This reflection was written by the College’s principal, the Rev. Dr. Jesse Zink, for this week’s Wingèd Ox, a weekly news digest distributed to the college community. You will find reflections from previous weeks here.
Like many of you, I have been watching the unfolding American-Israeli attack on Iran, and Iran’s response, with varying degrees of horror. But as I have listened to the American administration offer constantly shifting rationales for the war, I have also been thinking about something else: the distinction between means and ends.
When I listen to leaders in the United States, I hear a lot of talk about the means—about how we do something. I hear about the supremacy of American military might, the billions of dollars in munitions that have been used, and the technical superiority of American and Israeli forces. But I have heard much less about the goals to which these means are being put. It is a discourse about tactics but not about strategy.
It has put me in mind of the mid-20th century French lay theologian, Jacques Ellul. In his 1948 book The Presence of the Kingdom, Ellul argues that one of the features of modern civilization is that “everything has become ‘means.’ There is no longer an ‘end’; we do not know whither we are going. We have forgotten our collective ends, and we possess great means: we set huge machines in motion in order to arrive nowhere.” Ellul detects many dangers in this, including that it serves as the ground for authoritarianism, that it effaces conversations about value, and that it extends economic considerations into arenas where they do not belong. But one of the greatest challenges is that it turns human beings—made in the image of God—into means of a greater economic machine. Thinking only in terms of means ends up damaging who we are as people.
Ellul argues that what is unique about Jesus is that he is both a means and an end: “Jesus Christ in his Incarnation appears as God’s means, for the salvation of man and for the establishment of the Kingdom of God, but where Jesus Christ is, there also is this salvation and this kingdom.” That has an important implication for people who follow Jesus: we are to resist being means only and ensure that we are end in ourselves. Our communities should be characteristic, in however imperfect a fashion, of the kingdom which Jesus enacted. In other words, all our Christian living must be shaped by our vision of what God’s action is oriented towards and we must seek to embody that vision in our life together.
Theological education is a means to an end, often ordination or some sort of ministry in the church or world. My experience is that students, particularly at this time of year as the final weeks of the semester come into view, can end up focusing only on the means—do the necessary readings, get that paper complete, pass that exam, and so on. These are very important tasks and are vital to your formation. But they are still only means. I hope that in your time studying in our programs you are also able to continue to listen and discern what is the end and goal towards which God is calling you. It is that vision and that calling that will sustain us all in our ministries.
It seems to be too much to ask the president of the United States to offer a consistent rationale for war in Iran or a description of the end he has in mind. But I hope you at least can keep yourself focused on the ends to which God calls all of us.
Faithfully yours,
Jesse Zink
Principal