by Delwin Brown
A fourth way of viewing the Church, also biblical in origin, is as the "servant people." At first glance there is not much to commend this view. No one likes to be a servant, and no one should. There was a different perspective on servanthood in the ancient world, but we don't need to accede to it any more than we accept its patriarchy, its hierarchy, or its affirmation of "humane" slavery. We are not called to be servants.
What about "service people," or "people who serve"? 'Ibis is the most promising image for thinking about the Church, particularly if we recall the concept of "service" discussed in chapter 5. 'I here we saw that the idea of human "dominion" or "lordship" is, in the example of Christ, transmuted into the role of "servanthood," but with the added connotation of cooperation rather than subservience. This balance, we noted, is nicely captured in the Jewish idea that humans are co-creators, or perhaps co-workers, with God in caring for the creation.
Service to the creation is not servitude. It is "naming the animals." 'Ibis responsibility does not come with instructions to be followed mindlessly. It requires discernment, intelligence, imagination, and continual evaluation and revision. It is a vitally important responsibility. "Serving;' I believe, yields an image of the Church that is most congruent with a progressive Christian perspective.
Seeking to Serve
the Church is the community of those who seek to serve God's healing work in the world, as that divine activity is understood in light of Jesus Christ.
Serving the Power that makes for healing is many-faceted. It requires a judgment about where the priorities are-who and what, in our time, are vulnerable. It requires an appraisal of how best to contribute to the healing needed in those particular contexts. It requires careful preparation to be able to contribute as needed. It requires implementing effectively the strategies that seem appropriate. But something still more basic is needed. Serving the Power that makes for healing requires sustained commitment-reflection, confession, repentance, affirmation, and resolution.
The Church's life is formed to call forth and sustain individuals-in-community who seek to serve the One who serves the world's healing. Through Scripture and tradition the Church recalls how this endeavor has been understood and undertaken in the past. 'Through its educational programs, the Church endeavors to learn from the past, identify the options, and to consider, discern, and clarify the forms of service needed today. Through preaching, the Church proclaims its mission, tests understandings of it, reflects on its dimensions, and calls Christians to commit themselves to seeking healing and being healers.
Organizing and planning in the Church is the process through which individuals and the community, usually under the guidance of a pastor, decide how to serve the Power that makes for healing. Evangelism is implementing the decision, sharing the good news that makes for healing. But what does "evangelism" mean to a progressive Christian? It means "extending the good news"-which is rather different than pronouncing condemnation on all who differ from you-in whatever form is appropriate to a particular situation.
Liturgy and worship are individual and collective processes of remembering, at the level of ritual action and inward feeling, the mission to which we are called, the reasons for our feeling called, and our commitment to this calling. It is reenacting bodily-in song, silence, word, and gesture-all the elements of the Church's mission as that mission has evolved out of Scripture and tradition, education, preaching, organizing, and evangelism.
'The Church, again, is the community of those who seek to serve God's healing work in the world, as that divine activity is understood through its ongoing interpretations of Jesus Christ.
"Seek" is the crucial word. Of course we will have successes, in ourselves, in our congregations, in our communities, in the world. But to claim too much for our successes is more than a little unwise. First, there is the problem of discerning how best to assist in healing. The complexity of brokenness even in our own hearts and relationships is staggering, and it becomes more so as we think about elements of "unhealth" in the social, economic, political, physical, and spiritual environments about us. Second, there is self-deception, the propensity to be dishonest, even with ourselves-no, especially with ourselves!-about what we do know and about what we can do.
'There is another problem, a particularly pernicious form of self-deception. 'Ihe very communal togetherness that is necessary in order to create, educate, and sustain Christian identity and commitment over the long haul-this absolute necessity ... is also a grave danger. Congregations must forge agreements in order to act. But agreements all too easily become assumptions and assumptions become certitudes and certitudes become arrogance and arrogance becomes deafness to criticism and blindness to alternatives, leading to destruction.
In the Church's effort to serve salvation, its best hope for being saved from damning insularity is to remember that the God it aims to serve is in all the world. Ihe world is where the incarnate Power is active. God is already there. 'Thus from each place to which we in the (;hurch offer our transforming witness we should hope to receive a transforming witness we had not anticipated. From every group to whom we offer a prophetic critique we should be open to receive a critique that we need to hear. Every part of the world to which we bring healing might be for the Church a source of healing.
No, we should not claim too much. But neither should we hope for too little. We should not be so sure of the limits of the healing that is possible, even within ourselves. There is, after all, that persistent biblical witness to a Power at work among us that is able to do, in and through us, far more than we ask, more even that we can imagine is possible (Ephesians 3:20). For the world, for the Church, for us individually, the consequence of serving the God who makes "all things new" (Revelation 21:5) could be quite unexpected, and remarkable.
