Can the Social Gospel Be a Form of Idolatry?

Scot McKnight answers this question in the affirmative. Here is his take:

“For [the one] who has lost God the people [or, the nation]can be a first station on [a] new way.” These are the words of Martin Buber, that brilliant Jewish philosopher. He is reflecting here on the loss of his pietist roots in Hasidic Judaism and on his first impulse to channel that former faith into national hopes, into Zionism. Buber in some ways eventually came around to a more religious, Hasidic existential worldview.

But what struck me about this reflection of Buber’s is the need on the part of many (formerly) religious people, Christians included, to launch from their faith orientation into a social orientation. That is, they need to get lost — to give themselves to — a cause, something bigger than their own life. Many shift from the church to society (and sadly think the move is “kingdom” vs. “church”).

Which leads me to ponder whether or not the many today who are now entranced by social justice are expressing not so much a dimension of their faith but a stage on the way of losing that faith.

Has social justice become an idol? Has it become a substitute for God, for personal engagement with God?

Of course, justice is of colossal importance in the Bible, but that justice is always connected to covenant and therefore to piety. The question I am asking is if some need to consider the Why? question in their commitment to social justice. Are they abandoning piety and finding justice to be its substitution?

The struggle for nation will never satisfy; only God can ultimately satisfy.

Interesting in light of the protests/gatherings in Philly yesterday, and the difference in perspective between the Occupy movement, and the Christ-centered gathering led by The Simple Way. One was the social gospel with Christ at the heart, the other doesn’t seem to really have a heart, just anger.

Also, McKnight is not, I believe from reading some of his other writings, saying there is no place for the social gospel. He is simply saying that we should insure our walking toward social goals do not cover a walking away from God. We should be walking there with God in an attempt to bring His Kingdom to bear on the situation. Ignoring the poor is not the solution to this idolatry. There is an equal danger of idolatry at the other extreme, where we expect that God will take care of the poor without our help and we are free to give in to the idolatry of self-centeredness or the idolatry of nation by expecting the “nation” to take care of the poor in place of God and His people.

Rick Santorum’s Theme Song?

Not sure if this effects my vote (or lack thereof), but I can certainly see this becoming an internet sensation. (HT: John Fea)

Another New Definition

Attorney General Eric Holder

Sure, this isn’t quite the same deal as when President Bill Clinton wondered what the definition of “is” was. Still, reading this piece about the current administration’s justification of what they call “targeted killing” of high level Al Qaeda leaders. Here is the beginning of the piece from Talking Points Memo:

The Obama administration believes that executive branch reviews of evidence against suspected al-Qaeda leaders before they are targeted for killing meet the constitution’s “due process” requirement and that American citizenship alone doesn’t protect individuals from being killed, Attorney General Eric Holder said in a speech Monday.

“Due process and judicial process are not one and the same, particularly when it comes to national security,” Holder said. “The Constitution guarantees due process, not judicial process.”

Broadly outlining the guidelines the Obama administration has used to conduct lethal drone stikes overseas, Holder said the U.S. government could legally target a senior operational al Qaeda leader who is actively engaged in planning to kill Americans if the individual (1) posed an imminent threat of violence; (2) could not feasibly be captured; and (3) if the operation was conducted in line with war principles.

Such a use of lethal force against that type of individual, Holder said, wouldn’t violate the executive order banning assassinations or criminal statues because such an act would be in “self defense.” In remarks delivered at Northwestern University Law School in Chicago, Holder also said that targeted killings are not “assassinations,” adding that the “use of that loaded term is misplaced” because assassinations are “unlawful killings” while targeted strikes are conducted lawfully.

Did you catch that? Holder said that targeted killings are not “assassinations”. I’m sorry, but the distinction is lost on me. He also says that due process does not have to involve the judicial branch. Once again, I could be missing something, but isn’t that they point of having a judicial branch? I really think this is a particularly troubling precedent, regardless of your opinion of the administration overall. Especially since a recent application of this principal was a targeted killing of an American citizen who was reportedly working for Al Qaeda. If we can suspend judiciary due process for an American citizen in this case, where do we draw the line? This seems a slippery slope to begin to go down. You can read the rest of the article here.

