Hi Domenic! I really enjoyed your podcast with Richard Gornoski, especially when you spoke of dignified defiance. How did you come to that conclusion? I bought your book and it doesn't seem to address this. God bless you!
First, thank you for getting the 'Good Neighbor, Bad Citizen' book! I use the term "dignified defiance" in Chapter 2: Sharing, more specifically in Station 5 – Simon helps carry Jesus’ cross.
I introduce Simon and his predicament of being pressed into service, and call it, "a practice noted by Jesus during a lesson on dignified defiance," and then quote from the Sermon on the Mount.
Hope that helps! It's a phrase I only use once in the book, but it's a core theme throughout.
The three examples from the Sermon on the Mount, that I include in Station 5, are clear evidence of defying the norms of the imposed social order, and doing so by asserting human dignity.
You can see evidence of dignified defiance in the passage I excerpt in Station 9, too. Jesus defies the Pharisees and their mob who want to enforce the punishments contained in the Law of Moses on the woman caught in adultery, and He does so by appealing to their individuality (which is where human dignity is found).
The Beatitudes, which I reference in Station 8, are also dispositions that oppose the dominant culture, especially the declaration "Blessed are the persecuted." What could be more defiant of the imposed, hierarchical social order than calling its victims "blessed"?
Every time you read about Jesus being defiant in the Gospels -- and there are more examples than the ones I've recounted here and in my book -- He does so by asserting human dignity: the innate worth we each have by virtue of being human.
What are some of your favorite Gospel incidents that show Jesus upholding human dignity in spite of the social-order pressures to the contrary? I'd like to hear which ones resonate with you :-)
I really don't understand why a Christian would even watch the Super Bowl. But I guess that might open up a whole other can of worms. I didn't watch it, so I was not even aware of the commercials.
I only saw it now on your post here. And my impression was the one shown during the Super Bowl was tinged with some 'wokeness' and politicizes Christ, which is not something I think Christians should do, but certainly is what others have done to Him all along, and politics played a role in His crucifixion so it's par for the course.
As for the rebuttal ad, I'm not sure why you think it failed as a retort. I think it succeeded in that it was responding to the wokeness and the watering down of Christ's purpose to sappiness rather than His power to convert us. Did it respond to the message of foot-washing? No. but I don't even think the original ad really got the meaning of foot-washing quite right either. In it's very effort to single out certain stereotypes and try to turn them upside down, I think it actually reinforces stereotypes. Just my take.
I agree the HeGetsUs ad didn't get the full meaning -- the undermining of the political order and flattening of such hierarchies -- of the foot washing! But, Christ Himself politicizes His message at times, so I can't hold *that* against the ad.
The popular counter-video I linked to didn't understand this. It jumped straight to conversion, which I see as a similarly bad move of watering down Christ's purpose. Conversion is a lived process -- and that the subverting of anti-Christs (like political orders) is part of that process -- rather than a static, "dead" result. The counter-video isn't doing a better job at understanding the anarchist Jesus, and its own message might be as shallow as the one it attempts to criticize.
I was way more intrigued by the HeGetsUs ad than by yet another in a long line of "conversion" messages that misses *how* Christ converts people: by figuratively washing their feet, among other things, and ticking off the more rigidly social-order esteeming folks.
And Christians may like sports in general and the Super Bowl in particular here, though it's clearly not required to do so. Best to be honest about one's preferences, as you are in your comment :-)
I kind of think both ads were just two sides of the same coin. Neither of the two groups is probably willing to wash each others feet.😏
It's true that the foot-washing did put into question the values system humans have. Was Christ really trying to do away with hierarchies? Or simply questioning the value we place on what part of the hierarchy we fit into, and which position ought to really be coveted? Yes, He did say we should not lord it over each other, but he also said " whosoever will be chief among you, let him be your servant' which means to be a really superior person is to be one who serves rather than one who is waited upon; there still seems to by an insinuation of rank, just not in the way most folks tend to think of it. It's the 'those who are last will be first' idea. There's still the concept of 'first'. It's just that what we would value as prizeworthy, is not what God values as prizeworthy. And Christ is the head of man, and man the head of the woman, so I don't think hierarchies are always to be avoided. But as near as I can tell, those two are the only ones that ought to exist. And as Christ laid down His life for the Church, so the man for his wife; once again, the servant model.
