lcrew@andromeda.rutgers.edu (Louie Crew) (06/03/91)
muts@fysak.fys.ruu.nl (Peter Mutsaers) writes: >But the groups we are talking about do not form a seperate religion, but just >groups that emphasize *one* of the goals of christianity. I don't see what is >wrong with that. They leave it further to the individual how and if they want >to be involved in politics etc. Fair point, and I apologize for not noticing it. My family's financial support of my cousin who worked for IVCF probably account for my tunnel vision of it as an independent ministry. You are right on that point. I don't feel as comfortable as you do with "They leave if further to the individual how and if they want to be involved in politics etc." "How" does not trouble me, but "if" does. I believe all Christians are called to be leaven in the world, that we are all called to be justice workers. Political quietism has sinful consequences. >Personally I keep thinking that the relationship between christianity and >politics is a difficult and complicated one. Yes, indeed. >You can see already in the new >testament how wrong Jesus was understood and how many people politicized his >ministry and turned away from Him as they were mistaken about His intentions. Scholars have a difficult time assessing the specific political intent of many of Jesus's statements, but no sensitive reader can fail to notice his caginess in fielding political questions, whether from the Sadducees, from the Pharisees, from the Sanhedrin, or from the occasional Roman or other Gentile. Look, for example, at the way Jesus avoids the sticky question about "paying tribute to Caesar," a locus classicus for trying to see the Politics of Jesus. Note that he did not say, "Dearly beloved, I have no political agenda. Let not your heart be troubled: you can go on with business as usual because I speak only of private spirituality here, reserving mansions and other material concerns for hereafter." If he had said that, he could have freed us from lots of conflict. I for one believe that he did not believe that, that he was warding off immediate arrest such as he would clearly have experienced if he had spoken out against the outside dictators. He was much less hesitant to attack the politics of the Jewish leaders. One of the best ways to assess Jesus's politics is to notice how others "read" him. Some writers speculate that Judas expected to call Jesus's hand, to push him into being the earthly ruler he thought Jesus to be. Some speculate that the other disciples held similar views about Jesus' politics, that they expected a material Messiah (as the Old Testament language still suggests to many Jews) who would reign on earth, and that they differed from Judas in that they did not try to interfere directly with the process. In mocking him as "King of the Jews," the Romans clearly addressed their perceptions that Jesus had ambitions to political power. Friends and enemies alike understood Jesus's message required some radical changes in the political structures, and Jesus never counterstated that reading. Where his followers and his enemies alike were wrong was in their anticipation that this new justice order would be ushered in by physical force instead of by changed hearts. >Also christianity itself cannot make any compromises, but in politics we >have to. Was not Jesus authorizing a realistic compromise when he answered "Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's...."? And are we not under just as difficult a decision as his audience was in terms of modern authorities? >Therefore I think one can only derive points of views from the bible >and then talk with others about these, but not really do politics as a >christian. >-- How can you split a Christian this way without violating the person's wholeness? How can I be an uncompromising Christian? The only ways that I can imagine to avoid compromise would be to close my eyes and pretend! As a Christian I paid taxes to the State of Alabama for many years during segregation, supporting a separate and unequal school system: I was sinning: I had the opportunity of refusing to pay taxes and taking the consequences of going to jail. I worked for desegratation in other ways, but surely I cannot buy off my complicity in the system which privileged me and jeopardized my sisters and brothers. Are you suggesting that I was a Christian only in the hours of my prayer, bible study, and other pieties and that when I posted my taxes I was simply a neutral private citizen, apolitical? If so, how many other evils am I entitled to participate in a private acts so that I can keep my "Christianity" unsullied by the world? I am not trying to misread you, and I fear I might be. I am merely trying to think aloud what your point of view, as stated, might mean if I applied it to my own actions. Please enlighten. Louie Crew . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . lcrew@andromeda.rutgers.edu Associate Professor . . . . . . . . . . . . . .lcrew@draco.rutgers.edu Academic Foundations Department . . . . . . . CompuServe No. 73517,147 Rutgers: The State University of New Jersey. . . . . . 201-485-4503 h P. O. Box 30 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 201-648-5434 o Newark, NJ 07101 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 201-648-5700 FAX Only a dead fish floats with the current.