable faith communities to witness relevantly, subversively and insurrectionally against Empire. This is the purpose of this book. In this book, we share chapters developed out of the Bible Study Workshop – Discerning the Signs of the Times: Mission in the midst of Empire – to bring out a global Bible and theological study book. The potential readers of the book are members of the congregations, pastors, theological educators and peers in biblical and theological studies. The content and the style are intentionally simple and reader-friendly without compromising the academic integrity of the book. Each reflection engages with a Biblical text and a particular manifestation of Empire in our times, facilitating a theological conversation between the text and the context. Authors suggest non-conventional hermeneutical explorations. There are short stories, poems, statistics, quotations, prayers, illustrations and artwork to add clarity and sharpness to the Bible studies and theological reflections. The book is divided into three sections: Broken Bodies, Colonised Spaces and Transgressive Bodies.

Broken Bodies In the first section, Graham Adams poses an important question about justice. He argues that justice is central to our Christian faith and links this question to the importance of truth in the light of the antics of Empire and its ability to manufacture its ‘truth,’ which is clearly propaganda. Adams points us to the need to be alert to a competing vision of justice and illustrates how justice in the domination system of Empire divides, concocts lies and destroys. Eleazar Fernandez discusses the impact of globalisation and corporatisation, particularly health and well-being. He identifies a globalising network-power, which has adverse consequences, resulting in much pain and suffering to people and the earth. Dr Fernandez calls on the church as a community to faith to lead a resistance against this disorder. He posits a holistic approach to health care, which goes beyond remedial responses to a deeper understanding and response, and one which considers the interconnectivity of life at the social and ecological levels. A holistic approach requires the participation of medical personnel as well as social workers and spiritual leaders. Patricia Sheerattan-Bisnauth weaves her penetrating argument and perspective on patriarchy through the story of Kowsila. Pitched within the context of indentured Indians 21

Bible and Theology from the Underside of Empire

in the sugar plantations and slavery, Sheerattan-Bisnauth celebrates Kowsila’s struggle to argue that the struggle, in fact, is edifying. Reading the Bible through the eyes of gender liberation and engaging Victorian perceptions and imbrications of patriarchy, she poignantly cautions that patriarchy maintains Empire in our times. Rev. Feiloaiga Taule’ale’ausumai Davis interrogates the issue of gender injustice examining the rape of Tamar in 2 Samuel 13:1-22 and the realities of women today. The culture of silence in the face of sexual violence has a devastating impact on women, children and families. Yet, the church remains silent and is also complicit in this abuse, failing to address the injustices, such as domestic and sexual violence, and marginalisation in church and society. She makes the point about the detriment of the church’s adherence to the societal culture of oppression of women, which relates them to the background. Women are denied their rightful places in church and society, are visibly missing from leadership positions and are not acknowledged for their work in the private and public spheres. Graham Adams shares a powerful contrast between child-likeness and childishness, ostensibly Empire’s propensity to dissect communities by childish acts. Pitched within the context of the UK, where the rights of a child are seemingly affirmed, Adams exposes the contradictions of his context by pointing at the prevalence of abuse and the sexualisation of children. Clearly intending to put across an undeniable feature of the Empire, a pseudoinnocent façade, the ‘hiddenness’ of suffering is revealed through ‘the touch of the firstborn of creation’ Jesus the child of God. Our humanity is childlike, unlike childish as Empire has shown, Adams poignantly argues. Marsha Nathalee Martin offers a real story that exposes the sexuality of Empire. It is a harrowing, tragic story of Roshanne whose pristine innocence and promising life is shattered first in her most intimate of spaces of trust – her aunt’s home. Embroiled in a vicious cycle of brokenness, she is sexually abused at a very young age, her body later turned and defiled into a money-making machine as a prostitute, trafficked and arrested in the Empire polis. Hers is a story where the touching of her body became more frequent as is the case in the Empire polis whose savagery is written on the bodies of innocent children. Yet in this story, Martin points us to hope as Roshanne is on a path of healing.

Colonised Spaces Reading the narratives of the Union Carbide industrial disaster and the birth narratives of Jesus, George Zechariah offers a prophetic condemnation of the instruments of Empire that are destroying the life and the livelihood of vulnerable communities. Critiquing

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Introduction

dominant understandings of mission that coalesce around the centres of power, Zachariah seeks to subvert this dominant paradigm by calling for alternative understandings of mission that emerge from the margins. He suggests that this can be done only through anamnestic solidarity among the oppressed. To him it is the remembering of dangerous memories that offers subversive resistance. Critiquing modernity with its economic reductionism, John Samuel offers an analysis of the changing face of the market economy that has become a dominant and dominating force in all spheres of life. Prising open the inner workings of capitalism, Samuel offers a historical account of Christian engagement with capitalism. It is with this introduction that he enters into a discussion of Genesis 11:1-9, the narrative of the Tower of Babel. Samuel deconstructs this imperial project by exposing the dynamics of power interests in the text. He concludes by suggesting that we can only speak ‘one language’ when we remove the imbalances of power and hierarchy. James Perkinson offers an alternative analysis of the problems that plague post-industrial cities in general, and Detroit in particular. Using the language of the street and the styling of hip-hop, Perkinson uniquely exposes for us the rottenness of the post-industrial city while showing us how the marginalised are able, in their struggle for life, to transform this space. He connects the dots between the culture of urban African-Americans from the ‘hood’ so to speak and the movement of Jesus, highlighting the liberating elements in both. Vuyani Vellem studies resurrection through the eyes of iziko. Citing the resurrection as possibly the most potently subversive element of the Christian faith, Vellem argues that iziko, translated as the fireplace or the hearth of a home, also contains similar subversive elements in the black African context and suggests that this could be an interpretative lens through which the insurrectionist elements of resurrection could also be seen. An account of a unique relationship between insurrection and resurrection, Vellem contends, suggests a resistance towards Empire that emerges out of death and resurrection instead of eternity, which he suggests is, in fact, the hallmark of Empire. Lily Phiri appropriates the well-known political fable by George Orwell, Animal Farm to lament the savage manner in which God’s creation, the world, and its peoples have been plunged into a pig sty through civilisations that subvert the original vision of equality and dignity of life. ‘All animals are equal but some are more equal than others,’ Phiri argues and demonstrates through numerous examples one of which is the (mis)placement of decent work and the unceasing episodes of greed and the perpetuation of inequalities by the powerful of this world. At heart is the distortion of the vision of life in its abundance 23

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in the vineyard of Animal Farm and yet the illusory vision of inequality and indecency that thrives only through life killing. In her eco-theological reflection of the situation of ongoing exploitation of the continent and Zambia in particular, Kuzipa Nalwamba presents the prevailing situation of mineral (copper) extraction and exploitation of the people of Zambia. This exploitation has not been limited only to humans, but also to their closest neighbours; nature and mineral resources. The frustration of these two has had a negative spill over to humans. While other countries attracted multinationals vying for different products, such as gold and diamonds in South Africa, and rubber and oil in Cameroon, Zambia became popular for its copper, a mineral that seduced the British through their South African company (BSAC) as early as 1923. She soon took over the administration of the entire country as colonial masters and carefully carved out the Copperbelt as a main industrial zone where carefully planned strategies for exploitation of workers were designed, such as unskilled labour, low wages, hut taxes and life threatening jobs. This situation continued even after independence and maintained Zambia on a steady level of poverty and degradation in spite of the copper export for almost a century.

Transgressive Bodies Challenging the norms of heterosexuality, Ragies Gunda seeks to reinterpret Genesis 19 and Judges 19. Traditionally cited as a text that legitimises homophobia and religious sanctions against sexual minorities, Genesis 19 is an oft-quoted text among those who would like to maintain the heterosexual patriarchal order. Gunda, however, flips this traditional reading and reads both texts through the lens of hospitality. Raising the questions of responses to homosexuality in the African continent, he critiques imperial approaches towards issues of sexuality and calls for an alternative perspective based on sexual rights and the rights of sexual minorities. According to Roderick Hewitt the Palestinian-Israeli conflict is not rooted in Biblical times but finds its roots in the political and economic conflict between European nations. Post-World War 1, the existence of the Ottoman Empire navy made it crucial to divide the Ottoman-Syrian province into several countries, which led to European Jews migrating and then settling in Palestine. The land that the European Jews found in Palestine was not empty or unoccupied, yet a number of commercial real estate transactions resulted in the local people being disposed of and expelled from the land. Because the land of Palestine continued to be occupied by the indigenous people, the solution to the current problem

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Introduction

being faced is one that must benefit both the Jews and the Palestinians – and must also resemble the Will of the God who remains the defender of victims of oppression. Unhey Kim presents a study of human sexuality and trafficking of persons in light of a liberation reading of Genesis. Sexuality is God’s life-giving and life-fulfilling gift and an expression of Christian faith. Christian teaching about human sexuality is firmly grounded in the love of God revealed by Christ. Professor Kim reads the creation narratives, recognising that the gift of sex was among those things God declared to be very good in creation. (Gen. 1:31) The Christian faith celebrates the goodness of creation, including our bodies and sexuality. We come from diverse Christian communities to recognise sexuality as central to our humanity and as integral to our spirituality. However in our context, in the midst of Empire, body, especially women’s bodies have been destroyed and exploited. Kim makes the point that Empire is pervasive in the reality of our lives; to think about Empire is to think about our reality. She makes the case of sexuality being at the centre of the moral crisis in the midst of Empire. Patricia Sheerattan-Bisnauth, Philip Vinod Peacock, Sudipta Singh, and Vuyani Vellem

References CWM (Council for World Mission). 2011. Mission in the context of Empire: CWM theology statement 2010. Singapore: Council for World Mission. Accessed 22 July 2016, http://www.cwmission.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/mission-andempire.pdf CWM (Council for World Mission). 2014. Celebrating hope in the midst of turmoil: Annual Review 2014. Singapore: Council for World Mission. Accessed 20 August 2016, http://www.cwmission.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/CWMAnnual-Report-2015-D52.pdf Roy A. 2016. The end of imagination. Chicago, IL: Haymarket Books.

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Contributors Reverend Patricia Sheerattan-Bisnauth is an ordained Minister of the Guyana Presbyterian church and currently serves as the Moderator of the National Synod. She served as the executive secretary for Justice and Partnership of the World Communion of Reformed churches for eleven years (2000 to 2011). She is also the executive director of the Guyana Responsible Parenthood Association, which has a mandate for Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights. Marsha Nathalee Martin is a Jamaican who served the United Church in Jamaica and the Cayman Islands (UCJCI) for just over fifteen (15) years as a guidance counsellor, coordinator for Children’s Ministry and Chaplaincy Advancement Programmes, director for Junior’s and Teens Camps. She is a member of the Research and Management Team for the Programme of Renewal and Transformation of the UCJCI and is the producer and host of UCJCI’s radio programmes and coordinator, communications and information technology. Jione Havea is a minister in the Methodist Church of Tonga, and a Senior Lecturer in Biblical Studies at the United Theological College, Charles Sturt University. He has co-edited some works such as Bible, Borders, Belongings: Engaging Readings from Oceania (Semeia Studies, Atlanta: SBL, 2014) and edited another,  Indigenous Australia and the Unfinished Business of Theology: Cross-cultural Engagement (New York: Palgrave, 2014). Dr. George Zachariah serves the United Theological College, Bangalore, India as professor in the department of Theology and Ethics. His publications include Alternatives Unincorporated: Earth Ethics from the Grassroots (London: Equinox, 2011), Gospel in a Groaning World: Climate Injustice and Public Witness (Nagpur: NCCI, 2012), Disruptive Faith, Inclusive Communities: Church and Homophobia (Delhi: ISPCK, 2015), and The Life, Legacy and Theology of M.M. Thomas (New York: Routledge, 2016). Rev. Dr John Samuel formally taught Hebrew Bible at the Tamilnadu Theological Seminary. He also taught Hebrew Bible for three years in the Northern College in Manchester, UK. He has taught at the Pacific Theological College, Fiji. Now he has joined as the dean at the Indian School of Ecumenical Theology in Ecumenical Christian Centre, Whitefield. He is also serving as a visiting professor in the United Theological College, Bangalore.

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James W. Perkinson is a long-time activist and educator from inner city Detroit, currently teaching as Professor of Social Ethics at the Ecumenical Theological Seminary and lecturing in Intercultural Communication Studies at the University of Oakland (Michigan). He holds a PhD in Theology from the University of Chicago and is the author of White Theology: Outing Supremacy in Modernity (New York: Palgrave, 2004), Shamanism, Racism, and Hip-Hop Culture: Essays on White Supremacy and Black Subversion (New York: Palgrave, 2005), Messianism Against Christology: Resistance Movements, Folk Arts, and Empire (New York: Palgrave, 2013), and Political Spirituality in an Age of EcoApocalypse: Communication and Struggle Across Species,Cultures, and Religions (New York: Palgrave, 2015), and is an artist on the spoken-word poetry scene in the inner city. Vuyani Vellem teaches in the Department of Systematic Theology and Ethics and is Director of the Centre for Public Theology at the University of Pretoria. He is an author of journal articles, book-chapters and also a social commentator on faith related issues. He has recently co-edited a book published with the title: Prophet from the South: Essays in Honour of Allan Aubrey Boesak (Johannesburg, Sun Press 2014). He has continued to work for justice and in his approach he tackles issues at their foundational level. Lilly Phiri is a Zambian clergy and a PhD student at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. She has published articles and book chapters, as well as blog pieces theology, sexualities, and gender with a special focus on alternative identities. She is a member of the Circle of Concerned African Women Theologians. Rev. Kuzipa B. M. Nalwamba was born in Mbala, Zambia. She has worked as a high school teacher of English, and as Regional Secretary of the Zambia Fellowship of Evangelical Students (ZAFES), Regional Secretary, Southern Africa, at the International Fellowship of Evangelical Students in English & Portuguese Speaking Africa (IFES-EPSA) and she is an ordained minister of the United Church of Zambia (UCZ). She has served the UCZ as a congregational minister, school chaplain, lecturer and academic dean of the UCZ Theological College. She currently works as Mission Secretary, Communications for the Council for World Mission (CWM) and lives in Pretoria. Tioti Timon studied theology at Tangintebu Theological College and proceeded to the Pacific Theological Seminary before he went to Charles Sturt University where he completed his MA degree in Contextual Theology. Bishop Timon spent some time at Tangintebuu Theological College as a lecturer and principal. He has a passion for matters related to climate justice.

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Contributors

Roderick Hewitt has taught at the United Theological College of the West IndiesUniversity of the West Indies, Kingston, Jamaica, 2002-2010 and since 2010 at the School of Religion, Philosophy and Classics-University of Kwa Zulu-Natal in the disciplines of Systematic Theology and Practical Theology, specialising in Ecumenical Theology and Missiology. He was educated at the United Theological College of the West IndiesUniversity of the West Indies, BA(Hons) and at Kings College-University of London (MPhil, PhD). Un Hey Kim is associate professor of Christianity and Culture at Presbyterian University and Theological Seminary in South Korea. She has published books and articles including: Theology of Life and Christian Culture (Seoul, Korea: Qumran Publishing, 2006), Public Theology (Yeyoung Communication Press, 2009), Migrant Mission and Theology (Seoul, Korea: Korean Presbyterian Press, 2011) and Christian Ethical Culture in Postmodernity (Seoul, Korea: The Christian Literature Society of Korea, 2015). She graduated from the Presbyterian College and Theological Seminary (MDiv) Drew University (STM, The Master of Sacred Theology) and Claremont Graduate University (PhD). Her major study areas are Theology, Ethics and Culture.

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Justice is the heart of faith Truth in a world of propaganda Graham Adams Bible text from Mark 3; Luke 19; Jeremiah 7, 23; Daniel 5

Introduction: The truth about justice What is justice? We need to know! The problem is: even if we could all agree what it means for justice to be the heart of faith, we would not agree on what we all mean by justice. So, even before we turn to the Scriptures to illuminate how justice is integral to faith in the living God, we must first of all recognise that there are competing visions of justice – and that these competing visions cut across our religious commitments – so the relationship between faith and justice would appear to be complex. This becomes obvious as soon as you ask a church to identify what is ‘unfair’ with the world. People will express different emphases, even identifying conflicting things – with some viewing justice in terms of the rights of citizens of a particular state or the transactions between individuals, while others will be more internationalist and community-minded. So, what is justice? This Bible study is not a direct answer to that question. Instead, its concern is the conflict between different visions of justice. On the one hand, there is the propaganda of the ‘system’ – I will frequently follow Walter Wink and call it the ‘domination system’ (Wink 1992:9). The propaganda persuades us to accept models of justice that essentially divide people, ‘them’ from ‘us’. On the other hand, there is the ‘truth’ – or anti-propaganda – of God’s alternative vision of justice, which orientates us towards reconciliation. As Walter Brueggemann understands it, the alternative narrative of Scripture is absolutely concerned with calling things by their rightful name; it sees the data of the world according to a different frame of reference (for example, people are never to be reduced to profit margins); and YHWH is the very basis of the strangeness of this narrative (Brueggemann 2009:4-5), so Scripture tells the truth in a world of concealment, it subverts the world’s power frameworks, and renders all human arrogance and despair penultimate in the light of YHWH (Brueggemann 2009:6). It is in that light that we shall approach our reading of Mark’s Gospel. In essence, I want to explore the conflicting ‘symbolic orders’ – the symbolic order of Empire, or the domination system, which deludes us about the true 33

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nature of justice, and the symbolic order of the gospel, which refuses to dance to the Empire’s tune, defying the very judgements we easily take for granted. To do this, I will begin with some examples of the ‘system’s’ lies in the world today, before turning to Mark 3:20-30. Finally, I will offer some further theological reflections, leading to some questions and resources.

Truth and lies in the world today In their book, Occupy Religion: Theology of the Multitude, Joerg Rieger and Kwok Pui-lan seek to expose several lies. They do this in dialogue with the Occupy movement, which aims to galvanise the 99 percent to challenge the way that the 1 percent hold sway, and anticipate a world shaped by deep solidarity. It is an invitation to the church to recover its subversive vision of God-in-relation, so to free itself from dominant models of God and the world which excuse the status quo (Rieger & Kwok 2012).1 For our current purposes, three particular lies stand out. First, the ‘system’ teaches us to believe the lie that the poor are society’s parasites. You may be familiar with this. It is the lie that judges the poor as victims of their own idleness, immorality or inadequacy. It is the lie that calls them ‘scroungers’ or ‘parasites’, so obscuring their actual struggle. The truth of the matter, by contrast, is that ‘the one percent’ at the top are the real parasites, siphoning off society’s wealth (Rieger & Kwok 2012:58-63). To confront the role played by the one percent, we must not simply address the structures that allow this siphoning and that scapegoat the poor, as blameworthy; we must expose theologies which legitimise the lie. Namely, whenever sin is attributed more to the poor than to the one percent, through the language and judgements deployed, we should reveal the deceitful theology which is at work there.2 As an act of resistance against this lie, the NICE group in Salford, in the UK, which is a grassroots movement trained by Church Action on Poverty, has challenged the name-calling by feeding the media ‘good news stories’ about people in poorer communities.3 Second, there is the dominant lie of individualism (Rieger & Kwok 2012:63-67). The point here is that, even if we are encouraged not to be individualistic, such encouragement does not exactly challenge the ‘system’. For example, your church may urge you to be more 1 For ‘deep solidarity’, see Rieger and Kwok (2012:68, 79, 129, 133) and for ‘God-in-relation’, see Reiger and Kwok (2012:109). 2 Jung Mo Sung identifies the way in which the dominant economic model has its own theology, which preaches that there must be ‘necessary sacrifices’ (in effect, scapegoats), and that the poor therefore pay the price for the dynamism of the system (see Jung 2009). 3 See Stigma Stories at http://stigmastories.com/

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selfless and to care for others, but this still puts the moral responsibility on individuals – in line with the ‘system’s’ insistence that achievements are essentially personal, which is the heart of individualism.4 In this context, Rieger and Kwok’s point is radical. They identify individualism itself as a lie, a delusion spread for the convenience of the one percent. After all, the reality is that no one achieves things alone, in isolation from social relationships; the truth is that our social relationships are skewed or distorted for the benefit of a minority. The moralistic emphasis on the ‘problem’ of individualism teaches us to be individuals striving against the tide of selfishness; whereas to expose the ‘lie’ of individualism is to recognise that the problem is structural or systemic: it is the distortions favouring the one percent that makes it difficult for the multitude to achieve true justice. In order to wrestle with this, the church must, therefore, be more attuned to the dynamics of power and class, not merely encouraging individuals to be selfless, but empowering communities to tip the balance of power towards social justice. The third lie is explicitly the church’s lie, or perhaps the lie of many religious communities – but one which the domination system appreciates. It works like this. We tell ourselves that the only true way to address the injustices of the world is to convince more people to believe in God. It is as though we view the entire situation as a struggle between believers and unbelievers. However, this is a lie which is convenient for the system, because it distracts us from a more subtle but dangerous reality. After all, on the one hand, people of faith may well affirm the transcendence of God, but transcendence can be used to reinforce the status quo – by directing our gaze to the other-worldly (Rieger & Kwok 2012:71-73). On the other hand, the inclination to affirm God’s immanence, to emphasise God is everywhere, can divert us from the reality of God’s partisan opposition to Empire (Rieger & Kwok 2012: 87, 98-99). As Rieger and Kwok put it, in terms of the upsidedown priorities of God in Christ and of God’s kingdom, ‘this kingdom is better grasped as an anti-kingdom’ (Rieger & Kwok 2012:74), being so different from the dominant conceptions of power in all worldly kingdoms, whereas, by contrast, ‘many theisms are headed in the wrong direction’ (Rieger & Kwok 2012:89). In other words, believing in God is not synonymous with working for justice! Again, you may recognise the issue. Your church may be more anxious about its own strength, in terms of the sheer numbers of people who subscribe to it, than it is concerned to tip the balance of power in the world. Essentially, we remember to identify God with Christ as opposed to Caesar, but we forget that such a choice entails an utterly subversive model of power. This alternative model, embedded in the self-emptying Messiah crucified 4 See also Moe-Lobeda (2013:88-90). She argues that ‘socially constructed moral oblivion’ inculcates ‘privatized morality’ in us, with its ‘personalized’ solutions.

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by Empire, is integral to the kind of justice which is at the heart of gospel-shaped faith; but it is not always immediately obvious that the church has grasped this different understanding of power. As a result, the pursuit of theism on its own is no guarantee that justice will be fulfilled. (Just think of moments in world history when Christians may have had the numbers, but justice did not follow.) In addition, the connection between true ‘justice’ and ‘faith’ is not confined to a particular religious tradition. Just as people who share a faith commitment can have vastly different convictions about justice, so people who share a vision of justice may have vastly different convictions about faith. It will not be obvious, either, whether justice drives faith or faith drives justice. Consequently, although I will endeavour below to outline a way in which true justice may be a reflection of a particular understanding of what ‘faith’ is, as witnessed powerfully in the Christevent, it follows that it is not confined to Christ.5 To summarise things at this stage, I am suggesting that there is more involved than simply persuading people to accept the centrality of justice to faith. We must begin by addressing the reality of competing visions of justice, which cuts across faith commitments. This is, after all, a world of conflicting truths, where the domination system engenders particular falsehoods within us. For example, as Rieger and Kwok observe, we are led first to judge and scapegoat ‘the poor’, whereas the truth is that the top one percent evade moral responsibility. We are led, second, to address the challenge as individuals, believing that if we act personally, much can be achieved; whereas the truth is that social relationships are distorted to benefit those at the top and we need to be literate in the dynamics of power and class to see how the ‘system’ disadvantages the multitude. Third, the church deceives itself if it thinks more theistic believers are automatically the answer to the crisis because much theism fails to reckon with the dominant models of power, including God’s power, which works against true justice. So where do we go from here?

Mark 3: Propaganda versus anti-propaganda We turn to Mark 3:20-30 to see how the Biblical testimony equips us to interpret and engage with the prevailing lies of the ‘system’. The encounter, between Jesus and some 5 For example, Rieger and Kwok identify ways in which churches within the Occupy movement find themselves aligned with communities of other religious traditions; they talk of polydoxy to puncture the notion that one tradition can possess all pertinent truth, and that truth is instead witnessed in dialogue (Occupy Religion: Theology of the Multitude, Rieger & Kwok 2012:128-131), and they cite examples from other traditions (Rieger & Kwok 2012:71). I develop this point further on, with regard to Andrew Shanks whose vision of a universal ‘solidarity of the shaken’ envisages space not only for Christians as ‘shaken’ people but people from other traditions as potentially shaken too.

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scribes, is dramatically tense, as it effectively draws a line between two symbolic orders. However, as we shall see, it is not simply a matter of ‘us’ versus ‘them’, because the gospel itself undermines such judgements between the right and the wrong, instead highlighting the mercy of a God who cannot be grasped by a fearful system. Ched Myers’ commentary on Mark’s Gospel clearly sees this episode as fundamental, since it gives rise to the title of his book, Binding the Strong Man: A Political Reading of Mark’s Story of Jesus. The following paragraph, in which I offer a summary and interpretation of the story, relies greatly on Myers’ insights (Myers 1988:159-168). Already in these early stages of his ministry, Jesus is unsettling business-as-usual, because even back at home, the normal expectations of ‘table fellowship’ are disrupted, for we are told the coming together of the ochlos, the crowd (Rieger & Kwok’s ‘multitude’), prevents their eating. His family, increasingly worried for him – and presumably anxious about their own welfare – try to restrain him, because ‘people’ (the ominously faceless) were saying, ‘He has gone out of his mind’. (Notice the propaganda of social norms; eager to bend the will of anxious people, to bring about a pacification, so the trouble-maker might be reminded to play the game properly again.) But more than these nameless ‘people’, the scribes too – agents of the Jerusalem elite – have come to witness for themselves; and having heard the rumours, they spread their own, calling him ‘Beelzebul’ and ‘ruler of the demons’. Such name-calling was a commonplace tactic to discredit an anti-establishment figure. Jesus, however, has a reply, ‘in parables’ – in other words, Mark is telling us that even the humble parable, far from being an innocent moral tale, is a tool of engagement, or a weapon, in this dramatic, apocalyptic conflict. Jesus begins, ‘How can Satan cast out Satan?’ In other words, ‘If I really am Satan, then this is a battle between Satan and Satan’ – reflecting not only his confrontation with other ‘demons’ but that this conflict with the scribes is itself a conflict with Satan. And just as Satan cannot cast out Satan, so a divided kingdom or a divided house cannot stand. In both cases, he is referring to the Jerusalem establishment, which purported to be the true heir of the Davidic kingdom, and the temple was known as ‘the house’. So the argument, in such apocalyptic terms, is direct and dangerous. Jesus then proceeds to say that: ‘no-one can enter a strong man’s house’ (again, signifying the temple) and plunder his property (the word for ‘property’, or goods, is only used once more in Mark, in 11:16, where he condemns the carrying of temple vessels) without first tying up the strong man. So, reminiscent of John the Baptist’s exhortation to look for the one coming ‘who is stronger than I’, Jesus tells us that he is strong enough to restrain the strong man of the Jerusalem ‘system’ (this is illustrated further when others are not ‘strong enough’ to

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restrain the Gerasene demoniac, who, in fact, is oppressed by military occupation: Legion understood as military occupation understood and interpreted this way (Myers 1988:190194). Finally, not moving to a new theme but deepening his challenge to the temple, Jesus expresses God’s generous forgiveness (‘for their sins and whatever blasphemies they utter’, in verse 28), except for blasphemies against the Holy Spirit – that is, when people or powers name as demonic that which is actually the work of the living, liberating God. We must remember at this point that the temple was not simply a religious entity, but, with its role as the focus for the purity and debt codes, was utterly political and economic, and its status depended on the Empire of the day. Ever since the Temple-state was established in the sixth-century BCE, the temple had always been an arm of Empire. In Jesus’ day, the Empire appointed the high priest, and the Roman eagle, the imperial logo, was poised over the temple gate (Horsley 2008:80). So to challenge this institution, or domination system, in such apocalyptic terms, was, therefore, to engage in dangerous religio-political games. Justice was at the heart of this conflict. For the problems with the Temple-state, as indicated throughout Mark’s Gospel, were manifold, but essentially it exploited vulnerable people, excluded swathes of the ochlos, reinforced ethnic divisions (between Jews and Gentiles) and prejudice, and generally manifested obstruction to the furtherance of God’s kingdom. To name it as such, undermining its authority and restoring covenantal community (Horsley 2008:93-95), was to stand for a vision of justice rooted in the Biblical witness to YHWH, who truly desires mercy, not sacrifice. Mercy, then, is integral to justice, which is itself is integral to faith. By contrast, the temple had amassed for itself such vast powers, including purporting to execute God’s forgiveness on God’s behalf, but doing so through a complex, exploitative and oppressive system of sacrifices: so Jesus’ reclaiming forgiveness from the temple was seditious! It was the eruption of God’s hospitality, God’s openness to people even in their wrongness: for any blasphemy is declared forgivable! Such is the generosity of God! But he left us with a warning: if we misname the work of such a liberating God as demonic, we are on shaky ground. The point is similar to that made by Rieger and Kwok (2012: 96): the worst way to take God’s name in vain is to confuse God with the imperial system. So what of our model of God? Does our model effectively excuse or collude with the status quo, or is ours a ridiculously gracious God, who transcends our divisions and unravels our systems of exclusion and exploitation? The generosity of God’s justice is witnessed, for example, in the story of Zacchaeus (Luke 19:1-10). This agent of Empire, who was understandably hated by his compatriots, found himself hosting Jesus and committing to recompense his victims: that is, in response to 38

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Jesus’ hospitable love towards him, he demonstrated hospitality and exercised justice. He was, in effect, one of the one percent daring to embrace the new reality (Rieger & Kwok 2012:79). This illustrates the point of Jesus’ challenge to the Strong Man: it is not an ideological battle between two kinds of propaganda; one which calls Jesus demonic names in order to manipulate the crowd, and another responding on exactly the same terms. Rather, the apocalyptic conflict actually points us towards a different quality of symbolic order altogether: for Jesus does not accept the usual imperial ideology which simply leaves us with its different sides (insiders and outsiders, just and unjust), but undoes such judgements – by emphasising God’s generous forgiveness – and invites people like Zacchaeus to the feast of grace, while warning against name-calling, which misses the fundamental point: God, YHWH, is not the same as Empire.

Two symbolic orders: Two kinds of truth I suggest the battle between these two symbolic orders (kinds of truths) may be interpreted very helpfully through the lens of a British theologian, Andrew Shanks. For him, there are essentially two kinds of truth: ‘truth-as-openness’ and ‘truth-as-correctness’ (Shanks 2011:6-7, 2014: 5-6). The problem facing us – or the ‘original sin’ which burdens us – is that the human inclination towards ‘truth-as-correctness’ dominates the quest for ‘truth-as-openness’ (Shanks 2011:49-52, 73-75, 2014:12-113;). It is this civil war within us which gives rise to the two symbolic orders, one (grasping after truth-as-correctness) which edits or manipulates the Other, so leads to inadequate models of justice, and one (striving towards truth-as-openness) which is open to the Other as such, so fosters the potential for true justice. It is not that we should seek the elimination of truth-as-correctness because we do need some in order to bind people together in community, but what we ultimately seek is salvation from the distorted relationship between the two kinds. Let me explain, and identify how the encounter in Mark 3 bears witness to this. Truth-as-openness is the very nature of God; it is God’s openness to being in a relationship with us even though we are other-than-God. It is grace, love, hospitality. It is Christlikeness. It is receptivity to the otherness, or strangeness, of the Other. It is a readiness to receive from the Other, even with all the demands represented by the Other. Such truth, such openness, is indeed scandalous, because it shakes or unsettles the dominant demands on our loyalty. It shakes our easy divisions between correct and incorrect, clean and unclean, Jew and Gentile, male and female, adult and child, neighbour and enemy, insider and outsider, by opening us up to deeper solidarity. By contrast, truth-as-correctness is filtered 39

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reality; it is how we manage the complexity of reality, including that which addresses us in the lives of others. It is about making otherness fit with what we already know, notably our prejudices or clichés, or, if it is not manageable for us, then we must ignore it, expel it, or even destroy it. Now, every community needs some truth-as-correctness, to organise itself and create a sense of belonging and loyalty – not least because particular groups are forced to defend their identities and safeguard their well-being in the face of imperial aggression. Even so, there are always problematic consequences if the longing for truth-as-correctness is permitted to dominate the striving towards truth-as-openness. This is what we need saving from, as Shanks puts it, ‘the condition of being inwardly closed-down: towards other people in all their awkward otherness and towards the complex needs of proper justice’ (Shanks 2014:38). For him, faith is thus the recognition of the demands of truth-as-openness; and it is this faith which saves (Shanks 2014:38). Faith is the experience of being opened up. Conversely, when we are being closed down, or are resisting the otherness of the Other, through dehumanising ‘them’, or refusing to hear their alternative account of reality, we are sowing injustice. Faith and justice are therefore inextricably intertwined. Empire, of course, thrives on the closing-down of questions, stories and experience. It aims to ‘settle’ a matter and expects its subjects to be ‘settled’, whereas God’s alternative reality unsettles and shakes such closure and opens up space for renewed conversation. True faith, then, far from being something which is marked by correct loyalty to a particular group’s assertions, is perpetual question-asking, conversation-sustaining, justice-seeking openness to others’ otherness. To reflect this, Shanks speaks of ‘the solidarity of the shaken’: all who are shaken out of the lies or premature correctness of an Empire or group conformity, so cutting across our limited solidarities. The church is called to pursue and contribute to this solidarity of the shaken, but it is not the entirety of it (Shanks 2005: 104). So what is the nature of the challenge we are facing? It is the way in which this desire for truth-as-correctness manifests itself so prevalently in three dishonesties (Shanks 2005: 11). In each case, the individual or community is being dishonestly ‘closed down’ to the fullness of truth; our need for truth-as-correctness is obstructing our quest for truthas-openness. First, there is the dishonesty of herd-mentality – the unthinking going with-the-flow of one’s own group, rather than thinking independently.6 For example, in Jeremiah 7:1-7, the prophet addresses the temple for its easy repetition of seemingly faithful words: ‘This is the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord’, even as it proceeds to oppress the alien, orphan and widow. In other words, its 6 Shanks calls it ‘dishonesty-as-banality’: triteness, low key unreflectiveness, acceptance of group-think.

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‘truth-as-correctness’ is manifested as thoughtless repetition, telling itself the delusional story of its faithfulness to God while neglecting the very things which are in God’s heart. Second, dishonesty-as-disowning consists of a group or individual editing its story in order to feel more innocent. Again in Jeremiah, in 23:28-32, God exposes the distinctions between different kinds of prophet – those who ‘steal my words from one another … and say “Says the Lord”’, and those who, in contrast to such ‘lying dreams’, speak God’s Word faithfully. It is the contrast between straw and wheat. The particular target was those prophets with their words of easy consolation for the Jerusalem elite, massaging their delusions; their dishonesty-as-disowning was clear: they sought to disown and deny their fuelling of injustice. By contrast, prophets like Jeremiah confronted the elite with the truth, ‘like a hammer that breaks a rock into pieces’. Third, and most relevantly for this Bible study, there is dishonesty which is manipulative, exercised by a ‘gang’s’ propaganda which moulds a ‘herd’ into towing a certain line, to preserve the vested interests in the current order, through frightening or seducing the population to acquiesce. Such manipulation is frequently the target of the Biblical testimony. For example, Walter Wink sees this, not least in his interpretation of Jesus’ crucifixion through the lens of Daniel 5:25-28: They nailed him to the cross, not realizing that with each hammer’s blow they were nailing up, for the whole world to see, the MENE, MENE, TEKEL and PARSIN by which the domination system would be numbered, weighed in the balances, found wanting, and finally terminated. (Wink 1992:139)7 This resonates with what Shanks is saying: for he is clear that crucifixion was not simply a public form of torture, but an expression of the Empire’s propaganda, advertising the ‘system’s’ power over life and death, in order to frighten potential rebels into submission and to reassure the general population that those who seek to disrupt the ‘peace and security’ of the Empire would be terminated. So, in Christ crucified, God demonstrates solidarity with the victims of all propaganda-regimes, those deemed expendable by systems which want to retain the status quo; and since God raised him to new life, Christ exposes the hollowness of imperial power-politics, showing instead that truth-as-openness re-erupts to new life. These, then, are the two symbolic orders: on the one hand, the Empire’s need to maintain its ‘truth-as-correctness’ – a propaganda-regime which requires us to accept ‘closed’ 7 In Daniel 5:26-28, the writing on the wall is interpreted thus: ‘MENE, God has numbered the days of your kingdom and brought it to an end; TEKEL, you have been weighed on the scales and found wanting; ’PERES’ [singular of PARSIN], your kingdom is divided.’

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versions of justice, with their hasty judgements, sacrificed scapegoats, winners and losers – and, on the other hand, the ‘truth-as-openness’ of God’s alternative anti-kingdom – an anti-propaganda reality which cuts across the dominant judgements of the world, creating space where ‘others’ may enjoy new life. This is exactly the conflict dramatised in Mark 3. The scribes represent the propaganda-regime – they are much like political or economic powers of domination today – or those with a significant vested interest in maintaining the current order, promoting the lies identified by Rieger and Kwok. They offer a vision of so-called justice which relies on name-calling, a sacrificial system which judges and exploits the poor, and which urges all to dance to that same tune of in/out judgements. By contrast, though his apocalyptic language may be heard aggressively, the message of Jesus is that justice always includes mercy: for God forgives even any blasphemy – any of our delusional models of God; any of our complicity with Empire – except those judgements which totally confuse God with Empire. For this is the very point; this is the truth or antipropaganda of the matter in a world confused by distorted and limited notions of justice and diminished versions of faith: God is YHWH, an utterly different frame of reference, who cuts across all our human divisions and systems of judgements, offering grace on a scale we cannot comprehend, because God is truth-as-openness in a world addicted to or deceived by the attractions of truth-as-correctness. God’s justice is hospitable justice, which binds the Strong Man – those who would frighten or seduce us to excuse the sacrifice of the poor – and extends arms of loving welcome to all.

Summary: True justice is the heart of true faith In Mark 3, we witness the propaganda of the establishment, naming Jesus as ‘demonic’, much as the poor are labelled sinners, scroungers, idle or parasites. Jesus’ reply, however, is not propaganda, but anti-propaganda. He is telling the truth, or re-describing reality, according to the alternative frame of reference, YHWH: so the ‘system’ is indeed numbered, weighed in the balance, found wanting, and will ultimately be terminated. It had, after all, been guilty of believing its own propaganda – ‘this is the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord’ – rather than being compassionate towards aliens, orphans and widows. So there is a clear contrast between the Empire sanctioned system of injustice and the alternative kingdom, or anti-kingdom, of God. Furthermore, this alternative, which we may call ‘the solidarity of the shaken’, should not be understood as a new clique of its own, a new correctness, a new propaganda-regime, but as a solidarity capable of receiving from all sorts of shaken people, across all sorts of boundaries, as a mark of its hospitable mercy.

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A prayer Liberating God, We praise you, as you open us up to the fullness of your generosity and the awkwardness of each other! We confess to you, as we find it unsettling to be shaken out of the dishonesties which partially reassure us. We need you, as we long for justice but continue to build our efforts on the basis of our herds and gangs. We delight in you, as you free us from familiar limitations and forgive us for all our blasphemous stumbling. We are open to you, as you enable us to respond to the world’s propaganda with good news of resurrection: defying systems of fear and violence, renewing hospitality and grace, blessing with peace. We love you, as you build a solidarity amongst all who are being shaken, opened up, renewed, for your kingdom’s sake. Amen.

A Hymn Take up your cross and follow me! Dare risk upsetting powers-that-be – the forces shaping life and thought; expose the webs in which we’re caught. Take up your cross at one with those whose role as scapegoats grows and grows; so love ‘the least’, who give, give, give – those asked to die before they live. Take up your cross – the Empire’s tool – though it may make you seem a fool; but not to bless the fear it spreads, instead to drain its poisoned threads: Denounce the lie that ‘might is right’; that says the poor deserve their plight. Take up your cross and follow me: the kingdom’s truth shall set you free! (Amen) © Graham Adams (2014) Suggested tune: ‘Gonfalon Royal’

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Questions for further reflection Here are some questions to stimulate discussion in groups: 1.

If the truth of God can be understood in terms of openness, or hospitality, to the Other, then how hospitable is your church to all sorts of differences?

2.

If ‘faith’ is rightly understood as being opened up to God and others, then how do you view a potential ‘solidarity of the shaken’, consisting of collaborations between different religious traditions, including atheism, in a shared pursuit of truly hospitable justice?

3.

If such openness is a necessary foundation for true justice, then how does it contrast with your society’s propaganda regarding what is deemed to be just or fair?

4.

If we must be self-critical when naming injustice, then what are the ‘Strong Men’ in your society (the forces which maintain exclusion and oppression), and how are you (or your church) complicit with them?

5.

If God shakes our partial judgements, even so as to invite the one percent to join us in the new reality, then how might we demonstrate God’s generous forgiveness of all wrongdoing, blasphemies and distorted models of power, by inviting all to join the solidarity of the shaken?

6.

If we must take care not to misname as demonic what is actually God’s liberating work, then how might your church organise its power, so that it does not implicitly put its faith in the false God of the status quo but in the true God who liberates from Empire?

