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1. Overcoming Onto-theology
- Fordham University Press
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1 Overcoming Onto-theology z We go to church in order to sing, and theology is secondary . Kathleen Norris' NOTLONG AGO I participated in a conference on biblical hermeneutics . It asked about the relation between trust and suspicion for Christians reading theBible. The keynote addresses by Walter Brueggemann and Phyllis Trible were brilliant. But for me the highlight of the conference was the workshop led by Ched Myers, whose radical reading of the gospelof Mark is oneof the finest pieces of biblical interpretation I have ever read.2To be more precise, the highlight was the moment in the middle of the workshop whenhe had us sing. He was developingthe claim that biblical interpretation in the service of some relatively closed theological system (there are many) andbiblical interpretation in the service of some species of historical criticism (there are many) are not as different as either side would like to think. Both are bestunderstoodin terms of the Marxian analysis of the fetishism of commodities, for they turn thetext into anobject to be masteredby the interpreter for the advantage of the interpreter, a source of theoretical treasure to be accumulated and owned. (Elsewhere I have described this as the King Midas theoryof truth.) In the middleof the argument,Myers stopped andsaid it was time to sing.But first we would have to clap, and soon all forty of us were clapping rhythmically. (If you know anything about Christians in the Reformed tradition, you know that we were z Dakotn:A Syirifunl Geography (New York:Ticknor zyxw & Fields, 1993),p. 91. zy Binding the Strong "I: A Political Readirzg of Mark's zyxw Story of Jesus (Maryknoll : Orbis, 1988). 2 zyxwvuts OVERCOMING ONTO-THEOLOGY participating ina performative refutationof Hume on miracles!) Then he began to sing: 0 Mary, don’t you weep, don’t you mourn. 0 Mary, don’t you zyxw weep, don’t you mourn. Pharaoh’s army got drownded. 0Mary, don’t you weep. The second time through we all joined in; then he would sing the verses, and each time we wouldjoin in again on therefrain. I didn’t want the singingever to end. But when it did, Myers invited us to reflect on the phenomenon of American slavessinging about the liberation of Jewish slaves three thousand years earlier, a story they had made their story, and he asked us who Mary might be. We realized right away that first and foremost she was the mother of Jesus at the foot of the cross. Blissfully ignoring the realities of time’s arrow, theAmerican slaves were seeking to comfort Mary with thesong of the Exodus, reminding her, as it were, of her own song, the Magnificat. Our leader did not have to point out that by singing the old spiritual and reflecting on it we were making the story of Miriam and Moses our story too, opening ourselves to be seized once again by its message of hope (insofar as we are oppressed) and judgment (insofaras we are oppressors). Almost immediately I thought of Heidegger’s critique of ontotheology . He thinks it is bad theology because we “can neither pray nor sacrifice to this god [of philosophy]. Before the zy cmsn szli, man can neither fall to his knees in awe nor can he play music and dancebefore this god” (ID p, 72). It seemedthat as we joined the slaves in their song we had overcome onto-theology without even trying. For while we were not singing and dancing -that would be too muchof a miracle to expect of Christians from the Reformed tradition-we were singingand clapping before the God who drowndedPharaoh’s army. The onto-theological God entersthe scene “only insofar as philosophy, of its own accord and by its own nature, requires and determines how the deity enters into it” (IDp. 56).The God to whom we were singing had entered the scene without the imprimatur of the learned, saying, ”I have observed the misery of my people who are in Egypt; I have heard theircry on account [100.24.20.141] Project MUSE (2024-03-28 17:58 GMT) OVERCOMING ONTO-THEOI,OGY zyxw 3 of their taskmasters. Indeed, I know their sufferings, and I have come down to deliver them” (Exodus zyxw 3:7-8). We should not be surprised to read that Miriam sang and danced with tambourines before this God who threw horse and rider into the sea without consulting fa zyxwvu Ineta zyxw fn physicn or the Wissenschnft der Logik Miriam and...