Empire, Resistance, and International Solidarity

By Dr Joerg Rieger This article first appeared in the April 2019 issue of INSiGHT.

When dealing with conglomerates of power that seek to control everything (my basic definition of empire) movements of solidarity are needed. Moreover, these movements need to develop relations with each other, and so one of the biggest challenges may well be how to build international movements of solidarity. Scholars of theology and religion can make important contributions to this project in various ways, including an in-depth reflection on how images of God have been shaped by the dominant system, what alternative images of God are at work in the various solidarity movements, and how such images can further support movements. Of course, this is not the first time that theologians have been involved in these dynamics; in recent history, several liberation theologies have done this work and in the past there have been theologies of the people which include the hymns of the African American slaves, the peasant theologies of the Middle Ages, and the political theologies of the early Christians, including the work of the apostle Paul.² The task for theologians is, therefore, not to reinvent the wheel but to continue the traditions of theological resistance in the present.

Today, class issues are especially critical in forming international movements of solidarity, as they are international by design, due to the global spread of neoliberal capitalism. The fate and the hopes of workers in the United States, whether they realise it or not, are much more intimately connected to workers in other countries than to the ruling class in the United States. Race and ethnicity have often been used in top-down forms of class struggle to cover up precisely this fact, so ” that white workers are enticed to identify more with their white bosses than with their African American, Latino, or Asian co-workers. Nationalism and patriotism have played their own roles in these struggles. While it may sound paradoxical, working people are also connected by the fact that their employers play them off against each other as well as against the unemployed.

To be sure, issues of gender, race, ethnicity, and sexuality also transcend borders and demand international movements of solidarity. Yet race and ethnicity have different histories in different contexts, and even gender dynamics are not as universal as it may appear.

This is why Muslim feminists, for instance, have often had to remind Western feminists that their struggles shape up differently and that what appears oppressive to one group may be a tool of liberation for others.3 Due to the international nature of the class struggle in neoliberal capitalism, even international solidarity in terms of gender, race, ethnicity, and sexuality can benefit from international solidarity established on the basis of class. In addition, the constructed nature of class reminds us of the constructed nature of gendered, racial, and sexual identities—including national identities—and points towards the possibility of new alliances and reconstruction.

A deeper understanding of class will also help us deepen what we currently understand as solidarity. Progressives in the so-called first world have often understood solidarity as a decision of the will to support others who are less fortunate. This mindset has made positive contributions to many important projects, including fair trade, international aid, and advocacy for human rights. At the same time, this kind of solidarity has also led to a certain patronising attitude, especially when things went well, and to burnout, especially when they did not.

The next step would be to consider what I am calling deep solidarity.4 Deep solidarity is based on a sense that the majority of us might be in the same boat, that the realities of class tie us together despite all our differences that must not be overlooked. Despite significant differences in terms of economics, race, ethnicity, sexuality, and gender, there are some things that tie together what the Occupy Wall Street Movement has called the 99 percent, namely the fact that most of us are no longer benefiting as much from the structures of late capitalism as we once did and that we have to work for a living. This fact ties us together across the lines of different religions as ” well. New interreligious alliances grow out of this struggle, based on a common struggle. As a result, religion can no longer be used as easily to destroy solidarity—a major factor in the past and present—and might contribute to the formation of deeper forms of solidarity.

The notion of God’s solidarity with the oppressed and marginalised, a key insight in various liberation theologies, is sharpened in light of deep solidarity The God who is found to be in deep solidarity is not the God of the dominant imagination. In the Exodus traditions, for instance, shared by Jews, Christians and Moslems, God does not remain above the fray but takes sides and enters into the struggle of the people. In the Christian tradition of the incarnation, God joins the majority of working people in Jesus Christ, who grew up as a construction worker and maintained relations with common people all his life—thus embodying deep solidarity.

