Naked Subversions: Christ and Serpent

“Every eye will see him, even those who pierced him” (Rev. 1:7), this is a triumphant call, an invitation for the gaze, which will pierce the other as well. Gazing at the body of the other is one of the mechanics of domination and subjection of the other,[1] whereas in the book of Revelation as well in the pinnacle of salvation history (Golgotha), gazing becomes means of victory, salvation and subversion of all powers of domination. How does Christian salvation through cross, which is the gazing of body, become an explosive act of subversion, thereby, defeating the dominant system.

Friedrich Nietzsche remarked “The crucified Christ is the most sublime of all symbols – even at present.” One could add subversion to the sublimity of the symbol. Gospel of John exposes us to the strange subversiveness of the symbol. Christ discusses the symbolism of the salvation as a gaze, for which, the OT event of serpent in the wilderness is invoked. To Nicodemus he says, “And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up” (John 3:14). The symbol of the serpent and the gaze of it, effects upon the victim, salvation (Num 21:8-9). Why choose the symbol of a serpent to allude to Christ and his salvation, becomes a troubling question. This symbol if not considered subversive then the danger falling into ophism[2] becomes immanent. The act of gazing at the serpent as the act of gazing onto the body of crucified Christ needs to be understood subversive in all its sublimity.

Why does that symbol become subversive? It could be said that it was serpent in the garden of bliss subjected humans in order to gaze at their nakedness, this act of deception and power by the serpent, in order to dominate and gaze into the nakedness. This gazing of the nakedness symbolizes humiliating powerlessness and subjection. This act of humiliating and subjecting the bodies of the powerless by the powerful is perpetuated through many forms throughout history by the dominant and the powerful. Within this, the gaze of the powerful upon the powerless and humiliated body has to be reversed or has to be subverted wherein, the very gaze becomes humiliating defeat for the powerful and the nudity becomes an explosive symbol of victory by subverting the domination.

In order to understand this reversal of the gaze and nudity as explosive subversions we could look at Bathsheba and Samson. David, the “powerful” king gazes upon the naked body of Bathsheba[3] (2Sam 11:2), this gaze humiliates and dehumanizes Bathsheba as a person, to a commodity, which the powerful David could acquire by mere domination. Bathsheba becomes the nude victim of the gaze and become subjected to the domination. However, the story does end in triumphal note wherein the nude victim overtakes the king and the kingdom (1King 1:28-31). The same fate would befall the Philistines when in arrogant victory call for Samson to “entertain” (Judges 16: 23-31). The gaze upon blind Samson by the dominant in their galleries would be collapsed by this blind judge, and forever would bring those gazing from above to the floor and crushing death. Within these two instances the victims were able to subvert their dominant masters but still remained within the system. However, with Christ the subversion is all the more sublime and severe would crush the head of the serpent forever.

The urge to crush the serpent’s head by the defeated and humiliated bodies were given to them as a curse to the serpent, “he will strike your head” (Gen 3:15). Thereby Christ symbolizes his death on the cross as the lifting up of the serpent on the wilderness. The subversion of the bronze serpent in the wilderness is: the one who is bitten by these “poisonous” serpents will be saved from death if they were able to see the death of the serpent on the pole. Here the subversion works at its purest; the death is made death and has to be believed to be dead by the one who is dying thereby delivering oneself from the death of that certain death. In the same way, Christ wishes to symbolize his death on the cross as the gaze reversed on those who gaze, where the one who is gazes is the one who hangs on the cross, just as the serpent on the pole. This powerful subversion is possible only through the exchange of the symbols; the dominant gaze becomes its own object of gaze. Christ the humiliated body has to become the serpent of the dominant gaze. At the cross the gaze and the one who gaze are forever transfixed upon itself in an endless self-gazing humiliation of the dominant. The liberation comes from the “belief” that the one who is object of gaze (the Christ) is actually the one who wishes to gaze (the serpent), only when this is understood the nude body of Christ becomes liberative symbol against the humiliation of the dominant gazers. 

