“[Apocalyptic] writers are not only committed to resistant action, but they are also committed to resistant discourse – to the articulation and promulgation of resistant discourse that unthinks the logic of empire and asserts in its place an alternative vision of reality.” — Anthea Portier Young, Apocalypse Against Empire, (2014)
“Evil can be cast out not by man alone nor by a dictatorial God who invades our lives, but when we open the door and invite God through Christ to enter: ‘Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If any man hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and will sup with him and he with Me [Revelation 3:20].’ God is too courteous to break open the door, but when we open it in faith believing, a divine and human confrontation will transform our sin-ruined lives into radiant personalities.” — Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Answer to a Perplexing Question, (1968)
What happens when a couple dozen academics, congregational shepherds, working professionals and community leaders (many with no shared history) gather in a home for three days, seeking what it means to be gospel-faithful in this political moment? This past January, New College Berkeley (NCB) once again ran this experiment at its 2nd annual MLK retreat in Solano County. We were joined by Dr. Lisa Marie Bowens, New Testament professor from Princeton Theological Seminary, who brought her scholarly work with the homiletical works of MLK, Jewish apocalyptic literary tradition, and the book of Revelation. Dr. Bowens teamed up seamlessly (despite meeting for the first time) with Rev. Tammy Long, our in-house spiritual director who centered our gathering in contemplative prayer. When hearts, minds and bodies wove together in sacred communion as it did in that house, a lot did happen, but perhaps above all else, the reinvigoration of hope. For those in the house, there were ample reasons for hopelessness: the cruel arrest, detainment and deportation of congregational loved ones; a racially-motivated killing of an esteemed community leader; the plight of Palestinian kin at the hands of state-sanctioned genocide; embittered strife within a shepherd’s own flock; and the daily barrage of news illuminating further erosion of the public trust and the last vestiges of a pluralistic, liberal democracy. Suffice to say, MLK’s answer to the perplexing question of how to rid the earth of its myriad evils was something for which we all longed. Amidst the ages-old problem of evil, where is the hope?
In the warm, hospitable confines of a Benicia living room, we engaged MLK’s address of this question. On one hand, he posits, one is tempted to conclude that it is up to us (humanity) to defeat the problem of evil through analysis, ingenuity, and resolve. He quotes an unnamed modern humanist as saying, “the future is not with the churches but with the laboratories, not with prophets but with scientists, not with piety but with efficiency. Man is at last becoming aware that he alone is responsible for the realization of the world of his dreams, that he has within himself the power for its achievement.” Said some 70 years ago, and presciently so, it takes but an instant to map this quote onto the technocratic idealism of Silicon Valley today. Ours is an idolatry of innovation, and many are suffering under its crushing weight (as a few of our retreatants that weekend could personally attest to).
On the other hand, there are those who are inclined toward passivity on the basis that only God can do anything about the existence of evil in this life. MLK attributes this, if not entirely, to the Protestant Reformation, particularly the Calvinistic concept of total depravity. Because we are all evil to the core, we best stay out of the way and wait for that glorious day when God will make all things new. I’m familiar with this at a personal level, having been a member of a congregation for over three decades whose mantra was, “It’s not about us.” In other words, God is in control and, therefore, the godly thing to do is to refrain from being a hero and defer to Him. It has taken me a while to appreciate how conveniently such God alone theology let us off the proverbial hook.
This enlightening dichotomy of Spirit-less activism on one side and hyper-spiritual passivism on the other then gives rise to MLK’s third-way which is that, simply put, it’s neither God alone nor man alone, but rather a both-and. In other words, there’s this mysterious and compelling partnership that God intends to have with His creation, with His created ones. It is toward this answer that MLK applies Revelation 3:20, Christ’s admonition to the church in Laodicea: Behold I stand at the door and knock. It is an invitation to communion, to relationship, to intimacy. Jesus seems to be saying that it is not enough to bear semblance to faith, to know about Him or to do things in His name, but rather to allow Him into our domiciles, to know Him deeply, to be joined by Him.
As I reflect on these things, I am struck by how our time together in that house proved symbolic. We entered the retreat weighed down by the ubiquitousness of evil, possessing scant hope, and grasping for faithful gospel response. We applied our minds to the task, delving into the apocalyptic tradition, and the sermons it inspired. Through PowerPoints, mini-lectures and readings, we gave of ourselves to “resistant discourse,” dissecting and dismantling the empire’s sordid logic. But we also heeded the knock, inviting the Spirit into the room, fostering our individual and collective intimacy with God, and thereby opening ourselves up to one another. In this space, and in remarkably short order, strangers became friends. Thus, at this MLK retreat, we not only intellectually-pursued an alternative vision of reality, we embodied it. In doing so, we retreated from despair, imagining and indeed demonstrating true hope.
Dr. Craig Wong is the Executive Director of New College Berkeley (NCB), a theological “third space” to help the Church discern and contextualize the gospel in the San Francisco Bay Area. He recently completed a DMin at Western Theological Seminary in Holland, MI, after completing an MA at the same institution. Before NCB, Wong served on the staff of a Presbyterian church in San Francisco’s Mission District where he formed and led a congregation-based, community nonprofit that served immigrant families from Latin America and Asia. He also served for over 12 years on the board of the Christian Community Development Association and the corporate board of Dayspring Partners, a gospel-centered technology company in the Bayview Hunters Point neighborhood of San Francisco. He and his wife Tina have raised four children (now adults) in San Francisco’s Excelsior neighborhood.