This passage was particularly profound, especially as I realize that I am helping turn the gears that crush many caught up inside:
The message of the new righteousness which eschatological faith brings into the world says that in fact the executioners will not finally triumph over their victims. It also says that in the end the victims will not triumph over their executioners. The one will triumph who first died for the victims and then also for the executioners, and in so doing revealed a new righteousness which breaks through the vicious circles of hate and vengeance and which from the lost victims and executioners creates a new mankind with a new humanity. Only where righteousness becomes creative and creates right both for the lawless and for those outside the law, only where creative love changes what is hateful and deserving of hate, only where the new man is born who is neither oppressed nor oppresses others, can one speak of the true revolution of righteousness and of the righteousness of God.
(Jürgen Moltmann, The Crucified God, p. 178)
My most basic question, as I realize that I have to live differently, is, “What now?” The question feels like one Paul might like to answer: “If the cycle of oppression is going to be broken and both self-righteous (me) will be justified along with the oppressed and destroyed, why should I do anything differently?” He might say something like “Because the grace of God abounds!”
The law of righteousness has been overcome by the law of grace. God is graceful to men – not “repent and be forgiven,” but “you are forgiven, now turn away and be transformed.” But how do I live in light of the Easter faith when my life is mostly comfortable? How can I live in the hope of resurrection-life rather than just having a set of beliefs and hoping all will be made right in the end, and operating in mode of unprincipled self-preservation as a result?
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May 17, 2009 at 8:30 pm
dave
I’m wrestling with (I think) a similar question, and something that seems to keep coming back is solidarity with the oppressed. I must be plain in saying that, as of yet, I’m still typing the idea of living in solidarity with oppressed people from a position of comfort and ease.
May 17, 2009 at 11:27 pm
Colin
Right, and what does solidarity with the oppressed even mean in real life? I’ve been realizing more and more that when I say “I feel solidarity with the oppressed” it is just my words with the subtext “but I will do nothing more than think about it.”
May 18, 2009 at 8:58 am
dave
Yes, good point. I suppose the first step is obviously relocation to a place where there are oppressed people. But, even this has many different possible forms, because there are oppressed people in rural areas, cities, and yes, probably even suburbs. The magnitude of the issue seems to be no less than one would expect when it is realized that it rests on the pervasiveness of sin.
With that said, however, the biblical witness seems pretty clear that there is a distinct “least of these” that is more oppressed. For example, even though we might use some verbal gymnastics to show that a billionaire is oppressed by his wealthy, unattached life, he’s still going to have an easier time going through the eye of the needle.
And so we return to solidarity with the oppressed. In recent years, I’ve certainly felt that I should relocate to a place in a city (although there are just as oppressed, or “least of these” in rural places), but as I’m still in school in a small town, I haven’t done that much about it. I tutor in the inner city, and I also think that some kind of personal conviction plays into this discussion. A major first step for me was realizing that I had/have way too much stuff, and then figuring out the things that I can do without. Yet, even with this step, as positive as it has been for me, I’m still choosing to do without from a place of (financial) comfort.
May 18, 2009 at 11:11 am
Colin
This conversation really speaks to what the Moltmann text meant to me while I was reading. The context of this quote is an attempt to answer the question, “What was the Jewish apocalyptic expectation?”
Typically the thought, according to Moltmann, goes along the lines of unveiling justice. Why do the godless prosper? asks Job, and the answer is of course in the waiting, the “Just wait, you’ll see, they will get theirs in the end.”
No, says Christ – even death cannot stop God’s righteousness. The powers of earthly oppression cannot end God’s righteousness, this is the Jewish apocalyptic; the powers of death cannot end God’s righteousness, this is the Christian apocalyptic. My favorite Easter proclamation was from Kim Fabricius over at Faith and Theology: “Fuck you Death!”
In real life Moltmann means that even the powers of oppression and the easy life I live will be overcome by Christ in a restorative way rather than a retributive way. Marx, for all of his polemic against class warfare, knew full well that just as the oppressed people needed to awake from their slumber, so do their oppressors. The point is, the millionaire is enslaved to Mammon even in his mansion and blatant oppression just as all of us middling suburbanites who in/directly support the mansion dwellers are. I found William Stringfellow’s commentary in “Free in Obedience” to be helpful here, even though I feel like I need to read it again!
I am not so naïve to glamorize the poor as living sacrificial lives as suffering servants – I assume opportunism and self-preservation are traits of any successful species. I feel like poor people would think I am a nut for giving up my wealth to be among them – hell, look at the popularity of the so-called prosperity gospel in the global South, some people don’t seem to mind a rich preacher and live in hope of becoming rich themselves. So the enslavement process begins!
And here from my perspective I am getting married in just a few days and I don’t have a job. It is apparently harder than any physics department would have ever told me to get a job as an engineer with a degree in physics. And I have interviewed for positions testing popular entertainment and communication devices, smart phones, that will become three-year’s landfill and millions of well-to-do people’s distractions. I interviewed with a large audio company that has the goal of pushing other smaller products off of the shelves while using the best cheap labor money can buy to manufacture their supremely overpriced goods. My most basic requirement is “Thou shalt not kill,” because defense jobs abound, yet I can’t help but wonder if I am violating my principle by plugging into the capitalist system at all. You know, supporting the powers of death (read Stringfellow for more on that) and the whole bit. There goes that opportunism and self-preservation!