POINTS FOR REFLECTION
• Beliefs and values are sustained most effectively in communal practices that mesh thinking and feeling. The long term power of a progressive Christian worldview will depend on being integrated into the affective life of communities.
• The image of the Church as the "people of God" is arrogant and more than a little triumphalistic-"Jews lost, Christians won, and now we are God's chosen people.
The image of the Church as the "body of Christ" rightly suggests that the Church somehow "embodies" the event of Jesus Christ. But it might also tempt us to believe that the Church embodies a special virtue, "Christ-likeness."
• Ihe idea of the Church as the "community of the Spirit" testifies to the coming infilling of the Spirit of God. But if it is taken to mean that the Church already possesses that Spirit, it is disastrous.
• 'I he Church as the "servant people" has unattractive connotations. Who wants to he a servant? But what about "service people" or "people who serve"?
The Church is the community of those who seek to serve God's healing work in the world, as that divine activity is understood through its ongoing interpretations of Jesus Christ.
• We should not claim too much for the Church, but neither should we hope for too little. The consequences of serving the God who "makes all things new" could quite unexpected and remarkable.
I~;I)iIO tle
Rightly Mixing Religion
with Politics
ur nation desperately needs to hear reflective, value-laden voices on behalf of justice, repentance, inclusion, and healing. The richest repository of these voices is religion, and (though it has not been especially obvious during the past few decades!) in the United States the major repository of the voices we need to hear is Christianity.
Thus we are drawn to a rather uncomfortable question: "What?" as my brother emailed me recently, "Are you telling me we should have more religion in our national political debates?"
'Ihe answer is yes. We need more religion in our public discussions.
'Ihat is a counterintuitive and even dangerous claim, I know, because it can so easily be misconstrued or misused. So let me explain why I think religion-talk is
appropriate and necessary in the public square of our pluralistic nation.
Mixing Religion and Politics
"Ihe historic view of political liberalism is that religious beliefs should be private matters, and that only "secular" (or supposedly neutral) values and reasons should be introduced into our public discussions. After all, we differ on religious issues, so it would seem sensible to assume that we must "bracket" our varied religious perspectives in order to find common ground on the contentious issues that confront us. "Let's keep our religions to ourselves"-that's the implicit rule of historic liberalism. In many ways, it has proven to be a fruitful maxim. Acceptance of it was a major factor in ending the religious wars of seventeenth-century Europe, and the violation of this maxim by right-wing Christianity in recent decades has introduced enormous division and strife into American public life.
There are good reasons, then, for urging that religion be kept out of politics. 'Ihe only problem is that it is not possible, not if we think about the meaning of "politics" and "religion"
Politics is not simply political parties, candidates, and elections, though it includes those things. The term "political" comes from a Greek word "polis," referring to the ideal structure of community life. Our understanding of the political realm today reflects that original meaning; it has to do with the structure or organizational forms of our life together, the way our social life is constructed by both legislation and convention. Politics in the narrower sense is an important element of politics in the broader sense-those activities that pertain to the established or proposed patterns of communal relationships.
Religion is not simply creedal beliefs and ritual conduct, though it includes these. A religion functions as a fundamental orientation toward life. It is a framework for thinking about what is most important, and it is a way of living in accord with that thinking. Directly or indirectly, religion is the basis of a religious persons values and the beliefs related to those values. 'Ihat is true of most expressions of Christianity and it certainly is true of progressive Christianity.
If "Keep religion out of politics" means "Don't bring your most basic values into public discussions about the organization of our life together," it is nothing less than telling the religious person to stay out of politics altogether! So separating religion and politics in this sense would disenfranchise people of faith, or it would encourage them to pretend something that is manifestly false-that their religious perspectives are unrelated to their judgments about public policies and public leadership.
Religious people cannot participate in our common public life without bringing their religion into this participation. that seems clear. But not all "mixing" of religion and politics is equal! 'There are good political reasons, and very good Christian reasons, for not bringing religion into our nations political life in ways that lead to the warlike destruction of our communities-or, I should say, in ways that add to the destruction of our communities already begun in large part because of the mixing of religion and politics by the religious right. If we cannot avoid corrupting the democratic process with religion, as the Christian right has done, then we should be disenfranchised. But we can avoid undermining democracy-in fact, we can give voice to a Christian perspective that affirms and strengthens the democratic process. And we must!
'lhe first step toward a wholesome mixing of politics and religion is to realize that religion is not necessarily the unique problem. It is not as if there is a religious sphere, on the one hand, that contains particular points of view that contradict what others might believe, and a secular sphere, on the other, that is neutral and ought to be acceptable to all. The secular perspective is not acceptable to everyone, nor, in fact, is it selfevidently true! So, from every particular perspective the question should arise: How can we properly advocate our particular point of view in a society where that viewpoint is not shared by all? The secular humanist, for example, should face this question as seriously as should the progressive Christian.
