Beruflich Dokumente
Kultur Dokumente
Lyle Brecht
School of Theology
11 November 2005
Lyle Brecht
11 November 2005
Nothing that is worth doing can be achieved in our lifetime; therefore we must be
saved by hope. Nothing which is true or beautiful or good makes complete sense in
any immediate context of history; therefore we must be saved by faith. Nothing we
do, however virtuous, can be accomplished alone; therefore we are saved by love. No
virtuous act is quite virtuous from the standpoint of our friend or foe as it is from
our standpoint. Therefore we must be saved by the final form of love which is for-
giveness. –Reinhold Niebuhr1
Federal government policies either do not address the structural issues that underlie today’s prob-
lems in relating or these policies either defer solutions to the future or actually make the prob-
1 Reinhold Niebuhr, The Irony of American History (New York: Charles Scribners’ Sons, 1962), 63 quoted
in Charles T. Mathewes, Evil and the Augustinian Tradition (Cambridge: Cambridge State Press, 2001),
148.
This gnawing fear, always present, is never quite named until a real relational crisis strikes,
known variously as another 9/11 (the threat of terrorism), Katrina, balance of trade deficits, na-
tional debt, bankruptcy, job loss, health problems, and if you are a woman: domestic violence,
rape, breast cancer, etc. Little wonder that we are so adept at self medication: consuming mil-
lions of gallons of alcoholic beverages, millions of prescribed tranquilizer pills, billions of dol-
lars of illegal drugs, billions of dollars of self-help therapies – all designed to keep at bay this
gnawing fear that something is not quite right, that something might happen, that we are further
apart from God, our neighbor, the creation. Of course, something is happening, despite the self
medicated bliss. That something is a reality of human loss and human suffering: a reality that our
policy experts and elected officials judiciously and conveniently sidestep or ignore completely.
For this reality of human loss and human suffering is supposed to be kept at bay by our nuclear
security state.
What I would like to offer in this discussion is an alternative approach to thinking through the
reasons for why we are unable to formulate policies that actually address in substantive ways the
relational problems we face as a society in the beginning of the twenty-first century. This ap-
proach may be best thought of as political theology of Christian economy of grace. Although, a
theological approach could be profitably used if based on Judaism, or Islam, or even Buddhism,
Hinduism, or another of the world’s great religions, the political theology that I am expousing is
For many this will seem odd to use a theological grammar, rather than a grammar of economics,
science, public policy, national security, etc. However, what I will attempt to show is that the
grammar of theology may be the only grammar that provides an adequate purchase on the rela-
tional problems we face. The reason, I contend, is that a political theology underlies all the
grammar we take for granted when we are discussing economics, science, public policy, national
security, etc. It is always just under the surface. We need to acknowledge its presence and we
need to claim it. For without understanding the political theology that is framing the grammar
with which we determine national policy, we will continue to develop policy that only operates at
the margins of the real issues we face as a society on the edge of chaos, and entropy will just
continue to increase as our inchoate fears rise inside each of our bodies.
My thesis is that when one thinks about the American nuclear security state, it becomes apparent
that the nuclear security state is a natural outcome of a society that has not been willing to come
to grips with its own theology. What is also revealed about the nuclear security state is that is a
totalizing environment that abridges human freedom, perverts democracy, diverts our attention
and scare resources away from real problems of relationality that are solvable, and limits our
2 For example, the fundamental morality and underpinnings of human justice are concurrent across Juda-
ism, Christianity, and Islam: (1) Sacred scripture “tells us the kinds of people we are to become if we are
to hear its message faithfully;” (2) Sacred scripture “is both a historical document and a canonical and
sacred text for a believing community; (3) Sacred scripture contains information that is “useful to guide
behavior today;” (4) “Human love and justice is modeled for us in [sacred] scripture” (e.g. “the golden
rule: do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”). See John R. Donahue, S.J., “The Bishop and
the Proclamation of Biblical Justice’” in David A. Stosur, ed., Unfailing Patience and Sound Teaching:
Reflections on Episcopal Ministry in Honor of Rembert G. Weakland, O.S.B. (Collegeville, MN: Liturgi-
cal Press, 2003), 246-248.
Given these starting assumptions, the following predicates for human justice are equally true for Judaism,
Christianity, and Islam: (1) Human history and human institutions and political arrangements are not
“‘secular” in the sense of being outside God’s plan for humanity.” Thus, morality and human justice (see
above tenets) “should inform a person’s public life in community;” (2) “Made in the image and likeness
of God, all people have a human dignity and fundamental rights that are independent of their gender, age,
nationality, ethnic origin, religion, or economic status;” (3) “The fullness of human life is found in com-
munity with others;” (4) Moses/Christ/Mohammed’s “message imposes a prophetic mandate to speak for
those who have no one to speak for them [the powerless: the “poor”, the “widow,” the “orphan,” and the
“stranger in the land”], to be a defender of the defenseless;” (5) To “misuse [] the world’s resources or
[appropriate] them by a minority of the world’s population betrays the gift of creation” and distorts our
community with others (see #3 above); (6) “On earth, we belong to one human family and as such have
mutual obligations to provide the policies of all people’s across the world” (Donahue, 240-2).
A Question of theodicy (divine justice): “Where is God?”4 Why do the righteous suffer?
Why do the wicked prosper?5 How can God allow a “world fascinated with idolatry, drunk with
3 “Human suffering” – the experiencing of psychological, spiritual, or physical pain, distress, loss, dis-
turbing change, misfortune, injury, disability or death by a person or group of persons. Valerie Gray Hard-
castle in her The Myth of Pain (Cambridge, MA.: MIT Press, 1999) argues persuasively that “all pains are
physical and localizable [in the human person] and that all are created equal.”
4 “I heard a voice in myself answer: ‘Where is he? He is here. He is hanging on the gallows…’” Elie Wie-
sel describing a discussion between inmates of Auschwitz as they watch while a young boy dies in agony.
See Elie Wiesel, Night (1969), 75-76 quoted in Jürgen Moltmann, The Crucified God: The Cross of Christ
as the Foundation and Criticism of Christian Theology trans. R.A. Wilson and John Bowden (New York:
Harper & Row, 1974), 273-74. In a more recent context: “Lord, you who are everywhere, have you been
in Villa Grimalde too?” Villa Grimalde was the most notorious of Chile’s clandestine torture centers under
Pinochet. Quoted in William T. Cavanaugh, Torture and Eucharist (Challenges in Contemporary Theol-
ogy; Oxford: Blackwell, 1998), 1.
5 Why does the way of the wicked prosper? Why do all those who are treacherous thrive? (Jer. 12:1-2).
Types of suffering: (1) natural suffering assumes that suffering is as natural as death;8 (2) self-
caused suffering assumes that suffering results from unhealthful or destructive actions by the
person or afflicted on the person by their surroundings;9 (3) suffering caused by human sin un-
derstands suffering as a punishment for human sin;10 (4) suffering of the innocent (i.e. the Book
of Job) is what creates the problem – if the innocent suffer, then God’s goodness is called into
6 Abraham Heschel, The Prophets (New York: Harper Torchbooks, 1962), 183.
7 “Mipnei khata’einu – ‘because of our sins’ became the general explanation for all disasters of Jewish
history” as revealed by the prophets of the Hebrew Bible (the Christian Old Testament). In the face of the
northern kingdom of Israel being conquered by Tiglath-pilester III of Assyria in 722 BCE and the destruc-
tion of the Temple and deportations from the southern kingdom of Judah to Babylon by Nebuchadnezzar
in 587/6 BCE, the prophets gave the Israelites hope by declaring that this was, after all, God’s will for
their sins and all the Israelites needed to do to reclaim their land was to repent and follow YHWH’s torah
(instruction, teachings). “God has hidden his face (hester panim) as punishment” for the sins of the Jews.
See Mark S. Smith, The Memoirs of God: History, Memory, and Experience of the Divine in Ancient Is-
rael (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2004), 36; Yehuda Bauer, Rethinking the Holocaust (New Haven: Yale
State Press, 2001), 192.
8Why is my pain unceasing, My wound incurable, Refusing to be healed, (Jer. 15:18). Suffering was an
expected aspect of life in the ancient world: for all our days are full of pain, and our work is a vexation,
even in the night our mind does not rest (Ecclesiastes 2:23).
9 This particular ancient view of suffering has been demystified and its primacy established through mod-
ern psycho-social explanations based on Enlightenment propositions that human behavior can be ‘scien-
tifically’ studied and explained and medically ‘treated.’ For example, in the U.S., persistent pain costs
“somewhere between $40 and $100 billion annually in medical services, loss of productivity, and com-
pensation payments….It is the second most frequent illness [emphasis mine]…and affects about four-
fifths of all people (Hardcastle, 9).
10 See footnote #4. The assumption is that “Ultimately there is only one will by which history is shaped –
the will of God; and there is only one factor upon which the shape of history depends: the moral conduct
of the nations [and its peoples]” (Heschel, 174). I will punish the world for its evil, And the wicked for
their inequity; I will put and end to the pride of the arrogant, And humble the haughtiness of the
tyrants….For the ruthless shall come to naught, The scoffer shall vanish, And all who watch to do evil
shall be cut off (Isaiah 13:11; 29:20).
However, the Holocaust13 calls Job’s solution into question for there can be no possible divine
permission that allowed the Nazis to engage in Holocaust.14 The divine Lord of history, the gra-
cious One, the God of Abraham, Issac and Jacob who delivered the people of Israel from their
11 The most extreme form of this type of suffering is torture, especially as used as part of an overall strat-
egy of political repression intended to alter a person’s identity, degrade him and strip him of human soli-
darity, but in most cases not to kill him. Torture destroys the victim “ as a potential actor through the
fragmentation of the ego. The feeling and reality of powerlessness in torture is so extreme that the subject
is no longer subject, but mere object.” The State uses torture not only to destroy the “political project, if
any, in which the person is involved, but also the entire network of psychic processes that bind the person
to others” For example, both Hitler and Mussolini used torture to depoliticize the citizens of their respec-
tive state’s leading up to WWII, to prevent the mobilization of the majority of citizens in their countries
who did not support their policies leading to war (Cavanaugh, 38-40).
