Curtis A. Bronzan

Rob Bell’s latest NOOMA offering, Whirlwind, enters into an interesting conversation centered on the ancient story of Job. In it, Bell quotes at length from the earliest of books in the Hebrew Scriptures, which has played a central role in recent works by Slavoj Žižek and David Bazan (previously addressed here).

Bazan concludes his latest album:

When Job asked you a question
You answered “Who are you?”
That sounds a bit defensive
Did you just bite off more than you could chew?

And Žižek wonders if Job stayed quiet

neither because he was crushed by God’s overwhelming presence, nor because he wanted thereby to indicate his continuous resistance – the fact that God avoided answering his question – but because, in a gesture of silent solidarity, he percieved the divine impotence… What Job suddenly understood was that it was not him, but God himself who was in effect on trial in Job’s calamities, and he failed the test miserably. (The Monstrosity of Christ, 55-56)

After noting such quotations, the assertion that Bell enters into this conversation, as aforementioned, could be rightly questioned. It is by no mere chance, however, that all three thinkers are drawn back in to the same old story that has influenced all three monotheistic world faiths.

This is, of course, because this oldest of all biblical narratives addresses one of the most pressing questions of humanity: Why do we suffer? And what can be done about it? And after a century that was to end all suffering (and even “Christianize the world”), our capitalism, democracy and in some cases, even our faiths (other than capitalism and democracy!?), have led to increased suffering and systemic violence.

And so, we question like – and with – Job.

Žižek and Bazan (who was great at Detroit last night) are wont to conclude that God is impotent to stop it. Bell, on the other hand, concludes

We want answers, don’t we? We want explanations. We want to know why we suffer like we do. Could somebody please explain this? And there are times when the only honest, healthy, human thing to possibly do is to shout your question and shake your fist and rage against the heavens and demand an explanation. But true wisdom, the kind we find here with Job, the kind that endures, the kind that sustains a person through suffering – that kind of wisdom knows when to speak and when to be silent. Because your story is not over. The last word has not been spoken. And there may be way more going on here than any of us realize.

And then he invites:

So may you be released from always having to understand why everything happens the way that it does. May this freedom open you up to all sorts of new perspectives. And may you have the wisdom to know when to say “I spoke once, but now, I will say no more.”

David Bazan’s forthcoming Curse Your Branches has been spinning in my car all day; round and round in all it’s brilliance. While Bazan (formerly of Pedro the Lion) has always engaged in the theological, in recent years his perspective has shifted considerably, from evangelical Christian to agnostic, if not atheist.

Though each of Curse Your Branches’ ten songs engage a lofty – and rather modern – theological construct, the final verse of the last song on the record, “The Stitches”, sounds like the Seattle area songwriter has been sitting down with the Slovenian “Elvis of cultural theory.” Curse Your Branches concludes thusly:

When Job asked you a question
You answered “Who are you?”
That sounds a bit defensive
Did you just bite off more than you could chew?

In his recent theological title fight with John Milbank – and in conversation with Vattimo and Caputo’s weak thought – Marxist, militant atheist Slavoj Žižek (the aforentioned “Elvis”) equates Christ’s death with Job’s suffering.

Christ’s death on the Cross thus means we should immediately ditch the notion of God as a transcendent caretaker who guarantees the happy outcome of our acts… (The Monstrosity of Christ, 55)

He goes on:

What, then, if this is what Job percieved and what kept him silent: he remained silent neither because he was crushed by God’s overwhelming presence, nor because he wanted thereby to indicate his continuous resistance – the fact that God avoided answering his question – but because, in a gesture of silent solidarity, he percieved the divine impotence. God is neither just nor unjust, but simply impotent. What Job suddenly understood was that it was not him, but God himself who was in effect on trial in Job’s calamities, and he failed the test miserably. (The Monstrosity of Christ, 55-56)

Žižek concludes this section asserting the “radical notion” that Job even foresaw Christ’s suffering!

How interesting that both Bazan and Žižek engage faith – at least in part – from the perspective of a narrative that predates any other canonical book. Are there deconstructive efforts at work here that end up leaving the rest of the Narrative on the cutting room floor?

Ought Job and Jesus be so closely intertwined? And which should interpret the other? And what of the charge of impotence? Can it be justified if we gather up all that has been cut out?