On Christian Activism
Delivered at Madison
Chapel
February 3, 2013
The Fourth Sunday of
Epiphany
My wife and
I sometimes joke about being Baptist, and that if we had to choose some other
Christian family to be a part of that we’d like to be Eastern Orthodox. I fell
in love with the Orthodox worship and iconography on a trip to Greece in 2007,
and besides that, their priests get to be married AND have beards. That’s a
win-win.
I am
sometimes wistful to be a member of a Christian group that has separated itself
from the broader culture like the Amish or certain Mennonite groups. They live
what seem to be pristine, uncomplicated lives apart from the world of faster
and bigger. They live simply and carefully; they seem to be just as holy as a
Christian group can be.
The
temptation to withdraw from society is very strong among Baptists and
Evangelicals in America. Voddie Baucham has made a fortune preaching about
pulling Christian children out of public schools and either homeschooling them
or setting up some sort of enclave co-op among would-be homeschooler families
to form private schools.[1]
Christian Exodus wants the “true” church to secede from the Union and begin
all-Christian societies in South Carolina, Idaho, or Latin America.[2]
These are strange and extreme cases, but they strike a chord with me in a way.
I want to see heaven on Earth, to see Christian values and virtues lived out in
the community of faith around me. I want to see crime and poverty eliminated as
much as I want to see the need for abortions to be eradicated.
Yet in
these situations where Christian segregation is the golden goal of the church,
that is, the creation and maintenance of a society that is separated from the
“world” and all of its sinful, liberal, religion-neutral policies, there is a
massive failure of nerve and, I believe, a mal-formation of the purpose of the
Gospel. Let me be clear – What overcomes my temptation to “come out of her, my
people”[3] is
that when Christians separate themselves from society and forsake the world for
their own enclave of self-righteousness, they lose whatever ability they had to
come alongside the world in mourning or in holiness. The community that
separates itself from the “morally bankrupt” world trades in its calling to be
a faithful witness to that world in favor of its own hegemony of thought and
deed.
What keeps
me from the monastery or the Amish community or the Mennonite fellowship is
that the Gospel demands our
participation in the world to stand as a faithful witness to Christ and His Kingdom
whether the surrounding culture is morally bankrupt or not. Once we give up on
our participation in culture, we give up on our ability to “bind up the
broken-hearted” and all the rest that Jesus’ ministry was about.[4]
So I am
convicted that separation is not the way to go. Does that mean that I entirely
agree with Rev. Baucham’s analysis of the public education system? Certainly
not. I actually have been convinced for years that if education is to be
properly done, it must be done by the church. However, I understand that there
is more to education than the scant hours a student spends at “Caesar’s”
schools. Further, do I think that America is not failing morally? Absolutely
not. However, given all of the other choices of governments in the history of the
world, this is the one I’ll take.
The
segregationist impulse is understandable and reasonable, I suppose, as is the
other extreme of Christian activism – the intended takeover of the political
and social frameworks that guide our country. This impulse is by far the more
publicized position, given that political activism and activity is what is most
covered and talked about in our media climate.
We are the
inheritors of the Religious Right, the hybrid religio-political adventure
founded by preachers like the late Jerry Falwell.[5] I
say that we are the inheritors of that tradition because, like it or not, we
live in a state where such a movement still holds sway over our political and
social agendas. The recent March for Life is just another testament to the
continuing belief in our society that Christian social activism necessarily
means not only the active participation in the political process of our
country, but the adoption of the language, tactics, and methods of that system
in order to advance the “Christian agenda.”
This model
of activism seeks to infiltrate the systems of government and industry to “take
them back” for Christ. The thought goes that if enough people elect enough
Christians to office or to the Board, then those elected will then pass enough
legislation or policy that America or the company in question will become
(re-become?) Christian. Phrases like
“activist judges” and “morality legislation” are taglines of this type of
thinking among believers. The motivation is to take back America for Christ,
against America’s will if need be.
Is this
method really any better than withdrawing completely from society? The
“takeover” model does essentially the same thing: Christian radio stations as
alternatives to secular stations; Christian bookstores as alternatives to
secular smut-peddlers; private Christian schools that look just like public
schools except for the uniforms and the better sports teams. Rather that
withdrawing from the world with the Mennonites, these believers create alternative
Americas within the very communities they inhabit.