(HT: Corey Andreasen)

The History of Church vs. State in the U.S.

(Illustration by Jennifer Hewitson / For The LA Times)

John M. Barry offers a little historical perspective on the origins of the church/state relation debate. Not too surprisingly, the debate about the relationship between church and government in the US dates back to the earliest colonies. Barry looks specifically at the Massachusetts Bay Colony and more specifically the thoughts of Roger Williams. Here is a taste. (HT: John Fea)

The church-state conflict began when Puritans, envisioning a Christian nation, founded what John Winthrop called “a citty upon a hill” in Massachusetts, and Williams rejected that vision for another: freedom. He insisted that the state refrain from intervening in the relationship between humans and God, stating that even people advocating “the most Paganish, Jewish, Turkish, or Antichristian consciences and worships” be allowed to pray — or not pray — freely, and that “forced worship stinks in God’s nostrils.”

Yet Williams was no atheist. He was a devout Puritan minister who, like other Massachusetts Puritans, fled religious persecution in England. Upon his arrival in 1631 he was considered so godly that Boston Puritans had asked him to lead their church. He declined — because he considered their church insufficiently pure.

Reverence for both Scripture and freedom led Williams to his position. His mentor was Edward Coke, the great English jurist who ruled, “The house of every one is as his castle,” extending the liberties of great lords — and an inviolate refuge where one was free — to the lowest English commoners. Coke pioneered the use of habeas corpus to prevent arbitrary imprisonment. And when Chancellor of England Thomas Egerton said, “Rex est lex loquens; the king is the law speaking,” and agreed that the monarch could “suspend any particular law” for “reason of state,” Coke decreed instead that the law bound the king. Coke was imprisoned — without charge — for his view of liberty, but that same view ran in Williams’ veins.

Equally important to Williams was Scripture. Going beyond the “render unto Caesar” verse in the New Testament, he recognized the difficulty in reconciling contradictory scriptural passages as well as different Bible translations. He even had before him an example of a new translation that served a political purpose. King James had disliked the existing English Bible because in his view it insufficiently taught obedience to authority; the King James Bible would correct that.

Given these complexities, Williams judged it impossible for any human to interpret all Scripture without error. Therefore he considered it “monstrous” for one person to impose any religious belief on another. He also realized that any government-sponsored prayer required a public official to pass judgment on something to do with God, a sacrilegious presumption. He also knew that when one mixes religion and politics, one gets politics. So to protect the purity of the church, he demanded — 150 years before Jefferson — a “wall of separation between the garden of the church and the wilderness of the world.”

Interesting side note in there about the history of the King James Bible. Funny that it is often seen as the epitome of the unbiased standard against which new version are compared for any attempt to change the language, while it is a biased translation to begin with!

Can Glenn Beck Read?

Dr. John Fea

I’m not so sure after the uproar of the last week or so. It all started with a post by my friend and colleague John Fea. Dr. Fea is the chair of the Department of History here at Messiah College, a thoughtful Christian, and an exemplary historian specializing in early American History. He is very careful to approach his craft in a way that allows his beliefs to inform his work, but never to turn his work into propaganda in support of his views. The furor erupted over what, in my opinion, is a gross inability of Glenn Beck to let the facts stand in the way of a good story that he could gain publicity from.

The kerfuffle is based on an interesting piece by Dr. Fea on Patheos a week or so ago. Dr. Fea points out that President Barack Obama has cited his faith as a part of his policy-making and life at a level that is somewhat unprecedented. In fact, after citing some examples, Dr. Fea makes the statement:

Obama may be the most explicitly Christian president in American history.

