Eastern Mennonite University Faculty Staff Conference August 19, 2009

Eastern Mennonite University Faculty Staff Conference August 19, 2009 THEME Promise and Possibility: Serving and Leading in a Global Context Robb Davis Walking our Emmaus Road… Thoughts on Means & Ends Beset by Monstrous Powers… Considering Our Context In Weakness A Way of Being… Liberated?

Our Context Our Context Our Context Our Context Our Context The “Big” Ends Our Context Our Context Our Context Our Context Our Context

Walking our Emmaus Road… confusion about ends "We were hoping that he was the one who would redeem Israel." Where were they coming from? What was their problem? They had been living out a story, a controlling narrative. This story was built up from historical precedents, prophetic promises and of course from the songs of the psalter. The exodus was the backdrop… When pagan oppression was at its height, Israel's God would step in and deliver her once more… How had they thought it would happen?… The holy remnant with God on their side would defeat the pagan hordes. The crucifixion of Jesus was therefore the complete and final devastation of their hopes. Crucifixion is what happens to people who think they are going to liberate Israel and find out too late that they are mistaken.

Walking our Emmaus Road… inattention to ends A failure to actually “walk the road” The first enormous fact that springs from our civilization is that today everything has become “means”. There are no more “ends”. We no longer know towards what we we are heading. We have forgotten our collective goals. We have enormous means and we put into place prodigious machines in order to arrive nowhere… In this vicious cycle of unleashed means, no one knows where s/he is going, the goals are forgotten, the ends left aside. Humankind is moving ahead at astronomical speeds towards nothing.

Walking our Emmaus Road… inattention to ends homo-economocus’ (homo-consumerus’) lack of telos In the ideology of the free market…(t)here are no common ends to which our desires are directed. In the absence of such ends, all that remains is the sheer arbitrary power of one will against another… Where there are no objectively desirable ends, and the individual is told to choose his or her own ends, then choice itself becomes the only thing that is inherently good. When there is a recession, we are told to buy things to get the economy moving; what we buy makes no difference. All desires, good and bad, melt into the one overriding imperative to consume, and we all stand under the one sacred canopy of consumption for its own sake.

Walking our Emmaus Road… inattention to ends our true Emmaus Road narrative: faith in progress What…is the goal of progress? Early in the twentieth century the economist Wesley Mitchell observed: “We all boast of progress but lack the insight to see that the term means nothing because we have not thought for what destination we are bound.” Our economic incentive system promotes continued technological change, but it does not encourage or welcome questions about its purpose… The capitalist system is like a massive eighteen-wheel truck barreling through history. It has an excessively powerful motor driven by the sum of human selfishness… As a passenger on this truck, are you inclined to ask where we are going?… We are working longer and rushing onward without deciding where we want to go… We have tried to avoid the issue by elevating progress to a matter of faith.

Walking our Emmaus Road… inattention to ends the result--a “technique-focused” society of disconnected connectedness In a society such as ours, it is almost impossible to be responsible. A simple example: a dam bursts. Who is responsible? Geologist… Engineer… Construction worker… Politician…? Who is responsible? No one. In a “technique-centered” society, with all the tasks broken up into small pieces, there is no one who is responsible. But no one is free either. The Christian is in solidarity with others, whether he wants to be or not, and this fact is much more true materially speaking, in the current world than in past civilizations. Isolation is no longer possible – no separateness… Whether it concerns simple things like transportation, the interdependence of economic institutions or the evolution of democracy, in every way various influences work together to force humans into this solidarity… A critical fact of this civilization is that, more and more, sin has become collective and individuals race to participate in it. Everyone lives with the consequences of the failures of all the rest…

Walking our Emmaus Road… inattention to ends an example: my last trip home Hi-tech helps Iranian monitoring … Nokia Siemens Network has confirmed it supplied Iran with the technology needed to monitor, control, and read local telephone calls. It told the BBC that it sold a product called the Monitoring Centre to Iran Telecom in the second half of 2008. Nokia Siemens, a joint venture between the Finnish and German companies, supplied the system to Iran through its Intelligent Solutions business, which was sold in March 2009 to Perusa Partners Fund 1LP, a German investment firm. A spokesman described the system as "a standard architecture that the world's governments use for lawful intercept". He added: "Western governments, including the UK, don't allow you to build networks without having this functionality."

