A Year of Ruptured Bodies
I probably need to read my own book...
Back before I developed a more or less singular focus on reflecting theologically on resistance to the dangers of Trumpism, I initially started this SubStack because I had a book coming out. I wanted a forum that would allow me to talk about my writing, connect with readers (potential and actual), and to do it without feeling like I’m just being an obnoxious self-promoter on social media.
The importance of that has become even more apparent over the last 18 months or so of semi-regular writing here. My social media usage has become ever more sporadic. And some recent reading of Timothy Snyder’s On Freedom and On Tyranny has made me even more reticent to participate in those forums, which enrich oligarchs, allow for voluntary surveillance, intensify the spread of propaganda and other misinformation, and erode my sense of embodied reality and presence. There are probably virtuous ways to use social media, but I’m not a good enough person to do it. I probably won’t abandon these platforms entirely, but I’m not sure they enrich my life, nor that my participation in them makes the world any better. But again, all the more reason to have alternative ways about connecting my work to its potential audience(s).
Ruptured Bodies’ Reception
Anyway, the book in question, Ruptured Bodies: A Theology of the Church Divided has been out in the world for a bit over a year now. (Above, I linked to the publisher’s website. I know for a fact that it’s cheaper on Amazon, but I hate Jeff Bezos. I won’t fault someone who decides to go for the lower price, something I do often enough, but I’d rather put a step between my referral and money going into a climate destroying, labor exploiting, democracy undermining oligarch’s pockets.)
I remain really pleased with the work I’ve done and the way it’s been received. So far, it’s been reviewed by Clara King in Missiology: An International Review by Simon Cuff in New Blackfriars, Jaisy Joseph in Irish Theological Quarterly, and Paul Avis in Ecclesiology. And I’ve heard of a few other places where reviews are underway. I’ve been grateful for these generous, thoughtful reviews, and have learned from each of them. I’ve also heard from friends and colleagues whom I trust and admire that they’ve found the book helpful. Some friends have even told me they plan to use it in their teaching. It’s also sold better than any other book I’ve written, which is not itself a mark that it’s any good (lots of bad books sell very well!), but it still brings with it some genuine satisfaction.
Ruptured Bodies’ Contribution
A year after its publication, I also have a stronger sense of exactly what the book’s contribution is to our understanding of the church, and of the gospel. I think there are three prongs to this contribution:
It invites us to consider the harm done by our divisions. Christian churches have lived in our divisions from one another for so long that we just take this state of affairs for granted. But if we take Jesus at his word, then the gospel loses its credibility when Christians are not united, and moreover, many of the ills afflicting the churches, from our inability to discern our way forward amid controversy to our all-too-easy political cooptation flows from the upstream pollutants of our divisions (I can’t prove this, but I suspect that if the churches weren’t divided, especially along ideological lines, the United States would not be descending into fascism because the MAGA death cult could never have coopted a church that included a broad cross section of political conviction.).
It invites us to imagine unity rather differently than the standard narrative. I do this by challenging the notion that there was some original unity that the churches subsequently lost by dividing from each other. Instead, unity and division are matters of how we live with our differences and disagreements. We blame our disagreements for our disunity in order to shirk our responsibility for our refusal to bear with each other in our differences. As a result, the communion of the church is more a site of contestation and agonism than of harmony and concord. Our assumption that agreement lies at the heart of unity leads us to miss this and our insistence that we only be in communion with those with whom we agree short circuits the grace-filled processes by which the Holy Spirit would bind us together. I want to develop this agonistic ecclesiology further, and all the more so given my perplexity and frustration that so many of my coreligionists are fascists, and I cannot in good conscience not fight nazis. (More on that below.) I’m pleased to note that I’ll have occasion to develop that theme further in a couple of conferences this Fall.
