(Some readers may be wondering why my last two posts (as well as the next two or three) are taking a trip down the path of Russian and Byzantine history, especially the history of the Byzantine (Orthodox) church. You may be asking, "What does that have to do with things happening in the world today?" Hang in there; I'll try to have a satisfying answer for you at the end.)
Last week's post sketched out the role of the Russian Orthodox church in promoting the myth of Russia as the "Third Rome," the heir to the spiritual and political mantle of the Byzantine Empire. To see the deeper significance of the "Rome" in the Byzantine empire, it is helpful to see how Church and State were related to each other in Byzantium, and how State and Church rang some changes in that relationship in Russia after the fall of Byzantium. Let's begin by defining the word "symphony." And here I will rely not only on Wikipedia definitions, but I will be drawing extensively on Russia and the Nordic Countries: State, Religion, and Society, published by Fondet for Dansk-Norsk Samarbeid in 2016.
In the Byzantine empire, symphony referred to the formal arrangement between Church and State, which was explicitly stated by the emperor Justinian in 535 A.D. In this symphony, both Church and State were to be collaborators in the project of the "protection and spread of the Christian Church..." This concept was refined by patriarch (supreme bishop) Photius in the ninth century A.D. He explicitly stated that emperor and Church patriarch were not merely collaborators, but equal partners in a project which was fundamentally religious in nature. Therefore, the State was not supposed to dominate the Church, nor vice versa - in other words, the patriarch was not to be head of state, nor the emperor head of the Church. There is a further significance to the concept of symphony, namely, that under this arrangement, it was not possible "...that the emperor might profess any other religion than Orthodox Christianity...The idea expressed already by Christ Himself that there should be a distinction between what belongs to the emperor and what belongs to God...seems quite difficult to realize in a construction like the Byzantine theocracy." In other words, secularization was utterly incompatible with Byzantine symphony. (Quotes taken from "The History and Theology of Russian Orthodoxy," Gottlieb, Russia and the Nordic Countries: State, Religion, and Society, 2016.)
It is important to note that the establishment of a State church in the original Roman empire did not follow the principle of symphony. According to some sources, when the first State church emerged under the emperor Constantine, he established himself as "Head of the Church," thus establishing himself as a caesaropapist. (Now there's a new word for ya!) It is also important to note that not all Byzantine emperors submitted to the doctrine of symphony; therefore, there were not a few caesaropapists in their number as well. The practice of caesaropapism was a convenient way for a Roman or Byzantine emperor to consolidate and amplify his power, especially when seeking to expand his territory through imperial conquest or to eliminate internal threats to his power.
After the fall of Constantinople in 1453, Russia (especially Muscovy Russia) sought to lay claim on the title of "Third Rome" in two ways. First, the Russian clergy established the Russian Orthodox church as autocephalous. In other words, a Russian cleric became the head (the patriarch) of the Russian Church, independent from Orthodox patriarchs in Constantinople or Greece. This project began in 1448 according to Gottlieb, took over a century to complete, and wasn't formally fulfilled until 1589, according to Laats. (Laats, "The Concept of the Third Rome and Its Political Implications," retrieved on 30 July 2017.) And the Russian rulers first adopted the title of "Tsar" (Царь, literally, "Caesar,") in 1547 with the coronation of Ivan IV (Ivan the Terrible), thus establishing a Russian head of state as a continuation of the line of the Caesars of the first and second Rome.
How did symphony play out in Russia after 1453? Well, first of all, we must note that it didn't always play out. According to Laats, Tsar Ivan IV used the concept of theocracy to promote himself as defender of the Orthodox faith. "His wars were against 'Muslim unbelievers' and 'the Catholic enemy of Christianity'. The mission of the Russian church was directly grounded in [Ivan's] military victories...The state or the monarch was the real head of the church. Ivan the Terrible 'sees the tsardom as a divine commission and himself as head of the church and representative of God on earth...'"
To be sure, the Russian Orthodox Church pushed back against the power of the tsars, with the Patriarch Nikon seeking in 1652 to establish the "preeminence of the patriarch over the tsar..." (Gottlieb). However, Nikon lost that particular battle, and the attempts by the Russian Orthodox Church to continue the fight resulted in the breaking of Church power by Tsar Peter the Great in the 18th century. Peter made the Church definitely subservient to the State and made it the "official state church of the Russian Empire." This arrangement continued under Catherine the Great, and lasted, with some variations to this form, until the revolutions of 1917.
And as for the role of the concept of the Third Rome in Russian internal and foreign policy, Laats says that "The universality of Rome was connected to pax romana. The goal of Rome was to establish a universal empire, which would supersede the disorderly competition between nations and establish world peace. The monk Filofei, one of the masterminds of the doctrine of the Third Rome wrote that 'all Christian realms will comne to an end and will unite into the one single realm of our sovereign.'" Moscow came also to possess an eschatological cultural dimension - not only as special and closer to God than any other city, but as the center of the last Rome, the fulfillment of all history. The tsar therefore becomes an eschatological ruler, head of both Church and State. And Russia itself became "holy", "elected by God and having a special task in the divine story within the world." This is why the ability of the Russian tsardom to use Russian Orthodoxy as a tool for expansion of secular power is so significant.
