Alternative Media as Spiritual Practice

Christian origins and New Testament scholar, Richard Horsley, defines Christianity as ant-Empire.  Knowing Christianity's beginnings as a Jewish cult, this is not too hard to understand.  Empire after empire conquered, oppressed, and occupied the Jewish people, including, according to the prophets, a couple of their own (Hebrew Scripture scholar, Walter Brueggemann relates how Solomon became a symbol for how the Jewish monarchy became just like any other garden variety empire.).  

The prophet Daniel states the characteristic behavior of empires:  arrogant, violent, and devouring (consuming).  It is who empires are (beastly, Daniel calls it) and what they do.  It's in the air, the broth, or the stew.  It is impossible to avoid.  Our task is to try and figure out how to be "human" in the empire milieu.  

So faithful Jewish people spent a great deal of time trying to figure out how to show their loyalty and fidelity to God while surviving in empire.  How much can one cooperate with empire and be faithful?  Can you eat their food?  Can you bow to their ruler?  Can you sacrifice to their idols?  Can you marry their women?  How far do you go engaging in their spiritual practices?  Can you still pray to the Living God?  Can you trade in their currency?  Because the empire and the emperor will demand loyalty and fidelity.  How do we show that we have not been co-opted or subsumed within the priorities and loyalties of empire?  When the emperor or pharaoh or king takes for themselves divine titles like god or son of god, is it possible to split loyalties?

These are the questions that shaped the Jewish and Christian narrative for a long, long time. Unfortunately, I do not believe we are often conscious of these same questions being asked of us within the American empire.  Though the President does not take divine titles, our wider culture is regularly asking us where our loyalties lie.  You better show your patriotism.  You better not be too Muslim.  You better not question foreign policy--even within your house of worship.  The bloodlust can continue because we do not worship God so much as we give way to calls for patriotism.  

Empire is within the air, the broth, or the stew.  We all take it in.  It is a part of us here in these United States.  Inevitably, I give some of my allegiance to it.  There are very rare exceptions to this.   Even the 9/11 terrorists responded out of the empire stew.  Violence is such a characteristic of empire that to respond violently often betrays the fact that you trade in empire's currency.

Most days I have both feet placed squarely within the empire fence.  On rare occasion, I can get one foot lifted over the fence and placed on other ground.  I need to do this as a part of my spiritual practice to declare my freedom for God and my freedom from empire. 

I believe one of the spiritual practices justice-making people of faith must do is to find alternative media which is highly critical of empire and allows us to view the world from outside of ourselves.  It is one of the reasons I still plug into Bible.  At times, Bible is very

critical of empire.  

Unfortunately, however, as Luther might recommend, we cannot go sola scriptura.   I believe we must also have a way of updating the way of the world and the way God is moving in the world.  We do not regularly hear of the incredible pain and suffering caused by Shell on the Niger Delta.  We almost never hear of the democracy movements in Mexico and the tens of thousands of people pouring into the street in protest.  We rarely hear of news told from the perspective of collective action and movements.  

We need to be humbled by the collective pain and hope in the world.  It is why I listen to the Democracy Now! (www.democracynow.org) podcast at least once a week and try to read the headlines at least three times a week.  The BBC can be good.  Maybe even try Al-Jazeera.   Find something that seeks to report outside the realm and reach of empire.  I also find journalists who regularly report or write of the broad and arcing narratives they see within the empire:  Chris Hedges, Joan Chittister, Glenn Greenwald, Arundhati Roy, Jeremy Scahill, Tom Philpott, Cornel West, and Amy Goodman.  

As I stated in Praying the News, journalists have become the new prophets.  We need to find the ones that matter and speak to us of the whispers of God who lives on the other side of the fence.  Then, slowly but surely, we might ease that one foot on the other side and hear of the good news on a regular basis.  Real pain and hope are found there.  And their news tells us that we do not have to be the arrogant, violent, and consuming people the empire wants us to be.