That Violence Thing Isn’t Important Now, Is It? Er….
Thanks to my good friends on Twitter, I was alerted to an article in today’s New York Times about churches putting on their own mixed martial arts as an outreach tool. Sketchy, but I get it.
Then comes the problem. The big problem. These aren’t being treated as gateway events to get people to hear a fundamentally different message, they’re being used to connect people to a “Jesus” whose “gospel” is embodied in the fighting of the mixed marshal arts.
The article quotes a pastor as saying: “Compassion and love — we agree with all that stuff, too,” said Brandon Beals, 37, the lead pastor at Canyon Creek Church outside of Seattle. “But what led me to find Christ was that Jesus was a fighter.”
Yes, that’s what led the disciples to follow him too–all the way to Jerusalem. And what they, at the end, had to discover was not what Jesus came for. The battle and warfare imagery is transmogrified as violence and fighting are shunned (Peter, put away that sword!) and salvation is brought not by beating the crap out of the oppressors, but by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on the cross.
Why is narrative theology so important? Because the story tells us that the way of our salvation (self-giving love so that others might live) is the story we’re called not only to assent to but also to embody. “Take up your cross and follow me,” says Jesus. “Those who belong to Christ have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires,” says Paul. Oh, and we might elaborate that these desires include the rage, factionalism and the rest that go into being an ultimate fighter.
The story of the cross suggests to me that the collision of “Feet, Fist, and Faith” is no gospel at all. These ultimate fighting feet are not the feet that don’t kick, but find themselves washed. These fighting fists are not Messianic, but Roman: the fists in Jesus’ story strike the Messiah without retaliation. This faith is not the faith of Jesus Christ that is obedience in death so that others might live.
Yeah, the Story is that important. And yeah, they’re getting the gospel that wrong.
I’m inclined to agree. Augustine on Alypius at the gladiatorial games is instructive, though MMA isn’t killing people.
“Oh, and we might elaborate that these desires include the rage, factionalism and the rest that go into being an ultimate fighter.”
I’m sure a MMA advocate would take all kinds of issues with this. Are you sure about it? Is the same true in football, soccer, baseball, etc?
It there a possibility of “removal” for game purposes? Like “I’m going to kick you butt in [sport x] but afterwards we go out and share life together?
So here’s the question – is the gospel a renunciation of “battle” itslef, or rather a subversion of the former notion of who the enemies are and what the weapons are? I’m inclinded toward the lattar – that Christ has trampled down death by death, and upon those in the tombs bestowing life. The lamb has conquered by the blood of his cross, etc. Thus Jesus is a fighter, and thus there is something holy and typological in the warrior – though needing to be transfigured by the cross.
In other words, let us cast away the deeds of darkness – let us take a cruciform ethic – absolutely! But let us not for a moment shy away from speaking of the center of our story like this:
The City was now nearer. A smell of burning was in the air and a very shadow of death. The horses were uneasy. But the king sat upon Snowmane, motionless, gazing upon the agony of Minas Tirith, as if stricken suddenly by anguish, or dread. He seemed to shrink down, cowed by age. Merry himself felt as if a great weight of horror and doubt had settled on him. His heart beat slowly. Time seemed poised in uncertainty. They were too late! Too late was worse than never! Perhaps Théoden would quail, bow his old head, turn, slink away to hide in the hills.
Then suddenly Merry felt it at last, beyond doubt: a change. Wind was in his face! Light was glimmering. Far, far away, in the South the clouds could be dimly seen as remote grey shapes, rolling up, drifting: morning lay beyond them.
But at that same moment there was a flash, as if lightning had sprung from the earth beneath the City. For a searing second it stood dazzling far off in black and white, its topmost tower like a glittering needle; and then as the darkness closed again there came rolling over the fields a great boom.
At that sound the bent shape of the king sprang suddenly erect. Tall and proud he seemed again; and rising in his stirrups he cried in a loud voice, more clear than any there had ever heard a mortal man achieve before:
Arise, arise, Riders of Théoden!
Fell deeds awake: fire and slaughter!
spear shall be shaken, shield be splintered,
a sword-day, a red day, ere the sun rises!
Ride now, ride now! Ride to Gondor!
With that he seized a great horn from Guthláf his banner-bearer, and he blew such a blast upon it that it burst asunder. And straightaway all the horns in the host were lifted up in music, and the blowing of the horns of Rohan in that hour was like a storm upon the plain and a thunder in the mountains.
Ride now, ride now! Ride to Gondor!