According to Laats, this concept of Russia as the Third Rome was officially renounced by the Russian Church in 1667, and has not been explicitly stated by Church or State since then. Yet it has remained the undercurrent and foundation of Russian state policy and identity from that time onward, under Tsar Nicholas I and Tsar Alexander III (and, as some would argue, under Russian communism).
How have Russian Orthodoxy and the concept of the Third Rome influenced Russian leadership and policy since the fall of Soviet communism? What bearing do these have on the regime of Vladimir Putin? I hope to start answering those questions in my next post. Stay tuned...
Sunday, July 30, 2017
Sunday, July 23, 2017
The Revanchism of the Third Rome (Part 2): The Role of Russian Orthodoxy
As noted in my last post, blogger Olga Doroshenko very nicely sketched out a description of national narcissism as applied to Russia. She did an excellent job outlining the grandiose self created by the masters of Russian culture - namely, the tsar, the nobility, and the intellectuals - over the last several centuries. A key pillar of that grandiose self is its assertion that it has a special, Messianic mission to the world, a mission that must be carried out by imperial conquest. Now, to claim that one has a special, Messianic mission, one requires some rather extraordinary proof. What better proof than that the bearer of this mission should have received this mission from people who claim to speak on behalf of God?
So my attention was arrested by Olga's mention of Russian claims to be "the Third Rome" - a term which I had never heard of before. As she says,
For Rome managed to establish itself as both the center of an empire and as a paragon of "civilization" - indeed, as the center of the "civilized" world. Therefore, Rome laid claim to universality - to the notion that Rome alone was the bearer of civilization, and that this legitimized Roman conquests and violent imperial expansion. Those people who lived outside the orbit and influence of Rome were characterized as "barbarians" - as uncivilized savages living in chaos. With the "conversion" of Constantine to Christianity, Rome added a new claim to its existing claims of imperial legitimacy: namely, that Rome was now the defender of the one true faith, and thus even more legitimized in its use of imperial violence to defend and expand its territories. This claim was an integral part of the political and religious strategy and philosophy of state and ecclesiastical power called Constantinianism, which granted powers of state enforcement to those members of the Church who were recognized by the Emperor as the "official" spokesmen of Christianity, and which gave these spokesmen the ability to use violent state power to persecute those people who claimed to be Christian while disagreeing with these official spokesmen.
One of the things that Constantine did was to establish a second imperial capital, named, of course, after himself: the city of Constantinople (formerly known as Byzantium) in the eastern half of the Roman empire, as part of a scheme to facilitate administration of an empire which had grown too large to be effectively managed from one city. However, the leaders of the Roman church sought to concentrate religious (ecclesiastical) power in the city of Rome, and this caused a fracture in the "official" State church which paralleled the fracture of the Roman empire into two parts, one ruled by Rome, and the other ruled by Constantinople. After the fall of the western Roman empire, the eastern, Byzantine empire declared itself to be the only true, legitimate seat of civilization, the one true heir to the titles originally claimed by the united Roman empire and the only true bearer of the Christian faith. According to Laats, this made the Byzantine empire also universalist in its claims and outlook, as stated below:
Now what is essential to note is that from the 12th century to the late 15th century, there were several political power centers in Russia, and Moscow's pre-eminence as the chief power center was by no means assured. (Indeed, even later in Russian history, the center of political power was moved from Moscow to St. Petersburg, and was not moved back permanently until 1917.) Thus it was that after the fall of Constantinople, there were a number of Russian power centers (such as Tver and Novgorod) vying for the mantle of "the third Rome" to fill the vacuum left by the collapse of the second Rome. The ecclesiastical supporters of each of these power centers sought to bolster these claims by lending the weight of the support of the Russian Orthodox church to each power center's claim.
The victory of Ivan the Terrible over all other rivals (and over Tatar invaders) cemented Moscow's place as the center of an empire, and in the eyes of many Russian orthodox clerics, this cemented the place of Moscow (and eventually of Russia) as the heir to the mantle of the Third Rome. However, to see how this conception of Russian identity influenced and guided Russian domestic and foreign policy from Ivan onward, you'll have to wait until next week (unless you want to do some research yourself). Unfortunately, I am out of time today.
