Once again Austin Chronicle columnist Jim Hightower, here, has provided useful and penetrating insight into the issues of the day, this time on our culture’s obsessive absolutization of the “bottom line” at the expense of everything else. I especially like the last two paragraphs:

Corporate idealism is practically an oxymoron in this era, with big investors considering the bottom line to be the only line and demanding a constant flow of ever-higher profits. On the rare occasion when the flower of idealism does bloom within the corporate ranks, you can bet that Wall Street’s investment barons will rush forth and try to stomp it to death.

This is why a new initiative by Google Inc. is so important – not only on the merits of what the company executives are attempting but also to show that idealism can and should be central to the corporate mission, even adding to the all-holy bottom line.

Google honchos, alarmed by the rising cost of energy and appalled by the environmental and human costs of our continuing reliance on fossil fuels, have announced a major corporate investment in clean energy. They plan to spend hundreds of millions of dollars to hire engineers and other experts to develop solar, wind, geothermal, and other renewable-energy sources. The Internet giant’s goal is not merely to generate clean, cheap renewables for itself but to advance the whole alternative energy industry so it can produce massive amounts for all. It’s a goal the company believes can be achieved in years rather than decades.

Good for them! However, Wall Street is aghast that Google is pursuing such an idealistic goal rather than just using those millions to fatten its short-term stock price. As one market analyst grumped, “My first reaction when I read about this was, ‘Is this a joke?’”

No, you’re the joke. The idea that a few corporate executives would dare look beyond their own bottom lines ought to be cheered, not jeered. And while Google’s investment won’t produce a short-term profit, it can help expand a socially beneficial green industry – and that’s ultimately good for Google … and even for all businesses.

Watch this video, a meditation in practical sacramentology, from the Catholic Diocese of New York, and be challenged. (If you’re like me, you might want to have a box of tissues handy.)

The fourth and final “step” in Hays’ interpretive process for ethics is “living the text.”

“In the midst of a culture that worships self-gratification, and in a church that often preaches a false Jesus who panders to our desires, those who seeks the narrow way of obedience have a powerful word to speak.” (403)

Hays charts some initial trajectories for this “narrow way” by asking and answering seven questions:

1. Should the church support civil rights for homosexuals? Yes. “… Christians should not single out homosexual persons for malicious discriminatory treatment: insofar as we have done so in the past we must repent and instead seek to live out the gospel of reconciliation.” (400)

2. Can homosexual persons be members of the Christian church? This, Hays insists, is rather like asking if envious persons can be members of the church. Not only “can they be” (and hence they should be admitted), but they already are. Hays writes, “If they are not welcome, I will have to walk out the door along with them, leaving in the sanctuary only those entitled to cast the first stone.”

This means that we in the covenant community must “find ways to live to live within the church in a situation of serious moral disagreement while still respecting one another as brothers and sisters in Christ.” Further, Hays insists, there are much more important issues for the church to start drawing lines in the dirt over including violence and materialism (about which the Bible has much more to say than this issue, as we have seen).

At the same time however, the church must challenge all her members to repent and be conformed not to the world but to Christ. For the person of homosexual orientation this includes the call to resist the temptation to form personal identity over sex alone or even primarily.

Hays also points out that persons who uphold the traditional position have an obligation to continue to hold everyone to the same standard of sexual morality: chastity within heterosexual marriage, or celibacy.

3. Is it Christianly appropriate for Christians who experience themselves as having a homosexual orientation to continue to participate in same-sex erotic activity? No, especially in light of the fact that “the only person who was entitled to cast the first stone said, ‘Go and sin no more.’ It is no more appropriate for homosexual Christians to persist in homosexual activity than for heterosexual Christians to persist in fornication or adultery…. Despite the smooth illusions perpetuated by mass culture in the United States, sexual gratification is not a sacred right, and celibacy is not a fate worse than death.” (401)

4. Should the church sanction and bless homosexual unions? No.

5. Does this mean that persons of homosexual orientation are subject to a blanket imposition of celibacy in a way qualitatively different from persons of heterosexual orientation? This is a penetrating and difficult question to which Hays shows great sensitivity. Homosexuals are left “in precisely the same situation as the heterosexual who would like to marry but cannot find an appropriate partner (and there are many such): summoned to a difficult, costly obedience, while “groaning” for the “redemption of our bodies” (Rom 8:32). Anyone who does not recognize this as a description of authentic Christian existence has never struggled seriously with the imperatives of the gospel, which challenge and frustrate our ‘natural’ impulses in countless ways.” Our hope, Hays goes on to show, is in the glorious future of the new heavens and new earth, and our resurrection bodies within them. Thus our hope is decidedly eschatological. (402)

I would add that, here again, the example of Gary is important.

6. Should homosexual Christians expect to change their orientation? In the new heavens and new earth, Hays suggests, “yes,” but not necessarily before then. And yet, Gary was granted a new sense of “not considering [himself] a homosexual” (his words, quoted by Hays on 403), and so we can hope and pray. But, to be sure, the ‘not yet’ of the gospel does indeed loom large, as it does with all our sins and weaknesses.

7. Should persons of homosexual orientation be ordained? In its (rather high-profile) discussion of this question, the church, sadly in Hays’ opinion, has suggested a double-standard for clergy and laity; “it would be far better to articulate a single set of moral norms which apply to all of Jesus’ followers.” And far from imposing a special requirement in this area (after all, are there such special requirements in other areas?), “such matters are left to the discernment of the bodies charged with examining candidates for ordination; these bodies must determine wither the individual candidate has the gifts and graces requisite for ministry. In any event, a person of homosexual orientation seeking to live a life of disciplined abstinence would clearly be an appropriate candidate for ordination.” (403)

Turning to a consideration of (various things he associates with) reason, Hays discusses three areas: arguments of nature (genetic predisposition) versus nurture or culture, argumentation from statistics, and argument from experience.

He points out that, even if conclusive, undisputed evidence were to emerge that there is a genetic predisposition to homosexual orientation, this would have few implications for Christian ethics. In fact, he argues, “we need not take sides in the debates of nature versus culture” since, as Hays points out earlier in his material, “actions do not necessarily have to be “voluntary” to be sinful before God” (though I would insist, along with the counselors from the Christian Counseling and Education Foundation, associated with Westminster Theological Seminary, that human brokenness which stems from sources other than “free volitional decision” such as physiological addiction, clinically diagnosable impairments such as Alzheimer’s and A.D.D., and indeed genetic predisposition, while not legitimizing behavior with the Bible describes as sin, do in fact call for a different, more compassionate and patient approach to counseling).

