This article was originally written for the Et Cetera, the newspaper of the Christian graduate school I attend here in Vancouver, Regent College. I was responding to an article entitled “Why I Will Not Occupy Vancouver” written by a friend of mine, where her concerns about the movement were outlined: the protesters are costing taxpayers too much money, the movement is too complex and confusing, and those involved should do something more useful like “occupy a job” and/or volunteer at a soup kitchen or teach literacy to kids. This is my response.

I would like to begin by thanking my friend BJ Bruder for her article last week that outlined why she would not Occupy Vancouver. On one level, I can identify with her frustration that the movement seems to be so complex and confusing that it is hard to pinpoint the purpose and “effectiveness” of the protest. I can also understand her suspicion that some of the protesters seem to be members of a privileged class who have the luxury of not having to work in order to camp out downtown for days at a time. How would it be justifiable that a student of privilege would protest the economic system that benefited his or her own wealthy family? This is a good question worth considering.

Her article presents an opportunity to consider an answer to this and other good questions. What exactly is this movement about? What is the purpose of a protest? Should Christians protest? If so, why?  If not, is charity work a better use of one’s time? Why or why not? Could there be good reasons why “able-bodied” or “privileged” people would join the Occupy Movement other than that they nothing better to do?

Starting with the last question, I would like to answer yes. There are three reasons I can think of, and they happen to be the title of a Regent course I took last summer: “Solidarity, Resistance, and Liberation: The Way of God in the World” taught by Dave Diewert in the Downtown Eastside.

First, Solidarity. As Christians we are called to not only think of ourselves, but to stand alongside those who are weak, suffering, and outcast. In the incarnation, God chose to leave behind his place of comfort and privilege and be born as a poor, homeless refugee in order to stand alongside those who were poor, broken, and oppressed. Moses chose to leave behind his life of luxury in Pharoah’s palace and act in solidarity with his people who were enslaved – though granted the violence was not the best means. Still, he chose not to ignore the Hebrew’s plight of slavery, and when God called him from the burning bush, he returned to his own people to liberate them from oppression in Egypt. Paul cast off his life of privilege–enjoying comfort as a Roman citizen–in order to suffer persecution with his fellow Christians. The Occupy Movement is a chance for all people–including those who are privileged–to stand alongside those who are the worst victims of economic and political policies that put the power in the hands of banks and multinational corporations while essentially eroding true democracy.

For BJ to suggest that the “privileged” protesters should “occupy a job” merely buys into the core problem that is being protested. The sentiment betrays the notion that “for a person to be of any value, they have to be economically productive citizens. They need to contribute to the economy, to the bottom line, to what makes our society tick” writes Andrew Stephens-Rennie on his blog Empire Remixed. He goes on, “And yet. And yet, isn’t this precisely the point? Isn’t it precisely the point of these protests that our government, banks and major corporations have crucified human dignity with their unwavering emphasis on an economic bottom line ignorant of human suffering?” God calls us to be more than economically productive, he calls us to love. My friends Dan and Trista, who both have jobs and are part of Occupy Vancouver, have chosen to work less and live in community, sharing many assets in common with others, so that they can spend more time and resources being active in their wider communities. They work in solidarity with those who are suffering in order to dream up and live into another way of being.

Second, Resistance. As evangelicals, it is easy for us to only think of resisting evil in terms of personal morality. We must resist the temptation to lie, gossip, judge others, and view pornography. All these things are necessary to do, for they can be destructive to both ourselves personally and to our communities. However, thinking of morality in these ways alone betrays a radical individualism that stems from a modernist way of being in the world, and is deeply unbiblical. In Scripture, we see the prophets repeatedly condemn Israel for structural evil and national immorality. Israel, as a nation, broke the covenant, oppressed the poor, and ignored the practices of jubilee. The Occupy Movement brings to our attention the structural sin of our global economy – a system that benefits the wealthy minority (the 1%), giving them power to make decisions that negatively affect the majority (the 99%). We must prophetically resist the systems and structures of power that dehumanize and oppress. God brought Israel out of Egypt, a economic powerhouse dependent on human slavery, and into a new way of being in the world, based on principles of equality, jubilee, and shalom for all people. We too are to resist Empires of injustice and live into another way of being, based on Kingdom principles of justice, compassion, and love.

BJ has argued that it might be more useful for people to volunteer, doing positive things like teaching literacy or working at a soup kitchen. While these are acts of mercy, they are only band-aid solutions and do not address the core issues that create illiteracy or homelessness. As Christians we are called act justly, which is about working for social change. It’s like coming across wounded people at the bottom of a cliff and working only to tend to their wounds, while more and more people are falling off the cliff. You can set up a hospital and bring in more doctors, which would be good acts of mercy. But eventually someone must go up to the top of the cliff and find out who or what is causing the people to fall off the cliff! This is the difference between charity and justice. Charity would be following BJ’s suggestion of working at a soup kitchen. But soup kitchens have been around for thousands of years, and nothing has changed. The Occupy Movement (along with community development-based initiatives like Jacob’s Well and Just Potters) -  is about addressing the core problems with our society that cause people to need soup hand-outs in the first place, and giving them some dignity by working together with them for lasting social change.

Which brings me to my third reason, Liberation. Brian Walsh, author of Colossians Remixed and Beyond Homelessness: Christian Faith in an Age of Displacement, said this weekend at the Beyond Homelessness: The Church and Affordable Housing Forum, that as a society, we need a better story that the one we have been living for the past couple hundred years. The story of neo-liberal capitalism is essentially mean-spirited, radically individualistic, and has obviously not worked to “lift all boats” as its proponents promised it would. We need a story that is centered around bringing all people home – that is, to a place of belonging, relationship with God and others, and access to the resources all need to be involved in home-making. Our society, centered around the idol of the American Dream, has essentially rendered many people homeless, and not only physically. Many who have physical houses to live in are homeless in the sense that they feel isolated, depressed, overworked, and feel no attachment or responsibility to the place they live in and the people who live there. They long for something more. They long for a sense of home.

As Christians, we are to live into a different story, a home-making story. The story that started with the great home-breaking of all time (Adam and Eve being cast out of the garden, and out of right relationship with God and each other), and ends with the greatest home-coming of all time (reconciliation with God, others, and all of creation). Through this story, we are called to be people who embody home-making, by building community with our neighbours, by caring for our creational home and a specific place within it, and by finding our true sense of belonging and home in God. This includes justice, for as Brian Walsh said, “justice is a society where home-making is possible for all.” This is true liberation, and this can be our reason, as Christians, for participating in the Occupy Movement. It is a chance for people to get together and dream, and talk, and believe that another world, another way of being, is possible.

Sound too idealistic? It can never happen? That’s what the cynics said about the Civil Rights movement led by Martin Luther King, or the Apartheid movement led by Desmond Tutu, or the Independence Movement in India led by Ghandi. I believe that we don’t have to settle for the ways things are. I believe in social change, and not only so that we can see God’s kingdom, as we pray, “on earth as it is in heaven,” but also as an act of eschatological hope. Every act of social justice is an anticipation, a foretaste, of the truly just future that is to come. A future in the New Heavens and New Earth where there will be no more tears, poverty, or oppression, but enough resources, community, and love for all.

I would like to extend an invitation to BJ and all others who would like to me to go down to the Occupy Vancouver site this weekend. Perhaps by actually meeting the people who are acting in solidarity and resistance for the purpose of liberation, we too will be inspired to dream up a new way of being in the world. Come with us, those who are curious, those who are cynical, those who are tired, those who long for another way. Come as an act of eschatological hope.

At the risk of sounding like a hipster, I liked Donald Miller before he was famous, and now––thanks to my friend Amy––I fear he’s selling out.

First, my true-blue-fan cred: I met him 3 years before Blue Like Jazz was published. Great guy. He came to speak at a Summit College reunion at my childhood camp in Huntsville, Ontario (Summit was a one year outdoor adventure/Bible/leadership program that I did after high school). I liked his talk so much––about how we carry around needless baggage like giant rocks in our hiking packs (a talk well suited for us outdoorsy folk)––that I bought his first book called Prayer and the Art of Volkswagen Maintenance (later released as Through Painted Deserts). As I read though this journal about his road trip from Texas to Oregon in a broken-down VW van, I remember thinking this guy is wonderful. He had such a unique, laugh-out-loud funny, comforting voice, and told so many great stories, that I was sad when it was finished. I later I lent it to a boy I liked, trying to impress him with the fact that I read cool stuff, and never got it back. Which sucks because in addition to being a great story, that first cover was way better than the re-published one.

I was ecstatic when Blue Like Jazz came out 3 years later and gobbled down every delicious, witty, insightful morsel. I lent it to all my friends who didn’t believe, to prove Christian spirituality could be about freedom and love and light, and they liked it. Since then, I’ve read all his books (OK, except the fathering one), and each one felt like I was spending time with a hilariously self-depreciating, ruthlessly honest, wise friend. I resonated deeply with his self-described “fundamentalist phase” in Blue Like Jazz (Oh MAN was I ever fundy back in my early 20s! Sorry Justin Broadbent, my YWAM team and anyone else I pissed off). I loved how his friends at college made a confessional booth, dressed up as monks, and then during a campus-wide party night gave confessions to students on behalf of Christians who have done a lot of hurtful things. I may have shed a tear, I’m not gonna lie.

I understood his frustration with mainstream, formulaic Christian spirituality in Searching for God Knows What. I appreciated his call for something better (something to do with allowing God’s love to be your chill-pill to help you to live authentically). I even day-dreamed about going to his church in Portland and tricking the man to fall in love with me, as I know he loves Canadian girls, Ani DiFranco, and chicks who don’t wear shoes (two outta three ain’t bad). He got me reading Anne Lamott (an older, wiser, funnier female version of him), whose brilliant writing has saved and comforted me in more ways than I can say.

And his latest book was great, though horribly named because everyone always screws up the title (A Thousand Miles in a Million Years? A Million Miles in a Thousand Years?) It made me think, laugh, cry, and even got me thinking about how to live my own story with more… intentionality. Shortly after, he even added me on Facebook (well, ok, he responded to my plea of a friend request, and then wrote on my wall saying he remembered giving that first Summit College talk), but then a few days later I noticed we were no longer friends. I like to tell people that he probably had to make room for real people in his life, as apparently you can only have like 3000 friends before you have to get a Fan Page, but I really just made that up. I have no idea why my favourite author de-friended me.

Despite this heartbreak, I was excited when I found out that his Storyline Conference would be happening when my friend Amy and I will be driving through Portland on a west coast road trip. My other friend Sam and his friends are going too, and we could possibly all drive down from Vancouver together. I sent Amy the link to the conference, as she has always liked his books too, and also because she’s about the smartest person I know (she’s doing a PhD in Anthropology of Religion)–so she’d be fun to go with. I waited about a day, and got an email back saying that she had seen that about a month ago and knew I would want to go, but she just couldn’t bring herself to do it. She studies Christian behaviour for a living, you see, and she needed a break from this on her holiday. But there was another reason she mentioned that I didn’t understand. I called her so that she could explain over the phone.

“Well,” she sighed. “I just––I think he’s selling out.”

