McClintock-Fulkerson: P215
Let the Stones Cry Out
IVAW and the Question of Secular Prophetic Action
Originally written for Par 215, Professor McClintock-Fulkerson, 12/10/2010
Historically, Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW) has had a relative minority of devout religious members, and conversations of a religious nature rarely occur between members within the context of the organization itself. However, members of all backgrounds are deeply infused with moral language and posture, having become disenfranchised with the supposedly moral vision of a free and democratic Iraq (and, increasingly, Afghanistan). Many members also abhor the overt religiosity of national leaders and other apologists for the Iraq war, likely a primary reason for the organization's inadvertent reluctance to engage with religious groups (many of which actually have shared their opposition to the war from the outset). If an organization has no official ties to religious communities, and the great wealth of prophetic ministries originating therein, is it possible for such an organization to conduct themselves in a prophetic manner? It is indeed possible for secular communities to engage in activities that are fundamentally prophetic in character, for the prophetic is not the exclusive prerogative of the religious realm.
In this paper, I begin with the descriptive task of constructing a definition of prophetic activity based upon conversations in class and readings conducted over the semester. Immediately following, I will describe IVAW in more detail and focus on one campaign in particular that I think reveals particularly poignant prophetic potential, known as Operation First Casualty (OFC). I hope to show that prophetic activity is a task that a secular agent may undertake as readily as one that is religious. To do so, I will rely upon the work of three theologians concerned with the subject at hand, analyzing their work relevant to prophetic ministry with OFC in mind. Each section will include a word of hope, articulating positive contributions their theology might have for actions like OFC, followed by a word of caution, exploring limitations a secular agent might face in confronting explicitly theological foundations for prophetic actions. I will begin my analysis by extrapolating from Walter Wink's imagery of angels (from his introduction to The Powers That Be, based on Revelation) the proposal that secular organizations may rely upon the "American spirit" and values to confront the American people no differently than Judeo-Christian prophets relied upon the Spirit of God to confront the people of God. However, taking seriously Wink's language of "angels" and spirits insists upon confronting the spirit of distrust within IVAW internally as well as toward religious organizations. Moving forward from an analysis of the 'spirit' of an institution draws us into an exploration of Walter Brueggeman's contrast between "royal" and "alternative" consciousness and the twin prophetic task of criticizing and energizing. Here I will begin to focus on the general activity and orientation of IVAW in light of the "patriot" and "radical" factions within IVAW and consider whether their mission and goals reflect both a critical and hopeful element. The last theological insight I will introduce will be Richard Hays' description of Jesus' entrance into Jerusalem and the Temple cleansing in Mark as street theater, using his language of "prophetic symbolism." OFC will be dissected specifically in this context, comparing the forceful and disturbing tactics used in such an activity with the equally forceful and disturbing imagery of whips and table-turning. My thesis will be reiterated and supported in a conclusion that will wrestle with the implications of challenging an exclusive religious claim to the prophetic office. In doing so, I hope my exploration how a Christian understanding of prophetic activity might prove applicable (or at least palatable) to an explicitly secular realm will prove a word of caution and hope for both the secular and religious moral community.
I. Prophetic Ministry
At the beginning of the semester, our class described our individual definitions of "prophetic ministry." My definition was stated as:
Actions, relationships, worship, or advocacy that breaks forth God's good design into a fallen and corrupt world. Such activity reflects critically on history to orient the world away from its otherwise inevitable path. Far from predicting the future, ministries of prophetic nature name the world as it might be if God's people fail to embody God's grace. Therefore, prophecy is a vocation of caution and hope (but mostly hope).
At the midpoint of our term, my understanding had changed very little, adding words like "justice," "power," and "authority." Furthermore, I elaborated that the prophetic concerns "actions of a tangible character that have concrete implications for our spiritual well-being." With the exception of my use of the word "God," in the above definition, I maintain that secular activities may indeed be fundamentally prophetic, since I spoke in class of the task of the prophet to reveal inequity, disparity, and injustice through proclamation, deed, and sometimes irony. Though I did not state it emphatically enough, central to my definition is the importance of moderating critical reflection with reassurance and hope. Caution without hope is the realm of cynics, and hope without caution is the realm of fools. The prophet is neither a cynic nor a fool, but a person with the clarity and courage to speak truth to power.