So my attention was arrested by Olga's mention of Russian claims to be "the Third Rome" - a term which I had never heard of before. As she says,
"There is an opinion that the Russians were spoilt and degraded by the Bolsheviks. Wrong. They were like that long before Lenin. Long before Peter the Great (who was a flamboyant narcissist himself). They adopted the myth of “the Third Rome” ("Two Romes have fallen. The third stands. And there will be no fourth. No one shall replace your Christian Tsardom!") in the early 16th century, but they believed themselves to be the only “true Christian” nation long before that. This narcissistic claim has its roots deep in the times of the Tartar invasion, and I will not trace them. Let’s concentrate not on the reasons, but on the consequences."As I say, my attention was arrested by this phrase, "the Third Rome," so I did a little bit of Googling, and discovered that "...in the first half of the sixteenth century, an obscure Russian monk from Pskov wrote a number of letters in which he spoke about Moscow as the Third Rome. The name of the monk was Filofei...and his letters were sent to...Moscow grand prince Vassiliij III...and to Ivan IV the Terrible..." ("The Concept of the Third Rome and Its Political Implications", Alar Laats, 2015). To understand how the concept of the Third Rome contributed both to the Russian grandiose self and to Russian imperialism, it is necessary to see how Church and State evolved in the West from the "conversion" of the emperor Constantine to the present. And to see this evolution, we must begin with the birth and evolution of Rome as a historical fact and metaphysical reality.
For Rome managed to establish itself as both the center of an empire and as a paragon of "civilization" - indeed, as the center of the "civilized" world. Therefore, Rome laid claim to universality - to the notion that Rome alone was the bearer of civilization, and that this legitimized Roman conquests and violent imperial expansion. Those people who lived outside the orbit and influence of Rome were characterized as "barbarians" - as uncivilized savages living in chaos. With the "conversion" of Constantine to Christianity, Rome added a new claim to its existing claims of imperial legitimacy: namely, that Rome was now the defender of the one true faith, and thus even more legitimized in its use of imperial violence to defend and expand its territories. This claim was an integral part of the political and religious strategy and philosophy of state and ecclesiastical power called Constantinianism, which granted powers of state enforcement to those members of the Church who were recognized by the Emperor as the "official" spokesmen of Christianity, and which gave these spokesmen the ability to use violent state power to persecute those people who claimed to be Christian while disagreeing with these official spokesmen.
One of the things that Constantine did was to establish a second imperial capital, named, of course, after himself: the city of Constantinople (formerly known as Byzantium) in the eastern half of the Roman empire, as part of a scheme to facilitate administration of an empire which had grown too large to be effectively managed from one city. However, the leaders of the Roman church sought to concentrate religious (ecclesiastical) power in the city of Rome, and this caused a fracture in the "official" State church which paralleled the fracture of the Roman empire into two parts, one ruled by Rome, and the other ruled by Constantinople. After the fall of the western Roman empire, the eastern, Byzantine empire declared itself to be the only true, legitimate seat of civilization, the one true heir to the titles originally claimed by the united Roman empire and the only true bearer of the Christian faith. According to Laats, this made the Byzantine empire also universalist in its claims and outlook, as stated below:
"Thus the eastern Roman Empire, known also as Byzantium considered itself to be an empire and as the only legitimate heir of its history and tradition. The theologians of Byzantium understood their history as the continuation of the history of the ancient Roman Empire. Indeed, they pretended to even more – the empire existed according to the plan of God. The aim of the Roman, respective Byzantine Empire was to grasp the whole world for the proclamation of Christ. But together with this the aim was to spread the [Byzantine] peace and culture. Thus their intentions were also universalist. The people of Byzantium tried to be in every respect like the Romans. Even the name they used in Greek for themselves was Rhomaioi – the Romans.
"One important factor that influenced the development of their consciousness as Romans was their opposition to the West. This opposition was both political and ecclesial. The rulers of the Western Europe and of the Byzantine Empire pretended to be the Roman emperors. And both churches pretended to be the leaders of the universal church."The Byzantine empire laid claim to the title of a "second Rome," a claim which originated from Constantine himself. Due to a number of factors (including foresight and political and administrative shrewdness on the part of its rulers), the Byzantine empire lasted a very long time, and the Byzantine church brought many Eastern peoples and nations under its influence, from Greece through North Africa to Central Europe - and Russia. The Byzantine empire viewed itself as a utopia, a visible, earthly expression of the invisible Kingdom of God. However, the Byzantine empire also fell, and Constantinople was conquered by the Ottoman empire in 1453, and the only part of the Byzantine church (also known as "Orthodox") which was not under Ottoman control was the Russian orthodox communion.
Now what is essential to note is that from the 12th century to the late 15th century, there were several political power centers in Russia, and Moscow's pre-eminence as the chief power center was by no means assured. (Indeed, even later in Russian history, the center of political power was moved from Moscow to St. Petersburg, and was not moved back permanently until 1917.) Thus it was that after the fall of Constantinople, there were a number of Russian power centers (such as Tver and Novgorod) vying for the mantle of "the third Rome" to fill the vacuum left by the collapse of the second Rome. The ecclesiastical supporters of each of these power centers sought to bolster these claims by lending the weight of the support of the Russian Orthodox church to each power center's claim.