12I had heard You with my ears, But now I see You with my eyes; Therefore I recant and relent, Being but
dust and ashes (Job 42:5-6, NJPS); By hearsay I have heard you. But now my eye has seen you, Thus I am
poured out and smitten, And am become dust and ashes (Marvin Pope, Job [AB Vol. 15; New York: Dou-
bleday, 1973], 349).
13Here Holocaust is differentiated from genocide: Genocide (coined by Raphael Lemkin, a refugee
Polish-Jewish lawyer in the U.S. in late 1942) being the partial destruction of a national, ethnical, or relig-
ious group; holocaust being the planned total annihilation of an entire national, ethnical, or religious
group. What was unique about the Holocaust perpetrated by the Nazis, for example, was their planned
worldwide murder of all Jews everywhere and “the actual murder of all Jews the murders could lay their
hands on” (Bauer, 1-13, 264).
14 For example, why the one million Jewish children under the age of thirteen “were killed is the most
bothersome question of all….If the answer is that we can never understand God’s intensions, the obvious
and trite – but arguably true – reply is that we have no wish to know God’s intensions or reasons, whether
we understand them or not, because any divine or human reason for not preventing the murder of a mil-
lion children….can be judged evil” (Bauer, 211).
15 The existential question asked in Elie Wiesel’s Night, for example, is: “Does God’s transforming power
through which God acts in history entail suffering?” In Second Isaiah (Isaiah 40-55), “the prophet’s mes-
sage insists that suffering is not to be understood exclusively in terms of the sufferer’s own
situation….Israel’s suffering is not a penalty, but a privilege, a sacrifice, its endurance a ritual, its meaning
to be disclosed to all in the hour of Israel’s redemption….Her suffering and agony are the birth-pangs of
salvation” (Heschel, 149).
16“…Auschwitz, Hiroshima, and Vietnam has inscribed deeply into contemporary consciousness both
awareness of the appalling malignancy and destructiveness of evil in human life and also man’s utter
aloneness in combating the powers of evil in the world.” See Gordon Kaufman, God the Problem (1972),
171. The most horrible thing about the Holocaust, for example, is not the fact that the Nazis were inhu-
man, but that “they were indeed human, just as human as you and I are (Bauer, 264). For example, “The
horror of torture is magnified by the realization that this is being done to me by another human being. It is
a perversion and destruction of the very idea of human relationship” (Cavanaugh, 43). Woe to those who
call evil good And good evil, Who put darkness for light And Light for darkness (Isa. 5:20).
17Tzimtzum (contraction) posits that God removed himself from History to permit the world to exist.
“God withdrew himself so that human free will could exert itself, for good or evil” (Bauer, 189). How-
ever, “By choosing to be absent, he may be held responsible for the evil he permits, and we can call it evil
by setting it against the moral standards” set in Scripture (Bauer, 190-1).
18The problem with this perspective is that it postulates a weak God, a God no one really needs. For what
can he do anyways? Our prayers will go unanswered because God has no power to grant them (Bauer,
190-1).
19
“Jewish religious tradition holds that everything, evil as well as good, comes from God, is designed by
God. So evil is also part of God’s plan, whose ultimate goal is always the good, which means that evil,
misfortune, horrors – all of these are only seemingly bad, and they ultimately lead to good” (Bauer, 188).
20For the existentialist, History is a nightmare, the world is drenched in blood: The earth lies polluted
under its inhabitants, For they have transgressed the laws, Violated the statutes, broken the everlasting
covenant (Isaiah 24:1, 4-6). Thus, the task of the prophet is to “rend the veil that lies between life and
pain” (Heschel, 179). Albert Camus, in his The Plague (1947) symbolized the evils of National Socialist
Germany’s Third Reich (kingdom), which cost the lives of 49 million people, most of whom were civil-
ians, including the extermination of six million Jews and the murdering or enslaving of hundreds of thou-
sands of Poles, homosexuals, Soviet prisoners, Gypsies (Romas) and handicapped German nationals, by
comparing the Nazis to a random outbreak of bubonic plague (Bauer, 262).
Human reality involves brokenness and suffering.25 How could God’s presence then only be dis-
cerned where all is good and beautiful? God must also be present in, not beyond, where things go
21 “The darkness of history…conceals a light. Beyond the mystery is meaning. And the meaning is des-
tined to be discovered” (Heschel, 179). Though the Lord give you the bread of adversity and the water of
affliction, Yet your Teacher will not hide Himself anymore, but your eyes shall see your Teacher (Isaiah
30:20-21).
22 God is involved in suffering: For a long time I have kept silent, I have kept still and restrained Myself;
Now I will cry out like a woman in travail, I will gasp and pant (Isaiah 42:14). As sufferers, Christians
know themselves to suffer not alone but together w/ Christ; not in despair, but in hope. Christian suffering
is productive. This freedom to suffer becomes the good news of the NT when those who endure suffering
offer it to God (as Christ did on the cross!) so that it may be the means by which God’s grace can work
(for resurrection in our lives). God’s power is not the power of invulnerability, but of solidarity with the
world in its pain. God is with us through our suffering: Because you are precious in My eyes, And hon-
ored, and I love you….For the mountains may depart And the hills be removed But My steadfast love shall
not depart from you, And My covenant of peace shall not be removed, Says the Lord, Who has compassion
on you (Isaiah 43:4; 54:7-8; 49:15; 54:10 [Heschel, 153-4]).
23Heaven is a symbol for the possibility of transformation for all things. While maintaining its own na-
ture, this age passes into the next and is transformed in it, just as the earthly body of our Lord Jesus Christ
was transformed in the resurrection. Through Jesus Christ, w/ the power of the Spirit of transforming
love, we are called to participate with God in the hope of redeeming the world’s thlipsis (suffering), ste-
nochoria (distress), and diōgmos (persecution).
24 “Crying out to God and running to God without waiting for a reply, is an act of hope and faith. It is the
driving force of the human spirit that informs religious experience. We cried to the Lord, the God of our
fathers, and he heard our cry and saw our affliction, our toil and our oppression. He brought us out of
Egypt with his strong hand and outstretched arm (Deuteronomy 26:7). Had God not responded, theology
would not exist.” See Jean Donovan, “Diving into Darkness: The Religious Experience of Women Survi-
vors Of Domestic Violence,” Religious Experience and Contemporary Theological Epistemology, 4th In-
ternational Leuven Encounters in Systematic Theology Conference, Leuven, Nov. 5-8, 2003, available at
http://www.theo.kuleuven.ac.be/ogtpc/lest4/seniors#Marie%20BAIRD (accessed 02/04/05).
25For example, in the theology of Rabbi Irving Greenberg, a contemporary Jewish thinker, with the exile
and destruction of the Temple (in 587-6 BCE, the Spirit of God (shekhina) has also been exiled from the
people of God. “In effect, the world itself is broken” and it is the task of the faithful – those who obey the
Torah in Judaism and Christ in Christianity and Allah in Islam– to bring light into this brokenness in the
midst of their common suffering. This involves working in partnership with God in bringing good to the
world (Bauer, 191-2).
The cross is the preeminent place where God shows his engagement, his radical involvement and
identity with human beings and their history, including our brokenness and suffering to the point
of death.27 God’s gracious, loving solidarity and communion with the depths of human pain and
suffering, of lostness and brokenness in the death of Christ on the cross illuminates our Christian
ministry to also be in solidarity with others in their suffering.
Solidarity with the ‘other’ begins with accusatio sui, an alienation from self, an emptying (keno-
sis) that results in metanoia, a turning away from one’s former path,28 a conversion to a new way
that “is seen as a taking of the cross, standing where Christ once stood…. This is the essence of
Christian humility, the recognition of one’s total poverty [dependence on God], the ‘emptying
out’ of human wisdom and human righteousness.” It is a true coming together with the ‘other’ in
that it “unveils the truth” of our dependence on a God who reveals himself only in weakness, our
26This view contrasts sharply from a theology of divine impassibility that posits an uninvolved God,
“resting in sublime self-enjoyment of the divine goodness and glory” of creation. See Jane Linahan, “Ex-
periencing God in Brokenness: the Self-emptying of the Holy Spirit in Moltmann's Pneumatology” Relig-
ious Experience and Contemporary Theological Epistemology, 4th International Leuven Encounters in
Systematic Theology Conference, Leuven, Nov. 5-8, 2003, available at http://www.theo.kuleuven.ac.be
/ogtpc/lest4/seniors#Marie%20BAIRD (accessed 02/04/05), 5.
27This is Martin Luther’s theologia cruces (“theology of the cross”), developed in 1518, which posits
that, “God displays himself ‘visibly’ publicly and historically, only as the humiliated and tortured Jesus.”
Thus, it is useless to “consider the transcendence of God, ‘His glory and majesty,’ independently of the
human encounter with him in the godlessness of the cross…. God himself…shatters all our images [of
Him] by addressing us in the cross of Jesus.” See Rowan Williams, The Wound of Knowledge: Christian
Spirituality from the New testament to Saint John of the Cross (Cambridge, MA.: Cowley Publications,
1990), 157-8.
28 “Metanoia” is a physical movement and new engagement with the world, not just a change of attitude
or intension. “The thrust of the Spirit does not end with the discovery of the battered victim lying in the
ditch. It drives us, to make a commitment to that victim to enter actively upon his or her pathway, to make
a commitment to his or her liberation.” See Roberto Oliveras Maguero, “History of the Theology of Lib-
eration,” in Mysterium Liberationis: Fundamental Concepts of Liberation Theology, eds. Ignacio Ellacu-
ria and Jon Sobrino (Maryknoll, NY” Orbis Books, 1993), 9 quoted in Daniel M. Bell, Jr., Liberation
Theology after the End of History: The Refusal to Cease Suffering (London: Routledge, 2001), 177-8.
