Daily Archives: October 20, 2009

The Formerly Rich Young Man

Posted by on October 20, 2009 17 comments

In a previous post about the story of the rich young man (Mark 10:17-21) I suggested that there’s no reason to think that the man did not indeed go away intending to do as Jesus commanded, by selling all his possessions and following him. In the comments someone suggested that there is a tradition that suggests Barnabas may be the rich young man in question here. I did some digging and couldn’t find much of anything on that point, but I did find another possibility that actually has support from the text of Mark itself.

Could it not be that the young man in question is simply Mark himself? I think we may catch a hint of this conclusion in Mark 14:51-52 where the narrative tells us that “A certain young man was following [Jesus], wearing nothing but a linen cloth.” This unidentified young man is generally thought — at least in all the commentaries I’ve come across — to be Mark.

Now, it could be that Mark just wanted to throw in some superfluous information by describing the nature of the young man’s (lack of) clothing, but given the intentionality that characterizes the narrative patterns of Mark I’m inclined to doubt it. Why tell us that the young man was dressed only in a sheet that he had wrapped around himself? Why make a point of the fact that he was following Jesus? Could it be that the complete lack of possessions, even clothing, his young age, and his description as actively following Jesus are meant to point us back to the story of the rich young man? Seems like a pretty valid connection to me. I don’t think there’s anyone else mentioned in the gospel of Mark who might qualify for this. Let us follow this line of thought. . .

Symbolically, this event is the culmination of the story of the rich young man. Unlike the others who desert Jesus and flee immediately (vs. 50), he continues to follow, to the point of being seized, at which point he makes his escape by leaving the very last of his possessions behind. His journey of discipleship is complete, he has been utterly dispossessed by following Jesus, right down to his clothing. And finally he has been driven into exile by the powers that set themselves against the mission of Christ.

The rich young man has been dispossessed of everything in following the Messiah, and is left scattered, naked in the dark. The only thing that can make this come out right is a hope beyond hope, a veritable new creation. Discipleship brings the young man to a null point, a point that can only be rendered meaningful by a radical disruption of the status quo. Only resurrection can make dispossessive discipleship of this sort anything more than a pathetic joke.

Conservatism and the Privatization of Religion

Posted by on October 20, 2009 29 comments

Watching (d)evolution of the lumbering organism that is First Things is certainly interesting. One of the latest developments in this conservative bazaar is the recent addition of a group blog by evangelicals. The lineup is rather interesting, consisting of the sort of usual suspects one might expect to see on a blog by politically conservative evangelicals (i.e. plenty of the Biola types). However, when you starting looking though the posters more deeply, and some of the posts, things start to look quite odd, considering the deeply Catholic nature of First Things.

To take the most extreme example, at least one of the posters on this new blog is ardently anti-Catholic. Like, extremely so. Think rabid fundamentalism meets the New Calvinism meets a loud person with an IQ of around 75 and you’ll have a slight idea of what we’re dealing with here. What are people like that doing posting on the same site as David Bentley Hart and Rusty Reno? It boggles the imagination.

But if you really think about it, all the pieces fit. At the most fundamental level the “first thing” which this publication concerns itself is simply  neoconservatism. And really nothing more than that.  To be sure there are exceptions that prove the rule, and occasionally a good article or post peeks its head through the quicksand, but the fact remains that at a basic level as long as you’re a political conservative, nothing else matters at First Things. You can be an Ultramontane Caesaropapist or a Fundamentalist who thinks the pope is the antichrist as long as you’re both glad to be conservative together.

As such, I submit that First Things is only serving to perpetuate what they so often deride: the privatization of religious and theological convictions. For them, the most central claims of the church’s life and doctrine are swept aside so that all can come together in the embrace neoconservative ideology, the master story that supersedes all religious and theological trivialities. Oddly enough, this predominately Roman Catholic publication actually offers a goofy and contrived alternative form of catholicity, namely that of neoconservative ideology. It is conservatism rather than the faith of the church that will bind us together in common mission, concord, and purpose. Truly a bizarre, though not unpredictable ideological development. A publication dedicated to theology’s public importance has ultimately become nothing more than the obviation of theology itself. As such all we have left is a half-baked neocon ideology in the ruins of what was once a sort of okay publication.

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