I'm drawing a blank on when Christ used Himself as a cheap political message. I don't mean he never addressed political B.S., but I don't think He ever sunk to the depths those advertisements did. It's hard to put it into words, but it's like both sides come across as silly antagonists who by claiming to have an insight just come across as self-righteous; Christ always rose above that because only He is truly Good. Only He can point out the mote without the finger pointing back at Him in the process.
Oh, and yes, I agree; the second advertisement was most likely not made by Christians who understand the anarchistic/nonhierarchical church of Christ.
Yes, there's a deficiency in both videos. The reason why the counter-video fails as a retort is that it essentially is "talking past" the HeGetsUs ad. A good retort is a dialogue, not merely an alternating monologue (and if you find this description interesting, wait until you read my Feb. 21 post, all about communication :-D ).
Hierarchies aren't always bad, same way that basic politics isn't always bad; they become bad when they're substantively of violence and imposition. David Gornoski asked me specifically about being against *all* forms of hierarchy when I was on his "A Neighbor's Choice" podcast, and I answered that we all have hierarchies of values (and Jesus encourages to have those!), and can observe hierarchies of proprietorship (and Jesus speaks well of stewardship in some parables) and hierarchies of competence that don't deny human dignity; rather, they can reinforce it. I didn't use the example of "man the head of the woman" because I'm not really in agreement with that.
Also, there's a difference between a mere order and a hierarchy. The "first shall be last, and the last shall be first" speaks to the reality that those who accept the trappings of faith by default due to their lineage ("the first") often fail to explore real faith and accept it; meanwhile, those who find faith later can be more genuinely accepting of it. Jesus is warning people against taking things for granted; that being nominally faithful for a long time is no guarantee that you've developed a true virtue of faith.
The politics issue was my second Substack post ever, all the way back in November (I haven't been doing this for very long :-D ).
On Jesus making a "cheap" political messages, I agree that nothing He said is cheap. For an example of Jesus clearly using the political/tribalist prejudices and tendencies of His audience to deliver His message, The Good Samaritan (Luke 10:29-37, cited in the Introduction of my book) is probably the most well-known one. Jesus didn't have to make the hero a member of a looked-down-upon political outgroup, but He did.
Yes. So few engage in a real dialogue. We talk at each other or are too caught up in our own perspectives to see what someone else really needs. Hopefully we are dialoguing. 😏 The makers of the adv. might not be genuinely dialoguing, but I guess that's between them, although they did make the 'conversation' public, and since I generally like your insights, I got exposed to it secondhand. At this point, I think I'll bow out and let them 'have at it'. 😏
Back to hierarchies, even the husband head of the wife, man the head of every woman seems to be a rather flat hierarchy since we're to submit one to the other and wash each others feet, but there's probably more to that concept than mere 'order' of decision-making or authority, since the headship idea brought in the 'on account of the angels' verse. That might be better left for another day!😏
And quite right about who the 'first shall be last' comment was directed to, and it's primary application, although I suppose it doesn't prevent the principle being applied in other ways. Just as the meek shall inherit the earth can have shades of meaning; both challenge the prevailing way of thinking, then, and now.
I think I did read all your past articles, but I'll do a quick check...later. I need to try to get a new post up this week for my own page. Have been sidetracked. Even this conversation kept me up last night! 😏
And correct about Jesus using the tribalism to His advantage. He often used the human ego against itself, to silence His detractors or challenge their security, or understanding, even pitting the Pharisees and Sadducees against each other (as did Paul). He was definitely an astute communicator in that regard. It often seems to me, however, that most of us always have a bit of ego underneath our own use of such methods, and that's why it often backfires.
So, let's move this conversation to the next level.
