Some thoughts on ethics

The stories we tell to one another reveal much about who we are, and what we believe. In my family, the children love to hear stories of how mom and dad met, or the ice storm that was occurring when mom went into labor with Micah. With Emma, we didn’t even own a car, and relied on neighbors to drive us 15 miles to the hospital. Such stories, which are similar to those narratives told by most families, not only keep our children or friends amused. Stories of our lives are integral pieces of identity formation. Not only do they reveal much about us to others, they provide a foundation for who we believe we are as individuals, as members of families, and as participants in community.
Interestingly, the stories we tell one another within the context of family or community often indicate the social and kinship roles that we are expected to maintain as individuals. Not only do the stories we tell about dad tell us what kind of person he is or was, but also indicate the kind of character expected from males in the family. Stories about early American heroes not only serve to bring us together as Americans, but indicate the type of individual character that best serves the interests of the overarching American themes of individualism, exceptionalism, and overachievement.
Such themes are not strictly conservative political or liberal social values in the United States. Stories we tell about the American independence movement or the Underground Railroad, the two World Wars or the Civil rights movement of the 50’s and 60’s, are seminal, not only to how we view ourselves as Americans, and the roles we are expected to master as American citizens, but how we measure ourselves individually against our political and religious opponents. We are a story-formed people, and, perhaps, a story-formed race of created beings. We use stories, not always as a fully fact-checked facsimile of truth, but as indicators, reflections, and re-enforcers of truth. And, like any language game, we use stories to harness the reigns of power, and legitimate our claims that we possess the knowledge of truth and the right to express it.
For much of history, stories that were once oral in nature have been codified into standard texts. Indeed, the first thing that humans do at this point in history is codify truth in the form of constitutions, contracts, rule books, and other projects of human reasoning designed to take the element of the supposed fallibility of oral presentations out of the process of human progress. If the Enlightenment, and its grandchild modernity insist on anything, it is that we must no longer allow stories to encumber us with continuity of identity, or chain us to the misleading ministrations of mythology. Stories, suggest the empiricist, are the bane of human liberation and individual freedom. Reason is the liberator of humanity, goes the argument against maintaining the ethics of the past, whether they be underwritten by religion, ancient philosophy, or even, the particular ethics of ethnic, racial, or economic experience.
You might be raising the question at this point, what does this have to do with Quakerism? I suggest that the tensions that exist between story and reason, and between past and future, and that place in between in which Quakerism should serve to mediate, have been eliminated. Reason marginalizes the stories of our beginnings, the historical nature of our moral authority, and the concept of cultural continuity. Our future is open for consumption, without the burden of the limits of ancient values, texts, or gods. We can choose our identities in America, shopping around for the right fashion, fantasy, political cause or spiritual truth that appeals to us as individuals, and serves to comfort our self-marginalizing tendencies by legitimizing the supremacy of choice.
I contend, however, that ethics should not be a matter of choice. Before you become too upset or puzzled, I will quickly explain what I do not mean. No one should be forced to practice any religion, and there should be no mandate that we become Lutheran, Baptist, Sunni, or Orthodox Jew. I do not mean that we should legislate school prayer, or that the political wishes of a faith community be codified into secular law so that there can be no gay marriage or divorce. I do not seek political legitimization of any faith, nor do I suggest that religious codes trump democratically derived legal codes within the context of our society. I am a firm believer in self-determination, and believe that the participation in any group, religious or otherwise, be voluntary.
However, I contend that faith itself, the foundation of what we come together for on First Days, is not a matter of choice. Faith, and faithfulness, is a matter of experience, discernment, and praxis, or, the practice of living out of a belief. I contend that our experience of the divine crosses the line that demarcates the distance between story and reason. For those who have experienced the risen Christ, this means that we no longer choose our identity, but assume the identity of a chosen people. As Paul says, “we are no longer our own.” As the author of First Peter writes, we are “a peculiar people.” God’s own possession. As such, when it comes to discerning community morals and the ethics that place those values on public display, we are a people of the Book, and not necessarily a people of reason.
