One of the easiest ways to subvert a revolution is to co-opt it’s symbols and language to support that which it opposes. The counter-cultural messages of punk, hip-hop and the environmental movements have all been co-opted by the institutions and systems they once challenged.

It’s often thought Emperor Constantine’s adoption of Christianity in 312CE as the Empire’s conversion to Christianity. Yet with just a little knowledge of history it’s easy to come to the conclusion that rather than Empires adopting the nonviolent, transformative earth-affirming way of Jesus and ‘the kingdom of God’, Christianity instead converted to the violent, punitive and dominating ways of Empire and the ‘kingdoms of the world’. Only now they do it in ‘Jesus-drag’.

‘Jesus-drag’ is identifiable by it’s ability to transform nothing. Instead ‘Jesus drag’ spiritualities simply provide a new facade for transferred destructive cycles of individuals and societies in the symbols of Christianity. This will always result in emptying the cross of its transformative power to expose the futility of violence, and again, make the cross a tool of oppression, fear and control.

Learning from Eco-activists

Christian communities becoming communities of eco-activists may help us discern the co-opting of our own symbols. For over 20 years eco-activists have been using terms like “Greenwash” and “Ecopornography” to describe the co-opting of corporations, governments and other Powers who use ‘eco-drag’ to re-brand their companies ‘green’ without changing their creation destorying practices. For example “BP”. Previously known as “British Petroleum” changed it’s name to “Beyond Petroleum” and spent more on greening it’s new logo than on environmental action.

Melissa Whellams in the “Encyclopedia of Business Ethics & Society” spells out the dangers of greenwash:

1. It’s misleading (taking advantage of sincere, well meaning people)
2. It results in complacency (people cooperating with systems that are destructive thinking it’s an alternative to the destruction)
3. It engenders cynicism (people start to believe that there is no alternative)

‘Church’ and Culture Jamming

Yet when it comes to’ecclesia’ (the communities that seeks to embody the political, ecological, social, economic and spiritual alternative to a violence infused world that has broken into reality in Jesus) normally translated ‘church’, Christians often have little ability to imagine an alternative to what Empire has told them is “church”. Like the dangers of Greenwash, “Empirewash” has [1]mislead, [2]made complacent and [3]cynical many people to the possibility that “church” could mean being filled with a different spirit to that of larger society, the industrial military growth complex that we are all involved in. Rather than referring to institutions which bless war, exploit creation, back the rich and powerful, dominate of woman, colonise people groups and scapegoat minorities, “church” in the New Testament refers to grassroot communities of people filled with the Spirit of the nonviolent age to come. Communities who learn, practice and invite others to experiment with God’s redemptive alternatives to the destructive cycles we are all trapped in.

In response to greenwash there are exciting movements committed to creatively kicking the darkness of hegemonic mass media till it bleeds the light of alternatives. Culture jammers committed to subverting the subversion of truth, beauty and justice. I would like to suggest George Fox is a wonderful example of culture jamming the Empire’s cooption of ‘church’.

George Fox: church culture jammer

Like the anabaptists in the 16th century, George Fox was one of many men and women who during the 17^th century called people to be church. That is, called people to be a community who are dependent on the Spirit in their witness to how the world will be ultimately in light of Christ. Fox has some useful and practical things we can do to culture jam and reclaim ‘church’ from Empire.

1. Change the way we speak. Fox refused to call church buildings ‘church’ and called them “steeple houses”. How could we talk about our worship services as large gathering for encouragement rather than ‘church’ that might recover the call to be a people that live together an alternative?
2. “Let your life speak”. Fox’s primary critique was not just with words but in being the change he want to see (to paraphrase Gandhi). More so, Fox and other early Quakers called a generation to wait in the silence for the Spirit’s empowerment to walk out in the world what God longs for the world to be. This was never merely a private spirituality but rather as communities. As a people who embodied what the early Quakers called “the fulfilment of the law”.
3. Seek first the ‘kingdom of God’. Fox practiced a practical and communal mysticism and activism found in Christ, of seeking the kingdom (God’s transforming presence of justice, peace and joy in our world of injustice, war and misery) both as an internal and social reality that will one day flood all of reality.

So my questions:

What are practices of a people living as signs of a world transformed? What’s the DNA of groups that witness to the new creation? What’s the makeup of groups that resist the ‘Empirewash’? What practices are often missing from what people call ‘church’ that would help up witness to a world transformed?

Finally a quote from my friend and former prof. Dr. Lee Camp:

“In scripture, God has always chosen a community to bear witness to God’s love and light and work in the world. The church then, as church, has been called to bear witness to a form of life together that is to be salt and light to the world. Or as it is put in Ephesians, the church is show the wisdom of God to the principalities and powers of this world. The church is not intended to be a religious club by which individual members can find peace and contentment — though this blessing comes to many who practice Christian discipleship. Being church means embodying God’s intentions for the world as revealed in Christ. “Church” is not about showing the world how to be “religious,” but showing the world how it is supposed to be a world that reflects the intentions of its Creator. To use one of Clarence Jordan’s agricultural metaphors, the church exists as a “demonstration plot,” a community that shows the world how to live together as God intended.”

“We’re jammin’, jammin’,
And I hope you like jammin’, too.

Ain’t no rules, ain’t no vow, we can do it anyhow…
Jammin’ till the jam is through.” - Bob Marley