Suddenly the king cried to Snowmane and the horse sprang away. Behind him his banner blew in the wind, white horse upon a field of green, but he outpaced it. After him thundered the knights of his house, but he was ever before them. Éomer rode there, the white horsetail on his helm floating in his speed, and the front of the first éored roared like a breaker foaming to the shore, but Théoden could not be overtaken. Fey he seemed, or the battle-fury of his fathers ran like new fire in his veins, and he was borne up on Snowmane like a god of old, even as Oromë the Great in the battle of the Valar when the world was young. His golden shield was uncovered, and lo! it shone like an image of the Sun, and the grass flamed into green about the white feet of his steed. For morning came, morning and a wind from the sea; and darkness was removed, and the hosts of Morder wailed, and terror took them, and they fled, and died, and the hoofs of wrath rode over them. And then all the host of Rohan burst into song, and they sang as they slew, for the joy of battle was on them, and the sound of their singing that was fair and terrible came even to the City.
Great post, Daniel!
Doesn’t anyone hear the battle cry?
The syncretizism of martial arts and the cross goes deeper than the punches and the kicks. It seems that these “churches” are expressing their somewhat leashed fear (not causing systemic wounds to the intended target…yet) regarding the loss of the “traditional” male identity.
The NY Times article fleshes out what undergirds the fear— “The goal, these pastors say, is to inject some machismo into their ministries — and into the image of Jesus…the outreach is part of a larger and more longstanding effort on the part of some ministers who fear that their churches have become too feminized, promoting kindness and compassion at the expense of strength and responsibility.”
Brrrr…the so called “outreach” is particularly chilling, considering how the effects of past fear drove the “Church” to support systemic atrocities against “others.” The result: death, division, and dis—ease of which even now, centuries later, we are still trying to heal and reconcile hearts.
If the story doesn’t get straightened and the gospel isn’t understood faithfully, then the consequences will be devastating and frightening. What do we do now knowing that “churches” are building on a misinformed, uneducated concept of the gospel story? Do we watch them continue along in error in their biblical theology, history, and biblical ethics or do we dialogue?
Maybe we do nothing and watch the repeat of history.
To continue our conversation…
A friend posted this on Facebook. Since FB is public I’m assuming it’s ok to reproduce here.
I do think this was a little over the top, Daniel – at least with the quotes given. Saying “Jesus was a fighter” can mean a lot of things, and I daresay there is a big difference between launching a religious war against someone in order to defend the faith, and starting a boxing club for guys. I’m also pretty convinced that the term “violence” … See Morehas ceased to be very useful in these topics – if you can’t distinguish meaningfully between the “violence” of sports and the “violence” of unprevoked and brutal war, then we have a problem.
Your overall point that the shape of the story matters is a good and timely one – how we Christians approach power is absolutely key. It just doesn’t seem to me like this was the best foil to use, nor is the pacifist equivocation of “violence” very illuminating.
To which I responded:
I agree that equivocation is not useful. I disagree that this is what’s happening in the current case.
The reason why the issue is, in fact, the violence of the fighting/Rome versus the non-violence of Jesus is that they are using the ultimate fighting as a picture of the gospel. Beating the sh… er… crap out of each other is an entree to “Jesus the … See Morefighter.” But the “beat the … er… crap out of the other guys gospel” is exactly what Jesus both literally and figuratively undermines in his teaching and life, and what Paul figuratively undermines as he appeals to his own cruciform ministry as proof positive of his faithfulness to Jesus. If you want to know whether someone is being faithful to the gospel, the question is how well they’re embodying the story of the crucified Christ.
Fight clubs get the story wrong. This is getting the gospel wrong. It is not equivocation.
But again Daniel, as I said in my comment above, Jesus HAS conquered. He HAS beat the crap out of death and hades. Scripture isn’t even remotely shy about this sort of imagery. The gospel irony has to do with the methodology of the war and the true nature of the enemy, but we very much do not just throw out the very idea of “fighting” altogether. The weapons of our warfare are not the weapons of the world – but they have divine power to demolish strongholds nontheless.
So, while I certainly am open to whatever the heck those guys are doing being silly and misguided and indeed totally missing the point, I really don’t think you have even remotely proven it with your argument. You’re basically saying “the guys are boxing; boxing = violence = stuff that crucifies Jesus” – aka, equivokating. I suppose it’s undermining the gospel for me to wrestle with my boys?
