Dreamgirls and the Subjection of People Through Strip Clubs Revised and Expanded

For all of you Seattle folks, I imagine you are like me. You are sick and tired of seeing “Dreamgirls” signs atop taxi cabs all around the city. They shine at night, illuminating giant pink letters over the top of a platinum blonde’s open mouth. Or perhaps you see the brunette in leather, reclining seductively on some invisible cushion. Whichever it is, I hope that you, like me, are weary of seeing such blatant eroticism on display. As I move into my critique of this advertising campaign, I want to first be sure that I do not give into a very obvious androcentric temptation. Too quickly, people assault strip clubs as marriage breakers and places that tempt men. Oftentimes, the critique of strip clubs is focused on men and their perversion or infidelity as well as demonizing the women who work at such joints. Instead, I want to look at the women and the men as victims in order to move blame away from the participants and into a sick and demonic society.
Since I have never been to “Dreamgirls” or any strip club for that matter, I will simply launch my critique from the wording on the signs. Each sign reads with this:
“DREAMGIRLS: Seattle’s Newest Gentleman’s Club”
Let us break down this sign bit by bit.
First, to state the obvious, it is an ad for a place where there are nude or scantily clad women on display for men (or women) to observe. This place where women are displayed is immediately identified as a “Dream”. Dreams are places where events occur without any of your control. Anything can happen in a dream, and when you wake up, there are no consequences. It does not matter if you killed someone or if someone killed you; a dream has no real life ramifications. Thus, at first glance, this sign espouses a lie. It implies that your participation and visitation at the place will cause no damage or good. In fact, it separates the confines of the club from everything outside of it. Nothing, not your psyche, not your physical body, not your spirit, not your marriage, not your platonic relationships with women, not your relationship with your female relatives, will experience any ramifications from entering. Men receive a lie in order to tempt them into the club.
Men become the victims of a falsehood. If we ask them to be discerning, then they are truly being deceived. The club promises what it cannot give: nothing. This “nothing” includes sexual pleasure, but more importantly, it grants men a seat of power. As the ones to be entertained, they demand what they want to see. The women who supply it, offer only themselves to fill the demand. While it costs the man nothing more than money, it costs the women to become objectified commodities for male consumption. “Nothing” appears harmless, yet it promises everything! What does it promise? This is where the women come in.
Two contrasting gender titles jump off these signs: “GIRLS” and “man’”. Who is a girl? A girl is young; she is innocent; and she is a female. Who is a man? A man is established; he is older, perhaps 25 at the youngest; and he is a male. Add two adjectives, “DREAM”, which we already discussed, and “gentle” and the contrast goes even higher. While “dream” signifies inconsequential, wonderful mystery, “gentleman” connotes a grounded, pleasant, respectable person who earned such a title based on how he is. The men are flattered while the women are mislabeled. The sign creates an authoritarian relationship. As elder and respected, the “men” grasp power over the “girls”. “DREAMGIRLS” promises the men power at the expense of the women.
At a fundamental level, the men caricature the women. This adds to the lie. “Dream” comes across with a double meaning. Caricatured as a “Dream”, the connotation is one of perfection. The phrase carries the same undertones as one's “dream car”, “dream house”, or even “dream mate”. What does one want beyond all other things? The answer lies in the dream. The title “DREAMGIRLS” equates the women with desire, but the desire brings only external observation and fantasy. Their humanity is removed, and they become an object much like a car, house, or any other possession that sits loftily out of reach. No longer do the women act as humans; the fantasy of desire from “gentleman” has objectified them. Objectification leads to crimes much worse.
The power dynamic reveals itself through the language used: “men” and “girls”. One is subject; the other is object. The subject-object roles dehumanize the women who work there and empowers the men who watch. This brings into question the entire business model of the operation. The owners provide a commodity. These objects are perfect, inconsequential, fulfillment of desire. I believe it pertinent to note at this juncture that the language excludes a relationship between two consenting adults. The women represent the object of the subject's desire thus removing her volition in the exchange. The objectification permits a disparate level of power. Mainly, it removes power from the women (consider the upper-class sex-industry workers who have the freedom to choose their patrons in comparison to a pole-dancer who must endure the general public). The language reveals this removal of power. “Girls” are always subject to the power of “men”. “Gentlemen”, which implies some form of nobility, possess elevated, socially permitted power over “girls”.
In most societies, we forbid sexual encounters between men and girls. The girls are vulnerable and impotent to protect themselves from unwanted sex imposed upon them by men. Therefore, we cannot dance around the honest truth: the linguistic power dynamic of “DREAMGIRLS: Seattle's Newest Gentleman’s Club” encourages rape through the empowering of an already powerful group and the objectifying of women and their bodies. This is why it is tempered with “DREAM”. At “DREAMGIRLS”, one can rape girls without any consequences. The women are turned into young girls, and the men are encouraged to commit sexual acts with them all the while maintaining respectability and the women maintain innocence. Quite obviously, this is impossible. Problems arise when fantasy becomes reality, when men wake up from the dream and realize it was real. How do we solve the problem? How do we end a world with “DREAMGIRLS”?
We require a societal shift. Using the “DREAMGIRLS” signs, we can observe the norms. What strip clubs represent is a form of puritanical sexuality. They indicate what a culture believes sex should be like. Unfortunately, sex requires trust, vulnerability, and emotion. What would sex be like without these things? A strip club shows us. What does society want from sex? First, it wants no consequences. Second, and more importantly, it requires, from women, virginity and innocence. Of course, these women spend their days taking their clothes off. Such an expectation of them is impossible. That proves the point. The fantasy of society is virginal, young women having sex with aged, respectable men. This puts the power into men’s hands. This is the worst expectation of all. Society expects sex to derive from the power of men. It refuses female sexuality as autonomous and requires it to be subject of male sexual desires. At “Dreamgirls”, men are the adults, the strong, and the respected subjecting the young, innocent girls to their sexual fantasies. How do we change this?
Primarily, we need to remove virginity and innocence as the highest value for women. This should not be replaced with eroticism and sexual experience as the ideal. That would only cause the same problem. Instead, we need to equalize women and men. The high virtues for women should be respectability, accomplishment, establishment, etc. The same connotation of gentlemen should come into our minds when we think of great women. In this, we must liberate female sexuality. We cannot accomplish this by encouraging unfettered promiscuity. Instead, encouragement of men and women (this also applies to couple in same-sex relationships) to be in equitable sexual relationships needs to replace the power experienced by men and the submission of women. We must be empowered for each other rather than over one another. Also, we need to change the categories for men. Men who look for young, innocent women, whether it be for dating or for flings, need to be seen as what they are: predators. We can no longer equivocate sexual desire expressed through pure indulgence as anything other than violence against women. Sex cannot be seen as something to exert power in; rather it is an exercise between equals. In order to change male experience of sexuality, we must encourage men to step out from their experience into the sexual experience of women. I do not mean we should pay back men for their historic violence. We should educate men about how women feel and express sexual desire.
Ending the violence will mean men can no longer romanticize about pure, virginal women. That is violence. It gives no respect to women and their sexual desires. Such fantasy accomplishes the opposite of its intent: it rapes rather than respects. Moreover, we need to tell the “DREAMGIRLS” of the world that we do not want their misogyny. They can go fuck themselves. Maybe that will teach them the importance of sex between equals. Peace!

Mega-church Pastors: Crooks and Their Books

I am like a barista who cannot drink another latte. I feel like an author who cannot write because she no longer likes words. I feel like I am taking crazy pills. Why do I feel like this? Of what am I sick and tired? I cannot bear to endure the written words of another popular, well-to-do mega-church pastor. Rob Bell, Mark Driscoll, Joel Osteen, Greg Boyd, I do not care who it is. I never want to see it ever again. It is like listening to a biologist talk about how biology should not be taught in schools. It is like watching an actor say to a reporter that movies need to end. Moreover, they are some of the cleverest marketers to ever walk the face of the earth, and I can no longer stand to see them ply their trade throughout the land.

My furious anger against these crooks recently rekindled while browsing at one of my housemate's books titled Crazy Love: Overwhelmed by a Relentless G-d by Francis Chan. I saw this book hundreds of times on the shelves of SPU students. I never looked closely at it. It appeared to me as though it carried another heart-felt, Chicken soup style message with a strong cultural relevance just like Blue Like Jazz or Velvet Elvis. As it sat on my coffee table, I nonchalantly reached over and snagged it. On the cover is a hip design of a rudimentary up-arrow next to an asymmetrically drawn down-arrow. Only the book's subtitle graces the cover, and it comes at the bottom right-hand corner right above the author's (and co-author's?) name. Chris Tomlin, the well-known worship artist, got a credit underneath the author(s) for writing the foreword. If you know me, you know that by the time I finished looking at the cover I was disgusted and annoyed. I decided to at least see what the book had to say; so I flipped it over and read the back cover. Its contents were less than surprising.

Right at the top, in big bold letters, the cover reads, “G-D IS LOVE. CRAZY, RELENTLESS, ALL-POWERFUL LOVE”. Ugh! I find it tragically obnoxious that someone finds it necessary to write this down in a book. The statement, “G-d is love” lies somewhere in a voluminous library of a book called the Bible (I doubt most people who read this book know where in the Bible). The truth of this statement resides in the call 1 John (that is the place where “G-d is love” is) makes of Christians which is loving community. This phrase, 1 John reassures us, means nothing outside community. Does community exist anywhere as important on the back cover? No, it does not, and I am a stickler for proper biblical interpretation. Strike two for this guy.

His sub-phrase kills me. “Crazy, relentless, all-powerful love” sounds psychopathic. I know it is supposed to convey some kind of amazing feeling of a loving G-d, but why? Why does he want to convey this message? I believe the answer to this is nothing less than self-righteous and pathetic. 

