Something to Ponder

"Every position on postmodernism in culture - whether apologia or stigmatization - is also at one and the same time, and necessarily, an implicitly or explicitly political stance on the nature of multinational capatalism today."

Justice, what is it good for... Post 5

Folks, I think I was close to getting back on the biblioblogs page, but alas I must have no pull with Brandon Wason, nor with Jim West.  I can't believe that my Sheffield connection didn't do anything for my chances.  Why did I pay so much for an education if it doesn't even get me on to the biblioblogs site? I thought Sheffield was the mecca for Jim, I have heard stories of his regular pilgrimages and ritual sacrifices that he has offered to the the great paternoster in the north. The same paternoster that I myself made regular sacrifices to weekly as a student.

 

I do promise to stop the groveling ... soon.

Ok, now for the next topoi that Elliott brings to light in his reading of Romans is JUSTITIA.  Now justice is by and far the biggest subject in Romans, however many people are not able to see this because they frame Paul's justice talk in individualistic pietistic ways like, "how can I be made right in the sight of god".  The problem with such individualistic notions is that they are foreign to the NT and Paul.  What Elliott wants us to understand is that the notion of morality is often given to, and an authority enjoyed by, those with the actual power to dominate others.  This is pretty basic stuff, and even if you detest Foucault and his cronies this statement seems pretty uncontroversial, right.  So in looking at Paul's justice talk in comparison to the Empire's we can see that what Paul is doing is contesting the morality of the Empire and confronting the imperial claims and propaganda.

A number of things that Elliott highlights in the text of Romans that Paul is confronting are (1) the notion that Caesar is the embodiment of divine Justice, (2) the proclamation of Caesar's triumph, and (3) the notion that Rome has brought peace to the world, to highlight just a few.  Paul's point is to give his readers/hearers the ability to see that appearances are deceiving, and that reality should not be read from current events, but rather through an apocalyptic imagination.

Elliott does something really interesting in this chapter.  Now I am not sure that I am entirely convinced, but I must say that Elliott is one of the most provacative and interesting interpretors of Paul that I have read, I put him with the likes of Nanos and Stowers as my favorite authors to read on Romans. Elliott takes the famous "chrestus" pronouncement as having a real effect on the Jewish community of Rome.  I tend to see the "chrestus" evidence as overblown, and of little relevance for interpretations of Romans, but that is because most people use it as evidence of a Jewish Gentile split in Rome. Elliott sees it as having an effect on how the recently returned Jews would have been perceived socially and politically.  In the case of the Roman imperial order they would have been deemed as the weak, poor because they would have had to start over whence returning to Rome, and the marginality of these returned Jews, would have called into the power of the Jewish god.  Elliott surmises that the presence of a marginalized poor Jewish community would have been bad PR for the Jewish god, especially when compared to the imperial rhetoric of triumph.  Paul is thus intent in his letter to the Romans to contrast his message with the political realism of the Empire.

It is definitely food for thought...

the messy work of interpretation

No-one today - even for the first time - can read a famous novel or poem, look at a famous painting, drawing or sculpture, listen to a famous piece of music or watch a famous play or film without being conscious of the contexts in which the text had been reproduced, drawn upon, alluded to, parodied and so on. Such contexts constitute a primary frame which the reader cannot avoid drawing upon in interpreting the text.

- Daniel Chandler

Year in Review: Top Ten Music of 2007

Ok I know I am a little late on this, but I really haven’t given all the 2008 candidates enough spins, although Santogold, Frightened Rabbit, and Cut Copy will certainly make the cut.  With out further fanfare or explanation, here are the top ten albums that still get consistent play time on the ol’ Ipod.

Number 10: Menomena: Friend or Foe

This is a really good album that rewards multiple listens.  Most of the tracks have strong enough hooks to keep you interested.  It is an album that is always on the verge of exploding into a cacophonous avant guard crescendo, but thankfully never does. 

Number 9: Modest Mouse: We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank

Modest Mouse is a pinch of lyrical panache fused with a dollop of Nick Cave like angst and mixed with a heavy dose of beat.  This is a great album to listen to in Florida whilst driving with the convertible top down, but if you are going to be singing, to avoid strange stares, please keep this album for crossing the alley.   

Number 8:Artic Monkeys: Favorite First Nightmare

Now how could I not include a Sheffield band…the Arctic Monkeys really did put together a great sophomore album.  Although just a few songs still remain on the playlist.

