This is a response to Christian Piatt’s Patheos blog from Thursday, part of an ongoing dialogue about Subverting the Norm 2.

I wrote a blog about Diversity in STN2 but never posted it.  I’m still struggling with that issue.  Let me share two thoughts however.

1) Diversity is a product of capitalism, a way to promote community ideologies in order to comfort the privileged and to hide the material disparities that continue to exist. For me, ending material disparities is the goal, not mingling races and cultures.  (I’m in an interracial marriage, so I realize that’s a little easier for me to say).

2) Subsequently, I don’t believe in “having” diversity.  If encountering the other is truly important to you, go where you are the minority.  Be the diversity.  Suspend your own space in other spaces.

That being said, I have no problem with the Radical Theology movement being primarily white male movement; although I think there is growing heterogeneity with females and LGBTQ in this realm.  It provides an important space for self-critique, and structural critique for the church.  On the other hand, I, like Piatt, have been asking around about possible Liberation/Radical hybrids, to borrow a phrase from @postmodernegro : “a hyrbridity of critical postures.”

Personally, I would love to sit with a handful of thinkers and practitioners in the field of liberation theology and talk about how – if at all – these radical theology concepts dovetail with what they’re doing on a daily basis.

Is there any liberation theology without metaphysics or onto-theology. Like a Gustavo Caputo love-child? #biblescholarproblems—
Adam(Bultmanniac) (@bultmanniac) April 18, 2013

I’m a little confused, however with Piatt, whether or not he sees a connection between the Latino Reformation and Liberation Theology.  I’m sure there must be some places of overlap, but politically, I can only imagine that they go in opposite directions.   Still, I believe his basic assertion is a fair statement of the problem.  Let me frame it in my perspective:

Radical tradition doesn’t “do” anything (to embody Christ, necessarily).  And Liberation theology (and those from the non-white traditions) fail to adequately deal with its metaphysics (see this article from the Other Journal), which in my opinion replicate and perpetuate oppressive powers within their racial and ethnic spaces (i.e. strong patriarchy).

In the future, I’m not sure if there’ll ever be a theological friendship between Liberation and Radical, the way that was found between Process and Radical at Subverting the Norm 2.  Perhaps (intended), there can be one formed over Christology, a direction I believe and hope the Radical tradition is heading.

It is probably closer to the truth to say that I do a form of radical Christology rather than theology—
Peter Rollins (@PeterRollins) April 21, 2013

Founded upon early forms of historical materialism, a foundational Materialist Christology, similar to Fernando Belo’s commentary on Mark and Ted Jennings Insurrection of the Crucified, can form the basis for a Radical Liberationist Christology, one that could challenge all colors of the church into challenging the problems of capitalism and institutionalized power, perhaps even through alternative forms of labor within the church.

I couldn’t bring myself to title this post, “In Defense of Radical Theology,” in part because, I believe the metaphysical divide with Liberation theology is too large.  Also, I am not a fan of the theological endeavor.  And yet, like @JesKastKeat from this podcast, I think ‘Radical’ is a also a bad name.  Perhaps Radical Theology is in need of rebranding, but certainly, as a white movement, it is doing its job challenging white privilege by challenging its metaphysics, and pointing our gaze, not at our navels, but at our material practices (albeit, they are still just gazes).  Material Christology, anyone?

Check out this article from the Other Journal.

Without further ado, I give you Gollwitzer on Marxism and Biblical Interpretation:

Both the historical difference and the human character, as well as the human limitation and fallibility, of the “witnesses of the first order” leave us, though bound to them, also free from them. We do not believe in the Bible, and it is not for us God’s word bound between the two covers of a book. Such an understanding of it would result in a legalistic relation to it that would contradict the evangelical freedom to which it bears witness . . . . Luther coined the famous formula for this, that not everything in the Bible is equally important and binding for us, but that we should seek for “what deals with Christ,” . . . to see whether, and in how far, it causes us to perceive a relation to what is revealed in the Christ event. This inquiry must not be omitted . . . . The distinctions and decisions to which it leads (i.e., its positive or negative results) are, in the first place, our own; we are responsible for them, and perhaps they are caused by limitations in our individual outlook. The church must give us the freedom to express our negative judgments, i.e., to use “detective biblical criticism,” to point out, even in biblical texts, an accommodation to class interests, which serves to soften the radical character of the original message, and which for that reason must be exposed and corrected in our exposition. At the same time, we must give the church the freedom not to accept our results without question and make them obligatory, but rather to leave the text criticized by us in the canon. . . . Thus it is precisely the nonidentity of the Bible and God’s word that protects the freedom of God and our human freedom.

Also, follow @dwcongdon and author of the article, @WTravisMcMaken, on Twitter.

REBROADCAST: Emergence – Radiolab.

For those interested in the “Emergent” Christianity, a good explanation of the science and sociology of emergence.  Radiolab, as always, is fascinating.

HOMEBREWED CHRISTIANITY:

An old John Crossan interview: The First Christmas

Peter Rollins, Kester Brewin….: Plundering Religion

Roland Boer: A Calvinist Communist

Phyllis Tickle: On Emergence Christianity

Justin Lee: Rescuing the Gospel

Will Henderson of Slave Free Earth: Heaven, Hell, and Human Trafficking

THIS AMERICAN LIFE

Harper High School, Part 1

Harper High School, Part 2

Heretics

Surrogates

Self-Improvement Kick

Also, this Zizek movie:

Come ask the hard questions with us.  If you can’t come, forward to someone else who might like to come.

See the abstract of my paper below.

Meals Together: Material Space and Ideology in Luke 22:24-30 and in Korean Immigrant Congregations

Using Marx, David Harvey’s The Condition of Postmodernity, and Moxnes’ Putting Jesus in his Place, I will use the material and spatial practices of Luke’s Jesus to look at my experience in Korean Immigrant Churches.  First, Luke’s Kingdom of God ideology is used to critique the kingdom ideology of ‘the nations.’  But also, I will show there is a way in which the material practices of Jesus critique the Kingdom of God ideology.  So too, in Korean congregations, the identity solidarity in the post-service meals serve to resist the homogenizing tendencies in American cultures.  Yet, the material practice of the meals reveals injustices in the Korean ideology, such as why the kitchen is filled with only women.  The aim of this study is to call the church to the challenging practice and space of regular meals, in the diasporic tradition of  immigrant churches, in order to counter the “community is good” ideologies that cover our collective brokenness.  The church must eat together, not because it fixes our problems, but because it makes us aware of them.

Go to the STN2 website to register.  See you there!

I guest posted on Homebrewed Christianity yesterday, responding to this post on liberal vs. progressive Christians.  Feel free to stop by:

I’ve heard it before.  “I was doing such-and-such and worried about my finances, and all of a sudden I heard a word from the Lord, ‘Everything will be ok.  Go check the mailbox.’”  And of course, everything was ok, because $x was there, and why tell the story otherwise… [more here]

What would your recommendations be?

In Christianity too, we have too much kingdom ideology.  We must seek to distinguish kingdom ideology from Kingdom of God ideology and equally from the material practices of the Kingdom of God.  Ultimately, we must practice the Kingdom of God, immediately.  Not because it’s the correct ideology, but because such material practices embody Jesus.  And that the material practices belonged to Jesus ought to be enough to set us free from the hard and soft authoritarian ideologies of kingdoms.  Otherwise, what are we proclaiming?