I would also add that a robust theological anthropology which acknowledges that sin and brokenness have wreaked havoc not just on our souls but also on our bodies might actually predict or expect sins to be deeply tied to bodily impairment. As the doctrine of total depravity teaches, there is no part, aspect, or dimension of the human person which is not marred and twisted by the fall.

Turning to statistical data, Hays is correct summarily to dismiss any argument which would seek to legitimate homosexual activity on the basis of statistics: “If Paul were shown the poll results, he would reply sadly, ‘Indeed, the power of sin is rampant in the world.’”

Hays rightly sees advocates of homosexuality in the church have by far their most formidable case “when the appeal to the authority of experience.” “There are individuals who live in stable, loving homosexual relationships and claim to experience grace – rather than the wrath – of God.” Then Hays asks several pointed questions:

How are such claims to be assessed? Was Paul wrong? Or are such experiential claims simply another manifestation of the self-deception he describes? Or, besides these irreconcilable alternatives, should we entertain the possible emergence of new realities which Paul could not have anticipated? Does the practice that Paul condemns correspond exactly to the experience of homosexual relations that exists in the present time?” (398)

I must say that I find Hays’ point here especially compelling in light of Paul’s teaching in I Cor 13 where he enjoins a new law of love on the community and instructs us to “hope all things, truust all things, believe all things.” As my wife and I have discussed countless times over the years, this “covenantal epistemology” teaches us to resist the temptation to be suspicious of (the) other(s), and instead to listen and to trust and to believe and to hope. This is true (as any couple who has been through good marriage counseling will tell you) for the covenant community of marriage, and it is true for the covenant community of the church (ie, the Eucharistic community). If there are brothers and sisters within the church who bear witness to healthy experiences of homosexual behavior, we must listen to them in a 1 Corinthians-kind-of-way.

And yet, there is much more to be said than just this, and Hays says it.

For one thing, we should allow gay experience to critique gay experience. In other words, the voices of those like Gary, “who struggle with homosexual desires and find them a hindrance to living lives committed to the service of God” (399) must be fully appreciated.

Further, Hays takes the “covenantal epistemology” of discerning what is good and true though the voices of the community seriously enough to admit that, if one day a strong consensus in the (global?) church should emerge that homosexuality is possible to practice faithfully in the covenant community, then that consensus would become normative.

(This is hugely important in my mind, and this kind of reasoning highlights the importance of the church as prerequisite for truth, 1 Tim 3:15. Sadly I find that many evangelical – and even Reformed – American Christians are lost on this point.)

Has the church ever so dramatically reversed her position on such an issue (especially one as pressing as this)? Indeed she has, and Scripture records it. And, significantly enough, it was experience which provoked the church, in grappling over the inclusion of Gentiles (qua Gentiles) in the covenant community, essentially to say, “We now see that we had previously overlooked something in the Scriptures.” Not only is this deep grappling on the part of the apostolic church recorded in Paul’s dense argumentation in texts such as Romans and Galatians, but “we see the rudiments of such a reflective process in Acts 10:34-35, where Peter begins his speech to Cornelius by alluding to Deuteronomy 10:17-18 and Psalm 15:1-2 in order to confess that ‘God shows no partiality, but in every nation anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him.’”

As can readily be seen, huge differences exist between the reversal of the apostolic church and the reversal which proponents of homosexual acceptance are proposing. And yet, we must admit, the experience of believers should prompt a deeper investigation into Scripture. When this occurred in the apostolic church, manifold textual indications were discerned which did in fact reveal that, now, at that present time, God was in fact doing something new, and new light was truly breaking onto the covenant community.

Especially in light of the scant and univocal Biblical material regarding homosexuality, Hays is right to argue that, until such an unlikely phenomenon occurs again in the (global) church, “we must affirm that … marriage between man and woman is the normative form for human sexual fulfillment, and homosexuality is one among many tragic signs that we are a broken people, alienated from God’s loving purpose.” (400)

Hays in this section emphasizes the lack of rules prohibiting homosexuality in the NT. Instead what we have is principles, and these principles are not enough to ground an ethics in and by themselves, and therefore they require a deeper hermeneutic rigor.

For example, from Rom 1 we can infer the principle that humans should “acknowledge and honor God as creator.” But apart from a certain (moral) “order of creation” which specifies that, say, male-plus-female sexual relations are normative, this principle is not enough to prohibit homosexual activity for members of the Christian community.

Therefore, reasons Hays, we should look for neither rules nor principles in the NT to inform our ethics. Rather, we should appreciate and (assuming that the Bible is normative for the Christian life) submit to its symbolic construal of the world. In this symbolic world which Paul and others construe in the NT, homosexuality symbolizes man’s rebellion and ignorance which have resulted from Adam’s idolatry. “If we accept the authority of the NT, we will be taught to perceive homosexuality accordingly.” (396)

When we turn to tradition (which we should do in this hermeneutical quest, Hays apparently thinks), we find this perspective confirmed. If anything tradition probably has a more hardened disapproval for homosexuality than Scripture, since Scripture would lead us to view this vice as no worse than many others which are listed alongside it (1 Cor 6; 1 Tim 1).

After commenting on tradition, Hays turns to “reason,” which I will review in a subsequent post.

Hays now applies his device of “community, cross, new creation” to this issue.

1. As for community, Hays does a masterful job of showing how Paul’s pastoral theology to the Corinthian church is an amplification of what we see in the holiness code of Lev 18, where we read in vv24-26,

Do not defile yourselves in any of these ways, for by all these practices the nations I am casting out have defiled themselves. Thus the land has become defiled; and I punished it for its iniquity, and the land vomited out its inhabitants. But you shall keep my statutes and my ordinances and commit none of these abominations, either the citizen or the alien who resides among you.

Like Leviticus (one might say, “like Moses”), Paul’s concern in his letters to the Corinthian church is primarily one for the community. The following paragraph of Hays’ is so good I must quote it in full:

… Paul’s exhortation to the Corinthians to ‘glorify God in your body’ (1 Cor 6:20) grows out of his passionate concern, expressed repeatedly in 1 Corinthians, for the unity and sanctification of the community as a whole. Fornication with a prostitute is wrong, among other reasons, because ‘your bodies are members of Christ’ (6:15). Thus, to engage in sexual immorality defiles the body of Christ. Through baptism, Christians have entered a corporate whole whose health is at stake in the conduct of all its members. Sin is like an infection in the body; thus, moral action is not merely a matter of individual freedom and preference. ‘If one member suffers, all suffer’ (1 Cor 12:26) This line of argument is not applied specifically to every offense in the vice list, but it does not require a great leap of imagination to see that for Paul the church is analogous (though not identical) to Israel as portrayed in the holiness code [of Lev 18, emphasis mine]. That is the logic behind the demand that the Corinthian church expel the man engaged in a sexual relationship with his stepmother (5:1-13). A similar logic would certainly apply, within Paul’s frame of reference, to the malakoi and arsenoikotai of 1 Cor 6:9. The community of those who have been washed, sanctified, and justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ ought to have put such behaviors behind it. The NT never considers sexual conduct purely a matter of private concern between consenting adults. According to Paul, everything that we do as Christians, including our sexual practices, affects the whole body of Christ.”

