Domination-free communities: learning to live other-centred shared lives?
28 Mar 2007
The very nature of God is both communal and other centred – God is in eternal community of one nature/will in three persons. They do not not try and hog the stage for themselves but instead turn the spotlight on each other. There is no hierarchy, there is no ego, there is no fear, there is no dominance – there is mutual acceptance, delight, laughter, creativity as each one bows to the other and loves to see the other lifted up.
I have on my blog been reflection over a number of posts of Walter Wink’s thought that the kingdom of God can be expressed as a “dominanation-free order” and in particular what that might mean for some of our thinking around sexual conventions/mores, the bible/God and our own expression of faith.
In this post I would like to explore with you how we, as christian communities, can live out something of God’s eschatalogical future and of our origin as being God idols – created in the image of God. I would like you to imagine with me what it would be like to be communities where we could be open to each other in a way where it was other centred – not stuck in the hiarachies and domination systems that we as humans have created out of fear, or the need to control or be controlled. Instead let us imagine together how we were created in the beginning – in the image of this tri-une, fear free other focused God – and how it will be in the end when we are known and fully known. The hope now of begining to walk in a Spirit filled life that looks forward to when we receive our fully restored humanity in bodily form and finally experience an eternuty of liberated, dominion-free living.
I am not sure I can imagine this myself, or think that clearly – particulalry as the flavour of this piece is on community and taking the example of something we all hold in common in our communities – the issue of sex and sexuality and how we can live that out in other centred WAYS – than i am going to need your help to ground it in practical outworked reality. Firstly, i am a man and only have my own experiences – whereas it is is men and women that jointly together are God idols, created and shaped in the image of God by God. Secondly, it takes interaction and joint ownership, otherwise this becomes either just my wishful thinking or a new system of dominance that is the ‘right’ way we all have to conform too.
We all have a sexual nature
My thinking has been shaped by a number of recent conversations that although we all have our own sexuality we need to explore how as communities we share this with each other [if we do at all]. I think we need to start with the fact that we all have a sexuality and whether that is heterosexuality or homosexuality [however we express that in emotion, thought, actions -whether domination filled or free, whole or broken] it feels to all of us that this is our nature, this is who we are in this moment – and whether that is a result of genetics or from our own experiences it is not really that important.
We need to start with acceptance as communities: that we are who we are and resolve that we will love and care for each other as we are. I might be uncomfortable with that but if we start with a postmortem we will need a dead body and if we start with a change programs, we are saying you are not accepted unless you change. All of us come into relationship as we are, with our nature the way it is and that is the reality of the situation…
Another way of approaching this is for me to say of my nature as I express it – this is who i am, is just ok, or is it the best? To turn the spotlight not on others actions and natures but my own – where am i hurting and broken? And if we as christians want to continue saying that there is something better which might involve say not practising a form of sexuality how much are we prepared to be communities where:
a) we can all share our sexual issues in an accepting way knowing that we need each other and God to help; and
b) i am prepared to give up some/all of my rights/freedoms -to be other centred rather than self centred?
For example: Cherith Fee-Nordling has suggested that if i am a single christian maybe what i have to do is to give up what it is that i am asking my gay friend to give up and not get married, or indeed having sex. Instead we dedicate our lives to support each other not as gay/straight but as 2 people trying to live this out together – with all else that it might also cost us in terms of career, where we live etc…
I think too often we heterosexual christians sound like:
a) we are better people just because of our sexual orientation [when so often the practice of our orientation shows that we are no better or worse]; and
b) that because we’re straight have a right to sex and you because you’re gay don’t have that right? [Is it just me or does the term 'straight' seem to apply a betterness to our morality just because we are attracted to the opposite sex to us?].
I look at my own life and ongoing sexuality confusion and think that i am at least if not more messed up, same as a large chunk of the world, and if the rest of that chunk isn’t messed up about sex they are messed up about something else.
Jesus has a sexual nature
I also look at Jesus, as a man who is a fully human male i.e. he has a penis which works and therefore celibacy was something he chose because he was other centred: he was obedient to the father and it wouldn’t have been loving to drag a wife into what he had to do.