If you were going to create any kind of video response to the Superbowl ad. (assuming you would; perhaps you don't think it needed one? But given you wrote a post about it, perhaps you do) how would you have crafted it or what changes would you have made to it; in other words, how would Jesus, in your opinion, have responded to the Superbowl ad if it had been published in His day by a group of 'religious leaders' who think they GetHim and are therefore qualified to explain Him and what He meant by His foot washing, to the rest of us. Obviously, they missed the mark, as did the detractors with the second video, in your opinion, so which parts would you change? How would you market the message?😏
The only change I would make for the HeGets Us ad is being more honest about what Jesus is doing. The ad focuses on the washing of the feet as some act of charity, but it's really an act of subversion that happens to include something directly charitable. That's why I wondered if the producers really understood the Last Supper incident. My change would've been subtle.
For the counter-video, I think it was fine for the message it was presenting. My change there would've been not pretending it was a retort to the feet washing.
I prefer sharp to dull, and I prefer deep to shallow. Most pop culture is dull an shallow. Good comedy and good marketing are sharp, but still shallow. Almost nothing is deep. The HeGetsUs ad was sneaky-deep, but not even its producers seemed to know it! That's what intrigued me: It had a chance to be the rare bit of marketing that had some real depth to its thinking. Then again, how many people would've gotten it if it was conspicuously deep? Pop-culture followers are so used to shallow, would they have understood what was happening?
Also, really liked your, "He often used the human ego against itself, to silence His detractors or challenge their security, or understanding." Jesus was masterful at refuting the premise of lousy questions, challenging the very basis for the thinking and beliefs that led to such insufficient queries and statements. When I argue, I usually first attack the premises. Why play a game built on a faulty field?
Great historical context for Valentines Day.
Let's hope no one's Valentine's Day date goes so badly today that they feel like they're being martyred :-D
Hi Domenic! I really enjoyed your podcast with Richard Gornoski, especially when you spoke of dignified defiance. How did you come to that conclusion? I bought your book and it doesn't seem to address this. God bless you!
Howdy, Kristine!
First, thank you for getting the 'Good Neighbor, Bad Citizen' book! I use the term "dignified defiance" in Chapter 2: Sharing, more specifically in Station 5 – Simon helps carry Jesus’ cross.
I introduce Simon and his predicament of being pressed into service, and call it, "a practice noted by Jesus during a lesson on dignified defiance," and then quote from the Sermon on the Mount.
Hope that helps! It's a phrase I only use once in the book, but it's a core theme throughout.
Also, I'm glad you enjoyed the "A Neighbor's Choice" conversation with me (I did, too!). I wrote about it a couple of weeks ago in this Substack: https://goodneighborbadcitizen.substack.com/p/can-you-resist-utopia-and-escapism
God bless you, too, and thanks for finding my book and blog :-)
I understand what you're saying, but how did you come to your conclusions?
The three examples from the Sermon on the Mount, that I include in Station 5, are clear evidence of defying the norms of the imposed social order, and doing so by asserting human dignity.
You can see evidence of dignified defiance in the passage I excerpt in Station 9, too. Jesus defies the Pharisees and their mob who want to enforce the punishments contained in the Law of Moses on the woman caught in adultery, and He does so by appealing to their individuality (which is where human dignity is found).
The Beatitudes, which I reference in Station 8, are also dispositions that oppose the dominant culture, especially the declaration "Blessed are the persecuted." What could be more defiant of the imposed, hierarchical social order than calling its victims "blessed"?
Every time you read about Jesus being defiant in the Gospels -- and there are more examples than the ones I've recounted here and in my book -- He does so by asserting human dignity: the innate worth we each have by virtue of being human.
What are some of your favorite Gospel incidents that show Jesus upholding human dignity in spite of the social-order pressures to the contrary? I'd like to hear which ones resonate with you :-)
I really don't understand why a Christian would even watch the Super Bowl. But I guess that might open up a whole other can of worms. I didn't watch it, so I was not even aware of the commercials.