The first line beneath the back-cover's titles packs a punch, “Have you ever wondered if we're missing it?” The picture of the author at the pulpit and the dialogical style of writing make one feel as though he is asking you personally. The large letters above implicate that his thesis involves convincing the readers that once they understand G-d's psychopathic love then they will no longer be “missing” it. Of course, whatever this “it” is never receives mention. “It” could literally be anything. Another one line paragraph then enumerates what is going on with “it”. Apparently, “it” has gone wrong or at least “something” has.

These words were carefully chosen and cleverly designed. They paint a general picture of broad dissatisfaction and present an even vaguer answer to the problem. Any issue in one's life can be cut and paste into the problem. “Yes, something is wrong. I feel like I have been missing it.” The back-cover proceeds to muse about finding a meaningful, authentic faith. This hope for an authentic faith directly contrasts with the implied inauthentic faith listed as going to church, singing songs, and trying not to cuss as the typical response to the “G-d of the universe—the Creator of nitrogen and pine needles, galaxies and E minor”. Clearly, this author believes church-going and worship services are completely useless. They do not foster relationship with G-d. True relationship with G-d comes from a “faith that addresses the problems of our world with tangible, even radical, solutions”. The only way possible for something as monumental as a radical, grounded, transcendent faith is to fall madly in love with G-d. This will solve what is “wrong”. No longer will you miss “it”. Essentially, Chan promises an answer to every problem.

So, if you have been following me so far, here is the back-cover in a nutshell: G-d is love; something is wrong; church is not the answer; church is status quo faith; falling in love with G-d is the solution; and falling in love with G-d will change you into a person with radical, tangible ideas for solving the problems of the world.

Great! Sign me up! I'll fall in love with G-d! Please, just tell me how...wait a second. I call bull shit. Fall madly in love with G-d? That sounds like what my Sunday School teachers told me. Create an authentic faith? I am sure I have heard that sermon before. 

“I am sorry Francis, where did you say you work again?”

“Me? Oh, I didn't. I work at a mega-church I planted in California. I also founded a Bible College, and I sit on the board of some organizations. I have a family, too.”

“Oh, that makes sense. I mean, what pastor doesn't think church isn't the answer to...wait, what?!”

At this moment, I grew sick to my stomach. I held some suspicions, and the “About the Author” confirmed them. Francis Chan is no radical. He merely represents another spoke in the wheel of the system that convinces people they are outside the system. In Naomi Klein's No Logo, she discusses how our generation loves ironic marketing. Ironic marketing involves the product being sold portrayed in a negative light with some form of humor attached. Take for example the Old Spice commercials in which a man is seen showering. As the camera pulls back, he turns out to be a centaur (half person, half horse). A beautiful woman then comes to him and makes a funny comment. Now, no one is a centaur, and certainly, a woman would never be a centaur's partner. The whole thought of the commercial is extremely creepy. Who would buy something that advertises itself via bestiality? Nevertheless, it is exactly the type of advertising that dominates today's marketing campaigns, and Crazy Love uses the the same ploy. 

 

Chan leads the reader on to believe that his solution is something other than going to church. On the contrary, he himself pastors a church. He sits on the board of directors of an urban church-planting organization, World Impact. His church alone has planted nine different churches in six different states. He derides people's response to G-d as church-going, but he enables them at every turn. It is ironic advertising. It is akin to the new Microsoft cell phone commercials. These commercials chastise people who never stop using their smart phones. It posits at the commercial's end that the new Microsoft phone will solve the problem. Chan's advice does the same. He plays on a common frustration: church fulfills very little spiritual needs and does an extremely poor job of addressing critical issues occurring in the world. His solution claims the end of church, but it also demands going to church. Of course, falling in love with G-d only happens in the places where they are talking about G-d. Naturally, church is where one would go to did this falling in love.

More importantly, let us tease out the logic of his vocation and his book. First, it marks the general dissatisfaction of its readers. It then proposes a solution. This solution excludes the others who are a part of the problem: the churches who fail us. Francis Chan has your answers, and you can find them at: his church, in his book, through his sermons, or at one of his church plants. In the end, whether he intended it or not, his book is a shameless self-promotion. It grants him the answers, and the answer is just vague enough to get someone to want more. 

On a broader basis, I cannot deal with this kind of ludicrous production. These pastors grow into small celebrities then publish some kind of book based on poor bible scholarship and brand marketing. The content of these books is relentless and redundant. They dislocate their readers (who are typically youth and young adults) by telling them they need to disengage from their communities, find some hip, up-and-coming church, and congratulate themselves on a job well done. Furthermore, they do not actually call into question a sick society. They propagate an ethnocentric ideology that locates the world's problems as everywhere outside the confines of middle-class suburbia. Suburbia represents the ideal way of being, and the urban, the rural poor, and those living in Majority World countries (poor countries that make up a majority of the economic world) need to enter into the new earth that is little boxes on the hillside and massive quantities of Prozac. When a mega-church pastor calls for the dissolution of nation-states, the micro-organization of churches, the end of capitalism, and Jesus as a social and political revolutionary who stood up against an empire completely analogous to today's United States, then I will pay a little attention. Until then, I am tired of these crooks and their books. I am sick and tired of listening to their sermons. And I only pray that I never become like one of them.

Yelling at a Person Under a Bus, ‘Watch Out! You’re About to Get Hit By a Bus!’

                The title of this sermon is Yelling at a Person Under a Bus, ‘Watch Out! You’re About to Get Hit By a Bus!’ It concerns the 14^th chapter of the Book of Jeremiah which might very well be one of the most important books for our time.  Despite its importance, I believe a great deal of confusion surrounds our reading of Jeremiah.  The confusion grows out of resistance to its absolutely radical message: we, as human beings, can wound G-d, and there are consequences for causing divine damage.  The theology of Jeremiah flies in the face of the predominating theology that turns G-d into Superman and Jesus into Clark Kent, G-d’s everyman alter ego.  G-d’s superhero status originated with Israel’s false prophets and now emanates from pulpits everywhere whether it is Joel Osteen and the prosperity gospel or Richard Dawkins and his assault on theism.  The long and the short of it is this, G-d  When we read Jeremiah, we find a G-d who is entirely different. has faded away from being seen as the creator who is intimately tied to creation, and instead is seen as a hero out of old western films: killing the bad guys and rescuing the innocent.

Jeremiah 14

                If you do not already, please open up Jeremiah 14 (or click here: http://bible.oremus.org/?ql=154975713).  I want to work through it as quickly and as extensively as possible.  What we have in these verses is a dialogue occurring between Yhwh, Jeremiah, and the people of Judah.  The people feel abandoned as they struggle through a drought and war; Yhwh feels abandoned by the people who Yhwh established a covenant with so long ago; and Jeremiah feels alone as the only prophet proclaiming destruction instead of peace.  This dialogue opens with an image of Judah in distress for the lack of water and food.

                At the chapter’s outset, Judah is in dire straights.  No one has water.  The word commonly translated as “cisterns” or “wells” in v. 3 actually refers to the irrigation canals dug by farmers.  The elite people of the cities are at their last resort.  They have sent their servants to the last possible place to get water, and they are ashamed of stooping so low in order to get what they typically have an abundance of.  That is why the farmers in v. 4, like the nobles, are dismayed, but unlike the nobles digging in the top soil for water for the first time, the farmers are not ashamed to be drinking from irrigation drains.  Nevertheless, everyone covers their head in sadness as they go thirsty.

                The poem moves from city to country and out into the wilderness.  Take note here how observant ancient peoples were of their surroundings.  Deer typically birthed fawns far from people in the heavily forested areas, but the doe has come to the fields without her young.  Clearly, even the wild animals are starving.  The donkeys are going blind.  What we know now is that blindness occurs due to a lack of vitamin A.  Grass contains “carotene” which is turned into vitamin A in a donkey’s internal organs.  A complete lack of grass could spell blindness.  The devastation is affecting everyone and everything.

                Judah raises a stink with G-d in vv. 7-9 because of the drought.  They put forth a formal lamentation.  First, they confess their sins.  They then frame their feeling of abandonment between two affirmations of G-d’s greatness.  They call Yhwh the “hope of Israel” in v. 8.  This word “hope” also, in Hebrew, means “pool of water”.  Thus it gives a double meaning in the face of the drought.  They wonder why G-d is not acting like Superman.  They even refer to G-d as “a mighty warrior”.  “Why is this mighty warrior not saving us,” they muse.  Unable to answer the questions, they reassure themselves at the end of v. 9.  The phrase, “Yet you, O Yhwh, are in the midst of us” most certainly refers to the temple where it was assumed G-d lived.  This is quite important.  If Yhwh left the temple, those who ruled the politico-religious realm would no longer be able to use G-d’s presence as a scheme of power.  They finish off then with the cry for G-d not to leave them with words that are reminiscent of the doe leaving her fawn.

                Typically, we would expect the response of G-d to the people’s confession and praise to be an extension of forgiveness.  Judah is Yhwh’s people, and they are deeply sorry after all.  We see no such thing.  Instead, G-d completely rails on them in vv. 10-12.  They are the ones who are strangers, who are confused.  Yhwh proceeds to tell Jeremiah not to pray for them.  The prophet’s role in the Ancient Near East was to intercede for the people in order to stem divine wrath.  Yhwh tells Jeremiah not to try it.  Judah’s other options, burnt and gift offerings, will be rejected by G-d, as well.  Yhwh, in v. 12, graphically describes how Yhwh will consume the people as the offering.

