A letter to progressive Christians in the USA
by Will Braun
I write from a healthy distance: 1,566 miles, one international border and a curious cultural divide away from Capitol Hill, the global epicenter of raw power. Things must look different from out here on the snowy Canadian prairie because I just don’t understand how progressive Christians – with whom I generally agree – have become so caught up in the machinations of super-power.
Whether it’s Jim Wallis’s bestselling God’s Politics: Why the Right Gets It Wrong and the Left Doesn’t Get It, the Network of Spiritual Progressives standing up to the Righteous Religious lobby, justice-minded US evangelicals meeting with Britain’s Prime Minister-in-waiting to make poverty history, or Barack and Hillary addressing Sojourners magazine’s Pentecost event in DC, it seems increasing attention is paid to what happens in Washington and how close one’s favored kind of Christians are to the action.
I know it makes a huge difference who is president, and I certainly think citizens should apply savvy and creativity to the political process. But this Capitol-intensive Christianity I see among progressives – this form of faith so concerned with being involved in what happens at the top – makes me uneasy. Doesn’t the church have a higher calling; a calling qualitatively different than gaining maximum sway in the globe’s most intense pursuit of worldly power?
So, for what it’s worth, here are three admittedly unsolicited suggestions from the political backseat of the continent.
1. Chill
I’m not sure I should say this but I feel y’all in the US are too caught up in the phenomenon of “America.” Yep, even the progressive Christians. You take your nation and its politics so seriously. Obviously US politics directly affects the lives of many people and cannot be ignored altogether, but super-power is not the ultimate power. As people of faith we have the luxury of a broader perspective, a perspective that allows us to operate on a plane beyond power-politics.
So have a coffee, chill, turn off the news, maybe take a trip north. We get hyped up over elections here too – and sometimes I curse the scoundrel who is currently king of our castle – but in the end he’s just the Prime Minister. We don’t expect him to be a moral or spiritual figurehead. We don’t actually care that much if he smoked up two decades ago or even two weeks ago.
Neither our moral nor spiritual center is with our politicians. And our political process is healthier for it. It is less polarized, less moralistic, and God isn’t in anyone’s corner. Sure we have religious politicians (our public health care system came straight from the social gospel) but because they rarely play the divine trump card, the polemic stakes don’t get elevated to the level of God-is-on-my-side dead end absolutes.
It’s just the US
Here “God Bless Canada” sounds completely bizarre, patriotism is optional, and, as far as I know, no one has ever pledged allegiance to our flag (literally). It’s just Canada.
And ya know what folks – it’s just the US. It will fade away, quite possibly within most of our lifetimes (for better or worse). Of course we all need to be responsible citizens but we also have the responsibility of a bigger perspective. The world – including the US populace – needs less “America,” and progressive Christianity tends to offer more.
I fear I may be coming across too harshly. I should say that if Canadians are more humble it has much less to do with virtue than an inferiority complex rooted in our perpetual underdog status on the international stage (and our also-ran status at the Olympics). My intent is not to claim moral high ground but simply to share a perspective from out on the frosty periphery.
And let me add that I do not question the integrity or intentions of the Sojourners crew and others on the progressive front lines. The world owes them a debt for skillfully broadening the debate on politics and morality in the US. I just think that debate needs to continue in a broader context.
De-nationalizing belief
Perhaps one way to chill out the hype around DC would be for the church to organize on a hemispheric basis – the Church of the Americas. Wouldn’t it be a relief to rise above national identities and squabbles? The Red versus Blue quagmire would look quite different. Existing national faith organizations could gather under a broader umbrella, and that umbrella group could address both nations and bodies like the IMF and World Bank from an authoritative stance clearly above national partisan interest. I think society would take note and breathe a sigh of relief. And surely such a re-framing would shake loose some fresh, big-perspective thinking.
