The Bible reinterpreted as a story about escape and migration. A Catholic “theologian” calls for a rereading of the Gospel in the perspective of “Christianity with a migration matrix.” Spiritual excellence, germinated from Roman Catholic social teaching.
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Bible is a book of migration and flight
The “theologian” Dr Regina Polak shows how one can reinterpret the Gospel for specific purposes by overemphasizing certain excerpts and, if this is not enough, by tearing contexts apart and thus creating completely new perspectives, i.e. so-called “alternative facts”. She studied philosophy and theology in Vienna and “Spiritual Theology” in Salzburg. Her main focuses at the Catholic Theological Faculty at the University of Vienna include spirituality, research on religion and values, and finally migration.
On the subject of migration, Polak believes that she has found such a strong focus in the Bible that she apparently feels called upon to proselytize her view of “Christianity with a migration matrix.” The “theologian” gave a lecture on this at the Catholic Academy in Freiburg (Source).
Hardly any stories about heroes
The Bible is full of “flight and expulsion”. But heroic stories are hardly included, says Polak. People are persecuted, have to flee, become victims and then, thanks to God’s promise, regain their ability to act in order to take their lives into their own hands. There are many stories, prayers and legal texts in the Old and New Testaments. The Bible tells us that faith also includes setting off and following the path.
God chooses the “weak.”
Actually, one would have to assume that the trained “theologian” should not have missed the fact that God never chose “the heroes” and “supermen” in order to demonstrate His actual power on the chosen one. A very well-known example would be the youthful David, who felled Goliath with a simple slingshot.
Moses, raised in Egypt and raised as an Egyptian, was in exile and already 80 years old when God chose him to lead Israel out of slavery. Even Israel’s actual exodus could only be described as a stream of refugees for a very short time, because the persecutors under the “powerful” Pharaoh Tutmose III very quickly came to an inglorious end.
The entry into the promised land of Canaan after 40 years of wandering through the desert was anything but a migration. It was a God-directed takeover of the land. At the same time, this was the execution of the judgment that God had long since passed against the Gentiles living there. The “custom” in Canaan was the sacrifice of people, especially children, to the “god” Moloch and also cannibalism. A fact that is often forgotten in this context.
Daniel was still a teenager when he was kidnapped from Jerusalem to Babel by the Chaldeans and soon afterwards, guided by God, he interpreted the dream of King Nebuchadnezzar. Joseph, Jacob’s youngest son at the time, was also sold by his brothers when he was an adolescent, first to traveling traders and ultimately to Egypt. Joseph ultimately controlled the country’s fortunes as the highest official under Pharaoh.
The Bible offers no Hollywood heroes
What kind of heroes did the “theologian” actually expect? Something about those “heroes” that Hollywood and Co. impressed on our minds over many decades? Those heroes with the “white cowboy hat” who end up outgunning the villain with the “black cowboy hat”? Are these supposed to be the “heroes” where the spellbound viewer takes a deep breath after the slaughter of a “bad guy” and is reassured because the “lousy pig” has finally received his deserved punishment?
The glorification of these “heroes” has gone so far in the newer films that the viewers, who long for the satisfaction of the “sense of justice”, are served an increasingly cruel, martial depiction of a real execution of the villain carried out in slow motion. A cool saying from the “hero” at the end rounds off the enjoyable climax. The message: “This is how justice works.” Admired, adored, the red carpet rolled out.
No. There are no such “heroes” in the Bible. This is Hollywood (Jesuit theater), but not the gospel. Hollywood glorifies self-righteousness and vigilantism. But the gospel speaks of the exclusive justice of God or Jesus Christ. The “hero epic” couldn’t be more different.
Faith and migration?
In order to connect breaking out and taking new paths according to faith with migrant movements, it takes a certain unscrupulousness in order not to turn scarlet when uttering such theses. What’s next? The convert from Catholicism to Protestantism is a “faith migrant” and the converter from Islam to Christianity is a “faith refugee”?
Bible knows no nations
For the “theologian” the story of the “fugitives” begins in the Garden of Eden. Man has been expelled from paradise and is then “stranger” on earth. Furthermore, the “authors of the Bible” did not set out to “idealize or trivialize” migration and displacement. Polak called for the Bible to be reread from the perspective of migration and flight.
According to the theologian, direct political and legal recommendations for action for the present cannot be derived from the Bible. “The historical gap is far too big” for this. In addition, the stories of the Bible know no nationality, no passports and no nation states.
Completely suppressed the reason
The “theologian” with a doctorate and research work at a university certainly knows the reason for the (two) people being expelled from paradise. At least, from their point of view, how the “authors” portrayed it in their narrative style. In fact, man is a stranger in this world. But this only applies to people who are fundamentally “remote from the world” but are believers and God-fearing people. This strangeness, in the bible also expressed as “pilgrimate”, is no coincidence and the reason is clearly explained in James 4:4.