Now, this is not a proclamation, of course. Dr. Fea qualifies the statement with “may be”, but Beck and his disciples seem to have not been able to read that part. They have accused Dr. Fea of stating that Obama is the most explicitly Christian president in American history. Here is the whole paragraph in context:

Obama may be the most explicitly Christian president in American history. If we analyze his language in the same way that historians examine the religious language of the Founding Fathers or even George W. Bush, we will find that Obama’s piety, use of the Bible, and references to Christian faith and theology put most other American presidents to shame on this front. I think there may be good reasons why some people will not vote for Obama in November, but his commitment to Christianity is not one of them.

Worse than just missing  the “may be”, they also seem to not know what explicitly means. How Beck, and his disciples, read this as an endorsement of Obama’s theology is beyond me. Dr. Fea does not even say that Obama is, in fact, a Christian, let alone an exemplary one. He is simply saying that Obama has been more public about his claimed faith. He also says that Christians can’t really find fault with his commitment to Christianity as a basis for voting against him. Can we find fault with his personal theology? Sure. Can we disagree with how he thinks his faith should be worked out in policy? Of course. Do we have any real evidence that he is not a Christian or is not committed to his faith? No. Sorry. I didn’t vote for him in 2008, but I have no doubt that he is a Christian, and find claims that he is a Muslim laughable.

Now, one might ask if the problem is that Beck views Dr. Fea as a liberal shill for Obama. The answer is clearly a resounding no, if you take the time to read the rest of the article. Here is the last two paragraphs of the original:

Unfortunately, for all of his religious rhetoric, Obama the president has failed to articulate the faith-based political vision he promised us that night in the tiny village of Grantham, Pennsylvania. His handling of the recent contraception issue was a disaster. He missed a wonderful opportunity to explain his health care proposal—disparaged by the GOP as “Obamacare”—as a direct extension of his Christian convictions to care for the poor and the needy. He has failed in his promise to reduce abortions in the United States and, as a result, protect the weakest and most vulnerable of the “least of these.” His plan to tax the richest members of society is driven by populist rhetoric, but it lacks a prophetic edge informed by the radical implications of Jesus’s teachings in the Gospels.

If Obama wins in 2012, we will see his true colors on matters of faith and policy. Without another election to worry about, he can either turn toward secularism or provide a vision of faith-based political action that would be quite different from what the Christian Right and his GOP rivals are offering. Will we get the Obama of the Compassion Forum or the Obama of the last three years?

This is certainly no endorsement of Obama. This seems to be Dr. Fea calling for Obama to actually deliver on the rhetoric in which he is so “explicitly Christian”. Somehow the few comments I read through seemed to miss this entirely. Perhaps they never bothered to read the second page of the piece? I wish that his pieces would be one page, but it is always worth clicking for page 2 when needed. To raise a furor about this radical professor without actually taking the time to read the whole piece and actually evaluate the claims is another sign of what is wrong with our current political climate, and why I have no way to argue with those Christians who have decided to withdraw from the voting/political process. (see this post from yesterday)

The only redeeming quality about the furor is that perhaps some have read the whole piece and realized that Beck is wrong in his characterization of Dr. Fea. I want to also point my readers to read the whole thing, but also to consider the response of Dr. Fea. After dealing with an inbox and voice-mail box filled with vitriol from those who believed Beck’s lies and misrepresentation, Dr. Fea offered grace-filled response on his blog. Here is a taste, but I suggest that reading the whole thing will give a more balanced perspective on the type of faculty I get to work with here.

I do not want to dwell on this too much.  As a writer I realize that in the United States people are free to disagree.  I guess that comes with the territory.  But I would like to at least make two comments:

1.  I continue to stand by my argument about Barack Obama being the most explicitly Christian president in American history.  Perhaps I could have said this more clearly, but I do not know of any president (certainly not Washington, Adams, or Jefferson, the three presidents who I focused on in my book Was America Founded as a Christian Nation?) who has talked more openly about his Christian faith than Obama.  If future historians judge Obama’s rhetoric in the same way that today’s historians judge the rhetoric of George Washington or John Adams or any other president, they will conclude that Obama has used his faith as part of his public rhetoric to a much greater extent than these Founders.  When I wrote this I was not making a statement about whether Obama utilizes Christian faith correctly or not.  I was rather making a statement about how explicitly Christian Obama’s rhetoric happens to be.

