Now that I’m a pastor, it’s been very interesting to hear how the folks I serve talk and think about church and politics. “Politics” names something that happens in government offices (yes, Washington D.C.). Every once in a while I’ll try to make some mention in my sermons of the church as political, and how the local activities of the church are also very important and political.

Andy, thanks again and I’d enjoy dialogue.

Isaac, this post is belated, but if you see it, we should be in contact I think.

peace
Andy Alexis-Baker

So, as David appropriately presses, what does all this mean for the church? That’s a great question. If you talk to those among the camp of Radical Democracy (like Rom Coles), the church may serve as part of the movements of fugitive democracy. He would point to the Industrial Areas Foundation (check out this book) and the local affiliate Durham CAN and how chuches play an vital part in democratic organizing. And, if radical democrats like Coles and others think about the church as important to fugitive democracy, and if Stanley Hauerwas can think of himself as among the ranks of “radical democracy” (see this Cross Currents essay), then I have a hard time figuring out how this might be a “subtle draw towards Theocracy”, as you put it. I’m not seeing the connection just yet. Maybe you can say a little bit more, though.

I think the reason why Wolin may help the church is because he gives us a way to think about “democracy” and politics that doesn’t have to play the political game of the powerful, of the elites, of the aristocracy. And I think it’s a decidedly Christian move to look toward those spaces outside the established lines of political power. That’s what I pick up on in Hebrews: we are called outside the camp, outside the city (Heb 13:13f). Attempts at erecting “lasting cities” or quests for political permanence on earth not only work against the call of Hebrews 11, but those concerns to sustain counties or nations or states distract us from our Christians calling to care for the neighbor, the stranger, the foreigner, the prisoner, the needy. Sure, those concerns may lead us into national debates, but what Wolin helps Christians see is that democracy starts in the local, in the neighborhoods, in those corners of the cities that we don’t want to drive through (let alone walk through), among the cheap laborers sustaining our common life. So, all that to say, I think Wolin gives the church a way to be political, to even care about “democracy,” that doesn’t buy into the logic of Empire or Superpower or political elitism (rule by the rich and powerful).

All that is true and good for the church, I think. But I think the contemplative tradition of Christianity calls us even a bit further. And that’s what Rowan Williams helps us see. Here’s the last paragraph of my post again: “When Rowan William’s contemplative Christianity is read with Sheldon Wolin’s fugitive democracy, the church may come to see political activity in the vein of radical democratic movements as sites where God’s hope arrives—but the question for the church is, will you be there to welcome it? Since ‘the welcoming reality of God breaks through the network of human transactions’ (Christ on Trial, 137), as Williams writes, then the church may learn that Wolin’s contemplative vision of the local is the network of human transactions where the depths of God flow forth.” Contemplative Christianity is a call to be present to the present and there discover a creation that is sustained by the love of God. And Wolin’s politial gaze at the local echoes Williams call to experience the present network of human transactions as the site where God’s depths are discovered. This is a vision of a decidedly Christian political engagement that ventures outside the establishmentarian avenues of power to see Jesus: “let us go to him ouside the camp,” outside the complex structures of legitimate configurations of political power (Heb 13:13-14). But this way of seeing is in the mode of a contemplative gaze that is learned through the liturgy of the church, the place where we learn the story of the Father, revealed in Jesus, as we abide in the Spirit. We learn how to see and participate (or experience, to use Wolin’s terms) in Wolin’s fugitive democracy through our formation in Christ’s body.

As to David’s question about how Sheldon Wolin’s description of political power relates to the way we think about “religious power control within the church,” I’m not sure what to say. Radical democracy makes sense to me because I’m a Mennonite and it seems to me that Wolin’s vision of the political echoes how we practice church—especially our commitment to listen to others, especially the enemy, and our way of decision-making that locates authority in consensus. I don’t know what Wolin’s description of political power would mesh with how other churches conceive of political power.

Mel, thanks for bringing all this Wolin stuff down to everyday concerns, and specifically calling our attention to the margins and marginalized, those who so easily fall off the political radar screen. I share some of your same concerns. I’ve spent the past year working with the developmentally disabled and mentally ‘handicapped’ in a state facility. So, I have faces and bodies to attach to your concerns. But like I said to David, I have some stuff that will be taking up all my thoughts and time till thursday. But I will be sure to think through some of these issues after that.

blessings

I am aware that I am the only person posting who isn’t in grad school. And, as you can imagine, the people who are most present to me as I read this are those with disabilities in the l’Arche community where I now live. This year we received new Medicare plans which means all the core members have co-pays for the many, many meds they take. We advocacted against this, wrote letters, sent money to organizations who lobbied this issue. We still lost. It’s still too early to know the ramifications this will have on the folks.

