Political Visions and Illusions, 2.0

InterVarsity Press has just released this promotional video:


The book is available from the publisher and from the usual bookstores and online vendors.

Flightless birds in history's cauldron

My paternal grandparents were born nominal subjects of the sultan in Constantinople, albeit under a British colonial administration. While Cyprus had come into British hands in 1878, it remained officially part of the Ottoman Empire until 1914. Like the surrounding territories, the island had a mixed population, with a 5 to 1 ratio of Greek Orthodox Christians to Turkish Sunni Muslims, along with much smaller Armenian, “Frankish” and Maronite minorities. Because Cyprus was unaffected by the population exchanges mandated by the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne, my father grew up with Turkish Cypriot playmates, one of whom, Abdullah, became very close to him and remained a lifelong friend until Abdullah's death in February of this year. Indeed the final separation of Greek and Turkish Cypriots would not come until a half century after Lausanne, as the events of 1974 divided the island seemingly irreparably.

I was reminded of our family's history as I recently read Louis de Bernières's Birds Without Wings (Vintage, 2004), a sprawling epic on a Tolstoyan scale set against the backdrop of the final years of the Ottoman era, the Great War, the Greco-Turkish War and the tragic aftermath. The story takes place largely in the small Anatolian village of Eskibahçe in what is now southwestern Turkey in the ancient province of Lycia. Based on the long abandoned village of Kayaköy, meaning “rock village,” Eskibahçe, meaning “old garden”—perhaps the Garden of Eden awaiting the inevitable fall—contains a colourful cast of characters known largely by their occupations and their respective religious faiths. Levon the Armenian is the local apothecary, providing medicinal cures for a variety of ailments. Iskander the Potter is a Muslim who so thoroughly submits to God's will that he does not plan in advance what he will produce, allowing the clay to decide what it will become under divine guidance. Father Kristoforos is the Orthodox priest and leader of the village's Christians who easily mixes with and ministers to the Muslims but denounces the occupying Italians as heretics. The book's title is an allusion to two boys, Mehmetçik and Karatavuk, a Christian and Muslim respectively, who are best friends eventually separated by war and deportation. Although their given names are Nikos and Abdul, they adopt the names of Robin and Blackbird after the clay bird whistles fashioned for them by Karatavuk's father Iskander.

Political Visions and Illusions: release and interview

The second edition of Political Visions and Illusions is now out and available for purchase from the publisher, bookstores and the usual online vendors. An excellent place to find it is at the famous Hearts & Minds Bookstore in Dallastown, Pennsylvania, operated by the indefatigable Byron Borger, who has been a great supporter of my work. If you can't get there in person, he would be happy to send it to you.

If you want to know what's in the new revised edition, Steve Bishop has just posted an interview with me on the topic. Here is an excerpt:

Christian Platonism and the Platonic redemptive story

Plato

Two weeks ago I was privileged to attend two back-to-back conferences at Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Michigan. The first was the annual Kuyper Conference, whose overarching theme was “Christ and Community.” One of the major speakers was Hans Boersma, until recently a professor at Regent College in Vancouver, BC, soon to join the faculty of Nashotah House near Milwaukee.

In an address titled, “Neo-Calvinism and the Beatific Vision,” Boersma suggested that the neo-Calvinist emphasis on continuity between this life and the next lacks a proper sense of the beatific vision of God.

Voices at the Margins: the problem with identity politics

The Bible manifests great concern for marginalized, especially those among the people of God who fell into the categories of widow, orphan and resident sojourner. Because these groups were at a disadvantage under the land tenure system, thus deprived of a secure means of livelihood, the law of Moses mandated special means of ensuring that such people be provided for. When I was teaching, I would give my students a series of scripture texts that emphasized our duty to care for the poor, such as Isaiah 1:11-17, 10:1-4, Amos 5:21-24, and Psalms 72 and 82.

In recent years this recognition that God calls us to care for the poor and oppressed has taken a new form. Now many people are telling us that we have an obligation to listen to the voices of the marginalized. What does this mean?

Is Nationalism Worth Defending?

