A chaplain can be from a Christian faith but has adopted the role of 'internationalist' in terms of religion. We accept personally the truth of Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, and in that vein we act when with fellow Christians. But we also have to operate within the diverse experience of Christianity, from High Mass Catholic, to simple fellowship with non-clerical Quakers. And we also have to be respectful of other religions, not practicing them as 'clergy' for their practitioners, but providing access to local clergy of that religion, and, in their absence, providing some basic level of resource.
In other words, I may not agree with the teachings of the Buddha or Mohammed, though I personally respect them. In the role of Chaplain, I may have to know more to serve as a resource to those who do believe those teachings.
I think that gives us a window into the Christian faith and the public arena. We will come in to a realm with many people of many different beliefs, perhaps not other formal religions, but various shades of atheism or agnosticism or just general ignorance of faith. As a public leader, I think our public theology should be shaped like the chaplain. We don't subscribe to other belief systems, but we have made a choice to respect those belief systems, to understand them to some degree, and perhaps even to allow ourselves to be in the other person's shoes not just to understand them, but to support them.
What?
Pick your political battle. There was an era of one-issue voting, say, pro or anti abortion. That still informs the political choices of many Christians. It is a line in the sand that public officials are challenged not to cross if they want the votes. A Christian of good conscience in the public arena, demonstrating a public theology, can still love the person, and talk to the person, and agree with the person, maybe even select that person to be their government representative on more than just their position on abortion.
Maybe we dare to go so far as to articulate with due love and truth (though not defend) the position we disagree with when it comes under insulting and divisive attack.
Know what they believe, allow them the respect to believe it, and try by prayer and private conversation to shift them if they believe too far from your own Christian morals. Don't let the public forum be a place where you seek to wield the power of politics like a cudgel to knock down a fellow human being. No matter how tempting.
Friday, May 23, 2008
Wednesday, May 21, 2008
Quotable Quote
All fundamentalists are evangelicals, but not all evangelicals are fundamentalists. I can cite it when I bring the book to the computer.
The Impertinance of Scripture
Any public theology that includes Kingdom work must include the blueprint for that work, the Bible. Whether Authoritative, Inspired, Inerrent, or somewhere in between, the Bible is the basic set of documents of the faith.
For the sake of argument, I am going to pronounce that the Christian Canon turned 1641 this Easter. I base that entirely arbitrary date on the notation in Wikipedia that St. Athanasius included the books of our New Testament canon exclusively in his Easter address in 367 A.D., C.E., as you wish. The Old Testament was still out there, mostly nailed down, but with a couple more debates to be settled.
A Public Theology must be informed (defined) by the Bible. The amazing thing about Jesus is that he was exclusionary "I am the way and the truth and the life" and accomodating, "Render unto Caesar what is Caesar's". It is a real pain in the pocket because it almost feeds the idea of the public and private spheres. Part two of the rendering statement is to render unto God what is God's.
Don't you wish for clarity? And don't even start on the complimentary and confusing movement of revelation from the Old Testament to the New Testament. (As a public figure, I tend to use the term "Hebrew Bible" to define the O.T., but as a pastor, I tell you it is every bit a part of my bible as the N.T.
So move over Constitution, move over Bill of Rights, let me, the Christian, place my holy book on the shelf with you. That is how I do things.
And in the quiet of my own faith, I will try to convince you this is the way to do things. But in the public sphere, how do I evangelize?
And how do I evangelize without using the means and powers inherent in the political system? Because my first point of departure with my Christian Right brothers and sisters is that we cannot use those powers to evangelize.
For the sake of argument, I am going to pronounce that the Christian Canon turned 1641 this Easter. I base that entirely arbitrary date on the notation in Wikipedia that St. Athanasius included the books of our New Testament canon exclusively in his Easter address in 367 A.D., C.E., as you wish. The Old Testament was still out there, mostly nailed down, but with a couple more debates to be settled.
A Public Theology must be informed (defined) by the Bible. The amazing thing about Jesus is that he was exclusionary "I am the way and the truth and the life" and accomodating, "Render unto Caesar what is Caesar's". It is a real pain in the pocket because it almost feeds the idea of the public and private spheres. Part two of the rendering statement is to render unto God what is God's.
Don't you wish for clarity? And don't even start on the complimentary and confusing movement of revelation from the Old Testament to the New Testament. (As a public figure, I tend to use the term "Hebrew Bible" to define the O.T., but as a pastor, I tell you it is every bit a part of my bible as the N.T.
So move over Constitution, move over Bill of Rights, let me, the Christian, place my holy book on the shelf with you. That is how I do things.
And in the quiet of my own faith, I will try to convince you this is the way to do things. But in the public sphere, how do I evangelize?
And how do I evangelize without using the means and powers inherent in the political system? Because my first point of departure with my Christian Right brothers and sisters is that we cannot use those powers to evangelize.