It insists that “unity” must not come at the expense of the vulnerable. All too often, we insist that for the sake of “unity,” people need to deny parts of themselves, to assimilate to an ostensible mainstream (almost always, white supremacist, heteronormative patriarchy). This rears its head when Anglicans are told that we could be recognized by the Orthodox if we would just repudiate the ministry of the women bishops and priests by whom the body of Christ is built up in our churches. Or when we decide that the flourishing of LGBTQ Christians is a price worth paying if it can help us maintain unity with Christians who deny our queer siblings’ right to exist or to be married. (Or, to take ourselves beyond the church, when Democrat strategists call trans rights a “distraction” and counsel either soft-pedaling support for trans folks or just throwing them under the bus for the expediency of electoral advantage, as if a bunch of dead teenagers is worth it for the sake of winning elections. But why the fuck are we trying to win elections if we’re not going to use political power to try to prevent teen suicide?) Any such unity misses the point of unity entirely: Christ has united the church so that salvation and flourishing could come to all. If the “unity” we enact demands the crucifixion of vulnerable people, it’s a parody of the unity Christ intends…at best (and we’re probably looking at something far worse than “at best”).
Ruptured Bodies’ Challenge
Finally, I want to consider the thorn in my side that this book and its argument has become for me. I wrote it from 2021 to 2023. At that time, things were looking up for the world. We were emerging from a global pandemic. Millions had died, but we’d found a vaccine, and so millions more were going to be saved. There was a racial reckoning underway in the United States, and, while it was bitterly resisted by not a few of our citizens and politicians, it looked like maybe our country would finally squarely face its history of racism and begin doing the work to dismantle the structures of white supremacy that have characterized so much of our national, cultural, institutional life. Donald Trump had been defeated in the most recent presidential election. Yes, he tried to overthrow the government to avoid accepting the results, but the insurrection was unsuccessful. Our institutions and the rule of law looked like they were going to hold.
So, my reflection on the nature of unity and the importance of holding fast in love even across disagreement, even across enmity was colored by my naive assumption that we’d avoided the worst of these catastrophes and that things would be moving in a positive direction. I was so wrong in my estimation of where things were going.
The evils I thought we’d defeated weren’t beaten at all. They were only delayed. Because no one was willing to hold Trump accountable, he’s come back with a vengeance (literally). We’re on our way to an impoverished, disease-ridden, death-dealing version of American politics. Unaccountable secret police are terrorizing communities of color. The rule of law has been tested to the breaking point, and it seems to have broken.
And I look on in horror as my Christian siblings cheer this on, or sit by indifferently, or tell me that I’m overreacting to sound the alarm about it. None of these positions are morally acceptable. If you’re okay with the secret police black bagging people and disappearing them to concentration camps, I don’t want anything to do with you: Our values are just fundamentally opposed. I cannot see support for this as anything other than a betrayal of the gospel, because I cannot believe that the Jesus who is all loveliness, the Jesus who placed himself alongside the vulnerable and despised, and was crucified by the forces of empire is anything but 100% opposed to these abuses.
But amid all this, there’s that damn book, telling me that we need to embrace even our enemies in love. I developed that thesis because I thought it was true. And I still think it’s true, unfortunately. I do not see any way around it that doesn’t jeopardize my own salvation, because my entire hope is found in the unrelenting embrace of Jesus, who loved me and gave himself for me when I was his enemy. And (he’s so annoying like this) I’m also persuaded that in that same embrace, he gathers those gospel-betraying Trump supporters. And the only way for me to push away from them also involves pushing myself out of his grip.
Now, thankfully, that doesn’t mean I’m not allowed to fight them. I just wrote a whole book about that!
But I do think I probably need to revisit my argument and take my own medicine. Because, while I am conscience bound to fight against Trumpism with everything I have, and intend to do so, with the help of God’s grace, I still have to face the fact that I am bound together with those against whom I am bound to struggle. I don’t know how to thread that needle. I don’t want to thread that needle, nor to bother with it. But I also recognize that to follow that impulse would be to harden my heart, to begin to close myself off from life, goodness, and love, to begin constructing hell for myself.
As a remedy, I’ll be trying to internalize this prayer for the church’s unity from the Book of Common Prayer:
O God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, our only Savior,
the Prince of Peace: Give us grace seriously to lay to heart the
great dangers we are in by our unhappy divisions; take away
all hatred and prejudice, and whatever else may hinder us
from godly union and concord; that, as there is but one Body
and one Spirit, one hope of our calling, one Lord, one Faith,
one Baptism, one God and Father of us all, so we may be all
of one heart and of one soul, united in one holy bond of truth
and peace, of faith and charity, and may with one mind and
one mouth glorify thee; through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Amen.