“What?” I asked. “How come?”

“I don’t know. Remember when he wrote all that stuff about how Christianity isn’t a formula, or about checking off boxes of a to-do list? And we believed him. Our 20-year-old selves needed to hear that and we believed him. But now he’s charging $250 to sit in an auditorium for two days so that they can learn––wait, what does the website say?–– ‘the elements of a meaningful life and gain practical tools to plan a better story for yourself, your team and the people you lead’?”

“Oh. Yeah I never thought of that.”

“It’s says there’ll be worksheets and workbooks and ‘reflective assignments’? It’s like he’s figured out that this is how you make money as a Christian author. You tell people: ‘This is what you need to know. This will save your life.’ And that’s the way things are in the world, I get it. But hearing whatever he says in two days isn’t going to magically make everything OK. So I’d rather not pretend it will…”

I was a bit taken aback, and stammered out a bit of a pathetic defense: “Well, yeah, but I feel a little lost in my own story right now. It could be used as a, I don’t know, tool (I cringed as I said this word) to, you know, help me out.”

“Yeah, but you already do all of the stuff he’s says he’ll teach you! You read. You reflect. You study at Regent! You’re inspired to change the world by a thousand different things. You think about who you are and what you should do all the time. And it costs way more and way less than $250; it takes way more and way less than a weekend. But hey, honestly, I don’t need to dissuade you. You don’t need to be as cynical as me! You should go…I just can’t.”

I sighed and told Amy that I’d think about it and let her know. Hanging up, I was instantly depressed. She raised a really good point. As I look more at the website, it does seem to be implying that there is a formula to follow––a storyline––to help you improve your life and be a better Christian.

But wait, this post on his blog seems to suggest that Christians don’t need to know about stuff! From academics. Just him, I guess.  (Best response to that post I’ve read is here.)

However. I’d like to think that the man is not this deluded all of a sudden. In a short video on the conference website, he does seem to think its a really cool thing for people to come and think about their life’s story for a few days, and how it intersects with God’s story. And I agree, kinda. But to charge so much money for a workbook and a few hours of hearing him talk? And marketing it like a quick, self-help solution to your problems, like it’s that simple? How can he forget whole books that he’s written? I don’t know–perhaps it’s just the way the publishers and conference folk have marketed it? I just don’t know.

Ok wait–I just saw that the first screening of the Blue Like Jazz movie will be at the conference!! Oh man I REALLY want to see that!!! But, but…

Argh. So now the question is:

——–

‘Who is like Yahweh’…judge, king, warrior, father!
‘There is none like Yahweh’…artist, gardener, doctor, mother, shepherd!
There is none like Yahweh, who lives inside a rich, open, generative rhetoric, whose character arises from daily life, and who refers back to daily life in governing and sustaining ways. (1) -Walter Brueggemann

All language we use for God is analogous and inadequate; there is no perfect metaphor that would sufficiently capture all there is to know about the multi-faceted nature of our indescribable God. In addition, language is not static; it has morphed over time to reflect changing culture. Because God uses our own language to communicate something to us, God naturally accommodates God’s ways and ideas to use language and images that we are familiar with within the limits of our particular culture and place in history.(2)  In this paper I would like to focus on this latter aspect of the language we use for God: accommodation. I will argue that just as God chose to accommodate to a less-than-ideal patriarchal Hebrew society by revealing Godself using masculine imagery and language, God also chose to accommodate to certain 14th century medieval concepts of motherhood and medical physiology to reveal Godself, using maternal imagery and language, to the English mystic Julian of Norwich. Julian’s portrayal of God as Mother should then serve as an example to contemporary Christ-followers that as culture and language morphs over time, for better or worse, God will continue to accommodate to our own cultural perceptions in order to meet us where we are at. Some will argue that this issue raises several concerns, including whether or not we are permitted to ‘invent’ language for God, and while I am sympathetic to them, I believe they are unwarranted and can be eased by a deeper understanding of the nature and purpose of our language for God and its relationship to changing cultural contexts.

In order to understand Julian’s use of maternal imagery in her own cultural context, it will be helpful to first examine the purpose of masculine language for God in the cultures of the Old and New Testament. Although the language for God in Scripture is mostly masculine (there are feminine references to God in Scripture that I will reference later), most serious theologians throughout the ages have agreed that the masculine language used in these terms does not imply that God has “genitalia or other indications of human maleness”, for God is spirit.(3)  So if God is not male, why is the majority of language used in Scripture masculine? I submit that God chose to accommodate to the less-than-ideal patriarchal Hebrew society as portrayed in Scripture by revealing Godself using masculine imagery and language.(4)  For in order to communicate God’s transcendence, power, authority and majesty to the people of the Old and New Testament, God had to use images of lord, king, ruler, and judge, all positions that were, in that time and place, and as a result of an fallen unjust culture, held only by men.(5)(6)   Also, in order to supplement those images with ones of immanence, intimacy, relationality, and love, God used the image of a parent, predominantly father, for culturally specific and appropriate reasons. The Talmud, the central text of mainstream Judaism, teaches that the father’s responsibility towards his son consisted of three things: “to circumcise him, to teach him the law, and to teach him a trade.”(7)  Thus it was the father’s responsibility to teach his son “the meaning of life and to pass on secrets of the family trade.”(8)  Fathers, then, had a special relationship to their children that mothers did not. Also, in that particular culture, only fathers had the social and legal authority that is shared by both fathers and mothers today.(9)  Revealing Godself in feminine terms to people in ancient Hebrew culture would not have made much sense, for women had few legal rights, were oppressed and often treated like property or prostitutes. God also revealed Godself to be a spouse and a lover in order to convey God’s love and intimacy. If God had revealed Godself in asexual or trans-sexual terms, the people would have had no earthly image or common ground through which to relate to God.(10)  God took great care to communicate Godself using culturally specific language and imagery that would most accurate convey what God meant to be conveyed about Godself at that particular time and place in history.

In the same manner, God accommodated to 14th century medieval notions of motherhood and medical physiology, as well as to Julian of Norwich’s own experience with her earthly mother, in order to most accurately communicate certain aspects of God’s character to her. For in order for God to reveal God’s creative, sustaining, nurturing, and utterly devoted love and care, for Julian it was most helpful that God, and in particular Jesus, be understood as Mother. For in medieval England, four views of the mother existed. First, she is generative, that is, the fetus is created by her and is made of her very matter.(11)  In a similar way, Julian believed that we are created by Jesus and are made up of the same substance as him, in the sense that he took on our humanity yet mysteriously retained his divinity, and likewise we are fully human yet take on Christ’s nature through our salvation. She writes, “And so Jesus is our true Mother in nature by our first creation, and he is our true Mother in grace by his taking our created nature.” (12) Whether through our first or second birth, Jesus is the creative source of life.

Second, in medieval England it was widely noted that the mother is willing to endure birth pangs in order to give life.(13)  Julian believed that in a similar way, Jesus endured ‘birth pangs’ on the cross in order to give all of humanity new life. She writes, “In accepting our nature he gave us life, and in his blessed dying on the cross he bore us to endless life.”(14)

Third, in Julian’s culture it was a common belief that the mother is nurturing and sustains her children with her own bodily fluid. (15) Medieval medical physiology taught that breast milk was actually processed blood, so the mother actually fed her children with her blood, the essence of her own life.(16)  Julian believed that Jesus is our Mother then in the sense that he gives us nourishment from his own body and blood, an image of the Eucharist. She writes, “The mother can give her child to suck of her milk, but our precious Mother Jesus can feed us with himself, and does, more courteously and most tenderly, with the blessed sacrament, which is the precious food of true life.”(17)  Both a mother and Jesus sustain their children with food that is themselves.

Fourth, in medieval England it was widely perceived that the mother is loving and tender and has a natural instinct to protect, comfort, discipline and guide her children at all costs.(18)  Julian believed that Jesus as our Mother performs all of these high duties out of his abundant and instinctual love for us his children.(19)  She writes, “The mother’s service is nearest, readiest and surest: nearest because it is most natural, readiest because it is most loving, and surest because it is truest. No one ever might or could perform this office fully, except only [Jesus].”(20)  In Julian’s experience with her own mother, who she notes is by her bedside throughout her entire illness and during the revelations, these words are as true of mother as they are of father.(21)  Also, Julian also describes the mother as one who guides and disciplines: “And when [the child] is even older, she allows it to be chastised to destroy its faults, so as to make the child receive virtues and grace.”(22)  Just as a mother seeks the best for her children by meeting their needs, protecting, loving, guiding and disciplining them, so Jesus performs these duties with great natural ease and joy.

God’s accommodating revelations to Julian of Norwich of God as Mother can teach contemporary Christ-followers that God accommodates to people’s understanding of motherhood and fatherhood as constructed by their own particular culture, essentially meeting us where we are at, in order to most accurately reveal Godself to us. Thus I believe that in today’s cultural context in North America, where women alongside men hold equal status, equal parental responsibilities and roles, as well as equal legal rights over their children, it will be helpful to many to perceive and address God as their Mother, depending upon their own notions and experience of motherhood.

Some will argue that this raises several concerns, and here I will only be able to address a few. First, some believe that using Mother will lead to an abandonment of the traditional language for God. In no way am I advocating this, nor did Julian of Norwich, for she used a variety of images for God throughout her writings. Addressing and describing God as Mother should serve to complement and expand upon all other language we use for God. Second, some are worried that this feminine language will change the religion or will mean a slippage into pagan goddess worship. I believe that as long as good teaching about precisely what is meant – and what is not meant – by God as Mother accompanies this title, than this fear is unwarranted. Implying that by viewing God in feminine terms automatically equals pagan worship is personally insulting as a woman, as there are many male pagan deities as well! Third, some believe that we are not permitted to ‘invent’ new language for God. But I do not believe by referring to God as Mother we are inventing new language, rather we are simply translating the meaning behind God as Father – that God is an intimately relational, caring, authoritative (etc.) parent – into a word that also captures the similar meaning for us today. If we really believe that God is not male, that the purpose of the ‘father’ language is to convey God’s relational intimacy, love, guidance, and so forth, and that both male and female are equally created in God’s image, and mostly enjoy this status in today’s North American culture, than we must stop acting like God is solely male by continuing to view God solely in these terms. For if our language is not static, and the masculine terms ‘man’, ‘mankind’, and ‘he’ no longer refer to both men and women, than is it possible by retaining masculine-only language for God we are actually then changing the religion?(23)  Since language has changed, Paul Smith, author of Can We Call God ‘Mother’? believes that “if we fail to update our religious language, it will become increasingly masculinized. It is then that we ultimately change our religion from worship of a God who both encompasses and transcends male and female to a God who is exclusively male.” These are thoughts worth considering.

While language and culture continually are morphing and changing around us, we can be thankful that our God does not. While God accommodates for us, God’s eternal qualities of both transcendence and immanence, power and kindness, justice and love, have always been and always will be. I am grateful for Julian of Norwich’s faithfulness in recording her revelations from God, so that those after her can be encouraged and renewed by the image of God as our creative source, our nurturing, loving, and sustaining Mother. To God alone be the glory.

