Although I defended Mark Kleiman in his dispute with Allen Brill, I think Allen is basically correct in his complaint that the secular left spends an inordinate amount of time bashing religion in general and Christianity in particular. In fact, since the issue seems to have upset him so much that he departed from his own blog, I wrote him an email the other day that he said would make a good start for a blog post. So here goes.

I think that for many avid politicos on both the left and the right, politics is their religion. Not in the sense that it explains the creation of the world or our fate after death, of course. But it provides a framework for understanding society, defining good and evil, and pledging one’s primary allegiances. I’ve heard stories from political activists that sound a lot like religious conversion stories; when they found their cause, they also found their community and their purpose in life.

When I see interactions between political leftists and leftist Christians, I see the Christians implicitly or explicitly being suspected of divided loyalty. Often the secularists seem to see liberal Christians mainly as credible voices to bash fundamentalists with, and keep pestering them to do more of it. I’ve even seen some commenters accuse Allen of not doing it enough, which, given that that’s been pretty much the running theme of his whole freaking blog, indicates that Christians can never do it enough. Because politics is a jealous god. The lefties suspect that Christians have an attachment to something other than a political movement or party, and that they are coming from a fundamentally different worldview. And, of course, they’re absolutely right.

This became extremely clear to me after that abortion march recently, when many progressive Christians expressed their opposition to abortion and how alienated they felt from a left that’s become increasingly hardline about it. (See Hugo, Jennifer, Jonathan and Jim Wallis, for instance.) The gulf is huge here because many secular liberals (and indeed, secular conservatives) I know simply don’t understand how you could see an abortion as evil, much less illegal. Feminists, in particular, have placed absolute bodily sovereignty at the center of their understanding of liberation. So words like Paul’s statement that your body was “given to you by God, and … is not your own” sound almost monstrous.

Such disagreements don’t necessarily stop political coalitions from being made. But having common goals on some points doesn’t prevent friction or tension, even outright hostility. Jesus said from the beginning that following him and preaching his word would bring hostility and even persecution from others, and he didn’t say only from conservatives either. Because any time you challenge people’s gods, they are going to feel deeply threatened. This is as true of unofficial gods like politics as it is of formal gods like Allah. I’ve never officially belonged to any religion, but I’ve had to struggle with my attachments to things I hold sacred, and I can get pretty damned hostile and mean about it too (as Telford well knows, alas).

How do Christians deal with this? I think of Stephen in Acts 7:

When they heard these things, they became enraged and ground their teeth at Stephen. But filled with the Holy Spirit, he gazed into heaven and saw the glory of God and Jesus standing at the right hand of God. ‘Look,’ he said, ‘I see the heavens opened and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God!’ But they covered their ears, and with a loud shout all rushed together against him. Then they dragged him out of the city and began to stone him; and the witnesses laid their coats at the feet of a young man named Saul. While they were stoning Stephen, he prayed, ‘Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.’ Then he knelt down and cried out in a loud voice, ‘Lord, do not hold this sin against them.’ When he had said this, he died.

Notice what Stephen did not do:
1) Complain he wasn’t being treated with proper respect.
2) Tell his accusers what intolerant bigots they were.
3) Fear that his death meant a loss for the cause. In fact, to me the really beautiful thing about this story is that Stephen’s last vision is of victory: he sees Christ enthroned in heaven, assuring him that even this evil is only temporary.

I think this points to the basic difference between the Christian god and the political god. Politics is basically manichean. There are the children of darkness and the children of light, and their conflict is driven by a desire to win and a fear of losing. Political movements, unlike the church, have no assurance from God that even the gates of hell will not prevail over them. So that “desperate drive for survival” that Fr. Jake rightly said Christians have to let go of, is very real for political movements. Even if individuals are willing to sacrifice themselves, the movements are ultimately subject to the same Machiavellian calculations of self-interest.

That’s not to say that all politics is bad, and Christians shouldn’t involve themselves in it. I’m not advocating the viewpoint held by some that religion is a personal matter with no place in the public sphere. Although I don’t like to hear clergy opining too much about tactics, I think they should weigh in on the big issues of the day. But there is a profound difference between angling for supremacy here on earth and trusting that by being faithful to God, you can share in the victory he has already won. The way I read the Acts story is that Stephen prayed for his attackers not because he believed in pacifism per se, but because he believed in a God who made violence unnecessary.

This brings me to another question: can you preach the morals and ethics of Christ without preaching Christ? I’ll get to that in my next post.

Sgt. Stryker reports that the hometown of one of the Abu Ghraib torturers is rallying round their boy, like “a tribal society that takes its behavioral cues from The Godfather,” as Stryker puts it. Even more fun is how they bring Christianity into it:

At the Tuesday rally, they pray for Jeremy, they sing for Jeremy, they rail about the lack of God’s teaching in society and the school, they rage against pornography and Bill Clinton and they rise en masse, without prompting when “God Bless America” blares from the speakers, just to the right of the American flag and the portrait of Jesus.

Regarding my last post, maybe the NCC’s humanitarian goals aren’t as boring as I thought they were. I think these folks could use pastoral letter, don’t you?

Mark Kleiman created quite a dust-up in the blogosphere with this post:

Am I the only person who couldn’t care less about the opinions of a bunch of preachers about policy toward Iraq ? If I don’t pay any attention to what Jerry Falwell thinks about same-sex marriage, why pay attention to what the National Council of Churches thinks about foreign policy?

As his updates indicate, this got a pretty negative reaction, most conspicuously from Allen Brill, who argued that these church’s extensive experience with charitable work around the world qualified them to speak on foreign affairs.

