The Oddly Subversive Nature of Red Dawn

A Propaganda Poster from the Occupying Forces in ‘Red Dawn’

Finally got around to watching the remake of Red Dawn, the classic Cold War movie brought back to life as the story of an insurgency against China North Korea.  It was a bit surreal to realize I was watching a war movie and pulling for the insurgents.  For the uninitiated, Red Dawn is the story of a North Korean invasion (with help from other international belligerents) and the subsequent resistance by a group of young rebels in a small Pacific Northwest town. Not long into the movie, you realize that you are in the odd position, as an American, of finding it your patriotic duty to support the insurgency.  The movie is not heavy-handed about this – I don’t think it’s trying to make a ‘statement’ in the way that a film like In Time does – but still, it makes you think.

This gets us to the nebulous character of a war on “terrorism.”  Terrorism is, of course, a tactic.  Sometimes it is employed by insurgencies and sometimes not.  It is a tactic, not an enemy – a tactic of the weak,to be sure – but not the cowardly.  In the film, the rebel “Wolverines” are forced to fight with few weapons and resources, but, in the words of their leader Chris Hemsworth (aka Thor), even a small flea can annoy a big dog.  Hemsworth plays a former Marine who saw action in Iraq.  The only nod to the subversive nature of the film is by his character: in Iraq, he says, we were the good guys, and we were there to enforce order, but now we are “agents of chaos.”

That, of course, is precisely how asymmetrical warfare is fought.  Insurgencies go on based on the premise that they do not have to win, the just have to not give up.  The onus is always on the occupying force (that is more a geographical statement than a moral one) to maintain the will to fight, as they are usually far from home, fighting for land that isn’t theirs, often at the edges of supply lines.

Interestingly enough, Edwin Friedman applies a similar observation to leadership.  Leaders do not have to win every battle to be effective, they just have to not give up.

It seems that amazing thoughts can come from a simple popcorn flick.

Hope you had an excellent sabbath.  May you fight the battles in your own life that need fighting, and tenaciously stay in the fray until the enemy retreats.  Peace to you.

“When There is No Peace”

I’ve been having a back and forth with my friend Morgan over his recent blog post reacting against the attack on the Libyan embassy.  Morgan is a deeply committed Christian and an articulate interlocutor.  This exchange raised a question with me: how do Christians respond to the kind of senseless violence that seems to be so prevalent in our world?

Certainly, any reaction that blames all Muslims as a whole is to be vehemently denied.  The above photo, from this story about an anti-extremist rally, is evidence enough that not all of Islam is violent (and it is sad indeed that we must keep reminding folks of this in a post-9/11 world).

It seems to me that a measured, loving, but honest response is warranted.  Many of my liberal and progressive Christian friends were so quick to remind us that not all Muslims are terrorists that they seemed to forget that a tragic few are.  They seemed more interested in offering an apologetic on behalf of moderate Muslims than in grieving the lost or crying out for justice.  This strikes me as a “PC” response but not necessarily a Christian one.

As Christians, we are called to pray and work for and witness to the peace of Christ, the prince of Peace.  How that plays out in the world of international politics, foreign policy, and non-state actors with RPGs is a complex question.  Whatever else we say, we must know that the call for peace must not come at the expense of justice, or vice versa.  The prophet Jeremiah thus excoriated the false prophets of his day:

They have treated the wound of my people carelessly, saying, “Peace, peace,” when there is no peace. (6:14, NRSV)

We must not be too quick to cry “peace” in the absence of justice.  There is a time for peace and for war, a time for forgiveness, and a time for the sword of government to do its work.  The time for reconciliation will come.  For now, let us pray for the victims of this attack, for the people of Libya (especially those of the household of faith), and for the perpetrators: may they be brought to justice swiftly, and may the God of all people so draw them to Himself that they repent and are reconciled to God and neighbor.

For now, as the old song goes, let peace begin with me.

Loving Thy Neighbor With Fisticuffs

Recently in Las Vegas, another violent would-be criminal was foiled by empathy and warm feelings.