There is a challenge of unlimited scope that becomes evident when one assumes the ethic of a religious narrative that claims to be an alternative to the supremacy of reason. Primarily, at least in the western world, we are forced to make a choice that exists in that tension I mentioned before. In order to be taken seriously as a community, and in order to have our faith legitimated, we feel we must compete in the marketplace of pragmatics in order to fully participate in our democracy. Yet there is another aspect of the challenges of reason that compete with faithfulness. That is the challenge of economic and political power. In the pursuit of both, the people of God have often chose to manipulate the ethics of the Yahwist story and marginalize the life of Jesus as the primary informants of our identity. We instead choose to pursue power in a political manner that ignores the reality of the cross, and according to an economic ethic that ignores the manner of life which Jesus lived. I believe that, in America, we have become a people whose faith and practice is legitimized by the nation state, and who view the nation state and liberal democracy as the primary means of continuing the work of God.
However, the only legitimization necessary to a community of faith is the evidence of a corporate life that reflects their faith, and prioritizes the truth of Jesus of Nazareth over the power of nation states as a means of garnering justice. The key component to living such a life of faith is the characteristic of patience. Just as Jesus’ faithfulness was vindicated by the resurrection, so shall the faithful community be vindicated by God. Faithfulness exhibits the trust that God will act in the future, and that those actions will justify those believers who chose to live without the advantage of identity surfing. One example of such faithfulness exists in the midst of the Holocaust. It is the story of a Huguenot community in occupied France.
During the occupation, very few French nationals served the organized resistance. The realities of World War I and the failure of the impenetrable Maginot Line had demoralized many of the citizens. Many French simply complied with Nazi rule, including participation in the destruction of the Jewish and other marginalized populations. However, in a town called Le Chambron, more than 6000 Jews were saved from Nazi imprisonment and worse, because there were people who considered themselves citizens of the Kingdom of God, and thus not bound to serve military or elected authority simply because of potential consequences. Academic Philip Haillie wrote in 1981 that many French citizens not only collaborated with the German occupiers, but tried to outdo them in anti-Semitism in order to maintain good relationships with their conquerors. Hallie, an American Jew, wrote that the French Protestant village, surrounded by a nation of nominal Catholics and humanitsts, were different. They were different he wrote, because he perceived that they had no choice in the matter of helping Jews escape certain death. The read the Bible, and they took it seriously. In fact, Hallie wrote, “They believed it… they were literal fundamentalists.”
Now there is a catchphrase. Fundamentalists. However, fundamentalism in the context of Christianity, does not regard literalism as any more than an aspect of certain fundamentals of faith. Literalism itself, or belief in the story, can be separated from fundamentalism, which is more of an American political movement and fairly uncomfortably developed relationship between western reason and biblical faith. For instance, many fundamentalists will concern themselves with biblical values that reinforce common social themes of patriarchy, homophobia, and heaven as the primary expression of social justice. Yet, fundamentalism does not do justice to the biblical story, or the story of Jesus, or the ability of a community to believe that the Holy Spirit can guide a community to interpret the authoritative texts in a faithful manner that bears fruit in a manner that is different from another community. Fundamentalism does not have the patience to wait for divine vindication, and has thus chosen political power to establish a semblance of God’s perceived will in dominance over the rest of an unbelieving society.
Yet, the story of God, the biblical account of Jesus’ life, the reality of the cross, and the resurrection, point to a different ethic, and this ethic flies the face of reason when given the same weight on the cosmic scales of community praxis. The story of God’s chosen people is a narrative in which God has offered salvation to humanity through the developing of relationship between Creator and creation. The life lived by Jesus welcomed the world into a covenant that was established with Abraham and Sarah, with Hannah, Ruth, and David, and with all Israel. This covenant trusts that God will act faithfully, and enjoys a faithful response to the divine expression of love. Faithfulness means an expression of love toward the Creator, and toward one another whether neighbor or enemy. And if we believe in the supremacy of Jesus’ ethic of love as the expression of God’s truth, we have no choice when it come to protecting the oppressed, inviting the marginalized into our homes, and pursuing justice.
Wwe also have no choice in the question of violence. This, my Friends, is giving literal meaning to the whole of a text, and not only shoe-horned proof-texts that underwrite homophobia and other aberrations of God’s desire. Indeed, as Quakers, we should have no choice in the question of political power. If we are faithful to the story of Jesus, we sacrifice ourselves voluntarily so that we, as a people, can reflect the desire of God for the faithfulness of humanity. A desire that is shown fully in the life and voluntary sacrifice of Jesus the Messiah.