The second step is to realize that a secular perspective is not inherently anti-religious. Among current scholarly theories, a secular society is usually defined as one in which the various human enterprises (government, science, the economy, etc.) are differentiated or separated from each other, and all of them are freed from religious coercion. If that is secularism there are forms of almost every religion that are thoroughly secular! This includes major forms of modern Christianity, and clearly and unequivocally it includes progressive Christianity. "Ihe progressive Christian is as firmly committed as any other "secular" person to freedom from religious coercion, overt or subtle, in every sphere of life, including (we might note) the religious sphere.
The relationship of all of the differentiated and autonomous spheres, however, suggests something worth noting. They are separate and autonomous, but they are not unaffected by what goes on in other arenas. Government is separate from the economy, but neither is immune to the other's influence. Science is (or should be!) independent of government, but political decisions do influence science, as for example in the push to find technologies that will help curb global warming.
No sphere of life is hermetically sealed from the others. 'I here is influence exercised properly, and, alas, influence exercised improperly. The same, I suggest, is true of the relationship of religion to other spheres of life, including its relation to politics. 'There is a role for the influence of religion in politics. It should not be to dictate political outcomes, either by fiat or by majority rule. But there is a role. What is it?
I will attempt to answer the question by offering six "rules" for bringing religion into our political discussions, focusing particularly on these rules as guides for the Christian.
Rules for Bringing Religion into Politics
1. Christians must accept the fact that our religious convictions are never, ever to be privileged over the convictions of others. Our views are never to be given advantage in the political process, never to enjoy preferential treatment because they are Christian. My grandmother used to say, "The ground is level at the foot of the cross" The ground is also level at the foot of the flag pole, or it should be.
There is a Christian reason for insisting on equity in our political debates. For Christianity in general it is our doctrine of creation, our view that God created the entire world in all of its tumultuous diversity, and pronounced it to be good. For progressive Christianity in particular it is also the belief that God is incarnate everywhere in the creation. Both beliefs mean that the imprint of the divine is present everywhere, and if we look carefully, it is to be found everywhere-in the multiple religions, in the diverse cultures, in the many ideological perspectives, and in the varied political perspectives.
No doubt the imprint of the divine is more muddled in some times and places than in others, but deciding that is a fallible human judgment to be made tentatively through a deliberative process, not at its beginning, and our decisions are always subject to critique and revision. The message of one Protestant denomination is "God is still speaking." Perhaps it should add, "And God's voice can come from anywhere" Christian convictions are never to be given preferential treatment in the political process, because Christianity itself warns us that we cannot assume we have a lock on the truth.
2. Christians must seek to understand our adversaries, and to be understood by them, but in that order. We need to try to place ourselves in the framework of others, whether our areas of agreement and disagreement are large or small. We must try to stand within their worldview. Their views may be strange, but in the biblical tradition strangers are to be welcomed for a very particular reason-because our relationship with them might bring about our mutual transformation.
We need to hear the stories of others-the secular humanists' stories of the Enlightenment and science, the Muslims' stories of the Prophet and the hajj, the Jews' stories of Torah and the land. We need to hear evangelicals tell how Jesus changed them and Pentecostals tell how the Spirit filled them.
But
, also, others need to hear our story. It is a startling story of God's oneness with the world, God's unreserved commitment to it, and a transforming story of the healing that this Oneness can bring to our brokenness. We must not be silent. We must say what in our heritage motivates us to be progressive Christians, to think as progressive Christians, to act as progressive Christians. I)isagreements will remain, but in sharing our story, and hearing those of others, we can hope at last to become brothers and sisters who understand and respect one another, even when differences remain.
3. Christians should identify the many values that we share with others, and ask what we can build together on the basis of the things that we hold in common. 'This rule-that we should build on our commonalities-is an inheritance from secular liberalism, and it is worth keeping. We do not disagree on everything, and in fact our actual disagreements become exaggerated because we lose sight of what we share. What we hold in common should he kept at the forefront of consciousness even as we continue to debate other things.
From a progressive Christian perspective we will hold much in common because we are all creatures in whom God is incarnate. We may give different reasons for holding the same or similar values. Christians and atheists, Muslims and Jews, liberals and conservatives-they may have varying reasons for supporting democracy, ending racial injustice, defending freedom of the press, opposing the death penalty, advocating justice for homosexuals, protecting the environment, or whatever the cause. '1 he difference in reasons or starting points, however, does not weaken the common resolve, especially if we share with one another the different journeys that bring us together. Our common values provide the basis for together seeking our common good.