Hays then rightly points out that this canonical discipline does not apply to the wider society, for which “the right to privacy may well be a useful principle for a secular political order.”

2. As for cross, there is an implicit and crucial connection between homosexuality and the cross in Romans. The human unrighteousness in Rom 1 is the condition that makes the cross (ie, the death of Christ) necessary (Rom 5:8). In addition, “[t]he human unrighteousness detailed in Rom 1 is answered by the righteousness of God, who puts forward Jesus to die for unrighteousness (Rom 3:23-25), enabling [us] to walk in newness of life.” (392)

Therefore, writes Hays, we can see the following two implications: first, “the wrath of God — manifested in God’s “giving up” of rebellious humanity to follow their own devices and desires — is not the last word.” The cross shows us that God loves us even while we are in rebellion “and the sacrificial death of his son is the depth of that love.” This is the logic of Paul’s “sting” operation in Rom 2:1ff, thinks Hays, that no one is sanctioned to condemn others for anything. “This has profound implications for how the Christian community ought to respond to persons of homosexual orientation. Even if some of their actions are contrary to God’s design, the cross models the way in which the community of faith ought to respond to them: not in condemnation, but in sacrificial service.” (393)

This is brilliant on Hays’ part, I must say. We are not to emulate the creator God in his wrathful condemnation, theologizes St. Paul, but rather, as ministers of reconciliation, we are to emulate the merciful love and welcoming invitation of Jesus, the saving, redeeming Lord.

Secondly, because the cross “marks the end of the old life under the power of sin (Rom 6:1-4) … no one is locked into the past or into a psychological or biological determinism.” Only “in light of this transforming power” the Gary’s of the world (let alone the Matt Boulter’s of the world) enter into the hope and change offered in the Christian life.

3. New Creation. The eschatological framework of Romans and the entire NT implies that Christians will still struggle with sin, struggle “to live faithfully in the present time…. Those who demand fulfillment now, as though it were a right or guarantee, are living in a state of adolescent illusion.” (393)

And then Hays makes a striking statement: “Consequently, in this time between the times, some may find disciplined abstinence the only viable alternative to disordered sexuality.”  (393) And then, “the art of eschatological moral discernment lies in working out how to live lives free from bondage to sin without presuming to be translated prematurely into a condition that is free from ‘the sufferings of the present time’ (Rom 8:18).”

In his exposition of Rom 1:18-32, Hays notes that this is the only place in the NT (I would add “and in the whole Bible”) where homosexuality is not just mentioned or prohibited, but explicitly theologized about. (383) There is, in a sense, a “theology of homosexuality” here in Paul’s thought, and this is especially true in light of the fact that, as Hays points, out, “this is the only passage in the whole Bible that refers to lesbian sexual relations.” (384)

Situating Paul’s teaching on this particular issue within the larger context of the letter, Hays rightly stresses that Paul’s initial main point in chapter one is that “the Gospel” is God’s demonstration of righteousness, that is, his demonstration of eschatological power (it is “the instrument through which God is working out his purpose in the world … reaching out graciously to deliver humanity from bondage to sin and death”), and thus it serves in Paul’s argument as the vindication of God.

“Having sounded this keynote,” Paul not only adopts a contrasting key by contrasting God’s righteousness to humanity’s unrighteousness, but he also actually grounds God’s righteousness in his response to humanity’s unrighteousness. When it comes to man’s sin (which, note carefully, is not here any individual or specific sin including anything having to do with homosexuality, but rather the more primal sin of replacing God and the worship due him with creation and idolatry), God does something about it.

And what does he do? He “gives humanity over” to themselves and their own devices. He gives them over to the dark futility of ignorance (1:21; cf 2 Thes 2:10b – 12). He gives them over to a debased mind. And, more to the point for our purposes, he gives them over “in the lusts of their hearts to impurity” (v24), to the “dishonorable passions” which result in erotic homosexual behavior. (vv26-27)

Hays thinks that Paul’s rhetoric about homosexuality serves to make two points (I list these in reverse order): evidence and consequence. First, given the centrality (at least in Pual’s and his hearers’ minds) of the sexual difference of the creation narratives of Adam and Eve, homosexual activity in particular would have been regarded as a “particularly vivid” illustration of how God has poured out his wrath against primal human idolatry. Second, this particular sin, along with the others mentioned in the next paragraph of chapter one (slander, haughtiness, disobedience, etc.) are not the cause of God’s wrath, but, rather (much like the plagues upon Egypt) the result of it.

(Note: Hays’ point, for which he enlists John Calvin, that Paul’s audience would have unequivocally shared in his assumption that homosexual acts are “obviously” depraved raises a question in my mind. It is, perhaps, a question about Paul’s intended audience. I can totally see how a Jewish audience would share in this assumption, of course, but would a Greek / Roman audience? It don’t think so. This is particularly interesting / troubling in light of the fact that many commentators, including NT Wright, think that Romans was intended for a primarily Gentile audience.)

Hays shows how the connection between homosexuality in particular on the one hand and (the) creation (narratives) on the other runs especially deep. He points out that when Paul writes that people “exchanged natural relations for those contrary to nature” (v26) this is in fact Paul’s third use of “exchange” (and its cognates) in this context. First Paul states that rebellious humans have “exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images” of created things (v23), then that “they exchanged the truth of God for a lie (v25).” Writes Hays: “The deliberate repetition of [this verb] forges a powerful rhetorical link between the rebellion against God and the ‘shameless deeds’ (v27) that are themselves both evidence and consequence of that rebellion.

