Comments for Inhabitatio Dei

Comment on Kingdom-World-Church and Liberation Theology by E

Wed, 08 Sep 2010 03:51:43 +0000

I don’t know if this is at all helpful or relevant, but Jeremy’s note about Petrella reminded me of a theme in Justo Gonzalez’s new book on wealth (Faith and Wealth) in the early church. He explains how the early church documents unanimously favor distributing wealth on behalf of the poor simply because the poor need help. Later (4th c.?) more “enlightened” ideas developed as to why we ought to care for the poor (because it might go well with us now or in the afterlife, or some semi-neoplatonic rationale).

Comment on Milbank, Islam, and Mission by Anthony Paul Smith

Anthony Paul Smith — Wed, 08 Sep 2010 02:25:19 +0000

Thanks kindly.

Comment on Kingdom-World-Church and Liberation Theology by Halden

Halden — Wed, 08 Sep 2010 02:24:55 +0000

Thanks for the reference Jeremy. Definitely getting that book as I agree heartily with Petrella’s critique as you’ve summarized it.

Comment on Kingdom-World-Church and Liberation Theology by Jeremy

Jeremy — Wed, 08 Sep 2010 01:14:45 +0000

Halden, I can’t speak about Cavanaugh’s work, but I have read Bell’s book. I can say that I found it quite deficient. I would highly recommend Petrella’s The Future of Liberation Theology which includes a rather damning critique of Bell’s work.

According to Bell, liberation theologians err whenever they prioritize justice and not forgiveness because “the pursuit of justice merely reproduces the violence that is inherent to capitalism” (Petrella, 131). Also, striving after justice encourages the acquisitive nature that capitalism already promotes. To short-circuit the violent cycle, forgiveness helps disrupt this sinful economy by being an aneconomic gift that brings reconciliation and peace. Basically the oppressed ought to no longer ‘seek justice in terms of distribution of rights” (Petrella, 131). If they continue then it merely demonstrates their lack of faith and hope in God. Anyway, Petrella critiques this idea because liberation theology believes that God is a God of life. Bell forgets that peace is contingent on actual life. Bread and water. The refusal to cease suffering is not merely suffering, rather it leads to death.

Comment on Kingdom-World-Church and Liberation Theology by Michael Iafrate

Michael Iafrate — Wed, 08 Sep 2010 00:46:24 +0000

Halden – Excellent post. I’m glad you discovered Church: Charism and Power.

With all due respect to you Dr. Long, your reaction to Halden’s critique of Cavanaugh and Bell is similar to the reaction I had when I read C. and B.’s claim that liberation theology is “insufficiently radical.”

Comment on Kingdom-World-Church and Liberation Theology by Halden

Halden — Tue, 07 Sep 2010 22:47:59 +0000

TIm, I can’t say for sure what Boff develops in his notion of “world” as I haven’t finished the book. For me, “world” certainly doesn’t signify an emptiness, but rather the more Yoderian and Pauline understanding of the world as creation bound over to futuility through being enslaved by principalities and powers. As such the world is the object of the Kingdom’s coming and the transfiguration it will ultimately bring about. But that does not make “world” and empty space, rather it is a contested space, a site of conflict between what Paul spoke of as cosmic powers of the Spirit and the Flesh in Galatians.

Comment on Kingdom-World-Church and Liberation Theology by Tim McGee

Tim McGee — Tue, 07 Sep 2010 22:21:38 +0000

What does it mean that the “world” (at least from this snippet) functions as a vacuous, empty place, a blank stage or arena? Is it a “nothingness” presupposed by the kingdom and overcome by the concretization of the kingdom in/as the church (Hegelian…)? With such an account of the world (world-as-absence-of-kingdom), will not the Church always be positioned as master over or apogee of the world: the world is simply an empty space waiting to be filled by the kingdom in/as/through the Church?

Comment on Kingdom-World-Church and Liberation Theology by Halden

Halden — Tue, 07 Sep 2010 21:51:40 +0000

In fact, I call bullshit on your invocation of the fact that they spent time in Latin America. That in no way serves as an independent validator of their published theological works. Would you buy it if I told you that you had to spend a decade or so living in intentional community before your arguments about the nature of the church deserved consideration? I doubt it.