2. Power-down
As intriguing as it is to read about star-studded national prayer breakfasts, Wallis’s parking lot encounters with Bono, or the religious musings of a favored Oval Office hopeful, the Christian scriptures keep pointing me back toward the bottom. Sure Jesus went to the capital, but he was riding a donkey. One can easily identify the political implications of what he said (and I have at times in my life tried to cast him as a political activist) but Jesus modeled a seemingly counter-intuitive, paradoxical approach to power. In the conspicuous absence of revolution or a well-groomed lobbying campaign, Jesus offered a seemingly irrational death on the margins. Sure he stepped on religious and wealthy toes, but those of his time who longed for political change ended up bitterly disappointed.
The rational approach to power in our day, I suppose, would be to create the most effective progressive Christian lobby possible, complete with public organizing campaigns, razor-sharp research and savvy media work – all stuff I love doing and have much experience with. But the paradoxical approach would somehow have to look different, even foolish.
Adopting methods of the Right
Here is the test I use when it comes to church posture in relation to power: to what extent do the methods of progressive Christians mirror those of the Religious Right? (The differences between the two groups are, of course, immense, but they share at least a couple assumptions.) The Holy Right seeks to influence governmental politics. They try to get as close to the White House as possible. They use church organizing infrastructure as political organizing infrastructure. They associate openly with politicians, backing some and bashing others. They court the media. They have their eyes on power.
Not much paradox there. Sometimes – not nearly always – it looks like progressive Christians are trying to out play the Right at its own game, envious of the Religious Right’s success in Washington. Surely there is a better option.
What if the church focussed on everything except politics? No matter who is president or how slow the Democratic strategists are to “get it,” much else can happen: communities can organize, non-corporatized food can be grown on church lots, fossil fuels can be avoided en masse, churches can greatly reduce greenhouse gas emissions, enemies can be boldly loved, massive consumer pressure can be exerted on the bad boys of business, and Christians can be a calming, defiant presence in places of violence. Of course policy changes would help in many cases but the point is that there is more power to be discovered and shared at the bottom than grasped for at the top. That’s the paradox.
Of course the progressive faith organizations contribute to, and report on many of these things – and for that we all owe them a great debt – but I see a tension between the heavy focus on Washington and pursuit of paradoxical power on the margins.
The halls of powerlessness
Involvement on the margins of society will necessarily lead to some engagement with government. In my own faith-based work on indigenous rights and energy issues I have briefed politicians, met with CEOs and received visits from federal security agents. All that is a necessary aspect of ground-level justice work, but circulating within reach of political influence has a problematic appeal. As nice as the resulting eye-brow-raising stories are, the halls of power can easily become a preoccupation. So I believe the church’s political engagement must start, finish and always be directly tied in with its presence on the margins, where primary energy should be exerted. There is a difference between occasional forays from the margins to governmental centers and a general orientation toward power politics.
Religion can go so many places politics can’t, so why are we headed to Capitol Hill? I want religion to be everything politics is not: gracious, fearless (the powerful are so paranoid), beautiful, trustworthy, healing and strong in weakness. Let’s trust the paradox.
3. Be the opposition
I very much appreciate that Wallis and company make an effort to present themselves as non-partisan champions of the moral center. (Though close association with high-level Democrats and Wallis’s campaign advice to the Dems in the New York Times did let the colors show.)
Even if this non-partisan posture were fully convincing, much of the progressive dialogue is about, and in relation to, the left-right paradigm of partisan politics. With the US and indeed the world increasingly polarized, we need people who not only re-adjust the binary left-right paradigm, but stand altogether and unmistakably outside it; people who perhaps don’t even use left and right as reference points at all.
Surely there are already enough people and groups orbiting DC. Religion, with its paradoxical view of power and its big perspective can provide a much-needed alternative center of gravity.
Rather than bolstering or advising the opposition party in the US, progressive Christians could be a sort of opposition to politics itself – a healthy counter-balance to the whole hierarchy of power rather than players in it.
God is not a political pundit
As Christians, let’s give less credence to the top of the power pyramid rather than more. As much as we may have enjoyed watching the news on election night last November – and it wasn’t only Americans cheering – let’s resist the temptation to place too much of our hope in a revived Democratic party. Instead, let’s claim the bottom.