The reason why ultimate fighting in this case undermines the gospel is because the sort of infliction of violence on others that one engages in in the sport is being used as a parallel for the “fighting” of Jesus. Yes, of course “weapon” and “battle” language is used in the New Testament, both for Jesus’ work and our participation in it.
But, what I think you’re missing is the irony/paradox that this battle and fighting happens in a way that turns the power / violence economy of the world on its head.
To take 2 Cor 10 (our weapons are divinely powerful for destruction of lofty things, etc.) as but one example: the point of the whole letter of 2 Corinthians is that the way such weapons are deployed consists in a life that embodies the suffering of the cross, in contrast to lives that embody the glorious standards of the world.
Ultimate fighting undermines the gospel because, when compared with the “fighting” of Jesus (rather than being contrasted with it), it perpetuates the wrong perception of what true power is.
Take Revelation. Yes, we the saints participate in the conquest and overthrow of the great enemy. But how? “By their blood and the word of their testimony.” The only way that ultimate fighting can embody the texture of the gospel story is if someone went into the ring to get the crap beat out of himself in order to thereby destroy his opponent. But that’s not really what “Feet, Fists, and Faith” is promoting.
The problem with your analogies and appeals is that you’re equivocating on fighting imagery. Whereas in scripture the fighting imagery is employed to show that true victory is won by dying rather than killing, turning the other cheek rather than striking back, you’re using it literally and suggesting that a literally embodied fight is a good picture of the gospel. That’s exactly what it’s not.
Is wrestling with your kids denying the gospel? Depends. If you say, “I kick your butt in wrestling and that’s how I’m like Jesus,” yes, you’ve undermined the gospel. If you wrestle with them because they enjoy it and it expresses love, no it doesn’t undermine the gospel. And maybe, just maybe, if you let them beat you then you could start getting closer to painting a picture of what a Christ-like “fighting” entails.
The fact that our weapons are not the weapons of the world is the entire point. To fight with the weapons of the world and to claim that this is a picture of Jesus undermines the gospel story. To submit oneself to the power of the weapons of the world is the life that according to Jesus, Paul, the Petrine episles, the Johannine epistles and Revelation truly embodies the gospel story. You can keep disagreeing with me, of course, but I’ve got really, really good company.
So are you willing to lose these MMA Christians to something else (islam, maybe)?
Why aren’t you juts immediately writing them off as delusionally non Christian as someone who bombs abortion clinics, say?
“If you say, ‘I kick your butt in wrestling and that’s how I’m like Jesus,’ yes, you’ve undermined the gospel.”
Exactly right. The problem is not with martial imagery in Scripture. The problem is with the assumption that its presence rightly translates into us ascribing some sort of theological status to human battle as such. And its patently silly to infer that the sort of joy in battle that Tolkien describes in LOTR is somehow a virtue, or that we can just read it into Christian theology simply because its a good piece of literature.
The weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty.
Why privileged one part of God’s story over any other. In the “messiness” of God revelation to Man, he has indicated he is interested in nonviolence, and he has also indicated that he is interested in men being able to brutally fight when necessary (Psalm 144:1)
These two things just have to be kept in tension in the diversity of divine revelation mediated through fallible human authors.
“I kick your butt in wrestling, a ritualized competition where the fighting is not coming from any particular animus either person holds. I don’t think of you as a lesser person because of it. In fact, I was willing to risk my own loss, and I love you no less after defeating you. In this I am not unlike Jesus”
would probably be ok
pduggie: In short, because I believe the cross and the book of revelation are more ultimate than the psalms and therefore call us to reread them Christologically and/or allegorically. It’s a theological claim about the superiority of the climactic act of redemption–the one that actually made a human the lord of all nations (which Israel’s wars never did).
But Daniel, literally embodied fights ARE used in scripture as good pictures of the gospel – otherwise David would not be a type of Christ, and Joshua would not be his namesake, etc. Again, and again, and again. They are types, and not the reality, but it just won’t do to go all pacifist and act as if using the image of the conqueror is the same as, say, calling Jesus the “great whore who has destroyed whoredom by his whoredom”.
My point is this. If, in the context of men engaged in sparring – which involves training, endurance, courage, etc. – you then introduce Jesus as the ultimate warrior, the jury is still out on whether you have undermined the gospel. The test is what you say next. If the pastor says “Jesus is the ultimate fighter because he, at the second coming, is going to wipe the floor with everyone who isn’t one of his homies” then, yes, you’ve denied the gospel. But if you say “Jesus overcame the enemy that, with all our strength, we cannot defeat – death itself. He overcame it by enduring the worst it could do to him in self sacrifice – and thus turned its power against itself” then you have emphatically NOT denied the gospel. You’ve expressed it in exactly the terms that scripture does. And if you say to those who are the strongest, that to immitate him, their strength needs to be given to serve those with no strength, and their power to empower the least of these, then you’ve taught them as Jesus taught.