                Jeremiah responds in v. 13.  His response serves two purposes.  In historical context, he seems confused.  Is this really the word of Yhwh?  All the other prophets are claiming peace.  Yhwh clears it up for Jeremiah in v. 14, reassuring him that he is in fact hearing the word of G-d.  When we read v. 13 now with historical perspective as to what ultimately happened to Judah, we see Jeremiah defending the people.  Jeremiah intercedes on their behalf pointing out that all the prophets lie in the name of Yhwh making the people confused.  All the people believe peace will come because their prophets say it will.  This leaves Judah without the sense of repentant urgency necessary to stem the forthcoming disaster.  Jeremiah’s work is enough to get Yhwh to promise not to punish everyone, but rather, Yhwh will punish only the prophets and their followers.

                Yhwh commands Jeremiah to tearfully connect the destruction with the leadership of the lying prophets in vv. 17-18.  The poetry is beautiful even in English. We feel the wounded G-d’s tears overflowing out of the “Weeping Prophet’s” eyes begging the people to abandon the ignorant, wandering priest and prophets.  The problems encountered in the field and the city describes a scene of war and siege, respectively.  Apparently, Judah endured the fate of battle yet still trusted in the leaders who caused the death in the first place.

                Judah’s response in the form of another lamentation rends my heart and seals their fate.  They begin questioning G-d’s faithfulness.  Rightfully, they believe Yhwh struck them down.  The peace promised by prophets is nowhere to be seen.  Peace has not happened; people are still dying.  They admit their sins; they come so close to finally understanding when they make a demand.  Act, Yhwh, for your name’s sake.  They did the same thing 14 verses earlier, and we saw the result.  They want G-d to act for G-d’s sake? No! They want G-d to act for their sake, and they use the covenant and G-d’s honor to try to get it.  “We had a deal, Yhwh,” they say.  “You cannot let this happen.”  It is ironic.  They confess their sins and proceed to commit them again.  They want G-d’s help without G-d’s law, and they will blame G-d if they do not get it.  “You cannot let this happen,” they say.  And in G-d’s silence at the end of ch. 14, as Judah worships the rainmaker, the one they want to see end the drought, the death from war, and the hunger that has consumed them, as they wait for Superman, we find Yhwh, betrayed, abandoned, manipulated, and wounded, responding, “Yes, I can let this happen.”

The Text Today

                Is the Church under the bus?  This text shows us two images.  First, it shows a person (Judah) standing in front of a moving bus asking G-d to be the hero for G-d’s own sake.  Second, we see Jeremiah come onto the scene and tell the person to move after the bus wreaked its damage.  Let me posit this hypothesis. The Church in the United States is, at the very least, standing in front of the bus.  Our feet love to wander.  We are incredibly fantastic at the parts of Judah’s lamentation involving confession of sins and praising of G-d as being powerful.  We do it by the millions every Sunday in massive megaplexes and stadiums that serve as preemptive mausoleums where we wait to be massacred out of our comfortable middle-class lives and transported to some ethereal dimension where we will be blessed with wealth, perfection, gluttony, and eternal boredom.  The priests and prophets who build these temples from Joel Osteen to Bill Hybels to Rick Warren to Mark Driscoll convince us that G-d’s covenant, no matter how badly you chase other gods, is something that can never be unbound.  Well I am here to tell you that if we do not learn from Jeremiah, we will be living in exile before long.  That bus is coming pretty fast.

                Perhaps we already saw it in Europe. I think we all know of the loss of faith there.  Yes, in that way, we see a sort of reversed situation.  Instead of imperialist Babylon dragging off Judah, the colonized continents took the faith of empire-builders and proceeded to redeem it.  We have seen the shift over the past century.  90% of the world’s Christians lived in the global North at the commencement of the 20^th century; by the 21^st, the vast majority shifted to the global South.  It seems G-d moved after growing tired of our imperial impulses, making our country, our prosperity, and our way of life the highest gods of all.  Our way forward can no longer be with the Jim Wallises and Pat Roberstons of the world who seek to form and shape public policy as the way to show G-d’s love and power.  Our way forward is to realize the truth: we’re about toe get hit by a bus.  The only safe place is with G-d, who probably looks kind of like the crazy homeless guy on the corner.  We get to G-d by joining in G-d’s woundedness, loving and healing each other in divine and human community.

WordPress and Messes of Ben

Hello friends!  I just want to let anyone who might read this blog that I also will be parallel posting on WordPress.  This will make it easier for me to follow my friends on WordPress (like Chauncey and Mike) and giving them a chance to subscribe to my blog, too.  Click on the title of this post to go to it.  Peace!

-ben adam

Dreamgirls and The Subjection of People Through Strip Clubs

For all of you Seattle folks, I imagine you are like me.  You are sick and tired of seeing "Dreamgirls" signs atop taxi cabs all around the city.  They shine at night, illuminating giant pink letters over the top of a platinum blonde's open mouth.  Or perhaps you see the brunette in leather, reclining seductively on some invisible cushion.  Whichever it is, I hope that you, like me, are weary of seeing such blatant eroticism on display.  As I move into my critique of this advertising campaign, I want to first be sure that I do not give into a very obvious androcentric temptation.  Too quickly, people assault strip clubs as marriage breakers and places that tempt men.  Oftentimes, the critique of strip clubs is focused on men and their perversion or infidelity as well as demonizing the women who work at such joints.  Instead, I want to look at the women and the men as victims in order to move blame away from the participants and into a demonic society.

Since I have never been to "Dreamgirls" or any strip club for that matter, I will simply launch my critique from the wording on the signs.  Each sign reads with this:

"DREAMGIRLS: Seattle's Newest Gentleman's Club"

Let us break down this sign bit by bit.

First, to state the obvious, it is an ad for a place where there are nude or scantily clad women on display for men to observe.  This place where women are displayed is immediately identified as a "Dream".  Dreams are places where events occur without any of your control.  Anything can happen in a dream, and when you wake up, there are no consequences.  It does not matter if you killed someone or if someone killed you; a dream has no real life ramifications.  Thus, at first glance, this sign espouses a lie.  It implies that your participation and visitation at the place will cause no damage.  In fact, it separates the confines of the club from everything outside of it.  Nothing, not your psyche, not your physical body, not your spirit, not your marriage, not your platonic relationships with women, not your relationship with your female relatives, will experience any ramifications from entering.  Men receive a lie in order to tempt them into the club.

Men become the victims of a falsehood.  If we ask them to be discerning, then they are truly being deceived.  The club promises what it cannot give: nothing.  Nothing appears harmless, yet it promises everything!  What does it promise?  This is where the women come in.

Two contrasting gender titles jump off these signs: "GIRLS" and "man's".  Who is a girl?  A girl is young; she is innocent; and she is a female.  Who is a man?  A man is established; he is older, perhaps 25 at the youngest; and he is a male.  Add two adjectives, "DREAM", which we already discussed, and "gentle" and the contrast goes even higher.  While "dream" signifies inconsequential, wonderful mystery, "gentleman" connotes a grounded, pleasant, respectable person who earned such a title based on how he is.  The men are flattered while the women are mislabeled.  The sign creates an authoritarian relationship.  As elder and respected, the men grasp power over the "girls".  "DREAMGIRLS" promises the men power at the expense of the women.

The power dynamic reveals itself through the language used: "men" and "girls".  We cannot dance around the honest truth; the linguistic power dynamic encourages rape.  This is why it is tempered with "DREAM".  At dream girls, one can rape girls without any consequences.  The women are turned into young girls, and the men are encouraged to commit sexual acts with them all the while maintaining respectability while the women maintain innocence.  Quite obviously, this is impossible. Problems arise when fantasy becomes reality, when men wake up from the dream and realize it was real.  How do we solve the problem?  How do we end a world with "DREAMGIRLS"?

We require a societal shift.  Using the "DREAMGIRLS" signs, we can observe the norms.  What strip clubs represent is a form of puritanical sexuality.  They indicate what a culture believes sex should be like.  Unfortunately, sex requires trust, vulnerability, and emotion.  What would sex be like without these things?  A strip club shows us.  What does society want from sex?  First, it wants no consequences.  Second, and more importantly, it requires, from women, virginity and innocence.  Of course, these women spend their days taking their clothes off.  Such an expectation of them is impossible.  That proves the point.  The fantasy of society is virginal, young women having sex with aged, respectable men.  This puts the power into men's hands.  They are the adults, the strong, and the respected subjecting the young, innocent girls to their sexual fantasies.  How do we change this?

Primarily, we need to remove virginity and innocence as the highest value for women.  This should not be replaced with eroticism and sexual experience.  That would only cause the same problem.  Instead, we need to equalize women and men.  The high virtues for women should be respectability, accomplishment, establishment, etc.  The same connotation of gentlemen should come into our minds when we think of great women.  Also, we need to change the categories for men.  Men who look for young, innocent women, whether it be for dating or for flings, need to be seen as what they are: predators.  We can no longer equivocate sexual desire expressed through pure indulgence as anything other than violence against women.  Sex cannot be seen as something to exert power in; rather it is an exercise between equals.  Ending the violence will mean men can no longer romanticize about pure, virginal women.  That is violence.  Such fantasy accomplishes the opposite of its intent: it rapes rather than respects.  Moreover, we need to tell the "DREAMGIRLS" of the world that we do not want their misogyny.  They can go fuck themselves.  Maybe that will teach them the importance of sex between equals.  Peace!

