One of the key pieces of Slavoj Zizek's political theory in his foundational book The Sublime Object is his notion of "ideological cynicism." Subjects of the first world, Zizek says, are too smart to become duped by the political ideologies of Western states. After all, we know it's just more political spin. Instead, ideology for Zizek, takes on a different form in the so-called "first world." Here, we are offered ideologies to appease us, to make us feel better about ourselves, so that those in privilege can keep on conserving what it is they really desire. So now, we look at the political ideologies spinning across the political process, and instead of politically observing "they do not know it, but they are doing it," we observe "they know it, but they are doing it anyway." In essence, we listen to all the new political speeches and new political options given the electorate and we know nothing will really change. Yet we participate in it anyway, because in essence subconsciously this is what we really want: we wish to protect our own specific pieces of the economic social pie yet feel good about doing it (there's the classic Freudian split in the subjective consciousness). Political ideology serves a cynical function now, giving us a Big Other to participate in, making us feel better about ourselves (morally), all the while we hope for keeping the status quo in place protecting our own personal pieces of the pie.

When it comes to Christians of my evangelical tradition, I would suggest this "ideological cynicism" could work another way. We participate in National politics, its political ideologies of a more just society, even though we deeply suspect the corporate national machine insures nothing will change. We do this because it is much harder to think of the church itself as a legitimate social political force for God's justice in the world. It is simply a lot less work to support Barak Obama for president than it is to lead our churches into being living communities of righteousness, justice and God's Mission in the world.

I know Zizek might appear way too skeptical here for most of us. And there is always the cry "why can we not do both - vote for Obama and be missional communities for justice in our neighborhoods." Yet (at the risk of being over provocative) I think the question is worth considering: "Are we supporting Obama because it's easier than being God's justice in the world ourselves?" Is our participation over here in electoral politics sapping our energy (or worse even assuaging us) from participation in the work of justice as an extension of the church?

Senator Obama is putting out a pleasing message of "Change." "I'm asking you to believe in Change," "the Audacity of Hope," and "A Unified America." Yet Zizek would call these ideas "signifiers without the signified." Words that in the end no one knows what they mean or refer to. Zizek would say it is these "words" which allow us to consent to what we know is a lie so that we can avoid the Real: that true justice of God demands we change fundamentally the way we live in relation to each other and the world. I fear these Obama "words" take the place of pres. Bush's words "Freedom" and "No child left behind," words that few knew what they actually meant but morphed into a politics of multinational corporate politics the horror of which is hard to believe 8 years later. In a Zizekian way, I have often asked, did we consent to all this (vote for George Bush) as Christians 8 years ago (who by and large elected him) in order to assuage ourselves that we (through our country's national politics) are contributing to a better world all the while staying comfortable within our protected enclaves.

Final Words: I know some expect me to get on the Obama bandwagon, especially those who know of my criticisms of the current president. Yet I continue to want to press for the church to be the primary political instrument of true justice in the world. The church must be FIRST as initiator for social justice, from which we can then push for governmental cooperation. I have always been concerned about the marginal status given the church as the foundational center for justice in society by my various spokesmen/women/friends of the Emerging Church (I hope to review Brian McLaren's Everything Must Change in this light). I know many fear fundamentalist sectarianism. I fear the democratic capitalist Symbolic Order (ala Foucault) shall subsume us all. More and more however, people like Jim Wallis are seeing the insights of a tempered vision of what is possible in national politics (see The Great Awakening). More and more, people are understanding a new possibility for a Hauerwas radical politics (see for example Mark Van Steenwyk here and here). SO GO AHEAD AND BY ALL MEANS VOTE FOR OBAMA, but do not allow false ideology to sap our energy or distract us from the task of being God's people, his embodied Kingdom in submission to His Lordship, birthing forth His justice amidst the world that was made possible in His death and resurrection until He comes.

What do you think? Is there a work of "ideological cynicism" at work in Christians supporting Obama? Is the Obama bandwagon a positive or a negative (or neutral) for the church's role in bringing justice to the nations? Is energy by Christians spent on Obama politics misguided, too hopeful, and misdirected? Is it too easy to just say "you should be doing both, voting for Obama and working for social justice in your local church"?

BTW I shall post a second post on the Bridge Illustration next week.

I was away this past week speaking at the Ecclesia Network National Gathering along with Alan and Deb Hirsch. What a hoot that was! One of the issues I engaged for about an hour was "The Way We Speak About and Practice Salvation." I argued that the ways we have often practiced the salvation we receive in Christ, and by derivation discipleship, have trained us as a people for moral duplicity.

