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In my reading this fall, I have read excerpts from an important book edited by\ Philip Mirowski and Dieter Plehwe, The Road from Mont Pèlerin: The Making of Neoliberal Thought Collective (Harvard University Press, 2009). Of course, the United States, despite which is officially in office, has underlying neoliberal commitments. The difference is largely rhetorical, with Republicans mastering a more "government is the problem" language, with Democrats pulling back from this use more in rhetoric than in action. Of course, such rhetoric is empty. There is no such thing as "government" per se, any more than there is anything like "free markets" per se. It is therefore important to get to empirical data to see what this language works to do in building various type of social collectives.

In Philip Mirowski's essay at the end of the book, he writes a "Postface: Defining Neoliberalism" -- a term that has usually worked to set its user away from what is seen as a bad thing -- a leftist term to say "bad, bad, bad!" Now I am no fan of neoliberalism yet I had not read a convincing description of the term except in its reference to the Chicago School of Economics. Mirowski and the book show how this becomes true in the 1960s as neoliberalism developed. Mirowski looks at how this language works as it pulls a distinct group of humans together. He argues that "First and foremost, neoliberalism masquerades as a radically populist philosophy, which begins with a set of philosophical theses about knowledge and its relationship to society. . . . In Hayekian language, it elevates a 'cosmos' - a supposed spontaneous order that no one has intentionally designed or structures - over a 'taxis' - rationally constructed orderd designed to achieve intentional ends. But the second, and linked lesson, is that neoliberals are simultaneously elitists: they do not in fact practice what they preach. When it comes to actually organizing something, almost anything . . .suddenly the cosmos collapses to a taxis" (p. 425-6). In other words, "The starting point of neoliberalism is the admission, contrary to classical liberal doctrine, that their vision of the good society will triumph only if it becomes reconciled to the fact that the conditions for its existence must be constructed and will not come about 'naturally' in the absence of concerted political effort and organization. . . . The injunction to act in the face of inadequate epistemic warrant is the very soul of 'constructivism,' an orientation shared (curiously enough) with the field of science studies" (p. 434). This means that markets must be made "free" by strong political power: "2. Perhaps the dominant version at MPS emanated from Hayek himself, wherein 'the market' is posited to be an information processor more powerful than any human brain, but essentially patterned on brain/computation metaphors. . . . prices in an efficient market 'contain all relevant information' and therefore cannot be predicted by mere mortals. In this version, the market always surpasses the state's ability to process information, and this constitutes the kernel of the argument for the necessary failure of socialism" (p. 435). Now, of course, it is fascinating that Mirowski only mentions state and market as the two "institutions" that are able to process information. Notice even here protests against neoliberalism, the reductionism removes any non-state or market actors like the church as able to process data for a common good. I would, of course, the only means of processing a common good requires non-state or non-market institutions, as in the church.

Neoliberalism, therefore, is primarily a politics of the nation-state, that uses an anti-government rhetoric to build a stronger state to reduce all human life to market conditions: "4. A primary ambition of the neoliberal project is to redefine the shape and functions of the state, not to destroy it. . . . democracy, ambivalently endorsed as the appropriate state framework for an ideal market, must in any case be kept relatively impotent, so that citizen initiatives rarely change much of anything. . . . Hence, the neoliberals seek to restructure the state with numerous audit devices (under the sign of 'accountability') or better yet, convert state services to be provided on a contractual basis" (p. 436).

No change from neoliberal commitments have been present in the United States, and none present themselves as options today. Yet the economic consequences are making themselves clear as the data comes out. Today I found the following chart at
http://streetlightblog.blogspot.com/2011/10/what-smaller-government-looks-like-in.html. In line with neoliberal theory, one does not have a shift to smaller government; instead, one has a shift to a militarization of government at the cost of education, that is sought to be placed into market dynamics. Take a look at the chart with prose:

But it's informative to take a look at exactly which sort of government jobs are being cut. The following table tells the story.