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References Brueggemann W. 2009. Redescribing reality: What we do when we read the Bible. London: SCM Press. Horsley RA (ed.). 2008. Jesus and Empire. In RA Horsley (ed.), In the shadow of Empire: Reclaiming the Bible as a history of faithful resistance. Louisville, KY: Westminster/ John Knox Press. Jung M.S. 2009. Desire, market and religion. London: SCM Press. Moe-Lobeda CD. 2013. Resisting structural evil: Love as ecological-economic vocation. Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press. Myers C. 1988. Binding the strong man: A political reading of Mark’s story of Jesus. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books. Rieger J & Kwok PK. 2012. Occupy religion: Theology of the multitude. Plymouth: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. Shanks A. 2005. Faith in honesty: The essential nature of theology. Aldershot: Ashgate Publishing. Shanks A. 2011. Hegel and religious faith: Divided brain, atoning spirit. New York, NY: T&T Clark. Shanks A. 2014. A neo-Hegelian theology: The God of greatest hospitality. Farnham, UK: Ashgate Publishing. Wink W. 1992. Engaging the powers: Discernment and resistance in a world of domination. Minneapolis, MN: Augsburg Fortress Press.

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Globalisation and corporatisation A case for the state of our global health Eleazar S. Fernandez Bible text from Isaiah 35; Matthew 4, 11, 25; Mark 5; Luke 7; 10; Acts 5

This chapter addresses the issue of the interweaving of globalisation and corporatisation, with a particular focus on its effect on global health. While there are many expressions of globalisation, naming its link with corporatisation is crucial. It names a globalising network-power that causes so much pain and suffering to human beings and the earth. This issue must be addressed head-on by faith communities.

Corporate market globalisation There are many ways in which the issue of globalisation can be approached. The phenomenon of globalisation is multidimensional, covering multiple aspects. We focus here on the economic/financial aspect as it is expressed in corporate globalisation, with particular attention to its consequences on health and healthcare. One distinguishing characteristic of the globalisation phenomenon is the rising number of multinational corporations and the predominance of corporate interest whose main reason for existence is the bottom line, profit. Corporate globalisation has brought enormous wealth that the world has not experienced before. The main beneficiaries of the global market have made people believe that the rising tide of economic wealth will translate into economic betterment for the majority. Notwithstanding plaudits and accolades from the evangelists of globalisation, there is a painful side to the story. Metaphorically speaking, contrary to the belief that ‘a rising tide raises all boats,’ the reality has been that ‘a rising tide raises all yachts’ (Borg 2003:141). Worse, the world’s poor do not even have boats and are drowning in the tsunami of corporate profits. Economic globalisation has created and promoted ‘asymmetries, conflict, and a sense of no alternatives for those not included in the flow of its information, technology, capital, and goods’ (Schreiter 1993:82).

The religion of corporate market globalisation The global market is not devoid of any religiosity, but it is a religiosity that runs counter to the central tenets of major world religions. Even at the level of semantics, there are 47

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obvious correlations: both fields regularly employ such words as trust, fidelity, bond, confidence, fiduciary, debt, redemption, saving, security, and so on. Harvey Cox offers a sharp and cogent critique of the religious claim of the global market (Cox 2003:274-283). He argues that the global capitalist market has usurped the traditional attributes of God: omnipotence, omniscience, and omnipresence. Like the omnipotent God of the Hebrew Scripture, it does not tolerate any other divinities and it demands undivided devotion and worship. And, as an omniscient one, it claims to know all and to know best; thus, every intellect in this world must bow down before it. It seems, argues Cox, that the real venue of sacrificium intellectum today is not the church but the shopping mall. In the face of the god of the market devoted consumers crucify their intellect and accept the absurd, saying: Credo quia absurdum est [I believe because it is absurd] (Cox 2003:278-279). John Cobb Jr. offers a critique of the religious metaphysics of this global market. Economism is the name of this religion, and its god is endless economic growth; its priests are the economists; its evangelists are the advertisers; and its lay people are the consumers (as cited in McFague 1997:13). The shopping mall is its cathedral; competitiveness is touted as a virtue; and inefficiency a sin. ‘Shop till you drop’ is the only way to salvation. And, if Jesus saves, we want to know where he shops. Where shall we flee from its presence? If it is everywhere, the church is no exemption from its reach and influence. While the common discourse on the church and globalisation puts globalisation as a context that the church must respond to, that which the church must respond to is not totally outside of its own life. It is not an outside phenomenon to which the church must respond faithfully and creatively, but a phenomenon that is happening in the life of the church. Globalisation is shaping and impacting the church in general and various congregations in particular around the world.

Corporate market globalisation: Threats to health Persons are facing serious threats to their health in this era of globalisation and corporatisation, particularly by the predatory global market and global hegemonic forces. Some speak strongly of a global health crisis. How do globalisation and corporatisation affect persons’ health and health care around the world? What are the signs of corporate globalisation’s impact on health and health care? What happens to health when predatory globalisation promotes policies and practices that heighten the economic disparity between nations and people? What happens to health when private corporations rule the world, including the delivery of health care? What happens to the health of the people when profit takes precedence over the right of each person to adequate health care? What happens to 48

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health when the ecosystem is destroyed in pursuit of more profit? What happens to health when genetically modified organisms (GMOs) are introduced into farming practices and the food market? What happens to health when the much-needed resources are spent for the production of armaments of war? What happens to health when borders become more porous and people and viruses become more mobile? These questions demand a serious response. They certainly demand a serious response from faith communities. How does the challenge of globalisation to health inform the way we think about the church and of its mission and ministry? What are the resources in our Christian tradition that may help us imagine how to be a church in light of the challenges of globalisation to health?

Pathological body politic, social inequity and health A sound treatment of a disease is impossible without an adequate medical diagnosis. An accurate diagnosis is crucial for treating the disease, not just the symptoms. Yet, even a good diagnosis of a specific form of illness may be limited in scope. It may address a specific disease, but not the circumstances that contribute to the formation of the disease. While the diagnostic focus is crucial for effective medical intervention, it may not address the larger pathological basis of the disease that a person or community is suffering. I recognise the limits of what a medical doctor can do in specific cases and circumstances, but we need to see disease and healing in relation to the larger context if we are to address the larger pathology that is undermining health. The larger pathology that I am referring to is our body politic. Our body politic is sick – terribly sick! It is sick at the very core. A sick body politic makes people sick. People die before their time. The facts pointing in this direction are indubitably indisputable. Jean-Bertrand Aristide has a story of this sick global body politic that is making people die globally and in his home place – Haiti. He tells of a morgue worker who was preparing to dispose of a dozen corpses. To the morgue worker’s surprise, one soul lifted itself off the table, shook his head and declared, ‘I am not dead!’ The morgue worker responded, ‘Yes you are. The doctors say that you are dead, so lie down’ (Aristide 2002:10). The physicians of the global market have already declared millions of people around the world dead. Thousands are dying day after day of preventable diseases. Thousands are dying every day because they do not have access to medical services; thousands are dying every day because they have no financial resources to buy food and other basic necessities. What is heart-rending and appalling is that this is happening when our medical and

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technological capabilities have reached a level of sophistication that is more than adequate to respond to the need. I say that what is going on is a sickness of our society’s soul. What is going on is that we have created a market society that values profit over the health and well-being of all. What is going on is that we have created a market society that negates health care as a basic human right and transforms it into a commodity. Moreover, what is going on is that we have created a market society that institutionalises individual and corporate greed. Still further, what is going on is that we have created a global market society that promotes and perpetuates social inequity. According to Stephen Bezruchka and Mary Anne Mercer, this social inequity is lethal. It is a lethal divide; it destroys health, particularly of the most vulnerable people. If the fundamental prerequisites of a healthy society include access to the basic necessities of life, such as adequate and nutritious food, clothing, housing, education, sanitation and health care, then there is a correlation between economic status and health. A greater disparity in incomes among people within a country means worse overall health (Bezruchka & Mercer 2004:13). This has led these authors to conclude: ‘[I]nequality is the fundamental cause of poor health and premature death. Global inequality has produced a world where millions die of preventable causes every year’ (Bezruchka & Mercer 2004:11). With the economic situation of many countries, especially in the global South, worsening under the era of corporate-led globalisation, what can we expect? With income disparity among individuals within a nation and between nations widening, what can we expect? Expect the bad news: a worsening health situation – a health crisis! Evidence of the correlation between corporate-led globalisation and declining health can be found in many countries, especially if we compare health statistics between the 1980s and the 1990s (when corporate globalisation became more entrenched) to those from the 1960s and the 1970s. Statistics from nations of the sub-Saharan Africa from 1970 to 1997 offer a stark and grim example. Hardly surprising then that, ‘By 1997, countries with proportionately greater debt had significantly higher infant mortality than countries with lower debt’ (Bezruchka & Mercer 2004:16).

The global market and corporate assault on health and healthcare The corporate assault on health, particularly its goal of privatisation, has further compromised the health effects of social inequity. Transnational corporations, in cooperation with the World Bank, are aggressively pursuing the goal of privatising health

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care by undermining public health care, including primary health care. The World Bank, for example, has used its economic and political muscle to pressure governments around the world to play limited roles in financing and providing public health care and allows for the broader role of the private sector. Of course, the World Bank and transnational corporations want to make it appear that national governments are in control. In the words of Evelyne Hong, a senior African ministry health official, ‘They say they want to put us in the driver’s seat. But sometimes I feel that I am sitting in the front seat driving a taxi, and they are still telling us where to go’ (Hong 2004:35). There are numerous cases of the World Bank and transnational corporations’ assault on global health, but I am going to cite just a few. The United Nations’ World Health Organisation (WHO) was under severe corporate threat when it introduced an Action Program on Essential Drugs (1978) and the International Code of Marketing of Breast milk Substitutes (1981). Guatemala adopted the WHO-UNICEF Infant Formula Marketing Code into laws, which prohibit companies that sell infant formulas from using advertising labels that make their products appear to be healthier than breast milk. The country was, however, forced to back down when Gerber Baby Foods Corporation gained US support to challenge Guatemala at the World Trade Organisation (WTO) tribunal (Schaffer & Brenner 2004:82). Again, in 2003, the US sugar industry tried to undermine the WHO’s recommended health guideline for sugar intake by co-authoring a report with the Food and Agriculture Organisation named ‘The Expert Consultation on Diet, Nutrition and the Prevention of Chronic Diseases’. A trade group (the Sugar Association) went as far as to lobby members of the US Congress to challenge the US$406 million contributions to the WHO as well as demand that the international health organisation removes an early draft of its report from its website (Hong 2004:33). If countries and United Nations entities are not free from corporate assault, then the community-based health initiatives that address the root causes of the health crisis and support the struggle of the marginalised for holistic health are even more vulnerable. In fact, corporate interest works in tandem with other groups, such as medical and nursing establishments that have entrenched interest in the control of knowledge related to healing. Many primary health care workers have been harassed and arrested. In some countries, people merely found in possession of David Werner’s trailblazing book, Where There Is No Doctor, suffered arrest and brutal treatment (Hong 2004:28-29).

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The health crisis: A challenge to faith communities Our short account of the current health situation shows that we face a crisis of epic proportion; a crisis that strikes at the heart of how we think about ourselves in relation to the world. It is a crisis that is an expression of a fundamental distortion in our understanding of the world, life, and relationship, and of what we truly value. In the traditional Christian term, we call this fundamental distortion, sin. If this is indeed a sin, then the health crisis is, at its heart, a theological issue. It is at heart a matter of faith or unfaith, of the God of life and the idols of death. It is about our view of God and creation, alienation, brokenness, salvation or liberation, and our dream for a new tomorrow. The health crisis is a faith crisis; it is a church crisis. The health crisis poses a challenge to the church’s understanding of its identity and its theologies. It poses a challenge to its theologies, particularly those that have contributed to the health crisis – theologies that are toxic and hazardous. It poses a challenge to how the church might re-imagine itself so that it can be part of the solution, which is healing. And, it poses a challenge to the church’s understanding of mission and ministry.

Theological interpretation, medicine, and healing Interpretations are not just interpretations. We live by our interpretations and according to our constructed world. Interpretations matter. If they do not promote life, then they must be promoting the opposite. Interpretations contribute to the making of the sickness; they add pain to the injury. Interpretations hurt; interpretations kill. church leaders at the World Council of Churches (WCC) consultation in Nairobi, Kenya, in 2001, made an emphatic statement that underscores this point in relation to HIV and AIDS: ‘our interpretation of the Scriptures and our theology of sin have all combined to promote stigmatisation, exclusion, and suffering of people with HIV or AIDS’ (Messer 2004:24). It is for this reason that interpretation must be viewed as constitutive of the healing ministry. Interpretation is not a prelude to healing but constitutive of the healing process. Of course, we know that not all interpretations promote healing, just as not all medicine necessarily cures or heals when it is used. The term pharmakon suggests both a cure and a poison. Hence, part of the hermeneutical project that is committed towards healing is to expose interpretations that are hurtful. Part of the hermeneutical project is to name and expose interpretations that create and exacerbate the disease as well as condemn and isolate the patient. Put positively, the hermeneutical project is about articulating and promoting interpretations that contribute to greater well-being and health. 52

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We must interpret our health situation from different angles to get a wider perspective, but there is one crucial perspective that offers a serious alternative to our current health malady. Sadly, this is also the perspective that is oftentimes overlooked. It is easy to get excited and assume the perspective of the healer. No-one wants to be ill or sick. Whether or not we really lift a finger to do something, it feels better to be on the giving-doing side than on the receiving side. This is the perspective from which the classic story of the Good Samaritan has been commonly interpreted. While it is true that reading the story from the point of view of the Samaritan healer (marginalised and outcast) is already radical and subversive in itself, its subversiveness is co-opted quickly because it feeds into the desire and imagination of virtue, control, and privileged agency. It feeds into our ideal of a modern self-assertive person, a heroic helper who is autonomous and in control of his or her destiny. Robert Wuthnow offers an incisive critique on this point in his work, Acts of Compassion: Caring for Others and Helping Ours (Wuthnow 1991:157-187). The Good Samaritan story draws us with special magnetism because in Wuthnow’s words: [I]t is essentially, in our modern view, about individual virtue … For most of us, the story remains an illustration of individual compassion. We let it reinforce our individualism because we neglect even the institutional focus it once had historically.’ (Wuthnow 1991:176-177, see also Benner 1998:127) Drawn into the virtue aspect, the general public fails miserably in taking account of deeper issues, such as the societal and systemic dimension. For example, most do not ask the listener to identify with the injured or the marginalised person; most do not ask the listener to imagine being a part of a community that collectively encourages and supports charitable behaviour; and most fail to ask what social upbringing, social support, and resources that a person may need to perform compassionate acts. Moreover, the overwhelming majority fail to see the institutional connections that made the kind of care possible in this particular context. Taking seriously both the institutional critique and the point of view of the sick, Patricia Benner is on target in saying that the vantage point of the healthy helper is a poor starting point in dealing with health and health care. It is a poor starting point on various grounds: It creates a false sense of immunity; it creates a false separation between the sick and the healthy, and it creates an adversarial relationship between the two groups. As an alternative, Benner contends that the starting point in healthcare, should be, the universal human reality of vulnerability and suffering … Suffering and vulnerability are the common fates of finite human beings. We each might 53

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need a fellow human being to respond with compassion to our needs for protection and comfort. (Benner 1998:126) A creative Biblical interpretation that supports the idea of making vulnerability and suffering the starting point in thinking about health and health care was done some time ago by Suh Nam-Dong, one of the pioneers of minjung theology in Korea. In contrast to the common interpretation that sees Jesus as the Good Samaritan in the ‘Good Samaritan’ story (Luke 10:25-37), Suh sees Jesus as the one who was attacked by robbers. Jesus was the wounded one and in need of healing. He was the one ‘attacked, deprived of his money, beaten by the robbers, and almost dead,’ and calling passers-by for help (Suh 1983:107, see also Yong-Yeon 2013:215-231). The cry of Jesus for help, to pursue Suh’s point, is the cry of the marginalised of our globalised world.

Jesus: The sick and the radical healer The temptation to read from the point of view of the privileged healer is present in many of our interpretations of Jesus. I am tempted to jump quickly to point out the healing acts of Jesus while forgetting that this healer was also wounded. It is easy to assume that Jesus never got sick; after all, there is no record of Jesus becoming ill. He was killed in the prime of his life, but common interpretation does not see that as sickness. However, He did speak of himself as someone who was ill and in need of healing (Matt. 25:31-46). In other words, He took the perspective of the vulnerable and suffered as a vulnerable person against the mighty power of the Roman Empire. With this perspective in mind, let us now take account of Jesus’ acts of healing and exorcism. There is not enough space here to go into the details of Jesus’ acts of healing. The New Testament is replete with such stories. What I would like to say is that the acts of healing and exorcisms – like Jesus’ teaching and preaching – are not just sporadic acts, but acts performed by Jesus in the light of the coming reign of God. Healing and exorcism are at the heart of the Good News of the reign of God (Matt. 4:23). This is the context and horizon in which we must read Jesus’ acts. His ministry of healing and exorcism was in obedience to the vision of the reign of God. In other words, Jesus’ acts of healing and exorcism are part of the larger project of radical transformation guided by the vision and values of the reign of God. If the acts of healing and exorcisms of Jesus were carried out in light of the Good News of the coming reign of God, then they were as much political as physical. A body politic critique of disease has led Biblical scholars to study closely some of the healing and 54

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exorcism accounts, such as the story of the Gerasene demoniac in the Markan account (Mark 5:1-20). Scholars, particularly those using post-colonial discourse, have interpreted the demoniac’s words (‘My name is Legion; for we are many’) to refer to the Roman legions. If the Legion refers to the Roman army of occupation, then ‘the demoniac may be identified in turn,’ says Stephen Moore, ‘as the land and people under occupation.’ This may explain why the demons earnestly entreat the exorcist ‘not to send them out of the country [exô tês chôras].’ Being sent out of the country to fight for the imperial wars of their colonial masters had been the plight of the colonised and imperialised. This is the likely scenario that the Gerasene demoniac dreaded (Moore 2004:135-136). Sharon Betcher’s work, The Spirit and Politics of Disablement, offers another meticulous account of the connection between sickness and healing and body politic. Taking seriously accounts of the preponderance of the imperial powers’ ancient practice of large-scale enslavement, mutilation of male prisoners, and rape of women prisoners, Betcher calls us to interpret the healing accounts in light of this historical background. With this background in mind, the Biblical accounts of the lame walking, the blind seeing, and the deaf hearing (Isa. 35:5-6; Matt. 11:4-5; Luke 7:22) will likely have had the ancient imperial practice in mind. If this is the case, then it must change our reading of the healing miracle texts ‘from an issue of perfect health and wholesomeness to an issue of socio-political critique of the colonising nation, its colonising of bodies, of persons living under Empire’ (Betcher 2007:x).

The faith community: Follower of the radical healer The church cannot speak truly of itself as a healer without being a follower of Jesus the radical healer. The church can only claim to be a follower of Jesus if it also assumes the identity of the healer. Indeed, the church as a healer has been a mark of its identity. The disciples of Jesus and the early Christian communities were identified and known as healers – radical healers. When the people heard that the disciples of Jesus were present, they asked to be healed. An account in Acts describes how people brought out the sick into the streets and placed them on mats and cots in order that ‘Peter’s shadow might fall on some of them as he came by’ (Acts 5:15). The crowd also gathered around Jerusalem with their sick and those possessed by evil spirits for exorcism and healing (Acts 5:12-16). For the church to become a real follower of Jesus, the radical healer, it must do some work in detoxifying itself of toxic theologies, such as a dualistic understanding of reality that prioritises the spirit at the expense of the body. Moreover, the church must seek to embody a worldview (health view) that overcomes dualism. It must articulate a worldview that sees 55

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persons holistically in the context of the web of relation: God, human beings, and the rest of creation. It must see health in the fullness of shalom: just and right relations, harmony, abundance, and sustainability. New understandings of the reality of our interconnections are moving in the direction of holistic care. What is this holistic care? A holistic approach to health care must go beyond getting rid of the symptoms. Rather than simply addressing a specific problem area, it must engage in health care that takes the various interconnections of life at social and ecological levels. A holistic approach must lead to exploring alternative care and not allow itself to be imprisoned by conventional medicine: modern, orthodox, allopathic, reductionist, biochemical, or physicalist medicine (O’Mathuna 1998). This does not mean the abandonment of conventional medicine but making it more open to other forms of delivering and administering health care. A holistic approach cannot be what it seeks to be without being open to the participation of various professions: medical doctors (including naturopathic physicians), nurses, midwives, chaplains, pastors, theologians, bioethicists, epidemiologists, pharmaceutical laboratories, public health advocates, community health workers, police, communities, etc.

Seeds of hope and seeds of health Health is a journey, a process – not a static state. The obstacles to the formation of healthy society and individuals are plenty, but there are signs of hope in the global struggle for equitable and quality health care for all. We have stories of individuals, communities, churches, faith-based and non-governmental organisations, and people’s movements both local and global that are sowing seeds of hope– seeds of health. One non-governmental, people-oriented programme that I have known for many years is the Visayas Primary Health Care Services based in Cebu City, Philippines. Individuals and groups organised the Visayas health care organisation during the martial law years in response to the basic health needs of the poor and to advocate for change in the healthcare system. Even with limited financial means, it has continued to offer its services to the poor people of Cebu and neighbouring islands of Bohol, Negros and Leyte. Another seed of hope is the Gonoshasthaya Kendra (GK) or the People’s Health Center of Bengal, which was founded in 1972 to provide primary healthcare services for rural communities. The centre is involved in multiple efforts and programmes and has worked with various stakeholders in efforts to improve access to medicines, the empowerment and health of women, and community-based initiatives. With the support of paramedics and village health workers, the centre provides comprehensive care to low-income people 56

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and runs programmes in education, nutrition, agriculture, employment generation, and the production of basic medicines at its Gono Pharmaceuticals factory. The result is astonishing, outstanding and encouraging: infant and maternal mortality in the area that GK serves had fallen to about half of Bangladesh’s national average (Cerón, Das & Fort 2004:164). Seeds of hope and seeds of health are also sprouting at a global level. Trans-border coalition work helped to gain an important victory at the ministerial meeting in Doha, Qatar, in November 2001. It was at this meeting that the declaration on the TRIPS (trade related aspects of intellectual property rights) agreement was passed by the ministers representing various countries. The declaration made clear that ‘the TRIPS Agreement should not prevent WTO members from protecting public health, and it emphasised the importance of access to medicines’ (Cerón et al. 2004:166). The declaration (though it suffered assault) ensured the right of countries from the global South to provide low-cost generics to their populations and reined in the patent protection of much-needed drugs. Seeds of hope and seeds of health are scattered everywhere. They are not only out there, but also deep in our hearts. These seeds are alive when we begin to recognise the impact of corporate globalism, especially in relation to the health crisis of our times. These seeds sprout when we take concrete steps to challenge theological ideas and socio-political and economic structures that are destructive to the health of all. And these seeds of hope grow when we bond together to give birth to healthy churches and healthy communities. Our relentless work for health is already an indication that we are experiencing health. Let us continue our journey towards global democracy and health!

A Prayer Is there a balm in Gilead? Is there a medicine for our wounded, suffering, and sin-sick world? God of Power and Life, Healing, and Transformation, The affliction of your people and creation is not hidden to your sight. You, too, have suffered with them. We ask that you let your Spirit enter into every human heart and into every structure of power, to bring transformation and healing. Empower your people to resist Empire in all its deathly manifestations, and imbue them with a vision for a new and better tomorrow. Accompany and nourish them so they do not succumb to cynicism and despair, but continue the long and hard work of global democracy and justice. Amen.

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Questions for further reflection 1.

What is corporate globalisation? What are its manifestations?

2.

How does corporate globalisation impact health and health care?

3.

What insights can we draw from the Bible and the Christian tradition that may inform about health and other related issues in the era of corporate globalisation?

4.

Are there alternatives to the existing corporatisation of health care? What can we do as individuals and as faith communities to contribute to the healing of our communities?

References Aristide J-B. 2002. Globalisation: A view from below. In B Bigelow & B Peterson (eds), Rethinking globalistation: Teaching for justice in an unjust world. Milwaukee, WI: Rethinking Schools. Benner P. 1998. When health care becomes a commodity: The need for compassionate strangers. In J. Kilner, RD Orr & JA Shelley (eds), The changing face of health care: A Christian appraisal of managed care, resource allocation, and patient-caregiver relationships. Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing. Betcher S. 2007. Spirit and the politics of disablement. Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press. Bezruchka S & Mercer A. 2004. The lethal divide: How economic inequality affects health. In M Fort, MA Mercer & O Gish (eds), Sickness and wealth: The corporate assault on global health. Cambridge, MA: South End Press. Borg M. 2003. The heart of Christianity: Rediscovering a life of faith. New York, NY: HarperSanFrancisco. Cerón A, Das A & Fort M. 2004. The struggle for people’s health. In M Fort, MA Mercer & O Gish (eds), Sickness and wealth: The corporate assault on global health. Cambridge, MA: South End Press. Cox H. 2003. Mammon and the culture of the market: A socio-theological critique. In R Gottlieb (ed) Liberating faith: Religious voices for justice, peace, and ecological wisdom. New York, NY: Rowman and Littlefield. Hong E. 2004. The primary health care movement meets the free market. In M Fort, MA Mercer & O Gish (eds), Sickness and wealth: The corporate assault on global health. Cambridge, MA: South End Press. McFague S. 1997. Super, natural Christians: How we should love nature. Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press.

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Messer D. 2004. Breaking the conspiracy of silence: Christian churches and the global AIDS crisis. Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press. Moore S. 2004. Mark and Empire: ‘Zealot’ and ‘Postcolonial’ readings. In C Keller, M Nausner & M Rivera (eds) Postcolonial theologies: Divinity and Empire. St. Louis, MO: Chalice Press. O’Mathuna D. 1998. Emerging alternative therapies. In J Kilner, LR Orr & JA Shelley, The changing face of health care: A Christian appraisal. Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing. Schreiter R. 1993. Contextualization from a world perspective. Theological Education 30, Suppl. Autumn. Shaffer E & Brenner J. 2004. Trade and health care: Corporatizing vital human services. In M Fort, MA Mercer & O Gish (eds), Sickness and wealth: The corporate assault on global health. Cambridge, MA: South End Press. Suh ND. 1983. Exploring Minjung theology. Seoul: Hangil. Wuthnow R. 1991. Acts of compassion: Caring for others and helping ourselves. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Yong-Yeon H. 2013. The person attacked by the robbers is Christ. In Yunk SK & Jin-Ho K, Reading Minjung theology in the twenty-first century: Selected writings by Anh Byung-Mu and modern critical responses. Eugene, OR: Pickwick Publications.

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Gender justice in times of Empire Rev. Patricia Sheerattan-Bisnauth Bible text from Exodus 2, 15, 22; Numbers 12, 20, 26, 33; I Chronicles 6; Micah 6; Matt. 15; Luke 18; Romans 12; I  Corinthians 6

Kowsilla’s resistance against Empire in British Guiana This is Kowsilla’s story taken from a book by Patricia Sheerattan-Bisnauth, Righting Her Story: Caribbean Women Encounter the Bible Story (Sheerattan-Bisnauth 2011). 3:00 am, my mind’s clock sends off its alarm. I was dreaming of the High Bridge and the heavily laden sugar cane punts wading through the canal. ‘Sweet sugar cane fetches a high price but the sweat and blood of the cane cutters’ don’t count.’ I cannot afford to buy the very sugar that I am labouring to produce. Cheap labour. Bad conditions. The white man is flourishing. He gets richer by the sweat of our brows. Kowsilla was a worker on the sugar cane plantation at the Leonora Estate on the west coast of Demerara, British Guiana. She was also a leading member of the Women’s Progressive Organisation (a women’s political organisation). Kowsilla and other workers were instructed that if they failed to return to work within seventy-two hours, their services would be terminated. This did not stop the workers from taking strike action. They were striking for better wages and working conditions. ‘Hurry, hurry children. Wake up. The pot is on the fire; rice and dhal are boiling.’ The price of rice and flour has soared and we can barely afford to eat. We have to band our bellies. ‘Last week Neighbour Janie lost her twelve-year-old son. The child’s belly was swollen and he had a bad bout of diarrhoea and vomiting until he had nothing more. He drew his last breath. For us, workers on the plantation, life is snuffed out so easily.’ The High Bridge – a symbol of resistance! This afternoon is the defying moment. We have to resist! We are humans too. We demand better conditions, better pay and respect. We demand life with dignity. On the 6th of March 1964, Kowsilla and others took their positions on the Leonora High Bridge. The planters employed scab labour to keep the factory going and to weaken the resolve of the sugar workers. The estate scab drove up unhesitatingly onto the bridge 61

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where the workers had gathered. The workers scattered, some jumped into the canal but Kowsilla and three other women kept their positions, lying across the bridge. The scab proceeded. People were screaming, the three women jumped into the canal but not Kowsilla. She was resolute; unmoved! The scab driver refused to acknowledge human life. He refused to listen and did not stop. He drove the tractor over Kowsilla’s body, severing her and seriously injured fourteen others, some of whom were disabled permanently.

Gender in the context of Empire Kowsilla was brought to British Guiana (now Guyana) in an indentureship scheme where approximately half a million Indians were brought to the Caribbean to serve as indentured labourers, replacing the loss of African free slave labour after the abolition of slavery in 1838. About 50 percent of the Indians were brought to British Guiana to perform the back-breaking work of cultivating sugarcane. They were coerced, deceived and sometimes threatened. Women and children were particularly vulnerable as they would sometimes be forced or tricked into the journey. Recruiters misled persons to thinking that the trip was directed to a holy place. Some of them had been kidnapped and shipped across the oceans without having the opportunity to say goodbye to their families and not knowing of their destination. Like many indentured labourers, Kowsilla worked hard with the hope of one day returning home to India. But this did not obfuscate or blind her from her reality, in which she was quite immersed and critically engaged. She joined a women’s political movement that was working for independence, workers’ rights and women’s rights. She was edified on the ideological framework of the Empire and addressed the unjust plantation system. She lived in inhumane conditions and had to manage her home and feed her children with a pittance. But Kowsilla was resilient and hopeful. She did not surrender to Empire. Instead, she looked the evil in the eye, crying out against its rampant injustices and protested against its inhumane and exploitative nature and ways. Kowsilla’s intention was not to be a heroine or martyr but to resist grave injustices, standing firm in her belief of human rights and dignity. She paid the price with her life. Kowsilla’s story tells of the death-dealing ways of Empire – the convergence of economic control and violence, a legacy of colonialism and imperialism constructing a powerful force that tramples upon the lives of the poor and vulnerable. Slavery and indentureship were justified as instruments of progress in the pursuit of wealth and power, serving the plantocracy and the building of various Empires. Today’s Empire thrives in new forms and ways at global, national and community levels – in both rich and poor countries. Empire is 62

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maintained and propagated by the patriarchal ideology of domination and control, which undergirds the social system that entrenches hierarchies based on gender, race, class, caste, sexual orientation, age, religion and geographic location. This system promotes and rewards economic, political, race-based and social power to one group over others. Gender is an important consideration in the study of the workings of Empire in today’s society. It is a transformational concept, which emerged out of the realisation that women’s disempowerment concerns not only women but also men and the society as a whole. Gender constructs in the Caribbean have their basis in Victorian principles and religious teaching, which orders norms for gender relations and patriarchal rights of males as head of households, Christian heterosexual marriage and nuclear families is the God given order. Gender consciousness requires a critical examination of the ‘whole structure of Father ruled society: aristocracy over serfs, masters over slaves, kings over subjects, racial overlords over colonised people’ (Reuther 1983:61). Similar forms of domination and control can be found in modern day society, affecting all types of relationships – whether it is men over women, leaders over followers, large nations over small ones or in different forms of gender/sexual orientation, age/race/ tribe/caste/class supremacy. This is also a problem in the church where gender injustice is practised and can be deemed sacred, justifying a high tolerance for violence against women and children, making excuses for abusers and covering up cases of domestic and sexual violence. The church chooses to be blind to this atrocity and many times these issues are trivialised and minimised. Sexual misconduct, including sexual harassment in the church, is often blamed on women. Women are also blamed for being instrumental in breaking up the home when she leaves an abusive marriage. Thus the church can often be seen as upholding and perpetuating gender injustices, thereby being a part of the problem. Gender justice is necessary for the church to be faithful to God’s vision for humanity and creation as revealed in the gospel of Jesus Christ. It is based on the belief that every human being is created in the image of God and has intrinsic value. Gender justice challenges patriarchy but it is not about being against or hating men; rather it is about building a more humane system where all persons can live with dignity. Gender justice is important in bringing about the healing of persons and relationships with the aim of forwarding a transformed and wholesome sense of self, family, church and society. Gender is not only about women but also about men and persons of diverse sexual orientation and gender identities. It is an opportunity to address issues of power in an effort to critically examine dominant power and unequal relationships, wherever this situation exists. It is important for men to be an important part of the gender discourse. Men are 63

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also stereotyped and marginalised by patriarchy. Like women, they have been socialised with deeply-held beliefs and values, which form the basis of how gender is constructed. Men carry the weight of societal expectations of being masculine, which often requires that they show bravery, virility, aggressiveness, dominance, competitiveness, insensitivity and emotional repression. This has severe consequences for women, children, men, church and society (Sheerattan-Bisnauth & Peacock 2010). Gender-based violence, economic and ecological injustice, trafficking of persons, sexual and reproductive health and rights, and a whole range of societal issues are rooted in or affected by power relations.

Reading the Bible in the context of Empire Reading the Bible with eyes for gender justice reveals God’s liberating message in the transformation of the lives of persons, society and the church. This includes the critique of and challenge to society and religious communities to examine and dismantle power relationships which subjugate any persons and communities. We take our example from Jesus, a revolutionary leader who defied the culture, political system and a pietistic and uncompassionate religion, which was harsh on women, castigating them to the periphery of life. Jesus confronted persons in positions of power who were possessed with and employed ‘a spirit of lordless domination’ over women, the poor and marginalised (Boesak 2010:2). By his life and witness, he showed that another way is possible. The ultimate revelation is the life and death of Jesus Christ who challenged Empire and overturned the master’s table as he stood on the side of the poor and marginalised, including women. The Bible is read with an essential understanding of the overarching story of God’s justice, love, redemption and liberation, whereby God reconciles the world to Godself in Jesus Christ. A justice approach to reading the Bible seeks to bring about peace with justice and to increase the love of God and love for one’s neighbour. It brings to life Biblical stories of God’s redemptive work throughout history and offers hope for life. Individuals and communities study the Bible, seeking to discern God’s Word within their specific location and life experiences. Such an approach enables the church to become a living witness to the love of Jesus Christ poured out in the gifts of love, compassion and care for the most vulnerable among us. The Bible is seen as a key resource, which inspires persons and communities of believers to reflect and discern new insights into current day reality. The layers of patriarchal packaging need to be peeled away for the Bible to speak authentically and for the community of believers to participate in God’s transformative mission within and among us – changing our mind-set, attitude and prejudices, and setting us free. Thus we are enabled to become 64

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part of God’s mission to critically examine structural and systemic injustices with multiple gendered lenses. Kowsilla is one of many women in the Caribbean and in other regions of the world who struggled relentlessly for justice, freedom, equality and dignity. Her story of resistance against neoliberal capitalism, which disenfranchises women, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and/or intersex (LGBTI) and other vulnerable persons are a source of strength, courage and prophetic witness and can be read alongside the groundbreaking stories of many great women in the Bible. The Bible names more than 150 women and includes many others who were not named, those who played significant roles – such as mothers, sisters, daughters, friends, queens, prophets, judges, preachers, missionaries and revolutionaries. Many women in Biblical times lived on the margins of their societies and faced tremendous challenges. With great resilience, determination and in defence of life, they were able to expose the instability of the oppressive and death-dealing systems, challenging the power which was used to control them. Women played significant roles in every aspect of life, including a prophetic ministry and leadership.

Exercise 1 Do a dramatic reading of the story of Miriam in Exodus 2:3-10; 15:20-21, Numbers 12, 20:1 and Micah 6:4 The prophetess Miriam was a visionary and a charismatic and powerful leader who mobilised her community to stay together, keeping hope alive as they escaped slavery, embarking on a long and rough journey home. She survived slavery and oppression and showed great resilience. Miriam offers a good model for resistance and transformation. She is named in the list of ancestors together with her brothers, Moses and Aaron. (Num. 26:59, 1 Chron. 6:3) Miriam is believed to be the unnamed sister in the birth story of Moses. (Exod. 2:4-7) As a child, she showed significant initiative, courage, wisdom and confidence. The Apostle Paul refers to Miriam (Exod. 15:19-21), Moses and Aaron (Num. 33) when he spoke about leadership as a gift of the church (Rom. 12:8). This vision of leadership is not individualistic. It is closely related to the gifts of the Spirit for the good of the whole community. Miriam defied the death-dealing ways of Pharaoh’s Empire, choosing life for her brother and for the survival of her family and their descendants. She was strategic and skilful and took risks as she cleverly worked with her mother, Jochebed to save her brother, Moses. Miriam watched over him and organised for him to be taken into Pharaoh’s household. 65

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She was wise and resourceful and was able to set up her mother to be Moses’ wet-nurse and caregiver. This is a well-known story, which shows that the survival of Moses depended on the courage and ingenuity of his mother and sister (Exod. 2:1-10). Like Miriam, Caribbean women have played critical roles in leading their people from slavery and indentureship to emancipation and have contributed significantly to the survival of their communities. These were prophetic women who led resistance movements – struggling for freedom against slavery and colonialism, for life and for justice. From Nanny of the Maroons to Mary Prince, Anastasia, Kowsilla and others named and unnamed, women have contributed a great heritage of resistance against Empire, modelling peoplecentred leadership and a sense of living in community.

Exercise 2 1.

Name significant leaders of your community, church and country who have challenged gender injustices. Share their stories and say what stands out and what is revolutionary.

2.

Read these together with Miriam’s story and discuss the transformational aspects of Miriam’s leadership. What was different about Miriam’s approach?

3.

Identify centres of power in your context. What needs to be done to dismantle or transform these with the aim of serving people, especially those who are vulnerable? What strategy should be explored?

4.

What kinds of transformative tools have women developed and employed?

5.

What is the impact of women as leaders, scholars, community organisers and mothers on church and society? What models of ministry are most needed?

The persistent widow – Luke 18:1-8 Arrange a group reading of the text. The story of the persistent widow is a story about a woman who was caught in a web of patriarchy. She was faced with a power imbalance within the structures of a 1st century agrarian society that supported the elite and rendered invisible those who were marginalised by society, including those who dared to challenge it. Under the Torah (law) of 1st century Palestine, a widow was given special protection (Exod. 22:21-24), but also considered as being in a special position as she was not strictly bound to any male head of household, such as husband or father, and as such could become threatening.

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The widow was resolute in her demand for justice, not allowing the oppressive system to have its way with her. She was courageous and focused. She did not take no for an answer but kept on pressing for her expected outcome of justice from a judge, who according to the story, feared neither God nor people (Luke 18:2). She was not fearful nor did she waver in the presence of such a dreaded character. What this woman did was significant. She challenged the legal and religious systems, which were rooted in the ideology of patriarchy and its political and social construct, and their destructive impact on women and all persons who were considered as outcasts. She may have been seen as stepping out of line, beyond her place, but she was relentless in her pursuit of justice with much courage and hope. What would a judge do when a person steps out of line? Think of the Canaanite woman who also stepped out of line, leaving all protocol unobserved, and who argued with Jesus, keeping steady her focus on her goal, that is, the healing for her daughter (Matt. 15:21-28). She did not falter but met Jesus with respect and challenged him to move beyond his current thinking. When someone steps out of line, they disrupt the order, denying it in principle. This becomes a threat to order and the system. The persistent widow and the Canaanite woman disrupted the order, denying its might and principles. These were determined women who were firm and held their arguments and did not cave into vulgarity and disrespect. They were women of faith who were firmly grounded in their belief in the God of life who overcomes death-dealing situations. The result is that they achieved their goals – justice and healing. They refused to be silent in their oppression. These stories challenge us to examine critically our situation and to confront gender injustices, to speak out and name the evil, to undermine and dismantle Empire and to probe ecclesial, social, economic and political systems of oppression. We must keep on keeping on as we participate in God’s transformative mission, to bring about God’s reign of justice, peace and love to all people.

Exercise 3 1.

Grant me justice! Who is crying out for justice in your community? Who does the persistent widow represent in your community?

2.

What types of gender injustices need to be addressed in your community/church/ nation? What wrong doings may your church/community be oblivious to?

3.

Discuss the ways in which this woman crossed barriers? What was her motivation/ inspiration? What was her strategy?

4.