Among other things, I said:

• We separate justification from sanctification in a Lutheranized fashion. Law and Grace are held separate yet together (simul justus at peccator) in the same person. We do this because we fear any appearance that salvation can be earned via works. Righteousness can only be imputed. Any participation in that salvation must be avoided lest we think we can earn our salvation through effort. The result is an inherent disconnect between what we believe and what we do.
• We then practice a Cartesianized sanctification, where the Bible/preacher tells us what to do, the mind hears the information and understands it, and then tells the body what to do. This never works because it takes no account for desire; the way desire is shaped and formed. The most these methods can do is repress desire.
• We give no account for desire in our discipleship. Our soteriology is "get saved and join the military" - the white-knuckle approach. And then, when there is no where else to go with one's desire (indeed the issue is rarely even considered), desire must by default go wherever the culture would take it. This ends in duplicity.
• We perceive the love of God (agape) as a unilateral unconditional gift from God. We are told we can never add anything to it. Of course this is true. Yet, the impression is that a response to that gift can never be truly ours (it must be the work of God also). An ordered ever flowing response to God can never be an inextricable part of that same love- grace action received by us from God. We are therefore left passive. (I am thinking of Milbank's work on gift here). This is another aspect of what separates our status in God from the life we live and participate in.
• We package the gospel often into a transaction. Playing off the Reformed penal view of the atonement exclusively, we make the gospel into God has done a., you do b. and you receive c. from God as a gift. And that's it. You're done (in a sense) although strangely you're not. By packaging salvation as a transaction in this way, it puts the subject in control of God and His salvation. Again, the subject cannot be formed by something it has chosen as a consumer for certain benefits. It can only receive those benefits passively.
  

ALL OF THE ABOVE LEAVES US HELPLESS IN THE WORLD OF DESIRE THAT FORMS US TOWARDS WEALTH ACCUMULATION, CAPITALIST IDENTITY, CONSUMERISM, PERSONAL PLEASURE AND OTHER ASSORTED CULTURAL FORMATIONS. WE ARE IN ESSENCE, IN AN UNSUSPECTING WAY, FORMED FOR MORAL DUPLICITY, EVER SAYING ONE THING, YET FINDING OURSELVES DOING ANOTHER. Worse, these inherent theological problems with our soteriology disconnect salvation, from the telos (end purposes) of God's righteousness in the world. It disconnects salvation from the Mission of God for the whole world.

Next post, I want to illustrate some of these points by looking at the famous Bridge Illustration that many of us grew up on and is used as the primary catechetical tool for salvation in many evangelical churches. (I also want to offer some models of spiritual formation as discipleship as an alternative)

We at our church have been talking for months how we desperately need another teaching tool to initiate new coverts into God's salvation for the world in Christ. Something that would teach in simple ways the Huge Salvation of God that He is Doing in Christ that we are invited to participate into. We (or at least I have) decided the Bridge Illustration has been a disaster for Christian discipleship in the most recent period (last twenty years) of church history in the N America.

How do you all feel about the Bridge Illustration? Do you see any of the above weaknesses in it? Do you have a tool for initiating new converts into the basics of Life in Christ and His Mission?

to Ecclesia National Gathering. Knowing the people who will be there, there should be much to blog about when I return. Frankly I've had alot to blog about, just no time. So I look forward to getting back to blogging next week. Before I go, Jason Weaver tagged me on this 1-2-3 meme thing. I am supposed to pick up the closest book, turn to page 123 and copy the first three sentences after the fifth sentence. This is embarrassing, but the closet book to me by about 3 inches (I'm in my office library) is Richard Rorty's edited volume The Linguistic Turn. Boy I wish I had done this yesterday or early this morning, when my Bible was closer. Here goes:

When the philosopher supposes that his paradox is literally true, it is salutary to refute him. The fact that the authors of the paradoxes nearly always fancy themselves to be right and comon sense to be wrong, and that they then need to have it proved to them that their statements are false, explains Moore's great importance to philosophy. No one can rival Moore as a refuter because no one has so keen a nose for paradoxes. (Norman Malcolm

I have just been convicted of the way I sometimes waste my time on certain books. After undergoing this humiliation, I shall inflict this on anyone else by tagging 5 more people.

Peace, and Jason... nice to meet you over the internet.