Sunday, October 04, 2020
The Apocalyptic Trauma of Salvation Disembodied
"If the incarnation is the intersection of dirt and divinity, mortality and immortality, the divine life filling human existence, how did salvation get reduced to an immaterial, cognitive reality?" - Michael Gonzalez
His question was intended to invite reflection and discussion, which is wonderful. This is something I've thought about a lot, because "the intersection of dirt and divinity, mortality and immortality" is a reference to the creation story, where God's "breath" makes alive the "dirt" from which Adam is formed. If this is who we are, then why is our predominant image of salvation so much different? Whether I knew this was the question I was asking or not, I've sensed "in my bones" for over 20 years that something is "off." That set me on a quest, of sorts. I've become convinced that trauma is part of our answer to Michael's question.
A friend Joshua Brockway, half in jest, answered Michael's question with Descartes (self-consciously over-simplifying). I used to be super mad at Descartes...until I realized he was participating in collective trauma.
Speaking of our view of salvation, another friend named MariJean said the other day:
"I wanna figure out the collective trauma of evangelicalism because they are collectively horrible at empathy, with a few exceptions. I think that fundamental trauma is rooted in the doctrine of depravity."
Historically, total depravity (which colors our view of salvation) was articulated in the first place with the birth of our colonialism - and with it the beginnings of White Supremacy. Willie Jennings traces how, historically speaking, the very identity of "White" began to be formed in our imagination in the first place as imperial European colonialists encountered those of darker skin tones on faraway continents, with the intention of conquering and exploiting them. This became a collective baptism in a new, global bloodshed. Thus, total depravity was constructed with collective trauma ALREADY in the political and cultural background of the discourse in which said total depravity was articulated. As my friend Matt Tebbe says: "We don't just think our way into new ways of living. We live our way into new ways of thinking."
So, if I consider our way of life that disjoins divinity and dirt and our thinking from our embodied practices, if I consider our way of life that is symbolized in practices of said reduction of salvation to immaterial, cognitive reality - practices such as the Billy Graham-esque altar call or of the Catholic catechism into a way of life ordered to the salvation of the soul whose end is up in heaven - I can't just blame Descartes' thinking.
When we're talking about ergo cogito sum and totalizing theological systems that encompass everything with a view from and within the mind (supposedly), it could be said that what we're talking about is dissociation. Neurologically speaking, dissociation is a response to trauma, leading to compulsive responses that grope towards life or survival - loosely, then, toward "salvation" - that render a healthy relationship with our body basically impossible without, first, at least, dealing with the trauma.
Someone in Michael's thread mentioned Slaveholder Theology as a root cause of why "salvation get[s] reduced to an immaterial, cognitive reality." After all, slave masters implicitly perpetuated the story that, because all authority is from God, rebellion against said authority is a far greater danger to the slave than the White Supremacy to which he or she was bound. That's not just people thinking. It's actual trauma. And, it was neither the point of nor the reason why Paul told slaves to obey their masters and show them honor, no matter how they were treated.
Before Slaveholder Theology was the Reformation - when the previously referenced total depravity, as we generally understand it, was articulated. That was set in a larger, totalizing system of thought that encompassed everything. That's also not just someone thinking. That's the traumatic displacement from place and the violence against black flesh that Willie Jennings talks about that resulted from the colonialism that was the context of the Reformation. This colonial trauma was also in the middle of the traumatic breaking apart of the body of an empire through a series of massive religious wars. These together are precisely the collective trauma in which Descartes was participating, which was his context. Hell - Descartes is most famous for questioning what's real in the first place! Boom - trauma.
Willie Jennings narrates the colonial trauma upon Africa and her peoples as an unearthly "displacement" in which we come to practice the "thinking of peoples together with regard to race." This description of how race was articulated as a category in the first place, which I will expound on a bit more below, sounds strikingly similar to my previous description of our now predominant and taken-for-granted ways of thinking that train us into orienting ourselves in relation to totalizing theological systems. This displaced practice of identifying with our speculative view of all things from atop our Babylonian Tower on offer to us by our cognition is itself dissociation from the incarnate "intersection of dirt and divinity." Jennings also describes this as the "uncoupling of identities from specific places" and as being "pulled into a boundary-less reality."
And that "displacement" was on top of - both figuratively and historically - generations of traumatic bloodshed prior to any and all of that. And, I realize that in Slaveholder Theology, and in the Reformation theology born in the context of colonialism's traumatic displacement, those who came to designate themselves "white" weren't the ones bearing the traumatic events.
But no one witnesses or perpetuates violent trauma upon another without themselves being dehumanized. And, that's what trauma does. It makes us into different humans, a different humanity. Those inflicting trauma are dehumanized by it, as well. In some of the SAME WAYS as the one traumatized.
The laughter and mocking of Jesus occurs at the site of the same dissociation of the one traumatized. No human sees someone tortured and murdered and isn't moved to compassion and even action. To quote William Blake, we become what we behold. So, to see Jesus and to laugh and mock is to have become inhuman. The human one, the Son of Man, is the litmus test of our humanity.