By marching
for the Right to Life, campaigning for Christian values, championing prayer in
schools, or other such political and social activism, we are falling into the
same mire of political and social vocabulary and methodology as those we would
defeat – we try to “beat them at their own game.” We’ll lose every time.[6] Consider the latest inflammatory tweet from
Mark Driscoll, pastor of the wildly popular Mars Hill church in Seattle:
“Praying for our president, who today will place his hands on a Bible he does
not believe to take an oath to a God he likely does not know.”[7]
What good does that do the church? What is that bearing witness too other than
the same type of political language of Obama’s opponents baptized in Christian
terms?
What is
Christian activism, then? Are we doomed to failure if we engage the culture on
its own terms, or doomed to an un-authentic impotency if we withdraw? I rather
think we, as followers of The Way, must see our role in the world as that of
Faithful Witnesses, testifying to the reality of Jesus’ already-and-not-yet
rule in this world.
Rather than
quoting the same Jeremiah passage that we read this morning and fighting for
some personhood amendment,[8] we
could read further and find that Jeremiah is actually being commissioned for an
active role in his community – he is “to pluck up and to pull down, to destroy
and to overthrow, to build and to plant,” all within the context of a culture
that thinks it has God figured out or tricked out of relevance.[9]
His is a calling to be within his context, to speak whatever God so instructs
him, so that the culture around him may have at least one faithful witness to
the will and Word of God in their midst. His is not a promise of triumph, it is
not a battle cry to take back the throne or the high priesthood – it is a
commissioning to go, speak, and live a life of witness and testimony that there
is indeed another Word at work in the world.
Oh, but no
matter how we interpret that passage or any other, no matter which view of
social participation or alienation we live into, we all want to be the winner.
We want to have God on our team. We want our little band of believers to be the
right ones, to have the advantage, the righteous opinion, and the sacred
perspective. We want to live with some measure of confidence that our
interpretation is right, that our agenda is righteous, and that our new method
or approach is the one to bring the light to the darkness.
But for all
of our posturing and activism, for all our causes and “scauses,” we wind up
failed caricatures of the things we want the most.[10]
We are no different than Lance Armstrong when we act as Mark Driscoll did, and
we are no better off than the Amish were some years ago when we try to avoid
society all together.[11]
If we are going to be activists, it must be in the manner to which we are
called – to be the presence of Christ in our communities, proclaiming the reign
of God to all we meet through our lives and deeds. When we chose sides in a
political or social fight, or when we remove ourselves from the society that we
live in, we forsake the very core conviction of our activism – love.
Paul is
often pulled out of context here: this passage is often used in weddings.
However, notice how the contrast in chapter 13 is between the Christian acting
in love and the one who is an activist without it. I can think if no more
appropriate language than what Paul provides – we are a clanging gong or a
crashing symbol when we screech and scream our causes in the name of Christ
without his love. Love of our neighbor based on our love for God is the
motivation for our true activism, whether it is for programs of mercy, seeking
justice for the oppressed, or caring for the downtrodden. We cannot afford to
forget that it is love, that same love of God made true in God’s Spirit living
within his people, which makes us act.
We must
also remove from ourselves the arrogant, poisonous expectation that we will
triumph in our efforts. If we secede from society and form an autonomous
Christian collective, we set ourselves up for the failure that comes from
underappreciating humanity’s sinfulness. If we manipulate the political process
for victory on Election Day, we succumb to the necessary and gospel-curtailing
definition of politics, that is, compromise.
No, there
is to be no triumph or victory here and now. There is to be no rule on earth of
Christendom or something like it. Remember how Jesus was received by his own
people when he proclaimed God’s mission of love and justice – an angry mob
drove him to a hillside with murder in their hearts.
No, if we
are to do and Christian activism at all, it must be with the knowledge that
only the love of God for a dying humanity can drive us, and that only the
coming Kingdom of God can draw us forward. Forward to community rather than
toward isolation. Forward to relationship rather than toward political victory.
Forward unto death, forward unto life. Forward through love.
[1] http://www.gracefamilybaptist.net/voddie-baucham-ministries/
[2] http://christianexodus.org
[3]
Revelation 18:4, a commonly quoted verse by those practicing Christian segregationism.
[4]
Psalm 147:3; Isaiah 61:1; Luke 4:18.
[5] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_Majority
[6] http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/10/us/politics/christian-conservatives-failed-to-sway-voters.html
[8] http://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/clarionledger/2507235811.html
[9]
Jeremiah 1:10.
[10] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Scause_for_Applause
[11] http://www.cnn.com/2006/US/10/02/amish.shooting/index.html
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