Jesus’ life showed very little regard for empirically developed and fully reasoned ethics. Jesus simply displayed an ethic of love and faithfulness. It was an ethic of justice, and egalitarian community - of welcoming in those who repented and maintaining faithfulness in the face of persecution. Jesus was a literalist, not in the sense of Torah as a means of controlling communities as maintaining hierarchies, but as a man who believed that God existed in a literal sense, and could be trusted to be faithful to those communities who identified themselves as a possession of God, and not persons free to choose amongst ethics of other nations that would make them relevant to the politics at hand. The life Jesus is an invitation to participate in the people of God, not a coercive historical act that mandates God’s will be executed by human institutions through forced baptisms, crusades, state churches or ballot boxes.
The people of God experience God’s love, and believe the attending ethic is revealed through Jesus, then voluntarily join a community that reflects God’s love because they do not consider alternatives to love as a viable option. There is not always reason in a nonviolent ethic. There is not always reason voluntary sacrifice, whether it be on a cross, or refusing to sacrifice to Caesar, or refusing to baptize infants. There is not always reason when followers of Jesus involuntarily sacrificed in the manner of the Underground Railroad, or refusing to defend personal property in the manner of Mennonites and many Quakers during the Revolutionary and Civil Wars when they refused to take sides. There is little reason in marrying same sex couples within the context of your faith community when it marginalizes your congregation from the mainstream church. Yet, faithfulness is not always reasonable. In the ethic of Jesus, there are many things worth dying for, but none worth killing for, and this does not always make sense.
In the ongoing ethic of American freedom and justice, and the tension between liberal democracy and the rest of the world, a vast number of our neighbors and enemies believe that certain expressions of strength can be considered. These considerations are the use of militarism, including the bombing of civilians targets, and most recently even torture, as a potential means of saving innocent lives and ensuring the progress of the experiment of democratic power structures or the maintenance of academically and scientifically reasoned Marxist regimes. In each case of such use of power, whether it be the election of the socialists in Germany, or the bombing of Britain, the fire-bombing of Dresden or the annihilation of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, whether Stalinism or Maoism, the tenets of empiricism and reason have expressed an ethic of power as an appropriate response to evil or injustice. Though democracy progresses forward, and the Cold War has been won, “evil” still exists and another enemy rises to fight. It may indeed be necessary for the empire to maintain order and for modernism to pursue justice. Yet, such is not the example of God, or the narrative of God’s People.
The narrative of God, which informs our identity as a chosen people, reveals truth through the servanthood of the church as informed by the life of Jesus. The people of Le Chambron new that God’s ethic was revealed in the life of Jesus, and that such a life lived is salvific, not only for a future kingdom, but for communities who participate in such an ethic in the present. We are saved from the machinations of militarism that carry out a perceived will of God without really believing that God can literally bring about salvation. Western empires perceive the cross as salvific without expecting that they must carry their own in a sacrificial manner. Reason sacrifices others, whereas followers of Christ sacrifice themselves voluntarily, in order to defend the marginalized and oppressed.
As such, I hope Friends will consider a new ethic when election time comes, and when the time comes to argue for social justice in a manner that obligates a Quaker ethic upon others. First, an ethic of Jesus can only be an ethic that is voluntarily accepted by those persons engaging in a community of faith. Non-violence just might include the abstaining from obligating others who do not believe in serving the poor or serving the marginalized. To democratically force such an ethic upon others is tantamount to accepting that a majority ethic of militarism, torture, or policies that maintain institutionalized racism is properly binding to our own community of faith.
Secondly, I suggest that, as Friends, we have no business voting to obligate others to contribute to expressions of our faith, such as the peace testimony or love of enemy, when we ourselves have been unwilling, in some circumstances, to sacrifice privilege on behalf of what we perceive to be justice. If we are going to pursue justice, we must do so as a community, and make the economic and social choices that prioritize our communities as examples of what peace or salvation look like, over the tendency of many persons of faith to vote for something that resembles peace and justice. Problematically, this is most often an expression of peace an justice underwritten by empire, continued economic privilege and consumer choice, and military or legal coercion.
Finally, what are Friends to do about injustices such as racism, sexism, and homophobia if we do not participate in a system that offers opportunities to resolve such realities. I believe that we as Americans, whether Quaker or not, fully believe that justice can only be achieved through the manipulation of power. There is much more than a grain of truth to such a belief. But if a Friend is Christ-centered, as I believe our Society historically is, we believe that we do not need to wield power or manipulate power in order to witness to justice. We may indeed sacrifice ourselves in acts of civil disobedience, or act in the manner of Tom Fox, or John Woolman, or the many women who preached publically despite severe consequences. We might speak prophetically to Truth. Yet, unless we as a community provide an example of what the future looks like, we are limiting ourselves to one view of justice, and perhaps, it is not the Creator’s view.

