in which the Okies observe that whenever a man with a clipboard writes something down you own less - Continuing With Walter Brueggemann's Slow Wisdom

Third. The triad of fidelity is deeply situated in the tradition, whereas the triad of control traffics in syllogisms and memos. Syllogisms reflect controlling reason that yields a kind of thin certitude about which there is no argument.  And memos are unambiguous notes of power. As David's memo to Joab about the death sentence of Uriah [2 Samuel 11:14-15] or Jezebel's memo that was a death sentence for Naboth [1 Kings 21:8-10]. Such writing as control is reflected in Steinbeck's Grapes of Wrath, in which the Okies observe that whenever a man with a clipboard writes something down you own less.  And, of course, that process of writing memos continues in our time.  Notices from the bank, all of whose writers would like to be neighborly but the rules preclude it.  

Since the 17th century such reasoning has declared war on tradition.  And now the assault on tradition continues in the reduction of reality to sound bites, the reduction of hymns to praise hymns, and the delete button that can erase into innocent amnesia.

But communities of steadfast, justice and righteousness have long memories and deep hopes and do not believe that instantaneous satisfaction is an adequate displacement for remembering and anticipating. Jeremiah calls that tradition The Way.  "Let me go to the rich and speak to them, surely they know The Way of The Lord, the Torah of our God.  And, then, if they will diligently learn the Ways of my People and say as The Lord lives then they shall be built up."  [Jeremiah 5:5]

Broadly construed The Way refers to The Torah of The Lord, not only the commandments but the instruction and the lore. So the Psalter begins "Happy are those who do not follow the advice of the wicked or walk in the path of sinners but their delight is in The Torah of The Lord, they meditate on it day and night."  The Torah is the entire legacy of being bound in convenantal fidelity and covenantal obedience. And this order provides that personal practice and public policy will cohere with the transcendent purposes of God.

The force of Torah aims to resist autonomy wherein one imagines unfettered freedom without responsibility.  Freedom to seize what belongs to another because of more power or freedom to exploit the vulnerable neighbor.

In the end Torah is Israel's testimony  to the covenantal shape of social existence. That the world is organized according to steadfast love, that the economy is to be engaged according to neighborly justice,. that the political culture is to be shaped by righteousness that is the work of the common good. The entire purpose of liberal arts, I suggest, is to help students situate themselves in a summoning tradition that refuses the autonomy of enlightenment reason with its concomitant of consumer seduction.

The triad of fidelity excuse the seduction of the reasoning of autonomy, it fends off the counter temptation of absolutism. It refuses absolutism through the ongoing disputatious practice of interpretation. So that the old Torah cannot just be read.  And there can be no recourse to the original intention or what we call originalism, which is to misconstrue the tradition. Because it is the great work of the university to nurture competent hermeneutists who refuse the easy relativism of popular culture and who refuse the temptation to absolutism whether of God or sect or country. The tradition requires interpretive agility that knows that the memory is the beginning point but never the conclusion. The tradition is always being reformulated in radical contemporaneity with deep rootage that is not deleted by interpretation.  

Don't know what the banks he uses is like but around here, if you want even the desire to be neighborly, you go to a credit union.  And even some of those the neighborliness is thin on the ground, thinner than a banker manager's smile.  Though I'm sure even some of those who work at the bank would like to be nicer, they know their job is at stake if they try it. 

In the end Torah is Israel's testimony  to the covenantal shape of social existence. That the world is organized according to steadfast love, that the economy is to be engaged according to neighborly justice, that the political culture is to be shaped by righteousness that is the work of the common good. 

It would be hard to find a more brief or complete opposition to virtually all of the modernistic, enlightnement, scientistic, materialistic, atheistic assertion of what is real, what is rational, what is scientifically demonstrated (but only if you ignore the methods of science) and what any wise guy of any sophistication would believe than this passage.   Any commercial expression of it like in a made-for-TV movie would make it cloyingly impotent in its palpable insincerity, in sincerity demonstrated as soon as the commercial break comes if the expensive costumes, cars and settings didn't clue you into that from the start.  If there is anything that is more of a repugnant overturning of Christianity than a Christmas Movie, it is the treatment of the Torah in Hollywood "Bible" epics, then and more recently.  

Sorry but I've been reminded repeatedly why I hate the movies and TV so much recently. 

I may just present some of the rest of this without much of my commentary because I'm running out of time before Christmas and I'm kind of busy with non-Christmas things, too.