___

Endnotes

(1) Walter Brueggemann, Old Testament Theology: Essays on Structure, Theme, and Text (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1992), 266.

(2) John G. Stackhouse, Finally Feminist: A Pragmatic Christian Understanding of Gender (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2005), 120.

(3) Ibid.

(4) Ibid., 120-121.

(5) Ibid., 121.

(6) I am presupposing an egalitarian view of gender in this paper. Although there is no time to flesh this out completely here, I believe that the biblical text is thoroughly emphatic that both men and women are created equally in the image of God and that the patriarchal system in which women were treated as less than human, kept from positions of leadership, and oppressed for thousands of years was a result of the fall and was critiqued and overthrown by Christ, as “there is neither male nor female…for all are one in Christ.” (Galatians 3:28)

(7) Paul R. Smith, Is It Okay to Call God “Mother”?: Considering the Feminine Face of God (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 1993), 29.

(8) Ibid.

(9) Ibid.

(10) Stackhouse, Finally Feminist, 121.

(11) Caroline Walker Bynum, Jesus as Mother: Studies in the Spirituality of the High Middle Ages (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1982), 131-132.

(12) Julian of Norwich, Showings (New York: Paulist Press, 1978), 296.

(13) Bynum, Jesus as Mother, 132.

(14) Julian of Norwich, Showings, 304.

(15) Ibid.

(16) Bynum, Jesus as Mother, 131-132.

(17) Julian of Norwich, Showings, 298.

(18) Bynum, Jesus as Mother, 131-132.

(19) Julian of Norwich, Showings, 299-302.

(20) Ibid., 297.

(21) Jennifer P Heimmel, “God Is Our Mother”: Julian of Norwich and the Medieval Image of Christian Feminine Divinity (Salzburg, Austria: Institut für Anglistik und Amerikanistik, Universität Salzburg, 1982), 49.

(22) Julian of Norwich, Showings, 299.

(23) Smith, Is It Okay to Call God “Mother”?, 35.

I am a passionate, curious, and tortured soul. I long to understand a million different things, and feel most alive when I am learning, discussing, writing about, and teaching ideas that really matter, that are central to the beautiful, eternal meaning of the human experience. Unfortunately, this also means that I often feel like there is not enough hours in the day or years in this life to do and learn and experience all the things that I want to. I often get depressed when I feel I have no time to read all the books and articles I want to, see the all the films I’ve been told are brilliant, or learn how to play the instrument or perform the artistic skill I can sense I would love.

For this reason, I am fairly undecided as to what I want to do with my life. Up until this point, I have wanted to be a lawyer, teacher, writer, humanitarian worker, photographer, counselor, theatre actress, backpacker-hostel-owner in Northern India, and Anglican priest. Just last night, when I heard the lecture on reading film, I wondered if I should leave Regent and go to film school, as I realized that the art of telling stories is so fascinating and important. After taking Dave Diewert’s class in the Downtown Eastside this summer, I wanted to become an addictions counselor. I thought, What is more Christ-like than reaching out to the poor and marginalized? After going to the Festival of Faith and Writing in the spring at Calvin College, I was sure that it was my destiny to become a writer, as writing has always been a true passion of mine. I even drafted the beginnings of book proposal – a spiritual, philosophical and cultural analysis of the epic prophetic narrative that is LOST (yes, the TV show, but it is so much more!), which has now fallen by the wayside because a million other things have drowned it out.

As a result, I’ve often experienced somewhat of an ‘identity crisis’, as my intense desire to learn about and do so many things with my life overwhelms me. After recently expressing this desire to several friends, they recommended the ancient personality-type system of the Enneagram. In the book The Enneagram: A Christian Perspective, authors Richard Rohr and Andreas Ebert write that although the Enneagram has pre-Christian roots, the Desert Fathers and Mothers as well as many other Christians throughout the centuries have used this system for understanding the depths of who people are and how they can grow in maturity.

In preparation for this paper, and with a strong desire to learn more of the textured, multi-faceted layers of myself, I began to research the Enneagram and took the test to discover my type. I am most certainly Type 4, which has been called ‘the Individualist’ or ‘the Artist’. According to the Enneagram (and all of the following rings true), I have an intuitive sense of beauty in the world, am aware and deeply connected to my emotions, and need to be unique and special. I am most happy when I feel like I am being authentic and ‘true to myself’, and despise all that is boring, average, mass-produced, or ‘normal’ (in terms of clothing, decorative items or vehicles, etc.). Rohr and Ebert write that “many fours are vegetarians, animal rights activists, feminists, and adherents to eccentric ideas about health.” I laughed out loud when I read this, because I am (or have been at one time) all of those things! I am also emotionally honest and unafraid to reveal my emotions to others, both good and bad. I am imaginative, creative, sensitive, deep, witty, and self-expressive. Most importantly, at my core I am a social being, and love connecting with others in meaningful ways.

According to the Enneagram, and as explained by Rohr and Ebert, at my most unhealthy I can be utterly melancholy and fearful that I will never be truly ‘myself’. This is really the story of my life, as I have struggled with on-and-off depression for as long as I can remember. However, at my most mature, I can be creative, original, and like the Oyster ‘transform dirt into pearls’. Self-discipline, community, and a strong ‘connectedness to the real world’ are essential for me to realize the essence of who I have been created to be.
But knowing oneself intimately can only take one so far. At some point I must stop looking inward and look outward to the bigger picture. I can sense profound insight in Alasdair MacIntyre’s quote, “I can only answer the question ‘What am I to do?’ if I can answer the prior question ‘Of what story or stories do I find myself a part?’” I first heard this quote this past year, while studying with Brian Walsh (author of Colossians Remixed) at Wycliffe College in Toronto. We talked about the paralyzing, disorienting nature of post modernity. With so many options available to us, how are we to find our way? The conclusion we came to was that we must indwell the Story of God, and engage in what N.T. Wright calls ‘faithful improvisation’ as actors would in a play that is missing a part of its script. If I am an actor in God’s Drama, I first must study vigorously the parts of the script that are available. I must study the characters of the Drama that have acted up until now – the biblical characters, the apostles, the church fathers and mothers, and so on – so that I get an intuitive sense of the Director’s character and his dramatic intentions for the Story. It is only then that I will know how to ‘faithfully improvise’ at this part in the Great Play – using my unique personality, passions, and gifts in a way that will contribute beautifully to God’s overall purposes for the world – redemption, compassion, and justice.

Essentially, I have come to Regent to study the Story, so that I may know better the Author in order to ‘faithfully improvise’ as a creative actor in the Great Drama. As of now I am in the MDiv program, but am intending on transferring to the MCS with a concentration in – what else, with such a broad range of interests as mine? – Interdisciplinary Studies. It is my hope and prayer that as I learn, discuss, wrestle with, and write about the many different elements of the Story, that God will reveal to me the unique role I am to play in it. I look forward to the topsy-turvy, glorious journey ahead.

At first this statement offended me. I was sitting in a lunch-time open lecture on Old Testament ethics, and I remember thinking that the wider Church, as I have witnessed it, has NOT been focusing on issues of social justice as much as it should. And how could such a personal, behind-the-doors choice like ‘sexual sin’ – whatever that entails – possibly be as dangerous and damaging as forgetting the poor?

I was raised in a church whose youth group stressed the dangers of ‘sex, alcohol, and partying’ and totally neglected teaching me that being a follower of Christ was more about living a radically alternative lifestyle to that of our dominant culture – a life of community, simplicity, compassion for the weak and marginalized, and fighting against the injustice in our world.

But I’ve learned since my youth group days that there are WAY more Scriptures that talk about poverty and injustice than sex and alcohol. Jesus himself said that he would separate the true followers from the false ones by how they treat “the least of these” (Matthew 25).

So if  “nobody gets to heaven without a letter of reference from the poor” (as James Forbes said, a pastor from New York City), this is the area that the Church needs to focus on, right?

Well, yes. But not to the exclusion of other things that can equally drain us  of our intended whole, healthy, shalom-infused selves.

According to Brian Walsh and Sylvia Keesmaat in their book Colossians Remixed, the empire of globalized consumerist capitalism has led us to believe that the commodification of everything – including sex – is normal. They argue that sexual sin is much like  consumerism in that it “fundamentally a matter of covetousness, an insatiable, self-gratifying greed that has the control and consumption of the other person as its ultimate desire.“

They continue, “Sexual sin is sin not because it is sexual but because it is invariably covetous. It replaces the pleasure and sexual enjoyment of two people in a loving relationship with a self-centered gratification of sexual longings than can never be fulfilled apart from commitment. Such sin breaks the back of trust that is at the heart of community, and it is a community that Paul is striving to build here.”

They go on to quote Wendell Berry (theologian, poet, farmer), who believes that sexual love is at the heart of community: “Both marriage and community require trust, patience, respect, mutual help, forgiveness- in other words, the practice of love, as opposed to the mere feeling of love.” Then they compare this kind of love with ‘industrial sexuality’ which is “exploitative of nature regardless of the consequences.” There are SO many great quote from these folks, I wanted to write them all out but I’d just be typing out the whole section! You can read the whole part, called Seceding from Imperial Sexuality (about 2 pages – pg. 160-162), here.

Bottom line: sexual sin IS a social justice issue. It is unjust that the empire of consumerist capitalism has turned the good gift of human sexuality, which is meant as something to be enjoyed between two people who love and have committed to each other, into something that is a cheap commodity, something to be marketed, packaged, and sold, something that degrades women (*amendment – my friend Hannah just reminded me that this occurs ESPECIALLY in human trafficking, prostitution, and sexual abuse – the consequences of a society that encourages exploration and ‘doing what feels good’) and turns us all into consumers who will be perpetually dissatisfied as long as it is self-gratification we are seeking.

To live justly in this area is to subvert the empire by refusing to treat other people as commodities to be controlled and consumed, but instead as brothers and sisters to love and serve. And then go a step further, and speak out against the exploitation of women and children who are everyday being trafficked, sold, and abused so that men can have their way with them.

Lord, have mercy. And may we all be subversive, even behind closed doors.

But recently I’ve learned of such organizations as Feminists for Life and Consistent Life Ethic that dialogue about the abortion issue in refreshing and deeply insightful ways that make total sense to me.

Don’t get me wrong, I’ve always been personally against abortion, being one who believes because of my faith that life begins at conception. But I have struggled with the idea that my personal beliefs should be forced on others who may not hold them, especially in a democracy.

Until now. I’m completely convinced that abortion fails women. I believe it is symptom of a society that cares more about profit than it does about taking care of it’s weakest and most vulnerable members of our society – the unborn, and their mothers who feel they might not make it if they have the child.

Jen Ziemenn, a member of St. Chiara Community (where I’ve been hanging around as of late, in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside) was arrested years ago for protesting at an abortion clinic. Her statement below to the judge is one of the most passionate and convincing I’ve heard on the issue:

Your Honour,

Today I stand before you after my third protest; against the social abandonment of women and the killing of unborn children through abortion. My concern is not just about abortion but about a system that is oppressive and mandates death for many and in which only a few profit.