Unapologetically messianic: Every day is the day the world calls Easter

There is not really a need to offer a Bible verse concerning incarnation or the resurrection. It’s my guess that most of us are familiar enough with the story. The story is the reason that there are more of us in the church or meeting house on Easter Morning than on most other Sundays. The Resurrection Story - a story of the God of Abraham and Sarah; the God of Ruth and Isaiah, acting in history to liberate a faithful servant from the bonds of death.
It is a story of creation’s liberation from the oppression of those who would wield dominance over creation. It is also the story of our own liberation - a rescue from bondage to those forces that so often lay claim to our allegiances that should be entirely reserved for the God of Peace. The story is an ancient one. Its beginnings are remembered because it has been told and retold over thousands of years.
Once upon a time, there were a people held in bondage by a great nation. They were held as slaves, and they cried out for their release from a ruler who made claims that he was a god himself. This ruler had priests that supported his claims. The people of his nation lent their loyalties to his grandeur, identifying the divinity of the Pharaoh of Egypt as, if you‘ll excuse the expression, the Gospel truth.
It was the Hebrews who were slaves in Egypt - slaves to Pharaoh’s empire, the mightiest force in the ancient Mediterranean world and beyond. The God of all Creation, however, heard the cries of the descendants of Abraham and Sarah. YHWH hears the cries of slaves. It was YHWH who delivered the Hebrews from the grasp of Pharaoh and lead them out of Egypt, taking the form of fire, and a pillar of cloud. This people of YHWH did not need to fight for their release from captivity. The God of Moses destroyed Pharaoh’s military strength, and drowned in the Sea of Reeds any threat to the Hebrews that Pharaoh’s empire could muster.
Oh, how thankful was Israel. In commemoration of this liberating act of God, the Hebrews established a celebration. This feast, called Passover, is an annual remembrance of the Story. This celebration of the liberating act of the God of Moses and Miriam, who rescued a people from empire, has been celebrated every since by people close to YHWH’s heart. It is a time for worship, praise, and great Joy over the Story that recalls the great actions of a God who rolls up the divine sleeves and rescues the poor, the marginalized, and even lowly slaves from oppression.
It was during just such a celebration of Passover, - possibly some 1200 years after the fact, and nearly 2000 years ago - that a startling new development was introduced to the plot of this biblical Story. It would still be a story of liberation, a story of joy and an occasion for worship. But events in Jerusalem in the first-century of what became the Common Era demanded a new twist. In fact, any number of Yahwists were looking at a variety of ways to prompt another rescue on behalf of the descendants of Abraham and Sarah, who were again under the dominating thumb of an empire.
This time, that empire was Roman instead of Egyptian. It was Caesar claiming godlike status instead of Pharaoh. And this time, it was personal. Israel was been economically and politically dominated on its own turf, the Promised Land of Israel had become known as Palestine. It is mostly on Easter that we remember the old liberating Story. However, this time the leader of Israel was not the Moses of old, but as his disciple Matthew tells in a story of his own, a new Moses. A Messiah who is known to all of us by the name of Jesus.
Jesus was a celebrant of the ancient Story. As a first-century Galilean, the Story was his story. It was the story of his family and his people. And the followers of Jesus realized that the Story was not just for the people of Abraham and Sarah, but for the whole world. So, for all involved, obedience to the God of Israel was the only way that liberation would visit humanity. Obedience was the way of Salvation.
While other would be Judean leaders - would-be messiahs – that believed, indeed, they knew in their hearts, that a warrior God who had already defeated the likes of Pharaoh, and other rulers, would act in history and defeat the pagan oppressors once and for all. God would finally establish the reign of YHWH as an unquestioned force that the world would reckon with, through the ruling kingdom of Israel. There was to be a holy war, believed so many Judeans, and the enemies of YHWH were going to pay a price.
But Jesus was different. He certainly preached the kingdom of God. But the kingdom preached by Jesus to his disciples meant reflecting the love of God, and the Creator’s concern for the faithful pursuit of justice, peace, and grace. This was not, according to the Messiah, achieved through holy war, but instead, through the faithful expression of YHWH’s love for even the enemies of God’s people. The liberating God of Moses and Miriam would bring salvation to the entire world, not by destroying armies with one fell swoop of the divine hand, but through the love of the faithful servants of God’s creation.
It was the familiar story – with a twist.
