Pastor John Wright

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September 5, 2005

New Orleans and the False Soteriology of the modern nation-state

Soteriology is a big, fancy word for the doctrine of salvation -- how salvation is wrought for whom by whom. For Christians, salvation takes place by the Triune God, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit through faith, sealed in baptism into the people of God, the church -- always a particular local congregation that is simultaneously one throughout the world. Yet this understanding of salvation is contested today through the soteriology of the modern nation-state. The state is willing to offer the church the realm of the salvation of souls, but its ideology articulates the responsibility for the salvation of its citizenry in the body. It takes on this responsibility through monopolizing coercion and violence in the bounded territory over which it claims authority. The most obvious example is the language that soldiers take the saving role of Jesus Christ in "sacrificing their lives so that we might live." The soteriology of the state is a parody of that provided by God through Christ by the power of Spirit that has engrafted us, Jew or Gentile, into the church.

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.

Posted by johnwright at September 5, 2005 7:27 PM

Comments

Thanks for this wonderful post.

The tragedy of modernity played out before our eyes and as always seems to be the case the poor bear the brunt of it, even being blamed by government officials for their tragic deaths.

I greatly appreciate the story from Eusebius. It seems that maybe many of we who are pastors should go to New Orleans to help bury the poor, unidentified (as they claim many will never be known) rather than allow their bodies to be surrendered to the "efficient handling and management" of the state.

Thanks again for this blog.

Grace and Peace,
Scott Langford
Waycross, GA

Posted by: Scott Langford at September 6, 2005 12:57 PM

Scott:

It would be interesting to group clergy for this function. New Orleans itself has a problem with internment because of the high water level. Whereas the government has processes set up for identification and notification of families, those without families or with families who refuse to claim the bodies, may receive a rather ignoble resting place. I'm not sure how to check this out, but it seems to me that properly committal to God might be a very appropriate witness of the church to those who are most powerless in this society -- the dead.

Thank you for your thoughts.

John

Posted by: John Wright at September 6, 2005 3:22 PM

John. Thank you for these thoughts. I've been among those furious at the federal government's slow and anemic response to this tragedy. Thanks for reminding me not to look for salvation from those entities. Your comments on the fearmongering of the Bush administration that led to FEMA moving under homeland security and diversion of resources to two military quagmires in the middle east to be spot-on. It seems these days I'm frequently reminded of Dorothy Day quoting The Parable of the Two Sons as a response to the revolution in Cuba. (Ironically, Castro offered signifiant supplies and doctors to administer them, but Bush ignored him.) For a president who wears his "faith" on his sleeve, he seems to be doing much to show that faith without works is dead.

Posted by: Matt at September 7, 2005 11:40 AM

You state: "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." The Red Cross website states: "The state Homeland Security Department had requested--and continues to request--that the American Red Cross not come back into New Orleans following the hurricane. Our presence would keep people from evacuating and encourage others to come into the city." So, I'm confused: was it a federal (essential to your wrant) or a state order that kept out the Red Cross? Or do such niceties of fact even matter to you?

Posted by: John at September 13, 2005 1:18 PM

To John (previous comment, not Pastor John),

Even then, the CEO of Redcross Marty Evan's own statements on the matter have been less than uniform, so your own grasp of facts proves to be slippery. If anybody else would like to follow along, I'll provide links.

The section from which you quoted comes from this FAQ page on the Redcross site.

However, as this item shows:

"Last week, the Red Cross, which by law works under FEMA during national states of emergency, agreed that officials on the ground in New Orleans were taking the correct course of action in requesting or demanding that relief workers not enter the city before and after the storm. In a September 2 interview , Evans explained to CNN host Larry King that the Red Cross was not in New Orleans because 'it was not safe to be in the city, and it's not been safe to go back into the city ... We were asked -- directed -- by the National Guard and the city and the state emergency management not to go into New Orleans because it was not safe.'" (emphasis mine to show one of her arguments and to note all the different levels of federal, state and city organization)

Also, from the same item:

"While Media Matters for America has found no evidence that Evans or the Red Cross was working with the White House to project a uniform message, Evans's rhetorical shift is consistent with the Bush administration's efforts to to blame and impute the motives of Blanco and other state and local officials. As Fox News general assignment reporter Major Garrett noted, because of the close relationship between FEMA and the Red Cross, the Red Cross has a direct interest in how FEMA looks to the media and the public: "When FEMA is tarred and feathered, the Red Cross and the Salvation Army are tarred and feathered."

... which is further clarified below:

"Evans's narrowing of her focus onto the state department of homeland security and the shift in her and the Red Cross' characterization of the actions and motivations of authorities on the ground in trying to keep
out the Red Cross track closely with the stated White House strategy to "move the blame for the slow response to Louisiana state officials,"
which The New York Times reported on September 5. Indeed, when [reporter Major] Garrett was asked in a September 7 interview with radio talk show host Hugh Hewitt why the Red Cross was eager to get the story out there, he responded, "Because they work hand-in-glove with the Federal Emergency Management Agency. When FEMA is tarred and feathered, the Red Cross and the Salvation Army are tarred and feathered, because they work on a cooperative basis. They feel they are being sullied by this reaction."

And more to the point, the Redcross actually legally falls under FEMA:

FEMA responsible for coordinating Red Cross efforts as well as emergency disaster relief

"In touting Evans's assertion that state officials blocked the Red Cross from New Orleans to avoid encouraging people to stay or return, Fox News and others have omitted another key fact: It was the federal government that was primarily responsible for coordinating operations, including the activities of the Red Cross. Presumably, if FEMA had deemed it necessary for the Red Cross to enter New Orleans, the agency could have intervened with state authorities at any time. Both the federal Department of Homeland Security's (DHS) December 2004 National Response Plan (NRP) and the Red Cross' charter clearly place the Red Cross under the purview of FEMA. Further, the response plan stipulates that federal agencies should strive for full coordination with state officials but not allow such coordination to "impede the rapid deployment and use of critical resources.

"According to the federal charter of the American Red Cross, the organization has "the legal status of 'a federal instrumentality' " with "responsibilities delegated to it by the Federal government." Listed among these responsibilities is "to maintain a system of domestic and international disaster relief, including mandated responsibilities under the Federal Response Plan coordinated by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA)."

This digging is helpful to show that is indeed the Nation State, whether it be federal or local (as a state like Louisiana) still maintains its status as the entity to which many look to for help, hope, and salvation.

To quote Pastor John, that stuff aside, "the very material that you quote proves my point on a different level. It is the state that declares an area safe -- it is granted authority; authority lies no where else, nor would any other group be considered if they stated the contrary."

In that though, while there is a critique of the nation state, I hope the larger helpful critique that lay inbetween the lines here is not missed! That is, that the Church has failed to do its job to be the one that we look to for hope. Sure, the Media Matters research above points out a utilitarian critique, but that is not ultimately where the critique here lies. We as Christians who make up God's church have surrendered these functions and such to the state. One of the big tragedies in this, tied very much to the tragedy of loss of life in a lack of preparedness, is that this kind of surrendering is so ingrained that the "given-ness" of the state's supposedly redemptive powers have falsely become just that: a given.

The blame here goes all around the table. The waters have revealed more than many of us thought. May the Lord have mercy on all of us.

peace,

eric

Posted by: Eric Lee at September 13, 2005 4:32 PM