It is in this way the nude protests all around the world are a highly subversive practice, which is at once repulsive to the dominant, because the secret gaze is made public and is nullified of its power to humiliate. Nude protests are not a novelty; Isaiah the prophet becomes a symbol through prophesying in his naked body (Isa 20:3). Moreover, it could be said Jesus himself seem to advocate it as a subversive practice as a non-violent violence.[4] For instance, “if anyone wants to sue you and take your coat, give your cloak as well,” (Mt 5:40) this action would leave the one sued totally naked in front of the one who sues thereby forcing the one who sues to gaze upon the naked body of the sued in the public thereby not shaming oneself, but shaming the other, the powerful, by reducing him to the gaze, forcefully. Here violence of the dominant through the mechanics of humiliating bodies is subverted on the dominant themselves by going nude publicly depriving the powerful of their power to humiliate through subjection.

It is here the invitation of the book of Revelation becomes starkly clear as voice of victory, because all those who gazed upon will be seen themselves in humiliation because of the deprivation of their power to humiliate. The serpent once gazed on the nudity, wherein the nudity became an act of subjection towards the powerless to humiliate them through shame and guilt. It is through the cross of Christ that the serpent is crushed on its head, or blinded, which doubly deprives it of its power to neither humiliate nor gaze on the naked body, which is the nakedness of itself, the public display of them: “He disarmed the rulers and authorities and made a public example of them, triumphing over them in it” (Col 2:15).

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[1] See “Docile Bodies,” in Michel Foucault, Discipline and punish: The birth of the prison, 2nd Vintage Books ed (New York: Vintage Books, 1995).

[2] http://www.thefreedictionary.com/Ophism

[3] For a very good analysis of Rembrandt’s painting of Bathsheba in terms of body, domination and humiliation, see, Hélène Cixous, Stigmata: Escaping texts, Routledge classics (London: Routledge, 2005).

[4] See Walter Wink for the analysis of Jesus’ teaching of non-violent violence or as he terms “third way,” in Walter Wink, Jesus and nonviolence: A third way, Facets (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress, 2003). For excerpts see, https://www.ualberta.ca/~cbidwell/DCAS/third.htm.

Transfiguration and Disfigurations

Almost every day it is inevitable that we encounter advertisements. Among these commercial advertisements especially of clothing and other body related merchandises (shoes, perfumes, etc.), displays a body of that of a model. This visual representation of the human model who poses on the advertisement is the so-called ideal image of the user, which is projected. The bodies of the male and female models are selected and represented in a way that those bodies become an image of fantasy, a thing to be achieved, and to be reached. These advertisements go beyond the representations of the products themselves; they produce a discourse on human body and its aspirations. In psychoanalytical terms those bodies become objet petit a (“unattainable object of desire”). And unfortunately, it is within those visual representations, popular notions of beauty and handsomeness are being understood, and the quest for them by the masses, fuels the market in many ways which is obvious. Within those norms, Beauty for woman has come to be synonymous for a supermodel and handsomeness or maleness comes in the way of toned body and six-packed abdomen.

This discourse on body and the metanarrative of beauty and the beast (the distinction between the supermodel and the masses) is even more prominent in a recent Tamil movie (ஐ[1]), wherein the revenge motif is disfiguration of the other. Disfiguration as an act of revenge spells out for us the way media works on the discourse of beauty and ugly polarities. If in a normative way the model represented in the advertisement becomes the ideal beauty and the rest are marginalized into the other polarity, the serious question then arises, what of those who really suffer from serious bodily ailments of physical disablements, they become doubly marginalized by the market forces and social norms and are even more forcibly ebbed out of the beauty discourse perpetually. We should respond to the question if not politically at least theologically.