Hays summarizes Paul’s teaching in this chapter by stressing that “the aim of Romans 1 is not to teach a code of sexual ethics, nor is it a warning of God’s judgment against those who are guilty of particular sins. Rather, Paul is offering a diagnosis of the disordered human condition. He adduces the fact of widespread homosexual behavior as evidence that humans are indeed in rebellion against their creator…. Homosexual activity provokes the wrath of God…. The unrighteous behavior cataloged in Romans 1:26-31 is a list of symptoms: the underlying sickness of humanity as a whole, Jews and Gentiles alike, is that they have turned away from God and fallen under the pattern of sin (cf Rom 3:9)…. Homosexual activity will not incur God’s punishment; it is its own punishment, an “antireward.” (387 – 88)

Finally, Hays points out that, since this particular sin (here as everywhere else it is mentioned in the NT) is cataloged alongside other sins, it is not an “especially reprehensible” sin. It is in principle “no worse than covetousness or gossip or disrespect for parents (338). “Consequently, for Paul, self-righteous judgment of homosexuality is just as sinful as the homosexual behavior itself” (389).

The most fully developed thought on homosexuality the entire Christian Bible is is Romans 1:18-32. Before dealing with that passage, however, Hays first looks at two other NT texts which definitely comment on homosexuality (I Cor 6:9-11; I Tim 1:10 ), and one which possibly comments on it (Acts 15:28-29).

In two NT passages, I Cor 6:9-11 and I Tim 1:10, Paul (note however that Hays and many other NT scholars see the pastoral epistles of I Tim, II Tim, and Titus as pseudonymous) uses a word which is not extant in any source prior to I Cor: the word arsenokoitai. Hays demonstrates how this term, almost certainly coined by the apostle Paul, “is a translation of the Hebrew mishkav zakur (‘lying with a male’), derived directly from Lev 18:22 and 20:13.” (See above for discussion of these OT texts.) In both texts this term appears in a list of “unrighteous deeds.”

Hays continues, speaking of the I Corinthian passage: “Thus, Paul’s use of the term presupposes and reaffirms the holiness code’s [in Leviticus] condemnation of homosexual acts. This is not a controversial point in Paul’s argument; the letter gives no evidence that anyone at Corinth was arguing for the acceptance of same-sex erotic activity.” Paul simply assumes that his readers will agree that arsenokoitai are “workers of unrighteousness” just like the other offenders named in the list (idolaters, thieves, the greedy, drunkards, robbers, etc.).

Here as elsewhere, Paul’s goes on to argue that in the lives of the Corinthians a new reality has come about, and that they no longer belong to themselves, but to God. This is the basis upon which Paul argues that they ought to “glorify God in their bodies.” (I Cor 6:20)

The first Timothy passage is quite similar to this one in that it, too, presupposes that the audience will agree that homosexual activity is rightly categorized as one sin among others including “murderers, slave traders, liars.”

The only other passage in the NT – besides Rom 1 – is Acts 15:28-29, which uses the word pornea (“sexual immorality”). Hays thinks it likely that “these stipulations” are based largely on the purity regulations of Lev 17:1 – 18:30, and therefore “probably include … homosexual intercourse.”

Next up: Hays on what Paul teaches about homosexuality in Rom 1:18-32.

Hays’ ethical project in his The Moral Vision of the NT contains four steps: Reading the Texts, Synthesis (in canonical context), Hermeneutics, and Living the Text.

1. Hays points out the paucity of texts which in any way address this matter. While I do think that there is a sense in which every page of the Bible teaches us about sexuality (for example, every time it teaches us about worship, or about the divine community which we now call “the Trinity,” etc.), nevertheless this is an important point. Hays rightly stresses that the Bible (including the NT) has much, much more to say about economic justice and possessions than it does about (homo)sexuality.

In fact, however, as Hays hints at in this section and elsewhere, for Paul sexuality and possession(s) are theologically weaved together. Twice in I Corinthians (I Cor 6:12-20 in the context of sexual immorality, and in I Cor 7:3-4, in the context of gender in the church), Paul argues from what one might call “Gospel dispossession” to a revised understanding of sexual morality. In other words, Christians (now realize that we) no longer “own” our bodies as a possession, but rather (that) God owns them (I Cor 6:19-20) and thus, for married people, our spouses have the right to control them (I Cor 7:4). So it’s not simply that the Bible talks about money and possessions more than it does about (homo)sexuality, but rather that the Bible discusses (homo)sexuality in the context of its theology of possession(s). In a sense Paul’s theology of sex is rooted in this theology of ownership.

2. Hays rightly points out, as have countless other biblical interpreters, that the story of Sodom & Gomorrah in Gen 19 has little or nothing to do with this issue. The sins of Sodom & Gomorrah are of a completely different kind. Related to the above point about money and possessions, the sins in question here are injustice and greedy selfishness (Ezek 16:49). It seems clear to me therefore, that we should either abolish the word “sodomy” from our vocabulary, or begin to define it as oppression against the poor. (I suppose that the latter scenario would make many conservative evangelicals “sodomites.”)

3. Hays rightly points out that in Lev 18:22 and 20:13 homosexual intercourse between two men is flatly and simply prohibited and condemned (though the text is silent on woman / woman relations). Thus, if we were members of the covenant community to which this law was originally addressed, there would be no need for sophisticated hermeneutics here. Directly, plainly, and simply, this activity was forbidden for these people.

As Hays points out, however, things are not so simple for Christians living in the first century and beyond, given the eschatological character of biblical theology and ethics over the span of redemptive history and indeed up to the eschaton.

Thus Christians like Hays who see the Bible as authoritatively normative for the covenant community have more work to do. The starting point for that work is to attend to how the NT applies these “old covenant” laws. This is precisely what Hays proceeds to do.

The quality Richard Hays’ treatment of this issue in his The Moral Vision of the New Testament (pp 379-406) is both rare and encouraging (though I will have some questions / criticisms later on).

First, though, I want to extol the way he opens up the discussion by talking about his relationship with his friend Gary. Gary, by Hays’ description a homosexual, was Hays’ best friend in undergrad who had over the years developed some serious, deeply held convictions about what the Bible actually teaches about being gay.

I am grateful that Hays situates his discussion of this issue in the context of his relationship with Gary. As we will see, both sides of this debate (both the conservatives who see no “grey” in the sub-issues surrounding homosexuality, and the self-styled progressives in the church who amount to little more than political activists with an ideological agenda) fall short of faithful theological reflection, and so I am not simply wanting to “slam” the conservatives here, but I must ask: among all of my friends in the PCA who have firm, settled opinions about homosexuality and the sub-issues surrounding it (some of these sub-issues will be discussed later on), how many are in actual relationships with a gay or lesbian person? Some, perhaps, but precious few. Here as elsewhere (issues such as “liberalism” or Roman Catholicism) most of us in the PCA are quite content to offer abstract critiques from a great distance.