II. Iraq Veterans Against the War
IVAW has been doing just that since its conception in July 2004, when nine Iraq War veterans met at the Veterans for Peace[1] annual conference in Boston, MA. IVAW is a member driven anti-war organization made up exclusively of veterans and active service members, which is a primary source of its authority on the national political scene.[2] To be a member, one must provide verification of service in one of the five branches of the Department of Defense (Air Force, Army, Coast Guard, Marines, or Navy) since September 11th, 2001. Members all agree to the three points of unity that identify the mission and goals of IVAW:
- Immediate withdrawal of all occupying forces in Iraq
- Reparations for the human and structural damages suffered in Iraq so that the peoples there might regain their right to self-determination
- Full benefits, adequate healthcare (including mental health), and other supports for returning servicemen and women.
The fact that every single member has served in the very conflict to which they have come to oppose heightens the credibility of the organization in the eyes of the watching public. IVAW's social features are difficult to define, but some include a much-needed network of peers in which disenchanted veterans can confide and organized advocacy work on behalf of a minority demographic. While IVAW does not understand its work as prophetic in nature, I hope to explain how an agent or agency might conduct a type of work that is nonetheless prophetic.
A central tenet of the military consciousness is the expectation of obedience; it is conditioned immediately upon enlistment in rituals of conformity performed in basic combat training, like marching in formation and calling cadence in unison. When veterans, with the benefit of verified service, begin to think independently and call into question wars that popular sentiment deems good and just, their voices are not easily dismissed. By calling forth an alternative to unjust systems of oppression, in which individuals are denied their individuality and agency, IVAW embodies the prophetic office. Furthermore, by imaginatively engaging in consciousness-raising actions that invite others into an alternative to the system of domination that makes up the military, IVAW stands shoulder to shoulder with other contemporary prophetic movements in challenging the United States to more genuinely embody its own constitutive principles of freedom and democracy. One way in particular that IVAW does this is by street theater such as Operation First Casualty.
III. Operation First Casualty
An ancient Greek proverb insists, "In war, truth is the first casualty."[3] It is this knowledge, that "all warfare is based on deception,"[4] upon which OFC is based. Truth becomes the first casualty of war when people at home are shielded by the harsh reality that war forces some societies to confront (while others, like our own, go on about their lives obliviously). Carried out throughout 2007 in cities such as Washington, D.C., New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago, and Denver, the purpose of the OFC campaign[5] was "to wake people up to the reality of occupation in Iraq" by bringing the war home in tangible and apparent ways that make it impossible for Americans to dismiss what is being done in their name and with their tax dollars. Up to an hour before an event was to begin, civilian volunteers would situate themselves in a busy area, such as an outdoor mall or a busy street corner. At a pre-ordained time, a squad of uniformed IVAW members would encounter the civilian volunteers and the street theater would begin.
There were several scripts to which performers (both members and volunteers) would adhere, such as the reenactment of peaceful civilian protest or of the unit "making contact" (military jargon for taking enemy fire) in the midst of Iraqi civilians.[6] Volunteers in street clothes and white tee shirts represented civilians in the street performance, and as the performance began, it was easy for unassuming bystanders nearby to mistake them for non-performers. Performing IVAW members, dressed in full battle ensemble, would remain in character throughout the engagement, simulating real combat situations. Screaming orders, calling for medics, and using excessive force was commonplace, and volunteer performers were pre-screened for their ability and willingness to endure physical restraint similar to what one finds in the combat zone. Flex cuffs were used, volunteers were "hog-tied", and their pleas for help and cries of pain were easily mistaken for the real thing. This was not your everyday street theater. This was the angel of combat being brought home, the spirit of war hovering over the seemingly calm waters of the American homeland.