It deeply saddens me to know that the women’s movement, which has struggled long and hard for justice, has bought into abortion.  “Accepting the necessity of abortion is excepting that pregnant women and mothers are unable to function as persons in this society. It indicates a willingness to adjust to the status quo which is a betrayal of the feminist cause, a loss of the revolutionary vision of a world fit for people to live in”. ( Daphne de Jong, National president for Feminists for Life).

Instead of asking women and children to change and to accommodate to this world, we should be asking the world to change and accommodate to the needs of women and children. This change not only requires social structures to change but individuals must take responsibility. We need to encourage commitments to family and self control over our sexual freedom. We must all except the challenge to work for a more loving world.

Our Government has abandoned its proper role of protecting its citizens and instead has opted to cater to profit interests, on the backs of the poor. Women who want to nurture and care for their children must often do so at great cost. Many face the harsh realities of living in poverty due to lack of support. It is in the government’s financial interest to protect laws which ensure abortion and silence any opposing voice; abortion is a one-shot deal, caring for people is costly.

My prayer is that government will stop dealing in death and focus on supporting life, and that we as individuals would work on building healthy communities where all are welcome and cared for. We can try to make the poor and weak disappear, “out of sight of of mind,” but they are never out of God’s sight. Thus, a society is judged not by how successfully it serves the rich and powerful, but whether it embraces the poor and weakest members of its communities.

So I hold out to you: a 50% increase of child poverty in Canada in the last decade, a growing gap between the rich and the poor, reduced welfare benefits, high unemployment, declining social services to, the Downtown Eastside declared a “public health emergency,” and over 106,000 abortions yearly in Canada–one of every five children killed through abortion. These are all marks of social decline and our failure as individuals and as a nation to care for our weakest members.

I believe abortion has failed women–it is not about “freedom” or “controlling our bodies”–it is about internalizing the domination of men over women and then dominating over our children, making them the scapegoat; a continuing of the cycle of violence.

Your Honour, I am guilty of the charge against me and I make no apology for my actions. I have conducted myself in a disciplined and peaceful manner and I am trying to live with integrity. I believe in the solidarity of humanity, that when my brother or sister suffers, I suffer. I cannot attain my full potential until you do. Thus, my life’s work: I am committed to lovingly struggle for justice and the protection of life which is threatened in today’s world by war and the arms race, abortion, poverty, racism, capital punishment and euthanasia.

I would like to end my statement with a quote from a hero of mine, priest and peace activist Dan Berrigan.  “If we haven’t bought the culture, we won’t buy abortion, capital punishment, mercy killing or nuclear war. If we have bought the culture, we will buy death piecemeal as a social method. And of course if you are buying deaths, the easiest buy is abortion.”

Thank you your honour.

Jen Ziemann

I’m with Jen, I’m consistently choosing life.

I received the following ad for a protest rally in an email from Dave Diewert, my prof of the two-week class i just took at Regent called Solidarity, Resistance, and Liberation: the Way of God in the World. Didn’t make it to the rally today, (I had to write a paper), but that doesn’t mean we can’t still talk about how horrible this man’s policies are!

—

“I plead guilty. I am a racist” – Jason Kenney, Montreal 2009.

Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism Jason Kenney is
known as the Minister of Censorship and Deportation because of his record
as one of the most repressive immigration ministers in Canadian history.
Deportations have increased, while the number of people accepted as
refugees and sponsored family members have drastically dropped. Instead,
Kenney has increased the number of temporary workers who are constantly
exploited for their labour. His new refugee bill creates a racist two tier
system based on nationality, and he has called a wide range of migrants -
from Mexicans to the War Resisters “bogus”. Under his regime, an Eritrean
refugee committed suicide from fear of a pending deportation, and a young
woman was murdered upon her deportation to Mexico.

Kenney is also a staunch supporter of imperialism, stifling anti war
voices such as George Galloway and the Canadian Arab Federation. Kenney’s
neoconservative values are obvious in his comments and actions: pulling
Canada out of the Durban World Conference Against Racism; introducing a
citizenship guide that omits the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans
and queer (LGBTQ) communities; defending Quebec Bill C-94 that
discriminates against women who wear the niqab; and stating that
immigrants are not integrating well into (colonial) Canada.

Join the People’s March Against Jason Kenney on July 24th to demand an END
to censorship of dissenting voices. An END to detentions and deportations.
An END to the exploitation of temporary migrant workers. An END to
military occupations from Afghanistan to Palestine. An END to
discrimination against women, LGBTQ communities, immigrants, and
racialized people.

We are rising out of schools, neighbourhoods, and workplaces to reject
Kenney’s agenda; join this grassroots movement and rise up with us!

The People v. Kenney
Freedom to move
Right to stay, and to Return
We are many.

ENDORSED BY: Alliance for People’s Health, Anti-Poverty Committee,
Association of Chinese Canadians for Equality and Solidarity Society,
Battered Women’s Support Services, Bolivia Solidarity Committee, Boycott
Israeli Apartheid Campaign, Building Bridges Human Rights- Vancouver,
Canada-Philippines Solidarity for Human Rights, Canadian Islamic Congress,
Check Your Head, Coalition of South Asian Women Against Violence, Comuna
of the Popular Indigenous Council of Oaxaca, East Van Abolitionists,
Friends of Women in the Middle East Society, Grassroots Women, Indigenous
Action Movement, Industrial Workers of the World, International Federation
of  Iranian Refugees, Iran Solidarity Vancouver, Justice for Girls,
Justice for Migrant Workers, Network of Sri Lankan Law Students, Next Up
Vancouver, Press Release Collective, Progressive Nepali Forum in Americas,
Purple Thistle, Rabble.ca, Radical Art In Nature, Rain Zine, Rhizome Cafe,
Salaam Vancouver, Seattle Vancouver Womyns Action Network, Sikh Activist
Network – BC, Simon Fraser Public Interest Research Group, Siraat
Collective, Solidarity for Palestinian Human Rights, Solidarity Notes
Choir, South Asian Network for Secularism and Democracy, Stopwar.ca,
Streams of Justice, Submedia, TarSandsArt, The Purple Thistle Centre,
Trikone-Vancouver, UBC Centre for Race Autobiography Gender and Age, UBC
Law , Social Justice Action Network, Vancouver Action, Vancouver Catholic
Worker, Vancouver Community Mobilization Network, War Resisters Support
Campaign, Workers Communist Party of Iran, Workless Party.

* TAKE ACTION!

1) Participate in the People’s March Against Kenney by organizing a march
in your city on July 24 and always confront Kenney if he rolls into your
town.

2) Download leaflets and multilingual pamphlets from
http://noii-van.resist.ca/?p=2034 and spread the word.

3) Plan a community forum to raise awareness about the escalating attacks
by Jason Kenney.

4)  Comment on online news stories, send a letter to the Editor, or write
your local MP regarding Kenney. Keep it short: “Minister Kenney is a
racist, anti-immigrant, war-mongering Conservative. The Minister of
Censorship and Deportation has got to go!”

5) Write Kenney at kennej@parl.gc.ca and bmq@cic.gc.ca and tell him what
you think!

* Read more about the People v. Jason Kenney Campaign:
http://noii-van.resist.ca/?p=1027

* For more information, email noii-van@resist.ca or call 778 885 0040

I’m currently in a class called Solidarity, Resistance and Liberation: The Way of God in the World that’s located in the Downtown Eastside (DTES) of Vancouver – an area that’s been called ‘the poorest postal code in Canada.’ It’s taught by Regent College’s Dave Diewert, who’s like the Brian Walsh of the West (my favourite-because-he’s-radical-and-creative prof at Wycliffe). It’s been freakin’ awesome.

We’ve gone around to different communities in the DTES, learning how they are engaging in solidarity with the poor, resistance of the oppressive political and economic powers of our age, and liberation for all of God’s children.

Today we learned why we should resist the injustice that occurs on cruise ships.

Because they are a microcosm of our world. God hates injustice, as unjust structures that maintain the status quo – the rich benefiting from the sweat of the poor (see the entire book of Amos, the Torah, most of the other prophets, the life of Jesus, and yes, even the Pauline epistles). This happens on a large scale in our current exploitative economic system, but happens on a smaller (but equally as unjust) scale on cruise ships.

The upper levels contain the wealthy elite, relaxing and enjoying the sun, the entertainment, and indulging in rich foods.  This “paradise” is made possible by the hundreds of poor workers laboring in horrid conditions on the lower levels of the ship.

95% of these workers, from the Majority (3rd) World, are working 7 days a week (no day off!), for 17-20 hours a day, for as long as a 10 month period. They are paid as little as $42 / month. It’s outrageous.

These shocking videos from Pirates of Justice reveal the untold horror story beneath the decks.

To learn more, visit http://www.waronwant.org/past-campaigns/sweat-ships

From Faith in Himself to Faith in The Island

The story of Lost begins with Jack Shephard’s eye snapping open. He is lying on his back in a dense bamboo forest, wearing a torn suit; his body scratched and bleeding. He is in shock, confused, and alone. A golden retriever runs from deep in the jungle to lick him awake, and soon he is running through the bamboo reeds until he reaches the beach, the site of the horrific crash. Jack, the decisive, self-reliant spinal surgeon, immediately begins doing what he has been trying to do ever since he was a small boy: save everyone. He pulls people from burning wreckage, gives a woman CPR, and moves others safely out of the way of falling debris. He spends the next three months maintaining his role as the survivors’ hero – he tends to people’s wounds, finds the transceiver in the cockpit deep in the jungle, outruns the mysterious Smoke Monster that kills the pilot, and finds a pool of fresh drinking water. He makes rules for distributing the food that they find, he tries to save his friends from ‘the Others’ that kidnapped them, and he makes it his mission to get ‘his people’ off the Island.

Jack is the typical modernist man. He is ‘homo autonomous’ – a ‘law unto himself’ – as he is independent and rationalistic; he believes only in that which he can see, touch, or do himself. Walsh and Middleton say that for the modernists, “we are who we are by overcoming all that binds and inhibits us and by determining for ourselves who we will be.” (1) Jack is constantly trying to overcome his father’s harsh words to him as a child, “You don’t have what it takes [to save everyone].” He has been trying for most of his life to prove his father wrong, and he does it by ‘fixing’ as many people as he can. He has a bonified Messiah-complex, and believes he can, through his own rationality and medical abilities, help the lame to walk and the dead to rise. Before the crash, he ‘fixed’ the beautiful Sarah, enabling her to walk again and then marrying her. She left him a short time later, and as she was walking out of his life she said to him, “Look at it this way, at least now you have something to fix.” On the Island, Jack resuscitates a nearly dead Charlie and becomes furious with himself when he is not able to ‘fix’ the young Boone, who dies after falling off a cliff. He even tries to fix himself, as when he needs his appendix taken out, he tries to do it himself! When Juliet, another doctor, tells him she can do it, he still demands to be kept awake in order to ‘guide her through it’ (although she eventually has him put out when it’s apparent he is not handling the pain well). His mission to get everyone off the Island is just another broken situation to  ‘fix’. This controlling impulse does not come out of a selfless desire to help others, but out of a need to control, to master the natural world thereby putting himself in the center of it.