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-SIuQtNgwHoc/TpRPTLLT_rI/AAAAAAAAAs4/CJCjODUO-Rg/s1600/govt%2Bemployment%2Bchange%2B2009-11.PNG

Over the past two years, government employment in the US at all levels (federal, state, and local) has fallen by a bit over half a million. Total federal employment has remained roughly constant (increased defense department jobs have made up for job losses elsewhere in the federal government), and employment by state governments has fallen by a bit. But local government employment has seen by far the largest change over the past two years, with local governments alone accounting for about 90% of all government job losses in the US. And of that, the majority of job losses are education jobs.

The US (along with many countries around the world right now) is currently going through a deeply unfortunate and harmful bout of fiscal contraction, right when it should be doing exactly the opposite. And by acheiving that fiscal contraction primarily by laying off teachers, it appears to have decided to do so on the backs of its schoolchildren. "

What the site does not highlight is that the military-related employment has grown while other areas have shrunken. This is exactly in line with neoliberal theory. It is not shrinkage of the state; it is the growth of the state in its economics of militarism in order to reduce the rest of government to market dynamics. Neoliberalism presents itself as "anti-government" while requiring the economy circulate around military needs that are necessary to enforce free markets.

This is why the church is needed as neither a governmental nor market institution to provide analysis to show options that the data indicates, but is not found within the imaginations of state or market officials.

Posted by johnwright at 12:41 PM

Yesterday we had our First Friday distribution at the church. I took advantage of the situation to spend time before dawn to spend on the sidewalks with those waiting. It is actually loads of fun, though I work to make sure the line keeps in order. Over the years we have actually developed a fun atmosphere on the line. I really would love to take the time to learn Vietnamese. "Good morning" and "thank you" are all that I can say.

The line was down yesterday -- that is good, perhaps a sign that jobs (though not middle income jobs) are coming back. I have read some reports that indicate that remodeling of personal homes have gone up. But I also have a sense that the numbers have gone down because the amount of food has gone radically down -- and one-third of what we used to give. This is the only state-financed distribution that we have. The program supposedly has been cut, and San Diego food bank has cut what they are distributing to extend the program as long as possible. It is part of the war against the poor sponsored by neoliberalism. Of course, this is also opportunity for the church to stand up and show that the liberal democratic nation state has never provided the "salvific" services it claims as it has taken over the role that the church historically played in western culture.

In light of these cutbacks, it is interesting that I found the following statistics given that we are approaching the 10th anniversary of the invasion of Afghanistan. The paper, found at http://costsofwar.org/article/economic-cost-summary, shows on non-partisan sources, that the cost of wars in the past decade are over 3.2 to 4 TRILLION dollars and rising. This ignores some long term costs that will get hidden in Medicare and by state and local expenses for the damages done to the soldiers from their involvement in killing, and 5.3 billion dollars promised for reconstruction in Afghanistan.

Of course the killings from the instability continue in Iraq and the lack of stability from the Afghani war still threatens Pakistan. And even young educated struggle to find a middle class wage, while the living standard of the working poor continues to deteriorate.

It is easy to be against; yet as the church we need to find ways of truthfully exposing the lie that the state "saves us" through war, and step into the void through focusing on obeying the teachings of Jesus through our loyalty to him as the church. We need to develop a non-neoliberal economic system that seeks to give jobs and a less extreme income distribution than has emerged out of the neoliberal collective that has ravaged the world in war and economic disparities.

Posted by johnwright at 8:51 PM

Yesterday Tony, who is the PLNU Associated Student Body director of Spiritual Development, spoke in chapel at PLNU. He has graciously consented to allow me to post his sermon on my blog. It is very humbling for me; never have I been as wise nor as elegant nor as good reader of the Scriptures as he was. One can hear his presentation by going to the PLNU website through pointloma.edu/chapel.

Fortunately, I still had better glasses once in life than he will ever have. At least I have one thing up on him.