Bin Laden’s Death: A Variety of Reactions

These last few days have been a study in contrasts.  Many are overjoyed (emphasis on the ‘over’) at the announcement that Bin Laden was recently killed in a firefight with US forces.  Others have been horrified at such reactions.  I sat with a group of pastor friends this morning and we wrestled with it together.  Scriptures such as Ezekiel 33:11 were invoked: “I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked,” says the Lord.  We wondered at the intersections of state and church, of faith and citizenship.  This is one of those issues where there may well be a collision between the two.

Yes, Paul is clear is Romans 13 that the ‘sword’ of government is God’s instrument to punish the wicked.  But Jesus is also clear that we are to pray for enemies and bless our persecutors.  There is a clear role for the government – I am not one of those neo-Anabaptists that thinks Christians should have nothing to do with the government – but the necessary confrontation with evil ought not make us triumphalistic or compromise Christian charity.  I’m not a pacifist, nor am I against the death penalty; I do, however, believe that deaths resulting from just wars or proper executions ought to be mourned.  Each person – even a Hitler, Pol Pot, or Bin Laden – is a person made in the image of God (however corrupted), a person that Jesus went to the cross for, and a life that ultimately was designed for fellowship with God.  Even with a ‘good’ death, such as when a love one has been suffering greatly and death comes as a relief, remains something that ought to be saddening.

Sam Wells, a protege of Stanley Hauerwas, fellow faculty member at Duke Divinity and Dean of the Chapel at Duke released a statement (why?) about the reaction to Bin Laden’s death that reads in part:

This is not a day for celebration.   A celebration would be due if the perpetrators of those crimes had expressed remorse, regret, and repentance. They have not. A celebration would be due if there had been a conversion of Bin Laden or his followers to a truer practice of Islam. There has been none. A celebration would be due if the overwhelming response from Christians in America had been one that embodied the commandments to love their enemies and pray for their persecutors. There has been no such overwhelming response. A celebration would be due if there had been a proper process of justice, involving arrest, gathering of evidence, trial, defense, and prosecution. There has been no such process… [i]f we assume that killing a suspect without trial, without persuading him of the justice of our cause, and without bringing him to a true expression of his own tradition – let alone our own – is a victory, then it is a sign of how far we have allowed this war to distort the values of our civilization.

I think he’s right to to point out what would have been real reasons to celebrate.  I think he’s naive to sugggest that a preferred outcome would have been some kind of criminal proceeding.  Bin Laden was not a criminal.  He was an enemy; not just an enemy soldier, but the equivalent of a general (a figurehead and a commander of forces hostile to the US, whose tactics were repugnant to the conventions of war).  Arrest may have been preferable, for the potential intelligence that could have resulted, but odds are someone so radicalized did not wish to be taken alive by US forces.  Furthermore, unlike his victims, Bin Laden knew he was a target.  He had a better chance than the victims of 9/11 and other attacks ever had.

Then there is another reaction worth note, this time from pro MMA fighter and active Green Beret (Army Special Forces) Tim Kennedy.  Having served in the War on Terror (I’m not going to put it in quotes, as I think it is disrespectful to the soldiers serving in this conflict) in Iraq and Afghanistan, Kennedy speaks to both his elation at hearing the news of Bin Laden’s death and his disappointment in not being a part of the action:

“So there was a little sense of disappointment that I wasn’t part of it… I’m just totally excited and thrilled to see a really dark, sad chapter of our country’s history — it’s not coming to a close, but that’s definitely a chapter that’s pending…[i]f I was going to design a version of hell for me, that would be it. Where I’m sitting there reading about special operations going in to do a hit on a HVT, on a high-value target, and just having to not be there. It’s absolutely excruciating.”

As Gene Hackman says in one of my favorite films, “A winner always wants the ball when the game is on the line.”  We shouldn’t be horrified that Kennedy wanted to take part in this action.  I’m sure many elite warfighters would want to as well.  Not out of blood lust or uber-testosterone, but because that is what such people are trained for, and, however dangerous or unpleasant it may be, that’s their job.