IV. Angels & Demons
Walter Wink, in his assessment of powers and principalities, "assumes that spirituality is at the heart of everything."[7] At the heart of America, then, one finds a spirit, a core essence that constitutes the corporate 'soul' of our nation. It is not merely the Constitution, and not merely those in power, but everything that makes up our country; from the institutions and people, to our myths and guiding principles. America as such is not reducible to either evil or good; it can be either/and. "Evil," Wink declares, "is not intrinsic, but the result of idolatry."[8] All creatures (organic and institutional) are finitely good and are therefore capable of being corrupted. Christian theology has said as much about the human condition without speaking to the institutional condition. This is what sets Wink apart; he states that The Powers (which is a web of both people and organizations) themselves are good, fallen, and must be redeemed.[9] This speaks a reassuring word for those who lean patriot, believing that America can be (or is) a blessing to the world.
There are "patriots" in IVAW who believe subscribe to this paradigm, that our constitutive principles reflect a realistic attempt to govern justly and democratically, but that such ideals have been overtaken by some form of evil (corporate profiteering, political power-grasping, plain human arrogance, etc.). Self-described "radicals" in IVAW insist that America is beyond reproach, that her angel has become demonic, a term Wink describes as the state in which corporations or governments refuse to serve the general welfare and have turned their back to their own divine vocation.[10] However, each camp would agree that America has lost its way, that what we ought to be is no longer what we are. America's 'angel,' to recycle language Wink borrows from Revelation, has become corrupt by our love of money, our worship of security and/or our crusade against terrorism. As an explicitly pluralistic society, we are, on paper, a secular culture. Similarly, IVAW makes no overture toward religion in any formal way.
To be clear, nothing in IVAW's by-laws or other official documents anywhere decries religion. However, the experience of several devoutly religious individuals suggests that the organization is not skilled in creating space affirming particular religious values that some of their members embody. The practice of affectionately nicknaming such members as "Saint so-and-so" or "Archangel such-and-such," and relying on trademarks of conservative religion, like asking if they have had sex or drink alcohol, reveal a measure of religious naiveté. Such oversight might be a character of the 'spirit' or angel of IVAW, of distrust in the overtly religious realm. Such distrust is certainly understandable, considering the paternalistic religiosity present in American discourse, but it nonetheless creates an obstacle to prophetic interaction with the Powers That Be by estranging themselves from the kindred spirit they may otherwise share with progressive and politically engaged religious groups.
Compounding this tragic reality is the fact that historically, progressive movements like abolitionism, women's suffrage, and civil rights have all had a strong element of religion in support of the cause. "Movement churches" were an integral part of the civil rights movement[11] led by the Baptist minister Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., for example. By inadvertently placing a wedge between faith communities and the secular anti-war movement, IVAW (as well as its allies) has isolated itself from a rich history from which to draw memories and inspire hope, which make up the foundation of the prophetic task as described by Walter Brueggemann, who we will turn to next.
