Political Action and the Kingdom of God
Written by Mark Van Steenwyk : December 27, 2007
The election has already dominated the news for months…but soon we’ll be into primary season. We’ll only hear more and more about the candidates until the elections in November. Meanwhile Christians will struggle over which candidate to vote for–if they intend to vote at all. And in the midst of it all, they’ll wonder how they–and they’re church–can best bring about the sorts of societal changes for which they long. Some radically embrace a candidate in hopes that he or she will bring real and lasting change. Others carefully and skeptically get involved in the political system, knowing that it is a messy, unclean system–but one they cannot ignore.
Others (like me I suppose), wash their hands of the whole mess. Folks like us affirm the sentiment of Dorothy Day when she said: “Don’t vote–it will just encourage them!”
Some folks advocate a strong counter-cultural ethic of direct action to address issues like poverty, racism, etc. Others suggest being active in the American political system. Still others strive for a balance between those two poles. How should we go about “doing” the politics of Jesus?
Exposing Some Political Assumptions
There are at several common assumptions that American Christians make when engaging in politics:
1) Legislation should enforce Christian ethical standards. This assumption is made by people from both sides of the aisle (and among people in the middle). We assume that our ethical standards should be the basis for legislation. In other words, liberals try to pass laws forcing people to care for the poor and conservatives try to pass laws keeping gays from getting married. Liberals attempt to take the high road on this by basing their legislation of morality on humanism or universally beneficial standards. Nevertheless, both liberals and conservatives begin with the assumption that the legislative system is a worthwhile tool in advancing an ethical agenda. Libertarianism is an obvious exception.
2) Words like “freedom” and “liberty” and “justice” mean the same thing in the Kingdom of God as they do in the Declaration of Independence. Many Christians don’t ponder the conflicting meanings of important key-words like “freedom” and “liberty” and “justice” and “peace” and “power.” Because of this, they often pour the Americanized meaning into their reading of the Bible. For example, someone with this assumption may believe that the sort of liberty that Jesus wants for us is precisely the sort of liberty we have in the USA. Or, on the liberal end of things, this assumption manifests as the belief that we cannot really have Christian liberty until poverty is obliterated in America.
3) Words like “freedom” and “liberty” and “justice” mean different things in the Kingdom of God and the Declaration of Independence, because America and the Kingdom of God are two separate realities–one real and one spiritual. The previous assumption lumps Americanism and Christianity into the same sort of civic religion. This assumption is right to make a distinction between the Kingdom of God and the American Empire. But, unlike the previous assumption, it fails to recognize the temporal reality of the Kingdom of God. Someone with this assumption may believe that Jesus only cares about our souls.
Some Background on Christian Social Ethics in America
The subject of Christian social ethics in America has always been America. Instead of asking “how can we truly embody the Gospel in America” the question has more often been “how can we make America conform to our values?” The more that America became the democratic society that the social gospelers so desired, the more difficult it became to do ethics in a theologically candid manner. Chastened by the thinking of theologians like Niebuhr, those trained in ethics no longer sought to “Christianize” the social order. Instead they pursued, in the name of love, a more nearly just political arrangement.
In this mode, Christian social ethics continues, but it is difficult to say what makes it “Christian.”
Many conservatives avoided politics, until after WW2, when fundamentalists increasingly embraced the progressive Christian strategy of political engagement. Regardless of theological persuastion, the assumption for both the right and the left tends to be that the American political system is the primary way to bring about large-scale change. No one really questions the system. American politics is for the big stuff. Christianity is for the personal stuff.
The Yoderian Shift
John Howard Yoder has left his mark on American Christianity. Perhaps best known for his influence on thinkers like Stanley Hauwerwas, Yoder came into the argument from the Anabaptist tradition–a group that traditionally withdrew from society.
Yoder asserted that the most powerful force in human affairs is God, working in and through the Church–that nonviolent community of disciples. If the Christian church in the past made alliances with political rulers, it was because it had lost confidence in this truth.
He named this unholy alliance between Church and State “Constantinianism,” regarding it as a dangerous and constant temptation. Yoder argued that Jesus himself rejected this temptation, even to the point of dying a horrible and cruel death. Resurrecting Jesus from the dead was, in this view, God’s way of vindicating Christ’s obedience.
Yoder argued that the primary aim of the Church is not to promote our values through governmental systems, but to “be the church.” We are called to be an embodied alternative to a society based on violence by centering our shared faith on the life, death, resurrection and teachings of Jesus.
Christianity isn’t, separate, however, from politics. Yoder argued that Christianity is already a political standpoint. Before we can imaginatively explore ways of integrating our Christianity into the American political system, we must first embrace our calling to be the church.
According to William Cavanaugh, “Too often the modern Christian theological imagination has got lost in the stories that sustain modern politics. The Christendom model assumed the legitimacy of the nation state and tried to preserve the established position of the Church in guiding it.” In other words, we have let our thinking be shaped by Americanism and let that Americanism form our understanding of what it means to be the Church.”
There is a tendency here for “extraction” from culture. The issue isn’t that we should opt out of the system, but engage it in a different way—much the same way the ancient Hebrew prophets engaged the Babylonians and the Persians—prophetically speaking the words of God.