In what ways are Christian communities agents of change and transformation? 67

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Conclusion The task of working towards gender justice calls forth the resilience of Miriam, the persistent widow and Kowsilla. It requires us to draw from the gospel lessons of how Jesus confronted the Empire of his time. The task entails a critical examination of individuals and of society, challenging deeply ingrained stereotypes that many persons have adopted over generations. Gender justice calls for a transformational approach, not superficial or cosmetic but engendering systemic and fundamental change, which may not always be popular. It means identifying and confronting centres of power and standing firm for what is just and right. Gender justice is an ongoing journey of praying together, engaging, challenging, always seeking discernment of the signs of these times and how God is speaking to us. We need to engage with God’s transformative mission, finding and putting into practice new ways to express and live out the uniqueness of bearing the image of God, fulfilling our responsibility of building and nurturing right, just and equal relationships between persons in all their diversity. We seek daily to live out just, right and equal relationships – in our families and church communities, as well as in the wider society, being a positive influence. We do so by being open to the promptings of the Spirit of God, challenging us to hold under the scrutiny of God’s justice all the norms and practices that we have nurtured about the roles and places of women and men in family, society and the church, which have resulted in exclusivity that hurts the heart of God and fractures relationships. Methodist theologian and educationalist, Mercy Amba Oduyoye expresses her pain and joy in the reality and hope for women in the Christian church: Sometimes we must laugh to keep from weeping. Other times, we can do no more than weep. Yet, women have stayed in the church against all odds. Women continue to be the clients of the church because of their insuppressible hope that the Christian community will bring liberation from brokenness. Women continue in the church in order to appropriate the healing powers of the Christ who cared so much for community that he died for it. Living in community before God keeps alive their hope that the church will become a living community of women and men relating to one another and to their Source Being. (Oduyoye 2002:100)

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A poem Walk My Sister by Osmundo Ponce Walk, my sister, Lift up your head and look at the horizon. Spring is here, Even though the sun has not come out. Our powerless tears will fertilize the hope, Break now your silence and strengthen your trust. One to one, one with one and another one, Keep always in mind that we will always be more. Together our hands will produce heat and light the flame of our burning uproar. Walk, my sister, don’t keep me waiting Because in the middle of our journey we will all be able to shout: Don’t be afraid, dawn is drawing near. Walk, my sister, And do not forget to take with you the seeds, That one day many others will sow, To create with happiness a new humanity. (Rosenhäger & Stephens 1993)

A prayer Gracious and loving God, you created us in your image to love and serve you, to live peacefully in community, recognizing our interdependence on each other and with the earth. Grant us eyes to see the brokenness perpetrated by the evil of empire and its destructive ways. Enable us to identify and break down barriers of gender, race, sexual orientation, age, class and caste. Enable us to celebrate our differences. Use us to bring about your justice, peace and compassionate love, that all may live with dignity in the fullness of life that you offer. We ask this in the name of Jesus, who breaks down every barrier and nourishes us with love and goodness. Amen.

References Boesak A. 2010. Dreaming of a different world together globalisation and justice for humanity and the earth: The challenge of the Accra Confession for The Churches. Stellenbosch, South Africa: Sun Media.

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Oduyoye MA. 1995. Beads and strands: Reflections of an African woman on Christianity in Africa. Carlisle, UK: Regnum Africa. Reuther RR. 1983. Sexism and God-talk: Towards a feminist theology. Boston, MA: Beacon Press. Rosenhäger U & Stephens S (eds). (1993). ‘Walk my sister’ – The ordination of women: Reformed perspectives. Geneva: World Alliance of Reformed Churches Publications. Sheerattan-Bisnauth P. 2011. Righting her story: Caribbean women encounter the Bible story. Geneva: World Communion of Reformed Churches. Sheerattan-Bisnauth P & Peacock PV (eds). 2010. Created in God’s Image: From hegemony to partnership. A church manual on men as partners, promoting positive masculinities. Geneva: World Communion of Reformed Churches and World Council of Churches.

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The failure of Empire to protect and honour Rev. Feiloaiga Taule’ale’ausumai Davis Bible text from Deuteronomy 22; 2 Samuel 13

Discerning the signs of the times: Mission in the midst of Empire Seldom do the intimate private Biblical narratives of the lives of the royal household of King David appear in our church lectionary in any given year. The Christian Liturgical calendar takes us from the season of Advent through to Christ the King Sunday and throughout the 36 months of the three-year lectionary the second book of Samuel, Chapter 13 never appears. We can open the daily newspaper and read of tragedy the world over that continues to be heaped upon women young and old and from tiny village to corporate professional and yet in our weekly journey through the Bible we skip past the passages that disturb us and cling to the passages that comfort us and continue to provide us with hope and sustenance. The reality is that the Bible passages that disturb us are so easily kept hidden from the eyes and ears of our congregations and families. Then in reality, when these texts are perpetrated into our everyday lives, the way we respond mirrors Absalom’s forced silence upon his sister. We reflect the male hierarchical silence in our inability to embrace the victim and give her voice. We become complicit because of our inability to make public the shame and the perpetrated violence against our women. The way we respond and react to these texts as they are relived and re-violated in our real lives today is dependent on those who have power over us, our leaders, our ministers, our brothers. We have found it too easy to push the violation aside and silence the victim for the sake of pride, honour and respect within the community and church. Our world has been shocked at the abduction of 200 schoolgirls from Chiba in Nigeria who have purported to have since been married off to Muslim men and forced to convert to Islam against their will. The heroism of young Malala who survived a violent attack on a bus journey in Pakistan; the public humiliation and rape and violent abuse of women as objects of property and ownership of men are at the forefront of issues that the world is being confronted daily. Where is the church’s voice in the midst of these communities? Do we stand alongside and voice our abhorrence or do we sit silently on the side lines as spectators? 71

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Where is your voice in your church and your community? Are you alone? If so why? How can you reclaim your voice and build up support and encouragement in your community to stand up for justice and human rights issue without fear or fear of reprimand? This Bible study is part of our ancient Biblical history but a story very real and present in our world today. Women and children continue to be raped and abused by families and brothers remain silent and expect their sisters to remain silent and complicit to the pervading culture of violence and abuse. Times have not changed; the place and status of women although it appears progressive in some places and contexts, cultural captivity continues to imprison our women in subordinate and inferior positions within their homes and society.

The rape of Tamar The rape of Tamar in 2 Samuel is the sad story of the theft of purity and innocence to greed and lust. According to Phyllis Trible in her book Texts of Terror, it is a story about: A family enmeshed in royal rape. Brother violates sister. He is a prince to whom belongs power, prestige, and unrestrained lust. She is a princess to who belongs wisdom, courage, and unrelieved suffering. Children of one father, they have not the same care of each other. Indeed, the brother cares not at all. (Trible 1984: 37) The two main characters in 2 Samuel 13:1-22 are: ƒƒ Tamar the daughter of King David to Maacah, a princess from a neighbouring kingdom, virgin and innocent; and ƒƒ Amnon half-brother of Tamar and eldest son of King David. 1 In the course of time, Amnon son of David fell in love with Tamar, the beautiful sister of Absalom son of David. 2 Amnon became frustrated to the point of illness on account of his sister Tamar, for she was a virgin, and it seemed impossible for him to do anything to her. 3-4 Now Amnon had a friend named Jonadab, son of Shimeah, David’s brother. Jonadab was a very shrewd man He asked Amnon, ‘Why do you, the king’s son, look so haggard morning after morning? Won’t you tell me?’ Amnon said to him, ‘I’m in love with Tamar, my brother Absalom’s sister.

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5 ‘Go to bed and pretend to be ill,’ Jonadab said. ‘When your father comes to see you, say to him, “I would like my sister Tamar to come and give me something to eat. Let her prepare the food in my sight so I may watch her and then eat it from her hand.” 6 So Amnon lay down and pretended to be ill. When the king came to see him, Amnon said to him, ‘I would like my sister Tamar to come and make some special bread in my sight, so I may eat from her hand.’ 7-9 David sent word to Tamar at the palace: ‘Go to the house of your brother Amnon and prepare some food for him’. So Tamar went to the house of her brother Amnon, who was lying down. She took some dough, kneaded it, made the bread in his sight and baked it. Then she took the pan and served him the bread, but he refused to eat. ‘Send everyone out of here,’ Amnon said. So everyone left him. 10-11 Then Amnon said to Tamar, ‘Bring the food here into my bedroom so I may eat from your hand.’ And Tamar took the bread she had prepared and brought it to her brother Amnon in his bedroom (v. 10). But when she took it to him to eat, he grabbed her and said, ‘Come to bed with me, my sister.’ 12 ‘Don’t, my brother!’ she said to him. ‘Don’t force me. Such a thing should not be done in Israel! Don’t do this wicked thing’. 13 What about me? Where could I get rid of my disgrace? And what about you? You would be like one of the wicked fools in Israel. Please speak to the king; he will not keep me from being married to you. 14-15 But he refused to listen to her, and since he was stronger than she, he raped her (v. 14). Then Amnon hated her with intense hatred. In fact, he hated her more than he had loved her. Amnon said to her, ‘Get up and get out!’ 16-17 ‘No!’ she said to him. ‘Sending me away would be a greater wrong than what you have already done to me.’ But he refused to listen to her. He called his personal servant and said, ‘Get this woman out of here and bolt the door after her.’ 18-19 So his servant put her out and bolted the door after her. She was wearing a richly ornamented robe, for this was the kind of garment the virgin daughters of the king wore. Tamar put ashes on her head and tore the ornamented robe she was wearing. She put her hand on her head and went away, weeping aloud as she went. 20-22 Her brother Absalom said to her, ‘Has that Amnon, your brother, been with you? Be quiet now, my sister; he is your brother. Don’t take this thing to heart.’ And Tamar lived 73

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in her brother Absalom’s house, a desolate woman. When King David heard all this, he was furious. Absalom never said a word to Amnon, either good or bad; he hated Amnon because he had disgraced his sister Tamar. According to Jenny Smith: David’s son Amnon is in love with Absalom’s beautiful sister Tamar but cannot see a way to satisfy his passion. His cousin Jonadab helps him stage a deception which will bring Tamar into Amnon’s room. When she arrives, Amnon carries the deception further so that he and Tamar are left alone. Despite her protests, he rapes her. He then commands his servant to eject her from his house. The experience drives Tamar to distraction. Absalom gives Tamar words of comfort that fail to console her; David is angry. Meanwhile, Absalom is filled with hatred for Amnon. (Smith 1990: 21-42)

Virginity in Samoan culture Virginity in most cultures is something that young women are taught and expected to treasure until marriage. Many traditional cultures classify virginity as the exceptional bride-price or bargaining currency when forming new alliances across family, tribal and communal boundaries. In traditional Samoan times and even today, the female child is referred to as the tamasa, the sacred child. To her brother, she is referred to as le ioi mata o lona tuagane, the inner pupil through which he views life. It is his role in life to protect his sister and to serve her diligently. Within every Samoan village there is also a taupou or virgin maiden, usually the daughter of the high chief. In the past when conflicts or disagreements arose across village divides she would also become the tausala (redeemer) or the one who pays the price for the crime committed. She redeems both village and family for whatever transgression has taken place. Both these ceremonial roles were interchangeable. During the ceremonial kava ceremony the taupou would take pride of place among the gathered chiefs to mix and prepare the kava for drinking. It was always assumed that she was a virgin as sexual activity was sanctioned for the marriage bed only. In old Samoa, if a liaison had taken place before marriage then the two individuals involved were considered married after the act avaga. The place of virginity for Samoan women was so sacred that on the eve of the honeymoon, the bride’s virginity was publically confirmed. Oral traditions record that often one of the high chiefs of the village would carry out the act of defloration by either digital insertion 74

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or the groom would do so and the bloodied cloth on which the virgin bride had lain would be displayed publically for all to see. This was very sacred and can be compared to Deuteronomy 22:17 ff ‘... here is the proof of my daughter’s virginity. Then her parents shall display the cloth before the elders of the town.’ It was a shameful event for the bride if this blood was not evident. When such a case occurred she would be publically humiliated and shamed. It is interesting that the male was never subject to having to prove his virginity. Male virility was seen as the norm and often the subject of peer group competition. Some would risk creeping into the sleeping quarters of young women while they slept and claim their virginity by stealth known as moe kolo or sleep-crawling. Game over, these women would no longer be sought after as marriage prospects.

The context in which Tamar is presented In this Biblical narrative, Trible suggests that ‘The sibling connection, however, is not the reason for Amnon’s frustration and illness. His passion is pain ‘because a virgin was she, and it was impossible in the eyes of Amnon to do to her anything’ (2 Sam. 13:2). Trible continues: As a virgin, Tamar is protected property, inaccessible to males, including her brother. Yet the ominous phrase, ‘it was impossible ... to do her anything,’ not only underscores his frustration but also foreshadows the disaster of its release. Explicating the meaning of Amnon’s desire, lust-sickness and violent yearning enclose the virgin.’ (Trible 1984: 39) And so we come to the context in which Tamar is presented. Regardless of whether Amnon is only Tamar’s half-brother there is a sacred boundary line between them that should not be crossed. It is fine for her to have served her brother as instructed by her father in his time of need to aid his healing as he was deemed to be unwell and in need of his sister’s care. King David was unaware of Amnon’s lying scheme to bring his sister into his sleeping quarters that he might rape her. Regarding the words, ‘sister of Absalom’ and ‘my brother,’ Trible states that: [F]or the first time, fraternal language enters to indicate friction between the royal sons. The designation, ‘sister-of-Absalom,’ supports this tension while deflecting Tamar’s kinship to Amnon. The entire phrase implies a different obstacle from the narrated explanation. According to Amnon, Absalom, not virginity, stands between the object of his desire. If this male can be removed, the female becomes accessible. (Trible 1984: 40)

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Tamar is sent by her father to care for her brother. She is the innocent victim in all this carrying out the instructions of both her father and her brother. It is clear that she did not visit him alone, as in verse 9 Amnon says ‘send everyone out of the room’. Tamar is left alone with Amnon. This was the warning sign, which was ignored; that a brother and sister should be left alone in the bedroom should not have been allowed. Unfortunately because of the hierarchy of power the servants were not in a position to challenge this command and so everyone left the room. Where were Tamar’s palace sisters? Mother? Were they aware of what she was asked to do for her brother? Where was her protective entourage? The words ‘Go to the house of Amnon your brother’. According to Trible, the fraternal reference would seem to guarantee safety. Trible continues, ‘unwittingly, David has sealed Tamar’s fate.’ The sons request had become the king’s order. She took some dough, kneaded it, made the bread in his sight and baked it (v. 8). Amnon was setting the scene for himself, his completely selfish desire did not have one iota of concern for all the boundaries he was about to break. His least concern was for his sister and for her humanity. Tamar preparing the desired bread will herself be the desire of Amnon’s heart. Feasting upon her with his eyes, his lust will reach out to eat from her hand. ‘Don’t, my brother!’ she said to him. ‘Don’t force me. Such a thing should not be done in Israel! Don’t do this wicked thing (v. 12). What about me? Where could I get rid of my disgrace? And what about you? You would be like one of the wicked fools in Israel’ (v. 13). Even in her desperation, she was trying to negotiate a better outcome to what was about to happen, ‘Please speak to the king, he will not stop me from being married to you’. But Amnon took her and he raped her and then after the act he looked on her with disgust and his hatred for her was more than the love he once had for her. Her words are honest and poignant; they acknowledge female servitude. Tamar knows Amnon can have her but pleads that he does it properly. Amnon’s longed for something he could not have, ‘forbidden love’, but Tamar did not share this feeling. In the words of Tamar, ‘Such a thing should not be done in Israel’ Incest was forbidden in any form and in this case especially for a brother and sister to have sexual relations regardless whether they were half-siblings or not. Amnon got what he wanted and then when he realised the enormity of what he had done it was too late. It became all her fault, therefore he hated her even more. He said ‘get up and get out’. ’No!’ she said to him. ‘Sending me away would be a greater wrong than what you have already done to me’ (v. 16). But he refused to listen to her.

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Amnon had no desire to remedy his wrong, no desire to protect his sister from the shame he had brought upon her, no desire to even provide a place for her to live in. He just wanted her out of his sight and out into the shame of the royal community that should have never allowed this to happen. Tamar put ashes on her head and tore the ornamented robe she was wearing. She put her hand on her head and went away, weeping aloud as she went (v. 19). Her brother Absalom said to her, ‘Has that Amnon, your brother, been with you? Be quiet now, my sister; he is your brother. Don’t take this thing to heart’ (v. 20). I remember the story of young girl who had been violated by her stepfather taking the courage to speak out. She told her mother, but her mother denied her truth and retaliated by shaving her daughter’s head so she would be shamed wherever she went. This act of shaving of a daughter’s head is often used to deliberately shame the female; she is always the villain and never the victim. She must have done something to encourage the unwanted attention; she must have flirted and used her charm to lure him into lustful desire. She must have dressed in a fashion that was asking to be raped, she was easy meat. We too often blame the female for acts of rape and violation against them and we too often find a story that paints the male as merely responding to temptation as an act of bravado. Even Tamar’s full brother Absalom did not want Tamar to talk about the thing that their brother had done to her. But he took her into his home and looked after her and eventually sought justice in the slaying of his brother Amnon two years later. All of the persons involved in this sordid tale are within David’s immediate family. They express, delicately but unmistakeably, the scandalous nature of Amnon’s passion. The author is writing for members of a community in which sex between brother and sister was forbidden as a pagan practice Surely, this being King’s David’s daughter should have brought a death sentence upon Amnon for doing what he did as ‘Such a thing should not be done in Israel’. Where was King’s David’s voice over the violation of his daughter? We are told he was furious, but still he did nothing. All the power in the world and yet he chooses to keep silent! Power in this instance is the power to choose a son’s crime over a daughter’s rape and violation. Power in this instance is the power to be furious and yet do nothing about it. All powerful and yet all hypocritical.

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Why was David angry? Why was David angry? Was it because Tamar was raped or was it because his first born had committed this shameful act? ‘Is David angry with Amnon for what he has done, or is David angry about what has happened to Amnon? In other words, does the father’s love for his first born condone or denounce the crime? David’s anger signifies complete sympathy for Amnon and total disregard for Tamar. How appropriate that the story never refers to David and Tamar as father and daughter! The father identifies with the son; the adulterer supports the rapist; male has joined male to deny justice for the female.’

The role of women in society and in the church We are all familiar with the phrase ’the old boys’ network.’ There are far too many crimes that go unpunished because of the old boys’ network. ‘She was asking for it’ is often how we condone violence against women, ‘she just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.’ Blame is often put upon the violated and not on the perpetrator. We laugh and recall with humour the place of women in our churches and families. I was at a meeting recently where the women had a workshop on gender violence and when it reported back to the executive meeting the men laughed and called their workshop ‘a shopping spree.’ That in actual fact there was no work done it was just an excuse to go shopping. Everyone laughed except me and when I objected to such inference they moved on to the next agenda item as if I had not spoken at all. The place of women and their role within the churches continues to be an anomaly for many men; their role is to be in service to their husbands who are the ‘real workers.’ In Samoa, the wife of a minister is called faletua, which literally means ‘house at the back’. This term has been debated from time to time, even among the women, and justified as an appropriate term because her role is to spend time in the back house preparing food for those in the front of the house, the men. By playing on the term faletua perhaps a more appropriate description would be that of backbone she is the backbone of industry and she is the spine and neck that holds the head in place. Without her men would starve. It remains the practice in the Samoan churches that men cannot be ordained as ministers unless they are married, it is the common understanding that they are absolutely unable to carry out their ministries without the woman at their side. She is the one who offers fautuaga advice. She is the one through whom his work is fulfilled and completed. If she was allowed to be an ordained minister in her own right, she would definitely not necessarily need to be married as she is able to carry out the work of ministry all on her own. Perhaps that is why it continues to remain a taboo subject and Samoa remains one 78

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of the last bastions of discrimination against the ordination of women as ministers and priests apart from the Roman Catholic Church.

The role of the servant What was the role of the servant? He called his personal servant and said ‘Get this woman out of here and bolt the door after her’ (v. 17). So his servant put her out and bolted the door after her (v. 18). She was wearing a richly ornamented robe, for this was the kind of garment the virgin daughters of the king wore. As servants of God, what role do we have in becoming the complicit silent barrier between the criminal and the violated? How do we close the doors on wrong doing and send our victims out onto the street vulnerable and naked? In this story, there is a culture of complicity that protects those in power and shames those who are already vulnerable. Do we do this in our churches? Her brother Absalom said to her, ‘Has that Amnon, your brother, been with you? Be quiet now, my sister; he is your brother. Don’t take this thing to heart’ (v. 20).

The unfortunate ‘cover up’ All too often our cultures and communities the church included solve their shame and problems with the words ‘Don’t take this thing to heart.’ This thing being an act of violation, an act of dominance and power. We are forced to be complicit after all these are our brothers. The church is good at using fraternal language to cover up crimes committed by those who purport to be our brothers and yet commit crimes against humanity and against God. The shame continues to be borne by the women violated! Unfortunately, there are far too many stories of this nature that mar the corridors of power in all our communities both in church and society. I have had the sad undertaking of listening to the stories of incest and abuse within families that were afraid to speak out. Stories of mothers taking their daughter’s shame and pain to their graves with them. Stories of daughters who gave birth to their father’s children and fathers who continued to violate that sacred boundary between father and daughter and yet still remain within the protected sanctity of Christian marriage. Trible sums up Tamar’s life as follows: In the first house (v. 7a), she was a beautiful virgin (vv. 1, 2). In the house of her brother Amnon (vv. 7b, 8), she became a violated thing (vv. 14, 17c). In the house of her brother Absalom (v. 20), she is a desolate sister. 79

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Conclusion In her book Texts of Terror, Phyllis Trible steps out to re-read the Biblical narratives with a literary feminist approach. Texts that we are often too embarrassed and too ashamed to acknowledge exist in our Bible, our ‘Book of Life.’ That these texts were not redacted in the first place is a claim that life and its harsh unjust forms existed in ancient Israel and continue to exist today in the 21st century. Times have not changed but our attitude to how we respond and deal with our own texts of terror must change beginning with ourselves.

Questions for further reflection 1.

What happens in our own families, churches, and communities when people’s human rights are raped and violated? Are we complicit in hiding our shame? Do we expect to keep silent for the sake of public shame?

2.

Do your leaders speak out in their defence? Or is there a silence which forbids you to speak out against injustice?

3.

What can we change in our communities that will encourage the victims of violence to have a voice and be supported?

A poem By Rev. Feiloaiga Taule’ale’ausumai Davis Keep the peace, don’t rock the boat. What will the church think if they knew the truth? Look at the other families they bear no shame, their daughters are happy why can’t you do the same? You must keep silent, we will not talk of it again! Now go and help your sisters and hide your pain. The happy daughters have untold grief You can see it in their eyes they are beyond relief. They smile but it’s only their mouths that move, rape and lust something they cannot prove. Their eyes beckon you to look deep into their place of darkness The place that holds the silence of their pain, the forbidden shame and awkwardness. They walk around with the pride of their families on their heads Acting, doing, fulfilling, serving, the weight of their grief, tears unshed.

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Is this my role in life? To hold the secrets and shame within me? To parade the beauty and pride outside of me? To live in contradiction? And to die in obscurity? God, be my voice in the midst of my tragedy! Is this life in all its fullness? Where is justice for the voiceless? The sacred child, pride of the village, alive and free A symbol of power as God created her to be.

A prayer Gracious and loving God. Forgive us for the times when we have been silent when we should have spoken out against all forms of violence and injustice in our society. We are sorry for the times when we have stood by and not challenged the cultural expectations and norms in asociety which discriminates against the rights of women and children. We pray for your forgiveness. We pray for our brothers who believe that we are not all created in the image of God, who believe that they are superior to their sisters. We pray for our sisters who continue to be violated and cast out onto the streets naked and ashamed. We pray for justice, that they not carry the shame of their violation. We pray that we take upon ourselves the promise to stand together in solidarity and give voice to the voiceless. Create in us your power to celebrate life in all its fullness which treats everyone with honour, integrity and respect. Create in us a heart of justice and courage to stand up against all acts of violence and discrimination in our lives. In Jesus name, we pray. Amen.

References Smith J. 1990. The discourse structure of the rape of Tamar (2 Samuel 13:1-22). Vox Evangelica 20. Trible P. 1984. Texts of terror: Literary-feminist readings of Biblical narratives. Philadelphia, PA: Fortress Press.

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Doubting Empire Growing as faithful children Graham Adams Bible text from Mark 9, 10; John 20; 1 Corinthians 13; Ephesians 4

Introduction Beginning with the contradictions of childhood and children in the UK, I invite readers to consider how this compares with their society. Turning to the Bible, what is it to receive God’s kingdom ‘as a child’ while also leaving ‘childish ways’ behind? To address this, I offer an interpretation of Thomas and the resurrected Christ as children. Far from being the church’s doubter, as deemed by the Empire, Thomas dares to seek and touch the first born of God’s new creation. In fact, Thomas the child prompts us to re-envision the relationship between faith and doubt, and the promise of a Christian community, where we truly see each other ‘face to face’.

UK context: A tale of two directions Attitudes and approaches to childhood and children are deeply contradictory in the UK, as I suspect they are in many countries. On the one hand, we have longstanding charities committed to supporting, protecting and valuing children; and a rigorous legal framework has been developed to protect children and punish those who abuse them. The rights of the child have also been affirmed through moves to give them a voice in different settings – on decision-making committees in schools, and through initiatives such as the Child Friendly Church Award,8 which encourages churches to reflect their high-minded ideals about the inclusion of children in actual practices. On the other hand, however, the situation is far from a happy one. Abuse continues – and as we are reminded, despite society’s predominant fears, 80 percent of abuse occurs in the context of relationships where people already know each other, notably within families, rather than at the hands of predatory strangers. There is, though, widespread ambivalence regarding the right of the state to intervene in families. Admittedly this is partly fuelled 8 This scheme is promoted, for example, by the United Reformed Church and the Congregational Federation, both CWM members.

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by revelations that state-run children’s homes have been places of abuse in themselves, so the system has been undergoing great change. But second, our dominant newspapers are quick to highlight the failures of social services, notably high-profile cases of appalling abuse and death, but do not generally champion the achievements of state intervention. Social workers are already working at full-stretch, but it is difficult to recruit new staff, which clearly has implications for child protection. Abuse, however, is certainly not the only issue facing children. Back in 2007, The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) identified the UK as bottom of a league table of 20 rich countries on three out of six measures concerned with child well-being. In 2013 the UK had risen to 16th, a slight improvement, but still with very high levels of teenage pregnancy, underage alcohol abuse, and high numbers of under-19s not in education, work or training. 400 000 more children are expected to be in poverty in 2015-16 as a result of cuts in the budgets of relevant government departments (UNICEF 2013). Two further issues are symptomatic of this sense of confusion regarding childhood. One is the problem of ‘adolescent’ parents, not in terms of their actual age but their attitude to parenting. That is, young adults find it difficult to navigate ‘growing up’, so are often reluctant to give boundaries to their own children. It is closely allied with the worthy progress we have made in terms of valuing the rights and voices of children – but the distorted version of this is one in which distinctions between childhood and adulthood are blurred; the parent is infantilised by their own denial of responsibility, and the child is prematurely aged by the unbounded freedoms and responsibilities projected on to them. The second issue is related: the commodification of children. In other words, a consumer economy and culture identifies children as soft targets of the desire for us to grow into effective participants in such an economy, and the sexualisation of children – through fashion and music – is a key component of this propaganda. An outcome of this is the continued simplification of gender stereotypes, especially obvious in toy shops, in order to target girls and boys in clear consumer groups. Children are therefore victims of ‘adult games’, concerned essentially with making easy money; childhood becomes a battlefield for economic power or a sinister playground in which adults struggle with their contradictory attitudes to children – are they vulnerable and in need of our protection, or people who merely happen to be younger and are equally entitled to act as economic and social agents? Are they powerless victims, the play-things of dangerous adults, or apparently empowered participants in society, but actually still toyed with by adults bent on economic mastery of human life?

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In light of those observations and reflections, how do you see your society’s understanding and treatment of childhood? And what of your churches approach to children?

Receive the kingdom as a child In the light of that contradictory context, what does it mean for us to ‘receive the kingdom of God as a child’? (see Mark 10:13-16) It may be easier to start with Jesus’ other child centred exhortation: that when we welcome children, we welcome Christ and the one who sent him (see Mark 9:33-37) – but is that so easy? It asks us to recognise in the child the very essence of Christ and of God. By contrast, it is arguable that social norms in consumer cultures encourage us to leave our childhood dependency behind, to become adults who contribute meaningfully to the economy, to look after ourselves as independent agents. That is the direction of travel and the expectation. In fact, the Empire of consumerism effectively says: the Independent Adult, or Self-funded Consumer, is the Self who most deserves to be welcomed. Is the dominant mentality of society urging us to recognise the image of ‘God’ in such a Self who is dependent on no-one, since God supposedly depends on no-one? Christ, on the other hand, invites us to identify the Christlikeness of God (the Child of God) with the welcoming of a human child, a dependent, so he invites us to view ourselves differently – and to understand God differently too. If we are to belong to and participate in God’s alternative to Empire, the kingdom of God, we must recognise ourselves as people who are dependent on others – which is to say, it is absolutely legitimate to recognise our dependency, or even better, our interdependency. But more than that: we must identify with those whom the world regards with some suspicion, or with a diminished sense of their identity. After all, whether it is through the culture’s continued neglect of children in their powerlessness, or through its expectation that they should hurry to become economic agents and voices who participate responsibly, children are basically deemed to be not-yet-adults, people ‘in the making’, a version of the human being which is incomplete but required to ‘grow up’ – that is broadly what Empire maintains. Incidentally, the simultaneous expectation that childhood is best understood in terms of ‘innocence’ and ‘trust’ is the other side of the same coin: it reflects adults’ romantic or idealised picture of childhood, which is certainly very different from many children’s actual experience and arises from our own confusion. Empire contributes to this confusion and feeds it: it sells us a dream-like version of childhood, through the pretty side of Disney stories, but in order to fuel children’s engagement as economic consumers, while sexualising children and urging them to grow into premature, precocious adults; and our guilt about this confusion comes out through nostalgic longing for protected

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innocence. So, beware the church’s interpretation of ‘receive it as a child’ in terms of expecting trust and innocence – because the effect is that both children and adults are urged to trust the guardians of the tradition; to be passive while the powerful maintain the lie of innocence in a deeply confused and exploitative environment. Remember, instead, that children ask awkward questions and name what is ‘unfair!’ In fact, God in Christ, God the Child, shocks us with the truth: we are to fulfil our humanity through becoming like children, those whom Empire diminishes and exploits, in order to understand the ‘littleness’ of ‘the little ones’, the fragility and vulnerability of life, the need for solidarity, and the very agency of the ones who are building a new world, from below. This is the work of God’s anti-Empire: in mustard seeds, in buried treasure, in yeast mixed in with dough, in children, in fragile disciples struggling to understand, in weakness which shames the world’s strength and foolishness which shames the world’s wisdom. Perhaps this is how to read Paul’s encouragement for us to become mature (Eph. 4:13), or to put an end to ‘childish ways’ (1 Cor. 13:11)? Rather than assuming that his recollection of his childish thinking is necessarily the same message as the Empire’s belittlement of children, there may be an alternative possibility. We may interpret the flawed childness of his early thinking as that kind of child who conforms to the Empire’s expectations: a not yet-fully-human, a dependent-and-therefore-inadequate creature, who may be exploited. Such a child cannot see the Other in the mirror because they cannot truly see themselves. Their sight is necessarily partial, much like that of adults who infantilise themselves through their rejection of responsibility. By contrast, the adults who achieve maturity are those who realise the significance of their dependency; who embrace it, so come to see the Other face to face. Mature adults know their dependency – on God and others. To see in that mirror more fully, more ‘face to face’, is to be at one with one’s own childhood, one’s being a child of God. To receive the gift of God’s reign is to receive it as a child, delighting in the reflection, the freshness, of ‘me’, ‘you’ and God in a relationship.

Doubting Empire: Face to face with the first born of God’s new creation Turning to a familiar story, one seemingly involving adults, we shall read it as though it is really a childlike encounter. It is the story of ‘Doubting Thomas’ (John 20:19-29), for whom I have often felt some sympathy. After all, the Biblical text is not harsh with him, whereas church tradition has tended to judge him as the doubter – so something else is 86

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going on. I suggest that if we read this as an encounter between children, it is illuminating in new ways. First, the church has judged Thomas simply on the basis of his absence. The other disciples were there for the first resurrection appearance, so no-one knows how any of them might have responded had they been absent! Furthermore, why was Thomas absent? It would have been brave and bold to be outside the locked doors, perhaps gathering food for the others, or discerning the latest security situation on their behalf. So any hasty judgement, distinguishing frightened disciples who saw the risen Jesus from the brave Thomas who did not see him, at first, is the kind of hasty judgement understandably despised by children as ‘unfair’! (My young daughter would certainly say so, rightly!) It is as though the church, infected by the ways of Empire, can only comprehend ‘presence’: there is only one way of being part of the community and its story; there is only one kind of identity. Absence, for whatever well-meaning reason, is not good enough. No wonder children have felt so disenfranchised from society and church: for they have been ‘barely present’, often marginalised from the real business. For example, many churches continue to exclude them from participation in communion, on the dubious grounds of their inadequate understanding, as though adults who exclude children clearly have an ‘adequate understanding’ of faith in God the Child! Imagine being a child who missed out on the ultimate party. Of course, Thomas would want to experience it for himself ! If this measure of judgement – whether someone happens to be present or not – is to be used so definitively, then it is only fair that absent people should want to be present. That is all he asks. He will not believe until he sees and touches for himself. Fair enough! He is ‘as a child’, wanting to experience the Good News directly and to share in others’ joy. It is not enough to be expected to believe, simply because others believe; it is surely understandable that people should want the experience of faith to be real for them. The treatment of Thomas, by the church infected by Empire, defining his understandable response as ‘doubt’, is a sheer demonstration of the church’s lust for control. It does not want other people asking questions, desiring to experience things directly, or rocking the boat of obedient orthodoxy. It wants pliable, passive subjects – and will do its best to inculcate this attitude in children, so they become obedient adults or unthinking consumers of the correct truth.

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It reminds me of Andrew Shanks’s insights into ‘heresy’ (Shanks 2014). On the whole, the church has taught that heresy is defined by incorrect content – believing the wrong things – which breaks with orthodox truth. But Shanks argues that, at its root, hairesis, it is to do with ‘dissecting’ a community (Shanks 2014:13). It is the will, the intent, to divide people from each other. So it consists primarily in the self-righteous prejudging of one’s rightness over others’ wrongness, which closes down the possibility of ongoing conversation. As such, Shanks argues that much of the ‘orthodox’ tradition has indeed been ‘heretical’! (Shanks 2014:16, 25) Whenever the church has closed the door on questioners or misfits, or maintained its own essential rightness, even persecuting others – the very antithesis of the gospel of peace and reconciliation – it has dissected the community of faith. In other words, whenever the church presumes to see some people clearly as ‘Doubting Thomases’, while others are faithful, it is not truly looking face to face in the mirror, but maintains the immature divisions between us (divisions between present and absent, innocent and guilty, trusting and troublesome, passive and precocious); whereas, by contrast, Thomas the Child meets God’s first born child, face to face. In fact, such division suggests that we are no longer witnessing the community of faith, but rather the community of works. ‘Works’, as illustrated by Paul’s discussion of circumcision, are those things which the community requires in order to demonstrate people’s correct belonging; they are boundary markers, signs of the community’s need for group conformity (Shanks 2015:16). Shanks speaks also of a ‘herd’ mentality (Shanks 2005:11): what binds us together through uncritical loyalty, but which may have little to do with the gospel. By contrast, ‘faith’ is what opens us up – to God and to each other (Shanks 2014:38). It is the response to the open nature of God, since God is open to us even as we are, not by virtue of our pre-existing rightness, correctness or belonging. Faith, then, is trusting in God’s openness and being enabled to be open to others. To define Thomas as the archetypal Doubter, representative of all doubt, and therefore deserving of judgement, even exclusion, is to betray one’s need for ‘works’ over ‘faith’, boundary markers over grace-filled openness, and one’s own adult angst over the childlike propensity for faith-in-justice. And we should not forget that Thomas, who dares to say that he wants to witness resurrection for himself, is not punished or criticised by Jesus for this knowing sense of his own need. In fact, Thomas is invited to touch the wounds directly. We may assume the other disciples did not touch; whereas Thomas’s encounter with resurrection goes deeper. It is a frightening but life-transforming prospect: to touch the wounds which show the cost of Christ’s solidarity with ‘little ones’; wounds which mark the torture exacted on One who dared to see children and other little ones as definitive of God’s kingdom. 88

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Thomas is met with the fullness of resurrection and makes the declaration of faith which we do not hear the others make. Thomas, receiving the kingdom as a child, is met with God’s first born child of a new creation. The so-called doubter is blessed with an encounter of the pain and promise of faith. To the extent that Jesus does handle Thomas’s apparent precociousness, in verse 29, it may simply be a matter of urging or teaching Thomas, who sees and believes, not to judge those who believe without seeing. After all, people who are blessed with the direct experience of Good News can find it hard to appreciate the faith of those whose experience is less direct. Certainly, it is another side to childlike community: that we find ourselves tempted to judge each other by the ‘quality’ of our experience. Christ reminds us, therefore, that the community of faith is for a wide range of people – adults and children, those who see and believe, those who believe without seeing, those who ask questions and want to know more, those who do not ask questions so may feel they know enough. Every kind of person has gifts and every kind has needs, but all are called to see each other face to face, maturely, knowing their dependence on God and one another, the interdependence of their faith, the indivisibility of faith and doubt.

Conclusion This is what we learn from Thomas the Child, in his encounter with God the Child. The community of faith, called to come out of its imperial ways of thinking, with its judgements on some as outsiders or doubters, may continue to have anxieties, expressed in the locking of its doors, but new creation defies those boundaries and greets us in all our immaturity, maturity, courage, fear, faith, doubt. Thomas the Child dares to doubt the hold of Empire and trust that, even as a little one, his previous absence will not be condemned but he will be invited to experience the pain and promise of faith in all its fullness and to be urged to build community with those whose experience differs from his. The Child is not condemned in her powerlessness, and forced to suffer unjust judgement or exploited for his ignorance; but neither is she expected to know it all, to be an adult ahead of his time. Instead, the Child is the mark of God’s kingdom in his dependence – not naively trusting, since she is free to question – and in her desire for more. So, let us doubt the hold of Empire over us, and instead let us welcome the Child in order to welcome God the Child whose reign begins in the lives of little ones.

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Questions for further reflection 1.

How contradictory is your society and church in its attitudes towards children?

2.

How prepared is your church to receive God’s kingdom as a ‘Child’ – welcoming children and all little ones; standing in solidarity with them, however innocent or non-innocent they may be; and knowing the interdependency of our life with one another, including those we find it hard to see face to face?

3.

What new insights has this exploration of the story of Thomas the Child and God the Child opened up for you – in terms of your understanding of faith and doubt, and your vision for the church as a community of diverse people called to stand face to face with one another in all their diversity?

A prayer God whose kingdom comes first to those who are last, come to us in those moments when we put ourselves first, belittle or exploit others, or take for granted our own rightness and find ourselves judging the doubts of others, and heal us by your wounds, strengthen us by your weakness, make us wise by your foolishness. God whose kingdom is received best by children, come to us in our efforts to be childlike, to stand in solidarity with all who are victims of adult games and when we yearn for a world where we are no longer primarily consumers, and heal us by your wounds, strengthen us by your weakness, make us wise by your foolishness. God whose kingdom is welcomed when we welcome little ones, come to us, make us hospitable, open our hearts, minds and hands, so we may learn to be a community for people in all their diversity, truly seeing each other face to face. In the name of God the Child, Amen.

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References .

Shanks A. 2005. Faith in honesty: The essential nature of theology. Aldershot: Ashgate Publishing. Shanks A. 2014. A neo-Hegelian theology: The God of Greatest Hospitality. Farnham: Ashgate Publishing. Shanks A. 2015. Hegel versus ‘inter-faith dialogue’: A general theory of true xenophilia. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/ CBO9781316160459 UNICEF (United Nations Children’s Fund). 2013. Child well-being in rich countries: A comparative overview. Accessed 1 June 2016, http://www.unicef.org.uk/Images/ Campaigns/FINAL_RC11-ENG-LORES-fnl2.pdf

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Trafficking and violence against children A real-life story Marsha Nathalee Martin

Background to the story In 2006, Roshanne, a nine-year-old girl, was sent by her parents Charles Baker and RoseMarie Gilpin, to live with her aunt Lynette Smith in Kingston, Jamaica. The decision was made as her parents no longer felt capable of caring for her. While with her aunt, she was sexually abused and chased from the home. She later started a job where she continued to be abused and was arrested in a police operation. What seemed a good idea, proved to be the right condition for trafficking in and violence against a fifteen-year-old girl. She was trafficked, molested and abused by persons she trusted. Roshanne was interviewed in 2014. The appropriate consent to interview, record and share her story was also received. Also, the names of the characters and their location of origin were changed to protect their identities as well as to protect and preserve the confidentiality, right and integrity of Roshanne, who was a minor at the time of sharing her story.

Roshanne’s story I am Roshanne Baker. I am seventeen years of age. I was born and raised in Clarendon, Jamaica. At age nine, my parents (Charles Baker and Rose-Marie Gilpin) sent me to live with my aunt (Lynette Smith) and her husband (Calvin Smith) in Kingston, Jamaica. At the time, my parents could not afford to take care of us (my four siblings and myself). I was doing very well in primary school and would soon be ready for the Grade Six Achievement Test (GSAT) at which everyone expected me to be successful. Everyone knew I would pass for my preferred school but my parents would just not be able to provide all I would need for high school. I was happy to go and live with my aunt in Kingston as it was the norm for persons to leave the ‘country’ [rural Jamaica] in search of a better life in the big city [Kingston]. When I arrived in Kingston, I was given my own room at my aunt’s home and that made me happy because when I lived with my parents, I had to share room and bed with my brothers and sisters. I was so excited to be living in Kingston. I had nicer clothes, a bathroom inside the house and a mirror in my room, drawers to store my things and I just had my own space.