V. Conscientious Consciousness
Like Wink, Brueggemann is right to assert that necessary to any prophetic movement is the reclamation of memory, because too often the dominant narrative has been usurped for imperial purposes. Any prophetic agent (individual or corporate) is most effective when it can salvage images and values ripe in the collective conscious. For the biblical prophets, this might have been the sabbatical tradition found in Leviticus 25, or the freedom narrative of Exodus. For American contemporary prophetic figures, like Martin Luther King Jr., one may turn to the Declaration of Independence, Constitution, or Emancipation Proclamation as a kind of American cannon from which to draw resources that a wide array of the national community can identify with. These documents are a core source of identity for Americans. Our "angel", to use Wink's language (MLK referred to it as the "soul" of America), centers on popular sovereignty, government "of the people, by the people, and for the people."[12]
For Wink, an angel is not something that is self-elective; it merely reflects the essence of a human or political body. Brueggemann's treatment of consciousness, however, offers greater agency to the subject; one may elect to alter one's own consciousness. The task of Israel, the alternative community of Moses, Brueggeman suggests, is to cleanse themselves of the "royal consciousness" and clothe themselves instead with the "alternative consciousness."[13] To do so requires that they recognize those aspects of their imagination that have been co-opted by Pharaoh. The community of Moses is the alternative to the royal paradigm, which is ever protective of the status quo and suspicious of anything that hints at the impermanence of the empire. Consciousness is something Israel can, and must, actively go about changing. Doing so, Brueggeman insists, requires prophetic criticism and energizing.[14] Each of these activities is requisite to the prophetic task, since, as he sees it, "either by itself is not faithful to our best tradition."[15] He elaborates by lambasting contemporary conservatives for their ignorance of the past in their energizing (what he terms "futuring"), and liberals for focusing too much on the present in their criticizing. Each group serves the royal consciousness by arguing past reality, allowing the status quo to continue undeterred by either unrealistic optimism or immobilizing indignation.
Though IVAW stands left of center politically, even within its ranks there is a vast diversity of political persuasion. As I mentioned above, there exists within the organization (at least) two influential factions that I have referred to as either patriots or radicals.[16] Radical members tend toward language reminiscent of Brueggeman and Wink, using terms like imperialism, slavery, oppression, and the like. Many such members engage more readily in provocative activities like flag burning, "black bloc" demonstration tactics,[17] and obstructing the movement of troops and equipment to and from the combat theater. Patriot types, on the other hand, rely more upon language of virtue, like duty, respect, service, and honor. They often prefer advocacy that uses political rhetoric subversively, like lobbying against the war while wearing their combat awards, speaking out publicly in uniform, or draping themselves in the flag (rhetorically as well as literally). Radicals in IVAW have become so disenfranchised by the System[18] that they seem to have lost hope that there is room for change. Patriots are often similarly disenfranchised, but will rarely concede that America and its spirit/soul/angel is beyond reproach. The strength of IVAW is in the shared experience of conversion from the royal (or, perhaps in the American paradigm, the bureaucratic) consciousness to an alternative vision.
That vision is not always so clear, however, since in their focus on criticism and advocacy, IVAW has given little attention to hope. The energy and resources dedicated to the first, more immediate point of unity (withdrawal of occupying forces from Iraq and Afghanistan) has been at the expense of the other points (reparations to occupied peoples and adequate healthcare for veterans). Even though IVAW addresses a strictly secular community, there is still great wisdom in pairing caution and criticism with hope and energy. Giving great attention to the former to the detriment of the latter, can be misconstrued as mere complaint. With that in mind, what value may be found in the former, the prophetic actions that emphasize the revelatory task of prophet action? Let us turn now specifically to OFC its value as street theater in light of Hays' prophetic symbolism.
VI. Symbolic Street Theater
Richard Hays suggests that Jesus' entry into Jerusalem, followed by the "cleansing"[19] of the Temple immediately thereafter, was a staged performance. He does not the word "performance," but relies on an equivalent, saying that Mark 11:1-19 is "an act of symbolic 'street theater'",[20] a term he credits to Ched Myers. Throughout his exegesis of Mark, Hays frequently draws readers back to the prophets Isaiah and Jeremiah, insisting that Jesus is merely following precedent set within Israel's own history. The entire performance, from Jesus' entry on the back of a colt to tossing the tables and running merchants out of the Temple, are properly understood as "acts of prophetic symbolism."[21] Jesus sets the stage (the Temple), performs "a dramatic demonstration, offers public teaching about the meaning of his action, and then departs".[22] This is neither a coup, nor a form of shock and awe. A coup is a grasp at power, but Jesus makes no attempt to exert control over the free market economics established in the Temple court. Shock and awe is nothing but morbid theatrics, but Jesus sticks around to explain his actions, however angrily. Had this act been merely an outpouring of his righteous anger, he could have cleaned house on Palm Sunday. But the street theater occurred on Monday, since the narrator makes clear that Jesus initially enters the Temple immediately following his entry into the city.[23] Being too late, there were no witnesses around to fire up the gossip mill, the grapevine, the coconut wireless. Prophetic figures like Gandhi knew that effective nonviolent action needs witnesses, either people or a free press, who are not "in the choir" who can attest to the events and spread the story. Training in IVAW emphasizes concise messages that are self-evident, leaving little room for confusion or misappropriation by the System. The organizational mantra[24] has always been "the action is the message." Few IVAW actions embodied this imperative more forcefully than Operation First Casualty.