When I first came across Yoram Hazony’s The Virtue of Nationalism, I found the title off-putting. After all, I have devoted an entire chapter of my Political Visions and Illusions to nationalism, which I treat as an idolatrous love of nation: in an effort to bind people together in a tighter unity, nationalists often exalt the nation, however they define it, at the expense of more proximate loyalties rooted in the pluriformity of communities making up a complex differentiated society. Thus when I started reading Hazony’s treatment, I steeled myself for what I expected to be a grim experience.

Nevertheless, once I was into the book, I quickly discovered that it was not what I had expected. Far from defending an idolatrous love of nation, the author has advanced what amounts to an implicitly Aristotelian defence of the nation-state as the optimal form of political governance. A world of independent nation-states is the virtuous mean between the extremes of tribal anarchy on the one hand and supranational empire on the other. In defending the national state against its apparently vicious rivals, Hazony mounts a modest argument in favour of a non-utopian order which, while far from perfect, he believes best facilitates political freedom. While his thesis has applicability across a broad range of political life, the author employs it in defence of his own homeland of Israel as a state embodying the Jewish nation, acting unilaterally when necessary. He refrains, however, from affirming a universal right to national self-determination, conceding the legitimacy of prudential considerations in particular cases. In this respect, his argument has Burkean overtones.

Does Hazony’s defence of the national state work? Yes. And no!

Amsterdam and Mecca: Bridging the Gap

In an era when so many are interested in finding their ancestral roots, discovering an immigrant among our forebears is scarcely unusual. Since pre-history people have moved from place to place in search of the proverbial greener pastures and a better life, or to escape tyranny, disaster and hunger.
Yet immigration poses problems of adjustment for both the host community and the people entering it. Migration in sufficiently large numbers can overwhelm a host nation and permanently change its culture, a prospect fuelling fear in settled populations, especially during times of economic uncertainty. The reception of Muslim immigrants into western nations has been particularly fraught with tension, because Muslims bring practices that contrast markedly with the ways of the receiving communities. Yet as Christians we recognize that the Bible requires us to exercise hospitality to the sojourner in our midst. So how should we approach this issue?

In his new book, Christian Hospitality and Muslim Immigration in an Age of Fear (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2018), author Matthew Kaemingk, a professor at Fuller Seminary, has made a significant contribution to the discussion surrounding Muslim immigration. Much as Tertullian posed his famous question on the relationship between Athens and Jerusalem, Kaemingk focuses on that between Amsterdam and Mecca, representing the changing dynamics between a post-christian liberal culture and a traditional nonwestern monotheistic culture.

Rev. Wang Yi and faithful disobedience

The church in China is growing dramatically, but in the meantime the government in Beijing is renewing its persecution of Christians. Last month members of the Early Rain Covenant Church in Chengdu, including Pastor Wang Yi, were arrested and taken into custody. Anticipating his likely arrest, Wang Yi wrote My Declaration of Faithful Disobedience, to be published in the event this did take place. Here is an excerpt:

If God decides to use the persecution of this Communist regime against the church to help more Chinese people to despair of their futures, to lead them through a wilderness of spiritual disillusionment and through this to make them know Jesus, if through this he continues disciplining and building up his church, then I am joyfully willing to submit to God’s plans, for his plans are always benevolent and good.

Precisely because none of my words and actions are directed toward seeking and hoping for societal and political transformation, I have no fear of any social or political power. For the Bible teaches us that God establishes governmental authorities in order to terrorize evildoers, not to terrorize doers of good. If believers in Jesus do no wrong then they should not be afraid of dark powers. Even though I am often weak, I firmly believe this is the promise of the gospel. It is what I’ve devoted all of my energy to. It is the good news that I am spreading throughout Chinese society. . . .

Those who lock me up will one day be locked up by angels. Those who interrogate me will finally be questioned and judged by Christ. When I think of this, the Lord fills me with a natural compassion and grief toward those who are attempting to and actively imprisoning me. Pray that the Lord would use me, that he would grant me patience and wisdom, that I might take the gospel to them.

Reading such a fearless statement should prompt those of us living in safer environments to consider what we ourselves would do under similar circumstances. In the meantime, let us pray for the safety of Pastor Wang Yi and the members of his congregation. Let us also pray that the Holy Spirit will change the hearts of their persecutors.