Tuesday, May 6, 2008
A "Public" Theology
As a church, I believe we need to think about appropriate involvement for the church and its members in the "public" sphere. For example, take Jesus' words on tax policy, "Render unto Caesar what is Caesar's and unto God what is God's."
I use the term "public" sphere as I learned about it in Political Science, that there is a distinction in American politics of the public and the private spheres. I do not wish to debate the merits of this dichotomy, but simply to use it as a starting point for a theological consideration of church involvement in public matters.
I think this theology must contain very strong language that the church is not to be involved in fomenting war in the name of Jesus. This kind of war theology existed during the times of the Crusades. Our Middle Eastern brothers and sisters continue to have a long historical memory of the West and religious involvement in politics. Even when Jesus said, "I come with a sword", it was not a warrior call. It was a recognition that the faith he preached was going to cause division in the world around him. Sin was going to react with violence.
On Sunday, I can preach against the evils of war. On Monday, I can support our government's decision to commit American troops to a battle somewhere in the world. That can be confusing to consider.
I think the first step in our "public" theology is to define "Kingdom of God" work, work designed to reproduce the Kingdom of God here on earth over and against "World" work, a world where we recognize that we are in it with people of many different religions and ethnicities and that we must go with some level of respect for them, even as we consider in our Kingdom work that the Spirit may bring their hearts to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ.
I use the term "public" sphere as I learned about it in Political Science, that there is a distinction in American politics of the public and the private spheres. I do not wish to debate the merits of this dichotomy, but simply to use it as a starting point for a theological consideration of church involvement in public matters.
I think this theology must contain very strong language that the church is not to be involved in fomenting war in the name of Jesus. This kind of war theology existed during the times of the Crusades. Our Middle Eastern brothers and sisters continue to have a long historical memory of the West and religious involvement in politics. Even when Jesus said, "I come with a sword", it was not a warrior call. It was a recognition that the faith he preached was going to cause division in the world around him. Sin was going to react with violence.
On Sunday, I can preach against the evils of war. On Monday, I can support our government's decision to commit American troops to a battle somewhere in the world. That can be confusing to consider.
I think the first step in our "public" theology is to define "Kingdom of God" work, work designed to reproduce the Kingdom of God here on earth over and against "World" work, a world where we recognize that we are in it with people of many different religions and ethnicities and that we must go with some level of respect for them, even as we consider in our Kingdom work that the Spirit may bring their hearts to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ.
Sunday, May 4, 2008
Can We Separate Our Faith and Practice?
We are Christians. Can we in biblical obedience and good conscience decide that we are going to engage in behavior that is not distinctly pursuing the Great Commission? Setting up this division sounded all wonderful and good on the first go around. But can it truly be sustained by people of faith? Or is it our mandate to do as our fundamentalist brothers and sisters do? Should we be using every tool in our arsenal, including the freedom of religion in this nation, to be pressing the Case for Christianity? Should we be seeking to manipulate princes and principalities for the advancement of our faith? Even at the risk of war?
Pursue the question and the answer can become obvious. Of course we can be Christians without manipulating the power structures to pursue our evangelical goals. Until Constantine, there was no power structure behind the Christian faith. And around the world, most nations have Christianity in the minority, without political strength. It must be sustained by other power, the sovereign power of God.
I think the case can be made that Christianity is biblically required to remain OUT of politics. I know, that flies in the face of almost the entire bible. The people of Israel were chosen to be a sovereign nation under the leadership of God. But the faith moved into political structures not set into law by God. The fundamental relationship of faith and politics changed. It has remained changed to this day.
There was biblically created an Israelite nation. God ordained it on Mt. Sinai. No Christian alternative was set in place by Jesus or Paul or anywhere across the New Testament. So we are left with less explicit instructions on uniting our faith and our politics.
So begins a time of Spiritual discernment to find the middle way.
Pursue the question and the answer can become obvious. Of course we can be Christians without manipulating the power structures to pursue our evangelical goals. Until Constantine, there was no power structure behind the Christian faith. And around the world, most nations have Christianity in the minority, without political strength. It must be sustained by other power, the sovereign power of God.
I think the case can be made that Christianity is biblically required to remain OUT of politics. I know, that flies in the face of almost the entire bible. The people of Israel were chosen to be a sovereign nation under the leadership of God. But the faith moved into political structures not set into law by God. The fundamental relationship of faith and politics changed. It has remained changed to this day.
There was biblically created an Israelite nation. God ordained it on Mt. Sinai. No Christian alternative was set in place by Jesus or Paul or anywhere across the New Testament. So we are left with less explicit instructions on uniting our faith and our politics.
So begins a time of Spiritual discernment to find the middle way.
Thursday, May 1, 2008
What does a 'secular' government really do to the faith?