-ben adam

My First Crack At Relating "Hook" to Important Things

Back in 1991, Steven Spielberg directed a film titled Hook starring Robin Williams, Julia Roberts, Maggie Smith, and the incomparable Dustin Hoffman as Captain Jas. Hook.  John Williams produced the soundtrack (to which I am currently listening).  Hook provides an intriguing twist on an extremely original tale, and I submit that the title is purposefully misleading.  The first line of J.M. Barrie's book, Peter Pan, states "All children, except one, grow up."  Hook begs the question, "What if that one grew up?"  Maintaining indefatigable continuity with the book, Peter (Robin Williams) comes to what we might call Reality and begins to grow old.  In the way that Neverland makes one forget about Reality, Reality makes one forget about Neverland.  Thus, there is a tension between the two.

The movie opens with Peter's complete consummation by Reality.  He appears as a successful lawyer who orchestrates business deals involving vasts amounts of money.  Nevertheless, his drive for success marginalizes his family.  On a family trip to England in order to visit "Grandma Wendy" (Maggie Smith) and after a mysterious Capt. Jas. Hook breaks into Wendy's home to kidnap Peter's two children, Maggie and Jack, Wendy reveals to Peter and to us who his true identity is, the Peter Pan.  Of course, he finds this completely preposterous, but when Tinker Bell (Julia Roberts) appears and drags him to Neverland, he must face the reality of his forgotten childhood.

In Neverland, Captain James Hook is furious.  Made clear by the film, Hook has been stewing for years over the absence of his "great and worthy opponent" Peter Pan.  Now, Hook, with Peter's kidnapped children in tow, will finally be able to launch his full out war on Peter and his lost boys.  Quite naturally, Peter Banning, whom Peter Pan has grown up to be, enters Neverland completely ignorant of his lost identity.  Confused by such a goofy world that is Neverland with its pirates, mermaids, and renegade, pirate-killing orphans, Peter halfheartedly attempts self-discovery for the sake of saving his children.  In the meanwhile, Hook turns Peter's son against him, and in normal Neverland fashion, Jack forgets about home.  As Jack forgets, Peter remembers; except, he remembers with a twist.  He remembers who he is, not because he recalls the features of Neverland, he remembers Neverland and his identity as Peter Pan because he recalls the joy he felt when he became a father.  The elation and new life of childhood reignites Peter's ability to fly and battle the incarnate evil, Captain Hook.

Before I finish telling the story, let me turn to the obvious quite obvious message behind this story.  At 2 hours and 20 minutes, Hook can hardly be considered a pure kid's movie (even though I watched it countless times as a child).  Instead, Hook is a film made for parents couched in a kid's film disguise.  As adults, what once carried the excitement of newness for us as kids gives way to the mundane product of experience and recognizable repetition.  Peter who once was capable of thinking imaginatively of newness, becomes bound by the restraint of what he knows.  This is made ever so clear when he tries to save his children by writing Hook a check or when he cannot eat simply because he cannot imagine food.  Hook, therefore, romanticizes childhood in an exciting, entertaining way.  At the same time, Captain Hook reminds us that childhood does not come without difficulties.

These struggles we face as children loomed large to us then.  The film humorously puts it to us in Hook and Peter's discourse as they fight their final battle:

Peter: "I remember you being a lot bigger."
Hook: "To a 10-year-old, I'm huge."

Now, Peter has returned to fight off his old foe once and for all.  Why?  No longer can he avoid it.  See, in Reality, Peter became a pirate with his corporate takeovers and hold-no-prisoners economics.  What happened?  He oppressed his family and his kids.  As a result, his son became a pirate, merciless and tyrannical.  The commentary here is explicit.  As adults, we must face and fight our childhood terrors.  We avoid them because we remember them being huge, but if we stave off the fight, we will become what oppressed us.  Consequently, the next generation will suffer from our Hooks.  Hence, the cycle is created.

Briefly, I would like to implicate the Hebrew Bible.  Clearly, the authors and compilers of Genesis recognized and theologized this cycle.  We can see it as the faithfulness of Abraham passes from generation to generation until Joseph.  Joseph becomes imperial, and he delivers his own people into the hands of the oppressors.  Notice the oddity of Jacob's blessing upon Joseph's two sons in Genesis 48.  Why does Jacob not reach out his hands and bless Joseph in the way Jacob's father did to him?  Jacob attempts to pass on the blessing to those not yet tainted by the oppressive empire.  Furthermore, this whole narrative is alluded to in the second word of the Decalogue in Exodus 20.4-6:

"You shall not make for yourself an idol, whether in the form of anything that is in heaven above, or that is on the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.  You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I YHWH your G-d am a jealous G-d, punishing children for the iniquity of parents, to the third and fourth generation of those who reject me, but showing steadfast love to the thousandth generation of those who love me and keep my commandments."

What we see in Hook is a father's idolization of that which is not the life-giving, creative G-d, and as a result, his children pay for it.  He then confronts that which oppressed him and a child (his idol), and defeated it.  It is to how he defeated it that I now turn.

Upon Peter's self-realization in the film, the pace quickens.  He forgets he is an adult, and he becomes consumed by the desires of being a young boy.  Immediately, the film clarifies.  Peter cannot save his kids if he believes he is a child.  The narrative presents Peter with a dilemma: how does one maintain the innocence of youth and the strength that one gains through the long process of growing up to fight the very demons of that youth?  Or put more metaphorically, how do we stay as big as Captain Hook yet as free as the lost boys?  The film gives us three answers: creativity, community, and evil's inoperable sustainability.

In the film, the Lost Boys are a precarious group of orphans who live under the constant threat of violence from the oppressive adult pirates.  Rendered unable to go where they wish or live as they please, the Lost Boys subvert the authoritarian rule of Hook using only their imagination.  Even eating requires them to utilize their imaginative power.  As a result, beneath the oppressive thumb of Hook and his cronies, the Lost Boys thrive.  Alas, when an adult who finally takes their side leads them in a rebellion against the oppressors, these disenfranchised orphans do not fight in shear numbers.  Instead, they fight with creative tools such as tomato-flinging slingshots, a four-direction paint gun, marbles, mirrors, and an egg-gun.  The plausibility of these weapons being deployed by children actually working against a contingent of armed, full-grown men is inconsequential and irrelevant.  The movie is disinterested in practicality.  Rather, it implies the creative efforts of the oppressed render the confidence of the powerful as a weakness.  Creativity overcomes physical power.

As Peter fights Captain Hook, he receives the aid of the Lost Boys.  Hook, you see, in a wonderful metaphor, fears time more than any other thing.  We see this in Peter's own life before he made it to Neverland.  He frantically attempts to work and support his son by attending his baseball game which Peter tragically misses.  He fights against time.  Captain Hook does likewise.  He finds sport in destroying clocks that tick; thus, reassuring himself that in fact time does not exist.  The film clearly responds to this with the affirmation of time.  When we embrace time as the conduit through which we live, we learn to actually enjoy life, the time we are given, and the people we spend it with.  There is no greater example to this than when Peter fights Hook in the final battle between good and evil.  As their ace in the hole, the Lost Boys pull out ticking clocks.  The over-stimulation of Hook's greatest fear paralyzes him, and the theme is driven home as he stands facing Peter in a circle of Lost Boys without any friends to help.  Peter understands the strength in his friends and family.  Hook, bent on vengeance, cannot allow the aid of his minimal friendships lest his revenge feel anything less than self-earned.  Only through the help of others can we in fact defeat what haunts us most.

The description of that scene leads to my final point.  Evil cannot sustain itself.  The moral logic of oppression leads the oppressor into lonely, self-destruction.  In a gut-wrenching, tear-jerking way, we see this in Rufio.  Rufio is the boy who took control of the Lost Boys in Peter Pan's absence. Dressed like a punk rocker, Rufio acquiesces to Hook's logic.  Hook hauntingly seduces Rufio into a blade-on-blade battle by slowly chanting his name right after Peter forbid Rufio from fighting the old man.  Rufio is shown as a good swordsman, but clearly, he is no match for the superb Captain Hook.  Rufio gives in to the promise of power that can be achieved through the death of Hook.  Effectively, Rufio tries to beat Hook at his own game.  Little does Rufio know, one cannot overcome evil with the tools of evil.  Rufio only realizes this after Hook slays him.  Dying in Peter's arms, Rufio (and I have to hold back tears thinking about it) says to Peter in a powerful last breath, "You know what I wish.  I wish I had a dad...like you."  The film drives the point home when the young Jack takes off his pirate's hat, addresses Peter as "Dad", and tells Peter, who still holds the dying Rufio in his arms, he wants to go home.  Creative, communal love creates home; evil tempts and destroys.  It cannot persist then, for it destroys that which it lures.

We see evil's demise at the conclusion of Peter's final (dare we say, loving) battle with his childhood foe.  The sword fight builds in the very typical way that all sword battles typically do.  Meanwhile, we wait for the very typical end.  We wait for Peter to be given the opportunity to kill Hook, yet in his goodness refuse.  Very surely, this time comes (twice actually), but Peter is rescued by the sweet innocence of his daughter.  Naturally, the next action is Hook trying to kill Peter even though Peter mercifully spared his life.  What we would quite expect is Peter to kill Hook, but this never happens.  Instead, a twist comes.  Peter, with the aid of Tinker Bell, thrusts the Captain's hook into the belly of the crocodile who consumed Hook's hand after Peter cut it off so many years ago.  While this could simply be seen as an homage to the book, the action suggests otherwise.  We see Hook stumble and stand with complete balance.  He seems completely able to avoid the crocodile who has awoken from the dead.  But he doesn't.  Why?  Perhaps it is because Hook longs for death.  Evil cannot endure forever; it cannot bear the weight of oppressing eternally.  Furthermore, evil is not indestructible.  Even it has fears such as time.  In the end, Hook's fear of the crocodile, his exhaustion of being vengeful, and his lost battle against time bring about his demise.  Peter's refusal to kill shows his victory, for he knows that evil will kill itself. 