I only saw it now on your post here. And my impression was the one shown during the Super Bowl was tinged with some 'wokeness' and politicizes Christ, which is not something I think Christians should do, but certainly is what others have done to Him all along, and politics played a role in His crucifixion so it's par for the course.
As for the rebuttal ad, I'm not sure why you think it failed as a retort. I think it succeeded in that it was responding to the wokeness and the watering down of Christ's purpose to sappiness rather than His power to convert us. Did it respond to the message of foot-washing? No. but I don't even think the original ad really got the meaning of foot-washing quite right either. In it's very effort to single out certain stereotypes and try to turn them upside down, I think it actually reinforces stereotypes. Just my take.
I agree the HeGetsUs ad didn't get the full meaning -- the undermining of the political order and flattening of such hierarchies -- of the foot washing! But, Christ Himself politicizes His message at times, so I can't hold *that* against the ad.
The popular counter-video I linked to didn't understand this. It jumped straight to conversion, which I see as a similarly bad move of watering down Christ's purpose. Conversion is a lived process -- and that the subverting of anti-Christs (like political orders) is part of that process -- rather than a static, "dead" result. The counter-video isn't doing a better job at understanding the anarchist Jesus, and its own message might be as shallow as the one it attempts to criticize.
I was way more intrigued by the HeGetsUs ad than by yet another in a long line of "conversion" messages that misses *how* Christ converts people: by figuratively washing their feet, among other things, and ticking off the more rigidly social-order esteeming folks.
And Christians may like sports in general and the Super Bowl in particular here, though it's clearly not required to do so. Best to be honest about one's preferences, as you are in your comment :-)
I kind of think both ads were just two sides of the same coin. Neither of the two groups is probably willing to wash each others feet.😏
It's true that the foot-washing did put into question the values system humans have. Was Christ really trying to do away with hierarchies? Or simply questioning the value we place on what part of the hierarchy we fit into, and which position ought to really be coveted? Yes, He did say we should not lord it over each other, but he also said " whosoever will be chief among you, let him be your servant' which means to be a really superior person is to be one who serves rather than one who is waited upon; there still seems to by an insinuation of rank, just not in the way most folks tend to think of it. It's the 'those who are last will be first' idea. There's still the concept of 'first'. It's just that what we would value as prizeworthy, is not what God values as prizeworthy. And Christ is the head of man, and man the head of the woman, so I don't think hierarchies are always to be avoided. But as near as I can tell, those two are the only ones that ought to exist. And as Christ laid down His life for the Church, so the man for his wife; once again, the servant model.
I'm drawing a blank on when Christ used Himself as a cheap political message. I don't mean he never addressed political B.S., but I don't think He ever sunk to the depths those advertisements did. It's hard to put it into words, but it's like both sides come across as silly antagonists who by claiming to have an insight just come across as self-righteous; Christ always rose above that because only He is truly Good. Only He can point out the mote without the finger pointing back at Him in the process.
Oh, and yes, I agree; the second advertisement was most likely not made by Christians who understand the anarchistic/nonhierarchical church of Christ.
Yes, there's a deficiency in both videos. The reason why the counter-video fails as a retort is that it essentially is "talking past" the HeGetsUs ad. A good retort is a dialogue, not merely an alternating monologue (and if you find this description interesting, wait until you read my Feb. 21 post, all about communication :-D ).
Hierarchies aren't always bad, same way that basic politics isn't always bad; they become bad when they're substantively of violence and imposition. David Gornoski asked me specifically about being against *all* forms of hierarchy when I was on his "A Neighbor's Choice" podcast, and I answered that we all have hierarchies of values (and Jesus encourages to have those!), and can observe hierarchies of proprietorship (and Jesus speaks well of stewardship in some parables) and hierarchies of competence that don't deny human dignity; rather, they can reinforce it. I didn't use the example of "man the head of the woman" because I'm not really in agreement with that.
