“Martyrdom is communicative action.” This is a claim that Kevin Vanhoozer expounds, following the writings of Kierkegaard (First Theology, p. 364).
This claim was brought to the table this morning as we were talking cross, kingdom, and gospel. What kind of reign is this reign of God of which we speak? What kind of power is it that exercises authority to both speak and to exorcise?
I worry about power. I worry about coercion. I worry about what sort of emissaries we are. I worry about what kind of king we think we represent.
Not all power is bad. “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me,” claims the resurrected Jesus. That’s power.
But it’s power that comes, while on earth, in the Spirit who empowers Jesus at baptism–itself a symbol of the coming cross.
It’s an authority that is finally granted when Jesus eschews all worldly means for overthrowing his enemies, going to the cross in order to wage his “war,” receiving from God the enthronement at God’s right hand in return.
Kevin Vanhoozer riffs off of Kierkegaard, who, in turn, is riffing off of Jesus and Paul, underscoring the necessity of an act of suffering to make good on our message of a suffering messiah:
Christian witnesses are not only speakers but sufferers too… Neither orthodoxy nor “Christendom” is enough; Christian truth demands passion or inwardness. Yet subjectivity is not the whole story for Kierkegaard either… Being a Christian is recognizable “by the opposition one suffered.” (First Theology, 364)
There’s a practice that demarcates the faithful Christian, practice that is not merely doing the right things generally, but a receiving of the opposition that will inevitably come against the truth.
Placing suffering so close to the heart of the Christian identity (we are the Cross People) undermines other ways of conceiving of faithful Christian practice:
Both the form and the content of the evangelical truth claim work against the notion of “Christendom” and its imperialistic overtones of imposing truth on others. Those who stake theological truth claims, then, should expect not to oppress but rather to suffer oppression. To associate the theological truth claims with expressions of the will to power is effectively to contradict the Christian witness. The power associated with the Christian truth has little to do with force (except the force of testimony and perhaps the force of the better argument) and nothing to do with violence. The power of the cross is the weakness and wisdom of God (1 Cor 1:23-25). From the perspective of an epistemology of the cross, truth–even rationality–is vulnerable.
(NB: For those of you scoring at home, Kevin Vanhoozer is a Reformed Theologian, not an Anabaptist. I think that makes what he says just a little more interesting.)
“An epistemology of the cross”: we know truly when we know what is true as that which is formed by and participates in the cross of Christ.
Theology is , in a sense, the Spiritual equivalent of psychology. For what can one man say to another that is not of his own self? His own person? One’s theology is a representation of his past experiences, for does Christ not in our being represent Truth. No one can differentiate one’s truth from Truth except within oneself. To cling to fastly to another’s truth is not to be of One’s Self. Only in the rawest form outside of new fangled common speak bibles can the lessons of how things came to be be known. It is from the Spirit that for each the lesson is hence acquired to know one’s intended Path. There is suffering along the path. Suffering of one’s own shortfalls awareness, and equally so in those around us who remain asleep to this Reality.
Phenomenal.
One question: this seemed to focus on the cross / suffering through persecution – “a receiving of the opposition that will inevitably come against the truth.”
Wouldn’t this also include an intentional participation in crucifixion through voluntary submission (humility) in all relationships; as well as voluntary sacrifice for others? The cross was a product of crucifixion, but wouldn’t it be correct to say that Jesus lived out a crucified life and that the cross is also about association with the lowest, even going under the lowest, the marginalized, etc. in order to lift them up from depths of sin & suffering and restore to God and shalom-wholeness?
And, perhaps you could explore and expand upon that. Thanks.
“… the necessity of an act of suffering …”
The modern sense of “suffer” means to be passively inflicted with ongoing horrible pain, but the older more active sense was about bearing up under a heavy burden. Through bearing the burdens of witness cheerfully we are justified by faith and “we have peace with God through our Lord”… eg, “suffer little children”.
I don’t think ongoing pain is desirable, just unavoidable in this fallen world. I don’t think our personal crucifixion is inevitable, just something we have to be ready for. With peace. “Now the law came in to increase our trespass, but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more … What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound?” Ongoing horrible pain is more like sin than like grace.
Strive for the good, resist evil: correct power, justified coercion, arises from correct relationship. (I don’t see that as begging the question.)
Anytime we lose or deny ‘self’ in the name of Jesus or alongside Jesus we are afforded the opportunity to discover the fuller meaning of who and whose we are. This can take place in any relationship where vulnerability is expressed. I believe this can also happen within the context of illness in this fallen world. Paul expressed it in his own prayer for deliverance to which God’s answer was that God’s grace was sufficient and God’s strength was perfected in Paul’s weakness. Sometimes weakness is chosen but often not.
But our king is no weakling. Our King by his own finger can cast out demons and bring the Kingdom to bear upon the world. May we all in humility be enabled by His grace to act so even at the risk of our own lives.
Is it only persecutory suffering that constitutes Christian suffering? What about cancer? Or loneliness? Or temptation?