As a part of theological response to beauty/beast discourse, we could turn to the gospels and focus on the life of Jesus. Gospel of Mark reports that, of the three times Jesus’ foretelling of suffering and death (Mark 8:31; 9:30-32; 10:32-34), immediately after the first prediction, the event of transfiguration is placed (Mark 9:2-8) and in the last prediction they were on the road to Jerusalem, which is the death knell of Jesus and the imminence of his crucifixion. This very journey from transfiguration to crucifixion could be seen as an Christological significance of a kenotic journey of the Son of God. However, one notices a polarity between the journeying from transfiguration mount to the disfiguration on the cross on another mount. The journey which begins in transfiguration as “dazzling white” ends up in the “darkness over the land.” This whole journey when read through notions of beauty/ugly polarities, transfiguration event reveals to us the dazzling beauty of the Son of God which is objet petit a, that ends in the total disfiguration of the same on the cross. And the event of the Cross which in the words of Isaiah makes it more significant, were he writes “so marred was his appearance, beyond human semblance, and his form beyond that of mortals”, “as one from whom others hide their faces he was despised, and we held him of no account”(Isaiah 52:14; 53:3). This passage talks about the disfiguration of the messianic figure on the account of salvation.

If we claim that, it is on the cross that we have found our redemption, then our redemption or total liberation or salvation, comes from the absolute disfiguration of the transfiguration or transfigured (mysterium tremendum et fascinans). And it is this liberative aspect of disfiguration comes alive on the event of the Cross, wherein disfigured body remains to be gazed as only means to salvation. It is imperative that we need to be redeemed or saved from the discourses of absolute beauty discourses, which finds itself in the form of transfigurations of human bodies which are “dazzling” in every hoarding and billboards. It is these “dazzling” experiences of transfigurations have come to haunt us in the name of beauty and handsomeness, which are no less oppressive. It is also in these discourses that our salvation remains in the Cross, where the glory is beheld in the ultimately disfigured body which delivers us from every distinction of beauty/ugly oppression. It is in the scars and stripes we are healed and delivered.

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[1] The movie has protagonists both from the discourse of beauty model and bodybuilder categories. And the antagonists mar the body of the bodybuilder turned model and in turn the protagonist takes revenge by disfiguring the villains one by one. This kind of narrations and reinforcement of beauty as ideal and disfiguration as “revenge” motif is terribly insensitive and perverse.

Narrenschiff: Journey to the impossible

Reading

Mk 6:45-52; Mt 14:22-33

In an age of rationality and scientific progress, those who believe in God are derided upon as being irrational and foolish, and this, in spite of the rigorous efforts (endless debates and arguments) of so-called Christian Apologists of our times. We still find ourselves in the same position as before, being looked upon as foolish in the eyes of rationality. Maybe, the very fact that we are foolish is, that, we are meant to be so. It was in fact the Christians, who have strongly admitted themselves, of being foolish, and called themselves "fools" (1 Cor 4:10), and made no claim to the rationality for their belief in God. And again, let us not make this claim as some kind of judgment on the rationality, by dialectically claiming we are fools in the eyes of rationality of the world, exactly because the rationality is foolish in calling us foolish, therefore we are wise. But, this might not be case, Paul, goes on to make a distinction of being "fools" in Christ and "wise" in Christ and among which he regards himself to be a "fool" even by the standards of Christ. And it is exactly those who are "wise" in Christ are the problematic in the Corinthian church. Therefore, those who believe in Jesus Christ as God, are the actual and real "fools" to the definition of the word, both by rationality and even by the standards of so-called Christian church (which in these times likes to defend (apologia) itself more wisely through standards of the world, while, still hating the world, which is a paradox of paradoxes).

Then to the question, how does one in the state of madness and insanity, achieve redemption. Madness, is in itself, is irredeemable because, the subject has lost one’s own mind and is in the state of “wandering,” “demented,” and “deranged” in disposition. Mind as the essence of one’s being is lost in the state of madness, and now, the being is left in the sea of sudden storms and endless nights while it waits for its mind to return to it. It is exactly in this position of madness is the belief in Christ is pictured as being “fools”. A dangerous position, wherein, “fools” though questioned will not endure to give a rational answer, and every word uttered remains only a blabber (meaningless), because in the state of madness one remains, hidden to oneself or even lost to oneself. This is the real position of belief in Christ; being “fools”.