The victory of Ivan the Terrible over all other rivals (and over Tatar invaders) cemented Moscow's place as the center of an empire, and in the eyes of many Russian orthodox clerics, this cemented the place of Moscow (and eventually of Russia) as the heir to the mantle of the Third Rome. However, to see how this conception of Russian identity influenced and guided Russian domestic and foreign policy from Ivan onward, you'll have to wait until next week (unless you want to do some research yourself). Unfortunately, I am out of time today.
Saturday, July 15, 2017
The Revanchism of the Third Rome (Part 1)
Over the last seven or eight months, as I have tried to make sense of the changes (and attempted changes) which major players have wrought in global and American national politics, I have done a lot of reading, in an attempt to see the various major global actors through various lenses. Those who regularly follow this blog know that one of the lenses through which I like to look is the lens of abnormal psychology, as applied to both individuals and nations. So you can imagine how my interest was piqued as I came across a series of blog posts titled, Russia As A Narcissistic Personality Disorder, Ukraine As A Narcissistic Injury, written by a Ukrainian lady named Olga Doroshenko (or, as she writes in her profile, Дорошенко Ольга). Olga had the rather painful fortune to live through the violent counterrevolutionary response to the initially nonviolent 2014 Ukraine revolution which ousted then President Viktor Yanukovych.
Her series of posts on Russia contain, I am sure, some barbs of the sort which arise from the deeply unpleasant history that builds up between people who are related enough to each other to really get on each other's nerves when they live too long near each other. However, her posts also present a thought-provoking analysis which lines up with many aspects of Russia's official "face" which I had observed over the last few years "from the side," as some Russians say. As one can see from her writings, the danger of national narcissism is not limited to certain nations. Any nation can fall into such a derangement if the conditions are right. Her posts also shed a great deal of light on Russia's unhealthy interest in the affairs of non-Russian nations, including the interest which has been "lavished" on the United States during the last major election cycle.
What conditions does she then identify in the case of Russia? First, let's consider her thumbnail sketch of NPD. To me, she seems to be right on in stating that NPD is a compensatory response to feelings of inferiority. As Olga writes,
What then is the source of Russian narcissism as expressed in foreign and domestic governmental policy? What is root of the inferiority complex that the national grandiose self is supposed to cover up? According to Olga, that inferiority complex is the result of perceived historical technological, social and economic underdevelopment in comparison to Europe. And as suggested by Olga, this inferiority complex has historically been felt most keenly by the elites of Russia, including the tsars and other nobility, and the intellectual class (many of whom were also of the nobility). Therefore, the elites, from tsar to nobility to intellectuals in the service of the tsar and the nobles, all collaborated, often consciously, to build a collective identity consisting of a national grandiose self. This grandiose self, bejeweled with the virtues of a soldier (bravery, courage, spirituality, ability to endure hardship for a greater good, reverent submission to authorities, etc.), was meant both to inspire ordinary Russians (many of whom were serfs - that is, slaves - from the 11th century to the mid 19th century) to enthusiastically answer their masters' calls to arms, and to promote meek submission to the hardships under which Russian "commoners" lived. It was also meant to inoculate the populace against the desire for social change - even though, from time to time, some ordinary Russians were able to see how much better off many Europeans were, particularly in being allowed to live as free people.
Thus one of the chief "virtues" of this grandiose self was the ability to meekly submit to suffering - the suffering which must be endured for the sake of achieving the greater good of building a truly "great" nation. This meek submission was summarized in the notion of "the enigmatic Russian soul", the inmost being of a nation that had gladly accepted its calling to suffer as a "collective Christ" in order to bring light and redemption to the world. Never mind that the sufferings borne by the Russian masses were in many cases inflicted by those who held power in Russian society. Never mind also that the redemption which Russia believed itself called to bring to the world was to be brought by violent imperial expansion.
A chief ingredient needed for this grandiose self was the presence of a cast of inferior characters against whom this grandiose self might appear truly grand by comparison. The masters of Russian culture therefore cast Europe as a collection of these inferiors, a bunch of "soft" and "weak" people whose enjoyment of a more pleasant way of life was proof of their "godlessness." (As someone told me a while back, "In Russia, the strong survive! We don't demand soft treatment." His implication was, "like some other people...") Later, the cast of inferior characters expanded to include the entire West - at least, those who are white. As for the rest of us, well, I am sure that not many members of the current Russian elite regard what goes on in our heads as thoughts worth taking seriously. Oddly enough, that does not bother me, for reasons which I will elaborate in a future post.
Thus do we encounter modern Russia as the "collective Christ" pitted against a godless world as it soldiers bravely on in its Messianic mission to bring light and redemption to a world whose desire to be left unmolested is just so much proof of the "godlessness" of that world. Thus has this "mysterious", "enigmatic" nation closed itself off from learning anything from the world which it despises. This is convenient for the present-day Russian elites, for whom the prospect of internal change must be the kind of night terror that can cause cardiac arrest. But I must mention that it has not only been tsar and nobility that have conspired to build such an enduring grandiose self. There has been another agent involved in this project over the last several centuries. I will describe that agent in my next post.