I am grateful, then, to a couple of friends who are Christians (and in the PCA) who actually do have real relationships with gay or lesbian people, especially my friend Tessa. I am also grateful for my experience with so many Starbucks partners over the years who are in some sense homosexual, many of whom are open to exploring life as a Christian.

Unlike many would-be progressives, almost none of my G/L Starbucks friends “draw their entire identity from their sexuality,” a tendency which Gary lamented according to Hays.

A conviction of Gary’s which seems right to me: Hays writes that “he was angry at self-affirming gay Christian groups, because he regarded his own condition as more complex and tragic [emphasis mine] than their stance could acknowledge.” As I hope to discuss, this criticism cuts in both directions: the stance of many conservatives is just as simplistic, it seems to me.

After 20 years of struggling to make sense of his homosexual orientation and the Bible, Gary was planning to co-author an article with Hays about all this, but he died before that could happen.

If I weren’t such a crappy blogger I would have photos of these trails. (Don’t hold your breath.) Also I should add that trails 1-3 are in close proximity to excellent pubs.

5. Bull Creek Greenbelt. After the six continuous months of rain last year, some of the trails have been a bit washed a way; still worth it though, in part b/c of the nice, flat limestone formation along the creek which stretches for several hundred yards.

4. Walnut Creek Park. Pretty easy to get lost running in these trails. Most are “single file” width (very bike-friendly), and often quite curvy. Nice variety of trails however. Lots of shade.

3. Shoal Creek Greenbelt. Renovations over the last few years have turned this into a pleasant, interesting urban trail which brings you through some of the coolest parts of downtown, including under two of the most recent high-rises. One can start at 35th St. and run all the way to 360 and Scottish Woods Drive, a trek of perhaps 15 miles, using this trail. My favorite spot is the St. Francis statue embedded into the water fall / rock wall just south of 35th St.

2. Town Lake. What can I say? A runner’s paradise for the views, the shade, the people. Easy access to Barton Springs pool for an after run dip.

1. Barton Creek Greenbelt. I love the variety of terrain in these trails. Hills, rocks, well-trodden flatness. The greenbelt has it all. Lots of shade, usually flowing rapids along the creek, not too crowded. Feels off the beaten track, but it’s really not.

5. Dog & Duck. Second best fish & chips in town (the best are at BD Riley’s). Good optional choice of sitting outside or inside. Roughly 15 beers on tap.

4. Flying Saucer. Very cool bartenders. Knowledgeable about beer (and they enjoy talking about it!), but not arrogant. Excellent food as well. Roughly 70 beers on tap.

3. Draughthouse. The most hobbit-like place in town, in my opinion. Folks sitting out on lawnchairs, or in the beds of their pick up trucks, etc. Some of the bartenders can be a bit acerbic, but once you get on their good side (this can take years: you must be perceived as a good-tipping regular), the benefits of membership are bountiful. Maybe 75 beers on tap.

2. Gingerman. Only place I have ever seen Live Oak Pale Ale 0n tap (nor have I ever seen it in a bottle, mind you). Indeed, I have never desired a beer on tap that they don’t have (including two or three barley wines, to boot!). About 80 beers on tap.

1. Opal Divine’s (6th St.). I confess: I love Opal’s partly because of nostalgia, due to years and years of great conversation and good memories. But their food is great, and their bartenders & waitstaff are interesting and fun. Wednesdays are two-dollar Texas pint nights! Yeah! About 25 beers on tap.

Coming soon: top five best running trails in Austin.

Great news. The rich, though-provoking biblical theology of Jim Jordan, Peter Leithart, Jeff Meyers, and others is up for the world to read at biblicalhorizonsblog.wordpress.com.

In my view the theology of these men is strongest in the following areas:

- Reading the Bible in a redemptive-historical way.

- Affirming “old catholicism” without embracing Roman Catholicism specifically. In other words, there is an affirmation of “reformed catholicity.” This includes, most importantly, the centrality of liturgy (the church’s worship is based on a pattern of covenant renewal) and the sacraments.

- Articulating a vision for the Christian social order of the future, which sees the creation mandate as being progressively (albeit in a sometimes obscure way) implemented by the Church.

As an example of the kind of thinking I am talking about, see this post on the differences between Catholicism and Protestantism.

(Here, by the way is the Biblical Horizons’ “mission statement.)

It was about ten years ago that my friend Rob Kirby introduced me to this wonderful, ancient poem. I had forgotten about it until a few days ago when I ran across it again in Thomas Cahill’s How the Irish Saved Civilization. St. Brigid, probably consecrated a bishop “by accident” (according to various sources, including Cogitosus), lived in Ireland during the 5th & 6th centuries. (Cahill, 172-179) Cheers!

I should like a great lake of the finest ale
For the King of kings.
I should like a table of the choicest food
For the family of heaven.
Let the ale be made from the fruits of faith,
And the food be forgiving love.

I should welcome the poor to my feast,
For they are God’s children.
I should welcome the sick to my feast,
For they are God’s joy.
Let the poor sit with Jesus at the highest place,
And the sick dance with the angels.

God bless the poor,
God bless the sick,
And bless our human race.
God bless our food,
God bless our drink,
All homes, O God, embrace.

From an interview with the Archbishop of Canterbury, posted on the American Anglican Council website (in which he reaffirms, in addition to the following, his staunch opposition to virtually all forms of abortion), dated Dec. 12, 2007:

Asked about his support for gay clergy, he replied: “I have no problem with gay clergy who aren’t in relationships, although there are savage arguments about the issue you might have heard about. Our jobs mean we have to adhere to the Bible. Gay clergy who don’t act upon their sexual preferences do, clergy in practising homo-sexual relationships don’t. This major question doesn’t have a quick-fix solution and I imagine will be debated for many years to come.”

“The pastoral ministry is too adventuresome and demanding to be sustained by trivial, psychological self-improvement advice. What pastors, as well as the laity they serve, need is a theological rationale for ministry which is so cosmic, so eschatological, and therefore countercultural, that they are enabled to keep at Christian ministry in a world determined to live as if God were dead. Anything less misreads both the scandal of the gospel and the corruption of our culture.” — Stanley Hauerwas, Resident Aliens 145

This self-interested motivation is precisely one of the reasons I insist on preaching and teaching the theology of the likes of NT Wright, Radical Orthodoxy, and the Federal Vision. Without such a cosmic, eschatological, countercultural perspective, ministry in this world would be just too depressing.

Undocumented Citizens & the Church, by Matt Boulter

This essay is an attempt to bring biblical teaching to bear on the thorny question of how Redeemer Presbyterian Church (as an example of a local church body) should treat the undocumented citizens in our midst (both those who, to whatever extent, are already involved in our church community, such as Luis Moreno, and those undocumented citizens who are simply our neighbors in Austin), in light of modern American immigration policy. In so doing it relies heavily upon a certain analogy, specifically that modern American immigration is like ancient Roman slavery.