I think both responses are reasonable given the various vocations of these two men.  A professor of Christian ethics and preacher ought to be the conscience of a community, even when it is unpopular.  And we ought to expect our cloistered academics to have a degree of unreality to their views.  Nothing new there.  The gospel calls us into conflict with the culture around us (and any culture), as well as with our own passions.  He has done the church a service by reminding us of this.

But we need the Tim Kennedys of this world too.  We need people who are willing to step up and face demented enemies in hostile territory, willing and able to undergo rigorous training, sacrificing personal needs for the needs of the larger community.  In the face of such bravery we can only be in thankful awe.

I will continue to wrestle with these issues.  I am not proud of my initial reaction.  I wasn’t running into the streets waving the Stars and Bars, but neither was I reverently praying for an enemy whom I am called to bless.  The work of sanctification goes on, and today I realize, once more, that I have a long way to go.

P.S. Who is the “our” when Wells writes of “our civilization”?  I was under the impression that Wells had little interest in the project of the the modern West.  Generally those who speak of a monolithic Western Civilization are something like crusty paleo-cons who are chafing at multiculturalism.  As ecclesiologically focused as Wells’ theology is, I’m just surprised he would use that kind of language.

On Vestments and Character: Some Wisdom from the Philokalia

For my devotional reading, I’ve been working through the collection of centuries-old Orthodox teachings called the Philokalia.  I was struck this morning by some words from St. Neilos the Ascetic.   He writes about the dissonance, in his day, between the holy garments worn by monastics (called the “habit”) and the life they live.  I think it has something to say to those of us who wear clergy vestments as well (even if you’re Baptist and that means a suit!).  Here goes:

Today, a person wears the monastic habit without washing away the stains on his soul, or erasing the marks which past sins have stamped upon his mind; indeed, he may still take lustful pleasure in the fantasies these sins suggest.  He has not yet trained his character so as to fit his vocation, nor does he grasp the purpose of the divine philosophy.  Already he has developed a Pharisaic superciliousness, being filled with conceit by his robes.  He goes about carrying various tools [the Bible, perhaps?] the use of which he does not understand.  By virtue of his outward dress he lays claim to a knowledge which in reality he has not tasted even with the tip of his tongue.  He is a reef, not a harbor; a whited sepulcher, not a temple; a wolf, not a sheep; the ruin of those decoyed by his appearance. (“Ascetic Discourse,” The Philokalia: Volume 1 [New York: Faber & Faber 1979], 204).

Whew.  Hard words.  Such language represents a stringent spirituality that is absent from nearly all Protestant contexts these days.  They are humbling and powerful, to me, as one who wears another kind of robe.

Peace to you today, and grace to all those who wear the robes.  May our character reflect our vocation.

 

P.S. For more Orthodox inspiration, check out Ancient Faith radio.  It’s like K-Love, except it is spiritually profound and has theological integrity.

I call THAT real…

This is officially my new favorite country song.  And I haven’t listened to much country lately.  I used to listen almost exclusively to country, but more and more I find that it is only parroting the worst aspects of other popular forms of music like rock & hip-hop.  Being a big Johnny Cash fan, I know country has always had elements of drug use and sexuality.  I’m not sure if I’ve gotten more sensitive to this stuff or if it is more and more pervasive.  Either way, I just don’t have much patience for it anymore.  I think the music you listen to shapes you.  It’s not about “not being stained” or thinking that everything secular is dirty.  For me, I guess, it’s about what keeps me focused on God and the man God has called me to be.  It seems to me that country today is just as likely to celebrate very ungodly lifestyles as any other kind of music, and I just don’t need to fill my head with that on a regular basis.