QUESTIONS:
1) How should the church bring about addressing issues like poverty? Abortion?
2) How should we engage in challenging those in powers to care about those things that Jesus cares about?
3) When is (or isn’t it) ok to make use of the American political system?
for further reading . . .
- None Found
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I haven’t yet read Yoder, but would like to…
Can you suggest a place to start?
Wilsonian
Yoder is most well known for The Politics of Jesus but that can be a very dense read. I suggest starting with his smaller books, which are far easier to work through, as a way to ease into his theology.
Perhaps one of my favorite books by Yoder is He Came Preaching Peace, but there are numerous others published by Herald Press that are good places to start.
You really should work up to reading Politics of Jesus, in my opinion.
The first question: How should the church bring about addressing issues like poverty? Abortion? is perhaps the very one that has gotten the church off track in this country. Most Christians think that the solution to these social and moral issues is found in government. However, it is my view that the church is far better equipped to handle these issues at the grassroots level, where the rubber meets the road, for the main reason that the church can find real workable solutions in a given social context without becoming bogged down in bureaucracy that characterizes a large unwieldy central government.
If you look at history, the church recognized the social problem of children with no family and so orphanages were begun. The church saw illness and disease in society and so it began hospitals. The church saw uneducated children working six days a week in factories and so it began Sunday school to educate those children. When churches have the right focus, then they are capable of finding viable ministries that can address these social issues within their own community, rather than viewing the government as a parental figure who can give us all that we need and solve our problems for us.
[...] · No Comments Mark Van Steenwyk has written another great article on the debate between Christians and politics. Van Steenwyk argues that many Christians equate “words like ‘freedom’ and [...]
Mark - nice post. It’s good to look at this stuff, particularly at the start of the big presidential race. I like how you have laid out the options and assumptions, though I am continually confused by anabaptist approaches to political engagement. It just seems like in so many ways disengaging from a country’s political system ends up being just like a person sticking his or her head in the sand - no matter how much one talks about prophetic engagement. Maybe you can lay out how you see that prophetic engagement occurring in a way that can actually lead to large scale change (or whatever else might be the goal). Much like pacifism can look like sticking your head in the sand if it is not accompanied by some sort of strong, direct action that works for peace.
I think it is worth noting that if we choose to locate ourselves within the Kingdom of God story, as opposed to the American/ Western empire story, we will view politics differently. We will see God as the primary agent in social change, putting down “the mighty from their seat and and exalting the humble and meek.” Thus it is the church’s relation to him that determines our involvement in his political agenda. We are told we are “seated with Christ in heavenly places”, we enter the heavenly courtroom when we gather as the “ekklesia”. In other words, we, as the church, are that political body with the greatest capacity to enact justice and subdue evil. First, by our petitioning status (as kings and priests) with the “guy on top”, and second, by our Spirit empowered commission to call all creation into reconciliation with him. That’s the warfare part. The welfare part is taken care of when we see God as the only benefactor, and not the state, trusting him with our needs, and sharing out of the abundance with which we are provided with those in need around us. Therefore we must insist, if we are to regain our identity as the Church, that Jesus alone is King, and his Father our Provider and Protector- The American political empire is not, and we must plunder it of all its claims.
Is there a condensed version of Politics of Jesus? Anyone interested in collaborating on one? ndsnow@gmail.com
1. Poverty / abortion: The church must assume full and exclusive responsibility. If we fail to help the poor, then the state has opportunity to create a program to help them. (Remember, the state does not raise taxes to pay for programs, it creates programs as an excuse to raise taxes.) Unless the church is willing to assist pregnant women and adopt their children it has no voice in the abortion debate.
2. Power cannot care about the things Jesus cares about. Power exists for three reasons: 1. To keep the power it has. 2. To use its power on someone else. 3. To get more power. We should work to limit the influence of power by eliminating as many privileges as possible.
3. Christians should vote, if there is someone running for office who wants to limit the scope of the state. This limits our choices to Libertarians for the most part. Christians should run for office, for the purposes of hampering corruption or working to limit the scope of the state from the inside.
We have to recognize that the state harms people, whether or not they are Christians. It is merciful to work to reduce the scope of the state.
Nathanael Snow
ndsnow@gmail.com
[...] January 1, 2008 at 11:57 pm (Raleigh) I recently Posted this on a friend’s message board:Voting is a very difficult issue for me. It is something that is frequently on my mind. I think the whole idea that people need to vote to bring about change is a load of BS. I am looking for reasons to justify voting, or abstinence from voting.I wanted to open this up for discussion, hopefully these questions will generate something.1) Does voting (within our current voting system especially) really help bring about change?2) If a person does not vote? Do they have the right to complain?3) Should non-voters be looked down upon?4) Should a follower of Jesus vote?let me know what you think.———————————————————————–I just read a great article (about voting) on a popular blog that i read almost daily.you can check it out here: [...]
[...] 08. Mark Van Steenwyk is asking questions about political action and the kingdom of God: read here. [...]
Ok Mark, time to talk about voting.
Would Jesus vote?
Should we vote?
I’m particularly interested in the idea that a libertarian type candidate would be a possible good vote for the Christian community, in as much as he/she lets the “State be the state, and the Church be the Church.”
Thoughts?