Where's the Middle?
The Other Paper, my local "alternative paper," just ran an article this week called "The Dwindling Religious Middle." Apparently it is becoming nearly impossible to be religious and politically neutral in this day and age. This is troubling for me. I see most everything that has ever gone wrong with Christian history as a result of mixing politics (or political power) with the religious.
Constantine endorsing Christianity, and the chaotic power struggles that happened as a result of that decision immediately after, are typical of what happens when the devout gain political clout. Much of the suffering of the Medieval period were less the result of religious sincerity as political maneuvering. Protestants cannot ignore the power struggle that laid behind much of the splintering of the Catholic Church. Throughout all of this people were being killed by "devout" Christians, not realizing that Jesus taught to love and not kill.
In my mind, Jesus himself went out of His way to be apolitical. Challenged by all the political parties of the day to endorse their movement, He essentially called for another way: love your neighbor. In the challenge from the Herodians where Jesus famously says, "Give to Caesar that which is Caesar, and give to God that which is God's" isn't He essentially saying, "Don't worry about the government, worry about your neighbor"?
The most political act He could have made within Judaism at the time, was to publicly say, "Look, I'm the Messiah! Follow me to God's Kingdom!" But He never did. He walked away from political power and trusted in God's power instead. He worried about feeding the poor, clothing the naked, healing the sick and not about legislating morality. That's what those Pharisees who Jesus challenged wanted to do. I find it so completely ironic that those of the religious right who are so tied to politics, money and influence will do the same thing while jealously defending some outdated unimportant doctrine like the rapture.
Yes, I lean liberal and I would be equally critical of any religious movement that is closely tied to the Democratic party, but there isn't any really. For some reason conservative religiosity (Pharisees, the Fundamentalists, etc) seem to be more connected with politics. Why is that?
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4 comments:
Amen about politics. Some need to remember that Politics is not the Savior. Jesus is.
You're wrong about Constantine, though. You speak as though it would have been better for the Roman world and Europe to be left in the darkness of paganism. Freedom from caesar worship opened up the world to the gospel. False conversions don't denigrate sincere conversions anymore than false husbands denigrate sincere ones. Any way even if as high as 80 percent of the former pagans didn't really convert, that's still better than 100 percent of them no doing so. We need to compare situations that are actually analogous, and not compare Constantine to our own time. He may not have been an ideal Christian ruler, but compared to Diocletian before him he was a blessing. Even with some evils that accompanied the West's conversion Christ, Constantine was certainly not a disaster.
For me, Constantine was a disaster. My point is not to denigrate sincere conversions, but to point out that, with Constantine, Christians really kicked up the internal strife and killing all for the sake of power. Instead of letting people argue good naturedly over the differences between Arminian and Nicaen thought, it became a battle of power that killed many well meaning people. Either way the mixing of politics and religion usually leads to horible violence. I'm just saying we need to find the middle somewhere.
note: obviously Amrminian and Nicae is supposed to be Arian and Nicae...sorry.
The folks at Sojourners (www.sojo.net) are pretty much a religious political orgainization, with unequivocal left-leanings. (Forgive me if you already know about them.) As far as I know, they're the largest group of their kind, and with Wallis' latest book, have gained much ground in the public religous/political dialogue.
It will be interesting to see what happens to them if the next elected president is a Democrat; Wallis and his crew will definitely have the president's ear. My hope is that they won't be compromised as the religious right has, but I fear their chances to retain their purity are slim.
I love how Tony Campolo put it recently in an interview with Steven Colbert--and this may not be original with Campolo or the first time he's ever used it--he said that mixing religion and politics is like mixing manure and ice cream. Nothing much really happens to the manure, but the ice cream is ruined.
I guess right now I'm trying to figure out what it looks like (for me) to be aware and part of the political conversation without using my faith as
a power tool. I think I'm coming to a place that feels good and right. Then again, we all feel that our places are good and right. :) So.
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