This means that it's also difficult for the one inflicting the trauma to come to terms with it, just as it is for the one traumatized. No less difficult, even? Just as miraculous, for sure. To answer my friend MariJean's question, Jesus is who shows us why we are bad at empathy.
I think this is why "surely this was the son of God" is juxtaposed with the laughter and mockery and casting of lots. It's a moment of humanity, a revelation of the identity of the human one. It's the wondrous awe of humanity revealed in and by the Son of Man.
And, that's precisely what Michael's question is about - the disordering of the imago dei. Salvation in Jesus isn't a cognitive, immaterial reality but, rather, the glory of a human fully alive - to reference both another recent conversation on Michael's page and a famous quote from Irenaeus, who is a hero of a dear Catholic friend of mine. BECAUSE Jesus is the litmus test for our humanity (well, and because he is Life; i.e., because he is alive), his body is our salvation.
Notice how well Willie Jennings' narration of our trauma also describes what's happening in Pablo Picasso's 1930 painting "Crucifixion," above. Jennings speaks "thinking of peoples together with regard to race," "uncoupling of identities from specific places," "pulled into a boundary-less reality" as formative practices towards an identity he names "Whiteness." Jennings here teaches me the deeply profound lesson that our racial dis-ease is connected to and deeply resonates with the lessons in our "displacement" taught to me previously but in different ways by the modern architecture of Le Corbusier and by the writings on technology by the Catholic professor and public figure Marshall McLuhan. Jennings' telling the story of our displacement thus resonates with me deeply.
Picasso's paintings image the same displaced scene of our humanity from multiple angles at the same time. As we uncouple from our actuality - and that of Jesus - and identify with Picasso's re-presentation of Christ's crucifixion, we are "uncoupling our identity from the specific place" of Palestine, and we are "pulled into a boundary-less reality."
We can recognize glimpses of Christ's clothes being displaced from his body as his worth is traumatically enfolded into the value generated by the casting of lots (hello late consumer Capitalism). We see a soldier piercing his side. We see blood and sky and vegetation and cross. And, all the while, blood and sky and flesh and vegetation and dirt and divinity are not interwoven with one another, as in the actual pierced body of Christ. Rather, from our position of identification with our dissociative traumatic memory, where we float as ghosts above the earth, we are lost inside an empty unknowing whether what we become and behold is greenery or cloud, sky or earth, a body or a thought.
The interpretive key to understanding why we think of salvation as an immaterial, cognitive reality is not to be found in our thinking, nor in its history - especially not primarily or singularly. The interpretive key to seeing our humanity and our inhumanity, our brutality and our compassion, our depravity and our flourishing - in short, our our salvation and our death - is the traumatized body of Jesus Christ.
A friend Joshua Brockway, half in jest, answered Michael's question with Descartes (self-consciously over-simplifying). I used to be super mad at Descartes...until I realized he was participating in collective trauma.
Speaking of our view of salvation, another friend named MariJean said the other day:
"I wanna figure out the collective trauma of evangelicalism because they are collectively horrible at empathy, with a few exceptions. I think that fundamental trauma is rooted in the doctrine of depravity."
Historically, total depravity (which colors our view of salvation) was articulated in the first place with the birth of our colonialism - and with it the beginnings of White Supremacy. Willie Jennings traces how, historically speaking, the very identity of "White" began to be formed in our imagination in the first place as imperial European colonialists encountered those of darker skin tones on faraway continents, with the intention of conquering and exploiting them. This became a collective baptism in a new, global bloodshed. Thus, total depravity was constructed with collective trauma ALREADY in the political and cultural background of the discourse in which said total depravity was articulated. As my friend Matt Tebbe says: "We don't just think our way into new ways of living. We live our way into new ways of thinking."
So, if I consider our way of life that disjoins divinity and dirt and our thinking from our embodied practices, if I consider our way of life that is symbolized in practices of said reduction of salvation to immaterial, cognitive reality - practices such as the Billy Graham-esque altar call or of the Catholic catechism into a way of life ordered to the salvation of the soul whose end is up in heaven - I can't just blame Descartes' thinking.
When we're talking about ergo cogito sum and totalizing theological systems that encompass everything with a view from and within the mind (supposedly), it could be said that what we're talking about is dissociation. Neurologically speaking, dissociation is a response to trauma, leading to compulsive responses that grope towards life or survival - loosely, then, toward "salvation" - that render a healthy relationship with our body basically impossible without, first, at least, dealing with the trauma.
Someone in Michael's thread mentioned Slaveholder Theology as a root cause of why "salvation get[s] reduced to an immaterial, cognitive reality." After all, slave masters implicitly perpetuated the story that, because all authority is from God, rebellion against said authority is a far greater danger to the slave than the White Supremacy to which he or she was bound. That's not just people thinking. It's actual trauma. And, it was neither the point of nor the reason why Paul told slaves to obey their masters and show them honor, no matter how they were treated.