I do not agree with many of Obama’s policies.   Some of my agreements stem from my Christian faith.  I tried to reference some of my disappointment with Obama in my Patheos piece.  But when Obama says he is a Christian, I take him at his word.  I think Jesus said something about he who is without sin cast the first stone.

2.  After what happened to me today I am even more deeply convinced about the need for civil dialogue in America.  You can read the comments for yourself, but I would say that most of the 800 comments on The Blaze have nothing to do with the argument of my piece.  They instead focused on the controversial headline.

But even if some of Glenn Beck’s followers did read the whole piece and concluded that they disagreed with my argument, the level of vitriol I have experienced today has made me concerned for our country.  How can democracy flourish without civility, respect for those with whom we differ, and a sense of mutual understanding?  I continue to believe that the answer lies in education, particularly in history and the other humanities.  It is these disciplines that have the potential to bring meaningful change to the world because they are rooted in virtues such as intellectual hospitality, empathy, understanding, and civility.

My Christian faith and my vocation as a historian remind me that we are human beings, created in the image of God, and thus worthy of respect.  My Christian faith and my vocation as a historian calls me to listen to those with whom I might disagree and perhaps even learn something from them.  To do otherwise is a failure to love my neighbor (Mt. 22:39–I did not feel much love from my Christian brothers and sisters who wrote to me today).  My Christian faith and my vocation as a historian teaches me humility and reminds me that sometimes I may need to sacrifice my own deeply held convictions for a better opinion.

Democracy does not require us to abandon our most cherished beliefs.  Far from it.  Democracy implies that we bring our cherished beliefs to the public arena (and the Internet) with vigor.  A democracy offers the opportunity to debate others with whom we differ and try to convince them–rationally and civilly–to come over to our point of view.  As Christians, we are required by God to love our enemies, but in the process we might even learn something from them.  The cultivation of this kind of democratic culture is America’s best hope.

Thanks, John, for being willing to model Christian grace and civility despite the mean-spirited nature of the attacks on him. If Beck (who ironically is a Mormon, which many Christians would classify as outside orthodox faith), had offered the same grace-filled response to Dr. Fea and started a dialogue, the situation might have caused more growth and understanding, rather than furthering the negative nature of politics in the US. I am thankful that there are still moderate voices who seek to understand and reason with others, rather than simply out-shout their opponents. If I had any respect for Glenn Beck, this might have been the final straw. Of course, I lost my respect for Beck long ago, and this situation seems in conflict with his pledge of nonviolence which promised more civility.

———————————-

Note: I am intentionally not linking to Beck’s website which helped escalate the issue since driving more hits for him would only compound the problem since it would encourage him to continue making money off of this type of con.

Also, comments that resort to personal attacks or add to the vitriol will not be approved, or will be deleted. Comments adding voices to the discussion in a civil fashion are welcomed.

Chris Smith on Why He Abstains from Voting

Chris Smith (photo from GoodReads)

I resonated with much of a piece from Chris Smith from Relevant Magazine. Relevant is currently in the process of offering a series of Christian perspectives on politics. (Previous posts come from a Christian Libertarian, Christian Republican and a Christian Democrat.) Chris is offering an explanation for his choice not to vote. I’ll give you a taste of his philosophy, and then offer some opinions.

“America, it may be, is doing very well upon the whole, notwithstanding these antics of the parties and their leaders, these half-brained nominees, the many ignorant ballots, and many elected failures and blatherers.”  —Walt Whitman

Whitman’s words ring as true today as they did when he penned them over a century ago. And although my rationale may differ from Whitman’s, I think these words get to the heart of why, for almost two decades, I have chosen not to vote.