Walking our Emmaus Road… discerning the true ends while paying attention to how we pursue them Reconciliation The “Big” Ends

Walking our Emmaus Road… discerning the true ends while paying attention to how we pursue them Reconciliation …of all things. The great “unwinding” of the fall (Colossians 1) • Jubilee (Luke 4) - a truly new economic system • Healing of the nations (Revelation 22) - restoration of broken political, cultural and social relationships • Swords into plowshares (Isaiah 2) - technologies of death transformed into technologies for life • Justice for the oppressed (Luke 4) - protection of the weak • Each person sitting under his/her vine and fig tree (Micah 4:4) - true security • A new heaven, a new earth (Revelation 21) - a restored physical environment, the flourishing of all that “humanizes” (art, music, etc.)

Walking our Emmaus Road… some questions • Which is your greater challenge-- • confusion about ends (or an unwillingness to “go there”) OR • inattention to ends (focus on vague concepts of success)? • How much does my department/office focus on the ultimate ends of “where this is all going”? In what ways do we a good job focusing on ultimate ends? What more could/should we do in this regard? • How might we bring a praxis-focused eschatology into the classroom? • What difference might it make to our work and the way we teach/advise/guide students if we focused more on the “big” ends of reconcilation and the attendant images of scripture?

Our Context Our Context Our Context Our Context Our Context Our Context Our Context Our Context Our Context Our Context

Karl Barth Church and State Beset by Monstrous Powers…

Beset by Monstrous Powers… some definitions/concepts 1. What are the powers? 2. How do they act? 3. How do we deal with them?

Beset by Monstrous Powers… some definitions/concepts 1. What are the powers? • The powers are good • The powers are fallen • The powers must be redeemed

Beset by Monstrous Powers… some definitions/concepts 1. What are the powers? …(W)e might say that we have…an inclusive vision of religious structures…intellectual structures (-ologies and -isms), moral structures (codes and customs), political structures (the tyrant, the market, the school, the courts, race, and nation)

Beset by Monstrous Powers… some definitions/concepts 2. How do they act? Structures that are deemed good and that provide the basis for natural or social order that enables life… are turned into ultimate values, ends in themselves, and thus are elevated to the powers over one’s life and then worshipped as gods.

Beset by Monstrous Powers… some definitions/concepts 2. How do they act? What Jesus reveals here (in the Sermon on the Mount), is that money is a power. This term must be understood not in some vague way as a “force” but in the specific sense typical in the New Testament. A power acts by itself, is capable of “moving” other things, is autonomous (or claims to be), follows its own law, and acts as a “subject” (not an object)… A power has a spiritual significance… A power is never neutral, it has a direction and directs human action. In discussing Mammon Jesus is not describing the relationship of humans with an object, but with a subject. He in no way counsels us to use money well, or to earn it honestly. He speaks of a power, which wants to be comparable to God, which establishes itself as a master over humankind, and which has a specific plan.

Beset by Monstrous Powers… some definitions/concepts 2. How do they act? The Denial of Truth: data engineered and manufactured, programmed and propagated by the principality.. truth is usurped and displaced by a self-serving version of events or facts… Doublespeak and Overtalk: the powers enthrall, delude, and enslave human beings… with "double-speak,“ Secrecy and Boasts of Expertise: political secrecy begets a ruthless paternalism between regime and citizens which disallows human participation in government Surveillance and Harassment: surveillance and the abolition of human privacy… Exaggeration and Deception: the audacity of the deceit, the grossness of the falsehood… Cursing and Conjuring: The demonic powers curse human beings who resist them. Diversion and demoralization: relentlessness of multifarious babel… has wrought a fatigue—(people) suffer no conscience and they risk no action…

Beset by Monstrous Powers… some definitions/concepts 2. How do they act? • Powers are bent on their own survival • Powers seek to establish and build allegiance towards themselves • Powers are bent on (absolute) autonomy in seeking to liberate themselves from accountability for their acts

Beset by Monstrous Powers… some definitions/concepts 3. How do we deal with them? Acknowledge them… What is most crucial…is the failure of moral theology, in the American context, to confront the principalities--the institutions, systems, ideologies, and other political and social powers--as militant, aggressive, and immensely influential creatures in this world as it is… Americans--including professed Christians, who have biblical grounds to be wiser--remain, it seems, astonishingly obtuse about these powers.

