Growing up in a conservative evangelical family, I was steeped in a culture that emphasized the political significance of Christianity. Christians of the 1950s and 1960s were identified as sell-outs who had let a Christian culture die on the vine, while my parents and their peers had to struggle to take back the nation as a part of the "moral majority" of the religious right.
As I became an adult, I discovered that the history of Christianity and politics was much longer and more complex than I had been taught. As I have considered it over the years, I have come to believe that an essential element of this story is often neglected.
Christians have a hard time pinning down what their faith requires for those with political power because the Christian scriptures do not talk about this issue. The contrast struck me while teaching the Quran and the Jewish scriptures alongside the Christian New Testament. The Jewish scriptures are keenly aware of the political reality of the kingdoms of Israel and Judah, and scriptures were took their present form during and following the Jewish exile. To the scribes organizing and recording the Jewish past, the use and abuse of political power were central concerns.
Similarly, Muhammad exercised political and religious power during his lifetime. The Quran directly addresses legal concerns (providing guidelines for marriage, inheritance, adoption, etc.), and the Sunnah records many of his actions, many of which were judicial and political in nature. Together, these texts speak directly to the proper use of political power to govern a Muslim community.
In Judaism and Islam there are, of course, multiple traditions of interpreting these texts for the various political circumstances that Jews and Muslims have found themselves in over the centuries. Nevertheless, both traditions have a rich set of founding texts from which to develop these traditions.
Christianity, on the other hand, arose among a socially, economically, and politically marginalized people living under the rule of an empire with which they had no influence. Neither Jesus nor the early Christians offered practical advice concerning how Christians should use political power, creating a theological vacuum that has enabled a thousand approaches to flourish in the absence of any clear authoritative direction.
Some of these traditions try to solve the problem by extrapolating concepts or principles from scriptural passages that were originally written to deal with the difficulties of living under the Roman empire. Some look to the Jewish scriptures (or the Christian Old Testament) to find principles on the use of power for Christians to adopt. Some suggest that Christians should model the state on the administration of the early Christian church. And some argue that Christians should have nothing to do with state power, or even that Christians should oppose the very existence of a state.
Even if you find one of these traditions persuasive, as I do, the arguments around what Christianity means for those wielding power is complicated by the relative silence of the Christian scriptures on this topic. In the eighteen centuries since creation of the first Christian state in the Kingdom of Edessa by Abgar VIII "the Great" (177-212), these questions have not gone away and the proliferation of models provides a tradition for almost any possible perspective. (For more on Abgar, see Diarmaid MacCulloch, Christianity: The First Three Thousand Year, pgs 179-181)
In general, what I take away from the relative silence of Christian texts concerning these matters is that the use of political power should not be a primary concern of Christians. That is not to say that they should not engage in politics, bur rather that Christianity is not a faith that fits well with the use of power. Christianity began as a religion of the oppressed and social misfits: women, slaves, the poor, and the displaced refugee. Those who converted found it compelling because they lacked power, rather than because it told them how to use their power well.
As I became an adult, I discovered that the history of Christianity and politics was much longer and more complex than I had been taught. As I have considered it over the years, I have come to believe that an essential element of this story is often neglected.
Christians have a hard time pinning down what their faith requires for those with political power because the Christian scriptures do not talk about this issue. The contrast struck me while teaching the Quran and the Jewish scriptures alongside the Christian New Testament. The Jewish scriptures are keenly aware of the political reality of the kingdoms of Israel and Judah, and scriptures were took their present form during and following the Jewish exile. To the scribes organizing and recording the Jewish past, the use and abuse of political power were central concerns.
Similarly, Muhammad exercised political and religious power during his lifetime. The Quran directly addresses legal concerns (providing guidelines for marriage, inheritance, adoption, etc.), and the Sunnah records many of his actions, many of which were judicial and political in nature. Together, these texts speak directly to the proper use of political power to govern a Muslim community.
In Judaism and Islam there are, of course, multiple traditions of interpreting these texts for the various political circumstances that Jews and Muslims have found themselves in over the centuries. Nevertheless, both traditions have a rich set of founding texts from which to develop these traditions.
Christianity, on the other hand, arose among a socially, economically, and politically marginalized people living under the rule of an empire with which they had no influence. Neither Jesus nor the early Christians offered practical advice concerning how Christians should use political power, creating a theological vacuum that has enabled a thousand approaches to flourish in the absence of any clear authoritative direction.
Some of these traditions try to solve the problem by extrapolating concepts or principles from scriptural passages that were originally written to deal with the difficulties of living under the Roman empire. Some look to the Jewish scriptures (or the Christian Old Testament) to find principles on the use of power for Christians to adopt. Some suggest that Christians should model the state on the administration of the early Christian church. And some argue that Christians should have nothing to do with state power, or even that Christians should oppose the very existence of a state.
Even if you find one of these traditions persuasive, as I do, the arguments around what Christianity means for those wielding power is complicated by the relative silence of the Christian scriptures on this topic. In the eighteen centuries since creation of the first Christian state in the Kingdom of Edessa by Abgar VIII "the Great" (177-212), these questions have not gone away and the proliferation of models provides a tradition for almost any possible perspective. (For more on Abgar, see Diarmaid MacCulloch, Christianity: The First Three Thousand Year, pgs 179-181)
In general, what I take away from the relative silence of Christian texts concerning these matters is that the use of political power should not be a primary concern of Christians. That is not to say that they should not engage in politics, bur rather that Christianity is not a faith that fits well with the use of power. Christianity began as a religion of the oppressed and social misfits: women, slaves, the poor, and the displaced refugee. Those who converted found it compelling because they lacked power, rather than because it told them how to use their power well.
I enjoyed your post. How would you differentiate politics from His Kingdom here on Earth (that is to be like His Kingdom in Heaven)?
ReplyDeleteI believe you are referring to NT Wright's description of the Gospel as the proclamation of the Kingdom of God. In that case, I'm pretty sure his argument fits with what I'm saying--the rule of Jesus as described in the Christian New Testament is not like the rule of Caesar in Rome. Instead, it flips the entire hierarchy and those who are great poor their lives out in service to others rather than using power to coerce others. I cannot imagine a government in any traditional sense being defined by suffering and self-sacrifice rather than the coercive power, which is the point of Wright's argument as I recall.
DeleteDoes that answer your question, or did I misunderstand what you were getting at?
Another ( I think wrong) way the new testament has been used politically is the taking of words of encouragement to oppressed people as endorsement for an oppressive system. For example, Paul encouraging Christian slaves to obey their masters was used to justify the practice of slavery. Recently instruction for Christians to obey the laws of the land has been used to justify the enforcement of unjust laws.
ReplyDeleteYes. I didn't go into the passages that do directly engage state action and power, such as Romans 13 and I Peter 2. Even those examples, however, emphasize the duty of Christians living under the Roman government should live, rather than how a Roman official should use their power.
DeleteI'm working on another post that will touch that is related to this point, and so we can continue this side of the conversation.