Papers of a Perverse Patriot (3)

 Perverse Patriotism is the unique and exclusive loyalty (what we call “faith”) to apocalyptic Jesus that serves him in a Subversive Counter-Revolutionary Movement                                 (SCRM, a.k.a. in polite society as “church”) 

If we are God’s Subversive Counter-Revolutionary Movement (as I argued we are in the last post in this series) this entails for us perverse patriots as double-layered relationship with our homeland.

-Resident Aliens (Stanley Hauerwas and William Willimon from the well-known 1989 book of that title), and

-Alien Residents (Gerald Sittser from his forthcoming Resilient Faith).

The former stresses the “Alien” part of our relationship to our homeland. This correlates with the “subversive” character of God’s movement of which we are a part. “They live in their own countries, but only as aliens. They . . . endure everything as foreigners. Every . . . fatherland is a foreign land” is how the 2^nd century Epistle to Diognetus puts it.

Here we find the “perverse” part of our patriotism. We agents of another “nation” within the land of our birth or residence. For us it’s not simply a matter of “location, location, location.” We are agents of another “nation” on whose behalf we live in solidarity, peace, and hope that one day our nation will “overturn” our natural homeland and see it cleansed of the pretentions and powers that presently distort it and its citizens from the life God intends for it. It is these pretentions and powers (understood as the “principalities and powers” of which Paul, in particular, speaks and designates as the objects against whom we struggle (Eph.6:12) and to whom our “alien” life makes known the many and various dimensions of God’s wisdom (Eph.3:10f.). We do not fight against the humans who confront and contend with us in those seduced and impressed into the service of these false drives and evil realities. Rather we seek to subvert the hold they have over these humans and through the grace given us and faithful practice of the gospel lead them to the freedom for which Christ has set them free (Gal.5:1). If they persist in serving their false masters we confront them willing to absorb the harm and pain they wish to inflict on us, even death.

The latter is the “resident” or “patriot” aspect of our relationship to our homeland. The Epistle to Diognetus puts it this way: “They live in their own countries . . .They have a share in everything as citizens . . .Every foreign land is their fatherland.”

“Location, location, location” may not be everything for God’s  SCRM but it is something. It is a part of God’s creation he intends to renew and restore to its created design, to host God’s relationship with his human creatures forever. Solidarity, suffering with our neighbors and co-citizens, and sainthood are the benchmarks of our alien residency.

-Solidarity: Christians stand beside our neighbors and co-citizens enjoying the good times and enduring the bad together. We do not flee when things get hard.

“The Antonine Plague (165–180 AD), also called the Plague of Galen, was a pandemic now believed to be smallpox that was introduced to the Roman Empire by soldiers returning from Syria. Five million people died as it ran its course. In the following century, the Plague of Cyprian (251–266 AD) spread from Africa throughout the known world. It was transmitted person-to-person by physical contact and by touching or using clothing and items infected by the sick. Half of all people who encountered the disease died.

During each pandemic, government officials and the wealthy fled the cities for the countryside to escape contact with those who were infected. The Christian community remained behind, transforming themselves into a great force of caretakers.

On Easter Sunday in 260 AD, Bishop Dionysius of Corinth praised the efforts of the Christians, many of whom had died while caring for others. He said:

‘Most of our brother Christians showed unbounded love and loyalty, never sparing themselves, and thinking only of one another. Heedless of danger, they took charge of the sick, attending to their every need and ministering to them in Christ, and with them departed this life serenely happy; for they were infected by others with the disease, drawing on themselves the sickness of their neighbors and cheerfully accepting their pains.’”

-Suffering: Dietrich Bonhoeffer took the chance to flee to England near the onset of World War 2. Almost immediately he realized he made a mistake and caught the last ship to Germany before such travel was halted.

“I have come to the conclusion that I made a mistake in coming to America. I must live through this difficult period in our national history with the people of Germany. I will have no right to participate in the reconstruction of Christian life in Germany after the war if I do not share the trials of this time with my people.”

-Sainthood: this one surely seems out of place here. Saints are usually thought to be those separated from the mass of humanity by their exceptional goodness or sanctity. But this a wrong way to think about sainthood.

Robert Ellsberg cites Karl Rahner to the effect that saints

“‘are the initiators and the creative models of the holiness which happens to be right for and is the task of their particular age. they create a new style. They prove that a certain form of life and activity is a really genuine possibility. They show experimentally that one can be a Christian even in ‘this way.’ Ellsberg continues: ‘Saints are those who in some partial way embody - literally incarnate - the challenge of faith in their time and place. In doing so they open a path that others might follow.’”

Holiness, the dynamic of sainthood, the calling of every Christian and church (even the fractious Corinthians Paul addresses as “saints” 1 Cor.1:2), far from separating from the world is precisely what drives us into the heart of the world. Saints don’t have all the answers or do everything right. But in experimental and risky ways they innovate new forms of engagement. Fresh ways of being present to our world, the place where we live, the people we stand in solidarity and suffer with, those to whom we hope to bring the blessing of God.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s book Life Together details his effort at such innovation in midst of Nazi Germany. Thus he qualifies as a “saint” according to Ellsberg’s description above. The question is do we?

In the next post I’ll try to pull together the various threads I’ve thrown out there so far into an overview of where we’ve gotten thus far.