Theological Journal – March 6

“Do not think that one has to be sad in order to be a militant, even though the thing one is fighting is abominable.”

—Michel Foucault (“Preface,” in Anti-Oedipus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia, by Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari [Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1983], xi–xiv)

Yesterday we heard from theologian Jürgen Moltmann who argued that, contrary to popular perceptions, joy and pain or suffering are not antithetical realities and are in fact implicated in one another. Far from being an anodyne insulating or isolating us from pain and suffering or a compensation in another for the privations and difficulties we must accept in this life, joy opens us up to, thrusts us in the middle of, and makes grappling with pain and suffering inescapable.

We live in a world run by empires – political, military, financial. Though they compete with, sometimes collude with, and sometimes fight with each other for dominance and control of human beings’ hearts, minds, loyalty, or obedience, they all share some common features. Carla Bergman and Nick Montgomery, anarchist social activists, in their wonderful book Joyful Resistance attribute the following characteristics to “empire,” which they describe as “organized destruction” (https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/joyful-militancy-bergman-montgomery, 9)

-try to make everything controllable and predictable

-is in conflict with other forms of life

-absorbs and isolates those under its reign

-backed up by violence (no matter how subtle and pacific it may appear)

-discrimination lies behind expressions of inclusion and control

-seeks to crush autonomy and inculcate dependence (even while extolling independence and free expression)

Empire, in some form or another, is our context and will increasingly be so for the foreseeable future. How can one not be “sad” (Foucault) when battling such a threat to truly human existence? Buy it is under empire that we will have to live our faith. So it seems necessary (to me at least) to explore its nature and dynamics a bit if we hope our faith enables a deeper discipleship in the church and a responsible traction in the world we live in. Or in terms of this series “what’s joy got to do with it” for disciples in 21^st century America?

Empire(s) is not an invulnerable monolith, though, much as its presents itself as one. There are cracks and fissures around the edges where alternative visions and forms of life may grow (and even flourish!). I will look at how joy helps us be “in but not of” our imperial reality not be “sad” even as we battle with it. I will draw in particular on the book Joyful Resistance mentioned above, the work of Michel de Certeau, and Craig Keen’s extraordinary After Crucifixion.