I think Mark was being needlessly rude, but I also think I see the point he’s driving at. In fact, I raised a very similar complaint about an antiwar sermon last year at All Saints:

For one thing, he lapsed into that frequent failing of political Christians, speaking outside his area of expertise. Talk soon moved away from the ideals of Christ towards practical ideas of how to deal with the current conflict, through international law and so on, that seem like a matter of policy on whose efficacy people with the same goals can disagree. They should not be confused with religious doctrine. (Leftist Christians are hardly the only guilty parties here; the Assemblies of God, for instance, opines in its doctrine that pornography isn’t covered by the First Amendment.)

I don’t think that the NCC confuses its letter with religious doctrine, since it points out that “faithful Christians of good will may disagree with one another when it comes to questions of national policy.” But I can see why it’s less than clear exactly what authority they’re speaking from. It is, after all, called a “pastoral letter,” which implies they’re speaking as pastors and bishops, not as folks who’ve done a lot of work with the U.N. Rather like the priest speaking his opinions from the pulpit seemed like it was almost deliberately blurring his opinion with God’s.

The other problem is the nature of the reasoning in the letter. In the interests of keeping it short, I suppose, they don’t spell it out in great detail. But they seem to be following a kind of similar line of thinking as the priest mentioned above, in assuming that if you start with certain principles it will lead you inevitably to a certain course of action. And so, we travel from the principle that every person is a child of God to the assertion that a U.N. takeover of Iraq is the only way to “foster any chance of a lasting peace.” I am sure that Mark and many others like him would also like to see a lasting peace in Iraq, but don’t necessarily agree with the latter assertion — because of the U.N.’s spotty record elsewhere, or because the U.S. might generate more anger by ducking out, or whatever. Why the NCC believes that this is the best method is really not stated, other than a kind of broad support of internationalism.

Look at it this way: Suppose I ask my pastor to recommend a good restaurant in town. I would not be appealing to his authority as a pastor, but as a guy who loves food and has lived in L.A. all his life. So his answer to me would not be from pastoral authority, and it would not demand any reference to Scripture. But when a group of pastors puts their policy advice in a letter mixed in with pastoral advice, it’s no surprise that they seem to be speaking from religious authority all the way through.

This matters, I think, because it’s not only irritating to political scientists like Mark, but it carries theological implications I’m not happy with. What is the goal of this policy advice? Ultimately, it appears to be figuring how the greatest number can survive and prosper. America, the letter says, has provoked hostility by occupying Iraq, so withdrawal isn’t just good for Iraq but for America’s self-preservation. It will leave everybody better off. The ultimate argument is basically utilitarian.

Compare that with Fr. Jake’s commentary on Christian pacifism, especially this bit:

And there’s the rub; the message of the Gospel of Jesus Christ laid bare; we will die before we resort to violence. To accept that truth, we have to let go of our desperate drive to survive. Is survival what it’s all about in God’s kingdom? I think not; it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.

Wrap your brain around that for a minute. What do you think would happen if the NCC wrote a pastoral letter advising our government leaders to “let go of their desperate drive to survive”? Mark Kleiman wouldn’t like it, but I suspect he also wouldn’t feel like his professional turf had been invaded. Because it would be obvious that they’re aiming for completely different things.

As it is, though, it’s not really very clear if the church body’s goals are that different from the goals of any decent-minded person. Make the world as peaceful and happy as possible. Avoid war as much as possible. Gain the world’s respect. All those are worthy goals, and few would disagree with them, but that’s why Mark didn’t really see it as falling under religious expertise. Do Christians have anything unique to bring here?

My back has finally recovered; thanks to those who asked. While I was out Marvin posted a few pungent remarks:

Predictably, the National Council of Churches has called on the United Nations to take over postwar Iraq. Predictably, the Southern Baptist Convention’s Richard Land blames the Iraqi torture scandal on “moral relativism.” You can read more about it here, but I’m warning you. Prepare to be less than surprised at what these Christians are saying about Iraq.

Why doesn’t the National Council of Churches step up to the plate and offer to take over Iraq instead of foisting this huge problem on the U.N.? Let’s sell off both their property on Riverside Drive and the offices of its member denominations. That’ll generate some revenue. Ship the denominational bureaucrats and windbag clergy (including myself) to Iraq to replace the CPA. Give our 18-26 year-old members some options: Peace Corps, Christian Peacemaker Teams, etc., or go find another “church” to call home. Why do “prophetic Christians” limit their mission to telling world governments what they ought to do instead of challenging Christians themselves with what we ought to do?

Jennifer responded:

This is brilliant. I love it. Of course, I’m not sure that the NCC has the expertise to do it, but it’s exactly the kind of thinking we need inside the Church. This is a proper Christian response to evil. It’s a great reminder that “prophetic Christians” (I’m guessing he means liberal mainliners) love to tell the government what to do and spend lots of time protesting the government and trying to change it, as if the primary purpose of Church is to get the kingdom of God legislated instead of being or living into the kingdom of God. Not that trying to change laws is wrong, but are we more comfortable changing things outside the box, instead of embodying that change inside?

Well, the problem is bigger than expertise. If the Iraqis aren’t thrilled to be ruled by Americans, I don’t think they’d like being run by a Christian theocracy! I agree in liking the thinking though. I was always a little uncomfortable with the “prophet” analogy some Christians make. Prophets were lone individuals who didn’t have the power to do much of anything except shoot their mouths off, but churches have more wherewithal. Also, the prophets of the Old Testament criticized the government and people of Israel for breaking their covenant with God. When there’s no covenant, criticism just becomes your usual political lobbying. Not that there’s anything inherently wrong with that, but I would hope churches would aspire to more.