Luke 21:1-15

My name is Tony Wright and I'm a follower of Jesus Christ. That statement is partly acknowledgement of the present reality of God's work in my life, a work entirely as a result of the Cross, but it is also an acknowledgement of the the vast work left to be done. It is a commitment, made before the Christian Community known as the Church, that the Church might hold me accountable to the high calling of the Christian life, as both the Church and I are ever more transformed into God's Likeness.

Pray - Infinite God, there is nothing that we know of you that you have not first shown us. We thank you for revealing yourself to us in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. We ask that your Spirit work in this time today, continuing the revelation of who You are. Be with us, we pray.

I imagine most of you out there have read these verses and heard a sermon or three centered on the Widow's gift at some point or another, but I hope that today you might hear it anew. You see, as I've dwelled in this passage for many of the past months, I've primarily centered my thoughts and prayers around the later verses, 5-15. The Widow's offering is actually a fairly recent addition to my thoughts as I've come to understand the ways in which the Widow's actions are tied inseparably to Jesus' declaration: "These things you see here, there will come a time when not one stone will be left upon another."

And it's this declaration that I've been living in, this knowledge that I've raged against at times, as I've had to say goodbye to many old friends who have graduated or moved away, as life has taken different forms that I've not always been super excited about, and as I've had to face the loss of both my grandfathers in less than a year's time. It's in this context that I'd like you to join me, this knowledge of pain and separation, landing right alongside this Widow, a woman living with a very serious knowledge of loss. Don't let her actions or the concepts be separated from the context; study the passage anew.

As we read about the Widow's offering, we know that as much as the passage is about money, it's not. As we talk about the Widow, the message is not strictly financial. And it's not quite as simple as "Giving all you have to God." Although it is that as well. But it's also something more, even as it contains issues of money.

As we begin to deal with the Widow's gift, we have to acknowledge this: There is no way in which this widow's actions are rational given our knowledge the world.

First, if we wanted to give what we possess, then surely we could give more if we just took those two coins and popped them into an investment portfolio, let em compound for a few years, boom.

Second, we've got a lot of hesitations trusting other people with our money, even (or perhaps especially) the Church. At the end of the day we'd much rather our money go to our own vices than to anyone else's, and we greatly fear supporting some of the failings or inefficiencies of the Church. And that's not an entirely bad thought. Accountability in church finances and church conduct is a good thing. But it cannot become an excuse to cling to our possessions or our time, as though what we have and what we are is anything other than a gift from God, a gift that will be returned to Him in time.

Third, in giving all that the Widow has, she is making herself both entirely useless to, and dependent upon, all those around her. How is she to eat? How is she supposed to support herself, let alone anyone else? Try something with me here. Imagine for a second doing the same. Imagine getting back your tuition money, giving every last cent of it and all that is in your bank account, making yourself homeless and unable to provide for yourself, unable to attend school, no prospects for the future. How would your friends react, your parents, relatives? And how would you feel? Surely as though you had failed them in some way? When we stop to think about it, willingly choosing such a thing as this widow does, this appalls us.

But this is what Jesus has identified as the correct action, the thing that is counter to all of our thoughts and instincts, an action that is in many ways goes against our basic ideas of morality. Frankly, the last thing we want to be thinking when we hear this passage is that maybe, just maybe, the scriptures are entirely serious. When read seriously, they call us to give all we have, an action that both shows our commitment to Loving our Neighbor, and in the same stroke make us entirely dependent upon God and God's people to sustain us.

As I hinted at already, there's nothing about this passage that is easy; the Widow is just the beginning. Jesus continues on, and our temptation on hearing His proclamation concerning the temple and the times to come is to think "Man, Jesus, you're in rare form today" and distance ourselves... But as we read on, we must continue to hear these passages read in truth; we must read them as being against us, in addition to reading them as being for us.

