Tag: Christianity and Politics

The Morning the Elders Walked Out on Me

It has happened to me before, but not by so many – and at both services!

I believe that every church elder in the first service, and several congregants and/or visitors in the second service, walked out at the midpoint of my message.

More than that, the elders called me into a meeting between services to tell me why they were so upset and to suggest changes to my next message.  I learned later that one elder wanted to stop me from speaking again altogether.

What did I say that was so upsetting?

No, I was not deconstructing the Trinity or denying Jesus’ incarnation.  Those might have been messages worth boycotting.

My message title was “Seeking God’s Kingdom First and Foremost.”  The Bible passage was basically the Sermon on the Mount, focusing especially on Matthew 6:33, “But seek God’s kingdom and God’s righteousness first, and all these others things (i.e. food and clothing) will be added to you.”

After surveying the specific kingdom righteousness insisted upon by Jesus (reread the Sermon on the Mount) – that is, mercy, peace-making, non-retaliation, non-violence, forgiveness, servanthood, etc. – I then turned to the question of practical application.

Specifically, how might the American church behave differently if everyone claiming to follow Jesus truly lived out Jesus’ command in Matthew 6:33?

What might it look like for our kingdom citizenship to trump (no pun intended, but what’s a writer to do?) our American citizenship?

How should Jesus’ kingdom righteousness over-rule popular views of American righteousness?

Then I got specific. I said, Let’s focus on the priority of being non-violent, merciful peacemakers living in American, the greatest purveyor of death, violence and destruction in the world today.  What should that do to us?  What should we be doing ourselves?

So, I offered a few examples, illustrated with readily available information that every American can look up for themselves.

  • The United States is the largest arms dealer in the world, selling almost half of the military weapons purchased by other developing countries.
  • The United States is arming and enabling Saudi Arabia’s assault on the people of Yemen, contributing to what is now the largest humanitarian crisis in the world.
  • Many hundreds of thousands of people have been killed directly or indirectly during our unending wars in Afghanistan, Iraq and Pakistan, many of whom have been innocent civilians blandly labeled “collateral damage.”

I then suggested that Christians ought to be appalled by America’s participation in such horrors. We can never endorse, much less support, such ruthless destruction.

In fact, as kingdom citizens who are also citizens of a supposed democracy, we should take advantage of the political means at our disposal to speak out, object and strive to change our nation’s addiction to bloodshed and warfare.

THAT is a part of what it means for disciples to be “salt and light in this world” (Matthew 5:11-16).

I then suggested a few practical, local avenues available to those who want to do something in a hands-on way.

Well, the exodus began well before I was even half-way through the statistics on American war-making.  The elders explained that they walked out because I had stopped talking about Jesus and instead “turned to politics.”  The Jesus part was great.  Then the politics ruined everything.

I was told that a church service ought to be a “safe place” for everyone.

Oh my.  Where to being?

My experience provides a text-book example of SO many of the things that have gone wrong with the American church.

  • Since when is worshiping the Holy One and hearing divine revelation supposed to make me always feel safe? Try telling that to Moses as he trembled before the burning bush (Exodus 3:1-6).
  • When honestly proclaimed, the gospel of Jesus Christ comforts the afflicted while afflicting the comfortable.  And the American church is filled with an abundance of oh-so-comfortable people. After all, that is the primary reason many attend church in the first place, to be comfortably confirmed in their comfort zones.
  • This nationalistic, play-it-safe attitude was exactly the mindset of the German Christian church in the 1930s and ‘40s, filled with Nazi sympathizers supporting Adolf Hitler. (See the discussion of this phenomenon in my new book, I Pledge Allegiance: A Believer’s Guide to Kingdom Citizenship in 21st-Century America). I suspect that these folks would have happily listened to politics had it been their brand of Christian nationalist politics. (Actually, I am still mystified as to why raw facts and figures are heard as bad politics…).
  • Recall that Jesus’ says, “Woe to you when everyone has only good things to say about you!” ( Luke 6:26).  In other words, the church is in big trouble if our mission is only to help people feel safe and secure.
  • This sad attitude is perhaps the most damning indication of the American captivity of the church, happily enslaved to US consumerism and the self-help gospel of wealth and success.
  • I strongly suspect that most of these folks are afflicted with consciences horribly numbed by Fox News idolatry. This network has been a scourge in our country and has almost single-handedly transformed historic conservatism (a respectable tradition) into an ungodly, mean-spirited, narrow-minded mob fueled by idolatrous, nationalistic propaganda. Honestly, any “Christian” who depends on Fox as his/her sole/primary source of news and political information ought to repent and be ashamed, be very ashamed.
  • The gospel has always been inherently political. This can only be avoided by truncating the truth. Politics concerns itself with a people’s governance, the management of public interaction/conversation and the exercise of state power. Once you acknowledge the universal sovereignty of the Lord Jesus, become a citizen of the global kingdom of God and submit yourself to Jesus’ instruction in kingdom ethics, it becomes impossible to avoid open confrontation with the public powers-that-be.  Especially when they demand an allegiance contrary to Christ’s rule.
  • Fortunately, the African-American church in this country has always understood this.  Predominantly white churches need to listen and learn from our black brothers and sisters in Christ. We have much to learn. And they have a wealth of experience to share.
  • The fact that these obvious conflicts of interests (and power) go unrecognized by so many (white) folks calling themselves Christians, and then cause such discomfort and bizarre behavior when discussed from the pulpit, illustrates the widespread, colossal failure of American church leaders to engage the gospel fully and to discuss the broad spectrum of its practical application in their teaching.
  • We need to change.