But, James Wesley just gave me a reason to celebrate country music again.  Given all the reality TV on CMT (isn’t it owned by MTV, also a fine purveyor of “reality” trash?), it will be a miracle if this gets much air time.  But man we need to hear this message:

500 Channels and there ain’t much on tonight
But reality shows about some folks so called lives
A pretty girl cries cause she don’t get a rose
But she’ll find love next year on her own show
And they call that real

Real, is the hand you hold 57 years
Real, is a band of gold trembling with fear
And it’s the first long tear down an old man’s face
Watching his angel slipping away
His heart so broke, it’s never gonna heal
I call that real

Where I live, housewives don’t act like that
And the survivors are farmers in John Deere hats
Our Amazing race is beating the check
Praying that the bank ain’t ran it through yet

Real, like too much rain falling from the sky
Real, like the drought that came around here last July
It’s the damn old weevils and the market and the weeds
The prayer they prayed when they plant the seeds
And the chance they take to bring us our next meal
I call that real

Real, like a job you lose ‘cause it moves to Mexico
Like a momma and a baby with no safe place to go
Like a little dream house with a big old foreclosed sign
Like a flag draped coffin and a 21 gun goodbye
I call that real

This hit me especially this morning because Snooki visited nearby recently (on a Sunday! Surely there should be a law…) to a packed Barnes & Noble.  As a society, we are idolatrously glorifying the lives of people who literally contribute nothing to society.  Moreover, the  lifestyles celebrated in “reality” shows have nothing to do with how 99.9% of people actually live.

I serve a congregation of wonderful people.  None of us are perfect.  Some of us have lost children; some have had cancer; some of us have suffered from mental illness.  We’ve lost jobs.  We’ve raised good kids.  We’ve had arguments, but found healing.  We’ve worked hard, even for bad people, and continued to serve each other in retirement.  I love these people.  I love how real they are.

So please, media, stop trying to sell me something that is fundamentally sinful, wrong, malformed, and galactically unreal.  Thank you James Wesley (awesome last name BTW) for a country song I can celebrate once more.

Rethinking Christ & Culture, Again

In contemporary theological conversation, H. R. Niebuhr’s Christ and Culture is both loved and hated, adored and despised.  Admirers will tell you it is a theological “classic” that deserves a reading by each successive generation, while detractors will (and I’ve seen them do it!) spew venom and the mere mention of the title.  For those unfamiliar, in this work Niebuhr gives a typology of Christian responses to culture.  Thus, he argues, throughout the course of time, the ship of the church has navigated its way through the world with 5 identifiable responses/reactions to its surrounding culture:

Christ against Culture. For the exclusive Christian, history is the story of a rising church or Christian culture and a dying pagan civilization.

Christ of Culture. For the cultural Christian, history is the story of the Spirit’s encounter with nature.

Christ above Culture. For the synthesist, history is a period of preparation under law, reason, gospel, and church for an ultimate communion of the soul with God.

Christ and Culture in Paradox. For the dualist, history is the time of struggle between faith and unbelief, a period between the giving of the promise of life and its fulfillment.

Christ Transforming Culture. For the conversionist, history is the story of God’s mighty deeds and humanity’s response to them. Conversionists live somewhat less “between the times” and somewhat more in the divine “now” than do the followers listed above. Eternity, to the conversionist, focuses less on the action of God before time or life with God after time, and more on the presence of God in time. Hence the conversionist is more concerned with the divine possibility of a present renewal than with conservation of what has been given in creation or preparing for what will be given in a final redemption.

Props to Wikipedia for the descriptions above.  In the ensuing decades since the publication (1951) of his book, Niebuhr has been the subject of sustained critique for various reasons.  Some claim that his vision of “culture”, always a nebulous term, is undefined and unhelpful in the Yale professor’s telling.  Others say that it was an insidious work because it obviously favored the last model, ‘Transformation’, to the detriment of the others.  Thus, Yoder writes, “Behind this posture of humble nonnormative objectivity, it will become clear to any careful reader that Niebuhr has so organized his presentation as to indicate a definite preference for ‘transformation.’. . . ‘Transformation’ takes into itself all the values of its predecessor types and corrects most of their shortcomings.”