Number 7: Bloc Party: A Weekend in the City

For me the matrix of this album is found in the title, but this is not to say it is a story about a weekend in the city, but rather the songs all find their meaning and sense through a contemplation of this theme.  I still listen to this album, and it still elicits an emotional response from me, it is truly a gem.  There is not a song that doesn’t resonate. 

Number 6: Band of Horses: Cease to Begin

Cease to Begin is nice guitar driven music with an ambient feel that you wouldn’t mind listening to at a coffee house, yet it still has that summer anthem feel.  Again another album I can listen all the way through and not get tired of it.  The only downfall of this album is that it is ripe for those emerging worship services that are so keen on ruining good music.

Number 5: Kings of Leon: Because of the Times

Probably the hardest music to make the list, my kids (6 and 4) like grooving to this album, and they pick up on the strangest words within the songs.  Fans is truly genius rock song with stirring syncopation you can be sure that this song will some day make it on to Rock Band, if it has not already.

Number 4: Arcade Fire: Neon Bible

Canadian’s version of a rockier hipper Polyphonic Spree, this music is worthy of a cathedral, just sit and listen to the pent up emotion in the songs and enjoy.  Oh and fill your tea cups with gin!

Number 3: The National: Boxer

I love this guy’s voice.  Some of this music has a Springsteen guitar feel but with much more melancholy undertones.  Boxer, despite the title, is best served with a contemplative gin and tonic and a comfy chair.  (you can substitute a nice scotch, if that is your thing)

Number 2: Feist: The Reminder

Just listen to her voice and I promise you will be enchanted, listening to Feist is my Pan’s Labyrinth.

And of course the number one Album of 2007 is…….

 

Radiohead’s: In Rainbows

 

This is the number one album not just because of their innovative pay as much as you like slap to the record industry’s failed business model.  It is a sonic master piece that opens up and offers more listen after listen. This would be the album that I would be happy to be stranded on an island with.  It is a truly rich album, and the theological ramifications of Black Swan just add to its perfection for me. 

  

THE ARROGANCE OF NATIONS (III)

Elliott's main thrust in the book is to flesh what he perceives to be Paul’s critical engagement with the Roman imperial ideology. Here I think Elliott is on to something, and so do loads of other interpreters for that matter, but what separates this book from others is Elliott's careful focus on this engagement.  For Elliott the purpose of Romans is Paul’s attempt to counter the Roman Imperial Ideology and the corrosive effects it has on the Roman congregations of Christ-believers.  Elliott establishes his argument by examining what he terms as Imperial Topoi (which I shall discuss in later posts). 

 

Because in large part I agree with Elliott, I naturally am not looking for him to present a slam dunk case for his thesis, if anything my reading of Elliott helps me make a stronger case for my own reading of Romans.  But even if you do not see political polemics as being key to the interpretation of Romans, Elliott at least presents it as a reasonable reading of the text and I think anyone would benefit from Elliott's presentation.

 

Here is How Elliott fleshes out his political reading of Romans and some of these are redundant (this is due to my presentation rather than Elliott’s):

 

·        As stated before Elliott takes for granted that a political reading of the NT is the absolute horizon of all reading and all interpretations.

·        So with that we need to look for the Strategies of Containment, or those forces in Paul’s day (and in our own for that matter) that repress certain ways of thinking from our consciousness. ( A present day example of this would be the fact that much of the western church has no problem reading capitalism back into the NT text.)

·        We also need to listen to what is said in the text, and also to what goes unsaid, and we need to be willing to read against the grain.

·        We need to keep an eye out for what Elliott terms, fissures in the text, (I use ungrammaticalities) or places where a unified surface reading becomes impossible, we need to notice and attend to the subterranean forces at work beneath the text.

·        The rhetoric of Romans, as Elliott teases out, shows that Paul participated in a cultural transcript, drawing on the repertoires of Judean scripture and apocalyptic writing that was inescapably in conflict with the empire’s absolutizing claims of allegiance.

·        Paul was engaged in the unfinished drama in which competing visions of history’s fulfillment are pitted against one another, for this reason we recognize with Jameson that the ultimate horizon of political interpretation is the sweep of history itself, we need to read Paul in this light.

·        Ultimately any reading ought to unmask, unveil, and uncover the deep logic that legitimizes exploitation, especially when that injustice bears the sheen of divine patina.