In the end, we see the beauty of creativity, innocence, and community.  These are not weaknesses.  They are strength.  Unless we learn to embrace them as strength, we will continue to let Captain Hook and his violent, oppressive logic dominate every generation.  However, if we learn how to embrace the time we are given to live and if we enjoy those we are given to live it with, we may well learn to defeat Hook once and for all.  That is exactly what we see in Jesus' life and most clearly in Jesus' death and resurrection.  We cannot beat the oppressors on their own terms.  We can only reveal the natural demise of sin which is death.  We reveal this by showing the natural way of G-d which is life, and as Peter says at the very end of the film, "To live... to live would be an awfully big adventure."

An Article I Wrote After Colombia and Subsequently Forgot About

Conveying exactly what life is like in the Campo (the Colombian countryside) may prove difficult.  The distance between dirt-floor homes and fully-wired houses lies in more than geographical distance.  Understanding what occurs in small, Colombian, mountain hamlets will provide evidence concerning the complex issues of armed groups in the country. The problems involve remote, localized economies, a U.S.-funded Colombian military, powerful multinational mining corporations, and people struggling on all sides.  In this struggle, neutrality is impossible.  As nonviolent followers of G-d, we picked the side of the mining Campesinos (people from the countryside).  They are a forgotten people even though corporate greed and military might cannot forget the abundant resources they protect.

            For all the talk of creating small, local economies in progressive U.S. cities such as Portland or San Francisco, nothing in the States compares to the town in the Campo our small Christian Peacemaker Teams delegation visited.  As the miners pull raw material from the ground, they take 50% of the money made from the ores (gold, silver, lead, etc.).  The other 50% is given to the refinement workers who also have a mandatory minimum wage.  Others in the community farm on small plots of land, raise cattle, or run simple shops in order to support the region with goods.  Nearly all the money recycles through the town, sustaining it as well as the surrounding area.

            When talking with the leaders in the Campo, it becomes clear the government, in the past years, cared little for the region.  The roads, school, and other infrastructure projects received miniscule funding from Colombia’s governing bodies.  Presently, not much has changed.  While the residents lament the state’s lack of aid, they take pride in their own constructive efforts.  They boast of how they built a road, and they do not let you forget that they all pay to send their children to school.  No adequate healthcare exists in the region, despite their best efforts.  This area seems completely off the government’s map. 

            Oddly, in spite of governmental apathy toward the area’s basic necessities, upon former Colombian President Alvaro Uribe’s orders, a small contingency of soldiers established a base about a half mile from the town and a forward encampment no more than a football field away from the town plaza.  Interaction with the soldiers stationed at this base revealed to our delegation the army’s desire to protect the region from the leftist guerillas.  The security and protection of the Campesinos sounded like their primary objective.  A lieutenant intimated how their activity safeguarded the people.  Meanwhile, a man in the mines received a compound leg fracture after rocks tumbled onto him.  The nearest health center (not hospital) is three hours away across rocky, rough driving in the mud.  The nearest hospital where actual operations for serious injury can occur lies 11 hours away.  Under such conditions, a compound leg fracture can be fatal.

            Good thing no guerillas attacked.

            Is the Colombian government interested in the well-being of women and men living in the Campo?  The army seems to think so, but precedent begs to differ.  The Uribe presidency has been notorious for using military strength to displace Campesinos.  The numbers include a staggering average of 300,000 displaced people per year over the last 10 years.  Colombia ranks third in the world behind Afghanistan and Sudan in total volume of internally displaced people with over 4 million.  Typically, these displacements are done “legally” under the theory that in the city, the people will enjoy the benefits of improved infrastructure.  Once the people are out of the way and safe in the big, unfamiliar city, the land left behind by these displaced groups becomes subject to transnational corporations who exploit the resources and export the profits.              What is more, the place we visited sits at the base of a mountain that may contain the largest gold reserves in Colombia.  In the surrounding areas, a Canadian-based multinational mining corporation, AngloGold Ashanti, has been receiving large quantities of land concessions from the Colombian government.  The largest gold reserve in the country cannot be far off their radar.  The combination of a military base applying pressure, poor health and education due to subpar infrastructure, a powerful multinational seeking gold, a huge quantity of gold, and a history of internal displacement might make the perfect formula for driving these artisan workers off their land, out of their homes, and into the growing population of unemployed city dwellers.

            Can this be stopped?  We certainly hope it can.  Nevertheless, in this potent situation, we see only a microcosm of the greater issue.  The prevailing winds of the new so-called global economy places profits as higher values than people.  Thus, even violence is permissible when securing new capital.  The answer to the question, “Can this be stopped?” is a simple “Yes,” but only when we stop.  If we in the global North cease our exuberant habits and live simply, the violence in Colombia may begin to end.  When people not profits become the highest value, perhaps Colombia’s government will provide for the poorest of the poor rather than force them into urban unemployment.  The time has come for us to realize our own complicity in violence under the auspices of making a better life for ourselves.  The time has come for us to realize peace can only occur when the only violence is the destruction of our own desire for material wealth and satisfaction.

-ben adam 

Sermon on Luke 12.49-13.5: Get Rid of Your Stuff!

G-d Is Not a Woman, but We Can Call Her One

To all .25 people who might read this post, I am at my parents' house right now taking a much needed weekend from the intensity of Drift Creek Camp.  I hope all is well, and here is a reflection on some good conversations I had with people this past week.

A strange family works at Drift Creek Camp.  They live in a cultish familial community that engages very little with the larger Church and is very skeptical of those outside their own faith circle (imagine Westboro Baptist with less hate speech and funding).  They preach the typical fundamentalist line believing they follow the Bible and no one else does.  They do not cuss or talk about hot button issues. Moreover, they think the Church has "allowed" too many unsavory people into its realm.  What I found out rather quickly at camp is that I fit into their categories of heretical, sinful, and evil, although they might never say as much.  Oddly, we have quite a bit in common (no substances and disbelief in government); nevertheless, their style of belief and ministry has set me off.  I can hardly stand to be in their presence, and I hate that they get the opportunity to be around the campers.  Here is one topic we clashed on this week, and I am sure we will continue to clash on for the rest of the time I am there.

While the camp was at the beach, we were having fun and roasting marshmallows.  I raised my voice and asked, "Who invented Graham Crackers and why did she name them that?"  I saw, out of the corner of my eye, the man from the aforementioned family flinch, and he retorted, "What makes you think it was a woman who invented Graham Crackers?"  To which I responded, "Why would I assume it was a man who invented Graham Crackers?"  Honestly, his overt sexism looked about as assholey as his face since we were the only two males sitting around the fire.  Quickly, the conversation devolved into an argument over gender roles during which time I kicked the shit out of him (intellectually), and proceeded to yell at him and patriarchy in general.

I am no moderate when it comes to these situations.  If anything I am a raging liberal who could give a shit what the moderates have to say.  I am so sick of male-dominated systems.  When we talk of them, one looming problem looks us all straight in the face: everyone almost always refers to G-d with masculine pronouns.  This is an interesting dilemma, and I wish to address it here.

Is G-d a woman?  The obvious answer is "Absolutely not."  G-d does not have a sex.  G-d transcends such basic human definitions.  If G-d did not transcend sex, Genesis 1 would be entirely discredited, and I am not ready to do that.  Why then, do we refer to G-d with the gendered "he"?  Elizabeth Johnson gives an extensive argument concerning this topic in her book "She Who Is", but I do not have the time nor the energy to deal with her arguments.  Instead, I can say this.

For thousands of years, humanity has lived in a patriarchal system.  Women were considered property, sub-human, evil, incompetent, and various others deplorable things.  As such, anytime anything intelligent or important occurred, the credit was given to men.  Any unknown subject was masculinated since clearly a woman could hardly be credited with accomplishing something worthwhile.  Doing this means humans made the masculine normative.  That is to say men became the standard by which everything else was measured.  G-d received masculine titles because maleness was considered to be higher than femaleness.  The masculine was above all else.

This has gone on in our cultural collective consciousness for thousands upon thousands of years.  The effect on us is daunting.  What we now know, however, is that women are not property.  They are as equally as capable as men are at leading churches, corporations, countries, families, non-profits, and other activities.  Physically, they have a different shape but are made up of the same tissue and cells that men are.  If we know that maleness can no longer be normative since we have found women to be equally as capable as men and therefore equally as able to represent the standard by which humans should be measured, what does that tell us about G-d?  No longer are we able to refer to G-d exclusively in the masculine.  What is normative has changed.  Our theology must change as well.  For thousands of years we have called G-d "he".  In order to undo the male-dominance, the belief that the man is the norm, we must begin to refer to G-d as "she".  A gender-neutral phrase is not good enough.  It will only excuse patriarchy rather than confront it.  We need to hold patriarchy accountable.

By beginning to refer to G-d in the feminine, we look patriarchy in the eye and say, "No more."  This practice actively seeks to liberate the female and male consciousness that has, for thousands of years, subsumed the feminie to a status below the masculine.  Hence, even thought G-d is not a woman, we can call Her one as a way to confront and move beyond the pain and sin of patriarchy.  I hope you will join me in this work.  Peace!

-ben adam

Coping With Identity and Place: Resistance as a Way of Life

Right now, I am sitting in a coffee shop.  This is no ordinary Starbucks; this is a dyed-in-the-wool coffee roaster.  From my vantage point, I can watch two casually-dressed, scruffy-faced fellows load coffee beans into a large roaster which slowly churns the beans as they cook.  They then transfer them into bags which they label, seal, and box.  One of the large burlap bags from which they take their beans is labeled in all caps "Product of Colombia."  In a way, the bag has been staring at me for the last hour or so.  It discomforts me.