Let me begin with the caveat that I don’t condemn people who vote. Rather, I simply believe voting is not the most important political practice of the Church—and I am part of a church community where a few of my brothers and sisters share this conviction.

My opposition to voting is rooted primarily in the narrative of Christ’s incarnation. Jesus was born and lived in a particular time and place; the kingdom He proclaimed did not seek to overthrow the Roman Empire and re-order society from the top down. Instead, He sought to reenergize the grassroots social order of YHWH begun in Ancient Israel, a locally embodied polis that functioned most healthfully without a king. Jesus called 12 disciples, a little community that recalled the 12 tribes of Israel, and they shared life together in a way that proclaimed God’s healing and abundance to the people they encountered.

After Jesus’ ascension, His disciples spread throughout the world planting little communities that embodied Jesus in their own particular places. These churches were, in a very real sense, the incarnation of Jesus in these places and the shape of their life together modeled a politics—a way of being together—that was not rooted in greed, power-grabbing or any form of self-interest. (If you want to know more about politics embodied in church communities, I suggest you read John Howard Yoder’s little book Body Politics.) This basic incarnational story of Christ and the Church is the one in which I and my brothers and sisters at Englewood Christian Church on the Near Eastside of Indianapolis find ourselves.

Our main political task, as a local church community, is to follow the mission of God in the church and thus to embody Jesus faithfully in our place and to work with our neighbors toward the health and flourishing of our neighborhood. Whitman’s assumption that there are more important political realities in our land than our elected officials rings true for me. According to theological narrative I have defined here, churches are the most important of these political realities, but also more important is the open dialogue and collaboration of neighbors as they seek to cultivate their places in such a way that they flourish and can be sustained. To invest ourselves in this political work is a viable alternative to voting, and perhaps more effective in shaping the future of our places.

Over the last decade, I have moved decidedly closer to this perspective, but I have not yet fully endorsed it. I have, however taken the attitude that I will not vote along strict party lines, and I will not vote in any election in which I do not feel that I know enough about the candidates to make an educated vote. This has resulted in skipping mid-term elections at times when I have to admit that I am uneducated. At other times, I have voted in some races, but left others blank. The situation continues to be exacerbated by my growing conviction that Chris is correct that local action and involvement in Christ’s movement through His Church is more essential than any election, local or national. If I have the choice between educating myself about the election or acting locally (even simply ministering to my family), I will always choose to act. This has lead to an increasing disconnect and lack of involvement in much of politics. You will likely find my posts here to be devoid of partisan politics unless my theology leads me to find fault or credit due to one side. I think that the world has seen enough of the Church getting distracted in search of earthly power rather than focusing on spreading the Kingdom in which we really claim our true citizenship.

Thanks, Chris, for you insightful piece, and for further stirring my wrestling with the Spirit as to the appropriate response. I look forward to finding time to talk in person some time when we are out in Indy or your family is back in PA!

Herman Cain vs. John Wesley

Presidential Candidate Herman Cain

An interesting article on Tony Campolo’s Red Letter Christians blog. This piece was written by Morgan Guyton (who I’m not familiar with), but it is an interesting look at the tempting American perspective of personal responsibility. His piece is so good I’ll copy it here in its entirety. You can respond in the comments below or on the original post here.

——————————-

“If you don’t have a job and you’re not rich, blame yourself.” Thus says Herman Cain to the unemployed Wall Street protestors. I understand why he said it. He wants to live in a world where the American Dream works, where being optimistic and entrepreneurial and hard-working guarantees success. Cain wants for blame to be something that is distributed neatly and perfectly between individual people. This could be described as an ethic ofindividual responsibility.

In a different context, Cain credits God’s grace for his fortune: “As you get older, your faith gets stronger because of your own personal experiences where you know the only way you could have made it through some of those personal experiences was by the grace of God.” This way of understanding our dependence on God’s grace is often termed the doctrine ofdivine providence.