My question, what does Wolin bring them? And you? Contemplation? Perhaps you will say the very witness of l’Arche communities acts in Williams/Wolin’s vein. After all, l’Arche is meant to be a “sign of hope in the world.” Our lives are disarmingly simple, seeping and infecting in the best way. There’s nothing particularly fugitive about it, however. Our common life looks a bit more like formation through practices. Yet, I can imagine some imagined similarities from the outside.

But still, we are completely dependent on hospitals, medical companies, state certification, federal grants and legislative measures if we are, quite literally, going to keep the disabled alive. These are ties that cannot be severed. thoughts?

To begin, Isaac I apologize for the parenthesis around Unrecognized Superpower Postulants…understandably you did not say those exact words in your text. I was merely highlighting your perceived references to Wolin’s “imperial citizens.” The Unrecognized Superpower Postulants was a term meant to further that mindset in which the postmodern individual does not worry about “what his/her representatives are paid to do” and that he/she is not conscious of the harm this mindset unfortunately bestows.

Perhaps I may sound a little too Rahnerian here with all the hoopla on conscious and unconscious. My intent was to try to understand if the Superpower you explained so eloquently was doing this because 1.) They are caught up in a certain contingent democratic process, unconscious as to the ramifications of the “no-limits” mindset and its inevitable “exploitation” or 2.) Understand exactly what they are doing with their drive for unlimited innovation and hence their power and control. Perhaps the above is too simplified. However, with that being said, if it is an unconscious Superpower could one simply whip out Wolin’s argument to change minds in the Superpower structure itself, or is it ultimately worthless to preach to the Superpower and instead familiarize the Church with its own political understanding? It seems to me that the latter happens regardless, but what about the former? Does Wolin (and you) believe that such a fugitive democratic vision can take place in our society at large and not with just a few political bodies?

I guess the way you ultimately answer that question might affect what I see as a possible Wolin Democracy / Hauerwasian Theocracy (from what I understand SH favors, Theocracy), especially if one in fact finds themselves in a political reality called a Church. If those in the Superpower consciously control power, want to exert it, and find no problems with an unchecked capitalism or bureaucracy, does the Church itself then become this fugitive democracy “outside the established routes of power?” If they do, would it might not lead to a subtle or not so subtle draw towards Theocracy? Finally, if the contemplative Church is simply one of many political bodies (any suggestions on whom these “others” may be?) coming together behind the Wolin’s “power route”, could this not also lead by change to a religious power control within the Church?

In other words, I was wondering your take on where exactly the Church fits into Wolin’s political theory? Although I agree with much of what Wolin may be saying, I am having a hard time finding the real life consequences for the Church. Any thoughts for this non-Wolin scholar?

I think Jason’s comments are a great place to start: Who are the elites? And, What’s this Superpower? For Wolin, the elites are those who are invested in the project of the state. They are the ones who’ve got some power, some share of the soveriegnty, and must work to sustain the systems of the government to keep their power, or to keep their vision of the common good at the front of the national agenda. So, in his important essay on Athenian democracy, Wolin shows how Aristotle and Plato are driven to theorize for the sake of making permanent what they discern to be the goods of society (see “Norm and Form” in Athenian Political Thought and the Reconstruction of American Democracy). I think the point about the antagonism between democracy and systems of government Wolin makes is a pretty simple one. It’s like this: Every once in a while we experience something so good that we want make sure it happens the same way over and again. So, there are these democratic experiences throughout history that emerge and capture everyone’s imagination—people living under the control of soveriegnties are set free and feel their freedom and power. But then there is a secondary move, a consolidation project—the state project. The folks with the best skills in persuasion, or the most money, or the few with the most guns, get everyone’s attention and claim to know how to make sure everything will keep on going the same direction. And that secondary move begins the abstraction of power, the dislocation of ‘the political’ from the ordinary lives of the citizens to the power-brokers, the representatives, the select few chosen to walk the hallowed halls of centralized power.