Karl Barth Church and State Beset by Monstrous Powers… some definitions/concepts 3. How do we deal with them? Recognize their destiny… The destiny of the rebellious angelic powers…is not that they will be annihilated, but that they will be forced into service and the glorification of Christ, and through him, God

Beset by Monstrous Powers… some definitions/concepts 3. How do we deal with them? Be who we are… (T)he sovereignty of the principalities and powers has been broken, and it is the task of the Church to proclaim that. The working of the powers is limited, and it is the task of the Church to display that. Finally, this broken sovereignty and limitation are the signs of the ultimate defeat of the powers, and the Church is the place where those signs are celebrated…

Beset by Monstrous Powers… some questions • To what extent are we preparing students to engage the powers that affect their lives and within which they will inevitably work? • What might we need to do differently to better prepare them to acknowledge and challenge these powers? • In what ways do we publicly acknowledge that EMU is a fallen power and therefore can and does act in dehumanizing ways? • Do we believe it is? • How would we act differently if we publicly (and perhaps) regularly confessed that we are a fallen power?

Our Context Our Context Our Context Our Context Our Context The “Big” Ends Our Context Our Context Our Context Our Context Our Context

Walking our Emmaus Road… Beset by Monstrous Powers… In Weakness

In Weakness (B)iblical “weakness” is described not simply in that word, but in all the places where the New Testament writers show themselves as operating not out of their own skills, pedigree, background, training, or power, but out of their infirmities and dependency and humility. Frequently, the scriptures picture the disciples or the Church with images not of power, but of smallness--or the work of God accomplished in hiddenness or weakness.

In Weakness Even as Christ accomplished atonement for us by suffering and death, so the Lord accomplishes witness to the world through our weakness. In fact, God has more need of our weakness than of our strength. Just as powers overstep their bounds and become gods, so our power becomes a rival to God.

In Weakness 1. Practicing prayer as alignment, solidarity and confession 2. Challenging the givens of our ambient culture in word and act. • Freedom/Autonomy • Redemptive Violence • Commoditization of _____________ • Limitlessness • Technique • Growth • Effectiveness/Efficiency 3. Slowing down and developing collective spiritual disciplines of discernment, encouragement of giftedness, confession, prayer, breaking bread as an economic statement of holding all things in common. Fundamentally this implies that this institution must act like "church"--not in the institutional sense but in terms of an ongoing praxis of action and reflection about what it means to be a community of followers of Jesus

Questions on “ends” Questions on “powers” • Which is your greater challenge-- • --confusion about ends (or an unwillingness to “go there”) OR • --inattention to ends (focus on vague concepts of success)? • How much does my department / office focus on the ultimate ends of “where this is all going”? In what ways do we a good job focusing on ultimate ends? What more could/should we do in this regard? • How might we bring a praxis-focused eschatology into the classroom? • What difference might it make to our work and the way we teach / advise / guide students if we focused more on the “big” ends of reconciliation and the attendant images of scripture? • To what extent are we preparing students to engage the powers that affect their lives and within which they will inevitably work? • What might we need to do differently to better prepare them to acknowledge and challenge these powers? • In what ways do we publicly acknowledge that EMU is a fallen power and therefore can and does act in dehumanizing ways? • Do we believe it is? • How would we act differently if we publicly (and perhaps) regularly confessed that we are a fallen power? And what of weakness...? How do embrace it as an institution?

Eastern Mennonite University Faculty Staff Conference August 19, 2009