Her series of posts on Russia contain, I am sure, some barbs of the sort which arise from the deeply unpleasant history that builds up between people who are related enough to each other to really get on each other's nerves when they live too long near each other. However, her posts also present a thought-provoking analysis which lines up with many aspects of Russia's official "face" which I had observed over the last few years "from the side," as some Russians say. As one can see from her writings, the danger of national narcissism is not limited to certain nations. Any nation can fall into such a derangement if the conditions are right. Her posts also shed a great deal of light on Russia's unhealthy interest in the affairs of non-Russian nations, including the interest which has been "lavished" on the United States during the last major election cycle.
What conditions does she then identify in the case of Russia? First, let's consider her thumbnail sketch of NPD. To me, she seems to be right on in stating that NPD is a compensatory response to feelings of inferiority. As Olga writes,
"Narcissism always starts with an inferiority complex. A narcissist feels his/her insignificance and hates him/herself for this. This hatred causes shame, and in attempt to protect him/herself from this shame the narcissist builds up an ideal person which he/she pretends to be. But any hint of criticism shatters this ideal image, which is intolerable. Therefore, the critic is treated as an enemy.
Any sane person can ask: why so complicated? If you feel shame, you just stop doing what causes this shame and stop feeling shame. Profit! That is true, but not for the narcissist. The narcissistic shame is different from the ordinary shame: there is no particular reason for it, the narcissist is ashamed just of being imperfect. Which means: just of being human."Dealing with this shame in a truly effective way is quite scary. It is painful work to learn to live gracefully, humbly and honorably within the limits which your Creator has imposed on you, just as it is also painful to for most of us to admit that we have faults and sins to be repented of. Indeed, for the narcissist, choosing to give up the grandiose self and accept one's humanity - one's ordinariness and imperfection - is like experiencing a death. For a narcissist, the only thing worse is the involuntary disintegration of the narcissist's grandiose self in response to external events. That does lead some narcissists to choose physical death.
What then is the source of Russian narcissism as expressed in foreign and domestic governmental policy? What is root of the inferiority complex that the national grandiose self is supposed to cover up? According to Olga, that inferiority complex is the result of perceived historical technological, social and economic underdevelopment in comparison to Europe. And as suggested by Olga, this inferiority complex has historically been felt most keenly by the elites of Russia, including the tsars and other nobility, and the intellectual class (many of whom were also of the nobility). Therefore, the elites, from tsar to nobility to intellectuals in the service of the tsar and the nobles, all collaborated, often consciously, to build a collective identity consisting of a national grandiose self. This grandiose self, bejeweled with the virtues of a soldier (bravery, courage, spirituality, ability to endure hardship for a greater good, reverent submission to authorities, etc.), was meant both to inspire ordinary Russians (many of whom were serfs - that is, slaves - from the 11th century to the mid 19th century) to enthusiastically answer their masters' calls to arms, and to promote meek submission to the hardships under which Russian "commoners" lived. It was also meant to inoculate the populace against the desire for social change - even though, from time to time, some ordinary Russians were able to see how much better off many Europeans were, particularly in being allowed to live as free people.
Thus one of the chief "virtues" of this grandiose self was the ability to meekly submit to suffering - the suffering which must be endured for the sake of achieving the greater good of building a truly "great" nation. This meek submission was summarized in the notion of "the enigmatic Russian soul", the inmost being of a nation that had gladly accepted its calling to suffer as a "collective Christ" in order to bring light and redemption to the world. Never mind that the sufferings borne by the Russian masses were in many cases inflicted by those who held power in Russian society. Never mind also that the redemption which Russia believed itself called to bring to the world was to be brought by violent imperial expansion.
A chief ingredient needed for this grandiose self was the presence of a cast of inferior characters against whom this grandiose self might appear truly grand by comparison. The masters of Russian culture therefore cast Europe as a collection of these inferiors, a bunch of "soft" and "weak" people whose enjoyment of a more pleasant way of life was proof of their "godlessness." (As someone told me a while back, "In Russia, the strong survive! We don't demand soft treatment." His implication was, "like some other people...") Later, the cast of inferior characters expanded to include the entire West - at least, those who are white. As for the rest of us, well, I am sure that not many members of the current Russian elite regard what goes on in our heads as thoughts worth taking seriously. Oddly enough, that does not bother me, for reasons which I will elaborate in a future post.
Thus do we encounter modern Russia as the "collective Christ" pitted against a godless world as it soldiers bravely on in its Messianic mission to bring light and redemption to a world whose desire to be left unmolested is just so much proof of the "godlessness" of that world. Thus has this "mysterious", "enigmatic" nation closed itself off from learning anything from the world which it despises. This is convenient for the present-day Russian elites, for whom the prospect of internal change must be the kind of night terror that can cause cardiac arrest. But I must mention that it has not only been tsar and nobility that have conspired to build such an enduring grandiose self. There has been another agent involved in this project over the last several centuries. I will describe that agent in my next post.