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I started a new primary school and felt so good to be taken to and from school every day in my aunt’s car. I was learning to use the computer and my aunt’s husband (uncle Calvin) was so nice, he would help me with my assignments and I was just happy. I had to complete chores in the house but that was fun, I was not worried about chores because when I lived with my parents I had chores besides, at my aunt’s house it was special to clean my own room and make my own bed. When I was twelve years old, I completed the GSAT and passed for one of the top high schools. I was so proud and everyone was happy for me. I knew that there was no stopping me from that point on. In high school, I did well in all my subjects and was awarded every year. I remember getting the award for Most Outstanding Student three years in a row. My parents, aunt and her husband were happy for me. My aunt bought the nicest things for me and I did not have to ask. It may sound like I was a ‘neva si cum si’ or a ‘frighten Friday’ [surprised or not expecting what was the norm] but I was really happy. In 2012, after my fifteenth birthday, Aunt Lynette called a family meeting at which time she told me that all the household chores were my responsibility and formed part of my contribution to the household. I would now be responsible for keeping the house clean, doing the laundry and preparing meals for the family. That was not a problem for me because I could do each of them. During that same year, my uncle-in-law (uncle Calvin) started to touch me, it was so uncomfortable at first. He would make comments on how I was growing nicely. The touching became more frequent especially on days when there was no school. When school was out, he would be home, sometimes all day, as he was a teacher. After a while, it was normal and I wanted him to touch me. We even had sex, and sometimes I could not wait for my aunt to leave the house so we could be together. I remember one holiday, we were petting in the living room when aunty Lynette arrived unexpectedly. Aunty got upset and started to argue with uncle Calvin who then told her that it was my fault because I ‘came onto him’. He told her lies that I was doing it for a while and that he kept talking to me but I would not listen. He told her several other lies. He even told her that he heard the car rolling into the garage but that he wanted her to come in and see what I was up to. He also told aunty to send me back to my parents as he noticed that I had been behaving in a suggestive and seductive manner and that he didn’t want to be sent to jail for something he would never do. Aunty then proceeded to chase me out of the house blaming me for making sexual advances at her husband. By then I was sixteen. I left but had no place to go and no money so I turned to Shauna Brown, a friend of my aunt who owned a bar. Shauna made me work day and night in order to save enough money to complete my Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate (CSEC) exams. My duty was to be the bartender. I had to dress up in really short and tight clothes so that the men would be attracted to me then spend lots of money. I would wear makeup, wigs and hair extensions, long false nails, big earrings and necklaces. I was not myself at all. Before I knew it, Shauna told me that the business was expanding to offer personal entertainment for the patrons. My job would be to go to a small room in the back, when cued, and perform sexual acts as told by

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male patrons. I received no additional remuneration but I grew to like the ‘job’ because some of the men would give me money while in the room. I remember getting a sexually transmitted infection and Shauna took me to the doctor, she told the doctor that I had unprotected sex with a schoolboy and caught the infection. She bought the medication, which I took and I got better. The doctor did not ask me anything. I guess I was just the little bad girl who had sex before time and got sick. I didn’t say anything because I knew that someone would get into trouble because I was still a child. What I do know is that the infection went away and in no time, I was back on the job. Early last year, law enforcement officers raided the building which housed the bar, in search of guns and ammunition. In the process, they took me into custody. While questioning me, they found out my age and sent me here (a residential care facility for children). My parents know that I am here and they visit me sometimes. I am mostly sad because I don’t have many subjects [academic certification/matriculation] like my friends and the people who were so proud of me do not hear of my successes anymore. I don’t even know what they have heard or know about me. I receive counselling and I am completing some courses at Heart [A national training agency].

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Sea of creation Beneath the horizons of Genesis 1:6-23 Jione Havea Bible text from Genesis 1, 2; 3; Psalms 24

Introduction Talanoa (a word that conveys three meanings – story, telling, conversation – in several native Pasifika languages)9 sustains living communities (including but not limited to the human communities). In fact, communities in Pasifika and beyond need talanoa– story, telling, conversation – in order to exist. Without talanoa, the past fails to register and the future does not arrive but flees like a mirage. Without talanoa, the present of communities have no roots. Each community has one or more talanoa of creation that helps explain how the people understand their purposes and values, their relations – to each other, to other creatures, and to the surroundings – and destinies. People remember, tell (talanoa) and converse (talanoa) over their talanoa from one generation to the next. Those talanoa are theirs; remembered and told in their interests. Those talanoa are interested, but that does not prevent them from shedding some of their details or morphing into something different. Such is the working out of talanoa cultures (so, orality; see e.g., Havea 2010). Over time, the talanoa of creation adapts and transforms. Some grow, and bear fruits (into more talanoa). Some multiply, and divide. Some wither, and die. The fact that human talanoa takes different forms is expected in the currents of oral remembering, and i10 imagine something similar in the talanoa of other living creatures. Talanoa is not an honour for only humans, but a privilege of all creatures that have the capacity to communicate. Talanoa is in the weaving of communication, which is crucial for the existence of all communities. 9 Talanoa is a triad: story, telling, conversation. Talanoa is not just one or two of those. Talanoa requires all three for story passes on to others through telling and conversation; telling is empty without story and conversation, and conversation is dead without story and telling. I use talanoa in this essay for both the singular and plural forms. 10 I use the lowercase ‘i’’ because i also use the lowercase with you, she, they, it, and others. I do not see the point in capitalizing the first person when she or he is in relation to, and because of, everyone and everything else.

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In the journeys of the human talanoa of creation from one generation to the future, through the passages of memory, the minor and non-human characters occasionally get some attention. The waters and the land, together with the trees and living creatures in and over them, are important in themselves, as we learn from the attention given to materiality in ecocriticism (see Elvey 2015; Walker-Jones 2008). As Alice Walker-Jones puts it, ‘The animals of the world exist for their own reasons. They were not made for humans any more than black people were made for white, or women created for men’ (Walker-Jones 2008: 263). When humans realise that they depend on non-humans, the human tellers of their interested talanoa learn to appreciate the setting and the other characters – not as space and props in a human drama, but as agents that have their own energies and meanings. This Bible study drifts in the streams of talanoa, revisiting the middle part of the first creation story in the book of Genesis (Gen. 1:6-23) with attention to water and sea, which do not often get the attention of land-based and land-oriented readers. The basic claim of this Bible study is that the Bible’s first creation story is water-based, or to adapt the words of the psalmist, the Priestly creation story affirms that the world is founded upon the seas and the waters (Ps. 24:2). This Bible study invites relating to waters and seas in appreciating and respectful ways – appreciating because life is dependent on waters and seas, and respectful because both waters and seas have powers to also destroy. After an opening section on the two creation talanoa in Genesis, i will offer some observations on the water and sea aspects of the events on days 2–5. These observations are intended for Bible study groups, seeking to inspire them to reread the talanoa, and to retell (talanoa) and discuss (talanoa) the ways in which water and sea are central to the unfolding of the Priestly imagination. These observations are interested, and i do not pretend to be thorough in what i highlight in the Priestly talanoa.

Genesis talanoa There are two ‘‘creation’’ talanoa in the book of Genesis. The first is in Genesis 1:12:4a, and is attributed to the Priestly writers. This is the story in which God calls and announces the world into being, over six days, before God rested on Day 7. The second story is in Genesis 2:4b-3:24, attributed to the Yahwist writers. This is the garden story in which God is a gardener who needs a human caretaker. Both stories have been well-read and retold for different reasons, and i will not review their long histories of interpretation except to make two observations relevant for this Bible study: 100

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First, the second story (Gen. 2:4b-3:24, ‘the Yahwist story’) is the older story but the redactors (who put the Bible together) placed it second to the younger story (Gen 1:1-2:4a, ‘the Priestly story’). Because of the historical biases of mainline Biblical scholars (who assume that an older story would convey something more authentic and more credible), there is a tendency to privilege the Yahwist story. This Bible study, which focuses on the younger Priestly story, is therefore going against the grain of historical Biblical scholarship. Second, given that the two stories are believed to come from different times and settings, water is usually understood to play different roles in the two creation stories. In the Priestly story, water is said to be the enemy of creation. Water had to be removed from the surface of Earth before life could begin. In the Yahwist story, on the other hand, water was necessary for creation to take place. Water was one of the two elements missing (the other element was a human person to till the ground) before life could begin (Gen. 2:5). In this Bible study, i will argue that water is essential to the Priestly creation story as well. Water is not the enemy of creation in the Priestly talanoa; rather, creation took place around water and wetness in the Priestly talanoa. In this regard also, this Bible study goes against the grain of mainline Biblical scholarship. Instruction to readers and Bible study leaders: While this Bible study focuses on Days 2-5 of creation, it would help to reread the whole Priestly creation story – Genesis. 1:1, 2:4a – before continuing.

Day 1 (Gen. 1:1-5) To set the stage, some observations relating to Day 1: With light available on Day 1 (Gen. 1:1-5), God was ready to call the creation forth. Light is necessary for life so it makes sense that God saw it as something ‘good.’ Note further that the text gives the impression that darkness was part of the light that God announced to be good in verse 4a, so we should not assume that darkness is ‘not good’ or ‘bad.’ The tendency to see as ‘bad’ what we do not prefer, and what is different from what we understand to be ‘normal,’ is foreign to the happenings on Day 1. The result of God separating light from darkness on Day 4 was that day became separated from night. But God did not say that night was not good. We should not assume that if God did not say that something is not good then it must, therefore, be not good or bad. The talanoa does not say that darkness and night were bad.

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Day 2 (Gen. 1:6-8) Day 2 is about waters. God called the waters to separate, setting some above and some below. It is interesting to note at the outset that Day 2 is the only day of the creation where the talanoa did not say that God saw what happened as good. Did this mean that God saw it as not good? Did the storyteller forget to include God’s verdict on what happened on Day 2? Did the storyteller think that Day 2 was part of Day 3? We can’t be certain how to answer these questions but it is helpful to bear in mind that no matter what answers we propose, the text is silent on all three questions. Created on Day 2 was an expanse inserted to separate waters that were above from waters that were below. Water was not created on Day 2. Water was already there. What God did was to separate the waters and inserted a space, which God called ‘sky’, to keep them apart. God did not create a solid barrier made with waterproof material but only space, and for my island mind, this space does not guarantee that the bodies of waters would not overflow into other regions. I cannot see how space, which is at this point empty, could keep the waters above from coming below. Nonetheless, i expect this empty space to be moveable. My expectation is influenced by creation talanoa in Pasifika according to which some of our ancestors (Maui and Tāne) pushed the sky up so that there is light and room for creatures to walk upright. I expect also that there would be similar talanoa in other cultures. Returning to the questions raised above, i wonder if God saw that the sky was ‘not good’ because it was clear that it could not keep the waters apart. The sky may not guarantee the separation of the waters, but it could be pushed back. I wonder also if the narrator did not say ‘And God saw that it was not good’ because he did not want to accept that God created something that was ‘not good.’ Like all readers, the Priestly narrator had expectations about God which blinded him. Take for instance two expectations that many believers share: that God is absolute, and that everything God does must be good. These expectations prevent us from seeing when God is limited, and from seeing God being reckless and miserable sometimes. Our expectations and biases affect what we see and what we don’t see, and those are how our theologies are constructed – with blind spots. So when we come to talanoa like those of Job and Jonah, we become conflicted. We respond by sometimes defending and sometimes rethinking our biases and theologies. How do we reread the happenings on Day 2 in this light?

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Day 3 (Gen. 1:9-13) Day 3 is also about water. God called the waters that were below to gather to one place so that dry land may appear, hence the separation of the seas from the earth. No barrier was set to keep the sea from coming over the land, or the land from eroding into the sea, yet God saw and declared what happened as good. My suggestion above that the space created on Day 2 may not have been good because it did not guarantee keeping the waters from overflowing, is problematised by the lack of a barrier in Day 3. In other words, on the basis of Day 3, Day 2 could also be good! No barriers were established on Day 2 or Day 3, but limits were set. Limits are not drawn according to the existence of barriers, and what qualifies as good does not need to be barricaded. Similarly, order is not dependent on the establishment of barriers. The foregoing gives the impression that what count as good and/or order are not determined according to whether they fall or not within limits and borders. On the other hand, the talanoa does not determine those matters that are not good and/or not order. Put another way, the goodness declared upon some of the created things is understood differently from the values and standards of modern minds. The talanoa does not explain what this different understanding entails, and so we are left with two options: what good means is a mystery; what good means is open for suggestions. The happenings of Day 3 continued with God asking Earth to sprout vegetation, seedbearing and fruit trees. God did not call the vegetation and plants to come out of Earth. Rather, God asked Earth to let the vegetation come out. The ability and energy to bring forth life are on Earth itself. This is a point worth highlighting: plant life is a gift of Earth. Life was let out by Earth. Life is in Earth. As in Day 1 and Day 2, ‘creation by separation’ took place on Day 3 as well. The new element introduced in Day 3 is God’s recognition that Earth has life within it. God ‘made the call,’ and Earth ‘delivered’ vegetation and plant life. This awareness invites respect for Earth. As i will argue later, life is in the waters and the seas as well.

Day 4 (Gen. 1:14-19) Day 4 is also around water. Sources of light were created and placed in the sky, the space inserted to keep the separation between waters above from waters below. I noted above the lack of a barrier in Day 2, and on Day 4 the Sun, Moon and Stars were set in the place i expected the barrier to be installed. Space/sky was no longer empty. 103

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It feels as if God did not like the inserted space being empty and decided to decorate the sky with lights. I imagine something similar to what weavers and carvers in Pasifika do. They decorate empty spaces with patterns and native (or tribal) motifs. The difference though is that Pasifika weavers and carvers work with smaller and manageable space, whereas God had a wide expanse to decorate! Two new elements in the creation activity are introduced on Day 4. First, this is the first time that the narrator says that God ‘made’ (Hebrew sh’) something – the two greater lights, Sun and Moon, and the Stars – and second, their function was to ‘dominate’ day and night (Tanakh v. 16). God finally made something, and they were to dominate space. The context of Day 4 is around waters because sky has to do with separating waters, but the temperature of the air is dominating. This raises more questions for reflection: What did ‘dominate’ or ‘have dominion’ mean on Day 4? Do they mean the same for other creatures, created on other days for the purpose of dominating?

Day 5 (Gen. 1:20-23) Day 5 starts by recognising the ability of and energy in the waters to give life: ‘Let the waters bring forth swarms of living creatures, and birds that fly above the earth across the expanse of the sky’ (Tanakh v. 20, emphasis added). God recognised the life-giving gift in the waters but God did not let the waters ‘deliver’ because in the next verse (v. 21) God ‘created’ (Tanakh; Hebrew br’) creatures for the sea and birds to fly over Earth. Why God did not let the waters ‘bring forth’ living creatures, we can only speculate. But at least God recognised the ability of the waters to give life. As a native of an island where we eat almost everything that moves in the sea, i can testify to the life-giving gifts of the waters. Put more directly, there is a lot of life in the seas of the South Pasifika. But the seas in Pasifika, and in other parts of the world, have harmful energies as well, evident especially when hurricane seasons come around every year. Lately, hurricanes have become more and more fierce and this is troublesome for islanders simply because we don’t have the privilege of evacuating when storms come. Sea level rising and land erosion also testify to the energies of the seas, and these upshots of climate change are hurried by human civilisation and human practices. The seas are fiercer because of what humans do. Instead of respecting the energies of the seas we humans are irritating the seas, and people who live on islands are paying the consequences. We can’t be certain if the life-giving ability that God recognised in the waters applied to both the waters above and the waters below. If God had let the waters bring forth life

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according to their own capacities, we would have had a chance to see the richness of the waters and how they might have complemented the vegetation that Earth brought forth on Day 3. God ‘created’ sea creatures and birds, then reiterated the ultimatum to dominate: ‘Be fertile and increase, fill the waters in the seas, and let the birds increase on the earth’ (Tanakh v. 22). God made instruments (sources of light in Day 4) and creatures (fishes and birds in Day 5) for the purpose of having dominion. On this occasion we ask, was this in order to suppress or in order to assist the creative energies of the sea? The water-orientation of Day 5 is clear. Sea creatures were created to swim in the waters below, and birds were created to fly in the space (sky) meant to separate the waters above from the waters below. Days 2–5 are clearly about waters (above and below), and this Bible study calls attention to the significance of the waters in this Priestly talanoa of creation. We see in this Bible study that the waters and seas are not lifeless and deadly. The waters and seas are life-full and significant in the Priestly talanoa of creation.

Empires The challenge issued in this Bible study is to reconsider the popular assumption that waters and seas are unimportant. For islanders from Pasifika and from other islands in the world, life circles around waters and seas. Islanders are dependent on the waters and seas, and our demise is hastened by the actions of today’s Empires. By ‘Empires’ i am referring to governments and corporations that exercise their influence and powers to control outside their territories. I name two clusters of Empires here, focusing on their impact on waters and seas. First, the nuclear testing that took place on atolls in Micronesia and in the waters of Maohi Nui (French Polynesia) by the USA and French governments are still killing corals and sea life in the Pasifika region. The damage caused by nuclear energy lasts for many, many generations. I am thus nervous with the growing dependence on nuclear energy in our neighbouring nations to the north, like Japan and South Korea, for we know their destructive effects in our waters. How might we get these governments to recognise and respect the waters and seas, and to stop poisoning them? Second, seabed mining is a destructive project that is being proposed to some island nations (e.g., Tahiti and Papua New Guinea). This is where miners will dig up the seafloor to extract minerals and precious stones, and in the process re-arrange the circles of

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life in the seas as well as poison the surroundings with the toxic waste of development. Marine life, in particular, will be affected, and the overall ‘circle of life’ in which land and sea are interdependent will be altered. Mining ‘funds’ colonisation projects over lands in the Asia-Pasifika, for example, the Indonesian government’s colonisation of West Papua, will most likely have the same effects over the seas due to seabed mining (we already see this in the mining for gas in the Timor islands). In calling for respect towards the sea, this Bible study demands solidarity with West Papua and for resistance against Empires such as Indonesia, USA and Australia (two nations that reap the most financial benefits from mining in PNG and West Papua), and against states that sponsor seabed mining. This resistance is demanded from people outside those Empires, as well as from people within who are not aware of how their governments and mining corporations are destroying and poisoning our waters and seas. Let us not assume that Empires are out there, referring to other nations. Some of us are citizens of Empires and are benefitting from their suffocating and extracting projects.

Island reading This Bible study calls for respect toward the waters and seas, drawing energy from the sea-orientation of island hermeneutics that is developing among islanders from Pasifika and other seas (see Havea, Aymer & Davidson 2015). I close with the recognition of water’s life-giving capacities in Polynesia. We have mythological and actual places called ‘Vaiola,’ a word that joins two words: vai + ola. Vai is the word for water and ola means life and success. The name-place Vaiola recognises that water can heal (give life) and enable (give success). In my native island mind, Vaiola is the healing waters that rise up from the heart of the land and flow into the sea. Vaiola heals the land, the land-coverings (vegetation and plants) and the land creatures; the challenge is to allow Vaiola to heal the seas as well. This latter aspect of Vaiola is prevented by Empires, communities and individuals who refuse to respect the waters and the seas. This Bible study calls for shifting from land-based thinking towards water and seaaffirming perspectives. This shift involves, first, challenging biases that see the waters and seas in the Priestly creation talanoa as an enemy of creation. And second, it must involve changing the way we think about actual waters and seas around us. Waters and seas are not spaces to invade and mine, but havens of life and of creation.

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Abstract This Bible study draws attention to the extensive and complex presence of waters and seas in the first (Priestly) creation talanoa (Gen. 1:1-2:4a), focusing on the creation events on Days 2–5 (Gen. 1:6-23). Given that Day 1 has to do with light and darkness, which exists because of the sources of light (created on Day 4) that made day and night and then placed in the expanse called sky (created on Day 2 to keep the waters apart), it is clear that the Priestly creation story finds value in the waters and the seas. Focus on land creatures comes only on Day 6. At the local organic levels: This Bible study invites readers to shift from land-locked biases in light of the water-and-sea-orientations of the first creation story. Attention will be given to how bodies of water and seas groan because of the wastage from Empires, and the economically driven seabed mining projects that are invading the Pasifika region. At the academic levels: This Bible study challenges popular scholarly assumptions that water is an ‘enemy of creation’ in the Priestly creation story (as compared to the Yahwist garden story – Gen. 2:4b, 3: 24] – in which water is necessary for life to begin). This Bible study thus takes a step towards shifting methodology and content of traditional Biblical criticism – which operates in the shadows of western empires – around Genesis 1:6-23.

A prayer God of creation, God of life; forgive us for the many times we do not recognize and honour the life that is in the Waters and the Seas. Give us the courage to stand up against the empires that are destroying our Waters and Seas, and be responsible citizens who affirm the circles of life in which Lands, Waters and Seas interdepend. Amen!

Questions for further reflection 1.

How may your understanding of Genesis 1 transform if you affirm and respect the life in the waters and seas?

2.

What can you do to challenge the Empires that poisons and impoverishes the life forces in the waters and seas?

3.

What assistance do you need, and how/who might be able to help you? Make contact with them!

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References Elvey A. 2015. Matter, freedom and the future: Reframing feminist theologies through an ecological materialist lens. Feminist Theology 23: 186-204. https://doi. org/10.1177/0966735014555638 Havea J (ed.). 2010. Talanoa ripples: Across borders, cultures, disciplines. Auckland: Masilamea and Pasifika @ Massey University. Havea J, Aymer M & Davidson SV (eds). 2015. Islands, islanders and Bible: Ruminations. Atlanta, GA: SBL Press. Walker-Jones A. 2008. Eden for cyborgs: Ecocriticism and Genesis 2-3. Biblical Interpretation 16: 263-293. https://doi.org/10.1163/156851508X288977

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Anamnestic solidarity Celebrating dangerous memories in the midst of Empire George Zacharia Bible text from Matthew 2:1-18

The Barren Mother By Vanshika Sahni The mother and the child, Both distraught Caught in the web of danger and deceit Both innocent and unaware What have they done? Just loved each other completely. Unconditionally, Their day had gone well They ate together Promised to be with each other throughout their lives But then the night arrived, the darkness followed The mother and the child were separated What was happening none could comprehend The mother was silent the child screamed Perhaps he had the ‘divine’ vision The child groaned in pain He screeched, he yelled, he cried for his mother But she did not come. The mother was helpless The mother was defenseless The mother was desolate The mother was lifeless The child had died in her arms All she could do was watch him die, Die slowly but steadily The shock had benumbed her

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She assimilated it all She gathered it all The pieces of the ruin 30 years have passed. She lives on. Watches her children die each day She cannot voice but weeps inside This is the story of the ‘Mother’ ‘Mother Bhopal’

‘A voice was heard in Ramah, wailing and loud lamentation, Rachel weeping for her children; she refused to be consoled, because they are no more’ (Jer. 31:15). ‘When Herod saw that he had been tricked by the wise men, he was infuriated, and he sent and killed all the children in and around Bethlehem who were two years old or under, according to the time that he had learned from the wise men’ (Matt. 2:16).

The Bhopal tragedy It was a winter night in December 1984. The city of Bhopal froze with the cold wind. Sometime during the night that cold wind became a silent embrace of death. The poisonous gas that leaked from the Union Carbide plant enveloped the city. It was India’s Hiroshima. For thousands, it was their last night. Those who survived the gas became the living dead. The environment was yet another casualty. The life world could literally smell the colonisation of their being, while the state and the multinational corporation legitimised the genocide as a sacrifice that the subjects of an ‘underdeveloped’ nation were called to bear for progress and growth. Union Carbide, the American Multinational Corporation, built the Bhopal plant in 1979 to manufacture methyl isocyanate, an extremely hazardous compound used to make Sevin, a pesticide used on cotton, corn and vegetables. Union Carbide announced the establishment of the plant as the realisation of the corporation’s ‘dream of lighting a new star in the Indian sky.’ People tried to protest against establishing the plant in the densely populated city. But the American capitalists insisted on setting up the factory in the city because less populated locations were more expensive. Safety requirements, which were the usual standard in the company’s plants in the US, were side lined to maximise the profit. An internal audit conducted by staff from the Virginia plant of the company, three

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months before the explosion, warned of the possibility of a disaster waiting to happen. But the company ignored it. In September 1982, journalist Rajkumar Keswani published a series of articles based on his examination of the company and the plant: ‘Bhopal: we are sitting on a volcano … The day is not far off when Bhopal will be a dead city, when only scattered stones and debris will bear witness to its tragic end’ (Lapierre & Moro 2001:180). But the state minister responded: ‘There is no cause for concern about the presence of the Carbide factory because the phosgene it produces is not a toxic gas’ (Lapierre & Moro 2001:181). The rest is history. Even after thirty years, Union Carbide is reluctant to reveal the nature of the chemical releases or their toxicity, making medical treatment of the survivors difficult. According to conservative statistics, at least 100 000 people have sustained injuries and disability from gas inhalation, including birth defects and diseases of lungs and eyes, and 3 700 people lost their lives. Union Carbide finally negotiated a settlement of $470 million – $800 per plaintiff – but spent more than $100 million on legal fees and public relations. The victims were betrayed by the corporation and the Indian government. They were not consulted about the settlement, and no child under the age of 18 was allowed to file a claim. When Rachel Carson asked the question, ‘Can anyone believe it is possible to lay down such a barrage of poison on the surface of the earth without making it unfit for all life?’ (Carson 1962:xv). The Time magazine ridiculed her book, Silent Spring calling it ‘an emotional and inaccurate outburst.’ But within two decades her forth-telling became a reality in Bhopal. It was a spring without voices. On the mornings that had once throbbed with the dawn chorus of robins, catbirds, doves, hays, wrens and scores of other bird voices, there was no sound. Only silence lay over the fields and woods and marsh. (Carson 1962:2)

Dangerous memories Bhopal was not an accident; it was just a collateral damage happening in the civilising mission of the transnational capital. The disposable people and their life world had to sacrifice on the altar of development and progress to make their nation proud. The laments emerging from Bhopal echo the groaning of the mothers of Ramah and Bethlehem. As the

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Empire continues to strike, we hear similar cries from different parts of the world. What is the theological significance of the memories of the tortured bodies? How do we engage with the memories of lives offered as a sacrifice to consolidate and perpetuate imperial aggression and corporate greed? Dangerous memories, according to Johann Baptist Metz, are ‘memories which make demands on us. These are memories in which earlier experiences break through to the centre-point of our lives and reveal new and dangerous insights for the present’ (Metz 1980:109). Dangerous memories are subversive memories. So our remembrance of the victims of Bhopal and all other victims of imperial plunder is a political and spiritual praxis, inviting and inspiring us to witness God in the midst of the ‘impossibility of life’ through ministries of protest, resistance, and alternatives. Anamnestic solidarity, as Mark Lewis Taylor rightly puts it is profoundly theological, ‘as remembrance of the dead constitutes an effect of the dead in the present that re-members and re-constitutes, living communities’ (Taylor 2011: 03). Differently said, our solidarity with the dead and the tortured affirms that they are co-present in our contemporary struggles against different manifestations of the Empire. Their co-presence strengthens and empowers those who continue to experience death in our times and fight against it. Sister Diana Ortiz, an American Catholic missionary in Guatemala who was tortured by the state and incarcerated for years, reflects on this experience of anamnestic solidarity in her autobiographical book The Blindfold’s Eyes: My Story from Torture to Truth: ‘We believe the spirits of our tortured sisters and brothers who have gone before us dwell within us, giving us the strength to hold firm to our convictions of justice for all people and to bear witness to the heinous atrocities committed by oppressive governments’ (Ortiz 2002:191). We see this spirit in the observance of the 30th anniversary of the Bhopal massacre, where communities who dream about life in the midst of the impossibility of life gather strength from the dangerous memories of the slain to create a world devoid of Empire. The story of the murder of the innocent children narrated by Matthew in his infancy narrative enables us to celebrate the dangerous memory of the martyred children even as we confront similar experiences of brutal torture and murder by imperial powers. The Roman Catholic Church observes December 28 as the Feast of the Holy Innocents, and the Collect for the day is an inspiring and challenging prayer: We remember today, O God, the slaughter of the holy innocents of Bethlehem by King Herod. Receive, we pray, into the arms of your mercy all innocent victims; and by your great might frustrate the designs of evil tyrants and establish your rule of justice, love, and peace; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, forever and ever. Amen. (The Lectionary Page n.d.)

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The metaphor of Star It is a strange coincidence that both the Bhopal story and the Matthean narrative begins with the metaphor of star. The Union Carbide announced their entry into the ‘underdeveloped’ nation called India with the promise that the plant would be a star in the Indian sky to lead the country to greater heights in industrial and economic development. Warren Carter in his commentary on Matthew observes that there were stories which associated stars with the birth of significant figures. The magi were: observant enough to notice it, motivated enough to travel some distance to identify the special person to whom the star bears witness, astute enough to know that the star attests a new king, and discerning enough to know that worship is the appropriate response. (Carter 2004:76) Stars hence signify the beginning of a new aeon – a new order where the prevailing order is discarded and alternatives experimented. Bhopal is the living example of subaltern communities and their environment being colonised and destroyed in the name of development and progress. The star that the American Corporation lit on the Indian sky was the inauguration of a new unholy alliance of transnational capital, modern science and technology, national elites, and the post-colonial state. The co-existence of massacre and accumulation is the hallmark of our dominant scientific and technological projects. The nexus between technology and capital motivated by profit led to the Bhopal gas tragedy where the victims were subjected to scientific gaze but yet to be justly healed and compensated. The Indian Council of Medical Research is even reluctant to respect the demand of the victims to have access to the scientific research, conducted by the Council. This is not only an issue of information about the treatment of their poison-ravaged bodies but also their right to have access to scientific research to know the health condition of their children. After three decades, reports of groundwater quality from the State Pollution Control Board reveals that ‘chemicals that can cause damage to brain, lungs, liver, and kidneys and give rise to cancers and birth defects are present in high concentration in the water of the local community hand pumps’ (Sarangi, in The Hindu, April 22, 2008). The star that the Union Carbide lit on the Indian sky marked the beginning of the corporatisation and commodification of the commons and subsistence communities to facilitate corporate plunder. The story of the magi also starts with the appearance of the star in the sky. The magi were equipped as well as committed to recognise and identify non-conventional things happening in their surroundings. That is how they observed a special star in the sky, which

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stood different from the rest of the stars. They discerned the star as a sign of Kairos, which demanded a response from them. So they decided to reflect upon this sign. They got into the world of research to interpret the sign, and finally they came to the conclusion that the star proclaimed the birth of a new king. They decided to venture into a journey to meet this new king and to pay homage to him. But they were in a dilemma to locate and identify this new born king. Finally, they decided to follow the dominant and conventional wisdom. For the time-honoured logic, a king can be born only in Jerusalem in the palace of Herod. So they started their journey to the palace. The story started with the audacity of the magi to believe in the possibility of the birth of a new king when Herod was in power. However, as Matthew narrates, the discernment of alternatives got incorporated into the dominant logic of searching for alternatives in the palaces of the king. Imperial co-option of alternatives is not a recent phenomenon. Co-option of people’s commitment to and search for alternatives rob of the moral agency of the community to envision dreams and to strive for their realisation outside the logic of the prevailing order. The temptation to follow the dominant trajectory of assuming the centre as the locus of alternatives is common in our times. We are all mesmerised by the lure of Empire that we have sold out our souls to the Empire. Even alternatives have become Non-Governmental Organisations (NGO) projects funded by corporate houses! A critical analysis of the discernment of the magi and the trajectories they used in their search for the new born king provides us with theological insights that are relevant for our times. Discernment of mission in the midst of Empire does not start from doctrines or Scriptures or sacraments; rather they begin with our discernment of and engagement with the signs of the times. It is not the sources of faith that should lead us to the context. Rather the signs of the times provide us new hermeneutical tools to engage with the sources of our faith. When we read the Scripture and tradition and celebrate the sacraments, informed by the signs of the times, these sources of faith become catalysts, inspiring us to transform our contexts. The magi started their journey with identifying the star as the sign of the times and interpreting it as the symbol of the birth of a new king. But once they got set for the journey, they ignored the sign, and followed the dominant route and ended up in the palace of King Herod. The encounter with King Herod was a tutorial for the magi on the inherent contradictions of all imperial powers. Herod, the King of the Jews was frightened at the birth of a child who is the symbol of marginality and vulnerability. Realising their mistake, they started their journey again, following the star.

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A journey following the star – the sign of the times, will always lead us to the margin. Margin is the place where people who bear the weight of the world are destined to live. Our journey to the margins offers us a different experience of epiphany. Such journeys provide us visions that unsettle the prevailing order. So, margins are the revelatory sites of exposure and disclosure. The signs of the times take us to the manger from the centres of imperial power. The manger is not a symbol of humility or simplicity which God opted as the location for God’s meek and mild child to be born. ‘Manger’ symbolises rejection, exclusion, and negation. Manger is God’s identification with all who are denied their basic human rights to live a dignified life because of their economic status, caste, race, gender, and sexual orientation. The star stopped at the place where the baby was. Signs of the times always act as a window to the margins inviting us to meet God in the company of the wretched of the earth. They saw the child surrounded with the farm animals and the shepherds – symbols of subalternity, pollution and dirt. We tend to think that our reluctance to follow the signs of the times as the guiding perspectives in our mission engagement is a naive omission or an innocent mistake. That is not true. We are so indoctrinated by the dominant trajectories of mission and theology that even without our knowledge we follow the dominant perspective that is convenient and comfortable to all of us. Since it is status quo, it does not involve any risk. Doing mission around Jerusalem is rewarding because of the proximity to political, economic, and religious power centres. But the story of the magi reminds us about the consequences of our mission at the centres of power. Dominant trajectories of mission have consequences. Such mission begets death and destruction. For the magi, their reluctance to follow the star was just an innocent mistake. But it led to the slaughter of hundreds of innocent children. Discernment of the signs of the times is the starting point of our commitment to become missional communities in the midst of Empire. The signs of the times will midwife the birth of a church in the margins. We live in a context where Empire continues to colonise our minds, our bodies, our seeds, our worldviews, our lands, waters and forests. There are several mission paradigms that offer us prosperity, privilege, and bright futures. They lure us to search for God in the palace. We have lost our ability to see and hear the laments of the Rachel’s in our times. When the community of the wise people followed the signs of the times, they were able to experience God in the manger. That was an experience of metanoia. They became a transformed community and took another road to return to their place. What we see here is the happening of a transformed missional community. Empowered by the epiphany experience of God in the vulnerable child, and inspired by the communities in the margins, the magi decided to come out of the Empire. The different

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route here signifies a route different from the road to Empire. This is the challenge that we need to undertake even as we strive to transform our communities in the midst of Empire. What is the theological significance of the massacre of the innocent children in the Matthean infancy narrative? What is the message of hope that Mary’s child can offer to the mothers of Bethlehem, Auschwitz, Gaza, Ferguson, and Bhopal who refuse to be consoled? How do we celebrate Christmas even as we continue to experience the impossibility of life? Nancy Rockwell explains: The story tells us that our salvation is born in the midst of such times, into the heart of our darkness, in a moment when time is shattered and new time begins. And our salvation is brought to us by a survivor of the worst that can befall, by a child whose light was not extinguished, a child who understands deeply what has happened, a child who remembers, a child who was not killed. (Rockwell 2012) With this new realisation of the Divine, the mothers who refuse to be consoled are engaged in creating a new world where death is overcome by the beauty of life. Devastated by the slaughter, picking up their splintered lives, their broken hearts, their stabbing fears, their traumatized surviving children, they also found among the wreckage the words that promise the Messiah will be born to them, especially to them. They carried this promise, in tears, as they buried their dead children. (Rockwell 2012) We see the same spirit of determination in the mothers of Bhopal, powerfully echoed in the poem, ‘Flames, not Flowers’ by Terry Allan (n.d): ‘But in your quest for profit we refuse to take part. Against all odds, we’ll live our lives with joy and hear We believe in the power of the human spirit We raise our voices together so everyone can hear it We are the women of the world, we are flames, not flowers We will not wilt before your corporate power Hand in hand and heart to heart, side by side we will fight for justice ‘til the day we die.’

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Where is God in Bhopal? Where is God in Bhopal? What is hope for Bhopal? How do the dangerous memories of the slain empower us in our battle against the Empire? We are called to cry aloud in protest, exposing the sinfulness of the Empire. We are invited to groan in labour pain, celebrating the end of the Empire. As Nestor O Miguez puts it: Cry out, mothers of pain and of hope… May your cries of terror resound forever, without ceding to the offers of comfort from those who purchase consciences. Do not listen to the sweet words with which those preachers of undignified reconciliation wish to soften you. May you never cease in your determined lament, that unceremonious demand for life, the endless marches around the town squares; may the demand for justice that rises from the bottom of the centuries and remains to this day never be silenced, so that the Empire may never sleep without feeling, even if it covers its ears, that its massacres have not been forgiven. (Miguez 2014:217) Remembrance of the dangerous memories is a celebration for all who undergo torture and terror because ‘every rebellion against suffering is fed by the subversive power of remembered suffering’ (Metz 1980:110). Metz also says: The meaning of our history does not depend only on the survivors, the successful and those who make it. Meaning is not a category that is only reserved for the conquerors!’ (Metz 1980:114) Rather, the meaning of history lies in the remembrance of the victims whose heads have been crushed by the Empire. Remembrance of their dangerous memories ‘anticipates the future as a future of those who are oppressed, without hope and doomed to fail. It is, therefore, a dangerous and at the same time liberating memory that questions the present,’ (Metz, 1980: 90), and empowers all who are destined to live under regimes of torture and terror to be the midwives of a new utopia of hope in an imperial world. We witness this faith in the words of Rashida Bee, a Bhopal survivor and activist: We are not expendable. We are not flowers offered at the altar of profit and power. We are dancing flames committed to conquering darkness and to challenging those who threaten the planet and the magic and mystery of life. (as cited in Hawken 2007:49)

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References Allan T. n.d. ‘Flames not flowers’. Accessed 24th November 2014, www.bhopal.net/ old_studentsforbhopal_org/Assets/Poetry.doc Carson R. 1962. Silent spring: Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin. Carter W. 2004. Matthew and the margins: A socio-political religious reading. London and New York, NY: T&T Clark International. Harris M. 1996. Proclaim Jubilee: Spirituality of the twenty- first century. Louisville, KY: Westminster/John Knox Press. Hawken P. 2007. Blessed unrest: How the largest movement in the world came into being and why no one saw it coming. New York, NY: Viking Press. Lapierre D & Moro J. 2001. It was five past midnight in Bhopal. Delhi: Full Circle. Metz, JB. 1980. Faith in history and society: Toward a practical fundamental theology. New York, NY: A Crossroad Publishing. Miguez ON. 2014. Herod’s slaughter of children and other atrocities throughout time. In M Roncace & J Weaver (eds), Global perspectives on the Bible. Boston, MA: Pearson. Ortiz D. 2002. The blindfold’s eyes: My journey from torture to truth. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books. Rockwell N. 2012. The innocents. Accessed 25 November 2014, http://www.patheos. com/blogs/biteintheapple/the-innocents/ Sahni V. ‘The Barren Mother’. Accessed 23 November 2014, www.bhopal.net/old_ studentsforbhopal_org/Assets/Poetry.doc Sarangi S. 2008. It is bad science to keep information back. The Hindu, 22 April 22 2008. Taylor ML. 2011. The theological and the political: On the weight of the world. Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press. The Lectionary Page. n.d. Holy Innocents. Accessed 25 November 2014, http://www. lectionarypage.net/YearABC/HolyDays/HolyInno.html

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The fire behind the branding Rev. Philip Vinod Peacock Bible text from Daniel 3

The language of Empire In recent years the language of Empire has gained currency in certain theological circles. The language of Empire offers us the ability to speak of a ‘coming together of economic, cultural, political and military power in our world today.’ The language that enables us to name the gospel of mammon, the liturgy of consumerism and military fetishism that we have become obedient and subservient to. The language of Empire is not a new language, it has deep Biblical roots, Christian Scripture is written in the context of and in response to Empire. The Egyptian Empire, the Assyrian Empire, the Babylonian Empire and the Roman Empire. In each of these instances, we find that Scripture is written, not from the perspective of Empire, but from the perspective of those who are its vassals, those who lie on its peripheries, those who are victimised by Empire. Of all the Empires that the Bible engages with, it is the Babylonian Empire that stands out, for the Bible, it is the Babylonian Empire that typifies Empire and all that is wrong with it. Later in the Epistles and in Revelation we find that it is Rome that is often alluded to as Babylon. The Book of Daniel is one of those books of the Bible that engages with the question of Empire and the Babylonian Empire in particular. It is a book that seriously raises the question of how do we live faithfully in the context of Empire? One of the narratives of the Book of Daniel that has resonated with the community of the faithful through the years is Chapter 3. The story of the three friends who resist and find themselves in the fiery furnace is one that has been told and retold in various contexts. In this Bible study, as we reflect on the situation of textile workers in the Third World, it is also a text which returns to speak to us in several ways. As we unravel the various threads that make up this story we hope to make visible the beast of Empire that lurks behind the global textile industry; a beast that seductively mesmerises us into being uncritical consumers of an unjust industry.

