What would summer be without the release of an action packed, blockbuster movie?  We’re a culture addicted to displays of power, the proportions of which seem to be increasing, as special effects, high tech weapons and machines get more and more spectacular. Compare, for instance, the original Transformers TV Series with the newly released Transformers 2.

[watch movie action trailer]

[watch first TV episode]

Is it me, or have the those robots gotten a bit more intimidating?  For folks who aren’t sure what tranformers are: they’re a popular toy and TV cartoon introduced in the mid-80s, which spinned off a comic series, games and more recently a couple of movies.  Transformers are alien robots from the planet Cybertron.  They can ‘transform’ themselves, rearranging their bodies into everyday objects, usually vehicles.  At times they will transform into devices or animals. [more info] Unsuspecting humans have no idea that their supposedly harmless cars, trucks or bull-duzors, are actually not what they appear to be.  That is until, on a moment’s notice, they transform into dangerous alien robots.  [watch demonstration]

I think human beings are capable of the same sort of thing.  For instance, in 2 Corinthians 12:2-10 [read text] Paul is embroiled in a rivalry with other teachers who claim to be Christian apostles.  In chapter 11 Paul, being ironic, labels them “super-apostles” (2 Cor. 11:5) for boasting of superior abilities and talents and for claiming miraculous powers of healing.  Paul says they have  “deceived” the Corinthians and led them astray.  In 2 Cor. 11:13-15 Paul goes even further, and accuses his rivals of being ministers of Satan who have “transformed” themselves into apostles of Christ.  To stress this point he uses the same word three times:

μετασχηματίζω  metaschēmatizō: to transform the figure of something [link]

On the other hand, Paul too may be labeled a “transformer.” Postmodern philosopher, John Caputo in his book The Weakness of God [link] cites Paul’s statement in 2 Cor. 12:10, as the moment in which he, Caputo, quietly takes his leave of Paul.  After a long list, boasting of his weaknesses, Paul makes an incredible claim:

Therefore I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities for the sake of Christ; for whenever I am weak, then I am strong. (2Cor. 12:10)

Caputo responds, “Paul inscribes his idea of the weakness of God that is revealed in the cross in a larger economy of power.”  (Weakness of God, 42) For Paul insists that his weakness is not really what it appears to be, but instead “transforms” it into a power play: just another transformer, one that some philosophers claim is a far more dangerous stunt than anything those “ministers of Satan” could have conjured.   As Caputo says, “the power of God is embodied in the helpless body whose flesh is nailed to the cross…” (Weakness, 54) it requires the full renunciation of any and all power tactics, however well disguised. This leaves me begging the question, how are we to tell the transformers apart from the real apostles, if they even exist at all?

In the Transformers first TV episode the story is immediately founded on a rivalry between the forces of good and evil.  They are divided into two factions: the heroic Autobots, led by Optimus Prime, who protect humans, and the evil Decepticons, led by Megatron, who wants to take over the universe.  However each side relies on power to overcome the other.  As long as this is the case, displays of power always provoke new rivalries.  This is precisely the case in this first episode, when one of the Decepticons, jealous of Megatron’s status and authority, boasts that he will take his place some day.

Granted, the Autobots (or “good” robots) seem very willing to spend much of their time as cars or trucks, as good citizens so to speak.  Even so, the moment a rival transformer appears on the scene they immediately transform themselves into ultra-powerful robots.  The conflict between the Autobots and the Decepticons led to the destruction of their home world Cybertron, and now the escalation of their rivalry threatens Earth too.

In 2 Corinthians Paul is being pushed to the limit.  His rivals have clearly gotten the upper hand with the Corinthians, impressing them with their superior display of power.  But this is precisely what identifies them as anything but apostles.  By claiming to possess special knowledge and miraculous powers, they demonstrate that they’re just the same-old pagans in disguise, who have transformed themselves as Christians (Søren Kierkegaard, Christian Discourses, 66).   Like the Emperor boasting of his victories in battle, making such claims as proof of one’s power or authority is first and foremost a power play, and a continual source of rivalry and conflict which undermines the entire community. Paul, on the other hand, chooses a very different tactic.  As biblical-scholar Robert Hamerton-Kelly says, “Rather than enter into rivalry by imitating the opponents’ desire for power and prestige, he enters ironically by imitating the weakness and humiliation of Christ…In weakness the power of Christ to diffuse…. rivalry is most effective; so it is not despite his affliction that Paul is a successful apostle of Christ, but precisely because of it.” (Hamerton-Kelly, Sacred Violence, 175)

For instance, in 2 Cor. 12: 1-5, Paul responds to his rivals’ claims of mystical experiences, a typical claim to knowledge and authority in the ancient pagan world.  Whether or not Paul actually had such an experience, receiving a special communication from God, he, unlike his rivals, is unwilling to boast of it.  First, as we have already noted, to boasting is a power play, which always creates more rivalry, but more importantly, whatever encounter Paul did have with Jesus, or God, it had a negative, rather than a positive effect upon his confidence.  Like Peter, who can never forget that at the crucial moment, he betrayed Jesus three times, Paul full of boasting, in his most arrogant moments, when he was totally convinced he was in the RIGHT, was doing the worst kind of WRONG.  As the 19th century theologian Søren Kierkegaard says, Paul guarded the coats of the executioners while they stoned Stephen, an innocent man, to death (Kierkegaard, Eighteen Upbuilding Discourses, 341) .

For Paul, to encounter the crucified God, is to realize that his own ego, his own judgment, his understanding of right and wrong cannot be trusted. When Paul says he is given a “thorn in the flesh,” sent by a “messenger of Satan,” he refers to the knowledge of his own guilt, which he can not forget (Kierkegaard, Eighteen, 340).  That he, sick with rivalry and heady with power, was on a moment’s notice transformed into a murderer.  The only confidence he is left with is his confidence in his own weakness, which finally allows him to identify with the victim on the cross.   Therefore, the only good he can accomplish, as Kierkegaard says, is in keeping this thorn ever present in his mind.

We are each one of us, alien robots, capable, at a moment’s notice, of being transformed into rivals of our fellow human beings.  When that happens, watch out, it doesn’t matter if you’re an Autobot or a Decepticon… without the self-awareness and humility that Paul has learned, we end up wreaking destruction, doing more evil than good.  -Sue Wright