A Little Orientalism going on..

There are some wacky news stories that abound right now especially with regards toward Islam, but nothing seems to be as disconcerting as the way President Obama is seen in poll after poll as either a "closet" Muslim or at the very least a Muslim sympathizer. Again, this is ideology at its purest. Obama can firmly state time after time that he is a Christian, yet this is just another proof in the insanity that is in some perceptions of people who just frankly dislike him that he is a closet Muslim.

I noticed the same trend in those Muslim reformist (like Ramadan) working in the West who openly criticize radical, fundamentalist Islam. They are still often criticized by their foes in the West for being covert or closet radicals just waiting to push Sharia law upon their unsuspecting victims! How does anyone win when no matter what you say you are painted as a radical!?

Again, I refer to Edward Said and his work on Orientalism. There are plenty of generalizations that Said forces in his book that one can disagree with, yet I think Said is correct that we see the Orientalist view in the way certain Muslims are perceived by the West especially in the media. The above example works best. The argument goes that Arabs/Muslims are duplicitous and sneaky, so they may say you are their friend but they are just waiting for the opportunity to stab you in the back! Following this line of reasoning then how can you have an open debate or discourse with Muslims, Palestinians, or any other group seen as "Eastern"? Now the proper response is to sarcastically note that of course those in the West are always people of their word. A long history of broken treaties and useless wars beg to differ. This is ironic because one point that Ramadan makes in his works is that a good Muslim always honors contracts.

The main point again that Said is correct on is to actually get away from binary thought (there is really no such entity as an East or a West, or a Christianity or an Islam). We need to use the best of public reason to see the multiplicities that make up certain identities and join up with those that are good and attack those that are in fact bad. This can only happen when the best tools that modernity gave us is used in a critical way on all traditions whether they are political, social or religious...

Ramadan & Barth: Orthodox & Modern?

I am finishing up Gregory Baum's book on The Theology of Tariq Ramadan and have thoroughly enjoyed it. I really like the conversational style of the book and the openness the author has toward Ramadan while having his theology relate to specifically the Catholic theology of Vatican II.

It seems one of the problems that people have with Ramadan is that he seems to be (like Bruce McCormack labeled Karl Barth) both Orthodox and Modern. In other words, both Barth and and now Ramadan work within the breakthrough of modernity (they use context, history, critical thought) while at the same time being faithful to their tradition and its founding scriptures. In other words, they are part of the Reformist tradition. The point is not to destroy the faith of the fathers but continue to be faithful to it by always reforming.

Liberals, Fundamentalists and Radicals really despise this position because it is not "faithful" enough to their own perspective. For a fundamentalist, they are too "liberal" in buying into the modern framework. For Liberals, they are too conservative for being to faithful to the past traditions and interpretations and their religious communities (better to have a vague spirituality). For Radicals, they are too conservative because they haven't deconstructed the whole religious paradigm and embraced pure secularism or atheism.

Instead a reformist is always looking to reform the current faith to be both faithful to their sources and the community of believers while at the same time open to the voice of God for changes that should be made today especially when the tradition is either silent or not clear on a matter. For example, Barth wrote particularly to the Church because they are the witnesses of God while Ramadan targets Western Muslims; there is a clear particularity in their target audience yet not denying their general readership as well. The point is that they want to be faithful to the real communities of faith that ascribe to their faith. Thus, when it comes to modernity, it is a mixed bag of blessings and problems; it is up to the reformist to see where the faith can value modern ideas while at the same time be critical as well. It is to say, yes, some of modernity is good because of its liberating dimensions, yet modernity and secularism is not our God; there is only one God and God is one. This is what I see both theologians doing...

Secularism: Not a Friend

At the current moment the idea of the public/private split that we "enjoy" in the West is something I have been musing about especially as I get ready to teach World Civ. courses at Biola this Fall. The Enlightenment is a period I focus on for a number of reasons, but especially because I want my Christian students to really wrestle with what this period has meant for world history in general.

What I often find is a mixture of appreciation and distrust in the Enlightenment project from evangelical Christians. This period ushered in a form of naturalism that led intellectual society to distrust supernatural explanations and the idea of a personal God. However, the freedom of choice and worship is also something that supposedly came form this time as well. In a nutshell, the idea of choice is good but the idea of the secular is bad.

