Sunday 7th May 2006

by christo

I think there is a communism that will not fail to deliver. The Israelites in the desert, or Jesus with his disciples, or the community of the Spirit (for they were all filled by the Spirit) in Acts 4:31ff – are all examples of classless societies (in the guise of first feudalism-God the suzerain, then a monarchy-Christ the King, and then ?-the Spirit the ?). And why they worked, I think was because the principal of justice was in their midst. But they all appear to have been temporary societies, they appear to have failed in time. Or did they? What do you think?

- something I posted on Jono’s blog that I had just that day developed a little more extensively in my head, but not yet in writing. The musing continues:

Of course everything I’m saying is debatable – but that’s part of the point – it is being debated, which means there is something there. The Levites, a class, but potentially a misappropriation of the word. [1 In addition there are some interesting discussions out there (Gottwald, Bloch) that’d suggest so much as that the ancient Israelites in Egypt ran a sort of ‘peasants revolt’ against the Egyptians with revolutionary focus and unity on YHWH and his promised city. Appropriating that thought to the Jews at the time of Jesus – that is Jesus and his coup of Jerusalem. And then for the folks in Acts – the revolutionary focus is on the Spirit and the Coming Kingdom.

… none of God’s social experiments ‘worked’ or at least had staying power. The desert community that together ate the same meal over and over again soon forgot their YHWH, his political system not practical or enlightened enough or something. Thus more practical gods, say the fertility inducing Baal, and more human leadership, say that one would have in a king, were sought after.

Christ’s little order of merry disciples didn’t have much staying power either – donkey riding, palm leaves, and miracle menus didn’t keep the disciples from packing it in and going back to fishing.

And the little community in acts – their spirit centeredness quickly seems to fade into the “larger political system” – note how by the end a Levite (!) sold some property and brought the money to the feet of the apostles. Difference established that seems out of kilter to verses prior.

… there is a curious progression here … . An evolving relationship to an incarnation of god and a morphing notion of the coming city/community are both at the centre of these revolutionary-like groupings of people.

Looking back, I realize I’m really grappling for words here, but I think it’s heading somewhere and I don’t want to forget it.
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2 Responses to “A half thought on the Trinity and socialist/revolutionary political order”

  1. Christo says:
    May 12, 2006 at 8:58 am

    I hope James catches your comment on this, because he’s been asking the question – “how should we then live” using the language of “recognition of God in the other, and in the self” …

    on the expectation of the coming community and whatever that is, I’ll have to come back to another time, but I think an interesting figure that comes to mind in your articulation of the materialist dialectic versus the encounter with the face of the other as Emmanuel is the conflict of Cain and Abel.

    In some ways their conflict could be viewed as both a class struggle and a struggle with god encountered. As a class conflict, Abel is the favoured because his livelihood is perceived to be priviliged in some way by Cain – perhaps tending sheep is easier, the weather nicer to Abel’s industry than Cain’s, perhaps Abel has all the sheep available, maybe Adam’s will (law) was for Abel to tend sheep and Cain to work the soil.

    So did Cain the revolutionary commit an act of injustice when he killed his bourgeoise brother? Does Cain encounter the face of god in Abel? Well, he does at least seem to encounter him through the murder of Abel, the realization of the death of the other and with it his mode of production. And yet is the encounter with god in the first silenced face, in the cries of blood in the soil a let down? Is his mode of production tainted or anointed by the blood?

    First god curses him, then he wimpers fearing the loss of god’s presence – “Today you are driving me from the land, and I will be hidden from your presence” – which gains him god’s curious guarantee of grace – “if anyone kills Cain, he will suffer vengeance seven times over.”

    The blessing of Cain the murderer informs an interesting notion of justice in his great, great grandson Lamech:

    “23 Lamech said to his wives,
    “Adah and Zillah, listen to me;
    wives of Lamech, hear my words.
    I have killed a man for wounding me,
    a young man for injuring me.

    24 If Cain is avenged seven times,
    then Lamech seventy-seven times.”

  2. thomas says:
    May 8, 2006 at 8:12 pm

    I think you’re right in highlighting the presence of justice as one of the key components of the classless societies one can trace through the Bible. I think the problem with pure communism isn’t it’s lack of justice but its assumption that justice is created out of the clash and conflict of a materialist dialectic. The Hebrew understanding of justice, at least it seems to me, seems to be much more incarnational – justice is found in the encounter with the face of the other as Emmanual Levinas says rather than in the conflict of material systems. Obviously this recognition of the demand the other places on the self will lead to changes in the material modes of production for a society, yet for the changes to be meaningful I think this sense of justice, of recognizing in the other the image of God, must precede any such changes.
    It is interesting to see how this principle of justice continues even when Israel sheds is classless form of one big family and takes on a maonarchy – in many of the royal psalms it is emphasized that the king is the son of God and his image of justice and righteousness to the people – God’s justice occurs through the justice of the king. Of course Israel’s history bears out the complete and utter failure of the kings to live up to this mandate and justice remains unfulfilled.
    Which seems to me to be the big question – if justice is found in incarnation, in the recognition of God in the other, and in the self, why would God place the responsibility in beings that are so often blind to His presence? I suppose it perhaps promotes expectation of the coming community – of justice made complete – and expectation is supposed to cause us to look harder for the community that already exists here and now, I suppose. If we work in heaven, what is it we will work for? God’s pleasure, His glory? And if we work in expectation of a full realization of that, should we not be working for that now – and acting with righteousness and justice here and now for the pleasure of God and his glory?
    I dunno, just joining you in thinking out loud.