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Nebuchadnezzar and the golden statue: A representation of Empire Our text from Daniel 3 opens with introducing us to a ninety-foot high, nine-foot wide golden statue that was commissioned by Nebuchadnezzar. Significantly the text informs us of the metal the statue is made of before it informs us of its magnificent size. Biblically, golden statues are treated with suspicion and are reminiscent of a challenge to the Torah and of unfaithfulness to God. Within the context of the book of Daniel, the allusion to a golden statue also brings to mind Nebuchadnezzar’s dream, a dream in which his reign was alluded to as being represented by gold. Perhaps the building of the golden statue was Nebuchadnezzar’s announcement of his golden age. It is interesting that we are not informed as to the subject of the statue. While it is likely that it was a representation of Nebuchadnezzar, the text does not clarify this. There is a certain mystery surrounding the statue and this probably increased its mystique. Whatever the statue may have been about, the fact is that it was the representation of Empire. To use modern language, the statue was the logo of brand Babylon, and the task of this brand, as with all other brands was to mask reality through the seduction of an image. In fact, in the logic of branding there need be no inherent connection between the logo and the product or for that matter the product and the brand. The idea of a brand logo is to mask the product itself and replace it with mythology. The effort of brand Babylon and the golden statue logo was precisely to mask the violence of Empire and replace it with the myth of success, triumph and well-being. Canadian author and journalist, Naomi Klein, in her book No Logo, points to how modern companies mythologise and spiritualise their products by effective branding. To drive home her point she quotes Nike’s Phil Knight who says that Nike’s mission is not to sell shoes but to ‘enhance people’s lives through sports and fitness’ (Klein 1999:23). Likewise, she points out that Polaroid does not sell cameras, but social lubricant; IBM business solutions instead of computers (Klein 1999:23). And by extension we can argue that brand Babylon sold success and glory instead of war and domination. The mythologising and spiritualising of the product by branding is a deft way of masking the violence that lies behind the manufacturing process. No longer is the manufacturing process important – this fades into the background as we chase the dream that the product is offering. Women and children toiling in sweatshops are hidden by smart logos that tell us to JUST DO IT and instead of doing it we are seduced by the brand and the logo. Images of the good life, the open air, sports and looking cool subvert the mind-numbing labour, 120

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the hazardous working condition, the endless work hours and the drudgery of labour that is essential to the manufacturing process of the cultural artefacts of modernity. Perhaps we need to look beyond the UNITED COLOURS, through the GOLDEN ARCHES, and across GAP at the children, women and men who are actually producing these products at a terribly exploitative wage. Consider, for example, the collapse of the Savar building in Dhaka, a garment factory, in April 2013 in which around 1 300 people were killed and around 2 500 people were injured. The brands mask the violence of the exploitative and hazardous conditions in which the products are produced. The erection of the golden statue was a public display of potency. Nebuchadnezzar required that all officials of state come to its dedication. Truly this statue lay at the very centre of symbolic power, both national and international, for we are told that all people of all nations and languages were expected to bow to the statue when the orchestra sounded. Brand Babylon had the ability bringing the nations to its knees in awe and admiration, mesmerised by the golden statue. And this is also true of brand magic today; logos are not restricted to any one particular country but share global recognition, offering a sense of belonging and the familiar. I first travelled to Europe in 2000, and as I stepped out of the airport, in a place which was unfamiliar, in which the signs were in a language I could not understand, in which I was the outsider, it was the humungous Coca-Cola sign that offered me a sense of the familiar, an odd sense of home. The ubiquity of global brands offers the illusion of global unity, but nothing could be further from the truth. The fact is that the culture of the global elite is being literally produced in sweatshops in the global South in exploitative conditions. This is not a culture that unites, but one that is deeply divisive. One in which the consumers and producers of cultural artefacts are sharply divided by class and geography. In a really odd way, the culture of the First World is literally produced in the global South in exploitative conditions. While brand rip offs and seconds are omnipresent, strangely furthering brand mythology through cheaper imitation, the REAL THING is produced by the global poor and flaunted by the middle and upper classes across the globe. While brands claim internationality a deeply exploitative division lies at the level of production. Entire economic systems are brought together to serve this global demand with raw material to technology and labour being sourced from the lowest bidder in a system of global procurement. This involves significant energy costs. What is being sold by the brand though is a dream and the price is brand loyalty. To display proudly the rush, the stripes, the arches or what have you is to affirm your loyalty to the brand and become part of a new tribal formation. Identity formations, which are

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lost due to globalisation, are reformulated with brand loyalties. While there is a fair bit of inter-brand rivalry, the real violence is reserved for those who do not or cannot sign up. And the same is true for Nebuchadnezzar’s golden statue. The worst punishment is reserved for those who refuse to bow down to it. Brand disloyalty is counted as sedition and its punishment is death. And the three friends are condemned to the furnace. Reading of the three in the fire cannot but bring to mind the tragedy of the fire in the garment factory in Bangladesh. This fire in a garment factory supplying to some of the biggest brands in the world led to more than a hundred people dying in November 2012. Yet the three friends or those who lost life in the fire in Dhaka were alone. For there was one like the Son of God who was with them. The title Son of God was one often given to a king or an emperor, for he was considered the representative, the image of God in the world. And we should not miss the reference in this text, for the statue was probably also the image of the divine-like emperor. Yet we find that God does not identify with Nebuchadnezzar but instead with the three in the fire. The text is an affirmation that the logo of power and the brand of might is not what God identifies with. It is not Nebuchadnezzar who is identified with God but the three in the furnace. And today we have to rethink branding as well. God does not stand with those who call us to just do it, but with workers struggling for a just wage, with those who are not loving’ it but are trapped in inhuman conditions for the sake of holding their bodies and souls together and for their families. God does not stand with the large corporations or their branding, but God is in the fire, with those who are struggling for life and livelihood. The question is, whose side are you on?

References Klein N. 1999. No logo: Taking aim at the brand bullies. New York, NY: Picador.

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Economic and political justice John Samuel Bible text from Genesis 10, 11; Exodus 1, 5, 6; Joshua 6; Isaiah 11, 19; Daniel 1

Introduction The people of God live within the process of history. The Biblical history of the Old and the New Testaments, and church history testify to this reality. Furthermore, our faith that God created the whole world and all its peoples therein dictates that all are people of God. Some people might dispute this all-inclusive notion of the people of God, but it is our contention that it should be all-inclusive, and any limitation is against the all-encompassing sovereignty of God over the history, universe and the people therein. A certain ecclesiocentrism, prevalent in the established churches, dictates that the people of God mean only Christians. This inclusive concept of the people of God challenges traditional ecclesiology and theology in profound ways. The notion of the political economy is used here to refer to the God’s rule over the political and economic life of the people of God. In the foremost sense, the political economy of God is concretely pitted against the political economy of the Empires. Therefore, it is necessary that theology discerns the political economy of the people of God, a political economy that is inherent in human history on earth and yet at the same time involves God as the partner of the people of God. This means that theology is directly concerned with the political economy of this world, which involves the political economy of God – God’s management of the household of the people of God.

Christian faith and economic theories Christian faith is now being seriously tested with regard to its implications for the economic life of humanity in the context of the present economic orders. Economic life has become an autonomous domain of human life, which religious faith cannot interfere. Economic theories have been ‘secularised’ thoroughly, and they have ruled out the implications of Christian faith an explanation of the economic life of humanity. Christian theology has effectively withdrawn from the realm of economic life and economic science; it has relegated itself to another worldly domain upon which it focuses its interest. 123

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Christian theology has isolated itself from the world, from the area of sciences and theories about the life of this world. But this trend is both unbiblical and anti-Christian, and it has created a crisis for theology, in that our church does not seem to be interested in any serious thinking about the economic life of the people. In the West, the secularisation of economics since the Enlightenment, being separated from all theological and other religious premises, allowed economic theories independence of theological and ethical considerations. This is true of both capitalist and socialist theories even as both economic systems are distinctly ‘atheist’.

The economy of science and technology The manifestation of the secular scientific reason in economics took the form of scientific planning of the economy, that is, the use of science and technology not only in the production, but in the entire area of economic process, the formation of the capital, financing of the production, the supply of the materials, demands, distribution and so on. The giant corporations and the nation states have the capacity to plan and control the process through their scientific and technological capacity. This could be viewed as a massive planning.

Economic power in the contemporary world Economic power in the world today has become an absolute entity, needing no justification for its unlimited and unrestricted power. In fact, all economic theories are used to legitimise the existing power, and its unlimited growth and expansion. The economic powers now dominating the world allow no place for the claim of the Christian faith for justice in determining economic reality. This is not merely a question of the intelligibility of Christian beliefs or the social relevancy raised by Christian teaching on economics; rather, it is a historical denial and rejection of the ‘power’ of our faith to shape the economic life of humanity. In the Christian churches, some moral and ethical influence of the faith on economics is granted as it applies to individuals; and the influence of faith in the corporate life of society is only generally recognised without specific theoretical expressions about the corporate reality. In other words, the autonomy of economics and economic powers has been tacitly and liberally granted. Therefore, the theoretical implications of the Christian faith for economic life has not been taken seriously and work on this issue has been grossly neglected. 124

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The relationship between Christian faith and capitalism The history of Western theological development has been closely related to capitalist development. Max Weber’s thesis has validity as a historical, not causal, explanation for the development of capitalism and its relation to the Protestant ethics of the West. Christian ethics never denied this historical and ethical connection in either historical or ethical terms. Moreover, in many developing countries Christianity even boasts of its connection with Western capitalism as the agent of the modernisation process. Only recently has the question of economic life been taken seriously in relation to the Christian faith. The test of the Christian faith is its relation to the poor in the world, particularly in the Third World. Faith can be restored in the gospel of the poor and oppressed, by going back to the roots of the Biblical faith and articulating it into the present reality in concrete terms of political economy. The history of the Christian socialist movements in the last two centuries has not made sufficient progress in dealing with the question of the relationship between Christian faith and economic life, although these movements have criticised capitalist excesses. The 18th and 19th-century Christian socialists, the theologians of social gospel and the religious socialists of the early 20th century did not elaborate the implications of the Christian faith for political economy in the human community. They carried out their prophetic function, but they failed to ‘incarnate’ the Christian faith into the concrete economic life of the people and to meet the challenges of the capitalist and Marxist economic powers in theory and practice. Christian theology has tacitly condoned capitalism and reacted negatively to the socialist economy without examining its implications and relations with the Christian faith; and more seriously, the Christian faith has grossly neglected the proclamation of the gospel to the poor. The gospel to the poor has been distorted and even repudiated by Christianity, which is in captivity to the capitalist economic powers. For the same reason, the gospel to the poor was impoverished and never creatively shared with people who live under the socialist state economy. Economic growth, conspicuous consumption, waste of resources, worship of mammon, the division between rich and poor, injustice and exploitation, concentration of economic power and domination, ecological destruction and cultural erosion are some of the symptoms of the present economic disorder, which makes the people spiritual victims as well. In this kind of political economy, the Christian faith is seriously challenged to

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witness to the gospel. Ecumenical efforts have made some progress, but there is still a long way to go to meet these challenges.

Marxism and Christian faith Liberation theologians in the Third World have chosen the option of Marxist socialism as a Christian economic option. Social analyses of dependence and class exploitation have played an important role in the formulation of the liberation of theology in the context of the Third World people. Given the historical ties between the capitalist societies and Christian churches and given the absence of the viable Christian economics, it is understandable for concerned Christians to take the Marxist option of some sort in their revolutionary situations. Much work has been done to combine the Marxism and Christian faith in Third World situations. Marxist analyses have contributed much to Biblical hermeneutics as well as Christian praxis in revolutionary Third World situations. Marxism as a critique of the capitalism, Marxist economics as the alternative model of economic development, Marxist social science as tools of social analyses, and Marxism as a philosophy of history and society can be found in the use of Marxism in the liberation theologies. However, one can say that Marxism has played an important role in theological development in recent years. There is much to be learned from the theology of liberation about the theological approach to the political economy of the present age and the political economy of God. Examination of economic life in the light of the Biblical faith has, most often, taken the form of a simple reiteration of certain aspects of the economic teachings that are spelled out in the New Testament, especially certain of the teachings of Jesus that have direct reference to the acquisition, possession, and use of material goods. However, the Bible invites us to see the economy where wealth is mammon. It is the basis for all injustice in the world. It penetrates into political, social, religious, cultural and family life. Hence political and economic justice is the basis of the righteous life. Righteousness includes political and economic justice. Worship without justice becomes a fetish. Stewardship is the responsibility before God and people and to secure the full and whole life of the people. Now let us read a beautiful story, a myth held for many generations as a landmark for economic and political justice. We shall read this story as a test case for how it reflects the political and the economical aspects of the human community. This story talks about God and human political economy.

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The Tower of Babel Genesis 11:1-9

1 Now the whole earth had one language and the same words. 2-3 And as they migrated from the east, they came upon a plain in the land of Shinar and settled there. And they said to one another, ‘Come, let us make bricks, and burn them thoroughly.’ And they had brick for stone, and bitumen for mortar. 4 They said, ‘Come, let us build ourselves a city, and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves; otherwise we shall be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth.’ 5-7 The Lord came down to see the city and the tower, which mortals had built. And the Lord said, ‘Look, they are one people, and they have all one language, and this is only the beginning of what they will do. And nothing that they propose to do will now be impossible for them. Come, let us go down, and confuse their language there, so that they will not understand one another’s speech.’ 8 So the Lord scattered them abroad from there over the face of all the earth, and they left off building the city. 9 Therefore its name was called Babel, because there the Lord confused the language of all the earth; and from there the Lord scattered them abroad over the face of all the earth.

The story This is a very enigmatic story. It has puzzled the readers over the centuries. Its meaning has expanded ever since its early interpretations. It offers its meaning to the readers from the simple faithful readers to the great philosophers. In fact, given the power of the myth, and the beauty of the story, this is the only story ever used from Bible, by Jacques Derrida, in his famous essay, ‘Des tours de Babel’. The greatness of the story lies in its unfathomable meaning/s. Every time we think we have come closer to the kernel of the story, we realise that the meaning remains elusive. A small story such as this is so artfully told, that it puzzles readers of every age. The literary beauty of the story is par excellent, with the pun on words with the three letters, ‘b, l,and n’ (lebanim, nilebana, lebenah, le eben, nibanalanu, nibalah, lebanah, babel, balal). The story begins with ‘all the earth’ and ends with ‘all the earth’ (vv. 1, 9). The phrase ‘upon the face of the whole earth’ recurs three times in verses 4, 8 and 9 (between these two phrases).

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The complexities in the story We have to be mindful about who tells this story and to whom this story is told. Let us picture a shepherd who is not familiar with massive and advanced architectural innovation, and wonders how such a structure as this has been built. Our shepherd as an onlooker may have belonged to a simple small community and whose horizon would not have gone beyond his village and his people. To him, this building, this structure, looks amazing. For example, the monumental structures in the great cities of our times can evoke the same surprise in the eyes of an Adivasi living in a forest or a fisherman living in the interior island. Many stories have the capacity to kindle a sense of surprise in the minds of the readers. And this surprise is not necessarily limited to the reader but may also include the surprise of the storyteller. The building may be seen to represent a great kingdom. This kingdom consists of the king, a complex hierarchy of classes, the organisational skills of the Babylonian bureaucracy, a world kingdom, its administration and communication, the taxes and economy, security and defence, its technology and agriculture. Our poor shepherd is simply amazed – even dumbfounded – when he gazes upon a structure such as this. The narrator speaks about the feelings and thoughts of an unnamed ordinary shepherd in that kingdom, about the people of the kingdom, about the rulers and the ruling class in the kingdom, about the history and economy of his kingdom, the relationship between God and the rulers, God and his kingdom, God and the people, God and the storyteller, and all in this small story. If we want to paraphrase the meta-structures of our world in our times, do we have the eloquence to describe the features of our world through a story as simple as the story of the Tower of Babel? The storyteller is telling a transparent folk story but one with great power and sophistication. Moreover, he is not narrating this story as an unconnected outsider. He is not a neutral figure or actor in this but one with an interest. Either he is a well-wisher of the system or a victim of the system. We will know about this by the way he presents his society in the story. He could have been at the centre of advantage or at the disadvantaged margins of the system. Either of the two is possible. The storyteller observes a novel thing. He discerns that his world has changed suddenly. He describes this change in the words, ‘The whole earth had one language and a few words’. He mentions in the previous pages how this has not been the case before. He says, ‘These are the sons of Japeth, in their lands, each with his own language, by their families in their nations’ (Gen. 10:5). ‘These are the sons of Ham, by their families, their

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languages, their lands, and their nations’ (Gen. 10:20). ‘These are the sons of Shem, by their families, their languages, their lands, and their nations’ (Gen. 10:5). This situation, each with their own families, languages, lands and nations has suddenly disappeared into all one world and one language. At the outset, we are not aware whether he likes this change but like it or not, it is a highly explosive political statement. The story moves further. He says that the men migrated from the east. They found a plain in the land of Shinar and settled there. What has attracted them towards Shinar? Quite simply, Shinar and its plain may be seen as a new world centre. We read that it was Nimrod who, a mighty hunter in the world, (Gen. 10:8-9) established this world centre. The beginning of his kingdom was Babel, Erech, and Accad, all of them in the land of Shinar. (Gen. 10:10). We read also in Daniel 1:1-2 that ‘Nebuchad Nezzar, king of Babylon, came to Jerusalem and besieged it … and he brought them to the land of Shinar, king and gold.’ The importance of Shinar as a centre of ‘civilisation’ is unquestionable. It has a huge population located in one place. Instead of living as family by family, language by language, land by land, nation by nation, what we have is one centre to form one world kingdom, one people and one language. This story is a picture of the rulers of the nations who come to Shinar to participate in this Empire building. There are only two options before the nations. Either they fall in line with the rule of Shinar or they will be subdued by Shinar and made to fall in line. They preach the fundamental lie that this will keep the people together. Otherwise, all will be destroyed without the protection of the ruler of Shinar. Accordingly, Shinar will offer the world prosperity contrasted with poverty if they are autonomous. Shinar will provide administration in the place of anarchy. There is the need for security and a world police and Shinar offers it. The language of Shinar is superior to all the other languages. You need to know this language if you want to become part of this world government. You must speak this language to part take in the economy of this Empire. You must follow this language if you want to be part of this world politics. It makes everyone think that it is not possible to live if they do not know this language. So people in the whole world feel that it is inferior to speak their mother tongues. It is a pride to know this imperial language. Language is more than what we understand as language – it is not just a means of communication. Language is an expression of our very thought processes. There is a language of dressing, a language of art, a language of trade, a language of agriculture 129

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and so on. Language is changing, growing and adapting according to the changes of the world. When science emerged, language became different. When we are the rulers, our language is different from the language of the slaves. When we are powerful our language differs radically from the language of the powerless. However, when the rulers in Shinar proclaimed to have one language in the whole world, they failed to realise that they could not establish one language as long as there are masters and slaves, rulers and ruled, etc. It is only when we live in small communities, as indigenous peoples, although we speak different languages, the irony is, that we speak the same language. For this, we must think together, we work together, we share together, we sing together, we drink together and in that kind of community, truly, there can be one language. Our shepherd hears people in this new Empire say to each other, ‘Come, let us make bricks and burn them thoroughly.’ (They had bricks and bitumen.) (v. 3). ‘Come let us build ourselves a city, a tower with its top in the heavens, let us make a name for ourselves’ (v. 4). Look! See their energy, their enthusiasm, their dynamism! It appears that he is speaking in all admiration for this human energy! According to him, the world has not seen this human power before! The story now takes a sharp turn when God enters into the scene. He is also surprised by the turn of events in history. The narrator says, ‘The Lord came down to see the city and the tower which mortals had built’ (v. 5). Here we see God is coming down to respond to the activities in Shinar. The storyteller wonders if God would approve these changes or will he disapprove? Will he encourage this innovation as good and pronounce his blessings on them? A big silence! Now, the Lord begins to speak. The judgement is offered. Behold, they are one people, and they all have one language, and this is only the beginning of what they will do, nothing that they propose to do, will be impossible for them. Come, let us go down and confuse their language there, so that they will not understand one another’s speech. So the Lord scattered them abroad, from there over the face of all the earth, and they left off building the city. (Gen. 11:6-8) God confuses the language of the people who try to confuse God’s gift of many languages to humanity. God destroys those who destroy God’s plurality of languages. God scatters them who are brought to one centre by force (war and economy) and they go back to their lands and live as free citizens. God threatens those who threaten the people living family 130

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by family, language by language. God destabilises the hierarchy (in the metaphor of the tower) among the men by offering the egalitarian model for living. God favours those who want to spread out against those who want to live in a centre. God shows us what is good for our future. God creates good in the place of evil. God strikes a blow at the heart of centralisation. The thrust of the story is now inverted. The shepherd onlooker does not seem to be an admirer of the city builders or the tower builders. He mentions an intention to make bricks and bitumen because the brick making was the order of the day and it has a strong connotation for slavery. ‘[A]nd made their lives bitter with hard service in mortar and brick and in every kind of field labour. They were ruthless in all the tasks that they imposed on them.’ (Exod. 1:14). ‘No straw is given to your servants, yet they say to us, “Make bricks.”’ (Exod. 5:16). God reverses what the human rulers make. He comes to remove the sting of the imperial scorpions of the Empires. They say to each other, ‘Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower with its top in the heavens.’ (Gen. 11:4). The human beings are transgressing their limits. Humans want to penetrate into what is unknown (into the heaven). Humans interfere with what is not good to interfere. They want to turn their inner fears into threats against others. This is the secret agenda behind the building of every human Empire. All human attention must be made to focus on their place as the centre. They want to concentrate on this huge expansion of power into their hands. Their urbanisation, fusions, rationalisations must remain stable. A small dissent will be seen as a great threat to this mighty structure and it will seek to be nipped in the bud. But their fear is, how long will this be intact? How long will this structure succeed against all its inherent contradictions? The rulers in Shinar say, ‘Let us make a name for ourselves lest we be scattered’. They want to accomplish great fame. In order to achieve great fame, they wanted a name (shem). They put all their energies together to get a great name. God recognises what they want and even allows them to have a name. The name is ‘Babel’. It means ‘confusion’, ‘who cannot understand the other’. What they wanted to create was not what everyone wanted, but what a few privileged wanted. The story begins with ‘all the earth’ when they began to build the tower and the story ends with ‘all the earth’, now scattered to all the earth. In our Biblical thought world, heaven belongs to God and earth belongs to humans. The sons of God transgressed when they tried to enter the earth (Gen. 6:2). God answered their transgressions with a flood. Now human beings transgress by entering into heaven. So God punishes them, however, in a very restrained manner compared to the floods. Earth has been assigned by God to humans and we should know our limits. Humans want 131

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more space than what has been allocated for them. So what they do in this story is to rebel against God. When they want a name they take on heaven. God finds himself confronted with this unexpected rebellious display of power. This is a revolt that threatens to subvert the cosmic order created by God. God sets out to fight this evil. He studies, he examines and he assesses the building and its worth. He attacks the challenge. He destroys the potentialities of the enemies, but also allows them to continue. This story responds to this issue of rebellion as ‘laughter!’ They can try. They can achieve to a certain extent. They have begun to do this and there will be no end to this. Nothing that they propose to do will be impossible for them. They can make nuclear warheads, massive information technology, technological superiority, and so on. But the observation is not yet complete. Unless God allows them! They will never go beyond the limits set by God. God is the ultimate limit. All Empires are under this limit. The story also has to say another poignant truth about the human project of Empires. Empires will begin. They may begin well. But they will never be perfect. Ultimately, they will never stand and will have a miserable end. They will not be a blessing to the people. They will not be beautiful. They will not be good. They want to create power, but they will not be able to create love. We can be human in God’s care but never be safe outside God’s care. To be in God’s image is the nature of our life. To become like God is outside our power. While God is love, why do we wage war against God? If Empires destroy our lives, what forbids, that the dynamics of the Empire be destroyed?

The story of the hungry lion There was a lion in the forest. The lion killed the animals in the forest and ate them. The animals gathered together and discussed how to counter this problem. One animal, a collaborator of the lion, suggested that instead of being scared who will be the prey each day, we will choose an animal and send it to the lion. At least, others will be not have to be scared. So they went and suggested this to the lion. The lion thought for a while and later agreed to the proposal saying, although it spoils my sport of killing, still I will accept whomever you choose. However, this did not take away the fear of the lion from the minds of the animals. So one fox, who was very clever, came to the conclusion (ideology) that unless the lion was killed, there was no permanent solution to the entire animals. So the fox suggested a secret idea to the animals. The animals stopped sending the daily animal to the lion. The lion became very angry since they broke the terms of the agreement. When the lion summoned them and asked why they had not sent an animal for some days, they answered, ‘Oh there is another lion in the river.’ While we bring an animal to you every day, on the way it catches the animal and eats it. The lion became very angry. When the animals took the lion to the river and showed it the waters, the lion saw its image in the

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river. It assumed that there was a lion inside, jumped into the river to kill that lion and it became drowned in the water. Thereafter all the animals of the forest were happy.

The Empires can be destroyed and perhaps we must discover the ‘image’ for the Empires to destroy the Empires. Only when the Empires are destroyed, every root and nerve of the Empires are eliminated, all human beings can live happily. We can love each other and serve God with dignity.

Visions for alternative 1.

Not to kill the lions but to tame the lions? The vision of the lion and the lambs in Isaiah 11:6-9.

2.

The Empires must repent? As described in Isaiah 19:19-25.

3.

Can we use the devices of the Empires even to destroy the Empires? Joshua 6:1819, 7:1.

Thomas Merton on the Tower of Babel Thomas Merton tells us that the Tower of Babel counters the true nature of humanity – to be the image of God, selfless love. The desire to create such a tower is a sign that conformism drives out conscience and destroys individuality. Such has been the history of humanity and the roots of war. In his poem entitled, ‘The Tower of Babel’, Merton writes: History is a dialogue between forward and backward going inevitably forward by the misuse of words. (Merton 1980:21)

Merton had begun work on a libretto for a five-act oratorio called, ‘The Tower of Babel’ as early as 1954, which illustrates Merton’s devotion to the myth and symbol of the Tower.

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A poem The Tower Of Babel By Jacinta Ramayah clicks, rolls, twists of tongues sounds echo deep from the lungs, strokes, lines whorls curly ends are messages used by early man. Guttural tones and stiletto barks soft and hushed or loud remarks, raised in anger, trembling in fear or declaration of a love sincere. Watch the play of various stances of vivid hand and body gestures, they complement the sweet voices and tones of various languages. The tower was built by man’s pride God swooped down and cast it aside, prose and poetry divided everywhere a gift for people to learn and share. (Ramayah 2010)

The Coffers Dams: A novel by Kamala Markandaya The novel, The Coffers Dams presents the issues of marginality, East-West encounters, class consciousness and cultural paradigms (Markandaya 1969). This novel is set in the rural area known as Malinad, surrounded by forest areas and dominated by the tribals. The theme relates to the situation in developed countries, which once formed part of the Empire, and the building of the dam, a modern day ‘Tower of Babel’. The people of the Maidens and Malinads watch with awe the birth of a town in a jungle. The building activities and projects disturb the peaceful living of the people, who live in this area on both sides of the river. Before the work of the dam construction begins at the site, the Tribals are ordered to shift to some other place. The chief engineer, Clinton, is blind to the plight of the Tribals. He ignores their needs and rules out that they are primitive people. However, his wife Helen is very sensitive to the concerns of the Tribal people whose natural way of life attracts her. Their forced rehabilitation in a different place reflects the attitude adopted by the powerful people towards the powerless.

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The Tribal chief, an old man, is supportive of the old system of their dependence on the forest for livelihood. The old chief apprehends that the consequences of the hunger for money found in young people will come upon them sooner or later. The old man’s sense of contentment and humility leads Helen to conclude that the Tribals are closer to truth and divinity than many. This is a beautiful story that deals with the conclusion that modernity in the name of building a dam lacks wisdom. Alternatively, the permittivity to protect nature and the forest is true wisdom. The story beautifully portrays the tension between modernity and traditionalism as it reflects the cultural, religious and political undercurrents behind the building of a huge dam, the modern ‘Tower of Babel’.

A prayer We want to make empire. Empire follows empire. In the process of making empires, we only destroy our humanity and nature. The destruction of humanity by the empires have been very costly. Your word warns us not to give in to these empire buildings. We are disobedient. You call us to repentance. You say to us that it is not too late. Your prophetic spirit looms over us to repent. Help us to listen to your word. Let us begin to change our course of history. We pray in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Questions for further reflection 1.

This is only the beginning of what they will do. Anything that they propose to do will now be impossible for them (Gen. 11:6). What is described here? The appetite of the Empires!

2.

Otherwise, we shall be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth (Gen. 11:4). This is the expression of the fears of the Empires. What is the fear of them being scattered? (without one language, one currency, one power centre, one culture, one appearance (dress, dance, food, games, holidays, laws etc.).

3.

Why a big name (names)? Against whom? What happens to many names? Is there a distortion to the naming began by God in the creation? What is the difference from ‘I will make your name great’ in Genesis 12:1-3?

4.

The beginning of the story ‘the whole earth’ and the end of the story as ‘the whole earth’. The whole earth created by God vs. the whole earth created by the Empires – how do these ideas clash?

5.

How to create love in our universe instead of creating power and power structures?

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References Markanday K. The coffers dams. New York, NY: John Day. Merton T. 1980. The collected poems of Thomas Merton. New York, NY: New Dimension Publishing. Ramayah J. 2010. ‘The Tower of Babel’. Accessed 14 July 2016, http://www.voicesnet. com/displayonepoem.aspx?poemid=165521

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Preaching Jubilee in the post-industrial city James W. Perkinson Bible text from Genesis 31, 41, 47; Exodus 1, 2, 16, 23; Leviticus 25; Deuteronomy 15, 16; 1 Kings 21; Isaiah 5; Ezek. 37; Amos 4, 8; Matthew 6, 10, 11, 18, 20, 21, 24, 25; Mark 1-4, 6-8, 10-13, 17, 26; Luke 3, 4, 6, 7, 10-12, 15-19, 21; John 2, 10, 12, 15, 16; Acts 2, 4, 5; Rom. 10; 1 Thess. 5; 2 Pet. 3; Revelation 3, 16

And the people said, ‘What then should we do?’ And John said, ‘Let the one who has two coats give one to the one who has none; and the one who has food, do likewise’. (Luke 3:11) American author and human rights activist Grace Lee Boggs is quoted as saying: ‘The food riots erupting around the world challenge us to rethink our whole approach to food’ not as communities, not as bodies politic. She continues: Today’s hunger crisis is rooted in the industrialized food system which destroys local food production and forces nations like Kenya, which only twenty-five years ago was food self-sufficient, to import 80% of its food because its productive land is being used by global corporations to grow flowers and luxury goods for export. The same thing happened to Detroit, she says, which was once before a food self-sufficient community. (as cited in Dowie 2009) I want to begin this Bible study with a brief invocation of a third voice speaking about food and justice back in the 1st century: The Spirit of the Lord is upon me Because he has anointed me to bring good news to the rich Release to the executives Recovery of sight to the speculators and drone operators To let the fat cat landlords and financiers go free And to proclaim the year of the Lord’s status quo. (Adapted from Luke 4:18-19) So said Jesus! … Or at least that is how the gospel is all too often ‘heard,’ where I come from. Just the opposite of what he actually said! In Luke 4, Good News is actually brought to the poor, release to the captives, recovery of sight to the blind, freedom to the oppressed, and the Lord’s acceptable year proclaimed. 137

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Indeed, in the Biblical tradition, Good News is never associated with anyone except the poor. It is Good News ultimately for the rich as well – but only if they let the gospel message liberate their asset portfolio for re-circulation among those from whom it was originally ‘stolen’ in the first place, and let it impel them to join with the marginalised in new forms of community. Such will be the focus in what follows. But in particular, we will fix our focus on the last line lifted up by Jesus in Luke 4:19: his proclamation of ‘the acceptable year of the Lord.’ With this assertion, Jesus breaks off his quotation of Isaiah 61, hands the book back to the attendant, and says, ‘Today this Scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.’ Which is to say he is insisting: ‘I mean now, today!’ The ‘acceptable year’ is actually a reference to the Jubilee year – and through its invocation, to the entire tradition of ‘release’ that Sabbath and Jubilee together articulate as a continuum. Jesus is proclaiming a Jubilee release of debts and land and labour such as Leviticus 25 and Deuteronomy 15 demanded, on the spot! Such is the subject matter this Bible study will explore. And it has everything to do with food. But first, some context. I write from a ghetto neighbourhood of Detroit, Michigan, epicentre of the industrial revolution, where a whole city now dwells in the midst of a manufactured apocalypse called ‘bankruptcy,’ imposed by a conservative state governor and his emergency manager appointee, entirely eliminating democratic process. Backed by Koch Brothers and Wall Street hedge-fund players, they are implementing a ‘structural adjustment’ form of plundering, come home from the so-called Third World to the First World doorstep. In Detroit’s case, this new form of pirating assets out of the city and into the private coffers of finance companies is the culmination of 60 years of corporate ‘slash and burn’ policies (including literally burning black home buyers out of their houses). This has resulted in a history of white flight to the suburbs, union busting, relocation of manufacturing away from labour and black power organising, takeover of news outlets by neoliberal interests, and now a reverse move of gentrification of the downtown by entrepreneurial ‘raiders’ hell-bent on privatising the city’s public services and infrastructure and reinventing the core city in the image of the white middle class. It is this context – and its globalised correlates of a collapsing international economy and a burning planetary ecology – that provokes the reading of Luke’s text offered here (which is itself a ‘post-apocalyptic’ re-telling of the story of a marked man and the movement he led inside the imperial plundering operated by Rome in Palestine). Among other forms of decimation forced on Motown over these years is the creation of a ‘food desert’ of some 139 square miles where the urban population has been reduced to eating out of the offerings of gas stations and Seven Eleven stores. Until just two years

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ago, there were no major grocery stores inside the city boundaries. Epidemic levels of obesity and diabetes are among the results inside the largest black metropolis in the land, where the poverty rate is above 40 percent, the unofficial unemployment rate at close to 50 percent, and crime, lamentably, a necessary survival skill for many households. And in this morbid outline, Detroit stands as a harbinger of the future. It is a sign of the times to come, if corporate priorities, backed by militarised force, continue to be allowed to re-organise the entire globe into a two-tiered world of ruthless ‘haves’ guarding their stockpiles of stolen goods against the vast hordes of increasing desperate ‘have-nots.’ But Detroit is not only a cipher of bleakness. It is equally a sign of hope. The desperation has pushed many inhabitants to size up the situation without nostalgia, realise that the way of Big Government backed by Big Guns and Big Corporations is a dead end for poor majorities, and begin figuring out how to invent a future based on seizing initiative in local neighbourhoods, reinventing the city from the ground up, beginning with food. On the west side of Detroit, for instance, former Black Panther leader Malik Yakini, owner of the Black Star Community Book Store and founder of the Detroit Black Community Food Security Network, regularly remediates vacated industrial and residential sites, by removing house foundations and toxic debris, spreading compost, turning it in, sowing the seed of plants that continue the detoxification process, and multiple varieties of crops to feed neighbourhood residents. He runs the largest urban farm in the city as a community enterprise employing community people, unapologetically prioritising its produce for poor black neighbourhoods, but willing to work with anyone of any colour to promote a just food policy in the city and push towards ‘food sovereignty’ and self-sufficiency for the entire urban scene. On the east side, Grace Lee Boggs, ninety-nine-year-old Chinese-American widow of renowned civil rights activist James Boggs, continues their legacy of activism, by hosting young organisers in her inner city home, training them to re-make the city at a local level based on neighbourhood food production and a recovery of neighbourhood communities caring for their members with the means at hand. Boggs is one of the visionary animators of Detroit Summer and Detroit City of Hope. These projects are already well-established in galvanising a cadre of young urban entrepreneurs. Living in the city, rocking to hip-hop beats they innovate, using internet savvy and digital creativity to revitalise neighbourhoods through community gardening, alternative media communication, time-banking and skill bartering that is far in advance of anything coming out of city hall. It is these kinds of efforts already coursing their way through this city’s streets – like the ‘Fierce Breath’ prophet Ezekiel once summoned in a valley of dry bones, resurrecting an 139

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army, awaiting marching orders (Ezek. 37:1-14) – that animates this reading of Luke. Some of these efforts are faith-based and church-initiated, but most are being led by innovators who are not willing to wait for a foot-dragging ecclesia to get outside its walls and engage the groundswell of new energy bursting the banks of older visions and moribund politics. Indeed, in Jesus’ own time, we are told by the very first gospel writer, Mark, that the movement led by the spirit-baptised Messiah of the Ages, did not begin with him (Mark 1:1-8). It began with John, baptising in water and organising the peasant mob of Palestine into a new sign of things to come. John preached as an ‘axe’ cutting the roots of the tree of genealogy in favour of how one actually lived (Luke 3:9-14). It was not enough merely to invoke the right spiritual name (in his day, ‘Abraham,’ even as in our day, ‘Jesus’). The masses, cut to the quick, went under the waters and came up wet and shouting, asking, ‘What then must we do?’ And John said, ‘Let the one who has two coats share with the one who has none, and likewise with those who have food.’ Jesus begins his own mobilising efforts with this social activism already in progress, led by John. He first goes under John’s hands into the Jordan’s waters and immerses himself in John’s movement. He takes his own direction from what was already breaking out in his own social order: kingdom-creativity as wild and wantonly proliferating as mustard seed, showing up on every side like some impetuous ‘invasive’! (Mark 4:30-32). He sees the kingdom as an incorrigible ‘weed’ (which is precisely what the mustard plant is for a garden-growing society), showing up everywhere and not answering to rules or rows of order! Throughout his ministry, when Jesus wants to direct his inner circle to a concrete example of what ‘following’ implies, he points their eyes not to himself, or to a model like the Beloved Disciple, but to actions already being offered by marginal folk, conjuring their own desperation into exertions of remarkable signs of the reign of God, not waiting for official pastoral sanction! The exemplar of mercy is a Samaritan, caring for a mugged victim by the side of the road – as an archetype of Jewish faithfulness! (Luke 10:25-37). (Tantamount, in my USA context, to lifting up someone like Malcolm X as exemplar for the Christian church!) The portent of hospitality is a prostitute, brazenly ‘balming’ Jesus’ tired feet with tears of bold embrace and gratitude! (Luke 7:36-50). The representative of reparations, when exploitation has faced its own ‘illity’11 (or destructiveness) and come down from the tree repentant and honest, is Zacchaeus, returning his unjust collecting 11 A hip-hop term used to signify behaviour that is devastatingly evil but then also taken up to designate something so radically outside conventional ways of acting that it is radically positive and good; it flips over into its opposite.

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four-fold, while giving half his assets to the poor! (Luke 19:1-10). And food for hungry mouths – after a hard day of receiving new teaching and strenuous healing out in the wilds of Galilee – will be summoned from the pockets of the peasant folk themselves, invited to ‘jubilee’ whatever little resources they have (Mark 6:30-44; 8:1-10). Again and again, we see Jesus going AWOL from the official channels of approved grace and pointing out renegade offerings of spirit-blessings, on the part of those who don’t sit in the pews, but who respond to apocalyptic anguish and imperial decimation with their own good news gifts for the oppressed. The church has much to learn from – as well as give to – those who dwell in darkness and begin creating their own light because the spirit is already at work in their bones long before the King James English and Biblethumping witnesses come lately to the scene. And indeed, the fierceness of my reading here is provoked by the Zacchaeus’s and Samaritans of my own repeatedly mugged city of Detroit, lying now, by the side of the globalising, Wall-street-worshipping road of our new millennium. In Motown, there is breath stirring in all kinds of bones and there are plenty of bodies already refusing their corporately-assigned place as supine. But make no mistake; we are living in the midst of an ‘apocalypse’. Biblically, the word denotes a time of endings and upheaval, a time of rupture. ‘Systems’ collapse. Livelihoods disappear. War grows incessant and catastrophic. Nature itself is breaking down. Society is breaking up. Terror haunts every midnight. Chaos grows. Every upstart charlatan – religious and otherwise – trumpets easy remedies. The headlines blare fear. People run – here, there, everywhere, seeking refuge in stupid hopes, in addictive fantasy, in fatuous opportunity, in rabid militancy’s of revenge and scapegoating, based on stereotype, based on genealogy, based on skin! And in response, the Jesus of the gospels, counselling his closest followers in the politics of calamity, says sharply, simply, enigmatically, ‘Watch!’ in the quintessential apocalyptic text of Luke 21 (Luke 21:36; cf also Mark 13:32-37). It is all going down the tubes – Watch! It is dissolving – Watch! It is exploding – Watch! And I wish he would have been more helpful, more programmatic, more hopeful. But he says in the hour of darkness, the coming is like a thief (Matt. 24:43; Luke 12:3940; I Thess. 5:2, 4; 2 Pet. 3:10; Rev. 3:3; 16:15). We will learn more from the economy of criminality, at the hour of catastrophe, than from all our vaunted theologies, our florid epiphanies, our civilities. The messiah is a B & E artist,12 when the political order is Empire and the hour is collapse. Our eye must be trained like a lock-pick. Our school must be the streets of those whose desperation has already ‘hipped’ them to survival at any cost. Though turning to the wrong solution, their vision is often clairvoyant and in 12 In urban talk, a break-and-enter artist.