Before we develop this analogy, however, we should consider what many scholars (both modern and pre-modern) take to be the Magna Carta of the new social order which comes about because of and in Christ: Galatians 3:28. (Already I am assuming that, at the very least, modern American immigration and ancient Roman slavery are similar in that they are both social issues – or social realities – respective of each time and place.)

We must, however, read Gal 3:28 in its immediate context. Verse 26 and 27 of chapter three tell us that all those in the “churches of Galatia” (cf. 1:2b) – and by implication, all those in Redeemer Presbyterian Church of Austin – are “children of God through faith in Jesus Christ” because of their – our – faith in Christ and common baptism into Christ. This teaching on the Church’s common faith and common baptism sets us up for the climax of this passage, verse 28: "There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free man, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus."

Paul is instructing us that the old cleavages which formerly characterized human social life have passed away; they have become obsolete. Furthermore he is telling us why these cleavages have become obsolete: they have been replaced by the new reality of oneness in Christ through faith and baptism. And, hearkening back to verse 26, this “oneness” is not some generic unity; rather, it is the oneness of sonship. We (those of us in the Church) are all brothers and sisters, with God as our Father.

Further, this new social order is decidedly eschatological. We know that Paul’s teaching here includes this eschatological aspect because of the pairs of binary oppositions he employs in verse 28 (Jew / Gentile, slave / free, male / female). If there is now no Jew nor Gentile, then certainly this is a new development in the history of redemption. Even a cursory reading of the Old Testament (not to mention the Gospels) shows us that, prior to the advent and work of Christ (which, in Paul’s mind, is a fundamentally eschatological event-complex), there was Jew and Greek. Prior to the coming of Christ, in fact, this distinction was central to God’s working out his plan of redemption.

Paul’s use of the male / female pair also points to an eschatological reality, in that the obliteration of this distinction in Christ is the fulfillment of the only original human difference of creation: the distinct sexes (“genders”) of the Man and the Woman, Adam and “Eve.”[1] In a real sense, it may be said that in Christ we are all female, his Bride, the Church.[2]

As for these two pairs of opposites, so also for the one at issue in this paper: slave and free. The obliteration of this category in Christ is a development that, somehow, occurs in the new order which Jesus inaugurates. And just as the other two obliterations require God’s people to walk by faith and not by sight (just think of a first century Jew breaking bread and sharing a cup of wine with an “unclean” – because uncircumcised – Gentile), so also this new reality, the social equality of enslaved people and free people, requires us[3] to walk by faith. In other words, we believe that this unity in Christ characterizes true reality (even though we often fail to see it) and therefore we live now as we know things will be someday, when this eschatological reality becomes “sight.” In terms of slavery, this is how God wanted ancient Christians (like the Galatians) to live, it is how he wanted 18th and 19th century British and American Christians (who lived during a time of institutionalized slavery) to live, and it is how he wants us to live today.

The Scriptures are so rich and efficient! Not only do they give us this “revolutionary” teaching in a discursive way here in Paul’s letter to the Galatians, but they also show us a concrete example, an application, of this new social order, this new eschatological reality. This example we find in Paul’s letter to Philemon. Here in this letter we witness Paul, the author of Galatians, practicing this kind of Christian charity, the kind that breaks down social barriers for those who are members of the church (by faith in Christ and baptism into Christ). This letter, the very correspondence of Paul to Philemon on behalf of the runaway slave Onesimus, is itself an instance of the law of Christ, which is true Christian love, in action.

Importantly, though, Paul upholds not only the law of Christ (which, again, is love), but he also upholds the law of the land.[4] He submits to the established authority by sending Onesimus back to his master Philemon (Philem 12). The authority in view here is both that of the slave master and that of the state. We know from other Pauline passages[5] that the former was indeed considered by Paul to be an established authority to whom submission was required. In addition, we know from extra-biblical sources[6] that institutional slavery was regulated and enforced by the state. It is crucial to recognize that Paul in this way “fights on two fronts.” He both upholds God-ordained authority (by sending Onesimus back to his master) and practices Christian love (by asking Philemon – who, in all likelihood, was converted by Paul – to give up his legal rights by releasing Onesimus from slavery).

We will, however, miss the value of this letter if we fail to recognize the radical character of Paul’s plea to Philemon in light of his historical moment. First, in the Roman society and culture of Paul’s day, the practice of slavery (or, perhaps, better would be “the industry of slavery”) was foundational to corporate life. As Everett Ferguson points out, slavery was so “basic [an] element in Roman society” that a proposition in the Roman senate that slaves be required to wear distinctive clothing was defeated, lest the slaves learn how numerous they were. It has been estimated, in fact, that one in every five Roman citizens was a slave.[7]

The second way in which Paul’s relativizing of slavery proves to be a radical move has to do with one particular implication of his stance: the resultant possibility that a slave might then hold office in the church, which would then require the submission of a free man to a slave, and possibly to his own slave.[8] In contrast to Judaism, which required a quorum of ten free men to establish a synagogue, Christianity has always held slavery to be a matter of indifference.[9] As James Hurley points out, in fact,

The requirements for elders and deacons make no mention of bondage whatsoever. Slaves could be elders of their masters, as tradition has suggested in the case of Onesimus. Paul’s letter to Philemon suggests directly that he free Onesimus, who has become a brother and been such a help to Paul.[10]

At this point in our reflections it is appropriate to develop the analogy suggested above, that, for the purposes of this paper, the modern American immigration situation is like ancient Roman slavery. First, Paul’s appeal to common sonship (based on faith and baptism) is just as relevant here, in the immigration situation, as it is in the case of ancient Roman slavery. In both cases the oneness in Christ which the Gospel brings transcends the differences between us. Is there any reason why this would hold in the case of slavery and not in the case of immigration? Even in the Old Covenant, before Christ, the covenant bond transcended ethnic nationality. How much more is this true in the New Covenant of Christ’s blood! In this current age of redemption, Christ has broken down the barrier of the wall of division, as Paul tells us in Ephesians 2. If there is now no distinction in the Gospel between Jew and Gentile, then how could there possibly be any distinction between Gentile and Gentile, between Mexican and American?