When we were in Colombia, we were told the coffee there was terrible.  Not being a coffee drinker myself, I took people's comments at face value.  It was a shocking reality.  Colombia's coffee reputation precedes itself as being a prime locale from which coffee derives.  Even I knew that.  Juan Valdez hails from Colombia, and it only seemed natural that, in country, the coffee would be superb.  It isn't, and there is one reason why.

I read on the plane back to the States that the U.S. is by far the world's largest coffee consumer.  Based on no evidence whatsoever, I am going to go so far as to say that Seattle is, per capita, the greatest consumer of coffee in the U.S.  Even if this is completely false, a lot of people drink a lot of coffee in Seattle.  Now, more than a week after I left Colombia, I am facing a bag of quality Colombian coffee in one of the most coffee-saturated cities in the world.  There is a major disconnect here.

The issue is no longer free trade versus fair trade.  The issue is a society who thinks it is entitled to the wealth and resources of others.  When the resources indigenous to a region become a scarcity, something has gone awry.  Coffee consumption might be the best measure of this problem.  For all its liberal rhetoric, Seattle leads the way in majority world exploitation or, at the very least, robbery.  Herein lies the problem with the liberal agenda.  It wants reform.  This agenda looks at the current system with affirmation.  Liberals then work to change the rhetoric and the people within the system.  They redefine the family to include same-sex couples, they elect non-white leaders, they provide jobs for women, and demand a minimum wage.  They do this in the name of the system's highest values and virtues, "equality", "freedom", and "opportunity".  The system accepts their reforms, and it return, it provides them with what they want: abundant coffee, luxury condos, "green" cars, fair trade foods from around the globe, and the latest styles of textiles.  In the end, they end up stealing coffee from Colombians as billions of people worldwide suffer for the sake of conscionable products.

In the end, the liberal agenda has been fighting the right battle on the wrong field.  Since they accepted the basic tenants of the system, their reform has done little more than put a different face on the same monster.  Meanwhile, they bow down to the monster in gratitude for its delivery of consumable goods.  Life lived for the creation of a truly new world requires one rejects the system, seeks to deconstruct it, and rebuilds within its ruins.  The new way of being pays no homage to the imperial monsters of neo-liberalism and capitalism.  Instead, it embraces diversity without demanding satiation.  It looks not beyond its own limited reach, and it is content with what it produces.  This is resistance at its greatest pinnacle: when it becomes very, very small.  It is time to reject this economic system outright, even if it costs us the benefits of good tasting coffee.

Don't Read This

There is absolutely no reason why I should post what I am about to write on the blogosphere, but I am bored as hell, with a million things to do.  Plus, my generation has a sick sense of voyeurism.  We want to be watched in our most personal moments.  This is my fulfillment of that strange desire.

I do not have a best friend.  I cannot explain why.  For my entire life, I have had a best friend.  When I was very young, my best friend was named Jordan.  He just got married.  In elementary school, it was Alex.  We are still friends, but we are very different now.  In middle school, I suppose I did not really have a best friend.  Maybe that is why I hated it so much.  In high school, I had several best friends.  Zeek was one.  I talked to him about everything I believed.  We talked about faith and politics.  Whatever I said or thought, I did not fear telling it to him.  We actually went to college together, but we drifted apart.  We lived in different dorms and hung out with different people.  Craig was my other one of my best friends in high school.  I told him my deepest, darkest secrets.  We talked about girls, sex, and anything else that our dirty little minds could think up.  Nevertheless, he went to OSU; I went to SPU.  We grew distant both geographically and emotionally.  I still love him, but we are not what we were.  Janelle, my girlfriend in high school, served as another best friend.  I told her everything.  Our closeness surpassed even my friendships with Zeek and Craig.  When we broke up, I lost a huge piece of myself.  It was hard but necessary.  From there, my best friend was Zach.  We shared many things in common, and our sophomore year of college we lived together in the dorms.  Zach stood firm as a rock for me.  I confided my whole life to him.  When Zach met Jessica, we fell away.  Even though I still live with him, we see each other very little.  I do not feel as though I can confide my deepest emotions in him.  Furthermore, our priorities grow increasingly distant.  Zach wants to get married, have a career, and raise a family.  I want to live in a way that subverts the ruling powers.  I want to undo the damage being done to humanity and to the earth.  I had another best friend in college.  Her name was Katie Ann.  Like a fool, I confused intimacy with attraction.  I convinced myself that I loved her.  In fact, I had simply become deeply connected to her.  After we started dating, I realized the difference between closeness and romance across genders.  Breaking up with her caused a serious rift.  I lost another piece of myself.  After that, I wandered aimlessly seeking some form of intimacy that would provide the challenge and trust of a deep enduring friendship.  I am yet to find it.

Right now, I feel that emptiness the most.  I feel totally alone.  There is no one to talk to or to go on a walk with.  There is no one to look forward to seeing.  There are only friendships which I will engage in and enjoy.  None will be like those of old.  To me, a best friend longs to see you, but not in the way of missing you.  A best friend longs to see you because you are her little piece of continuity in a disjointed world.  You long to see her because she is your stationary point in a society spun out of control.  Without your best friend, the day passes you by without anything special.  Nothing unique happens.  The light never gets a chance to flicker without her.

Sometimes I forget, making a best friend is very difficult work.  It takes time and persistence.  I suppose I live in a time in which I am waiting for my next best friend.  I am impatient.  Everyday, I seek, wondering who it may be.  If only I could choose.  Maybe it will happen soon.  I guess we'll see.  Peace!

-ben adam

What Are We Missing?

I went to a wedding on Saturday.  Honestly, I hated it.  Traditional weddings bore me.  They followed the formula perfectly with a sermon about why everyone needs to be married, why men are not good without women as their helpers, and a call to the woman to "respect" her new husband.  I left pissed off even though he was a friend of mine for over 20 years.  What I found most striking, however, was my mother's response to my frustration.

My mother, the hopeless optimist, listened to me complain about the overt patriarchy occurring.  She responded with this, "Yes, you're right ben, but what I appreciated about the pastor's message is he called them to always put G-d first."  For me, this leaves me feeling completely unsatisfied.  Here is why:

What does "put G-d first" even mean?  How do we "put G-d first"?  The very thought of doing that puts me in an abstract activity of deity acknowledgment.  Honestly, to "put G-d first" cannot fulfill our needs.  If their marriage listens to and  follows in the direction of the pastor's advice and they work hard to put G-d first, what happens when they face a systemic problem in their marriage?  What if they go to church, pray every morning, read the Bible every day, and he beats her?  Are they any different than a couple who do not put G-d first yet suffer from male physical abuse?  Similarly, what if they have a flawless, fantastic marriage while putting G-d first?  Do others who do not put G-d first all have terrible marriages?  We must face Christians with the same divorce rate as the rest of society, even among the couples who "put G-d first".  We are missing something.

Every one of us missed something in that chapel.  Christians face a crisis because we miss it.  I do not know what it is.  I know what it is not: sex, money, drugs, alcohol, wealth, possessions, war, sovereignty, food, or whatever else it is we want.  Christians miss something in a significant way every day.  It leaves me feeling empty.  I do not know what putting G-d first means.  What I do know is if we do not begin to fight against the death-dealing powers ruling the world, there may not be much of a G-d to put first left.  We need to reclaim resistance as the source of our devotion to G-d.  Otherwise, we miss something.  We miss G-d giving us life in the face of powerful demons who bring only death.

Back From Colombia

Hello.  I am back from Colombia and other travels.  This is my first post about the experience, and I will be only discussing how the trip changed me but not why.

First, I went with Christian Peacemaker Teams, but very little of it was "Christian" in the narrowly defined Western view of Christianity.  We recognized our Christianity as a unifying subject but not a driving object.  I left feeling spiritually suffocated and dry.  Ironically, as difficult as this was, I appreciated it immensely.  It reoriented my faith away from an ecclesio-centrism toward resistance-centered spirituality.  It reminded me of my favorite verses in the Bible from Amos 5.21-24

I hate, I despise your festivals,
   and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies.
Even though you offer me your burnt-offerings and grain-offerings,
   I will not accept them;
and the offerings of well-being of your fatted animals
   I will not look upon.
Take away from me the noise of your songs;
   I will not listen to the melody of your harps.
But let justice roll down like waters,
   and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.

The time for praise songs is up.  The time for justice has come.  The economic system that at this very moment continues to consume the world is one of death, and Christians must rise to challenge it.  If we do not, we become unfaithful.  We affirm G-d with our lips and avoid G-d with our lives.  Needless to say, it will be difficult to go to church and even more difficult to work for one which is a distinct possibility in the coming months.

I am now less concerned with doctrinal discrepancies.  If people are willing to stand and resist the dehumanizing power of global capitalism, then they are not against us.  I would say, in a sense, CPT made me more pluralist, but actually, it reoriented my objectiveness.  No more do I accept a Christian faith that pays homage to the flag.  That might sound harsh, but it is true.  G-d hates flags.

I now have a longing desire to learn Spanish and perhaps more languages.  I will be learning all I can about Latin America history and economics.  Hopefully, in the next couple years I will go back to school.  I am not sure what I will study, but my days of academic theology are almost over.  Certainly, I appreciated my theological education.  It will stick with me forever.  The skills I learned were invaluable, but the time has come to invest myself in something with which I am able to reach out beyond abstract statements concerning G-d.  Besides, my theological education may come best from the dirt rather than from the school built on it.