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motion. A couple of years ago, when interviewed about the use of the US War on Drugs policy disproportionately to incarcerate young black males (white drug use is actually just as prevalent), renowned African American culture critic Cornel West threw down a brazen challenge. He offered that in today’s reality, he would rather ‘harbour’ himself in a crack house than in the (US) White House. The desperate community of those forced by their addictions into criminality is closer to the truth of our society than the world of media hype and $1 000-a-plate dinners. Because at least there, folk are face to face with the reality of breakdown without being able to feign its devastation! Better that, says West, even though the addicts choose poor remedies than the escape-soliloquies and ‘ain’t-it-awful’ pieties offered from the bailout boys in suits and limos. And Jesus would agree. Detroit as a city is closer to West’s drug den or the state penitentiary than the Washington centre of things powerful. We have already faced apocalypse and its hungry maw of desperation. And inside Detroit’s now 60-year decimation, a Divine thief has already begun a break-in. Detroit is now a Zen sign of the whole country – what everyone else is running from, terrified of, covering over, in the name of a Hail-Mary handoff to the banking mavens and their insurance buddies and military cronies. The coming future of de-industrial cataclysm! Jobs gone, stores closed, government hijacked by fat pockets, healthcare itself a killer, food a product of gas stations and Monsanto petri-dishes, police on the prowl with quotas and trigger-fingers, prisons burgeoning. Welcome to the terror dome! But inside the roaming desolation, a Thief of another kind is seeding the loam. And this is the Jesus that shows up in the synagogue in Nazareth in the Luke 4 quotation we began with. For Luke, most emblematically – a Jesus of Jubilee! This is the significance of Luke having Jesus break off his quotation from Isaiah 61 in mid-sentence (‘to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord’). Luke means to ‘billboard’ the Jesus of his gospel as a living, walking emblem of Jubilee release! This is precisely the axe he grinds with the elites of his day: again and again, his polemic words and prophetic actions throw down a pointed challenge about the meaning of a Jubilee restoration of land, labour, debt and community. It is ultimately for this challenge that he will end up in the dock and on the cross. But before we unpack how this is so, we need to catch sight of the overall outline of his career and of the movement he led. Jesus is a movement man! He ends up in the electric chair of his day because he galvanises a people’s upheaval. He embodies a tradition of a God of slave revolt (Exod. 2-6), of prophetic censure of wealth and power (Amos 4:1-3, 21-24, 8:4-6; etc.) of peasant resistance to land-grabs (I Kings 21:1-24; Isa. 5:7-9; Mark 10:19-22, 29; Luke 18:1-5; etc.) and debt-slavery (Luke 4:19,

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11:4, etc.) in his own time. And he refuses to mince words or shun the street. This is a Jesus who signals from the beginning of his ministry that he is a consort of prostitutes (Matt. 21:31; Luke 7:36-50) and tax collectors (Matt. 11:19; Mark 2:15-17; Luke 15:1), champion of lepers (Mark 1:40-45; Luke 17:11-19) and day labourers (Matt. 20:1-15), intimate with the struggles of peasant farmers (Mark 4:1-20, 26-29; Luke 16:1-9) and foreclosed widows (Mark 12:38-44; Luke 18:1-5), and himself taught by uppity poor women bathing him in tears at parties (Luke 7:36-50) and ‘playing the dozens’13 on his own words, such as happened with the Syro-Phoenician mother of a demon-possessed daughter up in the region of Tyre and Sidon, when Jesus was underground, on run from the authorities, who were plotting on his life (Mark 7:24-30). For Luke, this Jesus is pre-eminently a preacher of liberation for captives, of deliverance from oppression, indeed, of returned land and freed labour in the tradition of Jubilee –now ‘democratised’ to be practised by all of his followers, not just himself, and not just every 49 years, but every 49 seconds! (Matt. 18:21-22; Luke 17:4) Seventy times seven in his words is not the articulation of a limit of 490 – beyond which oppression is a legitimate strategy! It is hyperbole announcing Jubilee as norm and reality for everyday relations, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year, in perpetuity. Jesus initiates a community in his day that lives Jubilee reciprocity – the spirit falls and the goods are shared (Acts 2:38, 41, 43-47, 4:32-36), the lands cleared of private use and freed for circulation (Mark 10:29-31; Acts 5:1-11), the debts released (Matt. 6:12, 18:2335; Luke 11:1-4). His vision is economically concrete and socially radical. Discipleship is a taking up of one’s own likely-to-be criminal status, a lifeway lived against the political order of the day, speaking truth to power and letting the chips fall (Matt. 10:16-25; Mark 10:30; Luke 11:4; 13:11; John 15:18; 16:3)! Every one of his inner circle ended as he did! His culture is the street-idiom of the outback in the hoodoo14 bush-arbors15 of Palestinian rural areas, and the hard core ‘hoods’16 of riffraff and robbers in towns, and the banditofriendly anti-imperial barrios, constantly on the edge of revolt in Galilee! He does not often thump the Bible, but more often answers question with question (Mark 11:27-33; Luke 10:25-37). He regularly offers up folk proverbs (Mark 2:17, 7:27; Luke 4:23) or throws down agricultural parables (Matt. 20:1-15; Mark 4:1-9, 26-29, 30-32) in the place 13 The ‘dozens’ is a reference to African American street talk or signifying practices, where one is able to take insults and flip them back on the one intending the insult with so much sharp irony and so many nuances and layers of meaning that the protagonist can’t really effectively come back. Many oppressed peoples (and women) have to develop such a skill with language to preserve psychic dignity in the face of onslaught, thus speaking back, but doing so in a cloaked fashion so they don’t get beaten or killed. 14 A reference to black vernacular folk culture in the deep South of the USA during the regime of slavery. 15 Places in the woods that slaves frequented to escape surveillance by masters and heal or plot revolt. 16 Inner city street lingo for neighborhood.

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where we might expect him to quote Scripture. He speaks the idiom of ‘the street.’ Today he would likely spit diss rap.17 No surprise then that Jesus’ public repartee was full of strident irony, constantly working over the imagery of thievery, naming the temple itself as the real ‘den of robbers’ (‘gangsta paradise’) of his society – not the bandit caves around the Galilean Sea full of displaced poor folk (Mark 11:15-19; John 10:1, 8). Likewise, no surprise that his primary ‘send up’ is of the chief priests and their flunkies presiding over the temple and its satellite synagogues all over the country as the real predators of his people (Mark 12:12, 38-40; John 10:1, 8). He would have sounded exactly like the Tupac Shakur of his own time (absent Tupac’s confusion and drugs), not the nice, sugar-coated Doormat-Persona preached in most of our Empire-extolling sanctuaries of today. He was a man living under a death warrant his entire public career (Mark 3:6; Luke 4:29), carefully choosing his day to march into Jerusalem at the head of a non-violent street demonstration with the same kind of foreboding of what was to come as would haunt a Martin Luther King heading back to Memphis to join a garbage workers strike in 1968 (Mark 8:27-33; John 12:27). Jesus would risk everything in that action. On the following morning he would take over the central shrine of his society – at once both bully pulpit of the country and ‘national bank’ growing ever fatter on the foreclosures of peasant properties – and shut it down for a day, while naming its practice ‘abomination’ (Mark 11:15-19; John 2:13-25). The temple was where all records of indebtedness were kept. And Jesus’ sit-down strike and teach-in was the ‘Occupy Wall Street’ mobilisation of his day. It is no mystery at all that he was scheduled for execution. But having bombastically underscored such a vision of a Jubilee-insistent Messiah, it is necessary to wax more didactic for a moment (beholden especially to Biblical exegetes such as Ched Myers, William Herzog and Jim Corbett). Jubilee Biblically is actually a multi-partite reality, a veritable ‘school-house of the 7s,’ rooted deep in the Hebrew past, interlinking that every 49-year release with smaller Sabbath versions every 7 years, 7 months, 7 weeks, and every 7 days. It builds on the primordial text of the tradition – the Exodus deliverance of groaning slaves from Egyptian exploitation. Once led out of the brick-oven of oppression by OG18 Moses, daring to return to the land of his thuggish execution of an Egyptian overseer, the Hebrew ex-slaves wander the Sinai wastes, free 17 Spittin’ is a hip-hop term for verbal dexterity and rhythmic fluidity in lyrical poetic commentary. Diss rap is the form dozens playing takes in hip-hop culture, developing a facility with sharp come-backs to verbal assault (such as we see Jesus regularly exhibit when accosted by the authorities). 18 Again, a hip-hop reference, OG standing for original gangster, someone who has killed others for the sake of survival.

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in body and bound in spirit. They are given their watchword of living only in Moses’ mountain ascension when the covenant demands of the liberation-loving God are laid out in ten broad strokes for their vocation as an Exodus people. But even before that revelatory moment of clarity at the base of the mountain, they are given one command of primal import while still on the way: when it comes to food, gather enough for one day only, and every six days, for two! And not an iota more! (Exod. 16:1-36). In effect, a stunning command: ‘Thou shalt not hoard!’ Directly counter to the object of their coerced labour in Egypt, where their entire enslavement was directed to building storage cities for grain, leveraging Pharaoh’s ‘food as weapon’ policy to ensure his domestic and foreign hegemony (Gen 41:1-49, 47:13-26; Ex 1:11). ‘No!’ says Yahweh, ‘this is the deepest object lesson of the entire tradition: if you cannot grasp the schooling of this wilderness teaching, nothing else will matter. Trust the big economy of nature! Refuse the oppressive economy of accumulated resources and wealth! Embrace Sabbath release of land, labour, and liens as the centrepiece of all else I have to teach!’ (Exod. 31:12-17). This is a requisite economic ethic that says the real problem about resources is having too many! In Yahweh’s community of enough, it is a constant temptation to seek too much! Virtually unthinkable in our day of imagining ever-growing prosperity and a garage full of piled up stuff as the very sign of divine favour! As the Messiah himself will later say, Sabbath was made for us, to school us, shape us, teach us, re-make us in the divine image, not us to use Sabbath to turn a profit and control a populace (Mark 2:27-28). In Luke 11, when the disciples come, in the midst of their training, and ask Rabbi Jesus for the quintessence of his teaching, formalised as prayer, he will say curtly, sharply, uncompromisingly: ‘Give us this day our daily bread, and release our sins, as we release those who are indebted to us.’ Note the translation: ‘forgiveness’ in Greek is best rendered ‘release’ in English – an unmistakable Jubilee/Sabbath invocation, calling that memory front and centre everywhere it is used! Note the trade-off: spiritual sin erased by economic write-off. And note the provision: bread for the day, not for retirement! And all of this – as the core, the heart, of the teaching! The memory of manna! The practice of sharing and reciprocity! The primacy of Sabbath/Jubilee is not simply an injunction to cease from labour, like a divinely-inspired sit-down strike, but to circulate assets freely as if YHWH really will provide for the future! The early church in Acts, as indeed, Jesus’ own community of disciples, will live out this earliest and most central vision of the entire tradition. When the earliest followers ‘leave’ their nets to follow Jesus (and actually not just nets, but lands and families as Mark 10:2830 indicates), the word in Greek is actually the same word, release! They ‘jubilee’ the tools

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of their trade (!) as the pre-condition for their new disposition as disciples. Sabbath is conditioning for the following. Economic reciprocity is the concrete implication of taking up the mission – in fact, is its pre-requisite! How far we have strayed and with what disastrous results! It is thinkable in our day – nay, not just thinkable, but a veritable article of faith (for us in the US and everyone else who emulates us) – that bombing the rest of the world’s populations for the sake of securing the world’s resources to be stored inside gated borders and gated communities for use in upper- and middle-class lifestyles of profligate consumption and obscene garbage creation is trumpeted as the very epitome of Christian duty! We have entirely inverted the tradition, baptised Jesus in capitalist collusion, made the gospel itself a radical instrument of exploitation! And then we are astonished when it begins, in our day, to fission and collapse around our heads! But back to the mission. What is first drum-rolled into the ears of the ex-slaves wandering Sinai’s sands, is elaborated in the subsequent tradition. Exodus 23, Leviticus 25 and Deuteronomy 15 play out the consequences of such a vision of economic sharing and provision. The every 7-days Sabbath discipline of not hoarding is given larger purchase in the every-7-year practice of releasing land, labour and production-animals, followed by the grand-momma of releases in the 7-times-7 liberation going by the name of ‘Jubilee.’ And Deuteronomy is uncompromisingly clear: these release-disciplines are not their own reward, but are for the sake of creating and continuing a people among whom ‘there are no poor.’ Which also means a people among whom there are to be no wealthy! ‘Wealth’ for Deuteronomy, as indeed for Jesus as so many of his parables make crushingly clear, is a sign of abomination, not blessing! (Deut. 16:19-31 or Matt. 25:31-46). As Luke and Matthew will ruthlessly represent: Jesus curses the wealth of his day as inevitably putting poor people in early graves (Mark 10:17-30, 12:40; Luke 6:24). It only ever exists in history as a function of oppression and coercion, of forced labour and slave conditions! It has never come into being innocently. And it is forever dissembling the true situation of its creation. The Deuteronomy text warns explicitly of the creeping calculation that would circumvent Jubilee restoration and perpetuate the accumulation: ‘Beware thinking the year of release is approaching and thus tightening credit to side-step the requirement’ (Deut. 15). Any such mental machination is an abomination. And all of those concrete economic disciplines are reinforced ritually. Every spring, the end-of-the-7th-week-after-Passover-celebration of Pentecost takes place, commemorating the covenant given on Sinai 49 days after the commemoration of the liberation from Egypt. But in this calculus of 7 weeks (of 7 days) focused on Passover and Pentecost, the numbers once again shadow the practice with Jubilee/Sabbath memory. And every time

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the 7th month of the calendar arrives, Succoth comes around, the Feast of Tabernacles, once again enjoining house-dwelling Israelites to go out into the fields and live for 7 days under flimsy ramadas, like the lowliest day-labourer at harvest time. There they are exposed to sun and wind and stars and sky – inculcating a kind of multi-sensory ‘bodymemory’ of that initiatory time in the Sinai wilderness. And that was where Israel had to learn ‘on the ground’ what it meant to be the people of God, trusting YHWH to provide food through what renowned Christian farmer Wendall Berry calls the Big Economy of nature. The ‘manna’ they lived on as staple was actually most likely aphid defecation, collecting as a kind of sap on certain Sinai shrubs, that Arab Bedouin today regularly gather under the name of man – a kind of honeydew that is nutritious and sustaining in a harsh environment. It also may well have been what John the Baptist lived on in the desert east of the Jordan, named in the gospels as ‘wild honey’ (Mark 1:6). And thus the lattice-work of memory could hardly be more encompassing! Every 7 days, the Sabbath. The 7th week after Passover every year, marking Pentecost. The 7th month of the calendar bringing in the Feast of Booths. The 7th year, the release of debts and labour and land. The 7-times-7 ‘Jubilee’ celebration, working at the level of generations. A ‘school-house of release’ that will form the very core of Jesus’ teaching and the axis of his conflict with the authorities! ‘Is it right to do good or evil on the Sabbath – to kill or heal?’ (Mark 3:1-6). The gospel in a nutshell! Beware the accumulation of wealth. Be committed instead to ‘release’ and the sharing of your resources, time, labour, needs, gifts, families! And above all, food. But of course, we are left in consternation by all such admonitions. The Biblical tradition cannot be serious about proscribing wealth acquisition! Jesus didn’t really mean to curse riches per se; just the attachment thereto! And we miss the real deal. The danger is not simply or primarily an inner character flaw called ‘greed’ on the part of the affluent, but rather the ‘social flaw’ of creating a society that regularly puts poor people six feet under, because they can’t get enough to eat, because they have no land to grow their food, because their bodies are malnourished, and their hands ill-equipped, and their time spent paying off interest on debt, and their psyches exhausted from being demonised for their own forced impoverishment. The problem with wealth is the poverty it creates for others. But of course, wealth itself labels the non-affluent as malcontents, guilty of indolence and sloth. It is an old game of deflecting accurate understanding of the mechanisms that leverage wealth accumulation by directing attention away from the coercion to the supposed character flaws of those who are perishing.

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It is not to be so among those who profess the name, says the Captain of the ultimate game! Jubilee release and Sabbath provision are the watchword of the tradition, period! And shamefully, it is often enough the case that those chanting the evangelical heart-profession of the Romans 10:9 assertion – ’unless you confess with your lips …’ – have to be taught by those unknowingly living the ‘doing-it-to-the-least of these’ ethic of Matthew 25’s Last Judgement vision. In this latter sheep-and-goats parable, what determines who gets into eternal life is not naming the right name, but sharing food and clothes and water and time and care with the poor. It is not a matter of confessing Jesus but circulating bread. And in our hour of Motown-like desolation and breakdown all over the globe, there is a new breath blowing and a new seed of such care being planted, literally, right outside the door of many of our churches. John the Baptist’s apocalyptic food-sharing movement has long been underway. It has been renewed by renegade Jesus – and thousands of followers, conscious and anonymous, for millennia. In my hometown, it is visionaries like Malik Yakini and Grace Lee Boggs who are leading the way. And their action throws down a question. Will the church of today follow its Lord in assenting to baptism under the hands of those already working the clay and learning a new manna-mission, actually feeding escaped slaves? Or sit back insisting only on mumbling the right name and trusting Santa Claus?

Poem By Jim Perkinson, 7 March 1999

Anointed one (Luke.4:16-19) is the spirit down like oil on the head running in rivulets of gush a rush of announcement a plush dream of captivity-to-levity for the captives of frivolity for the freed or release like geese on the wing? is the spirit come with crumbs for the rich with travail for the tight-fisted and tiger-headed like rules for rulers unruling the wealth and setting debt at liberty in rooster cries of a new dawn? is the spirit a comfort a clash of contradiction in the system of conniption

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an optic nerve in the brain-blight of now like a neon rhythm jump-start? the year is acceptable the month is delectable the hour is directable the moment is today like orgasm of the eye like ocean in the head like a tsunami on foot this is jazz growing ears out of nothing but air parroting proverbs on feather tongues riffing balaam’s ass in jungle fever time the rhyme is a beat of heat in feet like a reincarnation of james brown before he is even dead the spirit is red hot sweet the sweat of god-love the dead heat between wisdom and insanity the spirit is come down like dripping oblivion of oppression like the death of bad memory like poverty opened with pearl inside the messiah is nobody’s property but the anointed one may even be you and me together if we give up our fear and act like it really is monsoon wet over the desert of undone deeds.

A Prayer for the Little Ones in an Age of Empire Great Spirit of our Ancestors Of Abraham and Sarah Hagar and Ismael Moses and Miriam Jesus and Mary Prophets great and unknown

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And all the little ones whose beauty You alone Know and honor We ask that you stir us with vitality and courage That we can steep our rage into fierce resolve And gentle respect For the power of small gestures And incorrigible acts of integrity We seek humility in truth Even as we confront gargantuan hypocrisy And betrayal That we would not mirror in opposition Those whom we challenge But bring a different world And alternative possibility Into the struggle we face Looking arrogance in the eye and refusing it Looking cold calculation in the face And burning it with compassion Standing up to supremacies white and wealthy And daring to celebrate colour and community Walking upright and eloquent Even in our least actions of defiance Knowing a Power greater than we confront Is watching over and walking with us. Amen.

Question for further reflection Who in my immediate context is already sharing resources and energy with disadvantaged people in ways that give a glimpse of the Jubilee tradition of alternative community embodied in Jesus’ following?

Bibliography/Suggested reading Berry W. 1990. What are people for? San Francisco, CA: North Point Press. Corbett J. 2005. A sanctuary for all life: the cowbalah of Jim Corbett. Englewood, CO: Howling Dog Press.

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Dowie M. 2009. Food among the ruins. Accessed 1 August 2009, https://www. guernicamag.com/features/food_among_the_ruins/ Herzog WR III. 2000. Jesus, justice, and the reign of God: A ministry of liberation. Louisville, KY: Westminster/John Knox Press. Myers C. 2001. The Biblical vision of Sabbath economics. Washington, D.C.: Church of the Saviour. Perkinson JW. 2013. Messianism against Christology: Resistance movements, folk arts, and Empire. New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan Press.

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Iziko: Insurrection and resurrection Vuyani S. Vellem Bible text from Mark 15; Luke 23; John 21

‘When they landed, they saw a fire of burning coals there with fish on it, and some bread’ (John 21:9)

Introduction The logic of life in the context of Empire cannot be the logic of life within the struggle experiences and the millions who are impoverished in our world today. The interpretation of some of the basic themes of our Christian faith becomes vital for our quest for lifeaffirming epistemologies in this context. Resurrection is an important concept of our teaching and arguably one on which, with others, our faith in Jesus is anchored. This concept is generally interpreted in ways that are not helpful for the struggle for life. In this Bible study, a theological rationale for a particular interpretation of resurrection and its relationship with insurrection is provided, followed by some steps on which the selected text could be read. As food for insurrectionist paradigms of knowledge and thus theological approaches, resurrection is examined with the eyes of iziko. It is not an abstract concept and indeed the use of food as a heuristic device for unlocking the workings of Empire is in itself and of itself understood as subversive.

Theological rationale to the Bible study Our Bible study is based on a theological perspective that interprets resurrection as a rebellious, bodily and materialist phenomenon rather than a spiritualised, dichotomised and disembodied concept. According to Luke 23:2, Jesus was killed because he was an insurrectionist, and in Mark 15:7-15, the two men who were crucified with Jesus, were referred to as insurrectionists, ‘for death by crucifixion was reserved for insurrectionists and rebels’ in the Roman Empire (Hendricks 2006:67). With this in mind, it becomes fascinating to note that the word anastasis (resurrection) does have the connotation of rebellion. Allan Boesak says, ‘For those who follow him, the resurrection is Jesus’ … rebellion’ (Boesak 2015:30) and thus an intriguing connection between these two concepts, insurrection and resurrection becomes clear. Within the paradigm of liberation and for

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the purposes of our conversation, these insights by Miguel De La Torre simply become unavoidable: What is it about liberation theology that has led so many to their graves? Why is this theological perspective deemed so dangerous? He continues: Liberation theology is so dangerous because it disrupts a religious and political worldview that supports social structures that privilege the few at the expense of the many. Ignorance of the causes of oppression is crucial to maintaining this worldview. But as the consciousness of the oppressed begins to be raised, as they begin to see with their own eyes that their repressive conditions are contrary to the will of God, the power privilege of the few who benefit from the status quo is threatened. (Miguel De La Torre 2013:ix-x) There is an undeniable relationship between insurrection and resurrection. Resurrection once understood with the connotation of rebellion provides the basis for the disjuncture that is often made between this concept and insurrection to become questionable. More importantly, the concrete nature of resurrection becomes even much clearer. Furthermore, as the Bible study seeks to demonstrate, the two, namely, insurrection and resurrection become clearly inseparable categories. Indeed, as De La Torre explains above, a theological approach that raises the consciousness of the oppressed does not escape the charge of insurrection and the resultant punishment by killing, yet rebellion against death itself is ostensibly and inspiration of the same theological paradigm and perhaps a number of struggles for life in the world that could be cited as examples of insurrection by the powers that be. In the context of a life-threatening and life-killing Empire, would any theology that raises the consciousness of the oppressed or any movement that challenges the status quo avoid the charge of insurrection? Is it not in these insurrectionist struggles that we should locate the rebellion of resurrection? To demonstrate the relationship between insurrection and resurrection, the Bible study uses an African concept of iziko. This concept is employed as a prism to illuminate some of the ideas that come out of this selected text. Iziko, translated as fireplace – the hearth of a household – portrays the fireworks inherently related to the concept of resurrection. Food that is prepared within the context of the narrative of the resurrection of Jesus Christ, suggests ‘feeding’ as an important motif in our understanding of resurrection in various respects and certainly not in any sense that disregards feeding in the material and concrete situations of life. 154

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The use of iziko is in itself deliberate and subversive, as black African knowledge, like other indigenous forms of knowledge, have continued to be disenfranchised by dominant and hegemonic forms of knowledge after centuries of their violent exclusion up to the present time of Empire as defined by the AGAPE-Accra-CWM-Oikotree discourses of life. The concept of iziko captures the main argument of the Bible study, namely that there is no possibility of resurrection without insurrection if the life and death of Jesus encapsulates a struggle for life that led to his crucifixion. The Bible study seeks to debunk the dualistic but also linear interpretations of resurrection, which separate and elevate the spirit from the body by proposing an alternative view of resurrection. This alternative view entails that insurrection is the cause of Jesus’ death. The resurrection of Jesus Christ is in itself a rebellion against death. Clearly, a particular view of life is suggested here if rebellion against death has any implications for our lives today. In an article, ‘Black Theology of liberation: A theology of life in the context of Empire’, the author writes: Generally speaking, the view that Black Theology is a theology of life derives from a particular understanding of the word or concept ‘life.’ Life is understood as the starting point of ethics, a precondition of all ethical claims or systems (cf. Petrella 2008:13ff.). God is thus understood as God of life and this understanding of life is not abstract but material bodily life. For example, Gustavo Gutierrez says (2007:11) ‘resurrection is the victory of life over death, while poverty means simply death.’ Within the circles of the World Communion of Reformed Churches and other ecumenical bodies such as the World Council of Churches and the Council for World Mission, the interpretation of the Accra Confession, arguably in continuation with the Belhar Confession is at core a refusal to any claims by any system in the world to sovereignty over life. (Vellem 2015:12-13) Arguably, it is unethical to claim that anyone living outside a system, anyone excluded outside a system or even better, anyone dead in one system could be perceived as ‘living’ within that system. Outside the totalitarian system of Empire, in the struggles of the marginalised and the impoverished of the world, there must we locate the artefacts if life in its truest forms. Inside the systems of Empire, the lived experiences of the marginalised and the impoverished are quintessential examples of insurrectionist forms of life and resurrected ones in the presence of but outside the logic of Empire.

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Bible study Brainstorm In groups, brainstorm the following questions/scenarios: 1.

What is your understanding of resurrection? Explain what this concept or what its teaching means to you.

2.

Are Christians the only faith community that teaches its members about resurrection? Give examples of other faith communities in the world that also have teachings about resurrection.

3.

Spend a minute or two talking about the concept of ‘dualism’. Do we all follow this concept?

4.

What is your understanding of the concept Empire?

5.

In your view, is resurrection possible without death?

6.

Alright, let us put the question this way: is life-killing a condition for resurrection?

7.

Did Jesus die or was he killed?

The text Our second step is the text. We read it together to identify some of the ideas that come from it as we see it.

Read the text, John 21:9-14 A volunteer reads the text aloud. After the text has been read, each participant is requested to read the text alone.

Identify ideas in the text Participants divide into small groups and must try to identify (at least) the following ideas in the text: ƒƒ ƒƒ ƒƒ ƒƒ

Energy; Power; Struggle; and Rupture.

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Participants then relate these ideas to life and death. Are these ideas a possibility in life, after life or after death? For example how does energy relate to life? How does it relate to death? Each group is requested to look at the texts of resurrection in John repeating the process to identify concrete symbols or concepts related to life for example in John 20. Groups are requested to use their cultural metaphors, symbols or words for these ideas.

Comments The study leader makes the following comments: ƒƒ The text seems to suggest that the whole body of Jesus is resurrected. The text demonstrates, albeit with wounds, that this body, the body of Jesus, is one that makes fire to prepare food for those who toiled for the whole night. ƒƒ The ideas of energy or power (fire and coals), and the production of food (fish and bread) are linked to Jesus as the source. ƒƒ Jesus who is resurrected is the source of power for the ‘world-creation’ of the toiling disciples whose starting point is to provide food.

Contextualization of the study In attempting to appropriate the text to our different context, these questions become important: What did we say our understanding of resurrection is? Do we see it as something that we must experience after our death or is it the starting point of our life in Jesus before our death? If the story of Jesus is told through the event of the resurrection, do we have to postpone this event as something we can experience only after life? We can only begin to think deeply about the text when we debunk the dualistic interpretation of resurrection that separates and elevates the spirit from the body. What do you think? Let us now use African values of world-creation to see if we can deepen our reflection.

On Iziko: A black African concept for insurrection and resurrection Food, in real materialist terms, remains a pivotal criterion to measure any polity, the development of human history, distinct epochs and archaeologies of human civilisation or ‘world-creation’ systems of peoples in the world. The whole colonial project and the apartheid regime are a candid text of archaeologies of human civilisation within the provenance of Western modernity that was anchored on food enclaves for some and

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hunger for others, festivals for some, but starvation and lamentations for others, feasts of life for some and feasts of death for others. While most people perceive African symbols and patterns of life to be outdated, outmoded, archaic and useless for appropriation in the context of advanced, capitalist modes of life, let us affirm the significance of the place of food in African cosmology and the lessons we might obtain for our Bible study. Food is prepared in the fireplace, iziko. Iziko is an important part of the African home. Sacramentally, iziko is a place where the narratives of a home or the community are told in the presence of the ancestors who are regarded as the guardians of a home. Preparing food in iziko has a bearing and significance for the archē (archaeology) of a political community – to politike koinonia. By preparing food in iziko a cosmic implication of combustion for the re-making of freedoms, life and needs for the political community of African people, and thus humanity should be borne in mind. Fundamentally, in the African setting of household, which is almost an equivalent of oikos, living in a home is daily worship as the stories are shared and told around the fireplace – iziko. Around the fireplace – iziko – the social and community intercourse between the living and the living departed takes place. Iziko, the fireplace, symbolises this fusion and conviviality of life. Importantly, it is combustion of life. This is where the ‘communication of efficacy’ between people and God, people and land, people and work, people and people, people and faith takes place. Iziko is the combustion of an integrated religiosity or spirituality of life. Based on this broad understanding of what iziko signifies, a discussion in groups could be possible.

Exercise Identify and briefly discuss in small groups the concepts above that need further explanation and connect these with the metaphors of your own context you identified above Comment: At this point then, a fascinating contrast between the spirit (food) or (energy) that drives the so-called indispensable skills or values of the 21st century, (innovation, knowledge, computer and mathematical skills), and the one that gives life is presented and shared by the participants.

Reading Empire with the Eyes of Iziko With the eyes of iziko the contrast of dying and undying fire – the locus or combustion chambers of Empire – is explored through the Marikana massacre in South Africa. The massacre has been widely reported in the world and one can access images and stories

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related to the episode. Recently the report that is widely criticised by political parties and public commentators has been released. Follow the picture and an imaginary story created for the study.

The Marikana massacre Participants are to state what they see in a photograph of the massacre (there are many photographs, and they can be chosen using different questions.) How many bodies are lying down? Describe the violence in the scene.

A short story Read the short story created by the author. There are many ways in which it could be used. For example, after photos that could be taken from the web, a skit could be created to underline a few aspects that come out of the story. Mom, when will dad come home? This question is posed to the pregnant mother by a sevenyear-old as they all sit around iziko. The mother responds as she puts the traditional pot onto the fireplace, but she is only boiling water as there is nothing to cook for the children this particular night. Around the fireplace are siblings, notably the brother of the husband to this lady. The husband is in Marikana. This household, as it is in patriarchal homes, is the home of the husband where Nokuzola is married. Nokuzola’s mother-in-law is over seventy years old and is cuddling the young boy who is asking these questions about his dad whom he last saw in December the previous year. Themba, the younger brother of Nokuzola’s husband arrives in the middle of the conversation. He is from another village nearby, where he often goes to watch television. Young men of his age flock to that home. They all attend the same high school. During the news bulletin, they see the Marikana massacre! Themba is silently shocked. He saw someone like his brother falling at gunshots from the South African Police – those who were running away from the brutal police live ammunition. As he arrives home, the little boy is asleep; the daughter-in-law is enjoying the conversation with the mother in law. ‘I saw my brother in the news.’ This is Themba as he approaches iziko, ‘mother, mother, I saw my brother in the news, he got shot in Marikana by the police.’ ‘Themba’! The over seventy-year-old shouts at her son Themba, ‘don’t bring us misfortune.’ The fire is weak, coals are dying. In the morning, Nokuzola gives birth to a baby girl.

The group participating in the Bible study is divided to discuss the imaginary story above, identifying aspects such as: ƒƒ The characters in the story; ƒƒ ‘Coming home’ and the migrant labour system; 159

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ƒƒ The content of the pot on iziko – only water; ƒƒ The dead bodies shown ‘live’ on the news; ƒƒ Tragedy; ƒƒ Violence; ƒƒ Who discloses the news of death? Themba or television? and ƒƒ Childbirth. The main question is what is iziko of the text and the current civilisation as emerging out of the story of Marikana? What are the characters and what could their experience be? Such experiences may not be only pertinent to South Africa.

The praxis of discerning the signs of the times What is usually cooked in the iziko? What is the daily bread that comes out of the iziko? What are the ingredients in the pot? Maize! It is the staple food in Africa. To peel off the signs, I propose the use corn as a heuristic device, both to engage the text, our context, knowledge construction and the death-dealing signs of Empire.

ƒƒ Knowledge as food emerging from the fireplace iziko? ƒƒ Knowledge is layered? ƒƒ Knowledge is not unrelated to what is in the pot on iziko? ƒƒ The imaginary story and the empty pot? ƒƒ Where is the pot full?

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The hardening husk of Empire An image of moulded corn is used to contrast life with death. Participants are requested to give their input. ƒƒ Knowledge corrupted? ƒƒ Knowledge and death?

The workings of neoliberal spirituality I then engage the current neoliberal ideology with Francis Fukuyama in mind. Use Plato’s scheme of the parts of the soul, by combining it with the combustion chambers of an engine.

The engine is iziko? Do you agree?

Un-concluding thoughts This verse prompts an image of Jesus around a fireplace (iziko), preparing food for his disciples. The whole text is about resurrection. Food plays an important role in the resurrection appearances that are found in John. In fact, there could be no resurrection

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without insurrection, but there is another way of putting it: resurrection is actually food for insurrection. If we perceive the death of consciousness as one of the most harrowing experiences of the religiosity of Empire, Jesus’ fire symbolises the insurrectionist character of resurrection: the fiery, feeding spirituality of liberation against the fiery but deadly conflagrations of the spirit of Empire. Yes, Luke 23:2: ‘We found this man subverting our nation, opposing the payment of taxes to Caesar, and claiming to be Messiah, a king.’ After they were dispersed and scattered, ‘when they landed, they saw a fire of burning coals there with fish on it, and some bread’ (John 21:9).

References Boesak AA. 2015. Kairos, crisis, and global apartheid. New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137495310 De La Torre MG. 2013. Liberation theology for armchair theologians. Louisville, KY: Westminster/John Knox Press. Hendricks OM. 2006. The politics of Jesus: Rediscovering the true revolutionary nature of the teachings of Jesus and how they have been corrupted. New York, London, Toronto, Sydney, Auckland: Doubleday. Vellem VS. 2015. Black theology of liberation: A theology of life in the context of Empire. Verbum et Ecclesia 36(3), Art. 14760. https://doi.org/10.4102/ ve.v36i3.1470

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God’s world is not an ‘Animal Farm’, or is it? Re-reading Matthew 20:1-16 in the face of workplace economic injustices Rev. Lilly Phiri Bible text from Matthew 20; John 10

Introduction ‘Animal Farm’, a common and exciting satire written by George Orwell, begins with a very drunk Mr. Jones (owner of Manor Farm) who is doing a really bad job of managing the farm. Luckily, there is a wise pig on the farm, Old Major who encourages the neglected animals to rebel and run the farm themselves with one important qualification: everyone should be equal. After the death of Old Major, the idea of rebelling against Mr. Jones seems like a grand idea for almost all the animals on the farm. And so, they successfully rebel and chase away Mr. Jones. The pigs, being the smartest animals, naturally take the leadership role. One of the animals on the farm is Boxer, a loyal horse. Boxer has one goal, to work hard for the success of the farm no matter what. So much for that equality business, so much for Old Major’s vision of a peaceful coup, too, because there is an immediate conflict between two pigs, Napoleon and Snowball. Napoleon wants to sit around and be in charge of everything, while Snowball wants to teach the other animals and build a windmill. Obviously, Snowball’s plan is way better, so he wins. Seeing this, Napoleon uses his private army of nine ferocious and enormous dogs to become the self-appointed leader. With Snowball out of the picture, the other pigs blame everything on him. They exploit the other animals shamelessly, breaking all the rules about equality that they had established after the rebellion. Life on the farm gets worse and worse, the animals forget Old Major’s original dream, that everyone must be equal and the pigs make some poor management decisions when dealing with the neighbouring farms. The culminating miserable moment comes when the pigs send Boxer, a hardworking and loyal horse who is ready for retirement, to his death by selling him off.

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In short, the pigs are starting to look a lot like the horrible human owners that we started with at the beginning of this whole mess, walking on two legs and everything. In fact, they may even be worse as they adopt the slogan ‘all animals are equal but some animals are more equal than others’.

Explanation of the parable text Matthew’s parable about the workers in the vineyard is about a landowner who decides to go out and hire workers for his vineyard early one morning. He agreed to pay them a denarius for a day’s work and sent the first group of workers into the vineyard. Interestingly, he agrees on the pay with the first workers he hires – a denarius for a day’s work. Nevertheless, we do not hear the workers’ voices in this agreement; neither do we hear any form of negotiation between the landowner and the workers. A denarius was a typical day’s pay of that time and enough to buy a pound of wheat, which would last a person one day. Paying these workers a denarius was in fact creating a dependence cycle as these workers would certainly need to work each day for their survival. They would have to labour each day just to put food on the table. At 9 a.m. the landowner once more went out and saw other people standing in the marketplace doing nothing. The questions we may ask here are: Why were these workers standing in the marketplace instead of being at work? What factors pushed them to be in the marketplace? ƒƒ First, these workers could have once been landowners who had lost their land due to debts incurred, hence, were forced by circumstances to become labourers and not landowners. ƒƒ Second, these ‘former landowners turned labourers’ only had skills and knowledge in farming and so, had no choice but to wait to be employed on vineyards where their skills and knowledge could be useful. ƒƒ Last, there was an influx in the labour force, thus, jobs were scarce. This time, there was no agreement between the workers hired in the morning and the landowner. They were only told to go and work in his vineyard and he would pay them whatever is right.

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The notion of ‘what is right’ is not clear; whether the landowner meant what was right by his own standards, what was right by the workers or what was right in terms of payments prevailing at that time. This shows a contestation between decent and living wages. The landowner once more went out at noon, at three and five in the afternoon and evening to hire more workers. The different hours of hiring may also show that being employed or not was the prerogative of the landowner since he controlled the finances. One wonders why the landowner could have opted to hire the workers in bits and pieces and did not hire the entire workforce he needed at once. The workers taken on at noon and later in the afternoon must have waited all day at the marketplace, wishing and praying to be taken on by any landowner that might come to the marketplace. It was a context where the workforce was such that the economy could not take all workers in. It was a context where the one with the money was the one to determine who was economically in and who was not and how much a worker was to earn. By the end of the day, the owner of the vineyard called his foreman to pay the workers their wages, beginning with the workers who came at five in the evening and ending with the ones who were brought in first. Imagine the questions that were going through the minds of those who eagerly waited for their pay. After having worked in the scorching sun, sweating and under harsh conditions, they expected to be paid more than their colleagues who had worked for fewer hours than they had. But all of them received the same wages, nothing more and nothing less. The ones who had been hired first complained as they expected to be paid more than the ones who had been hired after them. Their complaints were twofold: first, the ones who were hired later than them were made equal to them in terms of pay; and second, they had endured the burden of the work and the heat of the day to be paid the same wage as those who had come later when the scorching sun’s rage had cooled down. But the landowner responded that he was not being unfair and asked the complainants ‘didn’t you agree to work for a denarius?’ The workers were asked to take their pay and go, with no word of gratitude. With the landowner adding that since it was his money, he had the right to do what he wanted with it. The landowner considered himself generous since he paid all workers equally. However, what is lacking in the landowner’s responses to the workers is the relational aspect between himself and the workers. The workers are regarded as means to meeting the ends of production by the landowner and not necessarily as important in themselves. There is once more little room for dialogue as the human 165

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dignity of the workers is not upheld; they seem to be objectified as mere means to have the vineyard work done.

Context and manifestation of the Empire We live in a time where harsh economic conditions constantly (mis)place people in the ‘marketplaces’ seeking for employment and means of survival. Times where workers’ labour inputs do not equal their wages. We live in a context where many people are displaced from their land due to encroachment by transnational corporations. A context where poor people’s lives and the environment are exploited by the Empire without any semblance of dignity. Times where projects and wealth creation supersede the value placed on the many workers who suffer tirelessly to generate wealth for their employers. The labouring masses hardly benefit from the wealth amassed from their sweat. There are many examples of wealth generating projects found in African countries and other countries in the global South. In our Bible study; we shall focus on South Africa. Examples of human exploitation abound, but we shall look at one case that caused a lot of tension and is still a hot subject in South Africa: the Marikana mine episode of 2012. This story was carried in many newspapers in South Africa and beyond with contesting views on the unrest, proving true that truth is always grey. However, in this Bible study we shall use excerpts of the story as reported by The New York Times entitled ‘Mine Strike Mayhem Stuns South Africa as Police Open Fire’, published on 16th August 2012 (Polygreen 2012). We shall read it in contestation with Keith Bryer’s story carried in the Business Report entitled ‘Some hidden facts behind Marikana mine strike’ and was published on 4th December 2012 (Bryer 2012). The New York Times described the Marikana strike as being between Lonmin, the Londonbased company that owns the mine and the trade union, as mine workers sought an increment in pay, improvement of living and working conditions. As miners protested, armed police shot into the charging crowd of miners, killing more than a dozen miners. Two police officers and eight miners had died earlier as a result of the violence related to the strike. Amidst the strike and protests, miners carried machetes, sticks and wooden cudgels as they chanted and danced, pledging their readiness to die if their demands were not met while accusing one of their unions of colluding with the owners of the mine.

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Just before 4 p.m. on Thursday, after repeated warnings to the crowd of about 3 000 miners to disarm and disperse, the police began firing tear gas and water cannons to try to get them to leave, witnesses said. In a video captured by several news organisations, the police appeared to fire upon a group of workers who charged toward them. Police action and subsequent killing of miners received condemnation from various quarters of society, equating it to the apartheid era characterised by police brutality. President Jacob Zuma is quoted as having condemned the violence but did not criticise the police, stating: ‘there is enough space in our democratic order for any dispute to be resolved through dialogue without any breaches of the law or violence.’ He said he had ‘instructed law enforcement agencies to do everything possible to bring the situation under control and to bring the perpetrators of violence to book.’ The strike is regarded as a reflection of a deep anger at the slow pace of South Africa’s transformation, following failure by the government to provide housing to many South Africans as per its promise. Another union observed that the strike was necessitated by the workers’ anger and feelings of betrayal by the government in post-apartheid South Africa. A version of this article appeared in print on August 17 2012, on page A8 of the New York edition with the headline: ‘Strike by Armed Miners in South Africa Provokes a Fatal Police Response’. Keith Bryer, a communications consultant who has occasionally worked for the platinum industry, writing in his personal capacity for the Business Report exonerates Lonmin platinum and shifts blame on the miners and the micro-lenders. These excerpts are taken from his article: The strikers claimed to be all rock-drill operators in Lonmin’s platinum mines and demanded a pay increase to R12 000 from R4 500. … So began a series of reports condemning Lonmin for paying outrageously low wages. … It was a picture of unfeeling capitalism, out of control police, rampant exploitation, and a trade union woefully out of touch with its members. Slowly more details emerged. Lonmin said it paid far more than R4 500 a month to rock-drill operators, closer to R10 000. The strike was not so much about wages, but the result of an internecine battle for membership between the established National Union of Mineworkers and a union that was stealing its members and presumably their membership dues – a not inconsiderable sum since the NUM allegedly has 300 000 members.

