As our nation approaches Martin Luther King Day, we are grieving the loss of six people, including a federal judge and a nine-year-old girl who were gunned down by a madman in Tucson, Arizona. His target was a U.S. Congresswoman, Gabrielle Giffords, who is in critical condition with a head wound. Eleven others are also seriously injured.
Talking heads are engaged in a debate over whether this tragedy resulted from overheated political rhetoric that has often employed careless metaphors about “taking out” political opponents and “second amendment remedies” to get our political way. It has also given new life to the gun-control debate, since the shooter was mentally ill, and apparently had little trouble purchasing an assault handgun and two magazines containing 30 rounds each.
Perhaps in the long run this sickening event will sober us enough to bring some civility back to our frayed society. In the short term, it appears to have done nothing to change the course or tone of our political conversation. Despite the bi-partisan resolution passed by Congress, political activists seem unwilling to engage in any meaningful reflection. Instead, they are looking for ways to spin this tragedy to support their positions. That is almost as nauseating to me as the shooting.
In To Change the World: the Irony, Tragedy, and Possibility of Christianity in the Late Modern World, James Davison Hunter argues that the politicization of everything in our country has resulted in more harm than good. He laments particularly the politicization of Christianity in all its expressions, which has only served to cheapen the gospel and weaken the church’s position in our society. Indeed, it appears now that the greatest impact of all the political ambition of the religious right in the last three decades and the religious left in during the ‘60’s (and still manifest among mainline Protestants) is not the creation of a more “Christian” society, but cultural polarization and a mass exodus, especially by young adults, from organized religion. A growing number in America are simply fed up with Christianity because it has become so politicized, assuming hard, uncharitable positions on a range of cultural issues. (See my earlier post, “The Fascination and Frustration of American Religion” – 1/2/11.)
As I read Hunter’s critique, I wondered whether he would say that Martin Luther King and the religion-based Civil Rights movement cheapened Christianity by politicizing the gospel. I don’t think so. His few mentions of King indicate deep respect for his work, though he also makes the important point that King could not have acted alone – the vast network which produced his celebrity was necessary for the movement to be successful. But I think it is important to draw a distinction between King’s leadership of the Civil Rights movement and the current politicization of Christianity.
King was never a politician. He was a Baptist preacher to the last. His campaign represented the best of the black church tradition, which places heavy emphasis on the call for justice, but those black Baptists who banded together in nightly prayer meetings did not seek to bring about change by recruiting and endorsing politicians, or by seeking to take over a political party and rewrite its platform. For them, the Civil Rights movement was faithful service to God who was calling them to speak truth to power. King never toned down his Christian rhetoric in order to gain more clout in the political sphere. That was never his aim. “I just want to do God’s will,” he proclaimed on the night before he was gunned down. Cynics don’t believe this. King was then and continues to be accused of seeking his own celebrity. But such a dismissal betrays a complete lack of understanding of the black church tradition.
In this hyper-political age, it is common to recast Jesus in political terms. On the left, he is often portrayed as a political revolutionary taking on the corrupt powers of his day. On the right, he is pictured as the champion of traditional moral values, critiquing the hypocrisy of the political elite. Both views are revisionist at best and dishonest at worst. Jesus was not “political.” He came to announce, embody, and invite people to participate in the kingdom of God. When others tried to crown him king or encouraged him to take advantage of his popularity for political gain, he steadfastly refused. As much of a threat as he posed to the political powers of his day, he also confounded his followers by offering the same hope and invitation to Roman soldiers and Jerusalem dignitaries as to the poor and dispossessed of Judea. Of course there were political implications to Jesus’ teaching, but he pursued no political agenda. “My kingdom is not of this world,” he told Pontius Pilate.
In To Change the World, Hunter calls upon American Christians to adopt a stance of “faithful presence” in our society. If we are truly God’s people, he argues, we will seek the welfare, the “flourishing,” of all people and all communities, for this is the will of God. We will affirm those aspects of American life that contribute to the common good, while calling attention to those aspects of American life that harm communities and diminish the human spirit. He challenges us to eschew the language of “redeeming the culture,” “advancing the kingdom,” or “changing the world,” because it implies conquest and domination, which is antithetical to God’s reign, and because our primary purpose is not to change the world, but to embody the change that God is bringing to the world. In other words, our purpose is to worship God and form people as disciples of Christ rather than “Christianize” the culture. Politicization of our faith subordinates the worship of God to our political aims, however well-intentioned those aims may be.
Back to the tragedy in Arizona. A poll out this morning says that most Americans do not believe the assassination attempt on Rep. Giffords has any relationship to the toxicity of our political environment. I doubt it is possible to prove any relationship empirically. But the Arizona shooting is a sign of the times. Political rallies feature images of the president as a monkey or a witch doctor. A man opens fire on school board members at a public meeting in Florida. A Christian pastor publicly contemplates a Koran-burning ceremony. A congresswoman holds a public forum and gets shot in the head.
As we pray for the recovery of Rep. Giffords and mourn the loss of those killed during the attempt to assassinate her, I believe it is imperative not only for Americans in general, but for American Christians in particular, to reflect on how we engage our culture. We simply cannot deny the reality that this politically toxic era is also the age when Christians are more politically engaged than ever. Just coincidence? I doubt it. Christians as a whole do not endorse uncivil or violent activity. But does the high Christian profile in the political arena somehow make it more likely?
I fear the more we Christians try to change the world, the less we bear witness to the reign of God. Hunter suggests that the best course of action for Christians in our time is to “be silent for a season and learn how to enact [our] faith in public through acts of shalom rather than to try again to represent it publicly through law, policy, and political mobilization” (p. 281). What do you think?
Copyright 2011 by J. Mark Lawson
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