The film, the 40 yr old virgin, captured something of how strange this is in our sex focused culture but it must have also been very strange in Jesus time too – with its Hebraic expectations of family – how Jesus must have faced questions about his choice of staying single, how he must have faced pressure to get married, and be misunderstood about why he wasn’t – after all a wild prophet like John might be able to get away with it but the village carpenter what was his excuse?
And I am sure it was not because there weren’t women who Jesus was attracted too – but somehow when he saw them and felt his own humanity stir in that moment he gave them back their humanity and refused to treat them as sex objects but instead saw their beauty as part of the reflected glory of his Father as fellow image bearers of God. Jesus must therefore understands the emotions and consequences of making choices about our sexual expression.
Jesus must have faced choices all the time to give life/humanity back to people rather than treat them as sex objects/means of gratification and therefore has not only been to the no sex place but understands sexual feelings. Jesus also shows how he is for the other and therefore whether gay or straight, male or female etc we need to learn to be affirming and appreciative of each other rather than being so scared of not being able to keep it in our pants that we cannot do this.
Can we learn to be honest and open about our feelings? Are we gonna live in an environment where we are scared about falling sexually that we can no longer relate to the opposite sex? Or an environment where we can share and confess our sexual feelings and learn to give each other our humanity back – not flirt for affection or need sex to make us feel good about ourselves but live in communities where we feel good cos we are loved, where it is normal for us to appreciate each other and the image of God that we each reflect in personality and our bodies?
More than that can we start to grasp something of what it means to have the ascended Christ interceeding for us before the Father, still with his humanity and his comprehension of all that we feel, go through in thoughts and emotions? That Jesus in his resurected body is not only a symbol of hope that one day we too will have our full bodily humanity restored but is also the means that we get this – and that God loves us no more now than they will when we receive the fullness of our humanity back – not just our souls but who we are in the flesh too. We won’t be sexless androgynous beings either – God’s plan is not to turn us into eunuchs but to make us restored creations – “we want to see the people we created to be fully in our image not to make them in a new image” is their heart’s cry and “we will not stop, give up, give in, walk away until we have…”
Can we walk this out as communities in the the light?
I mean writing all this sounds weird – it makes me feel way uncomfortable cos i have been taught that once married its all about building barricades, about being careful, about not mixing with the opposite sex – all my worries kick in and i go man is this not asking for trouble?
Maybe another way to think about it is trouble is already there? Temptation is already there but cos we keep it hidden and in the dark it just goes on its merry way. Maybe we need to bring it out into the light? Maybe we need to to think about how as communities we need each other? How married people aren’t better or single people people aren’t better but that we all need each other and can learn from each other and help each other to reflect God to each other and affirm and care for each other.
Jesus said it was for our love for each other not our fear people would know that God was real. If we practise being for each other in the same way the trinity practise being for each other – where it becomes not about me and my rights but about mutually living for each other then maybe we’ll have something that is not just an argument based on reason but a way of life that encompasses love and experiences the Spirit at work amongst us, shaping us more like that?
What do you think?
I think what I am asking is:
• how can we do this?
• what would it look like to live other centre lives not just asking people to give something up but asking what can i give up to help them?
• would you change your views on homosexuality if it meant you being prepared to surrender your own sex life and live with them as a friend and companion who together shared a life of celibacy and its related struggles?
• do you feel weird about men and women as the joint image bearers of a communal other centred God finding ways to affirm and share each other and be for each other?
• what scares you? excites you?
• do you think that if we do something we’ll be at least starting to bring light and life and if we do nothing all the things we are afraid of will still continue to happen but they’ll be some body else’s problem?