Now, how does this thing called Superpower fit into the picture? (David, I hope this gets at some of your questions about “Superpower”). Well, Wolin develops this concept to articulate the apparant tendencies of postmodern power. Where the Modern state birthed big government with lots of bureaucracy that facilitated the abstraction of power from the everyday, the power in the postmodern age seeks ‘lighter’ or ‘leaner’ modes of dominion or control. As Wolin puts it, “Government bureaucracies are encouraged to become ‘leaner,’ to delegate more authority to sub-units, to ‘privatize’ their services and functions, and to govern as much as possible by executive orders rather than by the time-honored but time-consuming and unpredictable legislative process” (Politics and Vision, p. xviii). In Wolin’s account, this postmodern state-form takes on a lighter and leaner apparatus to state-form in order to transgress limits, to reach beyond national boundaries and take hold of global powers. And the complex network of private corporations and government programs (including the military, of course) that constantly find new territory to invade, new markets to exploit, new resources to mine—this is the Superpower. The Superpower is, Wolin writes, “an expansive system of power that accepts no limits other than those it chooses to impose on itself”. In another place, he writes, “It is a furious drive for the innovations that promise greater rewards and expanded opportunities for exploitation. That drive is remarkable for its ability to keep extending the limits of the possible: the idea of limits becomes an incitement, new ‘challenges.’ Its state-form, Superpower, incorporates technological innovations and increasing productivity so that it strains at limits as it projects power throughout the world in pursuit of elusive terrorists, new markets, and new sources of energy” (Politics and Vision, p. 595).

David and Jason, let me know if all that got at some of your questions and concerns about Superpower and democratic movement. As far as Jason and David’s concerns about contemplative politics, I think Eric Lee said what I tried to say better than I did. Does his comment make things clearer? David, could you say a little more about your worry about this thing you call “a Hauerwasian radical theocracy” and how a contemplative christianity that digs into the local figures into that? Also, I’m not sure what you mean by “Unrecognized Superpower Postulants” at the beginning of your comment. I think you are quoting me, but I couldn’t find those words in my post.

Wow—really, really cool essay. Really thought-provoking as well as masterfully written, if I say so myself. I think I am perhaps as fascinated by the juxtaposition of Wolin and Williams as Jason is. Let’s see, he said:

I’m still trying to wrap my head around the link between contemplation and fugitive democracy. Is it that in being present to ourselves, God, and the world we will be enabled to noticed “deeply felt grievances and needs”?

If I may wager a guess at clarifying this link, I would say that contemplation, in “being present to ourselves, God, and the world,” is the radical embodiment of a commitment to the local. It’s this locality that meshes so well with the contemplative aspect, which in itself is a radical thing in the way in which it is talked about, because at least when I think about contemplation, I think about meditating on other- worldly things to put myself at ease, as opposed to this -worldly things—the local.

Isaac wrote, And in this commitment to the local, to the depth all around us, a fugitive democrat hopes to discover many already gathered in “response to deeply felt grievances or needs on the part of those whose main preoccupation…is to scratch out a decent existence.”

Although it’s not mentioned, this is a far cry from contemplating the abstractions that take place at the ‘national’ level. Because abstraction on this level only takes place, there is no depth, no well of locality from which to draw. Depth is found within one’s own story and the particular stories of those around us.

I dunno, maybe I was just repeating what Isaac already wrote. Thoughts?

Peace,

Eric

1. The political world of the elite (i.e. Superpower) – Would you perceive it as more an unconscious political and democratic movement, or a conscious move on the part of whomever the Superpower makes up (specifically in United States)? Is it a demanding of Wolin’s so-called “imperial citizenship” as much as it is a democratic narrative whose past and present insufficiencies are unfortunately glossed over because a new polis – a Church- has not stepped up to become the countertype Church? Has it (i.e. the Church), in effect, failed in to educate both unrecognized Superpower elites as well as a definitive Christian cohort – some of whose members still relish comfortably in the shopping malls and multiple Starbucks?

Furthermore, taking Wolin’s fugitive democracy coupled with William’s contemplative Christianity is insightful, but seems to me vastly incomplete. I will concede that it is a novel beginning to form a revolutionized mindset, but the practicality issues would undoubtedly need to be revisited (What does such a discordant democracy ultimately lead to for Christians? A Hauerwasian “Radical Theocracy?” – Would this Thearchy ultimately turn into another form of Unrecognized Thearchic Superpower?) Interested in seeing your reply, particularly if Wolin had any other insights on the matter.