Sunday, July 2, 2017
The Duty Of Active Citizenship
Here is another blatantly spiritual post. But hey, it's Sunday (and I will be in church shortly), so I will indulge myself.
Lately I have been thinking rather much about the wide range of responses among the American public to the Trump presidency. One response that has been somewhat troubling has come from certain seemingly well-meaning elements of the American church community - both home-grown and immigrant. That response can be best summarized in the following statement: "We recognize that it is God who removes kings and sets up kings. Therefore, we must recognize that it is God who has given Trump the presidency. This means that we must not speak against the president whom God has given us." Some carry this thinking even further, and say, "Just as God worked through flawed human beings in history to accomplish a greater purpose (as was the case with Nebuchadnezzar and Cyrus), even so God has raised up Trump to accomplish a greater purpose." (See this also.) The implication then becomes that the flaws and sins of Trump are no longer a legitimate point of criticism, since he is "the vessel whom God has chosen." Some among this crowd even go as far as blatant appeals to Calvinist doctrine to teach that, since God is Sovereign, and since nothing happens apart from His sovereignty, we who have been the historical targets of oppression should not complain about the oppression which has been dished out to us, nor protest against the ascendancy of people who in the present day want to dish out extra helpings of the same oppression.
I say that such thinking is both flawed and dangerous, as it presents only a partial picture of the story. One of the biggest missing pieces of that story is that God has given free will to both men and societies. Another huge missing piece is the fact that God gives and allows things in response to the freewill choices of His creatures. So when people fall under the grip of an oppressor, it may be that the appropriate response of the oppressed is not to absolve themselves of responsibility, nor to throw up their hands and say, "God is bringing us through trial as He did with Job, and we must not try to figure out the root causes of our suffering. Perfecta es Tu voluntad para mi..." Maybe what we should do instead is to ask ourselves how and where we dropped the ball and allowed this to happen.
So how then should believers look at life under oppressive political regimes? That is a huge question and it requires a huge answer. And I don't have time to even begin to scratch the surface of that answer today, nor do I believe that I have the wisdom to provide a definitive answer all by myself. However, I'll present a few of the thoughts that have come to me from thinking about this question over the last three months.
First, I believe that God has created us to fulfill a particular purpose, and that this purpose involves the full development of the humanity of every human being, as I wrote in a previous post. The fulfillment of that purpose and calling involves the struggle of nonviolent conflict, because of the presence of oppressors and would-be oppressors who seek to make themselves rich by dehumanizing the rest of us. How should we respond when the oppressors become the rulers of the land? One clue to the answer to that question can be found in 1 Peter 2:13: "Submit yourselves for the Lord's sake to every human institution..." The word translated "institution" is the Greek word κτίσις (ktisis), and it literally means, "creation (my emphasis), creature, institution..." This is important. For it means that we are called to submit to every created institution, not only to the institutions created by our oppressors, but to the institutions which the oppressed create in order to fulfill their ontogeny in spite of their oppressors. For our submission to the institutions of our oppressors should extend only as far as we can obey without violating our duty to our higher calling. Where the institutions - the creations - of our oppressors seek to violate that calling, we are responsible for creating new creations - new arrangements and parallel institutions - by which we may facilitate the fulfillment of our calling. This is why anarchy is not a right response to oppression, for according to the Scriptures, "God is not a God of confusion but of peace." When the oppressed create by themselves the creations - the arrangements and institutions - by which they may fulfill their calling in spite of their oppressors, this is an example of "active citizenship" as defined by Asef Bayat in his book, Life as Politics.
So then, why are "bad kings" given? Why is it that peoples fall under the rule of oppressors? For I have stated that the Bible teaches that God gives and allows things in response to the freewill choices of His creatures. And it is true that God removes kings and sets up kings. (See Daniel 2:21). So what choices do oppressed people make that cause them to remain in victimhood to oppressors? I submit that the answer is that the oppressed far too frequently become and stay oppressed through a failure of active citizenship. I am thinking particularly of a quote from a book I recently got, Recovering Nonviolent History: Civil Resistance in Liberation Struggles, edited by Dr. Maciej Bartkowski. On page 18 of the first chapter, Dr. Bartkowski quotes Syrian activist Abd al Rahman al-Kawakibi: "...people 'themselves are the cause of what has been inflicted upon them, and that they should blame neither foreigners nor fate (my emphasis) but rather ignorance (al-jahl), lack of endeavor (faqd al-humam), and apathy (al-taw kul), all of which prevail over society.'" He also cites Polish philosopher Josef Szujski in his assertion that "...the guilt of falling into the predatory hands of foreign powers lay in the oppressed society and, thus, the solution and liberation need to come from that society transformed through its work, education, and civility. Victims and the seemingly disempowered are thus their own liberators as long as they pursue self-organization, self-attainment, and development of their communities."