From this vantage point, one might argue that the “ultimate cause of poverty, injustice, and op-
pression [as sources of human suffering is the] breach of friendship with God and others.”31 The
dream of God may be that through suffering and our willingness to forgive in the face of this suf-
fering, we may be reconciled to the ‘other’ and to God. For “Like a tireless, and long-suffering
parent, our God is there for us when we are ready to hear His still, small voice in our lives.”32
This is the same God that is in the ‘other’ who may be the cause of our unjust suffering. For the
29 For example, a close reading of New Testament Scripture reveals that “Jesus is not naïve, he does not
ask us to be passive [in the face of suffering], he does not require us to give up fighting against evil – but
he shows us that equivalence in evil, even in the name of justice, does not transform human society. What
is required is an attitude that is not determined by what has already been done, an innovative, a creative
gesture. Otherwise enclosure within a repetitive logic is inevitable, and the term of this logic is the exclu-
sion or death of at least one of the parties. It is forgiveness that represents this innovative gesture: it cre-
ates a space in which the logic inherent in legal equivalences [i.e. counter-violence] no longer runs.” See
Christian Duquoc, “The Forgiveness of God,” Concilium 184 (1986): 39 quoted in Bell, 149. In this for-
giveness of God and our fellow human, the endless cycle of violence and counter-violence as the response
to human suffering is interrupted and “holds out the promise of a peace [e.g. the cessation of suffering]
that is more than the uneasy truce of adversaries” (Bell, 150).
30 (Williams 1990, 158-160, 163). William Tyndale (c. 1494-1536) in his Obedience of a Christian Man
builds on and extends Luther’s theologia cruces by describing why the solidarity with others is a require-
ment of our God-given freedom. Rowan Williams summarizes Tyndale’s thinking: “We are delivered by
Christ from slavery into freedom; and that freedom is experienced and expressed as indebtedness – not to
God, but to each other….God’s service to us in Christ is both the model and the motive force for our rela-
tion to our neighbor” (Lev. 19:18; Mark 12:31; Luke 10:27; Rom. 13:9; Gal. 5:14; James 2:8). See Rowan
Williams, Anglican Identities (Cambridge, MA.: Cowley Publications, 2003), 11-13.
31 Gustavo Gutierrez, A Theology of Liberation, rev. ed. Ed. Trans. Caridad Inda and John Eagleson (Ma-
ryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1988), 24 quoted in Bell, 151. The basis for this friendship is forgiveness. For
through forgiveness, “The victim is freed from the enmity that is borne of a violation that cannot be un-
done; the victimizer is freed from the guilt and loathing that comes from never being able to undo the vio-
lation. Forgiveness places them both in a position to risk a new relationship. Ultimately forgiveness is an
act of hope that denies the destructiveness of injustice [i.e. the suffering of the innocent] the final word,
instead insisting that something else is always possible” (Bell, 152-3).
32 At its foundation as God’s very good creation, “this is a moral universe, which means that, despite all
the evidence that seems to be to the contrary [in a world where the innocent suffer], there is no way that
evil and injustice and oppression and lies can have the last word. God is a God who cares about right and
wrong. God cares about justice and injustice. God is in charge.” See Desmond Tutu, God Has a Dream: A
Vision of Hope for Our Time ( New York: Doubleday, 2004), 2, 11.
33For example, we can no longer account ‘virtue’ as that which is won through the defeat of the ‘other’
(Cavanaugh, 9-10, 11). If habits of mind are “not so much something you see as something through which
you see everything,” then the habit of mind Christians are being called to cultivate is a new vision that
embraces the other in our thinking. From this perspective “Christian ethics is more fundamentally about
habits, and thus about producing certain kinds of people, then about decisions, or producing certain kinds
of consequences.” See Michael Hanby, “Interceding: Giving Grief to Management,” in Stanley Hauerwas,
238.
34 This estimate includes all known tactical (battlefield – suitcase and backpack weapons, atomic land
mines, air-defense warheads, atomic artillery shells, etc.) and strategic (sitting atop missiles aimed at mili-
tary installations and cites) nuclear (fission) and thermonuclear (hydrogen fusion) devices in the invento-
ries of nuclear states: Russia (20,000), U.S. (10,600), China (400), France (350), United Kingdom (200),
Israel (100), India (40), Pakistan (40), North Korea (2). Iran is presently engaged in a nuclear weapons
program and Saudi Arabia is presently debating the option to acquire a nuclear deterrent, but these states
do not yet possess them. See Nuclear Threat Initiative (NTI) nation reports available at
http://www.nti.org/e_research/ profiles/index.html (accessed 9/09/04).
35Mohamed ElBaradei, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency speech to the IAEA
general conference in Vienna, Austria, September 20, 2004 as reported by the Chicago Sun-Times, Sep-
tember 21, 2004 available at www.suntimes.com/ output/news/cst-nws-nuke21.html (accessed 9/21/04).
36 The Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS), run by former U.N. weapons inspector
David Albright, estimates that at the end of 2003 there was a total of 1,855 metric tons of plutonium and
1,900 metric tons of highly-enriched uranium (HEU) globally. It takes ~10 kg. of plutonium-239 or 16-25
kg. of HEU enriched to ~90 percent uranium-235 (U-235) to fuel a weapon. See ISIS, “Global Plutonium
and Highly Enriched Uranium HEU) Stocks: Summary Tables and Charts (June 30, 2004)” available at
http://www.isis-online.org/global_stocks/summary_tables.html#chart1 (accessed 10/05/04).
The shift from modernity to post-modernity is primarily a shift in the inclusiveness of human
freedom, defined as self-determination of human policies. In modern times, those with dispro-
portionate access to the world’s resources served as colonial powers that exploited less-powerful
indigenous populations for the primary benefit of the colonial power.38 Post-modernity is built on
the premise that colonialism, in whatever hegemonic form, is not sustainable over time and is
ultimately destructive of both the hegemonic power and the exploited, less-powerful indigenous
population.39 Thus, underneath the political rhetoric, false religiosity, and unrestrained violence
of international privatized terrorism is a moral quest for self-determination and enhanced human
freedom for the personae miserae (the powerless).
37 Matthew Bunn, Anthony Wier, John P. Holdren, Controlling Nuclear Warheads and Materials: A Re-
port Card and Action Plan (Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard State [Commis-
sioned by the Nuclear Threat Initiative], March 2003), 42-3.
38 For example, in the U.S. drive to “liberate” oppressed peoples so that they may experience human free-
dom, it is vitally important that this is achieved in a manner that does not remind an indigenous popula-
tion of “colonialism” or lead to conditions that in any way, shape, or form smack of colonial hegemony.
For a view of colonialism as international privatized terrorism’s roots see Mahmood Mamdani, Good
Muslim, Bad Muslim : America, the Cold War, and the Roots of Terror (Pantheon Books, 2004).
39There are a whole range of socio-political and political-economic reasons for this paradigm shift from
modernity to post-modernity. However, a practical reason is that historical colonialism, in whatever form,
has always led to conflict and in an era of proliferated WMD, the cost of such asymmetrical conflict with
WMD is potentially unsustainable to even the wealthiest and most powerful countries. For a discussion of
modernity and post-modernity as it applies to statecraft see Robert Cooper, Order and Chaos in the
Twenty-First Century (Atlantic Monthly Press, 2004).
More terrorism – on a grander scale that what the U.S. has yet experienced is inevitable because
under the present counter-terrorism strategy of the U.S., the international privatized terrorists are
encouraged to use CBRN weapons as an opening to the next level of warfare. From a game per-
spective, this is a rational course of action.40 The use of tactical nuclear devices (or other CBRN
weapons) on U.S. soil by terrorists is high because: 1) the use of CBRN weapons produces a
winning endgame for the terrorists; 2) CBRN weapons are relatively inexpensive and offer the
greatest destructive value per dollar cost; 3) there is a large and growing supply of both CBRN
weapons and international terrorists to carry out such attacks, and 4) the U.S. continues to posi-
tion itself as the most attractive target for international privatized terrorism.41
A range of scenarios can be modeled whereby the terrorist side’s attack comprises the detonation
of one or more CBRN weapons in one location, in multiple locations, over a relatively short time
or over a period of weeks, months or years. The type of attack can also be modeled to include a
biological, chemical, or radiological component along with or in lieu of the tactical nuclear
component.42 Remember, the international privatized terrorists’ strategy is to develop attacks that
undermine underlying systems that support economic well-being or destroy confidence in these
40 Various assumptions concerning the exact attack scenario and probabilities related to the ability of a
terrorist group to obtain tactical nuclear devices (or other CBRN weaponry) and carry out complex logis-
tical planning and execution steps leading to a CBRN attack can be assessed and argued.
41Each of these four propositions or explanations are themselves controversial and demand considered
debate. However, for the purposes of this discussion, we will assume that they are true or nearly true and
see where the game scenario leads us. Then, once we have followed through with one complete game
scenario, we can modify these assertions to see how that would impact our counter-terror moves to such
an attack.
42 The model itself is based on an assumption that the game we are presently playing with terrorists today
is one of wealth destruction and escalation of a violence/counter-violence cycle. The objective of the
game from the terrorist’s perspective is to destroy as much of America’s wealth as possible for a given
dollar of cost and to encourage the U.S. to respond with disproportionate violence.
For example:
• For less than $2 million, the attacks on 9/11 produced about $90 billion in property dam-
age and lost income (experiential data) and created a one-time, short-term (less than 2
years) structural $200 billion dollar cash outflow (as measured by the U.S. war response
to these attacks).
• For less than $50 million, one could model a series of CBRN attacks timed over a short
period that could produce a long-term 2%-3% reduction of each year’s annual GDP or
~$600 billion cash impact over a period of 2-5 years.