Tagged: Community, men, sex, sexuality, women
7 comments
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Comment by steven hamilton
11.29 am on 29 Mar 2007
paul…interesting post (big walter wink fan here!)
two things you said struck me in particular early on: the piece about our tri-une God lifting one another up…and: ‘whereas it is is men and women that jointly together are God idols, created and shaped in the image of God by God. Secondly, it takes interaction and joint ownership, otherwise this becomes either just my wishful thinking or a new system of dominance…’
just this week, my wife was sharing her frustration with me about an interaction with some friends. You see, I have been involved in some theological training, but that is wrapping up, so our plan is for her to return to nursing school and pursue midwifrey while i surge ahead to care more for our children. all of this we had processed a while ago with lots of bumps and bruises along the way and now are in the midst of pursuing what God has put on our hearts and the way He will minister to others through us. anyway, they were talking and she brought up her going to an academic advisor, etc. and she explained what she had been up to preparing to return to school and nursing training. To which almost every one responded, “Yeah, you go, time for the man to step aside,…it’s your turn…take your time and drag it out…” She was quite frustrated by two things: #1 chaundra and I do not live in a quid-pro-quo relationship…we are a loving, mutually uplifting partnership and this is what God is doing with us and we are sending her to get this training now that i have finished and i will surge to take care of our children so she can do what ‘we’ are doing together with God in our life. #2, she was dishearted by the ‘get yours while you can’ and ‘take advantage of your spouse’ advice. it seems her friends – surprisingly to us – were reacting from being in some sort of domination-system.
so, instead of berating or just shutting up, she did the next best thing (i love my wife!)…she told some truth. she explained that it wasn’t about ‘her time in the spotlight’ or ‘her time for her own stuff’…but that we are a partnership together with God, and in that we love each other and are mutually supportive and mutually submit to one another to lift the other up.
it still amazes me somewhat that this was a paradigm shift in the marital relationship for our friends. But it opened both chaundra and my own eyes to see a domination-system still at work, yet it also affirmed some of the work of God in our own lives, which can be very trying and difficult.
anyway, thanks again for sharing Paul!
Comment by Paul
7.29 am on 30 Mar 2007
Thanks Steven. I like that system of mutuality you and chaundra have got going there. I think my experience in life has been more that everyone is out for what they can get and therefore it is no wonder your friends we’re all “you go girl” :).
One of the things i am looking forward too is hearing more voices from the global south where the idea of individual is a less significant concept in the face of ideas like tribe/community/family etc – it will be a powerful challenge to our self focussed western view. And hopefully we’ll be able to help them with God loving us as individuals – it’s the ongoing tension between the 1 identity and the communal shared life…
Comment by Jim_Rapp
7.16 pm on 30 Mar 2007
Paul, Steven,
Thanks for the great comments.
Stephen, what a great story about you and your wife and your common agreements as forms of mutuality instead of as forms of bondage.
Paul, you tagged Stephen’s comment about agreements with a note contrasting the culture of the “global south” where the individuality of agreements is a less significant concept than in our westernized cultures.
The juxtaposition of these two comments – about 1) agreements as forms of mutual respect, alongside comments about, 2) cultures of the global south that aren’t as self-centered and individualized as we – this juxtaposition, in the midst of the subject of bondage-free community, struck me as extremely interesting. And inspiring.
I don’t have the answers: especially about attaining bondage-free community.
But, when I first saw the subject of bondage-free community introduced here, I immediately reflected on the nature of the agreements that we make with each other. I thought about the relationship between domination and our agreements. For a few days, I reflected silently on this relationship.
Then, Stephen posted (above, #1) on the subject of agreements in this thread about domination-free community. Stephen sees his agreements with his wife as forms of mutual love and respect. At heart, their agreements really are not forms of domination, but instead, their agreements aim at attaining a loving, mutually shared life. Free from domination. At the very same time, these same loving-agreements can be instantly mistaken by outside observers (westernized observers) as forms of individualized domination, as self-seeking contracts, as turf-protecting compromises; as if Stephen and his wife just agree to take turns at domination, and as if the agreements in their marriage are extensions of domination. Wow.
Paul noted that this western mind-set seems to assume that the best we can attain in marriage, and maybe in our other agreements, even in spiritual agreements with each other as Christians, is not really domination-free relationship, but rather, the impasse of shared, alternating domination.