Just as Jesus relied upon the tradition of Israel's prophets, history few 1st century Jews would not have been familiar with, IVAW has utilized concepts and language familiar to a wide audience in the U.S. As the supposed vanguard of democracy and freedom, veterans represent a unique and authoritative perspective in American discourse. The prevailing assumption in America, since we have an "all volunteer force,"[25] is to expect such "volunteers" forfeit their moral agency and, therefore, have no right or reason to speak against the very System to which they have "volunteered." But this corrupts the spirit of America by violating our guiding principles of freedom and democracy (by restricting the freedom of service members and insisting that war-fighting transcends the democratic process). Furthermore, this moral absolutism underestimates the audacity and moral courage of our uniformed men and women.
Organizers of OFC took full advantage of their military training, strategizing about ideal locations and times to maximize the impact of their actions by reaching as many as possible. Following each event, IVAW performers and organizers held press conferences near where they had staged the OFC performance. Far from simply trying to provoke inconsiderately, organizers made sure there was a teaching moment following each event. The same onlookers who had witnessed the performance would often be seen in the audience listening to the rationale for engaging the public in such a way. These moments became a kind of catharsis for witnesses and performers alike after the official structure of the press release melted away; meaningful conversation arose between bystanders and organizers, or IVAW members and volunteers. Emotions would run high for many in attendance, performers and witnesses alike. Some members wrestled against surfacing PTSD symptoms, but being accompanied by peers often made the process more tolerable. For some, the barrier between reality and performance was not so easily distinguishable, as is the case for prophetic activity generally. After all, wasn't John's baptism of Jesus in the River Jordan so much more than just a friendly dip at the local swimming hole? Don't prophetic acts assume that the physical act is a mysterious sacramental[26] symbol of an eternal reality? For participants and witnesses alike, the experience had a powerful capacity to transport people to the battlefields of the Middle East. Such a displacement carries the chaos and fear of the desert right to our own doorsteps, thousands of miles away, prophetically ripping in half the curtain that divides blissful ignorance from painful reality.
VII. Conclusions
Most contemporary vehicles of social change, made clear by our readings, are in the business of prophetic activity. Religious or not, many social movements have engaged in "forceful demonstration against a prevailing system in which violence and injustice prevail."[27] Our nation has been at war now for nearly a decade and many mainline churches have yet to make any clear and decisive motion to live into their own teachings on violence. In the absence of a cohesive and unified religious voice for justice and love, organizations like IVAW have had to fill in the gap. Far be it from the Church, indicted by its own deafening silence, to question the legitimacy of prophetic energy of those who "don't even know the name of the Lord."[28] A careful reading will show that I have refused to use the term "ministry" in reference to the prophetic office. This is an intentional maneuver. Being actively involved in IVAW has taught me to respect my compatriots' disdain for things that hint at organized religion. After all, formal structures that endow themselves with divine privilege have more often abused such privilege as have not (or, rather, such has been true for the last generation or so). One does not need to enroll in Church history to be aware of this.