While the God of all Creation, Jesus, and the apostle Paul all speak about liberating creation from empire, the Bible also brings witness to specific ways that the loving justice of YHWH is reflected upon a world groaning for freedom. Loving your neighbor, even the hated Samaritan, as you love yourself. Or throwing away privilege and giving substantially, if not everything, to the poor. How about forgiving your enemies seventy times over. The Scriptures abound with stories of loving grace and forgiveness. Yet, stories are simply stories if they are not acted out in a manner that proves their credibility.
About thirteen years ago, in the Michigan town of Ann Arbor, there was an individual who made credible the story of Jesus.. The Ku Klux Klan came to Ann Arbor one June day in 1996. In fact, the Klan marched every June in Ann Arbor for a number of years. They may in fact still do just that. But thirteen years ago, and not atypically, the Klan march was challenged by a ferocious crowd of counter-protesters. Just as typically, an entire area of the city was witness to brick and bottle throwing outrage - all aimed at the parading white supremacists.
The Klan continued to march, and the counter protesters rage grew thicker with every racist slogan that emanated from the mouths of their enemy. Police were outnumbered, and things were about to turn violent. They did turn violent. The crowd raged at the Klan, and broke through the police protection that was provided for the demonstrating organization. Klan members were separated from one another, and it was quickly an event that could only be described as every Klan member for his and herself. Groups of enraged protesters isolated individuals and harassed them. In one instance, a group of protesters encircled a tattooed man wearing a clothing that identified him as an enemy, and began kicking and punching him.
Out of this chaos, the messiah appeared.
She was wearing denim shorts and a white t-shirt. She only 18 years old, and she was an African-American. Our modern day messiah’s name was Keshia Thomas.
Originally there to protest the racist enemy known as the Klan, she saw an image-bearer of God cowering on the cement and under brutal attack. Keshia Thomas sacrificed her own body, covering and protecting the a white man she had moments before demanded justice from, and shown anger toward.
Our messiah would have never received a just hearing from Albert McKeel had she engaged him through violence. Only through reflecting the love that God has for every person, even the enemy, could she radically alter the hatred that McKeel may have had harbored against African-Americans and other people of color or faith.
McKeel was radically changed, as the two consequently appeared together in public as an example of redeemed human relationships. When Keshia Thomas sacrificed herself for the love of her enemy, she brought salvation not only to herself, but to her enemy as well. They were liberated from oppressive rage, and hatred, and brought into right relationship with one another.
I have no idea if either Keshia Thomas of Albert McKeel were followers of the one true Messiah, Jesus of Nazareth. But I do know that this is the kind of sacrificial love that Jesus was preaching, that God intends, and that Christendom is lacking. This is the way that followers of Christ Jesus change the world, and love of enemies is how YHWH intends for Creation to be liberated from the bonds of injustice, of inhumanity, and from empire making claims about its own authority to rule creation.
And for resurrection? Remember the Story? A story of liberation from oppressive and degrading powers of domination. A story of liberation from those who would stake a claim to be held high as gods, such as Pharaoh, or Caesar. They nailed this messianic claimant to a cross. Executed him as an enemy of the state. Jesus was laid to waste just like any number of failed revolutionaries on either side of his own crucifixion.
Yet, it is in the ministry, the obedient reflection of God’s love toward every person, and the ultimate sacrifice made by Jesus in staying faithful to YHWH, that salvation is brought to all of creation. How do we know this? Because the Sovereign God of the Universe acted in history one First Day morning and raised Jesus from the dead.
God rewarded Jesus’ obedience and faithfulness, and overturned all of the evil that empire could heap upon him. That is the Story of God’s liberating all of creation. The resurrection of Jesus the Messiah, and his liberation from the bonds of death, foreshadows the reward of our own faithfulness. A faith placed not upon the god of empire that promises our salvation through economic justification but to the One True God who resurrects the dead.
That First Day resurrection is the reminder that all of God’s faithful will someday be rewarded. In fact, both friend and foe, through the work of the Christ, will enjoy the salvation that God intends for all creation. Yet, the resurrection is also a reminder that the work of Jesus must continue, through the work of those like Keshia Thomas, or the work of one’s meeting or congregation, or the work of the believer’s church as a whole. Because there can be no salvation - none of the universal redemption such as my Quaker faith is so fond of - without the continuous striving for justice, equality, and peace.
Followers of Jesus are called - indeed, commanded - to challenge the oppressive tactics of those intending to dominate creation, whether they be the Klan, or the presidents, prime ministers, and violent radicals of any faith or nation. We are commanded, however, to do so by reflecting the love that God has for every inch of creation. A love offered for every nation, for every person, and especially for every enemy.