• For less than $500 million, one could model a series of CBRN attacks timed over a
longer period that could produce a long-term 10% reduction of each year’s annual GDP
or $2,000 billion cash impact over a period of 3-7 years.
Many scenarios can be elaborated and alternate assumptions put forth that alter this conclusion to
the terrorist threat somewhat – but always at an unsustainable cost (the diversion of such a large
portion of GDP to counter-terrorism activities as to be unsustainable over any length of time).
That is, instead of the game ending in a terrorist-winning move, we can envision a series of
countermoves that defer for a time a capitulation to the terrorists’ demands at an unsustainable
economic cost. To continue to play an unwinable game is pure folly or badly managed hubris.
From a strategic perspective there are two fundamental questions that need a definitive answer:
1) Is the present game truly unwinable if CBRN weapons are used by our opponent, and 2) If we
are in fact playing an unwinable game, how can we alter the game itself in our favor?
43From this perspective, the international privatized terrorists attempt to damage our productive capacity
and our will to carry on economic activity in the face of adversity. These terrorists function as modern
anti-entrepreneurs leveraging capital to destroy rather than to create wealth. With this perspective of ter-
rorism as primarily a dis-economic activity, monetary measures can be used as a proxy to discern results
of various counter-terrorism strategies. While many scenarios can be envisioned where the terrorists bun-
gle such an attack, from a game strategy perspective, we believe that one must assume that the best game
move will be chosen by the opponent – that is, the terrorists will make the best use of a tactical nuclear
device (or other CBRN weapon), and not a sub-optimal use.
The more traditional counter-terrorism measures, primarily hard power that relies upon coercion
and violence for effectiveness because they are well-understood and can be implemented with
existing intelligence, military and federal law enforcement infrastructure are what are receiving
most of total budget allocated toward countering the terrorist threat. Yet, our model predicts that
this approach alone is doomed to fail over time (see above discussion). Part of the reason the pre-
sent approach to counter terror will fail is that we are approaching the problem as a point solu-
tion: identify known terrorists, discover their plans, interdict their materiel, deter their attack,
find them, and prosecute them. All of these activities are fairly narrowly constituted, linearly de-
pendent, and focused on results, if we have: 1) the capability for discovering plans and specific
individuals associated with those plans, and 2) the capability to interdict the attackers and their
CBRN materiel before they are able to carry out an attack.
Unfortunately, there is little data to support the supposition that such a set of assumptions is valid
or a greater degree of success can be achieved than for example, discovering the plans of organ-
ized crime syndicates and interdicting drug shipments into this country. With enough diligence
44 If one believes that there are strategies and vetted counter moves (tactics) that enable the U.S. to con-
tinue with its present counter-terrorism policies and strategies after such an attack, these need to be input
into the models and exposed to debate as to their soundness. Absent such new ideas and analysis, clearly a
discussion of the game itself and what changes might be made to its underlying structure rises to upper-
most importance.
45While the counter-terror models are sensitive to budget (how much we have to spend to accomplish a
certain level of threat preparedness), they are also sensitive to speed – how fast can we close off a specific
threat opportunity, and more importantly – how fast can responsible organizations learn to counter new
threats that the terrorists think up. Thus, pouring more and more dollars into solving the problem will not
necessarily produce more security if the result is a bigger and slower bureaucracy.
Since the shocking events on September 11, 2001, that killed 3,000 civilians, two wars have been
fought that may have killed as many as 100,000 civilians 46 and over $300 billion47 has been
spent on the ‘global war against terrorism.’48
Yet, despite extensive funding for the war on terrorism, nuclear threats from privatized terrorist
organizations or rogue states today are highly probable, more likely than at any time in the past,
46“Eighty-four percent of the deaths were reported to be caused by the action of the Coalition forces and
95 percent of those deaths were due to air strikes and artillery. Report by researchers from Johns Hopkins
Bloomberg School of Public Health published in the Lancet Medical Journal (October 2004), summary
available at http://www.jhsph.edu/Press_Room/Press_Releases/PR_2004/Burnham_Iraq.html (accessed
10/28/04).
47 As of Sept. 30, 2004, for example, the U.S. government has spent ~$120 billion, and it has allocated --
or plans to spend -- $174 billion in Iraq and this is expected to reach $200 billion in FY’05 once other
expected supplemental spending is added. Another $100 billion for global expenditures related to the Af-
ghanistan war and incremental expenditures for homeland security since 9/11 through FY’05 is probably
a conservative estimate. However, this amount does not take into account potential lost gross domestic
product from the Iraq war since March 2003, which has been estimated at $150 billion. See Warwick J.
McKibbin and Andrew Stoeckel, “The Economic Costs of a War in Iraq” (March 7, 2003) available at
http://www.brook.edu/ dybdocroot /views/papers/mckibbin/20030307.pdf (accessed 10.25/04). For com-
parison purposes, Yale State economist William D. Nordhaus estimates that in inflation-adjusted terms,
World War I cost just under $200 billion for the United States and the Vietnam War cost about $500 bil-
lion over eight years, from 1964 to 1972. The cost of the Iraq war could reach nearly half that number by
next fall, 2 1/2 years after it began. See Jonathan Weisman and Thomas E. Ricks “Increase in War Fund-
ing Sought” Washington Post (October, 26, 2004), A01 available at
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A62554-2004Oct25.html (accessed 10/26/04).
48“War” is unfortunate language in that eliminating the threat of terrorism most likely will not be
achieved through dramatic and decisive conquest. Other soft-power components such as diplomatic, eco-
nomic, political, moral and justice-seeking measures must also be employed. See Joseph S. Nye, Soft
Power: The Means to Success in World Politics (PublicAffairs, 2004).
49 National Security Council, The National Security Strategy of the United States of America, available at
www.whitehouse.gov/nsc/nss.pdf (accessed 9/19/04); National Security Council, National Strategy to
Combat Weapons of Mass Destruction, December 2002, available at www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/
2002/12/WMDStrategy.pdf (accessed 9/19/04), 1. The underlying assumptions to this assessment are that
this is a big issue, worth spending significant resources on; that terrorists would plausibly attack a nuclear
facility and that insiders would plausibly steal from such a facility; that terrorists could plausibly make a
nuclear bomb if they got the material (or detonate a stolen bomb if they got one of those); and that there is
minimal chance of detecting and stopping a terrorist bomb before it was delivered.
50 For example, many nuclear terror attack scenarios mistakenly imagine that only one nuclear weapon
would be used. More likely is that multiple nuclear weapons would be detonated by design within a finite
time period to produce the largest potential economic loss. For about $500,000 (according to the 9/11
Commission), the multiple, closely-timed terrorist attacks on 9/11 produced about $90 billion in property
damage and lost income (experiential data) and created a one-time, $300 billion dollar cash outflow (as
measured by the U.S. war response and lost gross domestic product (GDP) from this U.S. response to 9/
11). A terrorist attack involving three or more nuclear devices could cost no more than $5 million and
produce a short-term reduction in annual world GDP equal to $10,000 billion cash impact over a period of
7-10 years (estimate) as cleanup and restoration post-attack proceeds and impacts the world economy. If
the attack occurred in the U.S., the majority of this cost would be incurred by U.S. taxpayers.
51 The economic value of a program that prevents nuclear terrorism is by how much that program would
reduce the probability of a terrorist attack using nuclear weapons, given the hurdle rate, the required rate
of return necessary to invest in prevention versus paying the economic cost of the attack itself. To calcu-
late the amount of this ‘economically justified’ investment, the probability of an attack if no program is
put in place must be known. For example, if the probability of a nuclear terrorist attack is only one per-
cent during any one year, that means there is a 40% chance that a nuclear weapon will be used by terror-
ists sometime within the next fifty years. If the cost of such an attack is approximately one trillion dollars,
then it is worth it for the global community to spend $130 billion just to cut that probability in half. See
Matthew C. Weinzierl, “The Cost of Living: The Economics of Preventing Nuclear Terrorism,” The Na-
tional Interest (Spring 2004), 122.
Instead of thinking about this as a “war against terrorism,” this can be more accurately thought of
as a “proxy war” fought by privatized groups of individual actors (e.g. al Qaeda is presently a
prime example of such a group) who use terrorism as a technique to achieve political objectives
that have the intention of producing structural changes in power-sharing relationships that are
international in scope.53
It is a “proxy war” in that al Qaeda, for example, is fighting as an agent on behalf of its “spon-
sors” rather than for its own power or territorial objectives.54 This proxy war, from the perspec-
52 For example, in a January 25, 2002 memo from Alberto R. Gonzoles to President George W. Bush enti-
tled: “Application of the Geneva Convention on prisoners of war to the conflict with al Qaeda and the
Taliban,” the White House attorney is concerned that Bush administration officials could be prosecuted
for ‘war crimes’ as a result of the measures to combat terror adopted by the administration in response to
the 9/11 attacks by al Qaeda.
53Terrorism as used here is systemized violence against a predominantly civilian population that may take
the form of lethal force, symbolic violence, economic disruption, and other forms that impinge or impede
on the normal human freedoms that are reasonable, normative, and expected by such civilian population.
Thus, terrorism has been a common a tactic of war used, for example, by the Germans against the Jewish
populations of Poland, Germany, etc. during WWII; by the U.S. in its fire-bombing of Tokyo, etc. (e.g.
100,000 civilians were killed in one night’s air raids) against Japan in WWII; the U.S. “pacification” pro-
gram in Vietnam; Pol Pot’s “ruralization” project in Cambodia that systematically killed millions of Cam-
bodians; as a tactic of the U.S.-supported mujahideen in the Soviet-Afghan war; Sadam’s use of WMD
against the Kurds in northern Iraq in the 1980’s; etc. “International” describes the fact that the combatants
are not fighting a domestic civil war within their respective domestic nation states, but internationally,
across state boundaries. “Privatized” describes the fact that the terrorists are privately funded and are not
controlled by the policies or directives of any particular nation state.