A second point of analogy (between modern American immigration and ancient Roman slavery), is that, just as Paul “fights on two fronts” with respect to slavery, so also it is quite feasible for us (the modern church) to do the same with respect to the issue of immigration. In God’s providence, he has made it fairly easy for our church to adopt such a posture. That is, just as the apostle Paul found a way to remain faithful to earthly authority and to the law of love in the church, so can we. How can we, the twenty-first century American church, “fight on two fronts” in this Pauline sense? The short answer is that, in the eyes of the state, we as a church may fully integrate Luis Moreno into our community.

To support this claim, I appeal to the electronic correspondence which I have had with an immigration attorney, David Simmons, who lives in Denver, Colorado. The first relevant point which emerges in this correspondence is simply that current immigration law is exceedingly difficult to understand, largely because it seems itself to be confused and convoluted. To quote Mr. Simmons:

[Immigration] is one of the most complex area of U.S. law – so much so that it takes an entire wall chart to list all of the possible scenarios under which one would be considered a United Statescitizen.[11]

Secondly, Mr. Simmons believes that we as a church have no legal obligation to report individuals who are in the U.S. without documents. (Such reporting would be compromised by the fact that we lack the expertise needed to determine who is legal and who is not. Mr. Simmons even stated that many immigrants who believe themselves to be illegal are actually legal.) The church should not pretend to be enforcers of the civil law. Spiritually admonishing an individual to comply with the law (which, as a pastoral issue, will ordinarily take place over an extended period of time), is a very different thing altogether.

Third, many forms of assistance to undocumented citizens are permitted by law. One important form of this is to combat the many forces which oppress undocumented citizens, such as, for example,

“employers who do not comply with federal wage and working conditions requirements, individuals who promise to ‘arrange papers’ for a fee, and spouses who use an individual’s lack of documents in order to dominate and control.…”[12]

A fourth consideration in our attempt to fight on these two fronts is that the law (whether the Ten Commandments, or the law of the civil government, or whatever) must never be applied and enforced apart from Godly wisdom. Along these lines the responsible church will recognize that the I.N.S. has enforcement priorities. As we seek corporately to submit to our God-appointed civil magistrate, we will share these priorities, and work in concert with the I.N.S. to implement them (assuming that they are righteous priorities, which I think they are, given all of the factors with which the I.N.S. has to deal). According to Mr. Simmons the following concerns are at the top of the I.N.S.’s list of priorities: the removal of aliens who commit crimes, the prosecution of alien smugglers, the prosecution of false document manufacturers, and the prosecution of those who employ undocumented workers to the detriment of either those workers themselves or American workers. A realistic approach to this complicated problem of ministry to undocumented citizens will take this set of priorities into account.

In conclusion, I believe that, in God’s providence, it is possible for us as a church to follow the astonishing example of the apostle Paul, who understood (and passes down to us his understanding) that the church’s unity (as expressed in our common faith in Christ and our common baptism into Christ) transcends the divisions which result from the Fall. At times the living out of this deeper unity is exceedingly challenging to the church. At times it results in awkward situations, such as a free church member submitting to his slave who is also his presbyter. In the situation at hand, however, the road ahead seems relatively clear, for such a life of unity in Christ is always possible, challenges notwithstanding. Indeed, it is always necessary.

[1]Her true name before the Fall was “the Woman.” The name “Eve” was given to her only after the Fall. (It is, thus, a redemptive name.)
[2] See C.S. Lewis, That Hideous Strength (New York: Macmillan, 1965) p. 316.
[3] This is required of us in a somewhat different way than it was of our ancient fathers in the faith, since for us explicit, institutional slavery is not so fundamental an aspect of society, although modern forms of slavery are still with us. Some examples of this include economic bondage to credit card companies and bondage to the well-fare state or to neighborhoods infested with drugs and gang violence.
[4] Of course, an authentically Reformed ethics will insist that there is no ultimate tension between the law of Christ (rightly understood) and the law of the civil magistrate (rightly understood).
[5] I Cor 7:21 and Eph 6:5-8 are just two examples.
[6] See Everett Ferguson, Backgrounds of Early Christianity, 2nd ed. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1993), pp. 56-58. [7] Ferguson, p. 58. [8] Writing in the context of Galatians 3:28, evangelical biblical scholar F.F. Bruce states, “This could mean for example, that someone who was a slave in the outside world might be entrusted with spiritual leadership in the church, and if the owner of the slave was a member of the same church, he would submit to that spiritual leadership. There is sufficient evidence that this was not merely a theoretical possibility.” F.F. Bruce, The Epistle of Paul to the Galatians: a Commentary on the Greek Text (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1982), pp. 188-89.
We should at this point also note that church history (specifically, a letter of Saint Ignatius) has it that this slave Onesimus actually ended up in the office of Bishop of Ephesus. Some modern scholars even maintain that, as Bishop of Ephesus, Onesimus proceeded to collect and publish the letters of Paul, “including the one to Philemon in which he had such a personal stake.” Ralph Martin, Ephesians, Colossians, and Philemon (Louisville: John Knox, 1991), pp. 139-40.
[9] James Hurley, Man and Woman in Biblical Perspective (Leicester: IVP, 1981), p. 158.
[10] Hurley, pp. 158-9.
[11] Taken from personal correspondence with Mr. Simmons.
[12] Mr. Simmon’s wording.

As some of you know I work 20 hours per week at Starbucks. A few weeks after I first began to hear about “the Secret” (it has been all over Oprah, Ellen Degeneris, and CNN; the book version is currently #1 on the New York Times best seller list), I began to realize that several of my fellow Starbucks partners had enthusiastically embraced it, some to the point of really committing themselves to living out its principles.

So, naturally, my curiousity began to grow.

At first I was skeptical. As I continued to hear & see all the buzz I imagined that “the Secret” was just another self-help craze. And actually when I read Newsweek’s piece on it a couple of weeks ago this sense was only confirmed.

But, finally, I have seen the 90 minute video, and I must say, it is impressive. “The Secret” is the name given to the idea that all human reality operates according to the so-called “Law of Attraction,” that what our minds focus on gravitates into our lives. That is pretty much the main point, and everything else flows out of that, especially the idea that what we think about in our minds has the power actually to bring about reality (changed relationships, that new sports car, a healthier body, etc.).

First, let me say that this philosophy contains significant grains of truth. Proverbs says, “As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he” and Jesus says in the Gospels, “Where your heart is there will your treasure be also.” And, as “The Secret” is quick to point out, Genesis teaches that man is created in “the image and likeness of God,” implying that human beings have a God-like capacity to create, to bring about reality.

Second, if you were to watch the video (or perhaps watch the Larry King interview at http://jamesray.com/resources/larry-king-live.php) you would see that the “gurus” who speak of this powerful way of thinking and being are quite articulate and compelling. The fact that many different voices are all speaking to the same issues makes “The Secret” even more compelling, it seems to me.