A view of salvation

“Christ the savior is born.” So goes a popular hymn sung around the day the world calls Christmas. Of course, I have no idea when Jesus was born, but the appropriate Quaker response to the birth of Jesus of Nazareth, as I see it, should be one of daily observance, as opposed to setting aside a day or season that is more of a sacrifice to the god of commerce. Yet, regardless of the Christ-centered Friends’ response to the birth of Jesus, there remains the sticking point of salvific language that turns many Friends away from the biblical narrative.

However, the soteric language used in the Greek Testament has a double meaning, if not a totally separate meaning, from the way that contemporary Christendom has come to interpret salvation. I will present the birth narrative of Luke as an example. And before I begin, I offer a caveat that might disturb some Ohio Yearly Meeting F/friends. I ask the reader to overlook the inaccurate historical accuracy of the story, and explore the meaning of the narrative. I doubt that the early Christ-centered communities were as concerned with past history as much as they were with the theological – and political – statements of the text that they heard being read to them.

While there is no indication that a census was ordered in Palestine during the time of Jesus, if ever, the point of the beginning of chapter two of Luke is not concerned with the fact of a census. There are more important narrative fish to be fried by the author. First, the author needs to be able to place a Nazarene in Bethlehem. Yet, why a census, and why Bethlehem? The persona of Caesar Augustus provides the clue. As the supreme ruler of the known world, Augustus has the authority to displace Palestinian Yahwists, whatever their circumstances. It is the power of Rome that is in control of the lives of the Israelites. And we all know why Bethlehem is important. It is the city of David, to whom YHWH has promised the throne of Israel forever. It is also to imply that Jesus fulfills the prophecy that Israel’s savior will come from Bethlehem, the smallest portion of the people of God’s inheritance. Bethlehem offers the contrast between the grandeur of monarchies like Caesar’s and the humility of the true savior of the world.

You see, Caesar Augustus was known as the “savior of the world.” He was known as the savior because he was the author of pax romana which placated the Mediterranean world to the benefit of Rome, and, indeed, to much of the Greek speaking world. But the ever-resistant Yahwists of both Palestine and the Diaspora refused to accept the claims of the emperor who was also known as “the Prince of Peace.” They knew that YHWH was the arbiter of history, and not Rome. Thus, when the author of Luke uses first-century code words like “good news,” “city of David,” “savior,” and “Messiah,” he is not suggesting that those who somehow “believe in” Jesus will go to heaven someday. He is stating that the “real” savior, the “real” prince who will bestow earth peace and Divine favor upon God’s people, is this Nazarene and not the ruler of empire. Remember the Roman patronage system, where Caesar provided favors as part of that system that was entrenched in the realm of first-century Rome. Herod was just such a recipient, who in return, promised loyalty to Augustus and the empire.. (By the way, Augustus, who claimed divine status for himself as the son of a god, and later, full divinity, was known as the “father of his country.” I wonder if the Jesus “Father God,” or “Abba” language, is a derivative of such a claim?)

