Lord have mercy. Lord have justice.
Yesterday was also Buy Nothing Day.
I am standing on the sidelines looking for a response.

William T. Cavanaugh’s Being Consumed: Economics and Christian Desire is an excellent example of why the church needs theologians, good theologians. While Christian authors are turning increasingly to social and economic issues few are able to blend accessible language with substantial theological content. Many of the current authors addressing these issues articulate the demands of the Gospel in functional terms. Writers (and readers) look for practical ways to ‘apply’ the Gospel to our context. Most of us though with even a passing interest know what we should be doing to help our situation. We should buy fair trade products, support local economies and agriculture, plant a garden, compost, bike, buy twirlly bulbs, etc. And so much of the work of these authors is lost because their argument led entirely to doing and once we get there we realized we already knew that and so begin to feel frustrated or guilty.

Cavanaugh, while in no way neglecting what we would be doing, takes the theological and economic realities of being and of desire seriously. In the brief 100 pages of this book Cavanaugh addresses the issue of economics and Christian desire in four related areas. He begins first with examining our current economic market system, the so-called free market. Cavanaugh is not concerned with whether this system is good or bad in itself he limits himself to asking the question: When is a market free? The market is classically understood as free when employers, employees and consumers are not coerced in their choices. The system is regulated inherently by the demands of the consumer. The market is then considered free when individuals can pursue what they want without coercion within that system. Cavanaugh states that this view defines freedom negatively and carries no vision of its own telos (goal, end, purpose). In the absence of these things Cavanaugh compares the ‘free’ relationship between consumer and corporation to a poker game where you are free to play but your opponent has already seen your hand and knows your compulsion to play. So while the market is indeed based on our wants and desires and though that can provide some regulations Cavanaugh does not assume that our wants are really what we want. Leaning on the work of St. Augustine Cavanaugh introduces a positive notion of freedom which is not freedom to do anything but the freedom from everything towards God. In fact the current market promises of limitless freedoms turn out in fact to be an illusion and in the end unfreedom, restricting environmental health, fair wages, local diversity, etc. A market is free then to the extent that dignified relationships are nurtured with each other, with the land and its resources and ultimately with God which is the telos of human existence.

The second chapter challenges the notion that much of our trouble comes from greed or our attachment to things. Cavanaugh suggests that the issue is actually a profound sense of detachment. Most of us do not hoard we discard. We move quickly from one act of consumption to another. Our culture emphasizes not acquiring but shopping. We are detached from the site of production which has moved from the home, to factories, to across the ocean. Even much of the work we do is no longer related to the act of production or creation. We are therefore detached from the producers who make the products we purchase. Though we hear some stories of the work conditions of factories overseas we are not intimately connected to the particular conditions of we ourselves buy. Even companies themselves are detached as they contract out the work of production and focus on building the image that they can sell. And finally we are detached from the products themselves. We quickly discard the toy in fast-food kid’s meal that was likely made under questionable conditions overseas. Companies of course support our detachment because if we actually valued something we bought it may be longer before we buy the next version of it. Cavanaugh suggests that we are in fact not too ‘materialistic’ but that we are in fact to perversely ‘spiritual’. We are caught up in image and status so we hope that our purchases will take on a mythic quality, though the material thing itself will never satisfy. Into this cycle of endless consuming Cavanaugh introduces the Eucharist as relationship in which we consume but end up being consumed. Rather than the body of Jesus becoming just another commodity we are the ones consumed into the body of Christ. “Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me, and I in them. (John 6:56). The body of Christ is the place of abundance and unity. It is this Eucharistic reality that restores us from our detachment and brings us into right relationship.

Chapter three explores the relationship between globalization and local expressions. These expressions are argued to be the different sides of the same coin. With the rise of multinational corporations the globe has become a single marketplace in which the cheapest labor is purchased in throughout which homogenous products are offered. Along side of this we witness the celebration of diversity and multiculturalism. There are increased attempts to preserve local expressions. This however, has simply fed into the global economic model where diversity is understood as a consumer choice as opposed to offering some sort of substantial expression apart from economics. In this model we become a pure consumer, a tourist, where even locations are consumed. It is again the body of Christ and the Eucharist that Cavanaugh evokes to respond to this situation. It is the incarnation of Christ, that is always local and particular, that bridges local expression and universal truth. In consuming the body of Christ in the Eucharist and becoming the body then we too allow ourselves to be consumed. “To consume the Eucharist is an act of anticonsumption, for here to consume is to be consumed, to be taken up into participation in something larger then the self, yet in a way in which the identity of the self is paradoxically secured” (84). Here the local is not overcome by the global but participates in it.