The question is whether these two belief systems are compatible. Can you say at the same time that people are individually responsible for their success or failure but then credit their success to the grace of God? I would argue that the humility of knowing your dependence on God’s grace ought to keep you from saying something like “If you’re not rich, blame yourself.” If you really believe that you stand on God’s grace, that means your work ethic, intelligence, and creativity are to God’s credit, not yours, which disqualifies using these qualities as a soapbox from which to judge other people. A lot of Christians want to get credit for the humility of believing in divine providence while retaining the right to judge others based on an ethic of individual responsibility.

John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, lived in a very different time than ours. He framed his entire theology around the concept of divine providence. His understanding of our dependence on God led him to believe that the rich were supposed to take care of the poor. Instead of saying, “If you’re not rich, blame yourself,” Wesley said, “If I die rich, blame me.” Here’s exactly how he put it in 18th century language: “If I leave behind me ten pounds [when I die]… you and all mankind bear witness against me, that I have lived and died a thief and a robber.” Wesley believed that there was nothing wrong with making money as long as you spent all of it helping the poor after “supplying thy own reasonable wants, together with those of thy family.”

In his sermon “The More Excellent Way,” Wesley explains that all wealth belongs to God and is given to those who have it for the purpose of taking care of others:

You may consider yourself as one in whose hands the Proprietor of heaven and earth and all things therein has lodged a part of his goods, to be disposed of according to his direction. And his direction is, that you should look upon yourself as one of a certain number of indigent persons who are to be provided for out of that portion of His goods wherewith you are entrusted.

Wesley assumed that being truly dependent on God’s grace meant seeing ourselves as “indigent persons” (poor). People who have money have the God-given responsibility to help those who don’t. If Christians lived according to Wesley’s vision, none of us would have financial security but it wouldn’t matter because everyone would trust God and lean on each other. When Wesley saw that members of his Methodist movement were adding small luxuries to their life as they increased their wealth, he ripped into them in his “Causes of the Inefficacy of Christianity”:

But you say, you can ‘afford’ it! O be ashamed to take such miserable nonsense into your mouths…. Can any steward ‘afford’ to be an errant knave? To waste his Lord’s goods? Can any servant ‘afford’ to lay out his master’s money any other wise than his master appoints him?

Wesley was utterly scandalized that anyone could spend more money than necessary on themselves. He contradicts the views of people like Herman Cain most squarely when heblames the rich among his followers for the plight of their poor brethren:

Many of your brethren, beloved of God, have not food to eat; they have not raiment to put on; they have not a place where to lay their head. And why are they thus distressed? Because you impiously, unjustly, and cruelly detain from them what your Master lodges in your hands on purpose to supply their wants!

Whereas today wealth is supposedly the measure of hard work and diligence, in Wesley’s sermon “The Mystery of Iniquity,” he writes that poverty is the greatest virtue:

As long as the Christians in any place were poor they were devoted to God. While they had little of the world they did not love the world; but the more had of it the more they loved it. This constrained the Lover of their souls at various times to unchain their persecutors, who by reducing them to their former poverty reduced them to their former purity. But still remember: riches have in all ages been the bane of genuine Christianity.

I’m sure that somebody will say Wesley was just an oddball and he certainly was, but his views on wealth and poverty are far closer to the  norm of historical Christianity than our age’s view that wealth shows our virtue. For most of Christian history, poverty was idealized because it meant putting your full trust in God. Part of the difference between Wesley’s vantage point and ours is that he was writing in a time when the values of capitalism were only starting to replace the values of feudalism that had preceded them.

The glue that held the feudal order together was the doctrine of divine providence, the idea that everything in creation belonged to God and everyone had a place within this order. The king’s privilege and power were accompanied by an awesome responsibility for his subjects, each of whom had a certain acreage of land to tend for God and their king. If kings were not so easily corrupted by their power, then this order grounded in divine providence might have worked. Because divine providence was associated with the corruption of feudal Christendom, the presumptions that frame our secular society and free-market economy push in the entirely opposite direction.