Of course, when the author of Luke claims that Jesus is the Messiah, he is the person who will “save his people.” If he is the King of Israel in the line of David, what will become of the client king Herod and his dynasty? These are some pretty heavy claims for a Nazarene, and will later prove to be quite dangerous to the fledgling messianic movement. Finally, the term good news, or euanglion in Greek, was used primarily to decree the ascension or achievements of an emperor, or a great military victory. Each component of the birth narrative, it seems, is designed as an affront to the claims of empire. And, one final nod to humility is that the good news was pronounced first to shepherds, the most despised and lowliest of occupations in Palestine.

But what about salvation. Remember, Augustus was the “savior of the world.” While Jesus ascends to the throne through the Davidic line, he is much more than the Messiah who will liberate Yahwists from the machinations of empire. He is indeed the true savior/liberator of the world, as his lived life will fulfill the covenant that invites the Gentiles into the narrative of Israel’s God, and saves them from the violence, degradation, and domination of the empire. The true Prince of Peace liberates humanity from the domination system, if humanity chooses to live according to the example of the Christ’s life. A life of integrity, true freedom, humility and peace is the salvation that the author of Luke has in mind, not heaven. Salvation can be a change-of-life, not end-of-life, event.

When modern day Christ-centered Friends speak about salvation, we should understand that we offer a liberating way of life that challenges the domination of empire through the practice of testimonies, and not a pie-in-the-sky reward for our submission to domination. Our submission should be to living a life that interprets the life of Jesus as normative, that being a life of public witness, voluntary sacrifice, social justice, and love of neighbors and enemies.

Postscript to Messianic Failures

It occurs to me, before someone has pointed it out, that if salvation is made evident through the life of different individuals, some (or many) of whom are not even related to Christ-centered beliefs, why is there any need for particularism or Christ-centeredness. It is a good question, and one I have thought about. I have chose the narrative answer.
I can only make sense of those actions that potentially reveal salvific meaning if I have an actualized event that I can relate them to.
The story of Jesus, part of the larger story of YHWH and Israel, or Creation and Creator relationship, lends context to the events that I hear about, observe, or participate in. Jesus is the language of my experience, and the provides the baseline for my understanding of actions or events that pose revelatory value.
Of course, I can become a student of Gandhi, or a student of Buddha, and I can incorporate specific claims made by the followers of Hinduism or Buddhism into my framework of knowledge. Ultimately, however, my immersion in the Christ-centered faith of my original spiritual experiences will act as a filter, and I will generally not do justice to those claims.
If I do fully immerse myself into Hinduism or Buddhism, and become a "professional" so to speak, then I have either began to view the world through a worldview different than that of my original Christ-centered faith, or I have come to further identify with it and have no need for the assistance of other views that may act to distort the Christ-centeredness of my particular narrative.
Of course, I can combine the best aspects of Hinduism, Buddhism, and Christianity (It seems no one ever chooses Islam) and live accordingly, but then this would be a new religion, necessarily rejected by the proponents of each of the original faiths. This is not to suggest that their is anything wrong with new religions (or old ones). It is only to suggest that spiritual or religious intelligibility and integrity must not only allow for the particularity of all religious claims, but must allow them to maintain their particularity and identity over and against mutations that insist upon co-opting the old identity by painting the new religion as the natural evolutionary advance of the old.
Remember, evolution is not (necessarily) an unquestionable improvement. It is an adaptation to an environment. Early followers of Jesus were certainly not out to improve on Palestinian Judaism, and I don't believe they were an adaptation of it. It was a continuation of the Yahwist faith by making a specific claim that was only intelligible within the Yahwism of its time. Messianic claims did not in anyway change the nature of the way God was acting or to act in history, according to Judeans of the first centry. they fully expected God to act, most simply rejected that Jesus was the person the YHWH acted through.
Whatever has happened to the Christ-centered witness over two thousand years, it is the witness that God's desire is fully revealed in the historical Christ, and that those who believe that the life Jesus lived is normative for our understanding of humanity that lends context to our understanding of the world around us. If I understand the world through Jesus, with an assist on the goal from Buddha, then I may be a better person for it, but I am no longer Christ-centered.
there are, of course, several implications for Quakerism in my thinking, but I don't have to spell those out. Blessings to all.