A great observation.
Again, I feel lost in this subject. I don’t have the answers.
But, Paul is onto something. In North America and Europe, many of us tend to incorporate westernized judgments about agreements into our relationships. We’re not always fully aware of this; but, we do it. For example, in the United States, agreements are “enforceable” (as contracts) in law courts; in Europe, agreements are called “private law.” Again, we don’t always think about these elements of agreements consciously; rather, these elements are parts of our cultural ambient temperature, like an atmosphere that affects all our relationships, sometimes subliminally. We tend to see agreements as potentials for domination: agreements as our “private laws” (as in Europe), or agreements as “enforceable” (as in the U.S.). I admit, I’m infected with this too. While many southern cultures are under intense pressure to conform to our westernized notions of agreements (i.e., westernized “contract law”) in order to do business with us in the global market place, there are still many southern cultures (say Australian aboriginals, or the Canella people) among whom agreements are expressions of community trust, that is, communal trust for practical, daily matters – like agreements to go hunting or fishing with others, or agreements for community harvests.
What strikes me about the relationship between domination and our agreements is that the Lord attached great significance to our agreements. “Wherever two or three agree.” And, Ananias and Sapphira were free not to make an agreement; but, having freely and voluntarily made an agreement, they were then not so free to break it.
An outside observer (like those observing Stephen’s marital agreements) could easily look at the case of Ananias and Sapphira, and cry, “domination!” And, it’s true that many of our agreements with each other really are forms of domination. In the other thread about “mediated discipleship,” many people expressed how they want to follow the Lord directly, dissing mediators; but, what happens when following Lord means following a Lord Who leads us right back into community, and especially, what about folliwing a Lord who leads us right back into communities built on mutual agreements? — how do we know when our agreements become instruments of domination?
Even more profoundly difficult, what about cases in which it is the Lord Himself (not me, not Stephen, not Paul) who adds sanction, consequence, and binding-effect to our agreements? – like in the case of Ananias and Sapphira?
Did the early church really look like a domination-free community? – when agreements were called to account?
I’m not saying we’re doomed to domination. Nor that the goal of a domination-free community is impossible. Even in sexualized relationships, like marriage. I really don’t have the answers. When we get beyond the rhetoric of “domination-free” communities (and there’s a great place for rhetoric and ideals), and when we live out our lives in the nitty-gritty details of specific, concrete agreements about real-times, and real-costs for midwifery education or further theological training, then the unavoidable nature of agreement-making can really expose whether we’re looking at our agreements under the colors of western law (agreements as “enforceable,” agreements as “private law”), or whether we’re crafting our agreements as spiritual forms of mutual love, mutual respect, and using our agreements as forms of liberation, as forms of freedom.
Ideals about domination-free community get complicated fast.
What gets me – and I don’t have the answers – are the cases in which it is the Lord Himself who adds sanction, consequence, and binding effect to our agreements.
In at least some cases, it’s not just western law, nor southern (less individualized) cultural canons about agreements that end up binding us. It’s the Lord Himself: calling us to account.
In just the same way that Stephen’s loving agreements with his wife became interpreted by outside observers as forms of domination (alternating individual domination), so too, whenever the Lord Himself adds consequence to our agreements, and whenever the Lord Himself calls our agreements to account, then outside observers can equally cry, “domination, domination, domination.”
I’m wondering how far “domination free” community can really go? – into the dissolution of all agreements (northern, western, southern) per se? – into classical forms of anarchy? – into laissez faire spirituality (with God as the Absent, Non-interfering, State)? – whose perception of “domination-free” really counts?
I’m not bemoaning this. Just wondering out loud.
No final answers, here.
Thanks for the provocative posts.
Comment by steven hamilton
12.28 pm on 31 Mar 2007
jim
wow…very interesting and inspiring.