The modernist quest to master the unknown stems from people like Jack. For as Walsh and Middleton assert, “the whole view of the modernist project depends on this view of selfhood. Without an independently rational self there would be no reason to trust the results and achievements of modern science.”(2)  It is Jack’s view of himself as a rationalistic, independent being that allows him to see the world – and other people – as a set of mechanistic systems that can be studied, known, and conquered. Thus if something is wrong – whether is be paralysis or being stranded on an Island, his natural response is that he must fix what is broken, thereby achieving a mastery over it. (3) Jack only believes in what rationality and science can help him see, feel, or touch. If it is not logical, it must not be true. This naturally puts him into conflict with the Island’s ironically-named ‘‘Man of Faith’’, John Locke. It was the Island that healed Locke’s paralysis, not Jack. As a result, Locke has tremendous faith in the miraculous nature of the Island, telling Jack that he believes it is “different…special… because I looked into the eye of the Island, and what I saw was beautiful.” Locke believes that each one of them crashed there ‘for a reason.’ He says they have a ‘purpose’ on the Island, that ‘the Island chose you too, Jack,’ and it is his ‘destiny’ to be there. Jack thinks this is ridiculous, and consistently dismisses Locke as a delusional old man, telling him ‘I don’t believe in destiny.’ When the two discover a hatch that leads down into the DHARMA Swan Station with the computer button that needs to be pressed every 108 minutes to ‘save the world,’ Jack refuses to believe that anything will happen if it is not pushed. Locke, on the other had, believes this is part of their ‘destiny’ and tries to convince Jack to push the button first. When Jack refuses, they have one of the most memorable shouting matches of the entire series.

Locke: WHY DO YOU FIND IT SO HARD TO BELIEVE??
Jack: WHY DO YOU FIND IT SO EASY??
Locke: IT’S NEVER BEEN EASY!!

Locke spends his time on the Island struggling to find what exactly it is that the Island wants him to do, while Jack spends his time trying to rescue ‘his people’ from ‘the Others’ who kidnap some of them, and get everyone off the Island. Eventually, Jack makes contact with Widmore’s freighter, believing it is there to save them, while Locke tries desperately to stop him from leaving the Island.

Locke: You’re not supposed to go home.
Jack: What am I supposed to do? …What was it you said [before]? That crashing here was our destiny?…It’s an island. It doesn’t need protection.
Locke: An island? No… It’s a place where miracles happen.
Jack: There are no such thing as miracles.
Locke: Well, we’ll have to wait and see which one of us is right…You’ll have to lie to the people [when you get back home, about what has happened]. Lie to them, Jack. If you do it half as well as you lie to yourself, they’ll believe you.

Jack, as the typical modernist man, cannot believe in miracles, or a higher purpose, or destiny, because these things are rationally and scientifically inexplicable. He cannot produce miracles himself, therefore they must not exist.

Yet Jack is a ‘Man of Faith’ – faith in himself, and faith in science and reason as the highest possible ways of knowing. But his faith does not lead him to a very good place. Just as Walsh and Middleton suggest, when left to his own self-directed devices, the heroic, modernist individual inevitably does violence.(4)  Jack’s controlling, self-reliant ways caused him to physically fight anyone (like Ben) who got in his way of getting off they Island, and his ‘rational’ decisions got many people killed. He guided the people from the freighter to the Island and they ended up killing several people. The freighter eventually exploded, killing more and leaving them stranded on a helicopter, which crashed into the ocean. Only a handful of them, the ‘Oceanic Six,’ were rescued by another boat passing by. Remembering the last words of Locke, Jack convinces them all that they have to lie in order to protect those they left behind, who were still on the Island. The three years that they were off the Island were the most miserable of their lives. Jack succumbs to alcoholism and drug addiction.  He ruins all of his relationships and loses his job. His modernist, controlling tendencies rebounded upon himself. The last straw for Jack is discovering that Locke has committed suicide, after failing to convince the Oceanic Six that they all had to go back to the Island. Jack feels deeply responsible for Locke’s death and, realizing his controlling, self-reliant faith in himself, reason, and science had led to nowhere good, begins to believe that maybe Locke was right after all. He had become nothing but an emotionally bankrupt, deeply broken, shell of a man.

I like to think Coldplay’s sweeping ballad Fix You influenced Jack’s decision to go back to the Island.

When you try your best, but you don’t succeed
When you get what you want, but not what you need
When you feel so tired, but you can’t sleep
Stuck in reverse

And the tears come streaming down your face
When you lose something you can’t replace
When you love someone, but it goes to waste
Could it be worse?

Lights will guide you home
And ignite your bones
And I will try
To fix you

Jack had tried his best to get everyone rescued, but was only successful in ‘saving’ six of them. He wanted to get away from the Island, and he wanted to ‘win’ Kate’s heart, both which he accomplished, but this was not what he needed. His life derailed and he became a drunk, unable to sleep or move forward with his life. Thinking of all that he had lost – his father, his job, his friends, and his love with Kate – caused him to drown himself in tears. But there was hope for Jack.  The Light of the Island would ‘guide him home,’ so he would no longer be lost. Fulfilling his destiny on the Island would ‘ignite his bones,’ would help him come truly alive, and would bring him healing and redemption. And in the end, for Jack who had become broken by trying so hard to fix things, the Island would be the One to fix him. Starting to believe that all these things would come to pass, Jack takes a leap of faith and goes back to the Island.

Once returned, now in 1977 (5) , Jack slowly starts to show signs of change. He lets others lead and when a young Ben gets shot (6) , Kate tries to plead with him to save Ben and he replies, “You know, when we were here before I spent all of my time trying to fix things. But did you ever think that maybe the Island just wants to fix things itself? That maybe I was just getting it the way?” He believes now in the seemingly impossible – that the Island is a special, miraculous, relational entity, capable of choosing him to complete some important task. He believes now that he is ‘supposed’ to be there, yet at first he doesn’t know why. When Daniel Faraday, the physicist who specializes in time travel, explains to them that if they were to drop a nuclear bomb into the pocket of electro-magnetism (that would eventually be the site of the Swan hatch), then it would break the chain of events that would lead to their plane crashing on the Island, Jack, believing still in the weight of scientific knowledge, believes that this must be why he is there, to prevent all the misery that they had experienced since crashing on the Island. He drops the bomb into the pocket of energy, which only succeeds in killing Juliet (7)  and catapulting them back into the present day. Jack, confused that his plan didn’t work and still struggling to know why he is on the Island, eventually sees his name on Jacob’s mysterious dial in the lighthouse (8),  and the images of his childhood home in Jacob’s mirror. After some time, Jack is finally able to let go of his need for rationalistic answers and embrace faith in the mysterious ways of the Island. When the four final Candidates (to replace Jacob as Island Protector) are finally able to talk to Jacob and he explains that one of them must protect The Light, Jack speaks up in his first moment of complete clarity.

Jack: I’ll do it. This is why I’m here. I’m supposed to do this.
Jacob: [whispering gently, knowing Jack’s previous confusion] Is that a question, Jack?
Jack: [shakes his head, without hesitation] No.
Jacob: [smiles softly] Good.

Jacob performs the New Island  Protector Ceremony, and gives Jack a cup to drink while reciting a Latin incantation over it (like the Eucharist!).  Jack’s destiny, of which he is now certain, is to protect the Light, thereby saving all of humanity from the the Man in Black (aka the Smoke Monster) who’s soul now resides in John Locke’s body (who I’ll call Fake Locke, or ‘Flocke’ for short). Flocke’s goal is to destroy and leave the Island, thereby killing all of humanity. Jack however, is now ready to do what is necessary to protect the Light and destroy ‘Flocke’ (who up until this time, could not be killed by regular means). (9)

Now with a deeper, mystical connection to the Island, Jack goes with Desmond (who has a unique resistance to electro-magnetism) and ‘Flocke’ to The Light so that Desmond can turn it off. Jack believes this will enable him to kill ‘Flocke’, but ‘Flocke’ believes it will destroy the Island. They are both right. With the Light turned off, the Island begins to shake and sink into the ocean. Meanwhile,  ‘Flocke’ (the Smoke Monster) becomes fully human again, allowing him to be killed by regular means.  During an epic battle with the Smoke Monster on the side of a cliff in the pouring rain, Jack is stabbed in the side. But with the help of Kate, Jack is victorious in killing him. Yet the Island is still shaking and sinking, and Jack knows that he must go turn The Light back on in order to save the Island – and all of humanity. He declares his love for Kate and they share a passionate embrace before he pleads with his friends to run for the Ajira plane that brought them back to the Island. He returns to the cave and turns on The Light again (by placing a giant stone back into the core of The Light). He weeps with joy as he realizes that his destiny has been realized. He saved the Island and protected The Light thereby saving the world.

The final moments of Lost are pure poetry. Jack, bleeding profusely from his side, slowly stumbles back through the bamboo forest – the same one he first woke up in at the beginning of his journey. All his strength gone, he collapses to the ground and gazes through the trees. (Here the camera flashes to the ‘sideways world,’ which we now know is a sort of purgatory – outside of time and after they are all dead – so that all the plane crash survivors can find one another so they ‘move on’ together. Jack and all his beloved friends that he saved – and some that he couldn’t save, like the real Locke and Boone – are being reunited in a church sanctuary.) Flash back to the Island: Jack is laying on the ground and the same golden retriever, Vincent, runs to him from out of the forest, this time not to lick him awake but to lick his wounds and lay beside as he dies (and this is where I started sobbing uncontrollably).

Jack musters a weak laugh at the sight of Vincent, knowing that his epic, destiny-ridden journey has come full circle. (Flash sideways to the church: Jack embraces Locke, Hurley, and finally, his love, Kate, who guides him to sit down beside her in a pew.) Flash back to the Island: Jack’s final sight is the plane flying overhead, and he smiles knowing that his friends are safe. (Flash sideways to the church: Jack’s father, Christian Shephard, with whom he had made peace, proudly squeezes Jack’s shoulder. Christian walks slowly to the back of the church and opens the doors, allowing The Light – The Light of the Island that Jack had died to protect – to fill the church, and all the survivors –including Jack – are in awe of its pure warmth and radiance.) Flash back to the Island: the final image of Lost is Jack’s eye closing shut.

Only by letting go of his modernist ways and embracing, in faith and against all logic, his place in the Story of the Island, was Jack truly able to do the one thing he never been able to do before: save everyone. In the end, Jack didn’t need all of the ultimate, rationalistic answers. He didn’t need to know why he needed to protect The Light, or what it was, or how it got to the Island. He recognized that his modernist drive to rely on himself, master the unknown, and ‘fix’ people and situations only ended in tragedy, both for those around him and for himself. For reasons far outside the realm of logic and science, Jack relied on faith in something outside of himself, faith in something beyond the limitations of rationality, to guide his path home. Only by indwelling the Story of the Island, embracing his place among the many Island Protectors that had come before him, and sacrificing himself (adopting a healthier Messiah-likeness) for the good of others was he able to find ultimate healing and redemption, and spend eternity in peace with his beloved fellow pilgrims.