In order to understand the story of redemption in and through the state of madness, the Foucaultian analysis of Narrenschiff becomes very helpful. In his book Madness and Civilization Michel Foucault gives his analysis of Narrenschiff (ship of fools) during the Renaissance. He says that it was a practice in those times that, in order to get rid of the madmen from their streets; these madmen were put on the ships and were carried off to some other ports in a distant land and they were “lost” there by the sailors. This practice made sure that the madmen never returned to the shore ever again.  Interpreting this voyage, Foucault observes that, the very voyage of the madman in the Narrenschiff is the “absolute passage” from which the return is impossible; it is an experience of the liminal (threshold) experience.  In this voyage, “the madman is delivered to the river with its thousand arms, the sea with its thousand roads, to that great uncertainty external to everything. He is a prisoner … at the infinite crossroads … [h]e is … prisoner of the passage.”[1] And again the destination or the disembarkation on the other land still remains alien to him as his origins, his real position remains in the sea of uncertainty and confusion; he exists only in the vast expense of the raging sea. This raging sea is the identity of madness, the Narrenschiff that holds them goes up “up to heaven” and are brought “to the depths” and “were at their wit’s end” (Ps 107:26-27). The passengers in the Narrenschiff are people without their minds in the unnavigable sea of darkness on a stormy night. This is what it means to be a “fool”, a passenger in the Narrenschiff.

The experience of salvation in and through the passengers of Narrenschiff is best captured in the gospels (Mk 6:45-52; Mt 14:22:33). In this passage the disciples of Jesus are in a boat which was “battered by the waves … the wind was against them”. This event is more complicated by Jesus walking on the sea towards them. It was early in the morning when they saw Jesus walking towards them, and they immediately cried “ghost”. This is the real “wits end” experience, the ship was full of fools (terrified) and their voyage to the other shore has been completely unsuccessful due to the contrary wind and they were stuck in the raging sea all night long. The climax of the experience is “madness” when they see someone walking on the water. They have no rationality left in them to reason out what they were seeing; they had certainly lost their mind. They imagine the impossible; they now are experiencing the unperceivable by shouting, it is a “ghost”. Now, what cannot be seen becomes visible now, in this experience of madness. Only in madness is this revelation possible. Only in madness can the delusion become real. Only in madness the impossible can be seen. Now the boat has become in Foucaultian sense the Narrenschiff of the Renaissance. The people in the boat are madmen to the very definition. Their voyage is now in the liminal space (between shores) and time (early in the morning (Mk 6:48)). Within this liminal experience comes the mind(lessness)  of the ghost(Jesus), “It is I”. The wandering fool’s mind is with the ghost on the sea. One among the fool frenzies over the boat to hold on to his already lost mind and performs is the impossible and becomes what he already called; the ghost by walking on the sea. This experience does not leave the fools anywhere transformed. The story ends not with a ship full of brightest minds on the planet but still remained the same, “they were sore amazed in themselves beyond measure and wondered” (Mk 6: 51), in other words, they were still clueless and witless than ever before.

It is here we actually see the salvation at action. Salvation as an act of impossibility performed by totally clueless and terrified (wits end) person, which can never be rationally explained or can be experienced by the rationality. The very experience of Christian belief is madness to the word as justified by the world, because, only the madmen can experience this schizophrenic visual of “walking on the water” and be able to realize an action of “walking on the water”. The boat in which authentic fools of Christ travels is a Narrenschiff, totally lost to the rationale of the world, hence pushed between shores where the salvation as such is not total recovery from madness, but on the contrary madness becomes acute, insomuch the impossibility is perceived as normality and unseen (ghost) becomes “It is I”. It can therefore said, madness (foolishness) is the condition of possibility in which the impossible can be perceived as real, that is, belief in God. And it is God that is named by rationality as impossible.

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[1] Michel Foucault, Madness and Civilization: A History of Insanity in the Age of Reason, Trans. Richard Howard (London: Tavistock Pub., 1961), 11.