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Lonmin claimed that rock-drill operators earned close to R10 000 a month. Was it likely that hire-purchase payments had eaten into this wage leaving only R4 500? Also Lonmin said that it paid a living out allowance of R1 500 a month on top of the wages it paid to rock drillers – in fact to everyone who preferred to live off site or could not get into the converted hostels now turned into family dwellings, nor into the brand new houses Lonmin was building. Deductions for pension contributions, possibly for medical aid as well, would also eat into basic pay. [A] team of inspectors from the National Credit Regulator (NCR) swooped on thirteen micro-lenders operating from the Marikana Township. Micro-lenders are a new phenomenon. Some obey the rules, others do not and are best described as loan sharks. What the inspectors found was ‘severe indebtedness’ among miners exacerbated by ‘malpractice by lenders and debt collection agents’. They could have added slum landlords. Although most micro-lenders were registered with the NCR the inspectors found that many were in breach of a host of National Credit Act regulations and criminal laws. Of the six searched on the first day, five were breaking the law. One possessed its borrowers’ ID books and credit cards which were being used as ‘a collection method’. Another routinely doubled the size of any loan if the collection was by means of a garnishee order. Such orders can only be granted by a court and under oath. One lender got around this by using blank-signed process documents, including consent to judgement, to persuade the mine employers to deduct from wages of the debtor. Affordability tests required by law appeared to be honoured only in the breach. Considering all the above, quite a different picture emerges of the causes of the Lonmin strike and the rapid spread of demands for massive jumps in wages, not through recognised unions, but often by workers’ committees led by shop floor leaders. The bosses look less guilty now.

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People undoubtedly live outside the mines in appalling conditions, but to pin this all on mine management alone, as many non-governmental organisations did at the start, and journalists initially took up with little investigation, is knee-jerk anti-capitalism. (Bryer 2012) From these two versions of the same story, what is evident is the vulnerability of the miners in this economic dispensation. Whether this vulnerability is perpetuated and exacerbated by the employers, consumerism among miners themselves, lack of political will to safeguard and protect the miners’ interests or other economic factors like microlenders, the end result is that miners end up as economic losers. As in the Matthean account, the Marikana mine strike shows, first, a lack of dialogue between the workers and employers. The wage is determined by the employer, with little or no room for negotiation on the part of the miners. This lack of negotiation also shows how economics without relational dimension is detrimental to human dignity as workers end up being nothing more than means of production with no human faces to them. Second, the Marikana situation resonates with the Matthean account as the low wages do not empower the workers but instead act as a means of ensuring and furthering endless dependence on the employer for daily survival. Low wages are nothing more than strings that bind the workers to their employers. And when workers try to negotiate for decent wages, the employer assumes he or she is already generous to them, hence, their demands are viewed as unfounded. Third, the vineyard workers in the Matthean account had skills limited to farming only, thus, had little choice other than to go and work in the vineyard, no matter the harsh working conditions, or run the risk of being jobless. The same can be said about the Marikana miners. In a context where unemployment is high, these workers opt to endure working under dangerous conditions rather than being in the ‘marketplace’ looking for employment. Some of the miners are forced to take up such manual work that does not pay them enough nor allow them to live decent lives, just to escape the marketplace. Fourth, the working conditions in both the Matthean text and the Marikana context raise a lot of concerns for the workers, such as having to work under dangerous and harsh conditions. It is not far-fetched that some miners in companies in various countries work without any protective clothing, rendering them vulnerable to various forms of infections and injuries. Finally, when economic and political forces join together on issues related to workers, the workers usually have nowhere to seek solace from; with no-one willing to hear their voices. 169

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Sometimes, the workers may speak, riot and strike but the question is ‘who is listening and what are they doing about it?’ The coming together of economic and political powers and state machinery to disempower the already disempowered in societies is a reality even in the Marikana context. Unemployment, poor working conditions, unfair wages and poverty are not virtues but systemic injustices that aim at perpetuating poverty among those who usually feel they have no choice but to dance along to the tunes of the piper. Is God’s world really an animal farm where only a few individuals should benefit from the sweat and labour of the masses? Are all humans equal or indeed some humans are more equal than others on account of their financial strength? In light of the economic injustices in workplaces today, what then is the challenge to individuals and contemporary communities?

Matthew 20:1-16: Challenges to contemporary communities The Matthew 20 text has a threefold challenge to individuals and contemporary Christian communities, together with other faith communities. First, it challenges us to take the plight of the working masses seriously. Their grievances should not be dismissed without those in charge listening to them or even attempting to understand their misgivings. Taking the plight of the working masses seriously is one way of humanising them, hence the need to be in critical solidarity with the masses. Second, faith communities must speak about the need to place people before any project, no matter its economic benefits. Humans as the image of God need to be valued more than any amount of wealth or project. Finally, there is an urgent need to challenge the Empire in whichever form it may manifest itself within our communities. The Empire must be told the truth about the dehumanisation it continues to subject humans to. Our communities should call for paradigm shifts in how economies are run, so that relational economics are applied instead.

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Vision for alternatives ‘I came so that they may have life and life in its abundance’ offers a Biblical vision on the plight of the working masses (John 10:10). We need to ask ourselves ‘what is abundant life for the poor workers whose voices are hardly heard by their employers and governments?’ ƒƒ Abundant life is about decent wages and not living wages. ƒƒ Abundant life is about good living and housing conditions. ƒƒ Abundant life is about safe working conditions, benefits and sound pensions. ƒƒ Abundant life is about providing consistent healthy meals for their families. ƒƒ Abundant life is being able to afford medical care and education for their families. ƒƒ Abundant life is being heard and viewed as humans with feelings and not means to an end. ƒƒ Abundant life is a cultivation of sound relations between the workers and their employers: Relational economics. ƒƒ Abundant life is not dying in a quest for decent wages.

A poem The Wage-slaves19 By Rudyard Kipling OH, glorious are the guarded heights Where guardian souls abide— Self-exiled from our gross delights— Above, beyond, outside: An ampler arc their spirit swings— Commands a juster view— We have their word for all these things, No doubt their words are true. Yet we, the bond slaves of our day, Whom dirt and danger press— Co-heirs of insolence, delay, And leagued unfaithfulness— Such is our need must seek indeed 19 Poem available online at http://www.kiplingsociety.co.uk/poems_wageslaves.htm

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And, having found, engage The men who merely do the work For which they draw the wage. From forge and farm and mine and bench, Deck, altar, outpost lone— Mill, school, battalion, counter, trench, Rail, senate, sheepfold, throne— Creation’s cry goes up on high From age to cheated age: ‘Send us the men who do the work ‘For which they draw the wage!’ Words cannot help nor wit achieve, Nor e’en the all-gifted fool, Too weak to enter, bide, or leave The lists he cannot rule. Beneath the sun we count on none Our evil to assuage, Except the men (sic) that do the work For which they draw the wage. When through the Gates of Stress and Strain Comes forth the vast Event— The simple, sheer, sufficing, sane Result of labour spent— They that have wrought the end unthought Be neither saint nor sage, But only men who did the work For which they drew the wage. Wherefore to these the Fates shall bend (And all old idle things) Wherefore on these shall Power attend Beyond the grip of kings: Each in his place, by right, not grace, Shall rule his heritage— The men who simply do the work For which they draw the wage. Not such as scorn the loitering street, Or waste, to earth its praise, Their noontide’s unreturning heat About their morning ways; But such as dower each mortgaged hour Alike with clean courage—

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Even the men who do the work For which they draw the wage— Men, like to Gods, that do the work For which they draw the wage— Begin-continue-close that work. For which they draw the wage!

A prayer God of life, we remember the labouring masses throughout the world, whose sweat and labour do not equal their earnings. May Jesus’ abundant life for all become a reality to the labouring masses. Grant us as individuals and your church the courage to confront exploitative systems that dehumanize the vulnerable in society. Give us the grace and strength to be in critical solidarity with all people that face many other forms of economic injustices. To you, the God of justice we make our prayer. Amen.

Questions for personal and collective reflection 1.

Within your own context, what are some of the challenges that ordinary workers face?

2.

How does the Empire manifest itself to create and perpetuate challenges faced by the workers?

3.

What is your role as an individual and the role of the church to alleviate the injustices you have outlined?

References Bryer K. 2012. Some hidden facts behind Marikana mine strike. Accessed 7 May 2016, http://www.iol.co.za/business/opinion/some-hidden-facts-behind-marikanamine-strike-1435025 Polygreen L. 2012. Mine strike mayhem stuns South Africa as police fire. Accessed 7 May 2016, http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/17/world/africa/south-african-policefire-on-striking-miners.html?

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Mineral resources and multinational corporations and its impact on African people Kuzipa Nalwamba Bible text from Matthew 8

Introduction The manifestation of Empire is clearly illustrated in the Zambian context by the story of mining and the very establishment of the Copperbelt – a constellation of towns that mushroomed during the era of mining explorations by the British South African Company (BSAC). The Copperbelt was founded within the larger frame of the British colonial and cultural hegemony. Founded by the BSAC in 1923, it lay in the second richest copper deposit yet known in the world at the time. The first mining activities at Bwana Markubwa, around which Ndola town was built, began in 1924. Between 1925 and 1932 six more towns began mining activities. These mining activities led to the development of a constellation of seven towns within the Copperbelt area. Settlements for migrant labourers who serviced the mines and its subsidiaries also grew in the seven towns. In 1924, the colonial administration took over the running of the then Northern Rhodesia (present-day Zambia) from the BSAC. The colonial administration assisted migration to the Copperbelt when it began to exact hut tax. Each household was required, by law, to pay a hut tax in cash. Prior to that, people lived in a cashless agrarian economy. Men left their villages in their droves to go to the Copperbelt in search of paid work. They were employed to undertake life-threatening jobs in the mining industry, while a skilled workforce was ‘imported’ from Europe. Mining companies paid very low royalties rates, which were at times tax deductible, through the London based headquarters of these mining firms. Zambia and Zambians, therefore, stood to lose on both counts. The migration from rural areas included many Christians and so it gave impetus to Christian mission on the Copperbelt. The story of the United Church of Zambia cannot be told without reference to the story of migrant workers of the Copperbelt who carried missionary Christianity from rural areas and began to spontaneously meet together, forming what became the United Church of the Copperbelt (UCC), which for ten years 175

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was organised, supported and run by migrant miners themselves, without missionary assistance. That impetus for missionary initiative that arose from within the context of Empire is something to be celebrated! It is clear to see tacit resistance being dominated in the consciousness of those early missionaries of the Copperbelt.

The contemporary scene Zambia has exported copper for close to a century now. Yet the development of the country still leaves much to be desired. A recent report by Samarendra Das and Miriam Rose titled Copper Colonialism: British miner Vedanta KCM and the copper loot of Zambia, highlighted water and air pollution and the abrogation of workers’ rights among the many negative impacts that mining has made on the country and its citizens (Das & Rose 2014). The Foil Vedata report sparked a national debate about mineral exploitation in Zambia and the lack of transparency about ownership and data on how much mineral resources are really exported from the country. In a Post Newspaper article of 14 April 2014 titled ‘Govt Can Hold Vedanta to Account – Thornton’, Moses Kuwema documents the protest marches that were held in London and in Lusaka about Vedanta Resources, the holding company for Konkola Copper mines in Zambia. In the article, The British ambassador to Zambia, James Thornton commented on the demonstration as follows: KCM is a very big investor. There has been controversy, but I think one has to remember that one of the shareholders of KCM is the Zambian government. As such, the government has seen the accounts of the company and is in a strong position to hold it to account. It is important that all companies in this country pay the appropriate tax and declare their production. The government is in a very strong position to be able to ensure that KCM and others do that. (Kuwema 2014) The Foil Vedanta report further highlights the issue of who actually owns Zambia. Das and Rose point to shareholder interests and the inherent neo-colonialism in donor agencies. They point particularly to the role of the UK’s Department for Foreign Development (DFID). Other than Vedanta, Chinese investors are key players in mineral extraction in Zambia. In a survey published undertaken by Sofie Geerts, Namhla Xinwa and Deon Rossouw for the Ethics Institute of South Africa in Kenya, the following statistics show the feeling of Africans about Chinese business:

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The perceptions of Africans about Chinese business Category

Negative perception

Positive perception

Reputation

43.3%

35.4%

Quality of products/ services

55.9%

22.7%

Environmental responsibility

53.9%

11.1%

Economic responsibility

40.1%

28.3%

Social responsibility

45.7%

21%

Employment practices

46%

19.1%

(Source: Geerts, Xinwe & Rossouw 2014)

The multinational companies that extract mineral and those who control policy and hold political power in Zambia are all complicit to the ensuing negative effect such as: ƒƒ environmental degradation; ƒƒ human rights abuses; and ƒƒ looting of mineral wealth from the Zambia people. Here are some examples that exemplify these effects, but also which highlight alternatives to the greedy, self-interest, profit-seeking interests.

Human rights abuses and workers’ compensation Sarah Kabwe married at age seventeen and had her first child at eighteen. By the time she was twenty-four she was a widow with three children. Her husband Mulenga Kabwe, died at twenty-four in a mining accident, leaving Sarah, with the help of her mother to tend to their three children. Because Mulenga was a casual employee, there were no benefits for his five years of work at that particular mine. There was no compensation either, not from the mine nor the statutory body Workers’ Compensation Fund, because Mulenga being a casual worker was not formally registered with the fund. Sarah’s mother a marketer, has built a brick house where she and her daughter and grandchildren live in a compound that has mostly mud houses. Sarah works two jobs as a house-help to support her children. She regrets having dropped out of school. Rather rue that fact, she is determined to let her children have a better life – against the odds. Sarah is a member of a UCZ congregation in Kitwe and delights in being a member of the choir in her congregation. Her faith in God has sustained her through very hard times and she believes God will honour her tenacity and faith.

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Human rights abuses and workers’ rights (life) Eleven mine workers were shot down by their Chinese employers in a backlash against China’s presence in Zambia at Collum coal mine in Sinazongwe, about 200 kilometres south of Lusaka. According to a report by Aislinn Laing in The Telegraph of 19th October 2010 (Laing 2010), the conflict was a culmination of resentment arising from the overwhelming Chinese presence in the mining sector in Zambia. Zambian workers threw rocks at their employers before the shooting ensued. The mining licence of Collum Coal mine was eventually revoked but the case of the miners who were shot was dismissed from court.

Environmental degradation: Water pollution In an article titled ‘Zambia: Kafue River Pollution Leaves Chingola Taps Dry’ reported on the Lusakatimes.com website, the Times of Zambia reported on the KCM mine’s pollution of the Kafue river, the main source of water for the entire city of Chingola. Apart from depriving the city of water, the livelihood of many poor people was cut off. And marine life was at stake in the river. The article reports: [T]he fact that even marine life was found dead prompted his technicians to shut down the in-take plant … The areas affected were Kabundi East and South, Riverside, Chiwempala and Town Centre … peasant farmers living along the river [were] picking the dead fish for consumption …fish and other marine life was also found dead along the banks of Kafue River, (means) the river poisoning levels were very high. (Times of Zambia 2010) The likely long-term impact of the spill may include lung and heart problems, respiratory diseases and liver and kidney damage.

Bible study Matthew 8:5-13: The Faith of the Centurion

Introduction The Bible study utilises the contextual method and will focus on the centurion, as an example of a powerful figure who nevertheless exhibits counter-cultural traits that place him a position of advocacy for his servant in a society that had no regard for the lowly.

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Centurion – A man of title 1

He goes in person to consult Jesus on behalf of his servant.

2

Rather than exploit and discard him, he speaks of his value and seeks to restore him back to health.

3

He shows his vulnerability by seeking the help of another man.

To expand on for application: How does this image compare with the powerful in the mining context: investors, policy-makers, politicians, NGOs and their advocacy role; and the church and its public role?

Centurion – A man under orders 1

Sees himself in an inverted powerful position. He has power and commands a battalion of 100 soldiers, but recognises that he is under authority too.

2

A Roman lowering himself to a Jew!

3

Advocacy from a place of vulnerability and helplessness (he sees no need for him to have answers or to be above anyone).

To expand on for application: Counter-cultural/prophetic voice. Characteristics? Where is the alternative to profiteering, greed and self-interest? The role of the church in exhibiting those values and in action.

Centurion – A man of faith 1

Challenges the faith of Israelites.

2

Challenges those who felt entitled to their place in God’s favour.

3

What does that say about the church’s place (and sense of entitlement)?

To expand on for application: Focus the study on what features of the centurion’s faith Jesus commends and why? How does the story subvert what is normally expected? Faith in the face of Empire – no ‘us’ and ‘them’ when we evaluate (when the church’s advocacy is used to reduce dissent in the face of exploitation and other civil society bodies seem to be alive to the plight of the marginalised) our part in imperial hegemony.

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A prayer (Adapted from the prayer of Mother Theresa) O God, we pray for all those in Zambia, And in the rest of the world. who are suffering from injustice: For those who are discriminated against because of their lowly state and need; For those imprisoned for working for the relief of oppression; For those who are hounded for speaking the inconvenient truth; For those tempted to violence as a cry against overwhelming hardship; For those deprived of reasonable health and education; For those suffering from hunger and famine; For those too weak to help themselves and who have no one else to help them; For the unemployed who cry out for work but do not find it. For the employed who are exploited, for profit We pray for anyone of our acquaintance who is personally affected by injustice. Forgive us, Lord, if we unwittingly share in the conditions or in a system that perpetuates injustice. Show us how we can serve your children and make your love practical by washing their feet.

References Das S & Rose M. 2014. Copper colonialism: British miner Vedanta KCM and the copper loot of Zambia. London: Foil Vedanta. Geerts S, Xinwe N & Rossouw D. 2014. Africans’ perceptions of Chinese business in Africa: A survey. Accessed 20 October 2014, http://www.alliance-respons.net/bdf_fichedocument-122_en.html Kuwema M. 2014. Govt can hold Vedanta to account – Thornton. Accessed 16 March 2015, http://www.postzambia.com/print.php?id=80

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Laing A. 2010. Zambian miners shot by Chinese managers. Accessed 22 November 2014, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/ zambia/8073443/Zambian-miners-shot-by-Chinese-managers.html Times of Zambia. 2010. Kafue River pollution by KCM leaves Chingola taps dry. Accessed 6 April 2015, https://www.lusakatimes.com/2010/11/01/kafue-river-pollutionleaves-chingola-taps-dry/

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Look out Tioti Timon Bible text from Psalms 138; Isaiah 65; Jeremiah 4

Introduction I am one among many who are very concerned and worried about the future of my people and our beautiful country, Kiribati, due to the destructive impact of rising sea levels. My daughter, Rorine, also shows her great concern for her future and the future of her lovely country Kiribati. She has given me one of her poems and a story about the people of Kiribati to begin my story about the reality of what is happening now in our beautiful home country Kiribati.

Bird’s Lament By Rorine Tioti Over the tree tops, in the branches Is my home sweet home Now cut and destroyed For your home sweet home Now I fly over the horizon to the setting sun To the nowhere to find a new home

Look out By Rorine Tioti Tern, the old white tropic bird, loved the old times when all the trees and their branches belonged to the birds. Nowadays Tern found it hard to find a tree safe enough to build a cosy nest. Tern now lived on top of any tree on the crowded islet of Betio on Tarawa. Now, Tern old and frail found it hard to fly freely to his heart’s content. Whenever Tern decided to fly out to the ocean to find food, he had to look out to see if any humans are around. The humans and their new machines are the most dangerous predators. One day Tern decided to go out to the ocean to look for food. As always, he was on the look out to see if there’s any danger around. When he saw that there was none, it flew out of its cosy nest on top of the great Alexandrian Laurel tree.

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As it flaps its wings he heard a rude shout. ‘Look Out’ the driver on a big lorry truck shouted and Tern almost pumped into the container the truck carried. Tern flew away over to a field ‘Look out’ a small boy shouted and Tern almost pumped into a kite shaped as a bird attached to a string. Tern flew away and decided to fly higher above the clouds. ‘Look out’ a pilot of a passenger plane shouted as it zoomed by. Tern reached the shore and flew out into the ocean. It dived down lower to the ocean surface to look for fish. ‘Toot, toot’ ‘Look out’ a captain of a big ship shouted as Tern flew right in front of the ship. Something black was oozing out of the ship and it is floating on the ocean water. Tern felt dizzy and nervous. Many fish were starting to float up in the shiny black water and Tern decided not to touch those dead fish. He decided to fly away further into the ocean to catch live fish in a cleaner spot. It flew and flew among the ships, coconut trees, over war shelters fields and graveyards towards his home on top of the great Alexandrian Laurel tree. What a surprise Tern got when he reached his home. He saw his precious Alexandrian Laurel bulldozed down. The bulldozer driver shouted ‘Look out’ and Tern sadly flew away to look for another home. As it flew away towards the setting sun, a bunch of small boys began to throw stones at Tern. Tern being so old and frail and very tired from fishing, flew very slowly and so low. A stone from one of the boys hit Tern. Tern fell down to the ground blacked out. Softly, he felt two small hands pick him up and Tern opened his eyes. He saw a little girl with a kind face and tears in her eyes picked him up and held him close to her cheeks. The little girl ran to her house and put Tern in a cardboard box with soft clothes as a nest. Then the little girl nursed Tern’s broken wing to get the broken wing back into shape. Tern for the first time felt happy and safe. After one week, Tern’s wing began to heal. He was now able to fly around the little girl’s bedroom. Tern missed his cosy home on the top of the Alexandrian Laurel tree. But it felt much better to have a safe home with someone to trust.

The call of the people and nature for the future Our people had been at peace with nature ever since they first decided to make the tiny coral atolls their home. Living in the poor coral islands they had used the gifts of different skills to cultivate the land and to take care of the sea as sources for their daily living. Early in the morning, sweet songs from tops of the coconuts trees were heard by the whole village and those in bed. These were the songs sung by young men who culturally used to wake up early before sunrise to cut toddy, one of their main drinks. At the same early morning, other men took off into the sea with their canoes for fishing. Women gathered in groups to work together to cultivate babai crops, their main staple food. On their tiny coral atoll I-Kiribati, people were living in the fullness of life having enough from what the land and the sea could produce for them. 186

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‘Human life finds its meaning and explores it true potential within the totality of life in the land as household of life’ (Bird 2009:194). What happens today? Let us first listen to the voice of the WCC participants in the Pacific Churches’ consultation on Climate Change held at Tarawa, Kirabati from 6 to 11 March 2004. This is an extract from the Otin Tai Declaration: Here on the small island atoll of Kiribati, the impacts of human-induced climate change are already visible. The sea level is rising. People’s homes are vulnerable to the increasingly high tides and storm surges. Shores are eroding and the coral reefs are becoming bleached. The water supplies and soil fertility are being threatened by the intrusion of salt water. Weather patterns are less predictable posing risks to fisher-folk and farmers. (WCC 2004) When I returned to my home island in 2013, it was a sad and frustrating experience to find my home sweet home being washed away. I could not believe that this was my home. My coconut trees, which I used to sing songs to early in the morning when cutting toddy, were sitting there with only their trunks on the beach. The well that has fed me with fresh water with my three brothers and four sisters could no longer provide any more fresh water for drink. The babai crops where my mother and other women used to cultivate early in the morning were dying. I got a broken heart when I walked around trying to identify the place where I used to play with other kids on the beach. My island is getting smaller and smaller. And the life on the island without fresh water is getting tougher and harder. When I looked further to the homes of my neighbours, I was full of sadness when I found that they also had the same problem. Looking at my situation and my future I found my life and the life of my people were in a critical condition. How hard it is to leave my homeland, the land of my father and my ancestors. Where will I go with my people to find another dwelling place? How can I maintain my identity and my culture as an I-Kiribati if I am accepted in any foreign land? But even so, some people have suffered for years but would never agree to leave their ancestral lands. They live without fresh water and must walk a long way to get their drinking water every day. In an attempt to protect people’s homes from the sea most people have erected seawalls for their safety. In the past, this was sufficient, but no longer – the attacking waves are becoming stronger.

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Trees do not grow as well as before. Women are confused and find it difficult to use their skills to cultivate their crops which are affected by the underground salt water. Our people can no longer read the weather to go fishing. The terrible experience of my home is no different to the experiences of other people in the rest of the country. In the land, humans find a true meaning of life, well-being and identity. In Kiribati culture, land is a symbol of wealth, wisdom and dignity. Without the land, the I-Kiribati will completely lose the meaning of life here on earth. On the island of Abaiang, one whole village, Tebugninako, is being completely washed away. People were being relocated, making other villages more crowded. Bikemaan, a beautiful islet in the middle of Tarawa lagoon, a piece of paradise for the Kiribati people to enjoy and a home to many species of birds, crustaceans, and a breeding place for many marine creatures has been destroyed and can no longer be seen. The life of the land, the trees, and living creatures are all destroyed. They have been swept away with nowhere to go. The Australian Foreign Minister, Senator Bob Carr, on his visit to Kiribati in February 2013 announced his concern for the critical situation that the people of Kiribati are facing and especially the overcrowding of people in the capital Tarawa. As reported on the ABC News website, he said, ‘The Pacific Island Nation of Kiribati is living the reality of the dangers of climate change’ (Dorney 2013). So the question must be asked, how long can the people of Kiribati continue to live in their islands with their identity and traditional culture? How much will it or must it change in the existing circumstances? What can be done, by whom, and when? As our population grows and our islands gradually wash away by the hungry tide, people now worry for their future. With their feelings of despair and hopelessness, people are crying out for their life and the future of their children. ‘Our life has been destroyed. Where can we find a place to live? Our beautiful homes are falling, where can we find another home to dwell? Our lands are being washed away. Where can we find a land for the future of our children? We don’t want to leave our country, but what can we do …?’ Bishop Erieru Ionatan endorsed this attitude: We don’t want to be called refugees because it is not our will and our want to leave our own country but we are forced to leave. Refugees who have left their countries because of wars and natural disasters have their country remaining behind. For us we know that if we leave our country that is our end. (Bishop Erieru Ionatan, personal communication, 14 February 2013) 188

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The victims of ignorance in their sufferings are resounding the voice from the cross. ‘Father, why have you abandoned me. What have I done to deserve this severe punishment? We are the smallest Island nation being ignored and victimized. We are paying the cost of what the others are doing for their own benefit, development and security for their nations and countries. ‘O God where are you in his mercy, love and care?’ they cry. ‘Loving Father where are you in Christ’s saving act? When will you listen and take action to save my beloved country Kiribati from all human discrimination and exploitation? If you are remaining active in all creation, why do allow human beings to destroy the life of other humans with the rest of the earth community? Why does the God of justice not attack the injustice and destructive act of human beings?’ (Timon 2013:17) Collins echoes their cry: If the world upon which we depend for our existence is dying all around us as a direct result of our own action, … where is God in all of this? Will God stand by and allow the world to be destroyed? (as cited in Pearson 2004:23) Kiribati is in the frontline of countries that are vulnerable to climate change, and of them all, it is the most vulnerable, already it is a suffering victim of climate change. Because of this, the people are suffering extreme hopelessness through fear they will lose their land sometime in the future. There is no choice for them. The land is now flooded by the sea. Who could live in the desert without fresh water? Who could be able to continue his or her journey on a land covered by salt sea water? We are now in a critical situation, believing that in a few years the whole country of Kiribati, with only three metres above the sea level, will be covered by the sea. There will come a time to say, we don’t want to leave our country’ but on that day our mouths will be shut. We love our country but will have to say nothing but to leave. Even though we have the right to claim that we are the people of Kiribati, that right would not allow us to stay in our home country. Therefore, the critical need of the people of Kiribati at this point is not for more discussion, but for action. Surely the time has come for the world to see what is happening now in the life of the victims of climate change, like the people of Kiribati. It is our great hope that if a time comes for us to leave our country, the Good Lord will provide us the loving hands of others who could embrace us with motherly love, the love of the Good Samaritan, the love of Christ.

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God provided fresh water through Moses to the Israelites so that they could continue their journey in the desert. Could God provide us with assistance to continue our journey in our beautiful and lovely home country? Let me conclude this story by quoting the Australian Uniting Church statement on human rights: We believe that God has given humanity gifts and skills for the benefits of the earth and humanity itself. These gifts include the capacity for love, compassion, wisdom, generosity and moral choice. They come with the responsibility to ensure the health and wellbeing of present and future generations and the earth. The wellbeing of the earth is crucial to the possibility of human community and wellbeing. Social, political and economic arrangements should reflect the dignity and worth of human beings and respect for the planet. Through the prophets and the life and words of Jesus, God calls people to work for justice for the poor and the vulnerable. (Uniting Church in Australia, National Assembly 2009) As surely as the Lord lives, ‘you could do so with truth, justice, and righteousness. Then you would be a blessing to the nations of the world, and all people would come and praise my name’ (Jer. 4:2). The people of Kiribati are waiting for the time when justice will take effect in the life of all nations. They are waiting for the time when the lion and the lamb will lay together; the wolf and the lamb will eat together in the field (Isa. 65:25). The Lord will work out his plans for my life – for your faithful love, O Lord, endures forever. Don’t abandon me, for you made me (Ps. 138:8).

Two paradises destroyed Bikemaan Then was the day when a range of seabirds used its trees as their homes, its lagoon and reef populated with an assortment of tropical fish and marine creatures breeding in its clear warm waters and mangrove swamps. This piece of paradise, commonly known as Bikemaan (Ancient Beach) but with a sacred name of Te Aba ni Uea/Land of Kings, is an islet situated in the middle of the vast Tarawa lagoon. It is very beautiful with wide sandy beaches, fringed with coconut palms and pandanus trees. It has the lush vegetation

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of Alexandria Laurel trees and fruit-bearing trees protecting it from strong winds and sheltering the island all year round. Fresh well water can be found around the islet. During the day, the sea around the island brings breeze from the ocean and cools the island from the heat of the sun. At night, the warmth from the sun trapped in the sea warms the island from the ocean winds. It has a balanced humidity and a comfortable air for relaxation and resting. Te Aba ni Uea is inhabited by the descendants of those who had owned that islet from the beginning. In the 1980s and early 1990s, it was a popular destination for visitors who enjoyed picnicking, excursions and touring. However, in the mid-1990s an amazing thing happened. Very slowly, the island became smaller. The beaches became thinner and thinner. By the late 1990s, the Kiribati people had become fully aware of the dangers inherent with global warming, the vegetation on this beautiful islet had died leaving the islet barren. The once fresh water had become brackish and tasted of seawater. Sadly, the inhabitants of Te Aba ni Uea left the island knowing full well that nothing could survive on it any more. Now, in the new millennium, the islet is nothing but a pile of sandy beach of roughly about 1 to 2 square kilometres. This beach pile, once home to a family of about 100 people, home to birds and a breeding place for many marine creatures, now destroyed by the effects of global warming with the rising sea level. The loss of this piece of paradise to the sea has victimised not only people but creatures that once depended on it as their home.

Tebunginako Abaiang is one of the largest islands of Kiribati. It is very long and wide. No-one on this island seemed moved about the effects of global warming. People here lived a carefree life, continuing the day’s work and accepting things of today, never caring what was to become of them tomorrow. The village of Tebunginako, which lies in the far north of Abaiang, has about 1 000 inhabitants who live on its lagoon coastline. In the past, they had no worries about storms or erosion. When the rainy season came, which was always accompanied by strong winds, their beaches slowly started eroding away. The next rainy season did the same and the villagers decided to build a strong sea wall. They built it over the lagoon side hoping to stop the erosion. By the next rainy seasons, the seawall was not strong enough to protect the land and soon fell apart.

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The villagers, determined to protect their village, built an even stronger seawall – one made of concrete. However, their efforts were in vain. The sea had become their cruellest enemy. Little by little over the years, the erosion continued and soon reached the main road and slowly crept inland. The villagers slowly moved inland away from the eroded lagoon side. The erosion kept on eating away the mainland destroying vegetation, homes, plantations, fresh water milkfish lakes and bwabwai pits. The villagers started to build their homes inland but the erosion seemed to come faster. Very soon, the village turned to seawater and is now divided into pieces. Nowadays, it is not easy to go from place to place and it is very hard to plant things and survive on this piece of Abaiang. Sadly, the villagers of Tebunginako moved away to find homes in other parts of Abaiang and with relatives on Tarawa and other islands. The once joyful village, full of life with people, is now becoming a barren land of dead trees and the cruel sea.

Cry for justice The two stories are real and the problems are still happening. In no time, most Kiribati islands will be nothing but a vast ocean. These kinds of happenings are not things of nature. They are made from the ignorance of man and its preoccupation of improving life. Where will we go if our islands drown? As the world is merging into a technological age, what future is there for the powerless, innocent people struggling to get on with life? Who shall we blame and would the perpetrators accept being blamed? Parliamentarians speak of justice, peace, security and a higher standard of living. Does this bring justice to the lowly and powerless who have no say? Everything in this world is a race to be known, to be seen and to be ranked as the top in every human endeavour. Well-developed and rich countries give aids to developing countries. Why? To be seen as a benefactor? When Jesus came to the world, He brought justice with a new set of rules: ‘Love thy neighbour as thyself.’ A new commandment to bring equality and peace to the nations of the world. Most global countries are Christian countries. Why not use this new commandment and see how helpless we are during these times. A cry for justice for the people of Kiribati who are on top of the Global Warming victim list to have compassion and please think of us, a Third World struggling nation who had no say and has no power to protect itself and its people from the effects of global warming. 192

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A cry for justice could be scoffed at with ignorance and ignored by the bigger countries in their race for more power. Our cry is just a mere bump in the road for them but we pray that someone will emerge with a plan to convince our big brother nations to help and stand by us at this time.

A prayer Dear loving God, you have provided water for your people during their journey in the wilderness, please provide us with water of life to satisfy our thirst for justice and hunger for true love. Lord Jesus, in our feeling of despair and hopelessness, embrace us with your loving hands. Lord who found nowhere to lay your head, grant us faith and courage to endure our suffering with you. In you alone, we will find our refuge, our home, and beautiful islands. May your kingdom come may your will be done on earth. Amen

References Bird C. 2008. Pepesa – the household of life. An exploration of land in the context of change in the Solomon Islands. PhD dissertation, School of Theology, Charles Sturt University, Canberra. Dorney S. 2013. Carr sees Kiribati’s climate threat. Accessed 30 March 2013 http://www. abc.net.au/news/2013-02-11/an-carr-on-kiribati-climate Pearson C. 2004. Electing to do ecotheology. Journal for the Study of Religion, Nature and Culture 9(1): 7-28. https://doi.org/10.1558/ecot.9.1.7.36242 Timon T. 2013. A theological reflection of land in the context of climate. MTh thesis, School of Theology, Charles Sturt University, Canberra. Uniting Church in Australia, National Assembly. 2009. Dignity in humanity: Recognising Christ in every person. Eleventh Assembly Resolution 06.20.01. Accessed 30 March 2013 http://www.unitingjustice.org.au/just-and-sustainable-economy/ucastatements/item/download/713_3c81829493f2af895c54ba799de90d17 WCC (World Council of Churches). 2004. Otin Tai declaration. Accessed 20 March 2013 https://www.oikoumene.org/en/resources/documents/wcc-programmes/ justice-diakonia-and-responsibility-for-creation/climate-change-water/otin-taideclaration

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A gift not withstanding its abuses Studying Genesis 19 and Judges 19 in the context of Empiresponsored violence against LGBTI persons Massiwa Gunda Bible text from Genesis 18, 19; Judges 19, 20; Matthew 5

Introduction From time immemorial, human communities all over the world have known, tolerated, revered, rejected and brutalised those who are different from the majority in various ways. In many communities, people with disabilities were killed simply because they were physically challenged. In some communities, children born with albinism were revered for their difference; while in other communities, they were rejected. In the past decade or so, such children were targeted for ritual murders in East Africa. People who had a different sexual identity have had similar experiences of being revered and accepted or being jeered and rejected. While the label, LGBTI is very recent in origin, many communities were publicly or privately aware of the existence of people who were different. In this community are persons who have a different sexuality or gender identity from the majority. While there is a large LGBTI community in Africa (as in many other parts of the world), the discourse on sexualities tends to focus on the G (gays) and the L (lesbians), such that one could be forgiven for thinking these are the only sexual minorities. When we talk of ‘Empire’, we are naturally thrown away into the ancient world where Empires such as the Hittite, Assyrian, Babylonian, Persian, Greek and Roman Empires ruled the Ancient Near East, including the Biblical world. Yet, in reality, we live surrounded by Empires in this world! Empires were and are political monsters which sought or seek to control everything that happens in their territories and attempt to make all the people in the Empire to only do those things that are approved by Empire. Any attempts at questioning Empire were seen as rebellious hence punished severely. Each Empire tried and tries to create uniformity (language, culture) and difference is therefore largely seen as deviance. LGBTI persons are therefore interpreted as deviant according to many manifestations of Empire in our world. This chapter will, therefore, seek to articulate ways in which Empire has sponsored violence against LGBTI through its deployment of Biblical texts and how texts can be engaged in order to breathe life into the LGBTI persons. 195

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Studying the texts The Sodom narrative: Genesis 18, 19 The Sodom narrative in Genesis 19, which has been widely used in Christian communities throughout the world to justify discrimination and rejection of LGBTI persons, actually begins in Genesis 18. In this early chapter, we are presented with Abraham taking the initiative to show hospitality to three strangers who are passing by. The text (vv. 3-5) sums up the essence of hospitality, which was expected when strangers passed through one’s homestead or the vicinity of one’s homestead. Having treated the strangers well, the strangers reciprocate by promising Sarah and Abraham a child, a son! Sarah laughed at the thought of bearing a child in her old age, yet the promise was not reversed, the following spring she would have a child (vv. 9-15). A second development comes when the strangers have been fed, rested and have decided to go on their way. Here the Lord is presented as pondering whether to inform Abraham of the real destination of their mission or not (vv. 17-21). The Lord decides to inform Abraham because the Lord has already chosen Abraham to be the father of nations. Ironically, the Lord also decides to inform Abraham because he must raise his children in righteousness and doing justice. This is particularly important because afterward we are informed of the outcry against the sins of Sodom and Gomorrah suggesting there is a connection between what is expected of Abraham and his descendants and what is happening in Sodom and Gomorrah. After being informed of the impending destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, Abraham takes it upon himself to try and make the Lord change the fate of these two cities by pleading on the basis of a few who are righteous within the cities (vv. 23-32). In this interesting exchange, Abraham begins with fifty righteous but ends up with ten righteous people and the Lord suggesting that if as many as ten righteous people are found in these cities, the Lord will not destroy them. There they parted ways! Genesis 19 opens with the arrival of two of three strangers in Sodom in the evening. Seeing them in the town square, Lot invites them into his house. Even though the strangers initially resist the offer, they eventually turn aside and join Lot in his home where he shows the strangers hospitality (vv. 2-3). The theme of hospitality, therefore, spills from the previous chapter into this chapter. However, before they could retire to bed, the men of Sodom (contrasted here with Lot who is a resident alien in Sodom) come to the house of Lot demanding to have the strangers and to know them. The ’knowing’ is widely understood as having sexual connotations, that is, the men of Sodom wanted to have sexual intercourse with the male strangers. Lot pleads with the men of Sodom not to 196

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do this wicked thing and offers them his two virgin daughters in order to spare the dignity of these strangers. The men of Sodom become angry with the offer and threaten to deal with Lot in a much worse manner than they intended to deal with the strangers. And as they push hard towards the door of Lot’s house, the strangers snatch Lot back into the house and strike the men of Sodom with blindness. Lot is allowed to take out his family. Having unsuccessfully tried to take his sons-in-law, Lot eventually departs with his wife and their two daughters. There are some critical lessons for us in this narrative: First, the greatest gift a stranger or sojourner can be given is hospitality. What Abraham and Lot did for strangers is a virtue that can transform societies into caring communities. Hospitality manifests itself in helping strangers freshen up, seen through the washing of feet. Feeding the strangers, and giving them a place to rest and enjoy a nap is yet another manifestation of hospitality. Second, when we show hospitality we set ourselves up for unimaginable blessings. Abraham gets the promise of a son that he had lost hope of ever having with his wife Sarah. He is even let into the divine plans and even given permission to negotiate with the divine. Similarly, Lot is given the gift of life when others were having the same snuffed out by the Lord – a gift unimaginable under the circumstances. Third, it is clear that in patriarchal societies the value of women is highly undermined. That Lot could offer his virgin daughters to be raped by men is extremely distasteful and revolting. It sought to mitigate one form of rape by perpetuating another rape. What Lot sought to do was to stop a homosexual gang rape by offering instead heterosexual gang rape. Fourth, the sin of Sodom is not necessarily the attempted homosexual gang rape of the angels but the lack of hospitality among the men of Sodom, which manifested on this occasion in this attempted gang rape.