From System to Story (10)

Like Jack, the Church’s hope for guiding this generation through the jungle of post-modernity is found in letting go of our modernist ways of knowing, and embracing, in faith, our place in a socially embodied Story. We must abandon our idolatrous faith in rationality as the highest form of knowing and interpreting the Scriptures.  We must recognize that ‘finding the objective principles’ is not possible because we can never have access to a ‘neutral’ position outside of our socially, historically, and culturally rooted perspective. (11)  There is no such thing as an absolute, timeless, contextless system of Truth that simply ‘floats in space’ somewhere ‘out there’ for us all to grasp with our reason. Our belief that truth must equal objectivism simply implies that we have been culturally captivated by the modernist quest to master the unknown which as we have seen inevitably leads to violence against the ‘other.’ Rather, truth in scripture is always socially embodied in a tradition; rooted and intertwined in a culturally infused overarching Story. Instead of pretending that we are able to stand outside of  Scripture, from a neutral position, and then able to apply it to our own lives in a completely different cultural context, Lesslie Newbigin says that we must “indwell” the story in such a way that it becomes our story. (12)  We can come to a more authentic interpretation of the Scriptures the same way that we can come to a more genuine understanding of Lost: by abandoning our modernist quest for absolute answers, understanding that the narrative itself contains a critique of this way of thinking, and seeking to see ourselves as ‘lost’ as the characters in the story.

If the Creator of the Universe wanted us to know truth as a contextless system of ‘objective facts’, why didn’t he instruct the writers of Scripture to create systematic theology charts, graphs, and lists? Instead, he revealed truth through a socially and culturally embodied Story, that like Lost, contains within its narrative a critique of the totalizing and inherently violent ideology that results from modernist thinking. Spanning all of time from pre-existence to eternity, the Scriptures contain the epic tale of the creation, fall and redemption. It is the story of a suffering people whose cry was heard by a sensitive God who responded by taking the suffering upon Himself. It is the story of God’s purposes for the world – shalom, compassion, and justice – being worked out through Israel, Jesus, and the Church.(13)  Because this story of redemption is for all of creation, any “violent, ideological, self-justifying ownership of the story – either by nationalistic Jews or by sectarian and self-righteous Christians – brings the story to a dramatic dead end that has missed the creationally redemptive point.” (14)  The narrative itself – with its concern for every creature from every tribe, tongue, and nation, especially those who are weak and suffering  – is a critique of the totalizing exclusionary violence that occurs when one person or group embarks on the modernist quest to master the unknown. Like those who seek absolute answers in Lost, those who interpret scripture through modernist eyes are missing the very point that the narrative is trying to drive home.

Instead, we must seek to become part of the story. We can more authentically interpret Lost once we see that we are the stranded survivors – flawed, alone, and ‘lost’ in the chaotic, disorienting postmodern jungle; we are like those who arrogantly seek mastery over the unknown and thus cause harm to others; we are like Jack – struggling to let go of our need for control, to ‘fix’ people, to rely on ourselves and to seek absolute answers; we would be better off if we placed our faith in something beyond ourselves, something that cannot be known rationally, something as mysterious and beautiful as The Light; we could find healing and redemption by choosing to love, serve, and lay down our lives for the good of our fellow pilgrims.  In a similar tone, we can find a purer interpretation of the Scriptures, as Walsh and Middleton write, by noting that “We are the people whom God liberated from Egypt and led through the Red Sea; we are the people languishing in exile and crying out for release; we are the disciples whom Jesus rebuked for misunderstanding his mission and to whom he appeared after his resurrection; we are the newly formed church who received the outpouring of the Spirit after Pentecost.” (15)  By placing ourselves in the biblical narrative, we are able to gain a much clearer, intuitive insight into the ‘dramatic movement’ of the story and learn how we are to carry it forward, in our own context, in a manner that is faithful to the Author’s intentions.

How exactly are we to do this? Walsh and Keesmaat borrow from N.T. Wright as they explain that the task of indwelling the biblical story requires ‘faithful improvisation.’  It is helpful, they say, to think of the biblical narrative as an unfinished six-act drama, with Act I being creation, where the Author’s plot intentions are initially revealed, Act II being the fall or the initial conflict, Act III the story of Israel, Act IV the story of Jesus and the climax, ‘the pivotal act with begins to unravel the conflict at its deepest roots’, Act V the story of the Church, and Act VI being the eschaton when the Author’s narrative purposes are finally realized. We are all like actors living in Act V, the story of the Church, but the problem is, we have been given no script and the Author wishes us to finish Act V ourselves. In order to do this well, with the help of the wise and comforting Director (the Holy Spirit) we must, as actors, become so immersed in the script we have been already been given that we acquire an ‘intuitive imagination’ for how we are to improvise in a manner that is faithful to the Author’s narrative purposes. (16)  To do this well, Walsh and Keesmaat say it “requires taking the risk of improvisation that is creative, innovative, and flexible.” We must not simply cut and paste from the culturally imbedded stories of Israel into our cultural context, because “these earlier passages are not a script intended for our performance in a postmodern world but are the record or transcript of past performances of God’s people.”  To merely copy what Moses, David, and Paul did without taking into consideration that their actions were part of a particular culturally embodied story would as absurd as trying to find the Island in order to kill the Smoke Monster. Instead, we must learn of the Author’s purposes for the story and humbly seek to embody spirit of the story – justice for the oppressed, compassion for the poor and marginalized, sacrificial, selfless love for all of creation – in our own cultural context.

The Conclusion of the Matter

Lost was never about forming a systematic grid of answers, it was about engaging in the human story. It was prophetic critique of the modernist quest for ultimate answers and an allegory for how life should be lived in the carnivalesque aftermath of modernity’s demise. Those who cynically bitch that we never found out why Walt was so special, how The Light got in the cave, and why the Smoke Monster makes mechanical noises, have sadly missed the entire point of the narrative. The lack of answers was an intentional, brilliant literary device so that we would struggle along with the characters that were just as disoriented and ‘lost’ as we were. Jack never got all the answers spoon-fed to him – he had to reject his need for rational answers and rely on his intuitive connection to the Story of Island in order to fulfill his destiny.  Likewise, to come to a more authentic interpretation of Lost – and more importantly, the Scriptures – we must abandon our need for absolute, objective answers – a mindset that caused only violence and destruction on the Island – and so immerse ourselves in the narrative that we gain an intuitive sense of its overarching dramatic movement that is faithful to the intention of the creators. For Lost fans, to be faithful to the intentions of Damon and Carlton means that we must interpret it as a character study, and learn from the horrible mistakes of those who sought to control the Island, as well as the redemptive sacrifice of Jack Shephard who died to protect it. For the Church, to be faithful to the intentions of the Creator means that we must seek to live out shalom, compassion, justice, and sacrificial love within a community of fellow pilgrims. It is only by rooting ourselves in this Story of the Light that we may illuminate the Way for those who are lost at sea, battered around by the crushing waves of the postmodern storm.

—

endnotes

1 – Middleton and Walsh, 47.
2 – Ibid., 48.
3 – Walsh and Keesmaat, 123.
4 – Walsh and Keesmaat, 49.
5 – When Ben moved the Island, it skipped through time until it ‘rested’ in 1977 until Jack and the others returned.
6 – This was during ‘DHARMA times’ and Ben, whose father joined the DHARMA Iniative in 1975, is just a small boy.
7 – Juliet, another doctor, was a member of the Others who joined up with Jack’s people when she tried to get off the Island. She became close with many of them, including Jack. She died by getting sucked into the pocket of electro-magnetic energy.
8 – The large and lovable Hurley is told by Jacob to lead Jack to the Lighthouse, where hundreds of names are written beside numbers on a large dial. Jack’s number is 23 (like the 23rd Psalm, the ‘Lord is my shepherd’) and when they turn the dial to point at 23, Jack sees his childhood house in the mirror. This is how Jacob was able to watch them, and mysteriously draw them to the Island.
9 – As a ‘rule’ the Smoke Monster, who has no body, is able to take the form of whatever dead bodies are on the Island. Jack brought John Locke’s body back to the Island after he committed suicide. Ironically, even though Jack is now a disciple of Locke, visually it appears as though Jack is battling against Locke, which is reminiscent of their original relationship. It is also ironic that Locke was the only one who believed in the Island and wanted to stay and now his body is overtaken by the Man in Black who’s only goal is to destroy the Island and leave it forever.
10 – Middleton and Walsh, 66.
11 – Ibid., 174.
12 – Ibid.
13 – Ibid., 68-69.
14 – Walsh and Keesmaat, 109.
15 – Walsh and Middleton, 174-175.
16 – Ibid., 183.
17 – Walsh and Keesmaat, 133.
18 – Walsh and Middleton, 183.
19 – Ibid.

—

Works Cited (for Parts I, II, and III)

Colquhoun, Nathan, “5 Reasons Why LOST Disappointed.” Linking Life. May 24, 2010.     http://www.linkinglife.com/2010/05/5-reasons-why-lost-disappointed.

Lang, Michelle A., “Lost: Post-structureal Metanarrative of Postmodern Bildungsroman?” Society for the Study     of Lost. Issue 2.1. March 1, 2010. http://www.loststudies.com/2.1/postructural_metanarrative.html.

Lostpedia. www.lostpedia.wikia.com

Middleton, J. Richard and Walsh, Brian J., Truth is Stranger Than It Used to Be (Downer’s Grove: Intervarsity     Press, 1995).

Porter, Lynette and Lavery, David, Lost’s Buried Treasures (Naperville: Sourcebooks, 2010).

Moore, Pearson. Email to the author. May 15, 2010.

Seay, Chris, The Gospel According to Lost (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2009).

Smith, James K. A., Who’s Afraid of Postmodernism? (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2006).

Vaughn, Cari, “Lost in Hypertext.” Society for the Study of Lost. Issue 2.1. March 1, 2010.     http://www.loststudies.com/2.1/hypertext.html.

Walsh, Brian J. Walsh and Keesmaat, Slyvia C., Colossians Remixed (Downer’s Grove: Intervarsity Press, 2004).

White, Heath. Post-modernism 101. (Grand Rapids: Brazos Press, 2006).

Benjamin Linus: Omnipotent Leader or Bluffing Manipulator?

Benjamin Linus is not only the most complex and compelling character on Lost, but perhaps in all of television history. A leader of ‘the Others’ who helped plan ‘the Purge’ of the DHARMA Initiative, Ben is wickedly deceitful, conniving, and downright creepy. His menacing, cold stare is enough to give anyone the chills. When we first meet him, he is caught in a trap in the jungle and claims, quite convincingly, to be a survivor of a hot-air balloon crash. This was his first of many lies to come. Throughout the next five seasons Ben vehemently claims that his ways, though obviously evil (genocide, kidnapping, and torture, to name a few), are for the ‘good of the Island’. He seems to have ultimate knowledge about the Island’s mysteries, and the viewers are led to believe that if anyone has a ‘God’s-eye-view” of the Island, it is Ben. He is absolutely ruthless in his loyalty towards it, as well as towards Jacob whom he claims to ‘take orders’ from. After Jack is able to make contact with Widmore’s freighter (which he believes to be a rescue boat), Ben pleads with him to not let them come to the Island, as they are not ‘good people’ and will kill them all. Jack does not listen, and Widmore’s mercenaries come and hold Ben’s daughter hostage in an attempt to capture him. Instead of doing everything he can to save his daughter, Ben refuses to leave the Island, and she is killed. Ben is shocked, and whispers “He changed the rules,” implying again that he has ultimately knowledge about the ‘rules’ of the Island. Then, in an attempt to hide the Island from Widmore, Ben ‘moves’ it, through time, by turning a mysterious frozen wheel (the wheel that the Man in Black was going to install centuries earlier) far below the surface of the Island. This causes it to disappear from sight, and transports him off the Island to the middle of a Tunisian desert. He spends the next three years manipulating the Oceanic Six – some of the plane crash survivors who were later rescued – to return to the Island because they “were never supposed to leave.” Again, Ben seems to have an ultimate knowledge of the Island and the survivors’ ‘special purposes’ on it. He has a master plan of how to return to this Island, which includes convincing the Oceanic Six that they all need to go back. The friends they left behind, he says, “are in danger.” Ben appears to know what is happening on the Island, even though he has not been there in three years. His seemingly all-knowing ways convince us that he must have ultimate knowledge that will unlock the mysteries of the Island for us all.