A prophet exposes a community (usually their own) to a certain reality, an injustice in their midst, ignorance which will inevitably affect the health or survival of the community. The central idea behind OFC was to bring the war home. While this sounds startling and unnecessarily provocative, many in IVAW felt a deep disparity between what they witnessed in Iraq and Afghanistan and how people were conducting themselves here at home. Our people were reaping a peace they did not sow, benefiting from their insulation from the reality a minority (and a predominantly colored, poor minority[29] at that) are forced to face more and more everyday. To continue in this way threatens our community health, since military recruiting commands an offensive proportion of our national budget, keeping money out of public schools, national parks and forests, and providing adequate health care to our citizenry.
It would be important also to recognize that even IVAW has its own spiritual reality that it wrestles with. The deep emotional turmoil that its members endure in their own conversion experience from a royal consciousness to an alternative paradigm threatens to overcompensate, sending many down the road to self-condemnation and despair. To combat this, IVAW needs to find ways to address the need for meaningful dialog about religious and/or spiritual engagement that has the capacity to cushion members' fall from grace with the military. As some Veterans Administration clinicians are finding, focusing too heavily on physical or mental ailments (like traumatic brain injury and post-traumatic stress disorder, respectively) ignores the moral ambiguity that is a significant cause of depression, anxiety, and other destructive forces threatening IVAW members' holistic health.[30] This is the problem when virulent rage or righteous anger is the primary fuel for social action. Without engaging in pro-active and forward thinking visioning, providing the cherry of hope on the sundae of activism, IVAW risks losing members to burn-out, further disenfranchisement, or worse. It is for this reason that IVAW, for each action, must engage in both criticism as well as prophetic energizing – giving a goal beyond the action itself.
If we follow the language of angels that Wink proposes, then the prophet seeks to call the angel of their own community back to their divine vocation.[31] But secular institutions have angels too, not just churches. The angel of America has become corrupted by a number of factors, and likely needs a great deal of prophetic criticism and energy to turn from its corruption and be restored. The United States is, in a sense, "being recalled to its divine task" by the prophetic criticizing of IVAW. We come now to the penultimate question of this study; can OFC be understood as orthodox prophetic action?
It should be clear by now that IVAW, as a secular organization addressing a secular socio-political community, is acting in a prophetic manner by reflecting critically on history to orient the world away from its otherwise inevitable path. American language and imagery, drawn from the annals of our own history, is being used in a way to call our nation back to its divine vocation. IVAW has inherited a tradition of prophetic social critics, from Mark Twain to Dwight Eisenhower, whose 1962 farewell speech to the nation suggested the appropriate orientation of the soul of America to be one of "humble confidence," as he watched the country emerge as a global superpower. Instead, we seem to have been taken in a direction of belligerence instead of benevolence. The current orientation of the American spirit has been co-opted by the royal consciousness, pursuing imperial gains in direct contradiction to its own formative principles. It is necessary for secular communities to engage in activities that are fundamentally prophetic in character because the prophetic is not the exclusive prerogative of the religious realm. Even secular institutions like the U.S. need an alternative vision to the dominant paradigm when that paradigm has been corrupted by greed, hubris, or even sloth. When religious communities fall silent to (or in line with) the prevailing culture of violence, the mantle of prophetic action can and must be taken up by secular institutions. Jesus' actions at the Temple in Mark had concrete applications in our world today; there is an ongoing spiritual conflict that threatens to corrupt institutions, secular and religious alike. The parallel passage in Luke[32] describes the Powers That Be, the religious leaders of the day, insisting that Jesus rebuke his disciples for their offensive and indicting street theater. They felt the performance mocked the religious establishment, and perhaps they were right. Tragically, many in the Church today think that only ministers and pastors are credentialed to speak prophetic truth to power. But Jewish tradition has a word against thinking that God is limited to working only within the religious structures; to claim Abraham as our father was to say that only the elect held favor in God's eyes. The Talmud counters this exclusivism by claiming that truly our father is Adam and the human community our family. After all, we must "not think [we] can say to [ourselves], 'We have Abraham as our father.' I tell you that out of these stones God can raise up children for Abraham."[33] Back in Luke, the Pharisees' demand that Jesus rebuke his disciples, is met with his reply that "if they keep quiet, the stones will cry out."[34] Indeed, the stones must and shall cry out. These stones will break the silence of the Church when it fails to be the body, and the voice, of Christ. When the angel of America is the ruin of many people, shaming our own house and forfeiting the lives of our young people to secure a tenuous peace by insulating the American people from the cruel reality of wars fought in their names, "the stones of the wall will cry out and the beams of the woodwork will echo it."[35] Perhaps there are stones always being added to the house of God, even those who do not yet "know the name of the Lord." If that is the case, the Church stands to gain partners for meaningful conversation and prophetic action alike.