You see, in almost every way, the fact remains that we're those standing around, glorifying the temples we've made. There are these things in which we put our confidence, which we find value in, things which we value ourselves by. Our clothes, our families, our money, our nations, our bodies, even just how much we make people laugh... And this is what Jesus says: "All these things you see here, there will come a time when not one stone is left upon another." When you read this in the context of the things you care about, the people's response makes sense: "When? How long do we have? Can we prevent it?"

Jesus immediately rebukes the question, because, you see, the claim He is making here is not merely a single incident, some kind of isolated Harry-Potter-esque prophecy. This is more. This is a description of the world: there are earthquakes, there are wars, there is hunger and suffering. This is the proclamation, "All the things you see here, there will come a time when not one stone is left upon another," the things of this world will not last. The things we place value in, whether it's physical, social, economic, emotional, these things will not last. Jesus goes on.

He describes what His followers will look like, a stark contrast to the world around them: They will be taken before kings and rulers, they will be persecuted. And all this so that they might testify to Jesus' name, to God's Faithfulness. To some extent we can justify this, agree to the importance or beauty of persecution. I have a friend, Sam, who spent a chunk of the last few years in the West Bank of Palestine. In the West Bank oftentimes as Palestinian children walk to school, they are assaulted by Israeli Settlers. Sam and others like him walk with those children, so that should the children be attacked, he can offer up his own body so that the kids can get away safely. Sam, in return for his commitment to Loving the Neighbor, was barred from re-entering Israel.

You see, the reality of persecution makes sense: if we live faithfully to the Cross, nations and all those things which vie for power, which try to tell us they're the most dominant factors in life, they're not going to be very happy. The powers of the world will always work to convince you that they are what truly matter.

But Jesus goes beyond the reality of suffering and persecution, He describes how we must react: "Make up your minds not to prepare beforehand to defend yourselves; I will give you wisdom which no one will refute." And here's where my primary complaint against the passage comes: If I'm going to be martyred, I'm at least going to make sure I'm saying something profound on the way out, you know? Every great movie has some classic catch phrase. "What we do in life echoes in eternity," "I'll be back," "Get that corn outta my face..." "Freedom!"

That's what I'd want. I'd want people to remember it. I want it to be like hearing the title "Braveheart," where you at the same time involuntarily hear Mel Gibson calling out through your head. I even have various candidates in my head of things I could say(that I inevitably steal from one place in Christianity or another): "Not my will, but Thine." "It is well with my soul." "Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death..." "Thanks be to God!" But here, we see that the importance of this witness is not solely in the act itself, and it's not in the most elaborate, refined theology, but in the faith that drives these acts. Even as we give up our very lives, we give them not as we want, but in faith, trusting the God who was, and is, and is to come.

When we reflect on this passage, the widow and Jesus' descriptions of His followers in the world, we rightly wonder, "how could we ever? How could we ever live that way, be that way?" If there's any hope in this passage, it's not in us. We are those standing about, caught up in the temples of our own making. We are caught in a million forms of Idolatry. At the very best these temples we glorify are our own compartmentalizations of exactly how and when God will work in our lives.

You see, our hope cannot be in ourselves or in our actions, our ability to make things right, to give enough so that there is no longer need. When these are our goals, when our actions stand alone on our incomplete knowledge and wisdom, they are corrupted. The apocalyptic section of our scripture reading can easily be seen as some kind of praise of Civil Disobedience. We're to be contrarian, anger the "powers that be" and push on for some view of Justice based somewhat loosely on the Cross.

But what we truly see in the description of being taken before rulers is not Civil Disobedience, but radical obedience. Think of Sam's actions for the Palestinian children. The body I happily waste away on McNuggets and Corn dogs, Sam willingly gives to the life of the Church. Will one man getting beaten up for a child's sake make a difference? Maybe, maybe not.

As Christians it doesn't matter to us what comes of it, because we know God's will will be done, that victory was established in the Crucifixion and Resurrection. We're not called to change the world, but to be faithful in the time we are given. Radical Obedience to the Cross, not Civil Disobedience, that is our aim.