Alas, I could go on, but I will stop here…for now.

P.S.  I must add that after both services, I received much more positive feedback from people who understood the issues involved and were eager to follow Jesus obediently in this dimension of their lives, too.  All in all, it was an encouraging day that demonstrated the Holy Spirit’s work in a way that, I trust, is representative of the church at large.

Sojourners’ “Reclaiming Jesus” and the Sin of Selective Outrage

Jim Wallis and the Sojourners team recently convened a group of Christian leaders at a private retreat in order to pray, lament the state of American politics, and compose a declaration entitled “Reclaiming Jesus: A Confession of Faith in a Time of Crisis.”  The statement’s opening paragraph reads:

We are living through perilous and polarizing times as a nation, with a dangerous crisis of moral and political leadership at the highest levels of our government and in our churches. We believe the soul of the nation and the integrity of faith are now at stake. It is time to be followers of Jesus before anything else—nationality, political party, race, ethnicity, gender, geography—our identity in Christ precedes every other identity. We pray that our nation will see Jesus’ words in us. “By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another” (John 13:35).

Although I agree with 90% of this statement’s agenda, I am afraid I would not be able to sign it (not that I have been asked) because I believe that it contributes to the very polarization it seeks to condemn.

I, too, am outraged at the conduct and the policies of our current presidential administration, but my outrage did not begin with Trump’s election.  Neither has my personal lament been confined to protesting only Republican administrations.

In this respect, the Sojourners statement is no different from the boiler plate criticisms of religious and political progressives made by the religious right.

Where was Sojourners’ outspoken “concern for the soul of our nation” when President Obama embraced and expanded the many violations of American civil liberties begun under President Bush?

They were mute, along with the rest of the Democratic Party establishment.

They were silent as Obama prosecuted more journalists and whistle-blowers under the Espionage Act of 1917 than all previous presidents combined (here, here, and here).

They were silent when Obama misled us about extending the practice of warrantless surveillance.

They remained silent when Obama signed the National Defense Authorization Act enshrining the outrageous practice of “indefinite detention” of American citizens.

They were silent when we catastrophically overthrew the Libyan government, leaving it the failed state of a suffering people that is now free to entertain open-air slave markets.

Where was Sojourners’ call for national repentance when President Obama lied to the American people about the large number of civilian casualties from American drone strikes?

Did they condemn the president as he simply redefined an “enemy combatant” to be any “military aged male” killed by a US drone?  No, they did not.

But, Abracadabra! In a wondrous act of political smoke and mirrors, Obama’s drones suddenly became modern marvels of military accuracy, rarely killing any civilians at all!  (See this report by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism, or this Atlantic article on how Obama paved the way for Trump’s policies today, or this Reprieve report on Obama’s lies).

Where was the collective lament over Obama’s weekly staff meetings where he gathered military advisers to ruminate over his secret “kill list” – a list that included American citizens! – selecting whom they would assassinate next – all free of any public trial, defense, or offering of inculpatory evidence.

No.  I am sorry, but this call for “Reclaiming Jesus” is a statement of religious hypocrisy writ large.