Also, there's a difference between a mere order and a hierarchy. The "first shall be last, and the last shall be first" speaks to the reality that those who accept the trappings of faith by default due to their lineage ("the first") often fail to explore real faith and accept it; meanwhile, those who find faith later can be more genuinely accepting of it. Jesus is warning people against taking things for granted; that being nominally faithful for a long time is no guarantee that you've developed a true virtue of faith.
The politics issue was my second Substack post ever, all the way back in November (I haven't been doing this for very long :-D ).
On Jesus making a "cheap" political messages, I agree that nothing He said is cheap. For an example of Jesus clearly using the political/tribalist prejudices and tendencies of His audience to deliver His message, The Good Samaritan (Luke 10:29-37, cited in the Introduction of my book) is probably the most well-known one. Jesus didn't have to make the hero a member of a looked-down-upon political outgroup, but He did.
Yes. So few engage in a real dialogue. We talk at each other or are too caught up in our own perspectives to see what someone else really needs. Hopefully we are dialoguing. 😏 The makers of the adv. might not be genuinely dialoguing, but I guess that's between them, although they did make the 'conversation' public, and since I generally like your insights, I got exposed to it secondhand. At this point, I think I'll bow out and let them 'have at it'. 😏
Back to hierarchies, even the husband head of the wife, man the head of every woman seems to be a rather flat hierarchy since we're to submit one to the other and wash each others feet, but there's probably more to that concept than mere 'order' of decision-making or authority, since the headship idea brought in the 'on account of the angels' verse. That might be better left for another day!😏
And quite right about who the 'first shall be last' comment was directed to, and it's primary application, although I suppose it doesn't prevent the principle being applied in other ways. Just as the meek shall inherit the earth can have shades of meaning; both challenge the prevailing way of thinking, then, and now.
I think I did read all your past articles, but I'll do a quick check...later. I need to try to get a new post up this week for my own page. Have been sidetracked. Even this conversation kept me up last night! 😏
And correct about Jesus using the tribalism to His advantage. He often used the human ego against itself, to silence His detractors or challenge their security, or understanding, even pitting the Pharisees and Sadducees against each other (as did Paul). He was definitely an astute communicator in that regard. It often seems to me, however, that most of us always have a bit of ego underneath our own use of such methods, and that's why it often backfires.
So, let's move this conversation to the next level.
If you were going to create any kind of video response to the Superbowl ad. (assuming you would; perhaps you don't think it needed one? But given you wrote a post about it, perhaps you do) how would you have crafted it or what changes would you have made to it; in other words, how would Jesus, in your opinion, have responded to the Superbowl ad if it had been published in His day by a group of 'religious leaders' who think they GetHim and are therefore qualified to explain Him and what He meant by His foot washing, to the rest of us. Obviously, they missed the mark, as did the detractors with the second video, in your opinion, so which parts would you change? How would you market the message?😏
The only change I would make for the HeGets Us ad is being more honest about what Jesus is doing. The ad focuses on the washing of the feet as some act of charity, but it's really an act of subversion that happens to include something directly charitable. That's why I wondered if the producers really understood the Last Supper incident. My change would've been subtle.
For the counter-video, I think it was fine for the message it was presenting. My change there would've been not pretending it was a retort to the feet washing.
I prefer sharp to dull, and I prefer deep to shallow. Most pop culture is dull an shallow. Good comedy and good marketing are sharp, but still shallow. Almost nothing is deep. The HeGetsUs ad was sneaky-deep, but not even its producers seemed to know it! That's what intrigued me: It had a chance to be the rare bit of marketing that had some real depth to its thinking. Then again, how many people would've gotten it if it was conspicuously deep? Pop-culture followers are so used to shallow, would they have understood what was happening?
Also, really liked your, "He often used the human ego against itself, to silence His detractors or challenge their security, or understanding." Jesus was masterful at refuting the premise of lousy questions, challenging the very basis for the thinking and beliefs that led to such insufficient queries and statements. When I argue, I usually first attack the premises. Why play a game built on a faulty field?
Yes, I agree. It's best to challenge the premise when possible.