54This is a real war, at least from the perspective of the U.S., in that the U.S is engaged in the maximum
use of “force to compel our enemy to do our will.” Carl von Clausewitz, On War, edited and translated by
Michael Howard and Peter Paret (Princeton: Princeton State Press, 1976), 75.
The misconception of such disproportional retaliation by the U.S. is that such massive use of
force will effectively destroy the fighting forces of the enemy; to “put [them] in such a condition
that they can no longer carry on the fight.”56 However, this approach to this “proxy war” is
doomed because the “sponsor” for whom the enemy (al Qaeda in this specific “battle”) is best
imagined as groups of individuals who believe in the ideals of human freedom and democratic
self-determination ideas espoused by the U.S. 57 That is, at the core of the “war against terror-
ism,” the two opposing sides are the “theory” of the U.S. regarding human freedom, human poli-
cies and self-determination vs. the praxis of the U.S regarding human freedom, human policies,
and self-determination. The role of the agents engaged in terrorism acting as proxies is primarily
to call attention to the world community that what the U.S. espouses as its democratic values and
how it lives these values are irreparably and immeasurably disjunctive.
55 This assumption redefines terrorism as a “political socio-economic act” rather than a tactic to create a
climate of fear and anxiety. Using this definition enables one to model terrorism as a “project” and to
think about counter-projects from a capital budgeting, investment analysis perspective (e.g. what pro-
grams achieve the greatest return (reduction in terrorist “economic acts”) for invested capital?).
57It is not accurate to portray “us” as “those who love freedom” and the enemy as “those who hate free-
dom.” The reality is that if “our” freedom despoils or constrains “their” vision of freedom, from the
“other’s” perspective we are oppressors, not lovers of freedom. If we are discussing the Middle East, for
example, terrorism has been used as a technique against oppressive governments (oppressive as measured
by currently accepted international U.N. norms, for example) who could be classified as socialistic,
authoritarian, or totalitarian – many of which at one time or another have received military aid from the
U.S. (e.g. Sadam Hussein’s government in Iraq was a large recipient of U.S. military aid in Iraq in the
1980’s even as he used WMD on his Kurdish population in northern Iraq).
Terrorism is commonly believed to be a tactic to create a climate of fear and anxiety. Fear and
anxiety may result from terrorism, but this is often neither the primary reason, nor result hoped
for by the modern international terrorist. The difficulty is that terrorism is often discussed as a
monolithic conceptual entity. But terrorism is actually pluralistic and polyvalent; it is not one
thing. Also, depending on which category, type and form of terrorism someone is concerned
with, dramatically different counter-terrorism approaches make sense.
Within international terrorism there are two predominant forms: publicly financed terrorism and
privately financed terrorism. International terrorism is usually sociopolitical terrorism: terrorism
that is attempting to cause a set of specific political objectives of a “transnational” nature:
• By publicly financed actors: e.g. U.S. soldiers involved in Abu Ghraib jail abuses
of civilian detainees reported by International Committee of the Red Cross
(ICRC) as “systematic;59 C.I.A. operatives involved in interrogations of al Qaeda
detainees that contravene Third and Fourth Geneva Convention Act protocols for
treatment of prisoners. Typically, only internationally constituted 3rd party inter-
58 This was the charge against the scribes and Pharisees by Jesus as recounted in Matt. 23:13-21. See Dan-
iel J. Harrington, S.J., The Gospel of Matthew (Sacra Pagina, Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 1991),
326. This recollection of hypocrisy is also attested to in the Nevi’im (the “Prophets) of Jewish scripture
which preserved the prophets’ words as “not only significant for the circumstances in which they were
originally pronounced but potentially relevant for later ones as well…[in their] crucial role in critiquing
and trying to change society.” See Adele Berlin and Marc Zvi Brettler, editors, The Jewish Study Bible:
Jewish Publication Society Tanakh Translation (Oxford: Oxford State Press, 2004), 457-8.
59International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), “Report of the ICRC on the Treatment by Coalition
Forces of Prisoners of War and Other Protected Persons by the Geneva Conventions in Iraq During Arrest,
Internment and Interrogation,” February 2004.
The message, or information content, of terrorism as advertising directed at the “civilized world”
is twofold: (1) “your narrative, how you define reality, is incomplete in that it does not ade-
quately take us into account,” and (2) “you are not as strong and powerful and invincible as you
believe that you are.” These are primarily “religious” as opposed to secular messages.
Even though terrorism is carried out by only a relatively “fringe” few on behalf of the am harets,
the underlying message is believed to be “on-target” by the vast majority of the world’s popula-
tion (even as terrorism itself as a technique of political warfare is widely denounced by the ma-
jority of the world’s population). As long as the message is on-target and international privatized
terrorism is viewed as an effective, least-costly means to convey this information to the elite of
the world, there will be an effectively infinite supply of new terrorists to replace those that are
killed or dispersed.
Two inextricable and unstoppable forces are challenging business-as-usual and causing a rethink-
ing of comfortable, cherished economic, environmental, and social policies, as well as the emer-
gence of new theological paradigms that call to question the very existence of the nuclear secu-
60 Am harets is a Hebrew word meaning “people of the earth.” In the first century C.E. it was applied deri-
sively to refer to individuals as “country bumpkins,” those perceived as “less civilized” whose speech was
less refined and who were not up-to-date on the latest ideas from the centers of culture in that day and
age. In today’s post-modern era, the am harets comprise about five billion of a total 6.3 billion human
population and are found in differing degrees in all nations, including “developed” countries.
61Karl Barth, The Epistle to the Romans, trans. Edwyn C. Hoskyns (London: Oxford State Press, 1933),
97-8.
62Rowan Williams, A Ray of Darkness: Sermons and Reflections (Cambridge, MA: Cowley Publications,
1995), 4.
The result of these two unstoppable forces that are changing the face of the world and calling to
question business-as-usual policies that are non-sustainable is ecocide66 – the destruction of basic
life-support systems of this earth we inhabit and the immiseration of the much of the world’s pre-
sent population outside of a small group of highly ‘advanced’ Western democracies where “most
humans exist in conditions of severe abasement [and even] inside these democracies, consider-
able fractions of the population live on the edge of poverty:”67
63 Population Division, United Nations report, February 24, 2005. Virtually all the additional growth in
population will occur in less developed countries: from 5.3 billion today to 7.8 billion in 2050. The popu-
lation of developed countries is expected to remain at today’s level of ~1.2 billion over the same period.
64This technological innovation causes much good, but in many cases, much harm to the environment.
“The only question is whether [our environmental problems] will become resolved in pleasant ways of
our own choosing, or in unpleasant ways not of our choice, such as warfare, genocide, starvation, disease
epidemics, and collapses of societies.” See Jared Diamond, Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or
Succeed (New York: Viking, 2005), 498.
65 For example, the First World exports its toxins to the Third World (e.g. The Inuit have the highest con-
centration of neurotoxins and gender shifters such as toxaphene, mercury and PCPs of any human popula-
tion on earth. These toxic chemicals have been migrating from the tropics to Arctic food chains and into
the diets of northern peoples for decades, far exceeding levels considered safe for humans in the First
World.) and the Third World exports its diseases and problems to the First World (e.g. AIDS, SARS, chol-
era, West Nile virus, influenza, illegal immigrants, terrorists, debt, etc.) [Diamond, 517].
66 As used here, “ecocide” means the inattention to environmental issues that can singly or when com-
bined cause collapse of natural and man-made systems that humans depend upon to sustain life and cul-
ture.
67Charles T. Mathewes, Evil and the Augustinian Tradition (Cambridge: Cambridge State Press, 2001),
16.
• At an accelerating rate we are destroying natural, existing habitats – the forests, grass-
lands, wetlands, and deserts or converting them to man-made habitats (cities, villages,
farmlands, pastures, roads, golf courses);70
68 Air pollution, rather than being a local problem is slowly being understood by science as a global prob-
lem; what happens in Beijing will affect Boston, what happens in Boston will affect Paris (the ‘butterfly
effect’). We can no longer look at air quality as a local, or even regional concern. For example, although
over 160 million tons of pollution are emitted into the air each year in the United States, and approxi-
mately 121 million people live in areas where monitored air was unhealthy because of high levels of the
six principal air pollutants, this is a significant improvement (~29% better) over the toxins released into
the air by U.S. industry in 1970. However, we now know that the air over the U.S. is polluted not just by
U.S.-based industry, but also by industrial activities in China and other places around the world. See “Air
Trends,” U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, available at http://www.epa.gov/air/airtrends/ (accessed
05/14/05).
69Today, the concentration of CO2 in the earth’s atmosphere is ~376ppm, the highest level in the past
420,000 years and already climate change is the primary factor in an estimated 150,000 deaths per year
(World Health Organization data). CO2 from burning carbon based fuels comprises ~half of the green-
house gases released annually into the earth’s atmosphere and 90% of the greenhouse gases produced by
the U.S. economy. See James Gustave Speth, “Climate Change after the Elections: What we can do in
America” (December 2004) available at http://www.redskyatmorning.com/ downloads/
afterword_paperback_ 010505.pdf (accessed 01/24/05), 3, 9.
70 Diamond, 487. Has mankind become an embodiment of “The Destroyer” and the earth a new Abad-
don? In the Hebrew Bible and Septuagint (LXX), the agency of ‘The Destroyer’ was usually reserved for
God or God’s avenging angel(s) (Exod. 12:23) but was also used to designate a human agent of destruc-
tion (e.g. an individual, group, or nation; Job 15:21; Isa 21:2; 49:17; Jer 48:8, 15, 18; Rev 11:18). Abad-
don (Heb. }a∑baddo®n) was used as a poetic synonym for the abode of the dead (the ‘bottomless pit’) or
place of destruction (ABD).