However, as compelling as “The Secret” may seem to be, and as much as I believe we (especially Christians) ought to look for truth and affirm it wherever we find it, this approach is flawed in a couple of areas. I will focus on only one right now.

First and foremost, the area of community. I fail to see how anyone could deny that “The Secret” is individualistic. (One might see it as self-centered, but I can see how folks might argue against this.) Martin Luther King, Jr. (himself approvingly quoted in the video) said brilliantly, “In the beginning was relationship.” He was referring here to the fact that, uniquely among all world religions or worldviews, the Christians God, the Christian ultimate reality, is not just “personal,” but is actually interpersonal. Our God is a community. The Christian Bible teaches, and Christian tradition confirms, that ultimate reality consists of eternal, loving, personal relationship.

When Genesis says that humankind is created in the image and likeness of God, one of the most fundamental things it is saying is that we are created for community. The fact that human beings are communal is the fundamental reality to what it means to be human. Apart from community (friendship, marriage, neighborliness, erotic love, church, Eucharist, etc.) we simply are not fully human.

At one point in the video one of the speakers attempts to make a very significant point. He says something like

“Ask a quantum physicist: ‘what is energy?’ He will tell you: ‘Energy has always been, it will always be, and it is in constant motion.’ Then ask a theologian, ‘what is God’ and he will tell you the same thing: “God has always been, will always be, and is constantly in motion.’”

What is so disturbing to me is that so many viewers, including evangelical Christian viewers, will watch this video and swallow the point made by this advocate of “The Secret.” And it is the church’s own fault that we have allowed “God” to be thought of as something so non-personal, non-relational. (See previous posts on this blog on Eastern Orthodox critiques of the West’s “God of the philosophers.”)

What this advocate of “The Secret” is suggesting is that God is impersonal and non-relational. That is theology worthy of the trash heap (not even worthy to be composted). Sadly, though, according to the way many modern westerners (including “Christians”) think about God, he is right.

It seems to me that the most fruitful way for a Christian to process this book / film is to see it through the grid of Gnosticism, even if this is not the standard evangelical response to this attack on the historic faith. (For an excellent primer on Gnosticism, see Philip J. Lee’s Against the Protestant Gnostics.)

Gnosticism disdains the public nature of religion. Despite the fictionalized suggestions of the book / film, the Christian church does not, in the main, seek to hide the real facts about the identity (ie, two natures, divine and human) or the work (ie, the resurrection from the dead) of Jesus Christ. As the work of NT Wright, for example, demonstrates, these aspects of the life of Jesus are radically open to the normal canons of history. As Paul told Festus in Acts 26, the life and resurrection of Jesus “did not take place in a corner.” Contrast this with The Code’s “Priory of Sion,” which tightly guards the private secret of the alleged real truth about Jesus, completely sealed off from the public investigation of historical inquiry.

In addition, Gnosticism scorns sex. There is much irony here, for the book / film attacks the Christian faith for the latter’s supposed prudishness. (One wonders if Dan Brown is aware of the Song of Solomon.) Contrast, however, what the Bible teaches about sex and the role of sex as portrayed in the Da Vinci Code (see chapter 74 of the book). The Christian tradition, based on Scripture, says that Christian men should strive to please their wives sexually in the marriage bed, and vice-versa. (See, for example, I Cor 7:1-5.) In the Priory of Sion, however, the role of sex is to afford the male participant an unmediated vision of God, via his union / intercourse with “the Sacred Feminine” (ie, his sexual partner in the context of tantric, pagan ritual). Nevermind the sexist way in which the Priory (and the Gnostic tradition) denies women sexual pleasure and an active role in sex. Here sex is merely a means to a “spiritual” end. The human, fleshly, embodied side of sexual love is eclipsed, in quintessentially Gnostic fashion. Against this, the Christian vision is one of celebration: sexual love within marriage is one of God’s best gifts!

Finally, as alluded to above, the Gnostic experience of Godis unmediated and direct. Ultimate bliss is to behold the naked God with the bare human intellect. Rejecting the elitism inherent in this view (only the smartest and richest, eg, the Leonardo DaVinci’s of the world, can possibly achieve such a climactic experience, even if it were valid and real), the Christian faith teaches that we find God through the means he has provided: word, water, wine, warm community. Thankfully, even (or especially) the poorest and most uneducated have free access to these effectual means of grace.

Let us not stand in fear of The Da Vinci Code. Let us not (even worse) fight Gnosticism with Gnostic responses. Instead, let us situate the Da Vinci Code as the latest installment of the oldest, most dangerous heresy the world has ever known: Gnosticism. Let us expose the counterfeit by learning, loving, and living out genuine Christian orthodoxy, the real thing.

"American exceptionalism was never more clearly expressed than by Secretary of War Elihu Root, who in 1899 declaired, ‘The American soldier is different from all other soldiers of all other countries since the world began. He is the advance guard of liberty and justice, of law and order, and of peace of happiness.’ At the time he was saying this, American soldiers in the Philippines were starting a bloodbath which would take the lives of 600,000 Filippinos." (from Howard Zinn, "The Power and the Glory: Myths of American Exceptionalism")

War & True Politics

Here is the best reason I know of for opposing the "war" in Iraq that is currently being fought by the American Empire:

"The Eucharist transgresses national boundaries and redefines who our fellow-citizens are. Rousseau was right to note that communion among churches is a threat to the unity of the state. The eschatological breakdown of divisions between Jews and Greek — and all other natural and social divisions — is preeminently made present in the Eucharistic feast. Patristic writers tended to emphasize the eschatological dimension of the Eucharist, regarding it as a foretaste of the heavenly banquet in which ‘people from east to west, from north to south, will come and sit down at the feast in the kingdom of God’ (Luke 13:29). Thus St John Chrysostom, in his commentary on the Hebrews, displays the early Church’s conviction that at the Eucharist the heavenly banquet interrupts into earthly time: ‘For when our Lord Jesus lies as a slain Victim, when the Spirit is present, when He Who sits as the right hand of the Father is present, when we have been made children by baptism and are fellow-citizens with those in heaven, when we have our fatherland in heaven and our city and citizenship, when we are only foreigners among earthly things, how can this all fail to be heavenly?’ This is a fundamental disfigurement of the imagination of citizenship in the territorial state. One’s fellow-citizens are not all preset Britons or Germans, but fellow members (and potential members) of the Body of Christ, past, present, and future." William Cavanaugh, Theopolitical Imagination, (New York: Continuum, 2002), pp 50-51.