God is not a Republican or a Democrat. Or a backroom campaign strategist, or an American political pundit, or a lobbyist. I take great solace in knowing there is something entirely beyond the realm of Red and Blue, a higher plane that supersedes election cycles, frantic campaigning and the din of the lobbying frenzy. Ultimately our hope is in a paradoxical, unlikely power. And that is why I think the faith community has a higher calling than governmental politics.
Will Braun lives in Winnipeg, Manitoba, where he serves as editor of Geez magazine.
This article is from Geez magazine, Spring 2007. Subscribe here
Comment
Questions? Comments? editor@geezmagazine.org
thanks so much for the reminder. Our calling as christians is to simply be the change that we desire to see. Instead of talking so much or lobbying we need to be about living out change in our own lives in the lives our churches and welcoming others into those changed ways of living.
— Tanden Brekke · Mar 24, 07:58 PM · #
Christians in Nazi Germany were pretty chilled out. We in the US of A don’t want to repeat their complacency.
— Randy Zercher · Mar 28, 07:33 PM · #
Thank you, Will. You have spoken words that reflect ideas and concerns that have been on my heart.
Do I detect a Mennonite influence in your thinking about the Church’s relationship to politics. I was raised in a Presbyterian Church, but in college I went to Fresno Pacific College (now University), which finds its genesis in the Mennonite tradition. While there I was deeply influenced by their understanding of being the Church in the world. This is something that I carry with me to this day even though currently I am an Episcopalian. Of course God is none of these denomonations or traditions and He has prophetic voices speaking within all of them, reminding his people to make the work of his Kingdom their priority, reminding them that God’s Kingdom is not subject to the fallen political, social, and cultural powers of the world.
— Anthony Velez · Mar 28, 09:40 PM · #
In Canada, you don’t have a prime minister who has led your country into a war based on your personal conviction that God is on your side and has somehow anointed you to smite the wicked.
George Bush and his supporters have framed the argument with this language and have squandered the lives of our fellow citizens and billions of dollars based on this conviction, that they are on a modern-day crusade against the heathen.
Now is not the time for us to “chill out”, or hold aloof from the political process as if it were beneath us. Not when faith is being perverted to such evil ends.
— Lisa Louis · Mar 29, 09:08 PM · #
So far, so good. The problem is application, catching the conscience of —a group willing to think, friends, Christians and others. However, the less well informed, marginally educated cling to the fundmental credo of US sinlessness and patriotism at the base as well at the apex. How small a group you are. I came to this magazine via Sojouners and the reference to Wal-Mart, the goliath that I thought you Canadians would stop dead. I may subscribe but there are so many journals arriving now and so little time in addition to efforts to end the carnage locally, nationally and in Iraq and Afghanistan. Will you allow me to print this article so I can thoughtfully digest it? We need much more Canadian input down here. Christ and the environment and the oil fields of Alberta worries me very much.
— Thomas Chisholm · Mar 30, 02:55 AM · #
“Of course policy changes would help in many cases but the point is that there is more power to be discovered and shared at the bottom than grasped for at the top. That’s the paradox.”
This is the nugget for me and, from some of the comments here from a few American friends, this is the point that needs to be embraced.
As in the church where leaders (elders, pastors, etc.) need to be “seen” to be doing the work of an elder or pastor, Christians in North America need to focus on doing the real work of being followers of Jesus Christ on the edges of society, where most won’t go, for their message to be heard on the Capital Hills of the world.
The potential danger in putting your hopes and efforts into gaining political power is that you may not have anything left in the tank to do what God has called you to do in His ministry.
— Glenn Davies · Mar 31, 06:25 PM · #
I find it rather unsettling, that MANY so-called Christians, look to their church leaders and heads of state for divine direction. Why not turn back to Scripture and look to Christ for guidance and example? He said things like feed the poor, turn the other cheek, look after widows…
Bush seems to have been able to become the self-appointed spiritual leader of the universe! I wonder if Pope Gregory is nervous?