But there, I think, is the rub.  Many of Niebuhr’s critics, in my view, are those whose views have been most marginalized (or exposed by?) his work.  Thus, those usually raising the loudest ruckus against Christ and Culture are those who feel dismissed by it.  These would include Yoder, his protege’ Hauerwas, and all of their theological fanboys (of which there are many, at least in the blogosphere).  A more reasoned and helpful reading of Christ & Culture recognizes its shortcomings but still finds value in the discussion.  This, I think, is supplied by Geoffrey Wainwright in the opening chapter of his massive co-edited volume The Oxford History of Christian Worship.  His background in ecumenical discussion and interest in liturgy and missiology shines through brilliantly here:

“Rather than taking [Niebuhr's] five “typical” attitudes as fixed and divergent stances of the Christian faith toward all human culture, it may be more appropriate to see them as indicating the possibility of, and need for, a discriminating attention on the part of Christians toward every human culture at all times and in all places.  Whereas a particular cultural configuration may appear as predominantly positive or negative in relation to the saving purposes of God, it is likely that most cultures will contain some elements to be affirmed; some to negated, resisted, and even fought; some to be purified and elevated; some to be held provisionally in tension; and some to be transformed.  The liturgy can function not only to sift but also to inspire a surrounding public culture.” (The Oxford History of Christian Worship [Oxford: Oxford University Press 2006], 17)

Such a nuanced take on Niebuhr’s work is, unfortunately, rather novel these days.  Those who critique it have good reason, on occasion; unfortunately, just as frequently as they have cause to critique it, they throw the baby out with the bathwater and seek to make it anathema for contemporary readers.  This is a shame.  Wainwright has given us a measured and helpful response that will hopefully keep Christ & Culture part of our discourse for decades to come.

Note: The Yoder quote comes from Gathje’s article found at:

http://www.religion-online.org/showarticle.asp?title=2641

Why Do Wars Happen? Bellicosity and the 21st Century With Jeremy Black

Just finished reading Jeremy Black’s excellent Why Wars Happen.  This is the the third of Black’s books that I’ve read, and while they’ve all been thought-provoking, less than easy to read, and extensively researched, this has been by far my favorite of his works.  Black, a prolific author and Professor of History at Exeter University, is a leading authority on military history and a proponent of overcoming euro-centrism that has been so common in the field.  (Of course, military history is itself a field that is no longer in academic vogue.)

While I’ve read and enjoyed single volume histories of warfare from scholars such as John Keegan,  the focus of this tome is on causality.  For that, Black focuses on culture, and in particular, “bellicosity” – that is, the cultural attitudes, inclinations and institutions that encourage violence.  Black takes us on a wide tour, starting in 1450, that spans the whole world and attempts to analyze violence between different cultures, violence within cultures, and civil wars (itself a helpful typology).  One of the most interesting aspects was his ongoing discussion of the sheer difficulty of defining war.  For instance, how do we differentiate war from rebellion?  Is ethnic cleansing war or crime?  Are mass uprisings wars or revolutionary movements?

By far, the chapter I enjoyed most was the next-to-last chapter on warfare in the 1990′s up through today (granted, this was written pre-9/11).  He aptly narrates the decline in bellicosity of Western societies and describes factors associated with this shift.  Thus, he says,

More generally, in the post-1945 world, there has been a growing abstraction of death and suffering, a process linked both to medical technology and secularism…ordinary people have become more and more comprehensively insulated from personal pain, and are less accustomed to consider it normal and reasonable…Another relevant, but complex, shift is due to changes in patterns of expendability amongst young adult males…smaller families have made every child precious, and the cult of youth in modern Western consumer culture is not a cult of organized violence.

