#RevThread # 114
Late Imperial Decadence
1/ The sequence went something like this: Caligula, whose real name was Gaius--Caligula was a nickname which meant “tiny boots”, who ruled for five years...
Late Imperial Decadence
1/ The sequence went something like this: Caligula, whose real name was Gaius--Caligula was a nickname which meant “tiny boots”, who ruled for five years...
2/ ..followed by Tiberius who ruled for several decades, followed by Nero who ruled for 14 years. Tiberius was emperor when Jesus lived.
3/ Rome ruled the world--from Britain, across Europe, into the Middle East and into North Africa. So these three guys owned much of the Western world.
4/ Here’s the story they told themselves and the rest of humanity about their empire: “We are so exceptional. We bring law and order to human existence. We tame the barbarians. We bring enlightenment. We rule in justice.”
5/ These same rulers also told another story about themselves, and demanded that their subjects repeat this: “The emperor, the Caesar, is anointed by the gods. Caesar is the son of the highest god. To him has been granted all authority on earth.”
6/ Here’s just a tad of the truth about these globe-striding emperors: Caligula was so profligate (indulging in endless greed and careless rape and getting wasted) that he burned through a cool trillion in his first year of rule --mostly on himself, his palaces and towers.
7/ Tiberius murdered several members of his family in order to arrange for his nephew Nero to be his successor. Nero, who fancied himself an artist, loved incest, blew through the treasury, and suicided as the Praetorian Guard closed in on him.
8/ Meanwhile, what was life actually like for the people of the empire? Are there any records of what it was like for a colony to endure this enlightenment?
9/ Turns out, there is a compelling account of a province groaning under the weight of the Empire, the rule of the Caesars. It’s called the New Testament...
10/..From Matthew to Revelation, the entire Jesus movement begins to make more sense when viewed as a struggle against imperial religion.
11/ When the New Testament speaks so disparagingly about “the world”, that is code for The Roman Empire. When Jesus refuses to be known as the Christ until His life’s last day, that is because “Christ” is the Greek word for the Latin “Caesar”.
12/ Turns out the actual anointed one, the one with the claim to be Son of God, wants nothing to do with Caesar or Caesar’s way.
13/ What is Caesar’s way? Endless greed giving rise to endless profligacy and turning men into endlessly violent dominators. The Imperial lie is that “here the superior ones rule”...
14/.. But soon enough the greed that lurks behind that delusion takes over. This is where Mob bosses rule. Think Russia, Hungary, the Philippines and now Brazil. Ponder “Caesar’s Palace”. Who rose up to power in America out of the ashes of the casinos he drove bankrupt?
15/ Can you see it? Our day is all about mobsters and tyrants, the nihilistic death energy that the Lord of life came to confront and to defeat...
16/..Here’s the deal: Jesus couldn’t defeat it by force -- that would only extend Satan’s rule. He did it by revealing and thus undermining the whole ethos of violence lurking behind every empire.
17/ Jesus revealed it at the Cross. The cross is not about satisfying the wrath of God. The cross is about revealing the hidden, desperately violent wrath within man.
18/ We are in our moment of late imperial decadence. How did the White Evangelical Church, which purported to be following Jesus, become one of the tools of the Herod and the Pilate of our day? Good question. Probably beyond me, but I’ll try to answer.
19/ Protestantism began at the dawn of Capitalism. Suddenly there was a widespread experience of a personal relationship with a loving God. Obviously a big deal and a good deal. At first it seemed--and I suppose it was--revolutionary...
20/.. But gradually as the movement succeeded, it began to become very transactional, just as transactional as the enveloping economic culture.
21/ Eventually the new popular white evangelical deal devolved to: “What, me worry? Don’t worry about your sins. They don’t matter. Don’t bother with all the disciplines of the Christian life: life in community with others, sacraments, prayer for others, asking forgiveness,..
22/".. steeping myself in the scriptures. Forget the ethics of Jesus. All that’s just way too hard. Isn’t there a shortcut? What’s the bottom line here?..
23/".. Here’s a better transaction: Just say this short prayer asking Jesus to live within you, and you’re good to go. Eternal life is yours. You’re in, and all the lesser doomed ones are out. ‘What, me worry?’...
24/..“God will become your little pal. It’ll be like having your own private cosmic Alexa. Best damn deal ever. And listen: God wants to make you rich. The new Gospel is that Jesus had everything wrong about ethics. God wants you to revel in oodles of money!”
25/ Welcome to Donald’s theology. Only, being Donald, he can’t stop there. He also wants the power to declare what words mean, to control what we remember and forget, who we approve and who we expel. And he bristles at anything less than adoration.
26/ You’d think he was a little god. Donald, in fact, has a lot in common with Tiny Boots. But other than the electoral college that got him into the office, The Don has nothing in common with any President from George Washington to Barack Obama.
