Politics in the Pulpit? Narrative as Model

 

A fact so ubiquitous can become obscured by its very ubiquity. One particular fact is the narrative quality of human identity. When asked about one’s life, or day, the typical response is offered as a narrative. ‘Well, let me start at the beginning. First, I showed up late to work…’ and on it goes. There is a beginning, a middle, and an end. The narrative recounts events in the particular experience of the individual.

          In the field of narrative theory – too vast to summarize in this short blog – there is a general distinction between story and narrative. A story, in simple terms, contains the artifacts of the event experienced by the individual or group. Narrative is the emplotment (the choice of details and particulars of the event recalled from experience) chosen by the narrator who, though believing to tell the whole of the story, is in fact choosing details that fit the interpretation of the event the narrator holds, either consciously or unconsciously. The listener will attempt to follow the plot of the narrative. Hermeneutic theories are replete with discussions of how the listener to a narrative filter the narration/story through a set of presuppositions and determinates. In other words, the listener (reader) does not hear the narrative in the same consciousness or intentionality as found in the mind of the narrator.

          Narrative theorists go to great lengths to demonstrate how, along with personal experientially formed narratives, we also have on the horizons of our awareness a plethora of ‘narratives’ that have been given to us through the medium of culture. When I try to explain this to my students, I will use various obvious examples, such as particular holidays such as Thanksgiving. The cultural memory of the event has been narrated to us in various ideological formations. I will narrate the story from the ideological perspective I was given as a child – pilgrims, Indians, shortage of food, generosity of the natives, two peoples getting along, etc. Then, to shock the students out of their normal ideological hermeneutics, I will exclaim ‘This is bullshit’. Then I will give what I believe to be a better accounting of the historical details, including both the religious ideology of the Pilgrims, and their subsequent actions towards indigenous peoples in the new colonies. While most of my contemporary students have little interest in either form of the narrative, there are those in society who have been formed in the first account and seemingly have a vested interest in maintaining that ideological perspective, usually for religious reasons.

          Narratives that have become sedimented in cultural memory, even if the details are opaque to many, become a type of Girardian exterior model, that is, a representative example for emulation. Psychologists who use a form of narrative therapy, along with philosophers who work in the area of self identity, note that narrative and identity are deeply enmeshed with each other. We tell ourselves who we are through some form of narrative, and the narrative takes on a type of second nature. Narrative gives us a sense of continuity from day to day. ‘I am an academic, so I do academic stuff.’ ‘I am an American, and as an American I…’ etc. I could multiply the categories ad infinitum, but I think you get the point.

          This brings me to my main point. Many Christians who have been formed by the narratives of their faith through preaching, catechesis, academics, etc., are presented these narratives within particular cultural hermeneutical frameworks. If the individual, or group, take these hermeneutics as religious or social verities, and infuse them with salvific import, there is the tendency to find competing narratives as threatening, dangerous to both soul and society. Thus, we see the animus and agonistic rhetoric of those who proclaim ownership to exclusive truth claims.

          The great German Jesuit theologian, Karl Rahner, noted that prior to the Second Vatican Council, Christological thinking among most lay Catholics tended toward Monophysitism, that is, an over emphasis on the divine nature of Christ. He stated in his Theological Investigations that if “it is possible to be an orthodox Nestorian or an orthodox Monophysite…I would prefer to be and orthodox Nestorian.” What I think he is getting at is, the pre-Vatican II church had lost sight of the humanity of Christ, and this had diminished the import of life in the here and now as Christians. Salvation of soul trumped social praxis. While I believe Rahner was being hyperbolic, using Rahner’s critique, I want to touch on what I believe is missing in the narratives of many American Christians.

          A proper balance of the divinity-humanity of Christ is vital for Christian practice. Christ’s divinity gives special import to the teachings and practices of the human Jesus. Of special note, Jesus, in his humanity, was located in time and space, living a socio-cultural experience. As such, he grew up with the narratives of his first century Jewish culture. He also lived, like all socially designed humans, a political life, that is, his social life was within a polity. With all polities, there are juridical rules of behavior, either in written form, or enforced by means of social conventions, values, mores, taboos, etc., spoken and unspoken. Obviously, the written Jewish law, such as it was in its development in the first half of the first century, along with its various interpretations, played an important narrative role in the formation of Jewish identity, including that of the historical Jesus. Along with this is the economic-political reality of first century Palestine. Romans were in charge of both, either directly or through proxy.

          In his encounter with the various dissonant narratives of his social-cultural world, Jesus was deeply formed by a particular hermeneutic that informed his view of God, society, justice, love, empathy, death, etc. His world view, his narrative identity, shaped his political hexis, that is, how he embodied and manifested his convictions in social interactions. His understanding of the rule of God, incorporating his view of the person, his understanding of justice, the concern for the poor and powerless, and his conviction that one under the rule of God was to act to bring justice for the poor and powerless necessarily made his speech acts, even his healing performances, political due to the hegemonic hierarchical structures of authority shaped and kept in place by the hand of oppressive forces. In all, his death, from a purely historical perspective, was political in nature. Please note that there was no conscious separation in the minds of his cultural world between the political and religious. That conscious perspective is a much later phenomenon.

          So then, if one’s Christian narrative is informed by a more historically detailed understanding of the socio-cultural-economic-political world that Jesus lived within, one begins to see that the gospel message, while very much incorporating a belief of a transcendent existence after death, is replete with commands that affect political behavior in the here-and-now. Thus, to get back to my titled question – Politics in the Pulpit? – well, yes, obviously. However, it is the force of the gospel narrative, understood in its context, that makes it political. It has little to do with modern partisan politics. However, if preached from its socio-cultural context, it will most definitely have an impact on Christian political praxis in our present political moment.

          Because – let’s be honest – theological/historical knowledge is tragically lacking among the majority of American Christians, there is the reality that the well-informed preacher will come up against an intransigent world view held by many in the congregation. This world view is formed by cultural narratives that are in fact anti-gospel yet believed to be true of a gospel world view – just take a look at the prosperity gospel and you will catch my meaning. Because of my particular understanding of the gospel, forming the narrative of my Christian identity, I naturally interpret many of the policies of the present American government as antithetical of the teachings of Jesus and his proclamation of the rule of God. I find it cognitively perplexing that so many so-called Christians do not see this antithesis.

          So, if the preacher is assured in his or her convictions that the gospel demands a particular message to contemporary congregants that will impact the political life of the community, then it is incumbent on the preacher to do so. I realize that this has consequences. I have been screamed at after Mass in front of about a hundred people by a gentleman for a homily preached just before our invasion of Iraq. I was called a traitor because I called for a non-violent response. I have been called a communist because of my concern over how economic policies affect the poor and vulnerable. I am not welcomed in certain places to celebrate Mass because of my ‘liberal’ theology. So on, and so forth.

          My hope in this little blog is to encourage a deeper reflection on the narratives that we live our lives by. Many of them are tacit and hidden, thus the need for honest reflection. Because of the real dangers that many Christians represent in modern American society, I also encourage a more robust push for better resourced theological education. The fact that many religious universities are making decisions on programs based solely on economic concerns demonstrates the lack of awareness of the social-cultural importance theological education makes for the betterment of the common good. We definitely can witness the impact of bad theological world views, informed more by narratives of the superstructure - i.e., elites and wealthy – and the lack of solid contextual theology that allows the gospel to form political policies of oppression. We need a theological narrative not conformed to the benefit of the powerful to the detriment of the powerless, and need to wake up, calling bullshit on those proclaiming a ‘gospel’ antithetical to the teachings of Jesus within his own socio-cultural milieu.