As regards to literature and organized violence, he writes,

…anti-war attitudes dominate serious adult literature in the West and have done so for several decades, with war presented as callous disorder in popular works such as Joseph Heller’s Catch-22…within academic circles, peace studies are more acceptable than those of war. (Why Wars Happen [New York: NYU Press 1998] 223, 224)

These quotes are only the tip of the proverbial iceberg.  Be warned: he does not write for a popular audience (in my opinion!).  As much as I like and respect Black (whom I’ve had occasion to meet more than once), his work is no easy read.  I was a history major, and yet his knowledge is so vast and his examples so numerous, I confess I had a difficult time reading this book at sustained intervals.  Nevertheless, the juice is worth the squeeze.  If you are interested in the causes of war, and not interested in simple answers or idealistic, modern/liberal gas, this is a book well worth your time and effort.

For theologians, in particular, this book raises a significant question:  If, as Black suggests, the decline in bellicosity is a Western paradigm over the last 20-40 years, then how can the recent rediscovery of Christian pacifism (especially in the work of Yoder and Hauerwas) be deemed “counter-cultural”?  If Black is right, Christians pacifists are in fact riding the cultural tide.  Interesting.

Oliver O’Donovan, Church Discipline, and the Current Catholic Scandals

Ask a typical Protestant what “church discipline” means, and you will probably get a blank stare.  “Are you talking about keeping the youth in line on a mission trip?” they might ask.  No.  Most Protestants probably will not know the word “excommunication.”  In our age of worshipping the individual conscience, Protestants have (contra the New Testament witness) abandoned any real sense of church discipline.  This is both an overreaction reaching back to Reformation criticisms and a capitulation to modernity.  As Professor O’Donovan narrates it, “the Enlightment swept away church discipline from all but sectarian Protestant communities.”  Unfortunately, the laxity with which Protestants treat church discipline at all levels, but especially at the level of laity, seems to be present in Roman Catholic treatments of scandalous priests.

What was lost?  For O’Donovan, the chief concern ought to be the public integrity of the Church, not first and foremost the well-being of the individual.  “The point,” he argues, “is that discipline does not exist first to serve the penitent; it exists to enable the church to live a public life of integrity.”

Of course, discipline applies not only to lay persons but also to clergy.  Unfortonately, all churches tend to approach disciplining the ordained as if they are walking through molasses.  On one level, this is not surprising: all systems will protect its own, and the closer you are to power within the system, the more likely you are to be protected.  All the various Church communions, on some level, simply protect their own.  This seems to have, in some Catholic dioceses, gotten out of hand.  I think that the whole narrative of “those sexless old white men need to marry so they will stop molesting children” is overplayed and viciously simplistic.  Likewise, I do not think the corruption goes all the way to the top, though it is natural to want “the buck” to stop with the Pope.

O’Donovan, both in Resurrection and Moral Order and in his magisterial Desire of the Nations, has a  vested interest in the public witness of the Church.  In the case of Church discipline, he sees the major turning point as “the fateful exchange of public penance for private.”  Thus, all discipline was rendered a matter of the penitent’s spiritual good, and the need of the community to exhibit an unblemished face was forgotten.  In his schema, it seems, any priests facing church discipline would and should do so publicly, sparing their own private interests for the sake of the Church’s witness.

In his discussion on the consequences of lacking true church discipline, I found O’Donovan quite prescient.  Tell me if you hear the current Catholic scandals described almost exactly:

Although the scandal may arise from private fault, though not inevitably, the function of discipline is to address the public problems that it poses for the church’s common life.  Until this is recognized, our churches will continue to be vexed by the all-too-familiar pattern of misunderstanding in which the people find themselves humiliated by some scandal and demand a firm line of their clergy or  bishops, the bishops think the people harsh and unforgiving, the people think themselves betrayed, and everything is at cross-purposes.  That is the necessary fruit of an attempt to render private and, in and individualistic sense, ‘pastoral’ what are in fact the church’s rites of public justice, namely, the avowal of repentance and the assurance of forgiveness. (Resurrection and Moral Order, 169)