This shows us where many societies, including the present United States, have gone wrong. First, we fell victim to convenience - that is, in the words of Jack Duvall, we allowed ourselves to be rented by people who promised to relieve us of the duties of active citizenship in exchange for our support of the political aspirations of these people. Their message was, "Let us do the dirty work of creating a healthy society. After all, we are the experts and you are not. (As our covfefe-in-chief once said, "I'm a genius!") All you have to do is lend us your support by sending money to our political campaign and vote for us." The flip side of that convenience is that we allowed ourselves to become addicted to convenience - that is, to a lifestyle which required no hard work, no thinking, no sacrifice for a larger good - but only the immediate gratification of our cravings and appetites. In short, we became a society whose members aspired to be Ferris Bueller or a character from Happy Days when we grew up. How fitting that Ferris Bueller's Day Off became a box office hit during the presidency of Ronald Reagan. How perceptive also is Dr. Maciej Bartkowski's comment that the Ukraine fell back under the sway of corrupt dictatorship after the Orange Revolution because after that revolution, Ukrainians abandoned active citizenship and went back to watching TV.
This also shows us where many "nonviolent resisters" in the United States are still going wrong. They believe that the power of rulers over a society is a fixed, durable monolith, and they direct their efforts to arguing with the current owners of the monolith for control of the monolith, as Gene Sharp explained in his book The Politics of Nonviolent Action: Power and Struggle. This is why their repertoire of strategy and tactics includes very little more than protest and persuasion (which might be termed a series of variations on the common tactic of loud complaining). But movements which focus solely on complaining show a lack of confidence in their ability to take their affairs into their own hands. These would-be resisters would do much better to stop arguing over control of an oppressive and unjust system and to devote themselves the much more effective work of active citizenship (starting with self-rule, self-control, and freeing oneself of degrading addictions), of building the parallel arrangements and institutions of a just society within the shadow of the wreckage of their present corrupt society. Effective nonviolent resistance, whether in the United States or Russia or anywhere else, must be modeled on the spread of active citizenship and must not therefore rely on the presence of a charismatic leader who rents the support of the society by promising them that he will meet all their needs if only they will give him their support.
But I am sure that there are those who, after reading this, still think that Trump is a mysterious gift from an inscrutable Calvinist god, and not the fault and consequence of a nation guilty of wrong thinking. Maybe among these people are those who will freeze to death this winter because even though they had money in the bank, they neglected to pay their heating bill. Maybe their last dying sentence will be, "Perfecta es Tu voluntad para mi..." But when they stand before the Judgment seat, they may hear, "You doofus! Why didn't you pay your bills?"
Lately I have been thinking rather much about the wide range of responses among the American public to the Trump presidency. One response that has been somewhat troubling has come from certain seemingly well-meaning elements of the American church community - both home-grown and immigrant. That response can be best summarized in the following statement: "We recognize that it is God who removes kings and sets up kings. Therefore, we must recognize that it is God who has given Trump the presidency. This means that we must not speak against the president whom God has given us." Some carry this thinking even further, and say, "Just as God worked through flawed human beings in history to accomplish a greater purpose (as was the case with Nebuchadnezzar and Cyrus), even so God has raised up Trump to accomplish a greater purpose." (See this also.) The implication then becomes that the flaws and sins of Trump are no longer a legitimate point of criticism, since he is "the vessel whom God has chosen." Some among this crowd even go as far as blatant appeals to Calvinist doctrine to teach that, since God is Sovereign, and since nothing happens apart from His sovereignty, we who have been the historical targets of oppression should not complain about the oppression which has been dished out to us, nor protest against the ascendancy of people who in the present day want to dish out extra helpings of the same oppression.
I say that such thinking is both flawed and dangerous, as it presents only a partial picture of the story. One of the biggest missing pieces of that story is that God has given free will to both men and societies. Another huge missing piece is the fact that God gives and allows things in response to the freewill choices of His creatures. So when people fall under the grip of an oppressor, it may be that the appropriate response of the oppressed is not to absolve themselves of responsibility, nor to throw up their hands and say, "God is bringing us through trial as He did with Job, and we must not try to figure out the root causes of our suffering. Perfecta es Tu voluntad para mi..." Maybe what we should do instead is to ask ourselves how and where we dropped the ball and allowed this to happen.
So how then should believers look at life under oppressive political regimes? That is a huge question and it requires a huge answer. And I don't have time to even begin to scratch the surface of that answer today, nor do I believe that I have the wisdom to provide a definitive answer all by myself. However, I'll present a few of the thoughts that have come to me from thinking about this question over the last three months.