Reflections on deep solidarity that bring together these various aspects are much needed, as in the United States and other privileged countries deep solidarity was covered up for a long time, for instance, by the easy availability of credit, from credit cards to reverse mortgages, leading people to believe that the system could be made to work for them. Now that credit is no longer as easily available and much of people’s net worth has disappeared in the housing and unemployment crisis, even the middle class is becoming clearer about its place within neoliberal capitalism. Over twenty years ago some economists talked about the “Judas Economy,” pointing out that living in the First World has been beneficial for workers - this is less and less the case.5 One reason that the Trump administration in the United States is able to keep jobs in the United States is that many US jobs pay lower wages and provide fewer benefits than they once did. This is especially true in the southern states, where labour unions are weaker and where many workers work for a fraction of what workers make in other states. The metaphorical notion of the 99 percent points to solidarity not only within the United States but also internationally, as working people in the United States share substantially more in common with workers in the Global South than with the 1 percent in their own country; even in global comparison no worker makes hundred times what other workers make, which is the differential between workers and managers even in wealthy countries like the United States. We need to repeat, of course, that the key point of this comparison is not money but power. For this reason, the 1 percent always finds itself in international solidarity, a fact that is often overlooked by the masses but never lost on the elites.

In the United States in particular, the development of deep solidarity is actively countered by various mechanisms. Race has often been used to divide those who would be natural allies in terms of class and even in terms of gender and sexuality. Throughout its history, the ruling class in the United States has maintained its power by playing off white workers against black workers. And even some well-meaning efforts at overcoming racism and sexism have unwittingly contributed to the weakening of deep solidarity. When working class white men, for instance, are made to feel that they are the main perpetrators of oppression along the lines of race and gender, they often get the false impression that their natural solidarity lies with white men of the ruling class. This helps us understand, to some degree, why in the United States so many white working-class and lower-middle-class voters supported billionaire presidential candidate Donald Trump, seemingly against their own interest. Another interesting figure is that 81 percent of white Evangelical Christians voted for Trump in the 2016 elections.

1 This article is based on Joerg Rieger, “Empire, Deep Solidarity, and the Future of Resistance,” in: Religion and Power, ed. Jione Havea (Lanham: Lexington Books/Fortress Academic, 2019), 71-84. Used by permission. Despite the fact that Paul has often been seen as a conservative, more recent work on the politics of Paul has shown his political edge in the struggle with empire. See, for instance, the work of and Neil Elliott and Richard Horsley. 3 The role of the veil is one example, as some Muslim feminists find it useful in the struggle for liberation. See, for instance, Meyda Yegenoglu, “Sartorial Fabric-ations: Enlightenment and Western Feminism,” in Postcolonialism, Feminism, and Religious Discourse, ed. Laura E. Donaldson and Kwok Pui Lan New York: Routledge, 2002). 4 See, for example, the use of this term in Kwok Pui-lan and Joerg Rieger, Occupy Religion: Theology of the Multitude (Harrisburg, Pa.: Rowman and Littlefield, 2012), and in Joerg Rieger and Rosemarie Henkel-Rieger, Unifed We Are a Force: How Faith and Labor Can Overcome America’s Inequalities (St. Louis, Mo.: Chalice Press, 2016). 5 See William Wolman and Anne Colamosca, The Judas Economy: The Triumph of Capital and the Betrayal of Work (Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley,1997). 6 Native American and postcolonial scholars, for instance, have pointed out that the Exodus has led to other problems as the people of Israel approached the Promised Land. Yet these ancient stories themselves need critical interpretation and negotiating, as fantasies of conquest do not need to have the last word.

If, on the other hand, working-class white men were to understand that whatever benefits they enjoy in terms of their race and gender positions are used by the system in order to play them off against racial minorities and women, deep solidarity might become an option. After all, white male workers have significantly more in common with black workers, female workers, and even immigrant workers and international workers than with their white employers. Unfortunately, the labour unions in the United States have not always addressed these challenges effectively, but it seems that they have learned a great deal in recent years. One encouraging example is the growing union support for immigrant labor in the United States in a climate that is growing increasingly hostile to immigrants.

