\u2026 Christians themselves are called to create concrete alternative practices that open up a different kind of economic space \u2013 the space marked by the body of Christ.[2]<\/strong><\/a><\/em><\/p>\n \u201cIf anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross daily and follow Me<\/em>\u201d (Luke 9:23).<\/p>\n Dr. William T. Cavanaugh has written and lectured on a wide range of topics in theology. In Torture and Eucharist<\/em>, Cavanaugh discusses how the state attempts to reduce the Church into \u201cdisappearing\u201d and thereby eliminate a rival power. His solution takes us out of the purely political answer and into a theological answer. In Being Consumed<\/em>, Cavanaugh describes how Christians can change their economic practices in order to achieve the real goal in life \u2013 participation in the life of God.<\/p>\n These two books are connected with the theme of how Christians are to live and serve. A starting point of theology for both books is that of Augustine of Hippo.<\/p>\n In Being Consumed,<\/em> Cavanaugh points out that Augustine gives us the true definition of \u201cfreedom\u201d. In the midst of our consumerist society where everyone is trying to find freedom \u201cfrom\u201d interference in their pursuit of fulfillment, Augustine says, that freedom is \u201ca freedom for<\/em>, a capacity to achieve certain worthwhile goals. \u2026 the one overriding telos<\/em> of human life, the return to God.\u201d (3) \u00a0Freedom to give away things, not consume things.<\/p>\n In Torture and Eucharist<\/em>, Cavanaugh discusses Augustine\u2019s view of the \u201cmystical body\u201d, politics, sacrifice, the spiritual\/spatial dualism, and the Eucharist.<\/p>\n In Being Consumed<\/em>, through a discussion of freedom, the dynamics of attachment and detachment in consumer culture, globalization, and the question of scarcity, Cavanaugh connects theology to practice.<\/p>\n An important theme for both books, reminiscent ofVincent Miller, is a\u00a0solution for society\u2019s ills \u2013 the Eucharist. A Eucharistic community, the body of Christ, comes together for the true consumption (Being Consumed<\/em>), for the nourishment of Christ\u2019s body, and then goes out into the world and ministers sacrificially to others. The Eucharist is a picture of the One Who was tortured for us and believers enter into His life through their own self-denial and taking up their cross to follow Christ (Torture and Eucharist<\/em>).<\/p>\n Cavanaugh lived in a slum area in Santiago Chile during the despotic military regime headed by Pinochet for seventeen months. He returned to Notre Dame to study about human rights and then returned to Chile for the research which was the basis of his doctoral dissertation and the book, Torture and Eucharist.<\/em> Among other evils, the state\u00a0makes the tortured individual believe that the state owns her\/his body.<\/p>\n Cavanaugh then explains how the Catholic Church failed to help the tortured because of a faulty ecclesiology \u2013 the belief that the Church and the state exist on two temporal and spatial planes with the Church in charge of the \u201cspiritual\u201d and the state in charge of the temporal. But there is no such thing as a peaceful co-existence \u2013 the state will always subsume the Church. (page 193). And furthermore, Cavanaugh says that this duality is wrong; a new ecclesiology is needed, one that involves the transcendence of space and time. (page 268, 275). This ecclesiology is to be Eucharistic. \u201cIn constructing the body of Christ, the Eucharist overcomes not just spatial isolation but temporal isolation as well.\u201d (280)<\/p>\n How can a Eucharistic community \u201cperform the body of Christ\u201d? (page 253)<\/p>\n Using his experience in Chile as a backdrop, Cavanaugh shows three practices that the Church must engage in if it is to resist the evils of the modern state \u2013 excommunication, both individual and public, social work, and creation of Eucharistic spaces of resistance to the state when it is evil.<\/p>\n Torture is anti-liturgy; resistance became a street liturgy to reclaim the places of the city where the regime policed people and forced the \u201cdisappearances\u201d. In connection to the Eucharist, \u201cthe true body of Christ disrupts present historical time and opens a new space in opposition to the regime. The bodies of those disappeared reappear in the reappearance of the visible body of Christ.\u201d (277)<\/p>\n Lastly, \u201cChristianity itself is founded on a disappearance. The tomb is empty; the body is gone.\u201d (281)<\/p>\n Being an Ex-Roman Catholic (my relatives say I\u2019m a Lapsed Catholic) I found myself struggling in several places with the strong emphasis on the Eucharist. My memory is of being told I was going to Hell if I didn\u2019t go to Mass and take the Eucharist. I grew up with a strong sense of the Church, with its assumed position of holding the keys of the Kingdom, ordained priests, and papal infallibility, as the holder of my salvation. One example of many in the book that I found to give some sort of power<\/em> to the Eucharist was:<\/p>\n \u201cThe emphasis here is on the externality<\/em> of the liturgy to individual bodies, the way it incorporates individuals into the body of Christ.\u201d (page 12)<\/p>\n The \u201cway it<\/strong> incorporates individuals into the body\u201d!?!\u00a0 But I thought that it is the Holy Spirit Who incorporates people into the body of Christ (I Corinthians 12). And so throughout the book I found myself just mentally substituting \u201cChristian Community\u201d or body of Christ or Holy Spirit for \u201cEucharist\u201d in many places.<\/p>\n A discussion of the theological differences between Roman Catholics and the rest of us catholics would be fun, but I think it would be better in a face to face.<\/p>\n Both books still provided deep insights into culture and thoughts on how we as Christians minister to the world. In addition to what Cavanaugh said about the \u2018one and the many\u2019 in his discussion on globalization (Consumed<\/em>, page 59ff) I see the one body of Christ, made up of many individuals with their own cultural ways of worshiping Him. The one body of Christ made up of Big C\u2019s, little c\u2019s – Protestants and Eastern Orthodox and all others who love Jesus.<\/p>\n I would end with a couple of questions:<\/p>\n We have a ministry for refugees here in Salem, Oregon. My daughter Angie has been helping for 5 or 6 months. Because she has gone on several aid missions including the Middle East, she has begun work teaching English. What overwhelming joy that I can\u2019t describe when she comes home and tells me the women are asking about this Jesus that she serves in the name of! The organization that is helping the refugees is made up of many different Christians from many different denominations. This is the unity that we need to present to a skeptical world.<\/p>\n No matter what our theological differences, I\u2019m sure Miller and Cavanaugh would agree that our theology is no good if we don\u2019t practice it. It\u2019s not about us; it\u2019s not even necessarily about the victims\/martyrs; it\u2019s about Christ.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n [1]<\/a> William T. Cavanaugh. Torture and Eucharist<\/em> (Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 1998), 275.<\/p>\n [2]<\/a> Cavanaugh, Being Consumed: Economics and Christian Desire<\/em>, viii.<\/p>\n\n
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