Footnotes
[2] Less than 1% of the American population is serving in the current "all volunteer" armed services.
[3] Aeschylus, 5th century BCE
[4] Sun-Tzu, The Art of War (New York: Penguin, 2009), 6.
[5] www.ivaw.org/import/operation-first-casualty-ii-new-york-city-success
[6] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2WvIaDeNIbk
[7] Walter Wink, The Powers That Be (New York: Doubleday, 1998), 13.
[8] Ibid, 35.
[9] Ibid, 31.
[10] Ibid, 5 (paraphrased). Wink insists that even governments, including that of the U.S., are creatures whose generic vocation is to do justice (i.e. Romans 13). America's particular vocation, our vocatio specialis, might be described as our twin ideals of freedom and democracy.
[11] A great resource to draw from is Charles Marsh, The Beloved Community (New York: Basic, 2004).
[12] This energizing memory was conceived shortly after our Civil War, in Lincoln's address at Gettysburg, PA.
[13] Walter Brueggemann, The Prophetic Imagination (Minneapolis: Augsburg, 2001), 3.
[14] Ibid, 9 (criticism), 14 (energizing).
[15] Ibid, 4.
[16] No attention here will be paid to the accuracy or etymology of these terms, though it should be noted that their use is highly debated within as well as without IVAW.
[17] For an exploration of these tactics, see my "Strategic Violence Amongst Anti-Globalization Movements"; http://feraltheology.wordpress.com/2010/07/06/strategic-violence-amongst-anti-globalization-movements
[18] Wink, 39. He capitalizes "System" the same way black South Africans did in their struggle to end Apartheid. IVAW radicals use the word similarly, giving it a kind of agency; The System oppresses and destroys, etc.
[19] In his footnotes, Hays uses quotations to indicate that the term itself appears nowhere in the original Greek text. Jesus was rebuking his community for the offending capitalism in God's house, not scrubbing grime of God's linoleum floor.
[20] Richard Hays, The Moral Vision of the New Testament (New York: HarperOne (1996), 334.
[21] Ibid.
[22] Ibid.
[23] Mark 11:11 makes this abundantly clear. We can reliably infer that Jesus' intent was to make his entry and Temple rebuke a singular event.
[24] This refrain was introduced to IVAW by consulting firm The Action Mill; http://actionmill.com
[25] The deceptive nature of this phrase cannot be understated. I have many objections to the propagation of this myth that I am compelled to register but that time prevents me from detailing.
[26] The English word "sacrament" used in the Christian liturgy is translated from the Greek mysterion, what the early Church referred to simply as "the mysteries."
[27] Hays, 335.
[28] Here I am paraphrasing Martin Luther King Jr., who used language similar to this in his speech against the war in Vietnam. Speaking for God (as prophets are prone to do), he said that soon power would be given "to a nation that doesn't even know My name."
[29] "In 2004, 71% of black recruits, 65% of Latino recruits, and 58% of white recruits came from below median income neighborhoods" source: http://www.notyoursoldier.org/section.php?id=3
[30] B.T. Litz et al., "Moral Injury and Moral Repair in War Veterans: A Preliminary Model and Intervention Strategy," Clinical Psychology Review, 29(8) (December 2009): 695-706.
[31] Wink, 6.
[32] Luke 19:28-48
[33] Matthew 3:9, New International Version
[34] Luke 19:40
[35] Habakkuk 2:11