We eventually learn however, that Ben was nothing more than a bluffing, emotionally scarred man who desperately wanted to be ‘special.’ After returning to the Island, he confessed to Locke that he had never even met Jacob and had deceived everyone in order to hold his power. He knew nothing about The Light or other mysteries of the Island, only that the Island was unique and needed to be protected. Yet Ben was not born a manipulative seeker of power. His behaviour was socially constructed. His flashbacks reveal that he was brought to the Island as a child by his father, a member of the DHARMA Initiative. His father was an alcoholic who blamed him for the death of his mother, who died in childbirth. Ben was consistently beaten and insulted by his father, which caused him to feel powerless and dejected. When he saw a vision of his dead mother, he followed her into the jungle where he met Richard Alpert, the ageless represented of Jacob who lived with ‘the Others.’ After telling Richard that he followed his dead mother out there, Richard told Ben that because he could see his mother, he must be ‘special,’ and that he could join them if he wanted. Ben, desiring to feel valuable, eventually helped the Others to kill the DHARMA Initiative, which earned him respect in the eyes of the Others. Eventually he became their leader, and slowly his desire to feel special grew into a love of power, which he eventually became willing to protect at all costs. In the end, Ben was terribly regretful and repentant about his manipulative ways, and sought the forgiveness and well-being of all those he had hurt. His life story is a critique of the modernist belief in ultimate and objective truth. For although we were led to believe that Ben possessed infinite knowledge about the Island, in the end we learn he was nothing more than a broken, lonely man whose perspective was  merely socially constructed, limited interpretation of reality.

Eloise Hawking: Oracle of Destiny or Student of Her Murdered Son?

A similar pattern is echoed in the life of the seemingly all-knowing, time-traveling guru, Eloise Hawking. (1) We first meet her as an elderly woman who guides Desmond (2)  towards his ‘fate’ of crashing on the Island in order to push the button.  She talks much of people’s ‘destiny’ and what is ‘supposed to happen’ and ‘sacrifice’ for the ‘sake of the Island’. She appears to know all about the unique nature of the Island, what will happen next, and what needs to happen for the ‘good of humanity.’ She is a stoic woman who tells Ben that if the Oceanic Six don’t return to the Island than ‘God help us all’.  She also tells Desmond that he must return with them as “the Island is not done with you yet.’ She is the one who informs us all – by telling some of the Oceanic Six in a mysterious DHARMA station in Los Angeles called ‘the Lamp Post’(3)  – that the Island is outside of time and is constantly moving.  She tells them that they must get on Ajira flight 316 (a reference to the biblical verse describing God’s plan of salvation – a foreshadowing allegory for the Island’s plan of salvation) that will fly over a portal to the Island at a specific time that will get them back.  In all she says and does, she seems to have a mystical union with the Island and ultimate knowledge about its mysteries.

“Seems” being the key word, for nothing is as it appears on Lost. For in a number of flashbacks we learn that in her twenties, Eloise was once the leader of ‘the Others’ who had an affair with Charles Widmore, who was her co-leader. Shortly after she became pregnant with his son, she shot a 35 year-old man that had entered their camp waving a gun. As he lay dying, he told her that he was her son. This man was Daniel Faraday, a physicist who had time-traveled back to the 70s in order to prevent the chain of events that would lead to the crash of the survivors’ plane.(4)  After he died, Eloise looked at his notebook full of highly advanced equations concerning time travel and saw a note in her handwriting, signed, “Love Mother”. She was shocked, and took the notebook for herself. In another flashback, we see Daniel as a small child, in America, and a grief-stricken Eloise, 10 years after she shot her adult son on the Island, telling him that it is his ‘destiny’ to pursue science. She pushes him through school, and he earns a PhD in Physics and specializes in the research of space-time. He is sent on a mission to the Island by his father – Charles Widmore – with the other freighter people who were ordered to capture Ben and kill everyone else. Eloise knew that Daniel would be on the Island when Ben turned the mysterious wheel, which would cause the Island to move through time. She knew that Daniel and the others would end up in the 1970s – when she was the leader of the Others -where he would eventually storm into her camp and she would shoot him.

Even though it pained her to send Daniel to his death at her young hands, it was his journal, with all the advanced time travel equations, that allowed her to manipulate the Island’s time-traveling capabilities. With that journal she would not be able to travel through time and space, and she would not know so much about the people who eventually came to the Island. Originally, Eloise appeared to have ultimate, infinite knowledge about the Island, but as we discover, everything she knows is because of the space-time equations in her son’s journal. In reality, we find that she is a plain woman who once made a horrible, ill-fated mistake, one that just happened to provide her with scientific knowledge from the future.

Jacob: Demigod or Flawed and Lonely Mama’s Boy?

We didn’t see him till the end of the fifth season, yet if anybody held ultimate knowledge on the Island, it was the enigmatic, god-like leader of all leaders, Jacob. During the first 102 episodes of Lost, we constantly heard Ben and the Others mention ‘Jacob’s lists’, and whether or not Jack or Kate were ‘good’ enough to be written there. We also heard them talk of ‘Jacob’s orders’ and ‘Jacob’s rules’, of which we were given little more information about. The mere mention of his named caused those present to straighten their posture or bow their heads in reverence. In a brainwashing film that the Others’ forced a young ‘traitor’ to watch, all sorts of eerie images and sounds flashed before him including a 3-second flash of the phrase “God loves you as he loved Jacob” in bold bubble letters. Like the Jacob of the Bible, the island’s Jacob seemed to be some sort of chosen patriarch, the truest and highest father, the one who knew all of its deepest mysteries.  His children – those he was able to mysteriously ‘bring’ to the Island – seemed to be wandering in the ‘wilderness’ of the Island’s jungle for many years, obeying his every command.

When we first see him in the last episode of season five, he is young man, blonde, and wearing a white tunic. He is living alone, in a chamber under a broken statue of the Egyptian goddess of birth and rebirth, Taweret. He is weaving a tapestry full of Eygptian hieroglyphics and Greek phrases. He catches a fish and while sitting on the beach, his adversary, the Man in Black, appears. He sits and sees an old ship coming in the distance. Their dialogue feels Shakespearean.

MIB: You brought them here. Still trying to prove me wrong?
Jacob: [Looks calmly at him] You are wrong.
MIB: Am I? They come; they fight; they destroy; they corrupt. It always ends the same.
Jacob: It only ends once. Anything that happens before that…is just progress.
MIB: [Pause] Do you have any idea how badly I want to kill you?
Jacob: Yes.
MIB: One of these days, sooner or later, I’m going to find a loophole, my friend.
Jacob: Well, when you do I’ll be right here.

It seems they have been having this conversation for centuries. We later learn that Jacob believes that mankind is good and capable of loving sacrifice for others; while the Man in Black believes ‘it is in their very nature to sin.’ We soon see a contemporary Jacob in the flashbacks of many of the Oceanic survivors, touching them at some pivotal moment in their lives – Kate when she steals a lunchbox as a child, Locke when his father pushes him out of a window, and Jack after his father humiliated him during his first spinal surgery. He touches all six of the ‘Candidates’ – those he has chosen as his potential replacements as Protector of the Island. He seems wise, kind, and compassionate – a father figure to all of the Candidates who, we have learned, all have dysfunctional relationships with their fathers. At the same time, it appears that Jacob may be using those he brings to the Island as pawns in a centuries-old game to prove his nemesis wrong.

His backstory though, reveals a much different picture. Jacob is not a god, nor is the Man in Black. As I mentioned earlier, they were twin brothers whose mother arrived on the Island after being shipwrecked. Jacob clung to his guardian ‘Mother’ and always felt a bit stung when she seemed to favor his brother (the opposite of the Biblical story in which the mother favors Jacob). After the Man in Black left to join the other camp of people, Mother brought Jacob to The Light again and told him he has to be the one to protect it, for as long as he can, and then he will have to find his replacement. Jacob, far from his stoic, calm, wise self that we had come to know, reacts like a mere whiny child.

Jacob: I don’t wanna protect it.
Mother: Someone has to.
Jacob: [rebelliously] I don’t care!
Mother: My time is over.
Jacob: [confused and afraid] Why? Why is your time over?
Mother: It has to be you, Jacob.
Jacob: No it doesn’t! You wanted it to be him! [Angrily] But now I’m all you have.
Mother: It was always supposed to be you Jacob. I see that now. And one day you’ll see it too.     But until then, you don’t really have a choice.

Jacob reluctantly takes the cup of wine and assumes responsibility for the role of Protector. The next morning, his brother, the Man in Black, kills his mother. Jacob throws his brother into the Light, turning him into the Black Smoke and for the next few centuries, he would bring people to the Island, trying to find his replacement. He revealed to the remaining four Candidates, Jack, Kate, Sawyer, and Hurley, that he chose them because they were like him – flawed and alone, and in need of the Island as much as it was in need of them.

Flawed and alone. Though he had confidence that people were capable of choosing good (which Jack proves in the end), Jacob chose the Candidates because they were in need of healing and redemption – which they would find by struggling together on the Island. He knew this not because he was not an all-knowing, all-powerful, god-like leader as we were led to believe for almost six full seasons. He knew because he was able to travel through time and meet them at various times in their lives. In the end, we learn that, like Ben and Eloise, he to was a simple, broken, lonely person who crashed on a special Island and regrettably turned the last of his family into a cloud of evil smoke.

Benjamin Linus, Eloise Hawking, and Jacob were all characters who initially appeared to have ultimate knowledge but who ended up simply being regular people who made terrible choices that resulted in much heartache. As much as we trusted in each of them to be the ones that would unlock the mysteries of the Island, they all were as just as ‘lost’ as we were. In weaving these characters’ stories into the heart of the narrative, the writers are pounding yet another nail into the modernist coffin. If we believe that it is possible to know things ‘ultimately,’ ‘objectively,’ and ‘rationally,’ we are deceiving ourselves, as these characters deceived us, into thinking that our upbringing, surroundings, and culture have no effect on us. No one is capable of having a “God’s-eye perspective,” or “The Absolute Answer to it All” because all of our experiences and knowledge, like that of Ben, Eloise, and Jacob, are limited interpretations of reality, which are merely socially-, historically-, and culturally constructed. It is this concept that the Church tends to feel uncomfortable with.