The ethic of individual responsibility that people like Herman Cain are trying to make “Christian” is actually the core of the secular humanist response to feudal Christendom’s understanding of divine providence. It is secular to think of our wealth as something we’ve earned and can use how we please instead of seeing it as a gift from God to use for His purpose. It doesn’t mean anything to piously credit your fortune to “the grace of God” unless you really see it as an unmerited gift. So many Christians today want to talk one way when the topic is economics and another way when the topic is religion.

John Wesley really believed that God has given us everything we have to share with others. And while I don’t think we should return to feudalism, I do think that divine providence lays the foundation for a better world than the world of individual responsibility we have now. It’s also more honest. As Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 4:7, “What do you have that you did not receive? And if you received it, why do you boast as if it were not a gift?” Everything that we have ever accomplished is the result of skills and habits that were cultivated in us through the guidance of parents, teachers, and mentors over the course of our life. To falsely individualize our accomplishments is to mock all the people who have made us who we are and the God who has worked through all who helped us because He loves us. We are the product of a community investment in our success ordered by the “invisible hand” of divine providence.

In one sense, Herman Cain is right. As Christians, we shouldn’t blame anyone else if we’re not rich; we should instead thank God for sparing us the treacherous temptations of wealth. The richer we are, the more we should blame ourselves if people around us are suffering because we haven’t shared what God gave us to share with them. In truth though, “blame” shouldn’t be part of Christian vocabulary. Jesus took the blame on the cross so that we could simply be grateful as the foundation for everything we do with whatever God has given us to share.

Politics and Faith: Does the Bible Endorse One Side?

Is this an oxymoron?

An insightful piece on the Black, White, and Gray blog on Patheos. Bradley Wright explains why he is a “political agnostic”. Here is a taste:

With presidential elections coming up, we’ll hear a lot more about every aspect of politics, including its link to religion—especially Christianity.  I would like to step back and ask a very simple question: Is it possible to derive a distinct political position or affiliation from the tenets of the Bible?  My answer is “probably not.”

Trying to fit Christian beliefs into a specific political stance seems to be putting a square peg into a round hole—it just doesn’t fit.  There are two major problems in trying to translate Christian faith into politics.

The first problem is which aspect of the faith do you want to emphasize?

Some parts of Christianity resonate with the right.  Poverty comes from being lazy, but hard work brings wealth, according to Proverbs 10, which could be used to argue against welfare programs.  God knit us together in the womb, Psalm 139, which could support an anti-abortion position.

Other parts of Christianity resonate with the left.  Jesus told a rich man to sell his goods and give them to the poor (Matthew 19).  After Jesus died, and his followers started the church, what did they do?  They sold all their possessions and redistributed the wealth to those in need (Acts 4).

Still other parts of Christianity seem to pull us away from political involvement altogether.  Jesus didn’t speak much about how Roman governance should be reformed, and when he said to “give to Caesar what is Caesar’s,” (Matthew 22) he seemed to supporting the political status quo.

Christianity presents a clear, coherent message on how we live, but it just doesn’t readily translate into any one political stance.

The second, and perhaps more daunting problem, comes with making policy.  Once we know what are values are, which do we translate into government policy and which do we keep in the realm of private life?

I know that I have a lot of friends on both sides of the issue. Reading my Facebook feed when political news comes up is always a study in contrasts (like the Occupy Wall Street protests right now). I always feel Wright’s tension at those times. Both sides make points that I feel connect well with my faith. The difficulty is trying to figure out where we draw the line between personal lifestyle and public policy. You can read the rest of his piece here.

Who Is My Enemy?

