The Iconocast Episode 8: Interview with Wes Howard-Brook

June 10, 2010the Iconocast Collective

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In this episode, co-hosts Joanna and Mark interview Wes Howard-Brook.

Their conversation covers, among other things: the “argument” within Scripture between advocates of the “religion of Empire” and the “religion of Creation,” the ethic of love (rather than nonviolence in the New Testament) and the anarchic impulses within Scripture.

Wes is adult educator, writer, and co-founder of Abide in Me Ministries. His book  ‘Come Out, My People!’: God’s Call Out of Empire in the Bible and Beyond, is now scheduled for Fall 2010 for publication by Orbis Books. His other books include John’s Gospel and the Renewal of the Church, Becoming Children of God, The Church Before Christianity, and Unveiling Empire: Reading Revelation Then and Now (co-written by Anthony Gwyther).

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Intro and bumper music for this episode is “Politik Kills” by Manu Chao.

Tagged as: Empire, Iconocast, nonviolence, revelation, scripture, wes howard-brook

  • Andy_AB

    This was very interesting. I am glad he is going to speak in Portland at the Jesus Radicals gathering. Also, he's planning to write on some of these ideas he talks about here for the Fall edition of the Ellul Forum of which I will be the editor (http://www.ellul.org/ijes1.html). I find it really interesting how Ched Myers and Wes are using Genesis for ethics now. I wonder if they are vegetarian…

  • Jimfw

    I really enjoyed this interview. Thanks for posting it. I have been slowly re-reading the Old Testament recently and trying to find ways to contemplate the violence found within it. This was helpful. My sense is that the Bible as a whole is a record of an ongoing understanding of humanity's relationship to the divine and that this understanding changes over time. Mistakes are made, approaches reconsidered and modified. Seen in this manner it is an epic of a great journey that humanity has made and is still making.

    This is an aside as it is not a major point made in the conversation. But sometimes I think that anti-empire views have a tendency to overgeneralize, or overinterpret aspects of culture, forcing onto them a meaning they might not have. The example I think of is when West says in passing that writing was a project of empire. This is a view shared by Zerzan and Shlain, and some others, but I think it is mistaken. In East Asia, for example, Chinese writing had shamanistic roots; the earliest surviving examples of writing are from oracle inquiries. At another level, I think writing could easily have arisen from a need to keep track of supplies, remember special days, and other completely mundane activities. There is some evidence for this in India. Brahmans, Buddhists and Jains resisted putting their scriptures into writing because writing was considered mundane and worldly; that is to say it was viewed as something ordinary people did, not those who had chosen a holy path. Again, this is not a major point in the discussion, but I think it points to something we should be more cautious about before generalizing.

    Thanks again,

    Jim

  • WesHB

    Jimfw: Couldn't agree more about not overgeneralizing about empire. My understanding of the origin of writing is limited to roots in the Western world, so I can't speak to ancient China. My sources used in COMP for the origin of writing in the West include Mann, “Sources of Social Power, Volume 1,” who says of writing: “its first and always its major purpose was to stabilize and institutionalize the two emerging, merging sets of authority relations, private property and the state.” (p. 89). See also, Carr, “Writing on the Tablet of the Heart: Origins of Scripture and Literature” (1993).

  • Andy_AB

    In the Technological Society, Ellul speaks about “magic” as being the first technique. People had to formulate their words precisely and not waver from the formula at all. To that end, writing became important. So magic may have been the impetus for writing. A “technique.” It is worth noting that Ellul sees modern technological culture as in some ways a kind of magic divorced from any metaphysical concerns.

  • WesHB

    Ellul's work on that is taken up, as you may know, by Kirkpatrick Sale in “After Eden,” http://www.amazon.com/After-Eden-Evolution-Huma….

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=544126412 Isaiah Boronka

    A lot of his understanding reminds me of stuff I've read from Walter Brueggemann. Anyone else see the same?

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