Finally, my new goal is deconstruction.  The government must be taken apart.  Neo-liberalism must be undone.  The systems and structures that support death must pass away.  In that rubble, up will rise the true Church.  The people who say no to death and yes to resurrection.  Certainly G-d will be on their side.  I cannot wait.  Peace!

-ben adam

Mennonites, Pacifism, and Patriarchy

One of the reasons I decided to join the Mennonite Church was its emphasis on peaceableness.  More than the Evangelical Friends Church which I grew up in who focus on traditional evangelism which relies more on apologetics than action, the Mennonites have created many programs, books, curriculum, and everyday opportunities for its members to actively engage in peaceable and nonviolent activity.  Mennonite Central Committee, Mennonite Conciliation Services, International Conciliation Services, and Christian Peacemaker Teams, to name the major arms of Mennonite peacemaking, can be found all over the world working to disseminate violence, oppression, and injustice in a variety of ways.  I thank G-d for this, and in no way do I want this to end.  Nevertheless, I am dissatisfied with it, and here is why.

When I first learned about the early Anabaptists, they mystified me.  At the time, and still currently, I believed strongly that Christians need external identifying markers which display whose kingdom they belong to.  Logically, these markers would be simple dress, plain living, loving attitude toward all people, operational practices of forgiveness, and dissension toward the state.  The Anabaptists fit this mold perfectly, and the Mennonites are the direct descendants of the Anabaptists.  Naturally, for reasons that just the above, I joined them.  I partook in their practice of adult baptism.  In two days I leave to work with Christian Peacemaker Teams, and I have applied to work as a pastor in the Mennonite Church.  I have become a decent Mennonite in my own estimation, yet the baggage that comes with committing oneself to the Church (and it is the reason why I believe people need to be in Church) is the onus of responsibility for those within the Church.  Thus, for example, whether we like it or not, the Catholic priest scandal effects us, and we are responsible for them.  I am responsible for the Mennonite Church.  This is the problem I see.

The early Anabaptists were killed in droves.  Their martyrdom resulted from the incendiary practices I mentioned above.  They lived in the middle of Christendom where "everyone" was a Christian, yet they claimed with reckless abandon that Christian faith could not be so oppressive, violent, and extravagant.  Following G-d meant forgiveness, peace, and simplicity.  Moreover, it meant G-d and G-d alone is the ruler of the world.  Therefore, in there system of princes, barons, and Holy Roman Emperors, only G-d's rule mattered.  Essentially, Anabaptists declared the state illegitimate, and since the state does not bear the sword for nothing, they were massacred.  Since they believed G-d ruled the whole world, G-d loved even those who put the Anabaptists to death.  Their commitment to nonviolence spawned from their belief in G-d's overarching sovereignty and love.  This came along with simple living, distinctive dress, and many other practices which now seem all but forgotten by all descendants of the Anabaptists except the Amish.  In short, the Mennonite practice of peaceableness was salvaged from Anabaptism and elevated into our consciousness as the distinctive Mennonite and Christian practice.

Why has pacifism become the defining belief of Mennonites?  Why is our insistence on believer's baptism, simple living, radical dissension toward the state, and forgiveness no longer causing the waves they once did?  These are the questions of a somewhat dissatisfied Mennonite who joined the Mennonite Church expecting one thing and finding another.  I am going to attempt to answer the first as a way toward the other.

When the Anabaptists suffered massive amounts of persecution under the hand of German princes and other feudal lords, they became more and more sectarian as they became persecuted out of society.  They kept to themselves and lived in simple ways upon the land.  They earned the nickname "The Quiet in the Land".  They worshiped and lived without much interaction or association with the outside world they found to be sinful and corrupt.  In the early 20th century, with the advent of World War I leading World War II, the question of patriotism and commitment to a government deeply entrenched in conflict was at the tip of everyone's tongue.  Mennonites, who dared not pledge their allegiance to a flag or recite the national anthem, became a scourge in the eyes of the war-driven nation.  The draft ripped "The Quiet in the Land" from their homes and coerced them into serving in various capacities.  Suddenly, the Mennonites were no longer able to keep quiet and to themselves.  Engagement with the violent infant empire became necessary.

Many men returned from their conscripted service changed.  They brought back a new perspective, and the Mennonite emphasis on peaceableness no longer remained under the shackles of inaction.  Pacifism grew into nonviolent direct action against those who oppress others with the sword.  Requisite in this new perspective was a greater interaction with those outside Mennonite circles.  Consequently, Mennonites compromised their own distinctive practices in order to become peacemakers.  The Vietnam War only exacerbated the issue.  As young men faced a draft once more, they came into a head-on collision the possibility of being forced to fight and kill other people in the name of a country attempting to usurp the throne of G-d.  The Mennonite's refusal to do this centralized pacifism as Mennonite distinctiveness.  To be Mennonite meant pacifism. 

The reason Mennonite equaled Christian pacifist did not derive from a holistic Church experience.  It derived from men's fear of being drafted.  In a way, men have been the sole producers of Mennonite belief.  Peacemaking and pacifism came into the forefront from male experience.  Peacemaking is not bad, but we have thus far let it override our original ideals.  I believe if we look closely, it might even infringe on what women would like to see in the Church.  Certainly, many Mennonite women I know affirm peacemaking, but could they in fact have their own experiences to contribute to the discussion that would help us be G-d's people in the world beyond simply peaceable activity?  Perhaps, with a reduced patriarchy we could recuperate some of our original distinctiveness, or perhaps, we could claim new practices rooted out of the controversial belief that G-d is sovereign and loving.  I do not want the end of peacemaking, but I do want the input of female voices.  Up until now, male voices have drowned out all others with a cry for peace.  The cost has been a loss of identity and a confusion as to who peace is made for.  I believe it is possible for us to become the Mennonites, not of old, but of new without forsaking our roots.  Have we forsaken them?  Maybe not yet, but soon, they will be all but forgotten.  I pray we can once again be the persecuted faithful trying to spread G-d's love in the world.  Peace!

Why Christian Faith and Patriotism/Nationalism Are Incompatible

One day, my father said to me, "In an age in which we possess pictures of the world from space, we know that actual national borders do not exist.  We decided where they are.  So I do not see how one group of people has the right to tell another group of people where they can and cannot live based on borders that are imaginary."  I think about this a lot.  His insight implicated to me the fundamentals of culture and the nation-state.  By reflecting on my father's statement, I hope to show that patriotism cannot coexist with resolute Christian faith.

Nation-states are comprised of people.  They rely on social contracts. In these contracts, people decide which cultural groups will make up the nation-state.  After the borders of the nation-state are drawn, people from within those borders erect a system of rules under which everyone within those borders must abide by.  If these rules are not followed, the people who created the system, or their inheritors, will coerce the people to abide by them.  This coercion may be a police force or an army.  Of course, this means there must be some level of agreement on what must be punished and what must be accepted.  People then decide whether on what is allowed.  Whatever is decided makes up the code for identifying the nation-state.  A nation-state is the laws enforced upon people within certain (imaginary) boundaries.

Who creates these boundaries?  A person of meager living with few possessions and little influence will have both little need of creating boundaries and little power to do so.  Only those who have much will require the safety net of a nation-state and the security it promises.  Not only that, those with substantial means are the only ones viable to provide the resources necessary to build a system of government.  Thus, all governments develop by the elite and for the elite.  Patriotism becomes the way into maintaining the wealthy and their power.

By convincing people to believe that the legal code within the imaginary boundaries that encapsulate their living space is the most supreme and just legal code, the wealthy elite who created the nation-state grasp the loyalty of all those within the imaginary borders.  Hence, those who have little need of the nation-state become its most loyal subjects.  Why?  Because if they resist the new order, if they say no to the financially powerful, they will be coerced into complicity, for the ones at the top of the heap rely on those at the bottom to give popular support to the nation-state's system of protection.  The truth of all this became painfully obvious in the First World War.  In it, almost an entire generation of men in Europe died in a massive attempt to maintain the sovereignty of people over the imaginary borders they ruled. 

The nation-state serves to protect the interests of those who possess the resources to govern it.  Its make-up derives from pretend borders decided by those strong enough to enforce such borders.  How then is patriotism incompatible with patriotism or nationalism?

Christianity affirms G-d as the ruler of the entire earth.  Moreover, Jesus, the ruler of this earth, suffered a disgraceful death and a triumphant resurrection.  This is the good news: G-d presides and no one else.  Borders, therefore, have no meaning.  G-d's king did not establish national boundaries but obliterated them (Acts 10).  Paul understood this quite well, and he became notorious for preaching it unabashedly.  If G-d's presiding authority extends beyond imaginary boundaries (since they do not in fact exist upon the earth), those who live under the presidency of Jesus cannot, in good conscience, claim loyalty to something as pretend as nation-state borders.  Furthermore, Christians do not believe that Jesus presides over those who have faith in him; Jesus presides over everything whether they like it or not.  We all are residents in G-d's nation-state; some just want to believe they belong to a different one.  If we begin to affirm this, we will understand a little better Jesus' call to love our enemies.  How could we kill another citizen?  What needs to begin in Christianity is an abandonment of any type of ethnocentrism and the promulgation of true globalization (see this link http://www.newleftreview.org/A2368).  Perhaps then we will finally see what peace, reconciliation, and the healing of the nations (Revelation 22.2) is all about.

Two Part Sermon Series on Revelation: On the Side of the Lamb Part 2

In Part 1, I introduced the central theme of Revelation and gave a little background.  The book "reveals" to us the life-changing truth of Jesus; that is, it reorients us toward viewing history from the perspective of the innocent, those slain by the powers that be.  Further, it claims that this is G-d's perspective.  Revelation accomplishes this task using language from 1st c. apocalyptic literature, the Hebrew Bible, and Greek astrological images.  Before I continue, I think it would be prudent to offer you a useful analogy in order to better explain how all these images in the book operate.

