The falseness of state soteriology has become very evident in the needless tragedy of New Orleans. The collapsing of FEMA into "Homeland Security", the redirecting of funds into a war of aggression in Iraq rather than the levies around New Orleans, the President speaking at Coronado Air Force Base about the war in Iraq while the disaster unfolded, all of these show that the soteriology of the state is based upon violence, not care for its citizenry. Indeed, the state began to get seriously involved only when the sovereignty of its ownership of the submerged land that used to be New Orleans was challenged by armed survivors. It was not the lives of the abandoned poor that provoked the response; it was the challenge to state sovereignty and the fear of loss of support for the war in Iraq and other agenda items that spurred the federal government to action.

That the issue has been state sovereignty, not the lives of the poor, is seen in the blockage of aid to the area by federal authorities. I noticed this first when the Homeland Security department blocked Red Cross aide from reaching New Orleans. However, this has been part of a wider policy to block aide from getting to the poor in New Orleans except that which the federal government itself brings -- which, of course, has been unconsciously slow in coming (see http://uruknet.info/?p=15411&hd=0&size=1&l=x).

What is interesting to me is that people actually believe this myth of state soteriology -- that the modern liberal nation-state is to "save our bodies from our enemies and natural disaster". Yet a political, legal system that absolutizes property rights over the human good can never embrace a genuine humanism that seeks the dignity and honor of every human being, especially the poor.

More seriously is that Christians have believed this myth, and therefore, have turned the authority for engaging in the works of mercy to the state. Don't get me wrong, it would be wonderful to have the modern state genuinely interested in feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, overseeing the sick, welcoming the stranger, giving drink to the thirsty, burying the dead. By ascribing these actions to the state, we ourselves have lost the skills necessary to respond to such an emergency. In the process the church reflects the split of the propertied and the poor that plagues the United States today. The propertied, those who had the resources to share in the emergency, escaped, leaving those with no resources to fend for themselves. No clergy emerged to bury the bodies of the deceased with dignity and honor. By granting authority to the state to take care of the situation, the situation mirrored the concerns of the state, and the bodies of the poor, especially African American poor, bore the brunt of the tragedy.

Two stories remind me that this doesn't have to be so -- we don't have to grant authority to the state to engage in works of mercy; we can't let the state regulate what is appropriate for Christians to engage in for the works of mercy. I was reminded of a famous story from Eusebius in his Ecclesiastical History. He writes of the fourth century, during the reign of Maximimum, plague and famine broke out because of the emperor's commitment to violence. Eusebius writes, "Some, shriveled like ghost of the departed, staggered about until they fell down, and as they lay in the middle of the streets they would beg for a small scrap of bread and, with their last gasp, cry out that they were hungry -- anything more than this anguished cry was beyond them. The wealthier classes, astonished at the mass of beggars they were helping, changed to a hard and merciless attitude, since they assumed that before long they would be no better off. In the middle of the city squares and narrow lanes, naked bodies lay scattered about unburied for days on end -- a most pitiful spectacle. Some were eaten by dogs, for which reason the living began killing dogs, for fear they might go mad and start devouring people. No less horrible was the plague that infected every house, especially those that had survived the famine because they were well stocked with food. The affluent, rulers, governors, and numerous officials, as if intentionally left by the famine for the plague, suffered a sudden, bitter death . . .
Such was the recompense for Maximim's arrogant boasting and the cities' petitions against us, while the zeal and piety of the Christians were obvious to all the heathen. In this awful adversity they alone gave practical proof of their sympathy and humanity. All day long some of them tended to the dying and to their burial, countless numbers with no one to care for them. Others gathered together from all parts of the city a multitude of those withered from famine and distribued bread to them all, so that their deeds were on everyone's lips, and they glorified the God of the Christians" (EH, 9.8).

Whereas this was in antiquity, William Cavanaugh in Torture and Eucharist describes the church's response from Chile during the Pinochet years with that governments savage attack on the poor, an attack that eventually woke up the church to engage genuinely in the works of mercy by taking responsibility for the bodies of the poor, rather than handing the bodies over to the authority of the state. When the Chilean government closed down all "faith-based charities", the Catholic Church formed the Committee of Cooperation for Peace in Chile and the Vicariate of Solidarity to be based directly in parishes. "COPACHI established an entire network of parish-based social programs to counter the regime's political and economic strategy of individualization. . . . COPACHI sponsored small groups in which the unemployed would pool resources to organize to meet their basic necessities, and work at alternative sources of income. The dismantling of the state health system was met by the establishment of health clinics. Cooperative soup kitches were set up in the churches to give lunch to children" (pp. 264-5).

The Spirit must free our imaginations from the false soteriology of the state. This is why we, the baptized, must continue to engage in the works of mercy, to share in the bodily friendships and solidarity with believers who are poor, as well as the unbaptized who are poor --whether we are poor or not. Without this continuing training, we can get sucked into the soteriology of the state, respond in moral outrage when it again shows its true commitments, and think that it is reformable -- if only we could be put in control. At times this my personal experience and reading of legal and political theory suggests that this will put us into conflict with the state, whether it be local, state, or federal. Yet we need to learn not to bow at the altar of this state soteriology, but instead, to allow God to enfold us into God's special care for the poor through being part of the visible body of Christ in the world.