The military is another example for how class differentials are covered up in the United States. For many working-class people, entering the military is made to look like the ticket to a better life and an opportunity for moving up the ladder of success. Armies, made up mostly of working-class people, are led into war against other armies also made up of working-class people, who are unaware that they are, for the most part, not fighting for their own interests but for the interests of the ruling class, with whom they are led to identify. Here, nationalism, patriotism, and religion serve as the glue that ties common people to the elites and makes soldiers on one side overlook the fact that they have more in common with the soldiers on the other side than with the elites of the same nationality who use them for their own purposes. This is the opposite of deep solidarity.

In these various contexts, many of our religious traditions can help us imagine and reimagine deep solidarity. At the heart of worship in Israel is the Exodus from the conditions of slavery in Egypt and efforts to create a better life for the people. This tradition ties together the three Abrahamic religions: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Interreligious dialogue is a live option not only because of shared traditions but also because deep solidarity helps us deal with our differences. In fact, differences become an asset when the resources of our different traditions are allowed to make their specific contributions to the struggle. It is in this context that we can negotiate the complexities of our traditions.6

The support for widows, orphans, and strangers in the Hebrew Bible, for instance, is often argued on the grounds that Israel itself knows what it is to be a stranger. Jesus’ message of good news to the poor presupposes an understanding of solidarity, which includes the possibility that people put themselves on the side of the poor. As the apostle Paul has pointed out, commenting on the church as the body of Christ: “If one member suffers, all suffer together with it” (1 Cor 12:26).

Of course, international solidarity cannot be established overnight; tensions will remain and they do not need to be pushed under the rug. Yet the time is right and resistance to empire continues to build in many places despite challenges and setbacks. The question of deep solidarity is how we will put our differences to productive use and how unity in difference shapes up on the ground.

Joerg Rieger is Distinguished Professor of Theology at Vanderbilt University Divinity School and holds the Cal Turner Chancellor’s Chair in Wesleyan Studies. He is Founding Director, Wendland-Cook Program in Religion and Justice. Author and editor of twenty books and over 135 articles, his main interest are social movements that bring about change and the contributions of religion and theology. The full chapter of, “Empire, Deep Solidarity, and the Future of Resistance” (ed. Jione Havea, Lexington/Fortress 2019) can be read in the recently published book Religion and Power. More details are on page 36 in Take A Look.

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Theologies on the Move

Religion, Migration, and Pilgrimage in the World of Neoliberal Capital

Edited by Joerg Rieger - Contributions by Gemma Tulud Cruz; Wanda Deifelt; Marc H. Ellis; J. Alice Heo; M. P. Joseph; Deenabandhu Manchala; Eliseo Perez-Álvarez; Joerg RIEGER; Luis N. Rivera-Pagan AND George Zacharia

Theologies on the Move: Religion, Migration, and Pilgrimage in the World of Neoliberal Capital speaks to the reality that many religions have developed in motion, with people exploring new boundaries, migrating, and being displaced. Consequently, major religious traditions form as they come into contact with other religions and cultures, typically in situations of struggle and pressure. Due to neoliberal capitalism, more people are on the move today than ever before. Most are driven by necessity (migration due to violence, poverty, and perceived poverty); others, by religious quests that are often fueled by experiences of tension (pilgrimage). The chapters in this volume explore the complexity of these situations, examining in detail how theology and religion shape up in various contexts “on the move” and investigating specific problems and tensions in order to suggest solutions, alternatives, and new possibilities.

Doing Theology in the New Normal

Global Perspectives by Jione Havea

Responses to the recent pandemic have been driven by fear, with social distancing and locking down of communities and borders as the most effective tactics. Out of fear and strategies that separate and isolate, emerges what has been described as the "new normal" (which seems to mutate daily). Truly global in scope, with contributors from across the world, this collection is the outcome of CWM’s eDARE 2020 Programme. It revisits four old responses to crises - assure, protest, trick, amend - to explore if/how those might still be relevant and effective and/or how they might be mutated during and after a global pandemic. Together they paint a grounded, earthy, context-focused picture of what it means to do theology in the new normal.

For more information and to purchase, please visit https://scmpress.hymnsam.co.uk/books/9780334060642/doing-theology-in-the-new -normal

MEDIAting Theology

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https://www.bookdepository.com/MEDIAting-Theology-Jione-Havea/9783374068111 ?ref=grid-view&qid=1625764128625&sr=1-27