Moving away from the academy and to the world in general, people are still and always have been very religious. This goes for Southern hemisphere, but also Muslim countries as well (just the idea of a "Muslim" country betrays that idea). I am also suspicious that the freedom of worship and choice popped up all around the world at different times in countries with a religious basis before and after the Enlightenment.

What I also suspect is that when secularists denounce the wearing of head scarves because of freedom for women or things like a public display of crosses it is because it is infringing on the public sphere. In addition, I also suspect that if secularists really had the monopoly of things like they think they had, they would also try to enforce public law in the so-called private sphere as well. More on this later....

The Bible and Empires

As I have been reading a book on the theology of Jon Sobrino, it was pointed out that the Bible shows that God is on the side of the poor, the slaves and the outcast. Fair enough, but what is really interesting is that two of the central stories in the Bible occur during the reign of two of the greatest empires in human history: the Egyptian and the Roman.

One can get lost in the grandeur of these ancient civilizations, but the Bible could care less about them. Instead, it focuses on God's people Israel and the way Moses delivers them out of Egypt and on God's Son Jesus as he ministers in Palestine ultimately to be murdered by the Romans. God's judgment in fact is against these systems of power that have abused God's people; in both cases, someone is sent to be a deliverer (Moses/Christ).

The Exodus story is probably the most referenced story in the Bible and some would argue that Jesus is a type of Moses in the Gospel of Matthew. Moreover, when one reads the judgment in the book of Revelation, the judgments mirror the 10 plagues of Egypt and those who are unrepentant tend to respond like Pharaoh did to Moses. That being said, one should note that if God is consistently on the side of the oppressed and ultimately humbles human empires then where will God enact deliverance and deliver judgment today...?

Dream Weaver

I am a huge fan of Nolan's movies, so seeing Inception Saturday night was a real treat. The greatness of the story is the way the film has me questioning what was reality and what was not in the movie. In fact, this leads to the big question Zizek poses in light of the movie The Matrix. Zizek's point is not that there is the real reality and a fictional reality out there; we are all living in a world that we see through fictions (in other words, the 3rd pill). Symbolic fantasy is what makes us work and live in the symbolic universe.

How does Inception deal with this argument? For starters, the critics are right that this movie is one that needs to be viewed multiple times in order to get it. In light of that, what I immediately pulled out of the movie is the way Leo's main character may be simply seeking wish fulfillment throughout the entire movie; family and guilt are at the center of his world and by the end of the movie he has moved from his wife to his kids as the object of desire that he has attained. Or has he? The whole picture and all the characters throughout the movie may be one elaborate dream sequence he sets up in his mind (or at least is subconsciously put there) in order to get his "dream" children again. One of the funny things about his character is when someone probes too much into his memory of the real reality (non-dream world), he begins to freak out and his defenses go up. The ending was very neat and tidy, which makes myself (and my fellow audience at the AMC) give a collective "Oh....ahhh" at the last scene of the film.

Besides this not so very deep reading of the movie, the special effects were out of this world. I especially loved Joseph Gordon-Levitt's fight scenes (awesome actor) in dream layer number 2. It was just an awesome scene.

Said: Seeing from Engaged Eyes

It took me a while to finally finish Edward Said's classic Orientalism. His claim is that Western philologist's/historian's writings depict the people of the Middle East in a way that makes them a mythical Other. In other words, the Orient becomes an enchanted place to the Western viewer. A good example is the Aladdin story of genies and magic carpets.

Anyway, as I have begun to read current strands of philosophy and theology of the engaged follower of the Event, I am left wondering, with Said, that perhaps there is a time to suspend engagement and to try to open oneself to a universal, rational public world where the East/West views will no longer become clouded by engaged eyes. This view is obviously a little naive in light of the postmodern turn in the academic world or the multicultural turn to the celebration of a plurality of narratives. However, perhaps we should double the attempts to temper our engagement with a little indifference. Blind engagement for the sake of a cause is the ultimate betrayal of justice to a good cause.