For us, the most common form of media comes in movies.  I brainstormed which movies best reflect Revelation's story-telling style.  There are many candidates: The Matrix, Dawn of the Dead, or the newly released Avatar. However, none seemed quite so fitting as Dr. Strangelove Or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb.  I do not know if you have seen Stanley Kubrick's Dr. Strangelove, but it is a an incredible movie.  The American Film Institute named it the 2nd greatest comedy of all time.  Dr. Strangelove is relevant to our discussion in this.  The movie portrays the U.S.'s leaders in the midst of the Cold War.  They appear to have complete control: a massive war room, B-52's ready to strike with tactical nuclear weapons at a moment's notice, the leading ex-Nazi scientist, and the most advanced technology.  As the movie progresses, we see that the Pentagon leaders are completely out of touch, totally irresponsible, and, in the case of the rogue general who orders a nuclear strike on the USSR, entirely insane.  We know for good fact that politicians and military leaders are most likely very responsible, sane people; nevertheless, Dr. Strangelove presents them involved in a situation where their activities are crazy.  This is identical to the behavior of the leaders in Revelation.  We know rightly that the Roman emperors had very good intentions.  They wanted to bring prosperity and well-being to the world, yet the cost of their pride in believing they were the ones who could bring peace and tranquility was a massive disparity between the rich and the poor; oppression of people who refused their imperial cult; a massive military which consumed tax dollars, land, and manpower (sound familiar); and a global hegemony not amenable to those who are different.

Thus, in the same way Dr. Strangelove presents admirable leaders as completely insane, Revelation shows them to us as beasts: hideous and evil.  It should be of no surprise to us, then, to see the same logic working in reverse.  If the "practical", "good" leaders are monstrous beasts because of their involvement with such an insane system, then the actual leaders, the ones who rule with justice and without compromise must do so in a manner entirely opposite to the beast.  Therefore, the one who is worthy to rule is not a destructive predator but an innocent, slaughtered Lamb.  It is to this Lamb I now turn.

The chapter of Revelation we read today, ch. 5, is our introduction to the Lamb.  Structurally, this chapter is incredibly important as it follows ch. 4 which is our introduction to the one who sits on the throne.  In ch. 4, we find G-d sitting on the throne of heaven surrounded by 24 other thrones and the 4 living creatures.  G-d reigns supreme in this heavenly court.  The chapter describes a normal scene of political power.  Just like today, with the president constantly guarded by secret service agents and surrounded by advisers and cabinet members, the Roman emperor hosted entourages of people.  Similarly, G-d in G-d's throne room has an entourage.  This entourage is fully subservient to G-d and G-d alone.  Those subservient to G-d are significant in their number and symbolic representation.  The 24 elders signify the 12 tribes of Israel plus the 12 apostles.  The four living creatures signify all of creation.  Four was a number representing the earth; thus the four living creatures represent the earth and everything on it.  They are a lion, considered the greatest wild animal; the ox, considered the greatest domestic animal; a human, considered the greatest living thing; and the eagle, considered the greatest living bird.  G-d is established here as the only one worthy of praise from both the people of G-d and all creation.  This praise is rooted in G-d's separate or holy nature (v. 8), G-d's eternalness (v. 10), and G-d's creation activity (v. 11).  Furthermore, John joins in the respect paid to G-d by not describing the one on the throne; rather, John tells only what the one on the throne is like: jasper and carnelian with an emerald rainbow around the throne.  In ch. 4 we can only know G-d by what John describes as occurring around G-d.  Lightning, thunder, and seven flaming torches which are the seven spirits of G-d surround and emanate from the throne.  Thunder and lightning conjure many Hebrew Bible texts in our minds, especially Sinai and the receiving of Torah.  Seven is a number which always means wholeness or completion.  That there are seven spirits of G-d implies the fullness of G-d's spirit(s).  All these things are important as they will resurface again in ch. 5.  Ch. 4 ends with the 24 elders claiming G-d's worthiness to receive "glory, honor, and power" (v. 11) since G-d created all things.  Keep this last part in mind as we proceed to ch. 5.

When ch. 5 begins, we are still in G-d's throne room. Held out in G-d's hand is a "scroll".  The word for "scroll" here is biblios, the same word from which we derive Bible.  It means "book".  The common translation "scroll" is misleading.  Held by the one on the throne in this scene is a fan-folded book.  These books commonly held imperial decrees.  The way in which they were folded made it possible to read only part of it by breaking one seal.  Again, seven seals implies completeness or wholeness.  This decree from G-d is the completeness of G-d's decrees or G-d's rule in the world.

Now, pay close attention to the language, a mighty booming angel asks who is worthy to open the book.  "Worthiness" does not have to do with moral worth but with social prestige.  For example, if the emperor handed out an imperial decree, an ordinary Joe-schmoe on the street would not be the one to read it, and certainly, only someone of high government status would be able to execute the decrees.  Hence, when no one is worthy to open the book, John cries.  G-d's kingdom decrees, it appears, will go unrealized.  This is a full frontal assault on imperial Rome and emperor.  Even though Caesar rules the whole "world" not even he is worthy to execute the plans of G-d by breaking the seals. Nor is a mighty angel worthy, so who is?

V. 5 answers the question.  Caesar is not worthy to open the book, but the king of Israel, the Lion of Judah, the Root of David, is worthy.  This worthiness derives from the Lion's conquering.  The whole verse is odd though.  The elder explains that David's Root has conquered, but who, how, when, and where this conquering happened is unanswered.  Thus, we only know why: to open the book.  The word "conquer" is the quintessential activity of the Lamb in Revelation.  Since our introduction to the Lamb's conquest is left open-ended, we cannot take this to mean violent takeover.  By implication, the conquering done late by the Lamb over the beasts must be read in light of the symbolic conquest mentioned here with no direct object.

Revelation 5.5-6 should stand out in our minds as two of the most important verses in the entire Bible. We cannot overstate the power of these verses.  Moreover, their magnitude lies in the questions they create, questions whose answers are both obvious and striking.

First, we must ask, where did this Lamb come from?  In v. 4, John is crying because no one and nothing in heaven, on earth, and under the earth could be found.  Suddenly, this Lamb appears among the elders and living creatures.  In ch. 4, John spent calculated efforts toward describing the throne room of G-d.  No Lamb was there.  Ch. 4 established G-d as ruler of all creation, yet nothing in G-d's creation was worthy to open the seal.  Where did this Lamb come from?  V. 13 gives us an idea: "To the one seated on the throne and to the Lamb be blessing and honor and glory and might forever and ever!"  The one on the throne, G-d, and the Lamb, Jesus, are worshiped in the same breath with the same words used to worship G-d in ch. 4.  Where did the Lamb come from?  G-d.  However, unlike creation which also came from G-d, the Lamb receives the same treatment as G-d.  By implication, Revelation shows us how early on Christians considered Jesus to be divine.

Second, why did the elder lie to John?  In v. 5, the elder has John (and us) anticipating either a lion or a king.  Neither would be surprising since there already was a lion and lots of royal-type people sitting on thrones in ch. 4.  Lions are vicious predators and David was an extremely violent king; to add onto this, the elder says the one coming to open the seals "conquered".  The dramatic effect, the intense juxtaposition should not be lost.  When we most expect a conquering, predatory warrior, we see, instead, a Lamb standing as though it has been slaughtered.  This is the Messiah's grand entrance!  This is how the one worthy to open the seals enters G-d's throne room: in a humiliated, defeated form.  The Lamb appearing where, according to even the people surrounding G-d day and night, a lion or king should be must absolutely blow us away.  It should make us double-take every time.  Here Jesus is revealed.  Moreover, Jesus reorients.  No longer should we look at G-d's decrees from the perspective of those who conquer like lions and kings.  Instead, we should be palpably realigned onto the side of those who stand before G-d as though slaughtered.

The following phrase locates the sevenfold spirit of G-d lodged within the Lamb reflecting a very early Trinitarianism.  The final verses contain the elders, the living creatures, and countless angels praising the Lamb climaxing with all creation praising both the Lamb and the one on the throne.  Yes, all creation, Revelation anticipates, will one day worship G-d.  What a joy it is to have a head start!

Now, we move to the question of what this teaches us.  First, the powerful and mighty are unworthy to execute G-d's decrees.  Instead, G-d's commands are realized in the hands of a dead, baby sheep who lives.  This means that we cannot hope for the deliverance of those who suffer to come at the hands of the powerful.  The salvation of humanity is packaged, not in good legislation and practical, rational leaders, but in the communities who choose to follow the Lamb as it carries out G-d's kingdom edicts.  Following the Lamb necessitates self-sacrifice, for this is the way the Lamb reigns and conquers evil.  Since v. 10 states we are to reign on earth with the Lamb, we can only assume that being slaughtered as means of conquering makes sense for us as well as the Lamb.

Finally, I would like to draw us back to my original analogy.  Dr. Strangelove ends with (spoiler alert) nuclear disaster.  The whole world is destroyed.  This is the logic of the beasts: death.  Revelation commits us to a hope.  When G-d rules through the self-sacrificial love of the Lamb, the beasts cannot win.  The oppressed will cry out for justice and they shall be vindicated.  The very nature of those who wish to rule in a way different from the Lamb, in a way which kills the Lamb, whether they be fascist, democratic, or monarchic, is the logic of the beasts: death.  The power of the Lamb delivers life.  So Revelation does not end in nuclear holocaust.  Instead it ends with new heaven and new earth.  In the end, G-d's kingdom brings life.