Followers of Jesus who truly understand that their citizenship in the kingdom of God always takes precedence over every political, partisan or national allegiance, will never limit their prophetic critique to only one political party and its representatives.

The gospel of Jesus Christ is an equal opportunity offender.

The Sojourner’s statement can only become acceptable if its authors:

  1. Confess their sin of selective outrage, acknowledging that their silence during the Obama years helped to enable the evil committed under that Democratic administration.
  2. Admit that their own political partisanship has crippled their ability to speak and to be heard today as true, unbiased witnesses to the gospel of Jesus and the kingdom of God.
  3. Determine that “Reclaiming Jesus” is only the first in a series of non-partisan statements that will seek to hold every administration, every political party, and every elected official to identical standards of public righteousness, according to our best understanding of Jesus’ kingdom ethics.

Gerson (1) vs. McKnight (0)

Michael Gerson, a Wheaton College graduate and former speech-writer for President George W. Bush, has written a very good article in The Atlantic magazine (April 28th issue) entitled “The Last Temptation.”

Gerson offers a valuable critique of both (1) the damaging Faustian bargain American evangelicals have made with the Republican party, and (2) the (now forgotten) history of 19th century evangelical social/justice activism.

Gerson laments the ephemeral, and largely reactionary, nature of evangelical social action today.  He says, rightly I think, that “[evangelicalism] lacks a model or ideal of political engagement—an organizing theory of social action…[in contrast to Roman Catholicism which] developed a coherent, comprehensive tradition of social and political reflection.”

Curiously, Scott McKnight responded to Gerson with a critical post at his blog Jesus Creed. The post is called “What Gerson Got Seriously Wrong.” McKnight begins by calling Gerson’s arguments “belabored” and “tired.”  But he takes particular offense at Gerson’s comparison of evangelical and Catholic understandings of social activism.  McKnight insists that evangelicals indeed DO have “an organizing theory of social action.” It can be found in the writings of Francis Schaeffer, who was embodying the political theology of Dutch theologian/politician, Abraham Kuyper.

But Gerson is right and McKnight is mistaken.

Let me note a few points:

First, McKnight’s arguments strike me as an odd example of straining at gnats – and bogus gnats, at that – while swallowing camels.  He focuses on a small part of Gerson’s critique while ignoring the greater substance of his article. Why the lucid restatement of a case that begs for frequent repetition should be called belabored and tired, is beyond me.

Second, McKnight’s reference to Kuyper and his American, evangelical

legacy actually underscores the oddity of McKnight’s defensiveness.

To begin with, Kuyper’s name and legacy is not widely known throughout American evangelicalism.  In fact, McKnight covertly admits as much himself.  For Kuyper’s programmatic book, _Lectures on Calvinism_, was not the book being assigned as required reading for Wheaton students when Gerson was there.  Rather, the assigned text was Niebuhr’s _Christ and Culture_.

The reason for this was simple. Kuyper’s work had minimal influence in this country beyond the Dutch Reformed church.

For McKnight to lift up Francis Schaeffer as the emissary of Kuyper’s social/political theology – a system that does indeed offer a positive alternative to the reactionary, negative politics practiced by evangelicals today – is simply not true.

Francis Schaeffer was the faithful disciple of Cornelius Van Til, not Abraham Kuyper.  Van Til is best remembered for his presuppositional epistemology.  Van Til insisted that, since Christians and non-Christians do not share the same presuppositions about life, it is impossible for us all to share in the same goals.   Schaeffer’s oppositional, us/them mentality bleeds through almost every page of his writings.

Actually, Schaeffer’s main contribution to evangelical political engagement was his laser-like focus on opposing abortion.

And, in my opinion, Gerson is absolutely correct when he includes evangelical anti-abortion folks – Schaeffer’s activist children and grandchildren – as among the most reactionary, negative, self-pitying Christian forces today.  It was Francis Schaeffer, not Abraham Kuyper, who expressed a social/political world-view that started American evangelicalism’s journey down the road of unethical, accomodationist, anti-gospel political expediency that we find ourselves traveling today.

Finally, Gerson highlights some crucial problems with today’s evangelicals.  His historical survey is an important reminder of where our evangelical roots truly lie. It should be applauded and disseminated widely. Professor McKnight’s complaints, however, are petty in comparison to the task now facing the American church, as described by Gerson.