Interesting thoughts for Christians. We know Jesus’ answer to the question about who is my neighbor (anyone who is in need that we have the means to help), and we know the answer to what we are expected to do to our enemies:

⁴³ “You have heard that it was said, ‘YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR and hate your enemy.’ ⁴⁴ But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, ⁴⁵ so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven; for He causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. ⁴⁶ For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? ⁴⁷ If you greet only your brothers, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? ⁴⁸ Therefore you are to be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect. (Matthew 5. 43-48, NASB)

But who is our enemy? If we count Muslims as our enemies, as many Americans do, Christians are held to the standard of praying for them and loving them. Does this characterize my perspective toward them? Not always, if I’m honest. I don’t generally hate them, so I may be better than most, but I fall far short of the standard set here by the Messiah. How can I get to know Muslims better, and better love them? I also need to be praying for them, especially those who hate me most and wish to persecute my brothers and sisters in their countries (think some in Egypt, Lybia, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Iran, etc.). Thanks to Matt Hunter to pointing me to information about a new book that I have added to my Amazon.com wish list. Here is an intro from the author. You can find a couple more videos here.

A Response to Pat Robertson

Pat Robertson: At It Again

Recently Pat Robertson told his 700 Club viewers that he would not fault someone who divorced their spouse who had dementia. Most Christians shake their head at just another Pat Robertson statement. Many Christians probably worry about the perception of skeptics who might use Robertson as a reason to discredit the faith. I debated whether to even comment. I recently asked him to be quiet, so why comment again? Well, thanks to my friend, and blog post motivator, Josh Wood who not only sent me the link above to the Yahoo! report on Robertson, he sent me a post that linked to this eloquent response from Russell Moore. Here is a large piece of his post:

Marriage, the Scripture tells us, is an icon of something deeper, more ancient, more mysterious. The marriage union is a sign, the Apostle Paul announces, of the mystery of Christ and his church (Eph. 5). The husband, then, is to love his wife “as Christ loved the church” (Eph. 5:25). This love is defined not as the hormonal surge of romance but as a self-sacrificial crucifixion of self. The husband pictures Christ when he loves his wife by giving himself up for her.

At the arrest of Christ, his Bride, the church, forgot who she was, and denied who he was. He didn’t divorce her. He didn’t leave.

The Bride of Christ fled his side, and went back to their old ways of life. When Jesus came to them after the resurrection, the church was about the very thing they were doing when Jesus found them in the first place: out on the boats with their nets. Jesus didn’t leave. He stood by his words, stood by his Bride, even to the Place of the Skull, and beyond.

A woman or a man with Alzheimer’s can’t do anything for you. There’s no romance, no sex, no partnership, not even companionship. That’s just the point. Because marriage is a Christ/church icon, a man loves his wife as his own flesh. He cannot sever her off from him simply because she isn’t “useful” anymore.

Pat Robertson’s cruel marriage statement is no anomaly. He and his cohorts have given us for years a prosperity gospel with more in common with an Asherah pole than a cross. They have given us a politicized Christianity that uses churches to “mobilize” voters rather than to stand prophetically outside the power structures as a witness for the gospel.

But Jesus didn’t die for a Christian Coalition; he died for a church. And the church, across the ages, isn’t significant because of her size or influence. She is weak, helpless, and spattered in blood. He is faithful to us anyway.

If our churches are to survive, we must repudiate this Canaanite mammonocracy that so often speaks for us. But, beyond that, we must train up a new generation to see the gospel embedded in fidelity, a fidelity that is cruciform.

It’s easy to teach couples to put the “spark” back in their marriages, to put the “sizzle” back in their sex lives. You can still worship the self and want all that. But that’s not what love is. Love is fidelity with a cross on your back. Love is drowning in your own blood. Love is screaming, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me.”

Sadly, many of our neighbors assume that when they hear the parade of cartoon characters we allow to speak for us, that they are hearing the gospel. They assume that when they see the giggling evangelist on the television screen, that they see Jesus. They assume that when they see the stadium political rallies to “take back America for Christ,” that they see Jesus. But Jesus isn’t there.

Jesus tells us he is present in the weak, the vulnerable, the useless. He is there in the least of these (Matt. 25:31-46). Somewhere out there right now, a man is wiping the drool from an 85 year-old woman who flinches because she think he’s a stranger. No television cameras are around. No politicians are seeking a meeting with them.

But the gospel is there. Jesus is there.