In a previous post, I chided James K.A Smith for not including the cineplex as the religious mall’s Sunday School class. I am almost done with the book now, and wanted to make a point of noting that he does in fact tackle that problem.
“Over time, the theater is a kind of classroom; it constitutes a pedagogy of desire . . . This is not to say that we should avoid the cinema (though that might always be a bad idea); rather, I think it is important to see that movies don’t just ‘have’ worldviews; rather film is more like a liturgy” (p. 110).
This is exactly right. But the difficulty is that Smith explicity fences off the bad lessons that must not be learned in this cineplex at the mall — we don’t want to “find ourselves unwittingly becoming disciples of Americanism” (p. 110). Smith (perhaps) mentions in passing somewhere else that he is a Christian socialist, which perhaps explains why he is so attuned to all that stuff for sale out in the mall, which capitalism produces in its sleep, and why he is so jumpy about any rah rah movies that defend the manufacture of said stuff. But Hollywood churns out more didacticism than can be found in the films of Jerry Bruckheimer. There are all the movies in which the CIA are the bad guys, for example, which is to say, lots of them. There are all the movies in which opponents of homosexual marriage are viewed exactly as Smith views them. And of course the evil corporation is a character right out of central casting. The cineplex has more than one teacher that we need to watch out for.
Now I think I can call all of you to witness the fact that I, though a loyal American son, and one who loves this country simply, freely, unabashedly, and lots, have still, from time to time, offered analyses of our public affairs that would seem to indicate that I believe our peculiar form of governance is “of the idiots, for the idiots, and by the idiots.” And I have no patience for that form of patriotism that looks like it might
be thinking about confusing the boundaries between nation and Church. That needs to be remembered as the backdrop for the following discussion.
Smith appreciates Richard Mouw’s cautionary wisdom about possible excesses of patriotism (p. 111), but does not believe that Mouw goes far enough. Smith suspects that patriotism is “de facto idolatry” (p. 111).
“But can there be a ‘natural’ affection for an artificial reality? . . . I’m also skeptical about rationales that tried to make such nationalist affection ‘natural.’ Are those who lack such affections somehow unnatural? Morever, there is a long legacy of Christians not identifying with any fatherland other than Christ” (p. 111).
First, the quick answer. Yes, those who lack such affections are unnatural at that point, and they should labor to correct the deficiency. But of course — giving Smith’s point the plausibility it has — the opposite error, that of loving your nation excessively, or outside God’s appointed bounds for that affection, is the far more common problem.
I think Smith errs here because he seems to think that identification (at least on this issue) is a zero-sum game — more for America means less for Jesus. And, of course, if that were the way it worked, he would be right. If love for America were one billiard ball, and love for Jesus another, then when they come in contact, one would have to displace the other.
But our loves and loyalties are textured and layered in a hierarchy. When Christ calls us, He calls us to radically recast our priorities. He requires this of us at the most profound and “non-abstract” level. Whoever does not hate father and mother, sister and brother, cannot be Christ’s disciple (Luke 14:26). Jesus never told me to quit loving America. He did tell me to quit loving mom. Now the solution to this (a real solution, not an expedience) is that Matthew relates this “hatred” as being fulfilled if you don’t love them more than you love Christ (Matt. 10:37). Reasoning from this, we see that any creature — family, gold, pleasure, nation, health — can compete in our affections for the love we are commanded to have for Christ. But we are called to structure these things appropriately; we are not called to jettison them altogether.
When we mortify them, as we must do, we mortify their pride of place. We do not mortify their existence. Indeed, we cannot mortify their existence without striking out at the God who gave them to us in the first place, just as we cannot value the gifts over the Giver without striking out at the God who gave them to us. When the Giver gives the gift, there are two forms of rudeness. One is to grab the gift and turn away without saying thank you. The other is to strike the gift from the Giver’s hand. Which is the way of true discipleship? Neither.
One other thing, as a practical observation, and then I am done. Smith dismisses the possibility of a natural affection for an artificial reality, and wonders if there is even such a thing as a “natural” fatherland. Taking this a step further, he observes that even if that were possible, the modern nation-state is a long way from being that kind of fatherland. But I would reason in the other direction. Anything that elicits the love of millions (whether that love is lawful or not) is hard to peg as an abstraction. When men can be summoned to storm a fortress, in the face of withering fire, and all because they saw a piece of cloth fluttering out ahead of them, the last word that would come to my mind would be “abstraction.” Even if I did not understand their behavior, I would be far more likely to categorize it as a language I did not understand than as an exercise in meaninglessness.