The Levite’s concubine narrative: Judges 19 The Judges 19 narrative begins by introducing a Levite from Ephraim (one of the tribes of Israel) who had a concubine (a junior wife). The couple had had some misunderstandings, which led the wife to return to her father in Bethlehem in Judah. After some time and with the emotions that led to this separation having receded, the man decides to pursue his wife to reclaim her from her father. It is interesting that the man is driven by his desire

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for the good old times hence he desires not to forcibly reclaim his wife but rather to kindly convince his wife that he means well for her (v. 3). In circumstances where a daughter has returned unceremoniously from her husband’s place, one would expect the father to be suspicious and cold towards the approaching son-in-law, yet the father-in-law came with joy to meet the approaching son-in-law. The host then exhibits extreme hospitality, convincing the son in-law to stay for four days, during which time they ‘ate and drank and lodged there’ (vv. 4-6). On the fifth day, the son in-law departs with his wife and servant even as the father-in-law was attempting to make them stay longer. In this section, we are clearly exposed to the best of hospitality. The three travellers made their way north and as night was coming upon them, the servant suggests to the master; ‘Come now, let us turn aside to this city of the Jebusites and spend the night in it’ (v. 11). The servant’s suggestion appreciated the risk of trying to continue journeying at night and he thought it was safer to seek refuge among other people, but the master refused (v. 12). The master considered non-Israelites to be different, deviant and not to be trusted hence he opted to risk the early night in order to get to a town of the Israelites. They successfully journey on to Gibeah. Upon arrival in the town, noone takes them in and they have to go and sit in the town square (v. 15). A resident alien (from Ephraim) coming from his fields sees the strangers in the square and invites them to his house for the night. There is some resistance but the resident alien prevails. ‘So he brought him into his house, and gave the asses provender; and they washed their feet, and ate and drank’ (v. 21). As they were making merry in the house of the resident alien, the indigenous men of Gibeah, came demanding to know the strangers (vv. 22-24). The worst happens when the concubine is thrown outside to the marauding men of the city by her husband and is gang-raped all night long and only released early in the morning. She managed to find her way back to the house of the resident alien where her husband slept and she died on the doorstep. Carrying the corpse of the dead concubine the man plans revenge against the men of Gibeah and dismembered his concubine into twelve pieces, which he sent to all the tribes of Israel. The narrative continues in Judges 20 with the revenge that was carried out against Gibeah. This narrative, unlike that in Genesis 19, is about a gang rape that had fatal consequences, not an attempted gang rape.

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The relationship between the two texts Any reader of written materials cannot fail to witness the close relationship between the Genesis 18-19 narrative and the Judges 19 narrative. The literary structure of the narratives is the same and the content is similar serve for some minor yet fundamental differences. 1.

From these two texts, there is the unmistakable importance attached to hospitality that must be shown to sojourners and strangers. This theme begins with Abraham showing great hospitality to the three strangers and Lot doing the same to the two strangers (Gen. 18, 19) and extending to the father-in-law in Bethlehem and the resident alien in Gibeah (Judg. 19).

2.

In both narratives, sexuality is acknowledged and is clearly presented as something that can be abused as an instrument of exhibiting dominance over others, especially strangers. In the case of Judges 19, it comes out clear that some of the vilest abuses actually are perpetrated by those that we trust, the stranger opted against seeking refuge among the Jebusites trusting Israelites instead and there among the trusted, his beloved concubine met her painful gang rape induced death.

3.

There is both an attempt to abuse sexuality through homosexual gang rape (which fails in both narratives) and heterosexual gang rape (which actually killed the concubine). Are these attempts and actual abuses of sexuality enough to take away the fact that sexuality is a gift to us from God?

4.

In many communities, on the basis of Genesis 19, homosexuality is proscribed and criminalised while heterosexuality is celebrated even though Judges 19 shows a victim of heterosexual gang rape. Empire has, therefore, selectively decided to see one supposed evil while ignoring an evil that is apparent.

Manifestations of Empire on sexuality In the past few years, the subject of human sexuality, especially same-sex sexuality, has been catapulted to prominence in Africa through the words and actions of leaders like Robert Mugabe, Yoweri Museveni, Uhuru Kenyatta and other presidents on the African continent. Kenyatta has tried Empire diplomacy by suggesting that other inequalities, injustices and oppressions can continue because of the existence of ‘other more pressing issues.’ There are many stories of hidden interests and hands operating from the West financing the anti-homosexual discourse in Africa, which has seen members of parliaments being financially supported to propose laws that incriminate same-sex relationships and practices. The investments that have been made in the anti-homosexual discourse by governments and churches do not seem to tally with the actual percentage of persons 199

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who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex in different countries. This is a significant contrast to the outcry by citizens on critical matters such as infrastructure development, employment creation and even emergencies, such as when there is a cholera outbreak or the current Ebola epidemic. Why are our governments and powerful institutions magnifying the problem of same-sex practices and relationships? It is even mind-boggling that compared to heterosexual sexual crimes in the same countries. These governments are actually not investing even half of what is needed to curb child sexual abuse, domestic gender-based violence in heterosexual relationships, while time and resources are devoted to fighting an imaginary problem of the West trying to exterminate all Africans by imposing homosexuality on the continent. While Museveni was moving to restrict the work of Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) in Uganda because of their insistence on commenting on the political and human rights situation in Uganda, The Telegraph of 31 August 2014 reported that Robert Mugabe was proclaiming that ‘he prefers Chinese aid because Beijing does not force him to accept homosexuality’ (Thornycroft 2014). This presentation of China was used to frame the frosty relations between Mugabe and the West and even though there are various issues that led to the thawing of relations, Mugabe now reduces all the issues to homosexuality. He is the saint who stood up to the devils from the West whose only interest is turning all Africans into homosexuals. While Mugabe has been more vitriolic in his rhetoric than in the actual persecution of the LGBTI persons in Zimbabwe, there has been a consistent and systematic arrest and release of the leaders of the LGBTI community in Zimbabwe. In Uganda, the parliament initially succeeded in passing the anti-homosexuality bill, which made same-sex practices and relationships serious offences punishable even by death for what they called aggravated homosexuality. A much bigger problem in the countries where homosexuality has been criminalised has not been the same-sex abuse of the innocent but the hetero-sex sexual abuse of women and young girls. In an article on the New Vision website, the African Network for the Prevention and Protection against Child Abuse and Neglect (ANPPCAN) reports that, ‘If we are to go by the police statistics, at least 21 children are defiled every day in Uganda. These reported cases are however a tip of an iceberg as many cases aren’t reported due to a multiplicity of factors’ (Agaba 2012). The response to this has not been as vicious and concerted as the response to same-sex relationships and practices. In fact, the high cases of sexual abuse have led to more children contracting HIV/AIDS, and other sexually transmitted diseases thereby threatening the future of these African societies as the generations that are supposed to shoulder the

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burden of ensuring the continued existence of these societies have become an endangered species. Hetero-sex sexual abuse threatens the existence of our societies in much more fundamental ways than same-sex sexual practices can ever do. Zimbabwe has been one of the countries known for being outspoken when it comes to same-sex sexual practices and relationships. Yet previously, in 2009, the Family Support Trust Clinic, which runs four specialist clinics at Harare Central Hospital, Chitungwiza Central Hospital, Beitbridge District Hospital and Mutare Provincial Hospital, reported that it had treated 30 000 girls and boys, victims of sexual violence over a period of four years. This means that at least 20 children were sexually abused in a day and the majority of these children have been abused in hetero-sex sexual practices (Dube 2013). What these brief statistics do, is to show that when it comes to sexual offences, the societies that are rabidly anti-homosexual are actually sweeping under the carpet a fatal infection of heterosex sexual abuses that threaten the survival of these societies. The outrage and venom that is expressed against homosexuality appear to focus on the fact that it is different, and in such societies, difference is interpreted as deviance. Difference in political ideology, in economic theory, in ethnic identity, or in sexual orientation is treated with suspicion and therefore not to be trusted. Hetero-sex sexual abuses are rationalised by the understanding that ‘at least it is normal’ hence considered a lesser evil. In short, our Empire is emphatic in arguing that in the basket of same-sex sexual orientation, one rotten apple means all apples are rotten in that basket; while in the basket of hetero-sex sexual orientation, one rotten apple means only one apple is rotten in that basket!

Bible texts in context Sub-Saharan Africa is predominantly Christian and the two key examples used in this study (Uganda and Zimbabwe) are predominantly Christian. Christian communities in Africa, in general, are serious Bible readers; the Bible is considered very important and enjoys an unrivalled position in the lives of believers. Suggesting that Christians in these communities, such as Uganda and Zimbabwe, read their Bible seriously does not negate the fact that these Christians’ readings are highly selective and dependent on categories developed by Empire. The Genesis 19 story has been read in these contexts to be a general and blanket condemnation of all manifestations of same-sex sexual practices and relationships. The sin of Sodom has now been reduced to homosexuality and the fate of Sodom has been reiterated as the model punishment for any society (past, present or future) that may harbour interests of accepting or tolerating same-sex sexual practices and relationships. Even though the narrative makes explicit the violent intentions of the

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men of Sodom, that dimension is not emphasised in contemporary anti-homosexual contexts thereby reducing all same-sex practices and relationships to appear violent and disgusting. The hermeneutic directing these Empire-inspired readings appear to be one of the universalism of the relative! In other words, that which is relative to Sodom is universal to all! If the same hermeneutic were to be used in reading Judges 19, the outcome would be an even greater revolt, disgust and condemnation of hetero-sex sexual practices and relationships! Whereas Genesis 19 talks of attempted homosexual gang rape, Judges 19 talks of committed fatal heterosexual gang rape. In reading this text, which shows the worst of heterosexuality, the hermeneutic is transformed to be one of the relativity of the relative! In short, that which is relative to Gibeah cannot be universalised to condemn all manifestations of heterosexuality. Clearly, there are double standards in the manner in which these two narratives have been read and interpreted with the aid of Empire in our time. That which kills and killed is not condemned because it is in the category of what Empire has categorised as normal and that which has not killed is condemned because it has been categorised as not normal. Difference is suspicious according to Empire!

Alternative readings for empowerment As Christians, one of the greatest and fundamental desires expressed through the words of our Lord Jesus Christ, is for us and for everything Christian to become the salt and light of the world that we live in (Matt. 5:13-16). The idea of salt and light is critical because of its focus on these agents as transforming agents. Whatever comes into conduct with these agents will not remain the same but will be transformed. We have come to a realisation that there is so much that is wrong and depressing from reading these texts yet it is also abundantly clear that any attempts to address issues of sexuality must deal with these texts and others because of the importance of the Bible to the lives of believers and others who live with the believers. While we try to be the salt and light of the world, we also must begin to ask whether Biblical texts can also become salt and light in depressing situations such as those we face where emphasis and resources are placed where there is minimal risk and not where they are really needed. The two texts that we are studying here have the potential of becoming salt and light in our context. We can have an alternative view and reading of these texts. To begin with, these texts are about hospitality. It is Empire (which resists hospitality) that pushes our focus towards trivial matters while downplaying the important matters! We live in a world that is governed by Empires that discourage us from showing hospitality to strangers 202

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and sojourners. Beginning with Abraham when he sees three strangers approaching his homestead, he sees an opportunity to do good by assisting them on their way. He does not ask them to cancel their journey only that they take a breather and that he would be happy to host them. Through the actions of Abraham, we are exposed to true and ideal hospitality: provision of facilities to freshen up (water to wash feet), food to eat and drinking refreshments for the strangers. In Zimbabwe, there is a Shona proverb that says ‘a stranger or visitor hosted can never lead to the emptying or finishing of the granary or food reserves.’ Such a proverb was designed to allow people to happily host visitors and strangers. This understanding of hospitality as a voluntary obligation is also expressed in the person of Lot in Sodom when he sees the strangers approaching Sodom. He takes them into his house and offers them faultless hospitality, water to wash their feet (this was very important for people whose most common mode of transport was on foot, meaning their feet were dusty after journeying), food to eat and the drink to accompany the food. The same theme is pursued religiously in Judges 19, where the father- in-law takes it upon himself to entertain the son-in-law for four days before he eventually departed with his estranged wife. What is instructive about this theme of hospitality in our world is that this is the character that is most lacking in human relationships. We live in a world where strangers and visitors are hosted by bombs and propaganda and barricades that are meant to make it impossible for strangers to pass by our homesteads. In these texts, there is the unmistaken understanding of sexuality as a gift from God. Through his hospitality to strangers, Abraham is promised a son through his wife Sarah. The child will be a secondary issue developing from the pleasures of sexual intercourse (Gen.18:11-12). The words of Sarah are highly instructive, sexual pleasure was a normal and expected way of enjoying the gift of sexuality and that children could sometimes result from the pleasures of sexuality. The emphasis on sexuality being equal to procreation, a feature of the anti-homosexual discourse in Africa does not seem to have any absolute basis in the Bible; God will sometimes bless those who use the gift of sexuality with children. In the case of Abraham, we cannot underestimate the role played by his selfless hospitality since the promise of a child is given a definite timetable only after the hospitality shown in Genesis 18. There is a clear ethical side to the use of this gift, with Sarah clearly aware that it was a gift she could only enjoy with her husband. The same could be said of Lot’s daughters who were still virgins as they waited for the right time to enjoy this gift with their husbands. A similar line can be found in Judges 19, the man from Ephraim misses the joys of sexual intercourse with his concubine and he follows her to her father’s house. It is not even mentioned if they had children or if they intended to have children, what is obvious is that they were sexual partners and the man from Ephraim missed that dimension

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to their partnership as well as the companionship he shared with this person who was different from himself. While in the earlier engagement with the texts, we focused on the attempted and actual abuse of sexuality that does not and cannot allow us to conclude that it has ceased to be a gift from God. In fact, even though in Judges 19 the man’s concubine is killed in a vicious hetero-sex sexual gang rape, the contemporary Empire in all its manifestations in politics and church, has not used this particular case to issue a blanket condemnation of heterosexuality. What this particular case does is to show us that there are some who will abuse this wonderful gift of God. From that perspective, we must guard against endorsing the blanket condemnation of homosexuality by Empire on the basis of a particular incident in which some people attempted to abuse the gift of sexuality, as is the case with Sodom. Sexuality remains a precious gift from God (whether it be homosexuality, heterosexuality and everything else in between) notwithstanding its abuse at different times and in different contexts. Those who have been so blessed by God deserve our acceptance, not rejection. This is especially important because Empire stands opposed to that which is divine even as it presents itself as the defender of the divine, as is the case in Africa.

A prayer For all the years of being hoodwinked by the multiple manifestations of empire in our lives, we plead with you Lord for guidance away from the kingdom of empire which thrives on exclusion and towards your Kingdom, which thrives on opening wide its arms to embrace those who seek the Glory of God. We have erred for so long as we mistook empire for Your Holiness, we have imbibed the prejudices of empire and thought we were imbibing your teachings! Help us O Lord; that we may vomit the homophobia of this empire and be replenished by the enduring love and kindness of thy son, Our Lord, Jesus Christ.

Questions for further reflection 1.

What other texts are used in your context in the discussions on sexuality?

2.

How is sexuality understood in your context?

3.

In what ways do people use the Bible in developing or sustaining their perspectives on sexuality in contemporary contexts?

4.

How are political, religious and economic (social) leaders influencing public opinion on matters to do with sexuality?

5.

In what ways has this Bible study challenged you on human sexuality?

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References Agaba M. 2012. The African Network for the Prevention and Protection against Child Abuse and Neglect – (ANPPCAN) is concerned about the rising incidences of child sexual abuse in the country. Accessed 18 June 2016, http://www.newvision.co.ug/new_ vision/news/1307106/anppcan-calls-action-increased-children-rights-abuse Dube R. 2013. ‘She probably asked for it!’ A preliminary study into Zimbabwean societal perceptions of rape. Accessed 18 June 2016, http://reliefweb.int/sites/reliefweb. int/files/resources/A-study-into-Zimbabwean-Societal-perception-of-rape.pdf A Thorneycroft P. 2014. Robert Mugabe says he prefers Chinese aid because Beijing does not force him to accept homosexuality. Accessed 30 June 2016, http://www.telegraph. co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/zimbabwe/11066454/RobertMugabe-says-he-prefers-Chinese-aid-because-Beijing-does-not-force-him-toaccept-homosexuality.html

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The politics of resistance From welcomed immigrants to alleged terrorists Roderick R. Hewitt

European foundations of the conflict The Israeli-Palestinian conflict that generates so much global media attention does not have its historical roots in Biblical times as fundamentalist Christian leaders are led to believe. Rather it is rooted in the political and economic conflict between European nations. The post-World War 1 actions of the British and French maritime interest sought control of the Mediterranean Sea and the Suez Canal seaway that would lead to India and the East to facilitate trade. The presence of the Ottoman Empire navy in the area necessitated that they divide up the Ottoman-Syrian province into a number of countries. In the historic Sykes-Picot agreement between the British and French, the French took control of the northern area (Syria) and created an additional country that had not existed before called Lebanon. The British, in response to the rise of Saudi-Arabia, facilitated the emergence of two nations: Iraq and Trans-Jordan, a divide and rule strategy to control the region. The other side of the Jordan was called Palestine, which in reality was part of the same ethnic group of people that lived in the new country called Jordan.

Powerful political and economic interest sacrificed the Palestinians In addition to a small number of ethnic Jews who had been part of Palestine for centuries, European Jews had migrated and lived in the region called Palestine since the 1880s rule of the Ottoman Empire. They were part of the Zionist movement dedicated to creating a Jewish State in the region. But this was no unoccupied or empty land that God gave the Jews to settle in. There were a large number of indigenous people that lived and worked on the land. The European Jews purchased lands from unscrupulous wealthy absentee Egyptian, Syrian and Lebanese landowners. This began their systematic process of strategic settlement of Palestine that has dispossessed the local people to this day. For the Jewish people, their understanding was that they engaged in a fair and just business deal in purchasing the land and they were, therefore, the legitimate owners. This commercial real estate transaction resulted in the local people being disposed and expelled from the land.

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Unjust and unethical actions of the United Nations The fundamental shift happened after World War 2 with changes in the geo-political landscape of the region. The mass movement of people who survived the European holocaust migrated to the region. This was further complicated by Syria’s claim that the nations of Lebanon, Jordan and Palestine were an integral part of its national sovereignty and was against any part becoming independent. The action of the European and America nations through the United Nations to create a homeland for the Jewish people resulted in an unjust division of the land in which the minority got the majority of the land and the majority became refugees in their own land. After the end of the British Palestine mandate in 1948 Jordanian monarchical regime indirectly supported the formation of Israel as a buttress against the competing independent Palestinian state. Historically neither Jordan, Egypt nor Syria supported the creation of an independent Palestinian state.

Sibling rivalry exasperated the problem The historic competition and antagonism of these Arab nations against each other’s interest also contribute to the current Israeli-Palestinian problem. On one hand, they need Israel as an enemy in order to demonstrate to their people that they are giving support to the Palestinian cause, but on the other hand they have demonstrated very little pro-active tangible support to facilitate the creation of an independent and strong Palestinian nation. Therefore the Palestinian problem is not only an Israeli but also an Arab problem. The different wars fought in the region since 1948 have resulted in the Palestinian situation going from bad to worse. The three-day ceasefire between Israel and Palestine (Hamas) in August 2014 predictably failed to stop the ill-fated war and senseless cross-border attacks that have killed about 2 000 women and children, injured close to 10 000 and destroyed thousands of homes. Israel, like Hamas, has overstepped what is morally defensible by any Christian in their inhumane actions in Gaza. Their immoral and unethical actions have created a humanitarian crisis. Hamas’ despicable and morally reprehensible use of civilians in promoting its ideology of resistance has placed the Palestinian in a catch 22 position. There is no way to turn and no viable options.

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Support for Israel based upon questionable Biblical interpretation To understand why many evangelical Christians in Jamaica give such uncritical support to the Jewish State of Israel one must attempt to identify and then deconstruct the myths that have been intentionally nurtured over decades. This religious addiction to advance the cause and agenda of Israel has resulted in political enslavement. Each time a conflict erupts between Israel and the Palestinians, the church takes side with Israel. Sadly it does so not on sound data that is presented, but on emotional, non-critical attachment and appeasement to the political agenda of conservative and fundamentalist American evangelical Christians and Zionist Christians’ alliance with Israel. These groups use the Bible in an ideological way to fit their agenda that Israel must not give up one inch of the covenant land that God promised and gave to Abraham and his descendants.

Blind addiction to a false and unjust ideology It was the ancestors of many of these white Southern conservative Christians that used Scriptures to support the enslavement of Africans and indigenous Indians. Therefore it is paradoxical that Jamaicans, whose ancestors have also suffered from European misuse of the Bible to support the evil system of slavery, have now joined forces with conservatives and fundamentalist evangelical with their flawed theology to support the enslavement, imprisonment and oppression of Palestinians. Such Christians are addicted to support Israel for any reason because they believe that in doing so they are pleasing God and are storing up blessings for themselves.

Contradiction within Rastafari What is also of interest within the Jamaican context is that Rastafari hermeneutics that is built on a strong anti-imperialist, anti-colonialist and liberative ideology seems to be embedded in an ideological support of Israel because of its uncritical use of the Scriptures. Rastafari use of selective Old Testament texts has further compounded their situation. Their stated commitment to putting up resistance against non-life-giving forces should have aligned them with the resistance of the Palestinian people against the colonialist occupation of their land. But I am not aware of any of the songs of Rastafari critiquing the Israeli occupation policy as Babylon that Jah will overthrow. This issue must be addressed by Rastafari or else they stand accused of being a movement that is myopic and is in support of injustice. 209

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Fullness of life for all This article argues that the position taken by the Jamaican Church leaders to give uncritical support to Israel’s conflict with the Palestinians is untenable and against the gospel of Jesus that offers ‘fullness of life for all’. If Israel does not regard or respect the Palestinians as human beings created in God’s image just like the Jews and other people of the world, then neither will their human rights be respected. The full force of the Israeli government and its media allies have engaged in a systemic policy to dehumanise and demonise Palestinians in order to legitimise the occupation of their lands. The political, economic and military support for Israel in their historic oppression of Palestinians and the current unbalanced and violent assault on Gaza that has killed over 1 900 people, most of whom are civilians, is an untenable and morally repugnant situation. Church leaders must, therefore, be willing to ask uncomfortable questions about what going on in Palestine and to use the lens of the God of life, justice, peace and love that is revealed in the ministry and mission of Jesus to take a stand. This should not be determined by the political agenda of powerful religious conservative and fundamentalist lobby groups that influence the USA policy towards Israel.

The land of Palestine was never unoccupied These fundamentalist evangelical Christians have promoted the myth that the land of Palestine was unoccupied when the Zionists occupied it in 1948. This is far from the truth. Palestine has remained consistently occupied by Palestinian Christians and Muslims and other indigenous Arabs and Jewish communities from the time of the Romans through to the end of the Ottoman Empire when the British took control of the area. Therefore any solution to the situation must be a win-win for both Jews and Palestinians.

Conclusion We must not be tricked into accepting that Israel is fighting for its survival from hostile enemies as it loves to claim. Neither Hamas nor any other state in the Middle East has the necessary military resource capacity to defeat Israel, which has the fourth largest army, outfitted by the USA and Europe. Israel’s policy towards the Palestinians created Hamas whose despicable acts of kidnapping Israeli civilians and firing missiles on their cities are evil actions born out of desperation and hopelessness. The equation must be changed and it can only come from groups that can influence Israeli-American policy.

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When one considers the economic cost of the war in Gaza one can see the inhumanity that has pushed the already battered and besieged economy many years into the doldrums. When one compares Palestinian condition with Israel getting about $2billion in aid from the USA each year, it becomes clear that there are little incentives for Israel to make peace with Palestine. The actions of Israel with the Palestinians suggest that they are using apartheid policies that were perfected in South Africa to construct separate development for the Palestinians whom they demonise and make second-class humans as they seize their lands. The Jamaica government and people who included many conservative evangelical church leaders took a stand against the South African apartheid policies that belittled the human dignity of Africans. A similar case exists with the Palestinian people who demand all Jamaican people of goodwill to take a stand. Therefore, the only peaceful forms of resistance open to Jamaican Christians who value peace with justice for the Israeli and Palestinian people would be to lobby for the boycotting of companies that support the Israeli government military policies and machinery, divestment of all forms of Jamaican trade with Israel and to network with other groups around the world that are advocating equal rights and justice for both Palestinians and Israelis. We need to march and protest and make our voices heard. We must educate our people, especially church leaders who misuse Scripture to give uncritical support to Israel. They may be sincere in their belief, but they are sincerely wrong. The God of Israel is also the God of the Palestinian. This God of life seen in the life and work of Jesus Christ has no favourites but will consistently defend victims who are oppressed by the powerful of this world.

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Reuniting sexuality and spirituality Dr Un Hey Kim Bible text from Genesis 11; 1 Corinthians 3; 2 Corinthians 4

‘Don’t you know that you yourselves are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit lives in you? If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy him; for God’s temple is sacred, and you are that temple’ (I Cor. 3:16-17) ‘The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth’ (John 1:14). ‘Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God – this is your spiritual act of worship’ (Rom. 12:1).

The sacred body and sensual spirituality According to the Bible, Jesus understands what it means to live in a body with all its limitation, as well as its beauty. In the Bible, bodies are made with the love of God, revealed through the incarnation and resurrection of Jesus Christ. It depicts that the body is not inferior to the soul, but rather, the correlation of health in body and spirit to grow the faith of a Christian relationship help each other. The consequences of oppression and suppression of the body, particularly, the female body forms the basis for the Christian understanding of sex. Through traditional theology, the body has long been understood as a place of heredity of sin by the sexual relationship. Thus, church has a distorted interpretation of body by relating sex with sin, leaving the issue of sexuality as an uncomfortable topic to be discussed. When Christians think about human sexuality they tend to connect sexuality to the sin by St. Augustine’s interpretation of Original sin that inherits though the sexual relationship. However, sexuality expressed on the body is always interconnected to spirituality and morality because, according to I Corinthians, body is the temple of God. Paul appeals to those who believe in Christ to present their bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God. He calls a living sacrifice one that carries in itself life, that is, Christ. Thus he says: ‘We are afflicted in every way, … carrying in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifest in our bodies’ (2 Cor. 4:8-10). That body in which the Holy Spirit dwells is called holy, as he says elsewhere: ‘Do you not know 213

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that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you’? (1 Cor. 3:16). The sacrifice pleases God because it has been purified of sins and vices. From the dualistic perspective, Christians tend to see the issues of sexuality and body far distant from the sacred and the holy because spirit and mind, which have represented the man, could be superior to body and flesh, which have represented woman. Sexuality is a bitterly contested territory for many, probably most Christians these days, and the climate of rather frantic controversy has not encouraged a really Biblical debate. According to the Bible, however, body is surely the temple of Holy God. In addition, we should not forget that God came to this world in the flesh of man, and He is Jesus Christ. Someone may say, ‘How should the body be a sacrifice?’ Prevent your eye from looking at something evil; it has become a sacrifice. Do not let the tongue say something shameful; it has become an offering. Do not let the hand perform an unjust action; it has become a whole burnt offering. Yet these things are not enough and we must also perform good works: let the hand give alms; let the mouth bless those who abuse; let the hearing devote itself continuously to listening to divine speech. For sacrifice has nothing impure about it; sacrifice is the first-fruits of all other actions. Let us then make a sacrifice to God of the first fruits of all other actions. Let us then make a sacrifice to God of the first-fruits of our hands, feet, mouth, and all the other member of our body. Traditionally in our global context where the spirit of Empire has dominated, women’s body is viewed as the most wretched, sad, and tragic place where sexuality can be expressed. Although in current-day society, men’s bodies are also very much commercialised. When we mention sexuality, more often a women’s body is consciously and non-consciously thought of or is targeted. However, sexuality refers to both genders; God created both sexes, male and female. Sexuality is God’s life-giving and life-fulfilling gift. Christian teaching about human sexuality grounds firmly in the love of God revealed by Christ. Biblically speaking, human sexuality is both a gift and a responsibility. At creation, the gift of sex was among those things God declared to be ‘very good’ (Gen. 1:31.) Our faith traditions celebrate the goodness of creation, including our bodies and sexuality. We come from diverse Christian communities to recognise sexuality as central to our humanity and as integral to our spirituality. Sexuality is an expression of Christian faith. However, in our context in the midst of Empire, body, women’s bodies in particular, have been destroyed and exploited ever since. For us who have lived in the global context, to think about Empire is to think about our reality. It is not difficult to see sexuality at the centre of the moral crisis in the midst of Empire.

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Two accounts of exploitation of the female body The following two accounts, despite the Biblical foundation of sexuality and body, show the reality of how, through distorted education and understanding of the human body, the exploitation of the female body is viewed in our world today. Read the stories and share your feeling and experiences.

‘Remember Nhu’ fights child sex abuse in Asia When Nhu Da Than was a seven-year-old Vietnamese refugee living along the Mekong River in Cambodia, she got her grandmother’s permission to attend a nearby school run by a Christian church. There, she studied the Bible every day and believed in Jesus Christ. When she was 12 years old, her family went through financial difficulties. To pay off debts for money she had borrowed to feed the family, Nhu’s grandmother sold her to a human trafficker for $300. The girl was raped and sexually abused for three days and then returned to the family. ‘At that time, I believed God did not love me anymore because of my sin,’ Nhu said in a video statement. ’I did not want to eat or talk to anyone. I could no longer smile. At night, I would cry and ask God, ‘Why did you make me have this pain? Why did you break my heart? If I did not know you, I could understand. But I know you. I love you. I follow you. I talk with you. I do everything for you. But since this happened to me, please let me be the last girl this happens to.’  Nhu’s tragic story inspired an Ohio couple, Carl and Laura Ralston of Akron to sell their insurance business in 2004 to start an international non-profit Christian ministry called ‘Remember Nhu’. The stated purpose of the ministry is ‘to prevent children from entering the sex trade by meeting the physical, emotional, education, and spiritual needs of potential victims.’ Remember Nhu now operates six homes in five Asian nations that provide housing, food, education, and vocational training to more than 250 orphans and other children at risk of becoming victims of human trafficking.

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Carl Ralston, shown with Nhu Da Than and her grandmother, co-founder of Remember Nhu.

‘In Thailand, sex is for sale,’ said Elsie Kizer McCombs, a Toledo native who oversees Remember Nhu’s two homes in northern Thailand. She said the Asian nation has long been a tourist haven because, unlike surrounding countries such as Laos and Myanmar (Burma), Thailand has not been ruled by a repressive regime and has kept an open-door policy to visitors.20

Comfort women: South Korea’s survivors of Japanese brothels On a winding country road, shadowed by South Korea’s mountainous countryside, sits a strange building, jutting awkwardly from the cottages and tomato farms around it. A sweeping arched portico looks down sternly on the narrow lane, from where you can glimpse the striking statues and memorials inside. This isn’t your typical retirement home. It’s a living museum, known as the House of Sharing, and its statues and plaques tell the story of its residents’ unusual lives – as ‘comfort women’ for Japan’s wartime army. The youngest resident is now 84, but as young women during World War 2, all say they were forced to work as sex slaves in Japan’s military brothels. Yi Ok-seon is a frail old lady with a walking frame who has difficulty speaking. But her eyes, when you meet them, are still sharp. She says she was 15 when a Korean and a Japanese man forcibly took her to north-west China, then under Japanese control. She had been begging her parents to send her to school for years, but with a dozen children to feed, they couldn’t afford it. At the 20 Read more at http://www.toledoblade.com/Religion/2011/05/07/Remember-Nhu-fights-child-sexabuse-in-Asia.html#XItfJ8jm6v34dkxo.99

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time she was taken, Ok-seon was working away from the family home. Once in China, she says she was forced into sexual slavery for three years, in comfort stations set up by the Japanese military to service its troops. ‘I felt really violated, being tricked and taken like that as a young teenager,’ she says. ‘It was like a slaughter house there – not for animals, but for humans. Outrageous things were done.’ Up to 200 000 women are estimated to have worked as comfort women in Japan’s military brothels, most of them Korean. Until the end of World War 2, Korea was under Japanese occupation, and its people forced to learn Japanese, which meant Korean women were easier to corral – and communicate with – than women of other Asian nationalities. Many died during their ordeal, and many others died later. Since the issue came to the light in 1981, 234 former comfort women have come forward in Korea. There are now just 59 known survivors nine live together in the House of Sharing in Gwangju city in Gyeonggi province. ‘We’re all very old,’ Ok-seon tells me. ‘We’re dying each year, one by one. Historically speaking the war might have stopped, but for us, it’s still going on, it never ended. We want the Japanese Emperor to come here, kneel before us and apologise sincerely. [But] I think the Japanese are just waiting for us to die.’ To raise awareness and debate about the issue, the House of Sharing has built a historical museum at the site, housing official documents, old photographs and testimony from several survivors. There are vivid paintings, too – part of the therapy offered to residents. For the moment, part of that history is still living, in the house behind the museum. Some of the women occasionally meet the museum’s Japanese visitors to try to get some kind of acknowledgement and to raise awareness. But in perhaps just a few more years, this small collection of photos, belongings and mournful statues may be all that’s left. 21

I have not a body but I am a body The two shared stories that are prime examples of how the misconception of a women’s body can lead to unforeseen tragedies and illustrate how a lack of education and understanding of sexuality and body can destroy its original intent. The Biblical understanding of the body and sexuality as it appears in 1 Corinthians goes beyond the physical body. It is the bare essence of God expressed through us; it has both 21 Read more at http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-22680705

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mental and spiritual value. The following photographs are examples of how physical bodies, though disabled celebrates and are able to glorify God. Ji-Sun Lee did not realise how precious a person she was before an accident. However, after the accident, even with the heavily scarred face she realised how much God values and loves her. She travels around the world sharing God’s love.

Theological reflection on sexual violence We need to critically think how the distorted Biblical understanding and teachings of traditional theology can lead to justification of extensive sexual violence against women. Violence against women is a universal phenomenon that persists in all countries of the world and the perpetrators of that violence are often well known to their victims. Domestic violence, in particular, continues to be frighteningly common and is accepted as normal within too many societies. Since the World Conference on Human Rights, held in Vienna in 1993, and the Declaration on the Elimination of Violence against Women in the same year, civil society and governments have acknowledged that violence against women is a public policy and human rights concern. While work in this area has resulted in the establishment of international standards, the task of documenting the magnitude of violence against women and producing, reliable, comparative data to guide policy and monitor implementation has been exceedingly difficult. The WHO Multi-country Study on Women’s Health and Domestic Violence against Women is a response to this difficulty. The study challenges the perception that home is a safe haven for women by showing that women are more at risk of experiencing violence in intimate relationships than anywhere else. According to the study, it is particularly difficult to respond effectively to this violence because many women accept such violence as normal. Nonetheless, international human rights law is clear: States have a duty to exercise due diligence to prevent, prosecute and punish violence against women (GarcíaMoreno, Jansen, Ellsberg, Heise & Watts 2005). According to García-Moreno et al.: Violence against women has a far deeper impact than the immediate harm caused. It has devastating consequences for the women who experience it, and a traumatic effect on those who witness it, particularly children. It shames states that fail to prevent it and societies that tolerate it. Violence against women is a violation of basic human rights that must be eliminated through political will, and by legal and civil action in all sectors of society. (García-Moreno et al. 2005: vii) 218

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Ji-sun Lee, before and after the accident

Christians should realise that evil happens when good people stay silent. Everyday violence by a husband against his wife is an evil, and a sin, about which too many church leaders, seminary teachers, and members across the world are silent. Now, we have to say that sexual violence is a sin. We sin when this sacred body is abused or exploited. Therefore, we are speaking out against the brokenness, oppression, and loss of meaning that many experience about their sexuality. We need a sexual morality focused on personal relationship and based on love and justice and social justice rather than particular sexual acts. All persons have the right and responsibility to lead sexual lives that can express love, justice, mutuality, commitment, consent and pleasure. Grounded in respect for the body and for the vulnerability that intimacy brings, this sexual ethic fosters physical, emotional and spiritual health. God rejoices when we celebrate human sexuality with holiness and integrity. However, Christianity has been silent about human sexuality for a long-time, even in church teaching, where human sexuality has been seperated from faith and spirituality. The separation of sexuality from spirituality is blamed on deep-seated dualism and has generated many sexual problems in church and among Christians. In particular, irrelevant church teaching on sexuality has encouraged youth groups and young people to live with double standards and has caused some of them to leave their churches. We Christians need to reunite sexuality with spirituality to reaffirm sacred body and sensual spirit. It is significant to recognise that there is a deep interconnectedness among sexuality, morality, and spirituality. Therefore, human sexual behaviour is integral to spiritual growth.

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Vision for alternatives In this section we discuss a Biblical vision for alternatives from the text responding to the context. When we understand our body as a sacred place, we can see sexuality as life-giving, as erotic power (moral good), and as a source of creative personal power, seeking mutual relationships with others. ƒƒ We should reunite body and soul and sexuality and spirituality for an embodied spirituality of mutuality. ƒƒ We should recognise the reciprocity between body and spirituality. ƒƒ We should understand sexuality as Divine revelation. ƒƒ We should recognise sexuality as the sacred, wholeness, well-being, integrity, and oneness with others. ƒƒ We should recognise sexuality is God’s life-giving and life-fulfilling gift. Christian teaching about human sexuality grounds firmly in the love of God revealed by Christ. Biblically speaking, human sexuality is both a gift and a responsibility. At creation, the gift of sex was among those things God declared to be very good (Gen. 1:31.) Our faith traditions celebrate the goodness of creation, including our bodies and sexuality. We come from diverse Christian communities to recognise sexuality as central to our humanity and as integral to our spirituality. Sexuality is an expression of Christian faith. From now on, we will resist the idea that links male with spiritual and mindful, and female with bodily and sensual, and recognise that both women and men are integrative body-mind-spirit being. The Biblical perspective that views woman as a symbol of body without soul has been the Biblical rationale for exclusion of women from the ordination/ priesthood. In addition, because all women are descendants of Eve who ate forbidden fruit and eventually brought evilness into this world, church has long established the theological understanding that equates all women to be morally defective and physically dirty. Created as sexual beings, we must faithfully reflect on the Biblical meaning and purpose contained in it. For female or male, to be free from distorted consciousness, shame, and guilt, the reflection on body and sexuality is essential. New knowledge about the body and sexuality through Biblical reflection is extremely important for women’s healthy and her flourishing soul. The Bible clearly says that ‘God saw all that he had made, and it was very

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good’ (Gen. 1:31). The gender difference of human is surely based on this equality. Above all, Christian moral restoration of sex should be based on the equality. When the equality is excluded, the difference could never be relational.

Exercise The Matisse painting below embodies the spirituality of mutuality between body and mind and flesh and soul. What do you see in this painting? What do you feel through the bodies of this circle? Share the beauty and weakness of the bodies and how we can repudiate violence against the body; in particular women’s body.

Heinri Emile-Benoit Matisse: Dance (1910)

A prayer Even if our own mouths are full of heaven’s breath, And our eyes shine as brightly as the Sun does in the darkness And our hands create beautifulness in the centre of Kingdom of God And our feet outstretch to the ends of the earth to introduce your love, We could never thank you enough. You made us in your image, let us live as the owner of the dignitary life, as you yourself have come to this world in the flesh to be with us. May we embrace our sexuality and body as a gift to be celebrated and not to be misunderstood. We thank you for your gift of life to us, may we be good stewards in the world we live in. In Jesus’ name, we pray. Amen.

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Questions for further reflection ‘Body and mind and sexuality and spirituality are interdependent, relational, and holistic.’ Taking this statement, we are going to share our understanding and experience. 1.

The body is God’s temple, and respecting one’s body can lead to respecting people’s rights. How can we respect one’s body? How can this relate to the development of an integrated sexual and spiritual life?

2.

Recognising that church is not merely a spiritual community but also a sexual community, how can we educate this new Biblical understanding of body and sexuality to the congregation?

3.

How should church be changed in order to create an environment where young adults and couples who may be too heavy-laden with sexual problems could come and easily share their problems?

4.

Take a few minutes to look at the picture above and share your thoughts.

5.

How can we help victims of sexual violence to restore the dignity of the body?

References García-Moreno C, Jansen HAFM, Ellsberg M, Heise L & Watts C. 2005. WHO multicountry study on women’s health and domestic violence against Women. Geneva: WHO.

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Conclusion Vuyani Vellem

In its own unique and modest manner, Bible and Theology from the Underside of Empire presented a feast made up of living bodies broken by the pseudo façade of Empire as shown by miserable experiences of health, sexuality and truth-less justice. These throttled spaces in which the victims of Empire live, those who struggle and live in the shadows of colonised spaces, portray a picture of a post-industrial polis, a colonised form of mission and the perpetual economics of extraction for the illusory vision of eternity based on death. Transgressive, landless and trafficking bodies quintessentially expose the self-certified cannons of knowledge, economics and sexuality in ruthless settlements of Empire. This work, with its kaleidoscope of stories, poems, arts, Biblical hermeneutics, subversive liturgies and provocative theological critique of configurations of power in Empire ‘settlements’ intentionally seeks to move beyond the finality and tyranny of the universalisation of certain forms of knowledge, economics, politics, arts, aesthetics, ethics and faith that live only through the parasitical death of others and the whole of creation. If the reader in the church, seminary, university, country or any other space was disturbed after going through the pages of this work then its purpose was achieved. Bible and Theology from the Underside of Empire is not a panacea for transformative struggles or knowledge forms of lives lived in living death, nor does it assume finality in debunking the killing antics of Empire; it is merely a starting point towards liberating broken bodies, colonised spaces and transgressive expression of sexuality through the living gospel of Jesus Christ that promises life in its fullness. It does so by deploying tools from everywhere on the underside of tyrannies of knowledge, economics, sexuality and faith throttled in the geo-cultural spaces and temporalities of Empire. The methodological insights of this work suggest among others the challenging and often avoided truth about the knowledge of Empire, namely that life-affirming knowledge can only be articulated from the wounds of Empire. The transformative knowledge of human life is forever absent but eternally present on the Underside of Empire where new civilisations for life and hope could only be searched for. While enjoying this festa da vida of knowledge construction from the underside, the struggle continues!

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