• We are rapidly decreasing a significant fraction of wild species and populations of the
world’s flora and fauna and loosing their genetic information through habitat destruction,
the introduction of toxins into the environment, and unsustainable land management
practices.72 Once a species is extinct, we cannot bring them back;
71Diamond, 489-90. “Soil erosion constitutes the most serious continuing farm problem in the United
States;...no other modern nation of the Western Hemisphere, north of the equator, is wasting its agricul-
tural lands as rapidly as the United States….vast areas have been laid waste in China, Persia and other old
countries, but those countries used their lands for thousand of years, whereas we have used the oldest of
ours for only about three hundred years, the greater part for only about forty to eighty years.” See Hugh
Hammond Bennett, United States Department of Agriculture, Natural Resources Conservation Service,
available at http://www.nrcs.usda.gov/about/history/speeches/19321104.html (accessed 05/13/05). The
National Cooperative Soil Survey identifies and maps over 20,000 different kinds of soil in the United
States.
72 Extinction rates are usually estimated indirectly from principles of biogeography. Although no precise
measurement of the numbers of species being extinguished can be made (because the exact number of
species inhabiting the earth is unknown), best guess estimates are that species extinction as the result of
human impacts on the environment are presently running approximately 1,000 – 10,000 times greater than
the background natural rate of extinction (excluding episodic events, like the ‘Great Extinction’ ~250 mil-
lion years ago that saw 95% of life disappear). The problem with this situation, for example, is that pres-
ently humankind use only 7,000 kinds of plant species for food, although there are at least 75,000 edible
plants in existence, many that are potentially superior to the crop plants in widest use. Also, there are
other thousands of species of bacteria, yeasts and other microorganisms that carry genetic information
potentially capable of producing medicines that cure human and livestock diseases, substances for soil
restoration, and new materials useful to mankind. See E. O. Wilson, “The Current State of Biodiversity”
in E. O. Wilson, editor, Biodiversity (Washington, DC: National Academy Press, 1988), 10, 11, 13, and
15.
• Today, 20% of the world’s population living in 30 or so of the wealthiest countries, con-
sume 85% of the total annual output of the world’s production of goods and
services.74The per capita impact for the world’s population is continuing to rise; it is not
decreasing. For example, a First World citizen presently consumes ~30X more resources
than a Third World citizen and produces ~30X more waste than do Third World citizens.75
• While two billion of today’s population currently depend on the world’s fisheries for pro-
tein, the majority of the world’s fisheries have been seriously degraded or have already
collapsed;76
73Diamond, 490. For example, “only one-third of the water that annually runs into the sea is accessible to
humans. Of this, more than half is already being appropriated and used….China, with 22 percent of the
world’s population and only 6 percent of its fresh water, is [already] in serious trouble. See Marq de
Villiers, Water: The Fate of our Most Precious Resource (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2000), 24:5. “By the
middle of this century, at worst, 7 billion people in 60 countries will be faced with water scarcity, and, at
best, 2 billion in 48 countries, depending on factors like population growth and policy-making. Climate
change will account for an estimated 20 per cent of this increase in global water scarcity.” See “Political
Inertia Exacerbates Water Crisis, Says World Water Policies Report,”
First UN System-Wide Evaluation of Global Water Resources (March 7, 2003) available at
http://www.unis.unvienna.org/unis/pressrels/2003/sag119.html (accessed 05/13/05).
74J. F. Rischard, High Noon: 20 Global Problems, 20 Years to Solve Them (New York, Basic Books,
2002), 8.
75Diamond, 495. For example, “every year, 300 to 500 million tonnes of heavy metals, solvents, toxic
sludge and other wastes accumulate in water resources from industry. More than 80 per cent of the
world’s hazardous waste is produced in the United States and other industrial countries.” See “Political
Inertia Exacerbates Water Crisis, Says World Water Policies Report,”
First UN System-Wide Evaluation of Global Water Resources (March 7, 2003) available at
http://www.unis.unvienna.org/unis/pressrels/2003/sag119.html (accessed 05/13/05).
76Diamond, 488. The State of World Fisheries and Aquaculture (SOFIA) report by the Food and Agricul-
ture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations says “24 percent of the world’s fisheries are overexploited,
depleted or in recovery from depletion. More than 50 percent are ‘fully exploited,’ or fished to their
maximum capacity to replenish. The remaining 21 percent are ‘moderately exploited and could support
modest increases in fishing and in harvests.’ ‘Stock depletion has implications for food security and eco-
nomic policies, reduces social welfare in countries around the world and undermines the wellbeing of un-
derwater ecosystems,’ said Ichiro Nomura, FAO assistant director general for fisheries.” See U.S. De-
partment of State release available at http://usinfo.state.gov/gi/Archive/2005/Mar/08-613777.html (ac-
cessed 05/13/05).
What is posited here is that the root of our ills is not the distortion of the relation between man
and nature – the attempt to make ecology or environmental economics, or industrial ecology or
even ‘sustainability’ return us to the Garden of Eden78 – but to acknowledge that the distortion is
the relation between man and God.79 What should be perfectly clear from the above summary of
the present environmental problems facing the earth and its human communities is that to date
our institutions have failed to provide the stewardship and priestly oversight necessary to con-
serve and protect God’s very good creation. How we are presently living in community is non-
sustainable and we need to make some immediate changes in how we live together. Also, not
only has the Church failed in its mission to adequately promote Christian forms of living-in-the-
world, but by default our State and colleges have failed to train the future leaders of the country
in ways for its leadership to be part of a sustainable solution to the large scale problems facing
humanity in the twenty-first century world.
Following this train of thought to its conclusion is the idea that however we have been making
policy in the past, no matter how ‘successful’ this policy-making has been perceived to be, it may
no longer adequate for the world we find ourselves in today. From this perspective, I am offering,
as gift, some preliminary theological and political reflections on developing a theological herme-
neutic (framework) for thinking about the nuclear security state, terrorism, and the problem of
human evil. The purpose of this reconfiguring of our ways of thinking about these things is for
77“The problems of failing states and the tremendous drain on resources in developing countries from
AIDS and other pandemics, environmental stress, and corruption affect our ability to partner with allies
and friends to meet humanitarian needs in the interest of promoting stability and democracy. This, in turn,
poses challenges and requirements…germane to the suppression of terrorism and limiting the spread of
WMD, delivery systems, and advanced conventional weapons.” See “Security Threats to the United
States,” Thomas Fingar, Assistant Secretary for Intelligence and Research, Statement Before the Senate
Select Committee on Intelligence, Washington, DC (February 16, 2005) available at
http://www.state.gov/s/inr/rls/42445.htm (accessed 05/13/05).
78“The Recovery of Eden story is the mainstream narrative of Western culture. It is perhaps the most im-
portant mythology humans have developed to make sense of their relationship to the earth.” See Carolyn
Merchant, Reinventing Eden: The Fate of Nature in Western Culture (New York: Routledge, 2004), 2.
79See John Milbank, “Out of the Greenhouse” in John Milbank, The Word Made Strange: Theology, Lan-
guage, Culture (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 1997), 257-67.
The Sustainable State as an Economy of Grace: Under this theological and political per-
spective of the State as an economy of grace, states are sustainable places where persons partici-
pate in learn about the world into which they are being called by God to contribute their talents,
treasure, and time for the betterment of human kind. The assumption is that this learning will
equip them to enter our businesses, hospitals, government offices, and courtrooms and become,
over time, ministers of a sustainable way of being-in-the-world, carrying on a tradition of pro-
ductive Christian fellowship and wealth creating of benefit to the community that has been ongo-
ing for two millennia.
One of the most important functions of the sustainable State as an economy of grace in today’s
world, at least the world of 21st century America, may be to provide a space where Christian
practices of being in relationship with God, with neighbor and with creation may be learned and
80Verse is from the poem, “Explorers Cry Out Unheard” in Marie Ponset, The Bird Catcher (New York:
Alfred Knoff, 1999), 65.
What I am suggesting is that the theology experienced (not necessarily taught in classes) by col-
lege students at the State is a political theology. It is a political theology in that “it concerns how
social relations should be ordered.”82 What I am further suggesting is that the sustainable prac-
tices we teach is primarily through modeling, in that it is lived out daily in Christian community
where relationality with God, with neighbor, and with creation is practiced. Thus, the State as
sustainable community and an economy of grace is primarily experienced not as a subject for
“abstract intellectual discussion, but a way of living in which beliefs are embedded” in who we
are and are becoming as a sustainable community.83 Also, by attempting to live in this fashion,
and the State’s explicit demonstration of its belief in sustainable living in Christian community
through its modeling behavior, this becoming of a sustainable economy of grace will be making
a demonstrable commentary on the prevailing political and social practices of the communities
and businesses that surround the State which are practicing other, non-sustainable ways of
being-in-the-world.84
What will make our State a sustainable community and economy of grace? I would like to sug-
gest that one approach to establishing our State as a sustainable economy of grace is for it to in-
corporate its operating activities into the economic Trinity where “dialogical fellowship of love
81 This relationality with God, with neighbor (the ‘other’), and with creation is really about relations of
love and political freedom in that it acknowledges that “We are all in our lives intimately related with one
another, that this relation is in part constitutive of what and who we are” and that this relationality is cre-
ated foremost by our love. “Love is crucial because it directly opposes the picture of ourselves that we
typically assume – that we are fundamentally autonomous, fundamentally independent, isolated monads
who must work to be connected to anything outside ourselves.” “This openness towards others is [also]
the core and primordial basis of what we call ‘politics,’ though our contemporary understanding of this
term is so debased that it bears only the most attenuated connection to this deeper sense of politics”
(Mathewes, Evil and the Augustinian Tradition, 8, 15-6).
82 Kathryn Tanner, “Trinity” in Peter Scott and William T. Cavanaugh, The Blackwell Companion to Po-
litical Theology (Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2004), 319.