Comment on Kingdom-World-Church and Liberation Theology by Halden

Halden — Tue, 07 Sep 2010 21:34:55 +0000

To be clear, I was not trying to impugn their personal lives or action vis a vis Latin America, only observing what is operative in their published works which very clearly involves a way of sidelining the concrete critiques and proposal of liberation theologians in favor of their own proposals (which both center on finding the “solution” to the problems under discussion in a renewed understanding of ecclesial practices). I don’t see why this is controversial. It is quite clear from their works that they have fundamental critiques of Liberation Theology, I’m simply disagreeing with their approach. I don’t see how that merits your slur.

Comment on Kingdom-World-Church and Liberation Theology by d. stephen long

d. stephen long — Tue, 07 Sep 2010 21:24:39 +0000

Spot on with the Milbank critque — the swipe at Cavanaugh and Bell is unfortunate. Spend a year or so in Chile like Cavanaugh did or one month each year in Honduras as Bell does before making such adolescent gestures.

Comment on Milbank, Islam, and Mission by WenatcheeTheHatchet

WenatcheeTheHatchet — Tue, 07 Sep 2010 19:44:39 +0000

http://www.orthocuban.com/2010/07/church-state-and-kuyper%e2%80%99s-sphere-sovereignty/

I think this is the link.

Comment on Milbank, Islam, and Mission by Anthony Paul Smith

Anthony Paul Smith — Tue, 07 Sep 2010 19:23:33 +0000

Can you tell us the name of the article by the Orthodox priest, please? I’d be interested in reading that.

Comment on Milbank, Islam, and Mission by WenatcheeTheHatchet

WenatcheeTheHatchet — Tue, 07 Sep 2010 19:07:22 +0000

No one is going to be surprised when Christopher Hitchens says (as he did last week) that what needs to happen is for Islam to be domesticated to modern secular American legal precedents. That’s exactly what we expect him to say and since he’s an atheist he’s intellectually consisting in saying that what we can’t eliminate should be domesticated. For theological conservatives the tension can often end up revealing that the conflict for them can be described as a battle between two different forms of theocratic impulse–attempting to distinguish one theocratic impulse as inherently dangerous and the other as not has been an interesting thing to study. Earlier this year I was reading an Orthodox priest point out that while Dutch Reformed thinkers developed the idea of sphere sovereignty as a way to curtail the influence of Catholics on political organizations centuries later the solution for Protestants at that point established a legal and procedural precedent for Muslims to push for limited permission of application of sharia law. There’s some failure to recognize that yesterday’s political solutions helped contribute to today’s political/social problems. There’s not much recognition from, say, neo-Confederate Reformed types that what they are going for is functionally similar to what the Taliban are described as doing. Secularists seem to have an easier time spotting the similarities.

Comment on Milbank, Islam, and Mission by Studiosus Sorenus

Studiosus Sorenus — Tue, 07 Sep 2010 04:47:32 +0000

But is it not, precisely, this “lamentably premature collapse of Western colonial empires” that has led to the iconoclastic banishing of the crucifix from Herr Professor’s ivory domain, and the elevation of kitschy vagina art to iconic status therein? Say what you will about the tenets of Imperial Christianity, dude, but at least it ensures that the cross shall be locked up safely within ecclesiastical academe!

Comment on Milbank, Islam, and Mission by Gene McCarraher

Gene McCarraher — Tue, 07 Sep 2010 02:06:46 +0000

Halden: Good to see you’re still alive. For a month or so, I’d gone to this site and seen “The buried body.” I was beginning to think it referred to you.

McGee’s essay provides one more reason for me (along with a lot of others) to do as much penance as possible for quaffing the RO Kool-Aid in the 1990s. Milbank’s theological imperialism (about whose political correlatives AEW is exactly right) is inseparable from his theocratic inclinations.

He’s also been bloviating recently about “civil society” along with his factotum Philip Blond. What a foghorn.