Chapter 2 – Christian Politics in the New World

From the book: “Resident Aliens – A Provocative Christian Assessment of Culture and Ministry for People Who Know That Something is Wrong.” By Stanley Hauerwas and William H. Willimon.

• Mixing Religion and Politics

In this chapter, we will discuss three different perspectives of what the church is within the world and our author’s challenge to each of these. The first is based on ideas from Martin E. Marty. He posits that the church is of two types: “public church” and “private church.”

• The public church is concerned with and obligated to go public with their social agenda and to work within existing social structures to make a better society.
• The private church believes the business of the church is limited to saving souls and the separate world of religious belief and practice.

Our authors challenge this as insufficient. They see that both approaches recently blended into a single approach. They both have a “Constantinian” perspective. They have become involved in politics to achieve their goals. The nation/state has become the overriding organization with which to accomplish the goals of either church perspective. This nation state has now become the welfare state. From this perspective, only the state can provide for the common good.

“The nation state has taken the place of God. Responsibilities for education, healing and public welfare which had formally rested with the Church devolved more and more upon the nation state.” (p. 34)

Ironically, in this nation/state, the primary entity is the individual. Society formed to meet everyone’s needs, no matter the content of those needs. Freedom becomes the prison of our desires. This conflicts with the biblical admonition to:

“Let each of you look not only to his own interest, but also to the interest of others.” (Philippians 2:4, ESV)

“The individual is given a status that makes incomprehensible the Christian notion of salvation as a political, social phenomenon in the family of God.” (p. 33)

• The Politics of Unbelief.

“Does not the Bible teach that war and injustice arise precisely at the moment we cease testifying that our world is in God’s hands and therefore set out to take matters into our hands?” (P. 37)

Rather than the Gospel, too many Christians have replaced it with social activism. This leads to a religion that is either a private matter, not to be shared, or irrelevant. Irrelevant because of the belief that the concepts of peace, justice, and moralism are merely human traits that we can all share, even if we do not believe in God. This is the belief that, through our own individual efforts, we can all change the world if we just try hard enough.

According to H. Richard Niebuhr, our theological dilemma is:

• Christ of the Culture: The agreement of the church with the secular culture. This leads to following cultural norms over following Biblical direction.
• Christ Against the Culture: Church in opposition to and rejection of the secular culture. This sometimes goes as far as withdrawal from the culture.
• Christ Above the Culture. The church transforming the secular culture. The attempt to combine into one system the relationship between reason and revelation, creation and redemption, nature and grace. “The church should be willing to suppress its peculiarities in order to participate responsibly in the culture.” (p.41)

Niebuhr advocates for the latter of these.

However, our authors challenge his proposals. First, they see the first two as a ‘false dilemma.’ There are more than just these two extreme options for the church. They also believe the downside to this third view is the institutionalization of Christ and the gospel into the culture.

“But his call to Christians to accept the ‘culture’ … and politics in the name of the unity of God’s creating and redeeming activity has the effect of endorsing a Constantinian social strategy.” (p. 40) See Chapter 1.

As I wrote in Chapter 1 notes:

“Actually, Constantine only granted tolerance of religious practice and the reduction of persecution throughout the empire in the Edict of Milan (313 A.D.). It was Emperor Theodosius I (347-395 A.D.) who declared Christianity the official religion of the Roman Empire in 380 A.D.”

With this in mind, I will continue to use our author’s reference to Constantine.

“Constantinianism always demanded one, unified state religion in order to keep the Empire together.” (p. 42) Our authors propose that rather than the Empire, our culture has replaced it with the omnipotent state. However, they see this as multiple omnipotent states that compete against one another in a sort of tribalism.

It is God, through the church, that shows that it is He, not nation/states, who rules the world.

“The church is the one political entity in our culture that is global, transnational, transracial.” (p. 42)

“We argue that the political task of Christians is to be the church rather than to transform the world.” (p. 38)

• The Church as a Social Strategy

“The church need not worry about whether to be in the world. The church’s only concern is how to be in the world, in what form, for what purpose.” (p. 43)

In his book, A People in the World: Theological Interpretation, John Howard Yoder proposes three types of churches.

• Activist Church: More concerned with the building of a better society than with the reformation of the church. The main problem is a glorified liberalism fostered by limited theological insight.
• Conversionist Church: Argues that no amount of tinkering with the structures of society will counter the effect of human sin. The focus of change moves from outside the self (society) to inside the self. With no focus on society at large, it cannot offer nor bring about change.
• Confessing Church: Rather than a synthesis of the other two, this is between the two. It finds its task in the congregation’s determination to worship Christ in all things.

This worship of Christ above all things does not take us out of society, but sets us up as an example to society. It does not keep us from participating in society, but establishes the way we take part. We trust in the rules that God gives us to bring out the results that He desires.

“The confessing church moves from the activist church’s acceptance of the culture with a few qualifications, to rejection of the culture with a few exceptions.” (p. 47)

This approach is something the world is not: people who tell the truth, whether or not it is comfortable; care for the poor as people, not as a project; keep their promises, even when inconvenient; and even love their enemies as God loves us. And they do this even when it evokes anger from the world.

Despite societies’ resistance, the existence of a visible and active community of faith is the most powerful and credible form of witness to a lost world. The cross is not a symbol of submission but of the victory of Christ over the powers of the world.

“The cross is a sign of what happens when one takes God’s account of reality more seriously than Caesar’s.” (p. 47)

Knowing this, we must now strive to understand God’s account of reality. It is here that we start our adventure.