84 Ibid., 320.
Instead I propose that we use an incarnation atonement model where “Humanity is at one with
the divine in Jesus – on the cross as everywhere else in Jesus’ life – and that is what is saving
about it.”88 The idea behind this incarnation atonement model is to recover a grace-full “God
who works unswervingly for our good, who puts no value in death and suffering, and no ultimate
value on self-sacrifice for the good, a God-gift-giving abundance struggling against the forces of
sin and death in the greatest possible solidarity with us – that of incarnation.”89 Thus, “Jesus is
obedient to the mission of God, and that is a good thing, but that obedience is itself the result of
the same saving [grace-filled] force of incarnation that accounts for what is saving about the
cross.”90 Essentially, “The whole of Jesus’ life – before, as after his death – is such a life-giving
85 Ibid., 329.
86 Ibid., 331.
88 Ibid., 43.
89 Ibid., 47.
90 Ibid., 47.
The Gift of Sacred Space Instead of the Policies of the Nuclear Security State: Is it
possible to think about policy policies in grace-filled ways that are more useful than non-
sustainable policies of the nuclear security state driven by utility 92 and dis-economics?93 I would
like to suggest that by thinking about sustainable policies for human policies within the context
of the State as an economy of grace, that it is possible to choose forms of human policies that are
sustainable and that generate more wealth and greater increases of economic, social, cultural, and
natural capital for the State.
Used in appropriate grace-filled ways, sustainable policies can result in epiphanies of relational-
ity with God, with neighbor, and with creation. Yet, used inappropriately for utilitarian purposes
and dis-economic monetary gain that creates victims; in ways that distance us from God, from
our neighbor and from creation, non-sustainable policies becomes just another form of illiberal-
ity with sinful and evil consequences as it “destroys communal bonds among the children of
God.”94 I would like to begin by sketching a few propositions for thinking about sustainable
policies of grace-filled sacred space, both of land and of buildings within the context of the State
91 Ibid., 56.
92Utility, as a primary decision criteria for policies, “imposes the primacy of… success [measured in eco-
nomic terms] as superior ways of being human, and the selfish and irresponsible enjoyment of life as an
indisputable value.” See Jon Sobrino, Where is God? Earthquake, Terrorism, Barbarity, Hope trans. Mar-
garet Wilde (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2004), ix.
93 ‘Dis-economic’ refers to situations that seem attractive when analyzed from a project perspective, but
actually do not create any wealth when analyzed from a systems perspective due to externalities and un-
accounted for costs that the project view does not take into account. Most dis-economic activities stem
from greed, ‘the rapacious desire for more goods or wealth than one needs or deserves.’
94 ArchbishopOscar Romero, Voice of the Voiceless: The Four Pastoral Letters and Other Statements
(Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2004), 133.
The idea of sacred space is something that comes up in almost all religions, in all times and cul-
tures. When most people imagine sacred space, they think of a church or someplace that is beau-
tiful. However, the idea of sacred space, at least in its Christian context, means much more; more
than even someplace holy that exists in space and time.
For example, I would like to discuss two different forms of sacred space that come up early in
the Pentateuch. In Genesis 2:8, the Garden of Eden is the quintessential idea of sacred space. But
the Garden of Eden is not only a holy place, set apart because God dwells there, but it is a model
for how persons are to relate to God, to neighbor (other persons), and to God’s very good crea-
tion. The second example of sacred space is in Exodus 35-39 where God reveals to Moses plans
to build a Tabernacle where God is will take up home with his covenanted people of Israel whom
he has just liberated from slavery under Pharaoh in Egypt.
One of the most important things about these two examples of sacred space in Christian Scrip-
ture is that the sacred space is not only holy in that God dwells in this space, but also this space is
gifted by God95 unconditionally as a means to give persons a community with a certain shape.96
The shape of this community for which sacred space is a sign is an economy (Gk. oikonomiía, or
‘household management’) of grace. This economy of grace is a way of being-in-the-world where
persons remember “God’s favor and all the ways God’s favor is expressed – in creating the
world,” in creating all the creatures that inhabit this world including our selves, and for “forgiv-
ing and redeeming us” even as we sometimes turn away from God and follow our own desires
rather than the desires of God.97 When we receive the Eucharist during the liturgy of the mass,
for example, God creates sacred space within us as we participate in “the mutual giving of Jesus
95The idea of ‘gift’ figures importantly in the New Testament as ‘to give’ (Gk. Diídoœmi) is used 416 times,
one of the most frequently used verbs. See Risto Saarinen, God and the Gift: An Ecumenical Theology of
Giving (Unitas; Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2005), 36.
With this background, what might we say concerning sacred space and how the State can partici-
pate in renovating, refurbishing and building space that is sacred as a means for modeling an
economy of grace? Some propositions include the following:
(1) God creates only sacred space in the world. 99 God is the creator of all of creation100 and
loves the world.101 This means that her creation is ‘good’ and that “all things are consis-
tent, justly ordered, and have integrity,” whether apparent to humankind or not, and “in-
trinsic worth apart from their utility.”102
98Rowan Williams, Eucharistic Sacrifice – The Roots of a Metaphor (Liturgical Study #31; Nottingham:
Grove Books, 1982), 29.
100I am the LORD, who has made all things, who alone stretched out the heavens, who spread out the
earth by myself (Isa. 44:24).
101For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not
perish but might have eternal life (John 3:16).
102Calvin B. Dewitt, “Behemoth and Batrachians in the Eye of God: Responsibility to Other Kinds in
Biblical Perspective” in Christianity and Ecology, edited by Dieter T. Hessel and Rosemary Radford Ru-
ether (Athens: State of Georgia Press, 2002), 306. God’s absolute power over the kosmos (‘heaven and
earth’ and ‘History’) comes from the fact that he is the Creator.
(3) Human persons were created in God’s image (imago dei). Thus, human persons are both
priests and stewards to God’s good creation, which is sacred.106 Because humankind is
part of God’s creation, we do not stand apart and separate from ‘the environment’ but are
part of God’s wholeness, along with the biosphere and the Earth. “The Lord God took
humankind (adam) and put us in the Garden of Eden (‘the Earth’) to conserve it (ábad)
and to keep it (shamar)” in all its vitality, energy and beauty (Gen. 2:15). As God keeps
us, so should we keep God’s Earth.107
(4) Human persons, as God’s imago Dei, “have a special honor of imaging God’s love for the
world.” Just as “every creature reflects back something of the love God pours out through
all creation” humankind’s job is to conserve and keep the Earth.108 Human persons, as
priests and stewards to God’s very good creation, are drawn toward developing spaces
103 In Genesis, the term ‘created’ (baœra},Heb.; ktiísis, Gk.) means the dynamic bringing into existence of
all there is by God. This is not a one-time act of origination, but a continual, ongoing succession of crea-
tive actions by the Creator. All of heaven and earth and all of history depends on God, is directed by Her,
and owes Her obedience. Creation provides the setting for doing God’s will.
104In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was a formless void and dark-
ness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters. Then God
said, “Let there be light”; and there was light. And God saw that the light was good; and God separated
the light from the darkness. God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was
evening and there was morning, the first day. (Genesis 1:1-5, NRSV).
From these propositions, we can derive a few design principles for the built environment that re-
flect the State as a sustainable economy of grace:
(1) All spaces built by the State for its use should remember and reflect God’s presence in
this world. Thus, these spaces built by the State should be sacred, not profane.110
(2) Profane space increases only one or two forms of human capital that reflect God’s gift
giving to his creation. Sacred space increases all four types of human capital:
109“Most human beings are much more receptive to material forms than to ideas and material forms leave
the deepest effect upon the human soul even beyond the mental plane.” See Seyyed Hossein Nasr, Knowl-
edge and the Sacred (New York: Crossroad, 1981), 255 quoted in Ellen F. Davis, “The Tabernacle is not a
Storehouse: Building Sacred Space” (February 23, 2005), 4.
110 Places of worship are only one form of sacred “communicative and instructive, as well as decorative”
space that is “wholly in harmony with God’s creative intention for the world.” The purpose of this form of
sacred space is renew and to “shape the people who spend time there; to form them (us) as believers….
[to] contribute to our awareness of new possibilities for living in the presence and glory of God” (Davis,
3, 4, 8).
c. Cultural capital is measured by the capacity to generate new ideas; ‘to inspire and
be inspired’ to contribute one’s energy and creativity for the betterment of the
community in which one lives. For without this aspect of sacred space, tired mo-
notony, ossification, and stasis sets in and the civitas of common life together
decays.112
d. Natural capital is measured in the policies’s support of sustainability. That is, its
footprint (use of nonrenewable resources or destruction of renewable resources) is
as close to zero as current technology and building methods enable.113
(3) Profane space disconnects us from God, from neighbor, and from creation. Sacred space
reflects humankind’s informed trust in God as gift-giver, connecting us with God, with
neighbor, with creation (the environment):
a. Sacred space relocates the human self into a larger reality than one had before en-
tering this space. Sacred space creates a “movement from a more constricting to a
more freeing context…. We discover our unique place, the unique part we are set
apart to play, in the story of Jesus, of being dislocated and relocated” in the space
of God’s created world.114
111 Arjo
Klamer, “Property and Possession: The Moral Economy of Ownership,” in Schweiker and
Mathewes, 343-5.
112
See David Hollenbach, S.J., The Common Good & Christian Ethics (New Studies in Christian Ethics;
Cambridge: Cambridge State Press, 2002).
113
See Paul Hawkin, Amory Lovins, L. Hunter Lovins, Natural Capitalism: Creating the Next Industrial
Revolution (New York, Little Brown and Company, 1999).