Please Jesus, balm America!
— Spoke · Apr 16, 06:49 PM · #
Wish I’d said that
FRD
PS capitalize “Ministry” ( not good english, but good emphasis)
— Frank R. Durnin · Apr 19, 03:53 AM · #
I do think your post has a huge amount for we American progressive Christian types to chew. Thank you. I do think that one has to live with Dubya as leader before one knows how utterly and completely miserable that experience is, esp. when one’s own subculture — those who love Jesus!! — elected the man and by default have smeared the rest of us believers with that historic blunder. If you pray for anything for America, please pray we develop a better power of discernment than we have shown to date. Sigh…
— Jon Trott · Apr 28, 10:01 PM · #
It’s funny how all of us Christians are afflected with wanting to make each other in our own images. Just because God has called me to be a politically active and he hasn’t called you, doesn’t automatically mean that either one of us is wrong. I don’t know what God has shown you or Bush, I just know what he has shown me. Christianity is a personal religion, we’re suppose to apply it to our own lives not use it as a critque of others. I’ve noticed that those who say that Christians should focus less on politics – only point to the people they disagree politically as examples of “bad” Christians. I also am amazed at how certain some people seem to be at knowning what’s going to happen in the future. Only God knows the future. We can’t even see the present or the past clearly, how can we be so certain about the future? We are spiritual and political beings. The nature of who we are makes us spiritual and the limitedness of resources makes us political. Just because you don’t like something doesn’t mean it’s wrong. Like I teach my children, there is often no relation between what you like to do and what you should do.
— Troy Bonds · May 11, 05:16 AM · #
I thought I posted already, but apparently not…
I don’t fault the religious left for using some of the techniques of the religious right, because I think that the biggest problem is that many RR footsoldiers don’t have very deep habits of political deliberation as they are theologically discouraged from developing such. This makes them trust their leaders too much and pick their political battles poorly.
I don’t see that happening with J Wallis, I think he is playing a critical role in fostering political cultural changes on the left in the US.
I would agree that we could encourage more of us to have a strong local-community focus.
I wrote about this at the anti-manichaeist in my “house church model for political activism”. http://sodsbrood.com/antimani/2006/10/23/a-house-church-model-for-political-activism/
I also think that if we got a strategic alliance between third parties and others unhappy with the current system that we could press forward with the single issue of making state-legislatures more third party friendly. (http://sodsbrood.com/antimani/2006/11/10/most-important-issue-for-2008/) This could be effective if the alliance used the technique of quasi-strategic voting.
http://sodsbrood.com/antimani/2006/11/12/unsolicited-advice-for-third-party-candidates-in-major-elections/
The goal wd be to force the main parties to be more dynamic and to facillitate activists (Christian and non-Christian) to not be so beholden to them… But it still presumes the dominance of the main two parties and that such is needed so that only those third party movements that appeal to the center will be influential.
dlw
— dlw · Jun 28, 12:42 AM · #
I appreciate your comments and I am all for challenging ALL CHRISTIANS (not just progressives Christians in the U.S.)to reorient their perspectives to things that actually last , and to see the world as Christians first rather than through the lens of their own country. However, I detect a hint of arrogance from many Christian Canadian writers. The challenge and pull of nationalism will always require a struggle by those who wish not to be bound by it. The more powerful the country, the greater the temptation. Canadians, like citizens of every other country, are not above the temptation, nor insulated against the dangers of unrestrained patriotism. Nor are they untainted by the political dynamics of their country. To pretend this is the case is just a subtle form of a more dangerous nationalism. I don’t recall Jesus ever telling his disciples to “chill out” or his disciples encouraging each other to do the same. Perhaps Mr. Braun,you would do better (if you want to add something to the dialogue)to encourage American Christians to place their trust in something that lasts (Christ and His gospel) rather than the fleeting benefits of citizenry provided by a nation which values power, wealth, and domination.
— S.J. Ross · Jul 4, 07:16 PM · #