Final Ask A Theologian: What Time Is It?

By Rev. Dr. Gary Peluso-Verdend

This is my last column as Boston Avenue’s theologian in residence. My family is moving to Cuenca, Ecuador for a while. If you’re interested in the story, send an email to gary.peluso@ptstulsa.edu. [The impending move is also why I’ve turned down teaching invitations; but I would be available via Zoom.]

A keystone question for much of my writing is “What time is it?” Not clock or calendar time per se, but which season, what is blowing in the wind, what are the currents and undertows, what are the signs of the times?

I was born in 1955, a decade after the end of World War II. The UN, the World Council of Churches, and the National Council of Churches were young organizations. They represented rising centripetal energies—born to hold the world together and prevent World War III. In contrast, one cannot imagine how any of these organizations could have been founded today, for the present is dominated by centrifugal forces, around the world. There is no center to hold. The last vestiges of that post-war world are blowing into history’s dustbin.

Tribes—social units bigger and wider than families, but smaller than nations and states—have been a primary way human beings organize themselves, tell their stories, determine who belongs and who does not, and what we owe to insiders and outsiders. The late church historian Martin Marty wrote that tribes are good—but tribalism is not. Tribe-sized groupings can provide a very satisfying canopy and container for life. Think of close tribes, such as a religious congregation, and more dispersed tribes, such as a sports team fanbase. However, when a tribe believes that they are the only ones who are truly human, and every other tribe is inferior, and also believes that other tribes represent pollution and degradation, then the evils of tribalism are energized and manifest.

Jesus belonged to a tribe: Judaism in the era when Judea was occupied by the Roman Empire. His tribe was split into factions with different perspectives and practices regarding how to resist or accommodate the empire. Those factions differed in many ways, from public pieties to theological beliefs to whether or not violence against the empire was required of them. The factions also differed regarding who was neighbor and what was owed to any “other.”

As I read the gospels, and then the writings of Paul, I believe one of Jesus’ core messages was and is: “Your family, your tribe, is bigger than you think. And the circle of care owed to one’s family and tribe should be expanded—because God’s family is much larger than a tribe.”

Clearly, we live in a time when societies around the world are energizing tribalistic practices, elevating themselves, claiming God’s blessing exclusively, and either ignoring or seeking to eliminate any tribe they consider to be a “problem.”

The religion of Christianity has been used for tribal exclusivism before as it is being used now. But that religion has nearly no connection with the way of Jesus, a way of loving God and neighbor that expands circles of care and disempowers tribalistic tribes and empires.

It has been a distinct privilege to be given the space to write these columns over the last several years. I will continue to participate in the life of Boston Avenue. Thank you.