Look Down! Look Down! Victor Hugo’s Les Misérables And How Christians Can Deal with Immigration Reform.

Introduction:
In recent months, a controversy has erupted over the new immigration law passed in Arizona. The law has raised suspicion due to the fact that it “greatly expands the powers of the police in dealing with illegal immigration, including for the first time giving them the right to stop anyone on ‘reasonable suspicion’ they may be an illegal immigrant and arrest them if they are not carrying identity papers.” Furthermore, it leads some to believe that “the new bill will lead to racial profiling, with its powers used to harass anyone who looks or sounds Latino.” Therefore, the law brings to the attention the question concerning the foreigner. However, an even greater question emerges as to how Evangelical Christians will respond to this situation. In order to assess the possibilities for Christians, Victor Hugo’s Les Misérables may give insight as to how Christians can deal properly with this event. Why Les Misérables? It is an immensely popular story, yet few there are who really understand the socio-political implications behind the novel. Therefore, this paper will argue that Les Misérables offers the perfect space to deconstruct the recent immigration policy in the United States and the ideology behind it. First, we will examine the novel in light of hospitality toward the Other. Second, we will analyze the way the novel depicts the issues of law and justice. Third, we shall discuss the novel and the idea of history and memory. All of these issues are to be examined in the hopes of finding an application to the current crisis.

The Open Door: Les Misérables and hospitality:
It has been called “‘the world’s most popular musical’”. It has been read by millions and adapted for film, animated feature and radio drama. Les Misérables is a phenomenon. Even from its first publication in 1862, it has been incredibly popular. Yet despite such achievements, many would be shocked to learn that the story was “banned in France”. Furthermore, Hugo referenced his critics responses stating, “‘The newspapers which support the old world say, “It’s hideous, infamous, odious, execrable, abominable, grotesque, repulsive, shapeless, monstrous, horrendous, etc.””” And that is the key to the whole situation. Les Misérables is a book about worlds. In fact, the novel presents the reader with a pure form of hospitality, which exposes the old system (political, social and legal) of its prejudices. Therefore, let us examine the text to see how this also applies to our current situation.
At the beginning of the novel, Jean Valjean is released from the quarries of Toulon for theft. When he enters the town of Digne, he is refused employment and lodgings because of his yellow passport. Without shelter, Valjean decides to spend the night on a public bench. However, an elderly lady explains to Valjean that he can find lodgings at Bishop Myriel’s home. There, he finds sustenance and lodgings without payment. However, knowing his certain future, Valjean again resorts to thievery. Nevertheless, he is caught and is brought back to the bishop’s residence.
When Valjean is brought back to the Myriel’s house, the bishop tells him, “‘Do not forget, do not ever forget, that you promised me to us this money to make yourself an honest man…Jean Valjean, my brother, you no longer belong to evil but to what is good. I have bought your soul to save it from blank thoughts and the spirit of perdition, and I give it to God.’” The system (legal and economic) left Valjean a bitter and vengeful man. Yet, the bishop’s hospitality offers the convict a new path. Thus an investigation into the meaning of hospitality is in order.
To begin, we need to define the word hospitality in order to assess what is accomplished by the bishop’s actions. Jacques Derrida offers us a useful definition, when he wrote:
[Absolute] hospitality requires that I open up my home and that I give not only to the foreigner …but to the absolute, unknown anonymous other, and that I give place to them, that I let them come, that I let them arrive, and take place in the place I offer them, without asking of them reciprocity (entering into a pact) or even their names.