I have no clue what these guys are doing, again – I just glanced at the article and read your quotes. I don’t know which of those two approaches they lean towards, or if any of this is even on their radar screen. But your approach seems like the sort of thing that would warn against working out, because to be strong is to be weak. The paradox of the gospel is subtler than this – God’s strength is made perfect in weakness, but it is no less strength for all that (not just the redefinition of weakness). I am closer to embodying the truth if I do work out, developing my muscles to their carnal potential, and then pour that strength out in service to the weak and denail of my self and elevate them above my own well being – I am closer, than if I let my muscles idly waste away, consoling myself with the “paradox of the gospel” (and thus bury my talents in the sand).
“And its patently silly to infer that the sort of joy in battle that Tolkien describes in LOTR is somehow a virtue, or that we can just read it into Christian theology simply because its a good piece of literature.”
LOTR is a deeply Christian work, and makes precisely the right point. The dawn coming at the last minute, scattering the darkness and saving the weak, the old king eschewing despair and taking hold of his courage and fearing no evil – this is virtue indeed – and anyone who thinks such sentiment is silly is blind.
LOTR makes the exact point that needs to be made – that the carnal battles aren’t utterly wicked, such that good men should stand aloof from them. The battles were their calling in their time. But such carnal power is futile to defeat evil, even though there are times where it can suppress evil (even as evil itself subverts the good intentions of that power). The victory at Pellanor IS as glorious and good as it is ultimatly futile. The true strength and true hope for victory is in the weakness of the halflings, inching toward mordor, destorying the loftiest of powers by rejecting that very power to destroy, and pouring out love and life like a drink offering in the fire of mount doom.
Thus, this so-called “useless piece of literature for Christian theology” captures the heart of Christian theology, and shows everything in right relation. It is those who would use the ring to fight evil who are those who would build the kingdom with the power of the world. It is him who would deny himself, take up his cross, and crawl into Hell who ultimately defeats it. But it is also those who do their duty with the small power providence alots to them, despite the futility of this by itself, that makes space for the true power to do its work. This perfectly captures, in my opinion, the right relationship between those who A: Would dream of building the kingdom with the power of the world (like the zealots or the religious warriors), B: Those who do their duty to maintain basic justice and peace in the economy of this world (like policemen and soldiers defending their loved ones from cruel death), and C: Those who give their lives in love for God and their enemies, declaring and enacting that the entropic economy of the world is at an end and the fullness of God has come (like the martyrs).
I think Daniel understands (though he no doubt forgets it in the heat of intellectual battle) that I fundamentally agree with him. The pacifist option is to equivocate A & B. The other nasty option is to act as if A, B, and C are just the same thing. Tolkien sees the true relationship between them, and thus he is right about his masterpiece being a fundamentally Christian work.
The question we’re wrestling with, though, is whether A rightly captures Jesus. The answer is no, and that ultimate fighting as a picture of Jesus’ victory is a claim that A = C.
A = C is also the problem with invoking OT heroes. Did you really invoke the hero David who couldn’t build the Temple because he was a man of bloodshed?
To say that an OT person is a type is, according to NT usage, both to find resonance and dissonance with the work of Jesus in the NT. In this case, use of the violent weapons of this world is a point of dissonance.
As I say in a comment made today on a different post, I’m not against B. But to say B = C or A = C is, in fact, to deny the gospel.
“Did you really invoke the hero David who couldn’t build the Temple because he was a man of bloodshed?”
Something being a “picture” is not to say A = C. Neither B or A equals C. Do you deny that his victory over Goliah is a type of Christ’s victory over death and hell?
Here’s what I would say:
A (Old Testament) typifies and points forawrd to C
B can serve and make space for C while we are in the economy of the world
C is the world’s only salvation
I think we’re actually pretty much on the same page here.
http://www.leithart.com/2010/01/30/make-love-and-war/
Great post, Daniel.
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Hey Daniel,
This is quite an interesting discussion….it is especially interesting to me who for a year endured the “violence” of being a sub-par wrestler at Robinson:)
Awesome, Luke! I’d like to say that I have no idea what you’re talking about, but we both know that’d be a lie!