The poor will always be with us. The widow teaches us that we are not expected to abolish poverty, but simply to obediently give all that we have and all that we are. We give all we have because that is what we've been shown, but our hope doesn't lie in our gifts, in what we do with what we've been given.

Our hope is found in the middle of this passage, in the knowledge that: "All these things you see here, there will come a time when not one stone is left upon another." This is a strange place to find hope. After all, it is this knowledge which says my grandfathers' deaths were appropriate, and that my own death is inevitable.

All things perish. And it is only in light of this knowledge that we can understand our need for God the Father to save us.

We have to be careful with this knowledge that all things fade. We have to be careful because when we hear it, we're tempted in a number of ways. We're tempted to:

Limit it, this thought of : "Yeah, all this is fading, but surely that can't be speaking about my family, or Point Loma, the united states, my retirement account, or any of these things dear to me. They're too good, too important to be temporary."

Or we can be tempted to:

Rejoice vindictively: "my ex-boyfriend, welp, there'll come a time..." Or it can be deeply escapist: "this GPA won't follow me the rest of my life!" This is just avoiding responsibility, "why worry about it, nothing really matters."

The final response, frustration, is at least more honest: "My body won't hold up forever. My money, my home, none of this will last. And those I love, we will be separated." This sucks. I don't want this.

You see, sometimes we're disappointed enough in life that the phrase "there will come a time when not one stone will be left upon another," eases our hearts, perhaps if we just survive a little longer then "this too shall pass." We turn life into a waiting game focused on surviving various miseries when we should be seeing God at work at all times, in all things. Sometimes we're so stoked on life that this phrase seems only to sadden, and so we miss the importance and beauty of life being temporary, our identity as pilgrims in this world.

It seems to me that the temptation to improperly rejoice or weep, this occurs when we take the words out of the context in which they were spoken, the person who spoke them. Because these words come from the mouth of Jesus, it seems to me that when we're most ready to respond in one way, we perhaps ought to respond in the other.

When we're most tempted to rejoice at not having to deal with a difficult person anymore, we ought to be grieving in the face of the knowledge of our shortcomings, of our failure to Love our Neighbor as we have been commanded, as we ourselves have been Loved. We should grieve over our failure to learn from and be Loved by them.

And when we're most tempted to gnash our teeth over the latest in a seemingly never-ending series of losses, it would seem to me as though we should at the very least consider joy. Joy celebrating the fact that death does not have the final word; Christ has risen from the grave. The temporality of the world is inconsequential in the face of the Everlasting God.

You see, the explicit meaning of Jesus' words are "all these things you see, all that you value, depend upon, they will not last." The implicit statement is something more: "There is something that is not like these things, Eternal, Infinitely Good. I am He. Follow me and Live."

How can we hope to live like the widow, like those persecuted by Kings and Rulers, how can we hope to be made new? By facing the reality of our frailty, by coming to understand that we really need a savior, that the Cross really was and is necessary. Our various temples of self-deceit and idolatry must be destroyed.

The reason we're so confused by the Widow and Jesus' apocalyptic description of His disciples, the reason these baffle us is our failure to understand in truth that "All these things we see, there will come a time when not one stone will be left upon another." The only chance we have of living in such a manner, living as a people who give their last two coins, or who boldly go before kings and governors, the only way we can pick up our crosses in truth, this comes in the realization that our hope lies solely in the knowledge of our dependence on God, the God who came in flesh, died and rose again. Friends: we must be made new. Our bones must be transformed, our will conformed, in the humbling knowledge of the Eternal God.

Prayer - Wake us, oh God, from our slumber. Stir us from our obsession with all those things surrounding us which so easily distract. Remind us, Lord, that only You are Eternal, that You are the only good, that our only hope lies in the Life, Death, and Resurrection of Your Son, who reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, forever and ever. Amen.

You are dismissed.

Posted by johnwright at 1:14 PM