Oliver O’Donovan on Context and Theology

In one of the most interesting chapters of Oliver O’Donovan’s  remarkable Resurrection and Moral Order, we find a brief meditation on the relation of moral theology to culture.  Here he shows sympathy with Karl Barth, who ran afoul of the vast majority of German theologians that chose uncritically to make “the great new cultural fact of their time and place” the starting point for the theological task.  What follows is a discussion of Barth’s conflict with Brunner, with a sidebar to Tillich.  O’Donovan concludes:

It is hard to see how such an approach can become more than a work of ideology, in which the gospel is proved to be ‘at home’ in our favoured cultural setting, whatever it may be…What has now become painfully clear is that the theological tradition which springs from such thinkers [does this include Barth??] is unable to deal convincingly with those liberation-theologies which most blatantly subject the theological enterprise to the sectional perceptions of a single cultural group (‘black’ theology, ‘feminist’ theology, etc.).  It can show embarrassment at them, or it can be patronizingly interested in them; but it cannot now complain at being excommunicated, and assert the universality of theology, since all the time it has understood the theological task as a discreet exercise in cultural accommodation. (90)

O’Donovan, as you may have ascertained by this point, is not an easy read.  As little sense as it makes, it appears to me that he is including Barth alongside these other, clearly accommodated, theologians.  I’m happy, however, to be corrected by keener readers of O’Donovan.  It’s worth noting that this conversation takes place within his chapter entitled ‘Knowledge in Christ’, which is a meditation upon epistimology.  He is attempting to carve out a space somewhere between the classic defense of natural law in Aquinas (though he does no like the term ‘natural law’, preferring created order) and the  “Nein!” of Karl Barth.   Thus he ends up both appreciative and (con cajones) critical of these two powerhouses.  He seems to clearly stand with Barth epistimologically, though not ontologically.  In other words, he affirm’s Barth’s sole reliance on the Word of God for Christian knowledge, and yet he critiques Barth for not appreciating the usefulness of created order (redeemed at the Resurrection) to the theological and moral task.

The above quotation was from one of his small-print, “Barth-esque” sidenotes.   A sampling of what precedes this sidebar may help illumine the whole, and help us understand O’Donovan’s qualified appreciation of the created order to theology:

…revelation in Christ does not deny our fragmentary knowledge of the way things are, as though that knowledge were not there, or were of no significance; yet it does not build on it, as though it provided a perfectly acceptable foundation to which a further level of understanding can be added….the Christian moral thinker, therefore, has no need to proceed in a totalitarian way, denying the importance and relevance of all that he finds valued as moral conviction in various cultures and traditions of the world….But neither can he simply embrace the perspectives of any such culture, not even – which is the most difficult to resist – the one to which he happens to belong and which therefore claims him as an active participant.  He cannot set about building a theological ethic upon the moral a priori of a liberal culture, a conservative culture, a technological culture, a revolutionary culture or any other kind of culture; for that is to make of theology and ideological justification for the cultural constructs of human misknowledge. (89-90)

There seems to be an important distinction here between what is “useful” and what is of first importance to theology.  While theology can and should make use of the insights gained from various cultures, no single culture can ever be an uncritical basis of the theological task.  That distinction belongs, as we learn from Barth, solely to God in Jesus Christ through the Holy Spirit.

I quite enjoyed O’Donovan’s description of liberationists as those who “subject the theological enterprise to the sectional interests of a single cultural group.” My own feeling is that the experience of those various cultural groups is important to critical thinking about Scripture and tradition, and to theology.  As O’Donovan insists, theology does not have to be indifferent to these various perspectives.  For instance, my courses in black church theology and history taught me to appreciate the Black Christian experience in America as instructive for what it means to live “on the underside of modernity.” (The phrase is J. Kameron Carter’s.)  But such experience, valuable though it is, is rendered into sand when it is forced to be a foundation for theology (Matthew 24:27).  The Logos, after all, God in the flesh, is the only ground that theology can take without being merely another culturally-conditioned construct of “human misknowledge.”