First, I believe that God has created us to fulfill a particular purpose, and that this purpose involves the full development of the humanity of every human being, as I wrote in a previous post. The fulfillment of that purpose and calling involves the struggle of nonviolent conflict, because of the presence of oppressors and would-be oppressors who seek to make themselves rich by dehumanizing the rest of us. How should we respond when the oppressors become the rulers of the land? One clue to the answer to that question can be found in 1 Peter 2:13: "Submit yourselves for the Lord's sake to every human institution..." The word translated "institution" is the Greek word κτίσις (ktisis), and it literally means, "creation (my emphasis), creature, institution..." This is important. For it means that we are called to submit to every created institution, not only to the institutions created by our oppressors, but to the institutions which the oppressed create in order to fulfill their ontogeny in spite of their oppressors. For our submission to the institutions of our oppressors should extend only as far as we can obey without violating our duty to our higher calling. Where the institutions - the creations - of our oppressors seek to violate that calling, we are responsible for creating new creations - new arrangements and parallel institutions - by which we may facilitate the fulfillment of our calling. This is why anarchy is not a right response to oppression, for according to the Scriptures, "God is not a God of confusion but of peace." When the oppressed create by themselves the creations - the arrangements and institutions - by which they may fulfill their calling in spite of their oppressors, this is an example of "active citizenship" as defined by Asef Bayat in his book, Life as Politics.
So then, why are "bad kings" given? Why is it that peoples fall under the rule of oppressors? For I have stated that the Bible teaches that God gives and allows things in response to the freewill choices of His creatures. And it is true that God removes kings and sets up kings. (See Daniel 2:21). So what choices do oppressed people make that cause them to remain in victimhood to oppressors? I submit that the answer is that the oppressed far too frequently become and stay oppressed through a failure of active citizenship. I am thinking particularly of a quote from a book I recently got, Recovering Nonviolent History: Civil Resistance in Liberation Struggles, edited by Dr. Maciej Bartkowski. On page 18 of the first chapter, Dr. Bartkowski quotes Syrian activist Abd al Rahman al-Kawakibi: "...people 'themselves are the cause of what has been inflicted upon them, and that they should blame neither foreigners nor fate (my emphasis) but rather ignorance (al-jahl), lack of endeavor (faqd al-humam), and apathy (al-taw kul), all of which prevail over society.'" He also cites Polish philosopher Josef Szujski in his assertion that "...the guilt of falling into the predatory hands of foreign powers lay in the oppressed society and, thus, the solution and liberation need to come from that society transformed through its work, education, and civility. Victims and the seemingly disempowered are thus their own liberators as long as they pursue self-organization, self-attainment, and development of their communities."
This shows us where many societies, including the present United States, have gone wrong. First, we fell victim to convenience - that is, in the words of Jack Duvall, we allowed ourselves to be rented by people who promised to relieve us of the duties of active citizenship in exchange for our support of the political aspirations of these people. Their message was, "Let us do the dirty work of creating a healthy society. After all, we are the experts and you are not. (As our covfefe-in-chief once said, "I'm a genius!") All you have to do is lend us your support by sending money to our political campaign and vote for us." The flip side of that convenience is that we allowed ourselves to become addicted to convenience - that is, to a lifestyle which required no hard work, no thinking, no sacrifice for a larger good - but only the immediate gratification of our cravings and appetites. In short, we became a society whose members aspired to be Ferris Bueller or a character from Happy Days when we grew up. How fitting that Ferris Bueller's Day Off became a box office hit during the presidency of Ronald Reagan. How perceptive also is Dr. Maciej Bartkowski's comment that the Ukraine fell back under the sway of corrupt dictatorship after the Orange Revolution because after that revolution, Ukrainians abandoned active citizenship and went back to watching TV.
This also shows us where many "nonviolent resisters" in the United States are still going wrong. They believe that the power of rulers over a society is a fixed, durable monolith, and they direct their efforts to arguing with the current owners of the monolith for control of the monolith, as Gene Sharp explained in his book The Politics of Nonviolent Action: Power and Struggle. This is why their repertoire of strategy and tactics includes very little more than protest and persuasion (which might be termed a series of variations on the common tactic of loud complaining). But movements which focus solely on complaining show a lack of confidence in their ability to take their affairs into their own hands. These would-be resisters would do much better to stop arguing over control of an oppressive and unjust system and to devote themselves the much more effective work of active citizenship (starting with self-rule, self-control, and freeing oneself of degrading addictions), of building the parallel arrangements and institutions of a just society within the shadow of the wreckage of their present corrupt society. Effective nonviolent resistance, whether in the United States or Russia or anywhere else, must be modeled on the spread of active citizenship and must not therefore rely on the presence of a charismatic leader who rents the support of the society by promising them that he will meet all their needs if only they will give him their support.
But I am sure that there are those who, after reading this, still think that Trump is a mysterious gift from an inscrutable Calvinist god, and not the fault and consequence of a nation guilty of wrong thinking. Maybe among these people are those who will freeze to death this winter because even though they had money in the bank, they neglected to pay their heating bill. Maybe their last dying sentence will be, "Perfecta es Tu voluntad para mi..." But when they stand before the Judgment seat, they may hear, "You doofus! Why didn't you pay your bills?"
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