Before Slaveholder Theology was the Reformation - when the previously referenced total depravity, as we generally understand it, was articulated. That was set in a larger, totalizing system of thought that encompassed everything. That's also not just someone thinking. That's the traumatic displacement from place and the violence against black flesh that Willie Jennings talks about that resulted from the colonialism that was the context of the Reformation. This colonial trauma was also in the middle of the traumatic breaking apart of the body of an empire through a series of massive religious wars. These together are precisely the collective trauma in which Descartes was participating, which was his context. Hell - Descartes is most famous for questioning what's real in the first place! Boom - trauma.
Willie Jennings narrates the colonial trauma upon Africa and her peoples as an unearthly "displacement" in which we come to practice the "thinking of peoples together with regard to race." This description of how race was articulated as a category in the first place, which I will expound on a bit more below, sounds strikingly similar to my previous description of our now predominant and taken-for-granted ways of thinking that train us into orienting ourselves in relation to totalizing theological systems. This displaced practice of identifying with our speculative view of all things from atop our Babylonian Tower on offer to us by our cognition is itself dissociation from the incarnate "intersection of dirt and divinity." Jennings also describes this as the "uncoupling of identities from specific places" and as being "pulled into a boundary-less reality."
And that "displacement" was on top of - both figuratively and historically - generations of traumatic bloodshed prior to any and all of that. And, I realize that in Slaveholder Theology, and in the Reformation theology born in the context of colonialism's traumatic displacement, those who came to designate themselves "white" weren't the ones bearing the traumatic events.
But no one witnesses or perpetuates violent trauma upon another without themselves being dehumanized. And, that's what trauma does. It makes us into different humans, a different humanity. Those inflicting trauma are dehumanized by it, as well. In some of the SAME WAYS as the one traumatized.
The laughter and mocking of Jesus occurs at the site of the same dissociation of the one traumatized. No human sees someone tortured and murdered and isn't moved to compassion and even action. To quote William Blake, we become what we behold. So, to see Jesus and to laugh and mock is to have become inhuman. The human one, the Son of Man, is the litmus test of our humanity.
This means that it's also difficult for the one inflicting the trauma to come to terms with it, just as it is for the one traumatized. No less difficult, even? Just as miraculous, for sure. To answer my friend MariJean's question, Jesus is who shows us why we are bad at empathy.
I think this is why "surely this was the son of God" is juxtaposed with the laughter and mockery and casting of lots. It's a moment of humanity, a revelation of the identity of the human one. It's the wondrous awe of humanity revealed in and by the Son of Man.
And, that's precisely what Michael's question is about - the disordering of the imago dei. Salvation in Jesus isn't a cognitive, immaterial reality but, rather, the glory of a human fully alive - to reference both another recent conversation on Michael's page and a famous quote from Irenaeus, who is a hero of a dear Catholic friend of mine. BECAUSE Jesus is the litmus test for our humanity (well, and because he is Life; i.e., because he is alive), his body is our salvation.
Notice how well Willie Jennings' narration of our trauma also describes what's happening in Pablo Picasso's 1930 painting "Crucifixion," above. Jennings speaks "thinking of peoples together with regard to race," "uncoupling of identities from specific places," "pulled into a boundary-less reality" as formative practices towards an identity he names "Whiteness." Jennings here teaches me the deeply profound lesson that our racial dis-ease is connected to and deeply resonates with the lessons in our "displacement" taught to me previously but in different ways by the modern architecture of Le Corbusier and by the writings on technology by the Catholic professor and public figure Marshall McLuhan. Jennings' telling the story of our displacement thus resonates with me deeply.
Picasso's paintings image the same displaced scene of our humanity from multiple angles at the same time. As we uncouple from our actuality - and that of Jesus - and identify with Picasso's re-presentation of Christ's crucifixion, we are "uncoupling our identity from the specific place" of Palestine, and we are "pulled into a boundary-less reality."
We can recognize glimpses of Christ's clothes being displaced from his body as his worth is traumatically enfolded into the value generated by the casting of lots (hello late consumer Capitalism). We see a soldier piercing his side. We see blood and sky and vegetation and cross. And, all the while, blood and sky and flesh and vegetation and dirt and divinity are not interwoven with one another, as in the actual pierced body of Christ. Rather, from our position of identification with our dissociative traumatic memory, where we float as ghosts above the earth, we are lost inside an empty unknowing whether what we become and behold is greenery or cloud, sky or earth, a body or a thought.
The interpretive key to understanding why we think of salvation as an immaterial, cognitive reality is not to be found in our thinking, nor in its history - especially not primarily or singularly. The interpretive key to seeing our humanity and our inhumanity, our brutality and our compassion, our depravity and our flourishing - in short, our our salvation and our death - is the traumatized body of Jesus Christ.
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