For Derrida, hospitality is a call. As James K. A. Smith explains, “The call that resounds in this relation, what the Other calls us to, is hospitality – making room for the Other, receiving the Other as wholly Other.” This interpretation of Otherness and hospitality owes a lot to Emmanuel Levinas. As Bruce Ellis Benson remarks, “Levinas sees the desire to systematize as an attempt to control that which is other to me by making it mine. In other words, I wish to recast the other in my own image.” Thus, hospitality is unconditional. As Smith declares, “Derrida suggests that hospitality…requires unconditional welcome and orders ‘that the borders be open to each and every one, to every other, to all who might come, without question or without their having to identify who they are or whence they came.” This is exactly the way the bishop operates. When Hugo recounts the bishop’s manner, he states, “No door in the house could be locked.” The reason for this principle stems in the bishop’s words, “This is the distinction: The doctor’s door must never be shut; the priest’s door must always be open.” Even when Valjean wakes up to steal the bishop’s silver, he finds that that the door “was not barred.” Moreover, as Valjean sneaks into Myriel’s bedroom, he “found the door ajar. The bishop had not closed it.” It is no wonder that the text refers to Myriel as “a man who is hospitable by nature.” This is why the people of Digne “elected to call him by the name which for them had the most meaning, Monsigneur Bienvenu…Bienvenu – or ‘welcome’.” However, this hospitality is not some naïve romanticism. On the contrary, it is most dangerous.
When Valjean goes to steal the silverware, he carries a spike that serves as a pry bar. As he stands in the bishop’s room, Valjean approaches the bishop as he sleeps and stands “seemingly between the two extremes of death on the one hand and salvation on the other – ready to shatter that skull or to kiss that hand.” In the Bille August film from 1998, the scene is recreated; however, the bishop awakens and catches Valjean in the act of stealing. Valjean proceeds to render the bishop unconscious with a blow to the face. Therefore, this hospitality is not without its dangers. There is a certain vulnerability involved in it. The person becomes exposed to the Other. John D. Caputo is more bold when he declares, “[Love] means to ‘surrender to the impossible,’ se rendre, to render oneself back to the impossible.” The impossible then represents the Other. As Caputo further delineates, “The other person is not one of our possibilities but one of our impossibilities…We can never be sure of what is going on in the heart of the other but we affirm that distance rather than being demoralized or defeated by it. The relation to the other is bracing but risky business.” In the novel, Valjean asks the bishop why he does not fear that Valjean could murder him in his sleep. The bishop kindly retorts, “‘That’s God’s affair.’” In the 1998 film, the same situation presents itself except the bishop says, “‘How do you know I’m not going to murder you...We’ll just have to trust each other.’” Therefore the story posits an element of trust between the two parties if hospitality is to be carried out. Since both are finite beings (one can not know the mind of the other), a mutuality of trust must be established. As Christ understood it, our love for our neighbor needed to be the same as the love we have for ourselves. After all, is that not the point behind the “Golden Rule”? As Jesus explains, “‘In everything do unto others as you would have them do unto you; for this is the law and the prophets” (Matt. 7:12 NRSV ). Thus, Christ states that the heart of the law is the law of hospitality; or that the law is hospitality. Therefore, it is imperative that Christians promote inclusivity as much as possible. This has been the problem with a Christianity in the United States. As Caputo writes:
The Christian Right is all for the force of law, for rigorous enforcing laws against illegal immigrants, for keeping order in the streets, and they applaud wooden formulas like ‘three strikes and you’re out while slandering jurists who value discernment and adjudication as merely pandering to criminals.

As most of us are aware, Valjean receives a sentence of five years for stealing bread to save his sister’s family. Because of his numerous escape attempts, Valjean’s time in Toulon reaches nineteen years. Thus, Hugo lays the blame on the system for being so callous and overbearing on the less fortunate. As Hugo exclaims, “Was it not monstrous that society should treat in this fashion precisely those least favored in the distribution of wealth, which is a matter of chance, and therefore those most needing indulgence?” In other words, Valjean becomes a victim of what Slavoj Žižek terms “systemic violence”. Žižek defines it as the “violence inherent in a system: not only physical violence, but also the more subtle forms of coercion that sustains relations of domination and exploitation, including the threat of violence.” What is most disturbing about our present state of affairs for Christians in the United States comes from the fact that many Christians go along with these prejudices. This is why Caputo is so incensed when he declares:
It [the Christian Right] turns a deaf ear to the poverty of the inner-city life that makes a life of crime an inviting alternative to working for below-subsistence wages and no health care. They campaign vigorously for right-wing politicians who grant tax breaks to the wealthy but refuse to raise minimum wage – in the name of Jesus!

This attitude does not manifest the law of Christ, which is hospitality. Instead of being like Monsigneur Bienvenu, some Christians in America have become Inspector Javert.