The United States is constructed on principles drawn deeply from our Christian heritage. We can argue about which founding fathers (and mothers) were Dieists, Jefferson's desire to strip the bible of all miraculous pieces, who really belonged to their church and who just showed up because that was state law (as in Virginia). But I am a minister in the Presbyterian tradition and I can see the ecclesiological structure of my denomination at the base of the representative government of this republic, to name but a single example of our Constitution's Christian roots.
I think they made the government secular because of the European experience. The USA is two hundred years after the Reformation, at the conclusion of religious wars between Catholics and Protestants that tore the continent apart. William Penn, the Pilgrims, the Hugonots, and so many others came over here originally because this 'new' land (new to the whites) offered a place to get out of the religious turmoil of Europe.
What a lesson for democracy building in the Middle East! We of the West are accused of either being Christianizing or Secularizing, whichever is most convenient to accuse of undermining Islam. Secular state-building, as in Turkey, when it follows 'the Western model', is not about accepting Western values.
Secular state-building is more about preserving the religions from which they emerge. Two hundred and thirty years of secular government in this nation has allowed the various churches of the Christian faith to live in peace and pursue the Great Commission to great effect all around the world.
I think where we have begun to fall down, where there is truth in the Muslim world in their accusations of us being a money-loving, promiscuous society seeking to conquer the world, is that we once had a relatively clear idea of the separation of the salvific portion of our faith from the ethical portion of our faith. Jesus taught us how to treat one another as part of the inbreaking Kingdom of God to a sinful world. Those lessons are the foundation of our society. that is the ethical portion of our faith. The salvific portion, preaching and spreading the faith, that was set aside in the secularization of the governmental system. That was done because the other model, the church and state combined in power and purpose, was a deadly system that weakened the state and left the church a sinful shell of what Jesus calls it to be.
We are secular in government so we will not be warlike in religion. It is a tradeoff that has worked so far. Iraq may be the Islamic answer to bringing such an ideal into the Muslim world. Iraq has been called Civil War, Muslim killing Muslim, Sunni killing Shi'ite, Shi'ite killing Sunni. This land is the buffer between Shi'ite Iran and Sunni Saudi Arabia. Can we present the ideal of a secular government over and against a Sharia-defined government in a way that is convincing to our brothers and sisters in the Middle East?
Can we convince the fundamentalists in both religions, Christianity and Islam, that secularism is not the death of our religions, rather it is a compromise with sin itself that takes the most inclusive aspects of our religious systems and places them on a level beyond the exclusive aspects of our religious systems? With political power, our faith operates violently. Separated from political power, it has to depend on the power of God, not the power of guns, to get its message across.
I think they made the government secular because of the European experience. The USA is two hundred years after the Reformation, at the conclusion of religious wars between Catholics and Protestants that tore the continent apart. William Penn, the Pilgrims, the Hugonots, and so many others came over here originally because this 'new' land (new to the whites) offered a place to get out of the religious turmoil of Europe.
What a lesson for democracy building in the Middle East! We of the West are accused of either being Christianizing or Secularizing, whichever is most convenient to accuse of undermining Islam. Secular state-building, as in Turkey, when it follows 'the Western model', is not about accepting Western values.
Secular state-building is more about preserving the religions from which they emerge. Two hundred and thirty years of secular government in this nation has allowed the various churches of the Christian faith to live in peace and pursue the Great Commission to great effect all around the world.
I think where we have begun to fall down, where there is truth in the Muslim world in their accusations of us being a money-loving, promiscuous society seeking to conquer the world, is that we once had a relatively clear idea of the separation of the salvific portion of our faith from the ethical portion of our faith. Jesus taught us how to treat one another as part of the inbreaking Kingdom of God to a sinful world. Those lessons are the foundation of our society. that is the ethical portion of our faith. The salvific portion, preaching and spreading the faith, that was set aside in the secularization of the governmental system. That was done because the other model, the church and state combined in power and purpose, was a deadly system that weakened the state and left the church a sinful shell of what Jesus calls it to be.
We are secular in government so we will not be warlike in religion. It is a tradeoff that has worked so far. Iraq may be the Islamic answer to bringing such an ideal into the Muslim world. Iraq has been called Civil War, Muslim killing Muslim, Sunni killing Shi'ite, Shi'ite killing Sunni. This land is the buffer between Shi'ite Iran and Sunni Saudi Arabia. Can we present the ideal of a secular government over and against a Sharia-defined government in a way that is convincing to our brothers and sisters in the Middle East?
Can we convince the fundamentalists in both religions, Christianity and Islam, that secularism is not the death of our religions, rather it is a compromise with sin itself that takes the most inclusive aspects of our religious systems and places them on a level beyond the exclusive aspects of our religious systems? With political power, our faith operates violently. Separated from political power, it has to depend on the power of God, not the power of guns, to get its message across.
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