In the larger context of this section’s interest in the nexus between “scripture and theology” and social and cultural systems of meaning and legitimation, this paper takes up Christopher Watkin’s invitation at ETS 2023 to biblical interpreters (and others) to contribute to biblical critical theory.
It begins by arguing that prophetic critique of Israelite and non-Israelite groups not only condemns specific, isolated moral failures as sin, but ultimately exposes networks of ideas that one might call ideologies (Sypnowich 2019) characterized by idolatrous hubris.
It goes on to analyze the ontological, theological, anthropological, and teleological beliefs and values that support these ideologies and to describe how they come to concrete expression in geopolitical and military projects aimed at moving the world toward a self-determined telos (Xekelaki 2021; Liverani 2017; Wiesehöfer 2009). The paper draws attention to fundamental similarities between the critiques of different “nations” and argues such critiques consistently target not the entire empirical population (e.g., all Babylonians) but more specifically those who promote the ideology and its realization (Kim 2020, cf. Augustine, City of God, 19.24, and Weithman 2006).
Coupling this supra-political dimension of the prophets’ ideological critiques with the biblical paradigm of progressive fulfillment (Watkin 2022: 301), the paper then examines the oracles of Ezekiel 26-28 and transposes their critique of materialism (as a vice and as a metaphysic, Desmond 2013), epistemological autonomy, and self-idolatrous pride to contemporary cultural trends that have unmistakable significance for Christian anthropology and teleology in particular (Barba-Kay 2023; Bauckham 2007; Pfau 2023; Webster 2000). It concludes by complementing this deconstructive dimension of Ezekiel’s message with the book’s constructive presentation of God’s promise to bring creation to its telos as his Spirit radically renews and transforms individuals who subsequently reject the “false imaginations of the world” and pursue the ultimate Good (O’Donovan 2014).