The final chapter names the current market system and the body of Christ as representing two economies. Our current market system is based on the assumption of scarcity. In this market we are formed as beings of endless desire and hunger to consume. We live always with the threat that there will not be enough to meet these hungers. Consumption is also the answer to the threat of scarcity, consume more so that there will be more. There is again a type of perverse theology at work here that hopes for the multiplying of loaves and fishes (93). The economy of the Eucharist is one of abundance. We become part of the sustaining life of God and not only that but we are united intimately with our neighbour. They are no longer an ‘other’ to be addressed but they are a part of our very body. This is the economy of the Kingdom and it is the calling of the church.

This book challenges to revisit the relevance and role of communion in our theology and church practice. In his account it is around this faithful expression from which the abundant economy of God emerges. The question becomes whether our own theology and practice allows the same sort of critique and response. Cavanaugh has offered us a rigorously theological account of contemporary economics. He has responded not with finding out what we can do but in understanding what we are when we enter into the body of Christ. It is perhaps this reality rather than a strategy for action that we must begin to take more seriously. This means having our desires consumed in the abundance of Christ rather than having our desires war with each other to consume what cannot satisfy.

It is a blustery snow day out here in Waterloo County. I, however, snook into the church office before it got too bad . . . we’ll see if I get home. This is my first post here at YAR. And as I understand the tradition I should give a little sketch of myself.
I grew up in the Sommerfeld Mennonite church in southern Manitoba. I essentially stopped attending the church in junior high and after a brief hiatus from church-in-general I was baptized in the Evangelical Mennonite Mission Church just after I graduated from high school. At this time I pulled up stakes a did volunteering and eventually settled into a small non-denominational bible college (where I completed a BA and MDiv). In these years I was married to a former Catholic in the Anglican church while later attending a small house-church and inner-city baptist church. It was only after my academic career was put on hold (or extinguished) that I began thinking again about pastoral ministry. I realized that I could not pastor from nowhere. This eventually led me back to Mennonite church where I am now pastoring within Mennonite Church Canada. All this to say that my sense of Mennonite identity and theology are far from fixed. In my first year of ministry reflecting on what it may mean for me to be (or not to be) Mennonite led me to write the following article, The Impossible Anabaptist.

My name is David Driedger. I am happily married to Chantal Driedger (Lavallee) who grew up French Catholic. Chantal and I were married in the Anglican Church. After we were married I attended a non-denominational seminary at which time I also served at a Baptist church. I enjoy reading Orthodox theologians and the Desert Fathers and Mothers. And as of 2007 I became a pastor at a Mennonite church. I should make two things clear from the beginning. First, I am not new to the Mennonite Church. I grew up in the Russian Mennonite tradition first in the Sommerfelder Mennonite Church and then later in the Evangelical Mennonite Mission Church where I was baptized. Second, I do not offer my story as necessarily unique. Many people inside and outside of my age bracket acquire significant experiences outside of the religious tradition of their upbringing. I simply offer my story as someone who has been confronted directly with the question of whether or not they are Mennonite. The question became acute due to my vocational calling to the pastorate. When I began looking for pastoral opportunities in 2005 I did not assume that I would pastor at a Mennonite church. What I did learn was that I had to pastor from somewhere. Until this point I maintained fluid migration patterns among churches. Sometimes the change was due to a geographical move, sometimes I changed churches due to (what I perceived to be) theological maturing and sometimes due to relational changes (getting married). I carried this sense of independence into my pastoral job search. After pursuing a few opportunities in different denominations I found myself frustrated feeling alone and unsupported. I realized that perhaps I could not both job hunt and church shop at the same time. This process did not seem fair either to me or to the churches I was contacting. The thought emerged that perhaps I needed to commit to something larger before I could find a specific place to minister from. I needed to become a part of one of the families of faith. Mennonite Church Canada was one family that I hoped would have room for both my wife and I.

It did not take long before we were attending The Welcome Inn in Hamilton and began conversations with Mennonite Church Eastern Canada about possible placements. Within the year I was called to serve at Hillcrest Mennonite Church in New Hamburg Ontario. It was in the interview process leading up to this position and the licensing interview following that I needed to explicitly address, perhaps for the first time in my life, the question of being Mennonite or Anabaptist. I knew that I was not a Yoder-reading, conflict resolution major who could not talk about their diner last night without mentioning “social justice” or “community.” I am not knocking Yoder, justice or community I just recognized a sub-culture (with a particular dialect) that I had not been formed within. In the various interviews I awkwardly tried to articulate my commitment to “seek peace and pursue it.” I offered my view that the symbolism of communion may be more “real” than we have often assumed in our tradition. I confessed my ambivalence regarding free-will and predestination. I was challenged and affirmed in the process. I felt good about the decisions that were made but I also anticipated a type of magical, clarifying moment where I would recognize or realize my Mennoniteness. This did not happen though something of equal significance did occur.