114David Willis, Clues to the Nicene Creed: A Brief Outline of the Faith (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans,
2005), 30.
c. Sacred space enables the human self to feel connected with other persons in his/
her relationality with God, with neighbor, and with creation and to acknowledge
this relationality as gift.115
Sustainable Policies of Sacred Space as Part of the State’s Economy of Grace: Non-
sustainable policies too often continues based on a non-Christian, humanocentric theology of
utilitarianism116 that serves as a “moral framework for decision making” (70). 117 Utilitarianism is
generally legitimized and sustained due to two factors: (a) a central myth of modernity that
equates the telos of history as human progress caused by goods resulting from economic policies
and technological innovation; and (b) the belief that the goods of human progress can be always
justified as moral exclusively through self-reflective interiority and determined by human happi-
ness measured in economic terms.118 Thus from the perspective of utilitarianism, “God is super-
fluous to the order of the material world” (57) as self-identity and worth is defined primarily by
the unsustainable consumption of the goods of human progress and human-initiated policies “is
but a false copy of the Body of Christ.”119
115“In the history of God’s dealings with the world, which culminate in Christ, God is seeking in ever-
more perfect ways to communicate to what is not God the fullness of gift relations that constitutes the
perfection of God’s own intra-Trinitarian life” (Tanner, “Trinity,” 361, 370-1).
116 ‘Utilitarianism’ means the more human desires that can be met, the more moral good that has been
created. Utilitarianism is the virtue of prudence turned into vice in that it places the utility of humankind
as the center, and limits the freedom of God to be God. This view is Pelagian in that it denies that we are
saved by God’s grace alone and makes God or human agency a utility.
117Page numbers in parenthesis are from Michael S. Northcott, The Environment and Christian Ethics
(Cambridge: Cambridge State Press, 2001).
119 William T. Cavanaugh, Theopolitical Imagination (London: T&T Clark, 2002), 46. Often policies and
its projected creation of economic capital are viewed as salvific. Yet, other forms of valued capital, such
as natural, social, and cultural capital are destroyed in the process.
Greedy policies are non-sustainable policies for exclusively utilitarian purposes. The world is
viewed as nothing more than object to be ‘improved’ through autonomous human agency. And
‘improvements’ are measured by convenient economic metrics that tend to view what is really
real as that which is reified and reduced to fit these metrics.121 However, the economic metrics
used result in the fallacy of ‘misplaced concreteness’ where faulty cost accounting undervalues
natural capital122 and fails to account for the destruction of social and cultural capital.123 Also, the
non-sustainable policies project goes on with little or no intentionality for promoting relationality
120What I am imagining are four potential areas of linguistic incompetence: (1) “a tendency to mis-speak:
they may make statements whose well-formed character or Christian authenticity is a matter for dispute;”
(2) “they may deploy well-formed Christian statements inappropriately;” (3) they may be unsure how to
speak, how to continue the practice of Christian discourse, in strange or novel circumstances;” (4) “they
may make Christian statements whose well-formed character is undisputed and yet fail to understand how
those statements are compatible with one another….[This is] particularly acute when the statements in
conflict lie at the core rather than the periphery of Christian belief.” See Kathryn Tanner, God and Crea-
tion in Christian Theology: Tyranny or Empowerment? (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1988), 16-8.
121Economic metrics usually measure the creation of only ‘economic capital,’ which is the capacity to
generate economic income or economic values. Oftentimes decision-makers end up making terrible deci-
sions if they base them solely on economic measures, as economic measures alone do not take into ac-
count other, often more important measures of capital and wealth formation.
122Natural capital are those naturally occurring inputs from the environment such as clean air, water, soil,
healthy ecosystems, watersheds, wetlands, forests, knowable climate, etc. that if man had to provide these
resources one his own, rather than imagine them as a given, would have very large attendant costs to pro-
vide, if that was even possible.
123Social capital is the “capacity to generate social value like friendship, collegiality, trust, respect, and
responsibility.” Cultural capital is the “capacity to inspire and be inspired.” Decision makers too often
make decisions that increase economic capital while decreasing social and cultural capital, both of which
are absolutely necessary for true wealth creation in the community that is sustainable. See Arjo Klamer,
“Property and Possession: The Moral Economy of Ownership,” in Schweiker and Mathewes, 343-5.
Sustainable policies is policies that is undertaken that corresponds to what is purposed and what
is purposed corresponds to a ‘descriptive’ responsibility of the decision makers to promote moral
and sustainable policies that creates real net wealth for the community.126 The result of sustain-
able policies is that it is prejudicial in promoting relationality with God and neighbor, and with
creation. This form of policies does not tend to create victims as both greedy and disproportion-
125To prevent this form of disproportionate policies, I am advocating an ‘industrial ecology’ approach to
decision-making about policies. This approach assumes that the proper economic view of any policies
project is “not in isolation from its surrounding systems, but in concert with them…. Factors to be opti-
mized [and accounted for] include resources, energy, and capital” not at the project level, but at the
community-wide systems level. See T.E. Graedel and B.R. Allenby, Industrial Ecology, 2nd edition (Upper
Saddle, NJ: Pearson Education, 2003), 18.
126The neighborly goals of this form of moral, sustainable policies are, at a minimum, “Social relation-
ships that enable and support active engagement with other persons, therefore, are constitutive of self-
determination.” Thus, we often “face a choice between pursuing the good of social participation for all or
accepting the evil that occurs when the strong dominate the weak or the privileged try to wall themselves
off from the vulnerable” (Hollenbach, 77-8).
Thus, from the perspective of God’s unconditional and unmerited giving to the world and to hu-
man selves, it is heretical for us to act as though economic capital alone is a God with sover-
127 Greedy and disproportionate policies often rationalizes the victimization that occurs by the heretical
doctrine of temporal retribution that posits that since God’s rewards are always just, wealth is God’s re-
ward. Thus the less well off, those who may suffer as a result of the policies is also God’s will, to punish
the sinful. See Gustave Gutierrez, On Job: God-Talk and the Suffering of the Innocent, trans. by Matthew
J. O’Connell (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1987), 22.
128These sections on forms of policies are adapted from Oliver O’Donovan, The Just War Revisited
(Cambridge: Cambridge State Press, 2003), 35, 44, 52.
129This sin “is not just an error or the doing of certain prohibited actions, but…[the] attempt to overreach
our power as creators. It is manifested in our pride and [self-autonomy], but its fundamental form is self-
deception.” See Stanley Hauerwas, The Peaceable Kingdom: A Primer on Christian Ethics, 2nd ed. (Lon-
don: SCM Press, 2003), 46.
130“In the history of God’s dealings with the world, which culminate in Christ, God is seeking in ever-
more perfect ways to communicate to what is not God the fullness of gift relations that constitutes the
perfection of God’s own intra-Trinitarian life.” See Kathryn Tanner, “Economies of Grace,” in Schweiker
and Mathewes, 361, 370-1.
Economic analysis has a roll to play in all decision-making concerning sustainable policies.
What is important is to not lose an “attitude of [Christian] love, hope, reverence, and thankful-
ness” where trust in God is evident.134 For economic analysis is not only merely a tool. It is also
“a fundamental statement about morality” in that “factors that cannot be quantified are, in prac-
tice, simply often not included in the analysis.”135 Thus, what must precede the use of the tools of
economic analysis is addressing the moral questions: is this a policies worthy of a State that val-
ues its reputation and one that wishes to model healthy as opposed to toxic leadership? Does this
project create victims or liberate persons to be in relation with God? Does this project engender
greater relationality with our neighbors? Does this project open up the possibilities for greater
relationality with creation? Is this policies sustainable in that it creates real net wealth for the
community by increasing economic, social, cultural, and natural capital? If not, this project is
131Christians “must learn time and time again that [our] task is not to make the world the kingdom, but to
be faithful to the kingdom by showing to the world what it means to be a community” that remembers
Christ’s cross and resurrection (Hauerwas 2003, 101-3).
133 Cavanaugh, 4.
134 Instead of the question being what do I need or what can I get out of this non-sustainable policies or
what profits can my organization achieve, the central question shifts. “The question becomes what do my
neighbors need?... How may I honor and sustain rather than destroy other people and this creation of
which I am a part?” How can we create real wealth for the entire community we are a part? What we need
is sustainable policies. See David H. Smith and Timothy Sedwick, “Theological Perspectives” in David
H. Smith and Cynthia B. Cohen, eds., A Christian Response to the New Genetics: Religious, Ethical and
Social Issues (Lanham, MD: Rowan & Littlefield, 2003), 5.
At the very least, those of us who count ourselves as members of the community comprising the
State’s sustainable economy of grace, we are called to question and reject non-sustainable poli-
cies based on an embedded non-Christian theology of utilitarianism where economics displaces
rational discourse about what is right and moral and Christian and consideration of effects on so-
cial, cultural, and natural capital. For graced sustainable policies has the potential to create real
net wealth for the community without destroying the God-given natural capital and social and
cultural capital persons need to sustain a good life. Just as “distortion, slanting of facts, misrepre-
sentation of issues” are all “forms of deception that are prohibited” by Christian ethics because it
breaks the bonds of relationship with God, with our neighbor and with God’s very good creation,
“the community is reminded that [policies] is not by any right at all but by God’s gift and God’s
providence.”136 To be Christian, to be in relation with God, with neighbor, and with creation is to
develop God’s very good creation in sustainable ways within an economy of grace.
It is to be hoped that this discussion has provided some food-for-thought concerning how sus-
tainable policies may be approached when the State is thought of as an economy of grace that
creates real wealth for the community rather than fleeting one time monetary gains that turn out
to be dis-economic. My hope is to generate dialogue about a range of creative ideas for protect-
ing and building the State’s reputation for leadership through encouraging sustainable policies
that is conducive to enhancing the living experience for all members of the State community and
engender truly inclusive and respectful dialogue with all members of the State community in any
decision-making process the State engages in related to policies necessary for it to carryon its
primary mission of educating for Christian leadership for a 21st century world.
136Often “those ‘goods’ that one believes one has some claim over,” actually have “become the primary
center of meaning and value in life, the ultimate value and thus the claim that has the force of” a false
god. See Patrick D. Miller, “Property and Possession in Light of the Ten Commandments” in Schweiker
and Mathewes, 27, 39.
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