…lost in thoughts of perception vs reality…or perception vs perception…and the relational call/reminder of vows committed within a relational community…
ok…gotta make coffee and ponder this more…
Comment by Jim_Rapp
5.45 pm on 2 Apr 2007
Domination-free sexual communities in a prostitution-legal state (Nevada)
Stephen, yeah. The “perception” problem trips me up. Constantly. I live on the Nevada-California border. I do some interventions (personal, legal, family) for prostitutes in both states who want to come out of prostitution. Most of them have worked both states; houses in Nevada, streets in California; Sacramento, Oakland, Los Angeles. One “perception” is that Nevada prostitution is more “domination-free” because the state oversees the industry with regulations for health, work hours, and security – compared to “mean streets” in California. In one case, I took a young woman (who had worked both states) to a local business for a job interview.
I wondered whether this so-called legit job was really more “domination free” than any other job?
Whose perception counts?
Talk about perception. We got out of the car in the parking lot. She saw three men. Over on the other side of the parking lot. She said — “there’s a $1,000.”
I silently thought – “she can leave her former location. But, not the frame of mind.”
Then, she really slammed me.
“I bet they go to church. And their wives see them the same way I do. Money, security, a little fun, a break in the boredom.”
Ouch.
Perception? Reality? Both? Paul introduced this thread — what about domination in sexual relationships, like marriage? – or, in churches? – or, in marriages blessed by churches? – what about domination in me? – in my inward perceptions? – of this young lady?
I try to help some of these women to get plugged into local church-communities. But, because these women can look at three men in a parking lot, and can instantly see $1,000 — these same women have phenomenal skills for discerning (again, perception) the “economies” that govern local churches – the church economies of hidden agreements, silent covenants, unspoken rules, harbored judgments – these women are quick studies of hidden, silent, secret dominations in so-called “domination free” communities.
I’m constantly off-balance.
Are these women over-sensitive? – do they put up barriers of “perception” because they fear judgment and non-acceptance in churches? – or, do they truly see subtle dominations in churches — dominations to which I’m blind, because I’ve agreed to play by church-rules, because I’ve agreed to agree with the group-think of my favorite churches — because I don’t know, and don’t want to know the dominations which these women see?
Some stay in local churches, or better, in small, home-churches. Some split because subtle church-dues can be just another form of domination.
Yet others come to thrive on new commitment: domination free? -or, dominated by inward heart-responses to, “come everyone who thirsts .. come, you who have no money?”
Comment by steven hamilton
11.48 am on 12 Apr 2007
jim –
what you said about ‘money, security, a little fun, a break in the boredom’ rang a bell…yeah, i’m so off-balance as well working with the girls in baltimore. we try to be very purposeful in terms of seeking community transformation and we don’t take the girls out of their context (even though we seek to connect them to local faith communities) unless there is a real threat to life…at the drop-in center, when we sit and have conversation, i see how clearly these girls are caught in a domination system…they tell me that their ‘boyfriend’ is really nice when he isn’t pimping them out of beating them up…but as we talk with these girls and love them and accept them, they gradually come to see the system they are trapped in, but also are very sharp when they want out, they don’t want to opt-into another domination system, perceived or real. it is a constant challenge…
Comment by Paul
12.17 am on 3 Apr 2007
Thanks Jim, I think there are plenty of systems/expressions of domination around – from institutions to thought patterns. That to me does not make institutions and thought patterns bad in and of themselves but the effect they can have is to perpetuate powers that hold us back or keep us locked into the same way/form/system – in other words they bind and blind us – such that it becomes the status quo and we do it without even questioning it – just like 200 yrs ago most people thought that slavery was ok, maybe in 200 yrs time people will look at us now and think “i can’t believe they thought driving cars was ok…”
I wonder about Jesus being about liberation and the paradox that seems to come with that liberation being us giving up our kingdoms for God’s, our freedom to be my own slave for slavery to Christ…
Except the heart of the Kindom of God seems to be about choice, freely we get to choose, freely we experience grace etc – Jesus is the ultimate example of that paradox – being put to death by the dominant power of his day in collaboration with the religious power that sought to keep the stasus quo…
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