Jacob (Israel) also knew his position in this world and accordingly he answered Pharaoh when he asked about his age, Genesis 47:9:
“The days of the years of my pilgrimage are an hundred and thirty years: few and evil have the days of the years of my life been, and have not attained unto the days of the years of the life of my fathers in the days of their pilgrimage.“
Jacob sees himself as a stranger and a guest on earth. In Hebrews 11:13 it is explained again that believers in “this world” are guests and strangers, because their home is somewhere else entirely:
“These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off, and were persuaded of them, and embraced them, and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth.“
The reason for this “constellation” is the same as the expulsion of “humanity” from paradise. It is sin. With a certain “modest reluctance” not to address the reason, the “theologian” also avoided portraying the expulsion and thus the “escape” and the status of “needing protection” for what it is. Self-inflicted. It would have been only a tiny step to claim that God threw both people out of Eden for racist reasons.
Does the Bible still serve as a basis?
The question arises as to whether the “researching theologian” actually had the Bible in her hands and not just any prose. The Bible knows nothing about nation states and nothing about nationalities, says Polak. Passports are moot, but at least Paul, in his distress in Macedonia, was able to prove that he was a citizen of Rome. It was about jurisdiction and as a Roman (nationality) you were subject to the court of Rome (state) and not to the local judiciary in an area (state) that was tributary to Rome.
One asks oneself, what is the “theologian” even talking about? The (real) Bible is teeming with countries, nations, states and corresponding inhabitants or peoples with corresponding nationality. The most well-known certificate of citizenship is a wooden board with the inscription:
“Iesus Nazarenus Rex Iudaeorum” (“Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Judeans”)
The Judean was a resident of the Roman-occupied nation of Judah. An Israeli lived in the nation of Israel. An Egyptian was native to Egypt, etc. etc.
An excerpt from 2. Chronicles 32:15:
“for no god of any nation or kingdom was able to deliver his people out of mine hand“
There are also “robust” statements regarding nations, as Isaiah 10:6 shows:
“I will send him against an hypocritical nation, and against the people of my wrath will I give him a charge, to take the spoil, and to take the prey, and to tread them down like the mire of the streets.”
The claim that there are no nations in the Bible is simply unrealistic and clearly an intentional use of the narrative of globalization in the sense of the “integrated, assimilated” human family. So it’s entirely Roman Catholic social teaching and the “theologian” proves this with her further explanations about property rights and distribution.
The earth does not belong to anyone
Polak shows that she is inspired by the spirit of “Rerum Novarum” and “Fratelli Tutti” through her thesis that Christians must bring a “religious, migrant perspective of perception” into the current debates about migration and asylum. The Bible says in many places that the earth does not belong to anyone. The ownership claim must be distributed equally to “foreigners” and “residents”. It is therefore not biblical to speak of “anonymous flows of migrants and floods of migrants” today.
Preach water, drink wine?
One can say with complete confidence that the “theologian” will hand over a significant portion of her belongings to a “stranger” who knocks on the door with a smile of Christian charity. She has two televisions in the household, but the “stranger” doesn’t have one? He therefore has a need and, according to Catholic social teaching, even the right to take one of these devices. Polak preaches exactly this based on her idiosyncratic interpretation of biblical statements.
When looking at Catholicism, one cannot be entirely sure whether the head of the church, known as the “Holy Father”, is still viewed as a human being made of flesh and blood. Or whether he, as “vicarius Christi”, constantly hovers above the ground at a distance of at least two thumbs’ width. You don’t need to ask the Pope himself about this, because his ring needs to be kissed and so does his self-image (Info).
There were one and another popes who successively asserted the church’s right of ownership (birthright) over the earth, over the human body and even over the human soul. After all, the church was the “body of Christ.” The possessions of the Papal States based in Rome have long since become elusive. Isn’t it time, as a shining example, to start distributing the collected treasures to all people with their equal rights?
Conviction or self-recommendation – it doesn’t matter
Whether from your own conviction, or just as a self-recommendation (to Munich) in the hope of a career boost, it doesn’t matter, it is a prime example of the misuse of the gospel through total mutilation of the actual context.
One wonders why such “academics”, who after long consideration have finally found a meaning for their activities, want to live out their strong urge for self-expression using the gospel of all things. Extensive transformations of content ultimately worked with the writings of Socrates, Plato, Josephus Flavius as well as with the themes of Alice in Wonderland, Harry Potter, Star Wars and especially Lord of the Rings. The Catholicism that this “theologian” represents is much closer to the examples listed than to the Gospel, but the use of “Christianity” as a label for the bottle with such foul contents is pure label fraud.
The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God. They are corrupt, they have done abominable works, there is none that doeth good.
Psalm 14:1
Bible verses from King James Version