But the Church need not be alarmed, for just because a perspective is an interpretation, it does not mean that all interpretations are equally valid; relativism is not the automatic alternative to objectivity. James K.A. Smith’s words are both insightful and encouraging:

To assert that our interpretation is not an interpretation but objectively true often translates into the worst kinds of imperial and colonial agendas, even within a pluralistic culture. Acknowledging the interpreted status of the gospel should translate into a certain humility in our public theology. It should not, however, translate into skepticism about the truth of the Christian confession. If the interpretive status of the gospel rattles our confidence in its truth, this indicates that we remain haunted by the modern desire for objective certainty. But our confidence rests not on objectivity but rather on the convictional power of the Holy Spirit (which isn’t exactly objective); the loss of objectivity, then, does not entail a loss of kerygmatic boldness about the truth of the gospel. (5)

Recognizing our perspective as an interpretation is simply a more authentic and humble epistemology (theory of knowledge) that will prevent the arrogant violence of modernity and open up space for the voices of the suppressed and marginalized – who were silenced during modernity- to be heard. But what is the difference between a ‘true interpretation’ – as Smith suggests – and ‘Objective Truth’? This is an important question, and one that I’ll explore during our discussion of Jack Shepherd’s transformative journey. For now, the stories of the characters we have looked at so far serve as a warning to us about the dangers of the modernist sensibility. If the desire to conquer the unknown by seeking ultimate, rationalistic, objective answers leads only to violence against the ‘other’ and ignores the socially constructed nature of our perspectives, we must reject this desire. The postmodern sensibility though, is not much easier to swallow.

A Chaotic, Complex Cacophony of Cultural Confusion

mural found in the hatch

Like the alliteration above, there is a method to the madness of Lost. While the narrative offers us a weighty critique of modernity, the literary devices used throughout the story offer a reflection of the postmodern response. Lost is a ‘pastiche’ – a random, hodge-podge of various philosophical, literary, religious, mythological, and pop culture references – that is intended to make us feel as disoriented as the plane crash survivors who discover a polar bear on a tropical island. Characters are named after philosophers, religious icons and spiritual or literary figures: John Locke, Desmond Hume, Danielle Rousseau, Jeremy Benthem, Jack and Christian Shephard, Kate Austen, James “Sawyer” Ford, Richard Alpert (the birth name of Baba Ram Das, a contemporary spiritual teacher), Charlotte Staples (C.S.) Lewis, and the Island’s patriarch, Jacob. There are literally hundreds of direct and indirect references to Star Wars, as Hurley (the large, hilarious, genuine, and most-loved character) regularly compares their situation to those in the films. He refers to Jack’s healing of another survivor’s asthma by simply calming her down as a ‘Jedi moment’ and Jacob’s vague instructions on how to protect the Island as ‘worse than Yoda.’

Hurley-vision!

As the characters discover various DHARMA Stations, we regularly see the octagon DHARMA symbol which is an allusion to the Noble Eightfold Path of Buddhism. There are hundreds of Egyptian hieroglyphics discovered on secret doors in the homes of ‘the Others,’ in the various DHARMA stations, in caves, on the walls of underground passages, and the Temple. Jacob lives under the statue of the Egyptian goddess Taweret. In one of the last scenes of Lost, the characters all meet at a multi-faith church, and there is a significant camera focus on a stained-glass window that is literally a patch-work of eight different religious / philosophical symbols – a Yin-Yang, a Star of David, a Christian cross, a Buddhist Dharma Wheel, a Hindu Omkar (Aum), and an Islamic Star and crescent (Ottoman symbol). Far from the ‘One True Culture’ that would have been represented by the Christian cross, or the scientific Atom symbol, a variety of perspectives are seemingly put on a level playing field.

Pomo in a Window!

There are also hundreds of examples of hyper-textuality (the postmodern theory about the inter-connectedness of all literary works and their interpretation) that serve to broaden the scope of the confusion. Characters are seen either reading, looking at, or displaying on their bookshelf texts such as Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll, The Brothers Karamazov by Dostoevsky, Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret by Judy Blume, The Bible, Catch-22 by Josephy Heller, Our Mutual Friend by Charles Dickens, The Turn of the Screw by Henry James, Ulysses by James Joyce, and Watership Down by Richard Adams, among dozens of others.

Sawyer reading 'Watership Down'

Characters also make direct references to The Lord of the Flies by William Golding, Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck, Superman by Jerry Siegel, and The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum, amongst many others. Furthermore, Damon and Carlton (the creators) have mentioned that Stephen King’s The Dark Tower trilogy (which describe a “Gunslinger” and his quest toward a powerful tower), and the post-apocalyptic horror/fantasy novel The Stand are both extremely influential on the story of Lost. The multitude of connections to other texts, all with their own themes, ideas, and critiques, provides a limitless realm of exploration for viewers who are seeking to understand their significance for Lost. As Cari Vaughn asserts in her article “Lost in Hypertext”:

This virtual enlargement of the already complex entity of Lost provides the willing viewer/reader, with a virtually limitless string of interconnected characters and themes, one that encourages a more personal and individual experience of the show. Allowing, even encouraging, viewers and readers to create meaning is the very definition of reader response and hypertext theory. (6)

By linking the story of Lost to hundreds of stories outside of the narrative, the writers create a sense of interaction by leading the viewers on a journey far outside of Lost, one that leads down a labyrinth of rabbit holes with no clear exit in sight. All this combined with the myriad of mysterious happenings, questions that remain unanswered, and fragmented storylines that are revealed in a non-linear fashion through flashbacks, flash-forwards, and flash-sideways, the writers are creating a sense of vertigo that enable the viewers to feel as dizzy and confused as the characters in the narrative.

“Come In and Get Lost!”

This advertisement on the outside of the bargain superstore Honest Ed’s in downtown Toronto provides a clue for understanding the foundation of the postmodern sensibility. This huge, sprawling, carnival of gaudiness that is Honest Ed’s, with its blinking show-tune lights and signs is disorienting to say the least. Replacing the circus of modernity, with its one great central performance  (calling itself the ‘Greatest Show on Earth’ or the ‘One True Culture’), the carnival that is post-modernity offers us hundreds of sideshows. (7) At Honest Ed’s there are sideshow-like displays of plastic Elvis statues, jumping dolphin clocks, and polyester socks all competing for the consumer’s attention. The walls are plastered with old newspaper clippings, wacky signs, and framed pictures of random celebrities who have visited the store, further adding to the confusion. The choice of consumer products and the chaotic clutter is overwhelming. The experience of shopping at Honest Ed’s feels much like the experience of watching Lost, and much like trying to find our way through the jungle that is the postmodern age.

Inside Honest Ed's

After liberating ourselves from the horrors of modernity, with its “manipulative reason and fetish of the totality,” we are left to our own devices, wandering aimlessly through the pluralistic ‘shopping mall of ideas’ of post-modernity.(8)  A typical postmodern woman may practice yoga, wear clothing from Indonesia, cook Mexican food, and attend a Catholic Mass on Sundays.(9)  She is able to adorn herself in whatever bits and pieces of various cultures she wishes, creating her own ‘personal worldview style.’(10)  For with the rejection of the ‘One True Culture’ that characterized modernity, Western society has embraced the unlimited options of religions and worldviews that have been made available for our consumption. Walsh and Middleton give us the image of the modernist project being like the tower of Babel, and the postmodern situation like confusion of tongues, the overwhelming nature of the “cacophony of private languages and tribal agendas, all clamoring for our attention.” They go on to say that “the cultural unity of the tower of Babel is replace by the culture wars of the post-Babel situation.” (11) With each idea and worldview given ‘equal-footing,’ they are available to us in the West to pick and choose whatever parts suit our fancy at any given time.

Disorientation

Peter Berger perceptively refers to this as the ‘commodification of belief.’ The pluralist situation, he explains, is essentially a market situation. For with the range of options available, each religion and worldview is forced into competition with one another, like Nike vs. Addidas, or like the plastic Elvis statues vs. jumping dolphin clocks at Honest Ed’s. While the motto of modernity was the Cartesian “I think therefore I am,” the motto of post-modernity is “I consume therefore I am.” (12) Essentially then, post-modernity aids and abets the Empire – the Western, market-run economy of globalized consumerist capitalism. It may disguise itself as being tolerant, willing to listen to the perspective of the ‘other,’ and open to diversity, but if the Western market system is dominant, isn’t this still a modernist conquest – only this time of the global economy?(13)  Thus, as Walsh suggests, there is no such thing as post-modernity; it is really just hyper-modernity.(14)  It is hegemony (a conquest-driven ‘One True Culture’) in disguise as heterogeneity (‘diversity! freedom! tolerance!’). As Bruce Cockburn puts it, post-modernists are simply ‘slavers in drag as champions of freedom.’ (15) While the postmodern critique and distrust of modernity is accurate, its response is nowhere near radical enough. The liberation from modernity has left us not only wandering through the disorienting postmodern jungle, but getting snared in its vines. Who will come and untangle us lost sheep from the thorny thicket? Lost shows the way to freedom through the transformative journey of the Good Shephard we have come to know as Jack.

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Part III

The Lord is My Jack Shephard; I Shall Not Want to Fix Everything : What the North American Church Can Learn From the Good Doctor

From System to Story

The Conclusion of the Matter

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Endnotes

1- She is appropriately named after Stephen Hawking, a contemporary theoretical physicist who has written about the possibilities of time travel.

2 – Desmond is a Scottish man who crashed on the Island and spent 3 years entering the numbers into the computer in the hatch (the Swan Station). One day he failed to enter the numbers within 108 minutes, which caused the survivors’ plane to crash. Some theorize the electro-magnetic energy that was released when the button was not pushed melted the instruments of the plane and made the Island visible to the world for a brief minute.

3 – ‘The Lamp Post’ is a reference to C.S. Lewis’ The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe, where the lamp post marks the passage between Narnia and our world. The Lamp Post serves a similar function with regard to the Island.

4 – Daniel believed that if they dropped a nuclear bomb into the drilling site of the Swan Station, than the electro-magnetic energy would be destroyed, and the Swan Station would never be built, and Desmond would never not press the button that caused the plane to crash.

5 – James K. A. Smith, Who’s Afraid of Postmodernism? (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2006), 51.

6 – Cari Vaughn, “Lost in Hypertext.” Society for the Study of Lost. Issue 2.1. March 1, 2010.     http://www.loststudies.com/2.1/hypertext.html.

7 – Middleton and Walsh, 42.

8 – Ibid., 37.

9 – Heath White, Post-Modernism 101 (Grand Rapids: Brazos, 2006), 128.

10 – Ibid.

11- Ibid., 44.

12- Walsh and Keesmaat, Colossians Remixed (Downer’s Grove: IVP, 2004), 32.

13- Middleton and Walsh, 43-44.

14- Brian Walsh. “Post-modernity lecture.” Wycliffe College. Februrary 9, 2010.

15- Walsh, “Cockburn, “Justice” and the Postmodern Turn.” 7.