In my pursuit of personal and pastoral identity I stumbled across a Mennonite that has captured my imagination as to what is to belong here. I have come to know this Mennonite as the Impossible Anabaptist. The problem is that this individual can be easy to misunderstand. I came across the Impossible Anabaptist in the recent article by Walter Klaassen, “Recovering the Anabaptist Vision” (Canadian Mennonite 11.8). Klaassen warns that it is not an easy or simple matter to be an Anabaptist. He is critical of us when in our cultural accommodation we are unduly “preening ourselves with the bright feathers of a heroic tradition.” In response Klaassen offers three distinct attributes of the Anabaptist. First, in honour of the word’s origin Anabaptists are those who are re-baptized. This initial criterion already levels a fatal blow to most Mennonites seeking a deeper sense of being Anabaptist. Second, Klaassen writes that “what especially characterized 16th century Anabaptists was that they stood consciously against virtually everything their Christian culture took for granted” [emphasis mine]. Anabaptists are what others are not. Finally, modern Anabaptists can also be those “who are being persecuted for their faith by repressive governments.” So in addition to being what others are not we are also what others do to us. I am not re-baptized. I am not sure I can or should define myself purely in opposition to my surrounding culture. I am not being persecuted for my faith. I know that Klaassen would grant me the possibility of being Mennonite but his account renders my Anabaptist identity an impossibility.

Klaassen’s account of the Impossible Anabaptist is not helpful. His image acts as a gate keeper to any would-be Anabaptists. Klaassen’s gate is inappropriately narrow based on moral and social categories derived from a historically constructed image of 16th century Anabaptists. This type of framework results in keeping Anabaptist identity cloistered and controlled. I find it impossible to locate my identity in such a community. I do however maintain that it is the “impossibility” that must remain in some sense central to our faith. I believe our Mennonite/Anabaptist identity is better served when we recognize the impossible possibility of God’s gift and God’s holiness. This calls us to the priestly task (for all believers) of learning to live in relationship with the holy, abundant and elusive presence of God.

I find much more hope for the Impossible Anabaptist in Chris Huebner’s A Precarious Peace. He recognizes that living as Mennonite or Anabaptist has much more to do with the life, death and resurrection of Christ than seeing the 16th century as in some way prescriptive or normative. Huebner characterizes the life of the church as “a body that does not admit to establishment, a truth that does not admit of ownership, and an identity that does not admit of location” (24). Here the Anabaptist identity remains vulnerable, contingent, beyond the grasp of our control. This is a call for the church to separate more completely from the “state” which becomes any centre of power of and control. Though Klaassen rejects our “preening” with the feathers of heroism he does not reject the notion of heroism as such in the Anabaptist identity. It is this sense of heroism that attempts to stabilize the prescriptive nature of Anabaptist identity. A good Anabaptist is one who . . . This creates a centre of power or “state” from which judgments are made and boundaries are policed. In response Huebner identifies with a broader tradition that recognizes the unsettling nature of Christ. He quotes Rowan Williams at length who says that martyrdom (which is effectively what Klaassen is espousing as the ultimate Anabaptist identity) is essentially,

about something other than heroism. It has to do with freedom from the imperatives of violence – a freedom, in this instance, that carries the most dramatic cost imaginable. It is not the drama that matters, however, it is the freedom that is important. If we focus on the drama, if we long for the opportunity of heroism, we are in thrall to another king of violence because we are seeking a secure and morally impregnable place for the self to be. We want to be victims, to enter a world there are clear divisions between the forces of darkness and the forces of light. We want, in fact, to get back to that clear frontier between insiders and outsiders which is so comprehensively unsettled by the trial of Jesus in the Gospels. (200-201)

I see this statement from the Archbishop of the Anglican Church as reflecting to a greater degree the type of vulnerability necessary to address issues of violence (personal and structural), which I imagine comes close to the heart of Anabaptism. Klaassen’s account strikes me as too prone to drama, too prone to bolstering a type of unattainable morality that tends to result in habitual shame and hatred (either projected inward or outward).

My name is David Driedger. I am a pastor at a Mennonite church. My family history comes out of the Mennonite tradition. Am I myself Mennonite or Anabaptist? I find it impossible to nail down and secure just what that is. I also find it disconcerting that my faith and possible development should be limited to the idea of a fixed and static denominational “camp.” That being said I am learning to live in the gift of being Mennonite. Will I always be a Mennonite? I wouldn’t see why not, but it is not for me to say. That ambiguity does not change who I am, in fact this ambiguity must remain a part of my identity. As a follower of Christ I must be prepared to leave whatever is necessary to follow him into places unknown and uncharted. Put this way perhaps I am more Mennonite than I thought.