There is something I have been reluctant to confess publicly. I have tried to submit to the generally optimistic mood recently, the optimism concerning the prospect of electing such a dramatically different man from the Current Occupant—and not just a dramatically different man; a dramatically different, Christian man. Many Christian liberals and progressives are feeling the premonitions of a New Day coming, a day when a man will be put in office who understands and can give voice to the Christian concern for poverty, a man who demonstrates spellbinding, riveting philosophical acumen and theological sensitivity when discussing (heretofore) impenetrably difficult issues like homosexuality and abortion (The nuance, O the nuance! How we sing thy praise!), yes, a man who at one point was so impervious to cultural whims about noncommittal displays of patriotism that he even refused to wear a flag pin!But I fear I cannot submit to this optimism any longer. True, I was even for a time a leader in the front lines of the troops of optimism, that veritable Army of Hope, only six months ago. But I can no longer wave that flag, the flag I waved when I phone banked for the Democrat during the Texas primaries (But Barack Obama could be that Christian President we’ve been praying for!...[click]). My confession is this: I fear Barack Obama will not in fact be a Christian President if he is elected next week.*
This is because the very epithet “Christian President” has already begun to collapse in on itself, even before Mr. Obama arrived on the scene. There are a couple of ways I could describe the incommensurability of the concepts “Christian” and “President”. I could take one route, the one William T. Cavanaugh takes, and trace the genealogy of the modern state back to its genesis in the 17th century as a struggle between an imperialistic, totalizing national State and the other social bodies that stood in its way (feudal hierarchies, trade guilds, the church). The invention of modern “human rights” was a brilliant act of thaumaturgy that guaranteed civilians something they already had under feudal arrangements, and the expanding liberal state sold the idea as a way to undercut the legitimacy of these other social bodies. Perhaps more importantly, the rise of “universal human rights” happened to coincide with the rise of the state’s monopoly on violence—human rights were merely a way for the state to cash in on its own prize to itself. In this line of thinking, the church and the modern state are therefore inherently at odds with one another, and Christians must chose sides, drive their boot heels into the ground and defend the integrity of the church against the state’s unceasing megalomania.
Or perhaps we do not have to go that far; perhaps we do not have to accuse Mr. Obama of being an unwitting actor in an unfolding drama that has already been scripted for him. Maybe we can instead take him at his own word. In a 2006 speech on faith and politics, Mr. Obama described the difficulty of carrying one’s faith commitments and political commitments simultaneously. Whereas politics is the art of the possible, marked by an appreciation for compromise and negotiation, religion is the art of the impossible, he said.
Abraham was righteous precisely because he threw himself at the feet of a call that made absolutely no sense. Jesus calls us to turn the other cheek, even though it is an open invitation for someone to come in and be a tyrant. But how much room is there for the impossible when you have already been sworn into an arena where the “possible” is played, and played exclusively? Is there much elbow room in a Senate packed with lobbyists’ money?Christians must bear witness to the impossible by living according to radical hospitality and forgiveness in a world that takes victims that are not even hospitable or forgiving. Christians invite thieves into their homes even when their valuables are within easy reach. Christians give away money to causes even when it will empty their bank accounts. Christians do not even shoot back at the man who has just taken the lives of five of their little girls.
So what is so Christian about threatening to invade Pakistan because of reason to believe terrorists are hiding there? What is so Christian about sending billions in military aid instead of humanitarian and development aid to a country already as war-torn as Afghanistan? What is so Christian about throwing immigrants back across the border to countries we have helped keep in perpetual poverty? Is there any room for the impossible to budge—even just a little—in an Oval Office beset on every side by guns, dirty money and the ephemeral tides of populism? It would be nice to think that there is, but one can understand the pessimism of someone like myself who has seen the United States government act one way and one way only in his lifetime. If politicians will not bear witness to the impossible, then are we to leave them to their own devices so we can do a better job ourselves, so that the Amish are not the only ones still concerned with peace? I do not know.*Do not read this confession as a suggestion that the integrity of Mr. Obama's faith should be doubted or that I will not vote for him. I will, gladly.
2 comments:
Nic: thanks for your post. It got me thinking, so hopefully this blog is willing to indulge the rantings of a co-writer’s crazy spouse.
The problem is, we were never supposed to care about a president’s religious affiliation. The constitution is written with nary an inclination of the sort, despite what “dr” (that’s right, I shan’t even capitalize it) Dobson tell us. And I think we see what kinds of mania such a Dobson-esque interpreation of our belov’d document can create: racism, violenece, war, internment camps, segregation, annihilation (see: American Indians) and fear. All in the name of preserving and expanding an idealized faithful democracy that didn’t exist in the first place. I know the founders had their problems (google T. Jefferson and slaves), but at least they had this right…
In reference to your assertions about what “Christians” do (allow thieves in, etc. well, you know, you wrote it…) I would caution against lumping all Christians together here. The AMISH do this, also probably a fair amount of Quakers, and then a handful of Christians. This is, unfortunately, no longer the Christian message. Bryce and I visited a church last week in which the priest went on and on about the burden of paying taxes. If Christians bitch about taxes, I seriously doubt they are going to allow their hard-earned, well-deserved material possessions to go out the door without a fight (one which, I would argue, has a pretty good chance of showcasing a gun). Nevertheless, I agree Christians should do this, and would in theory…
However, this leads me to my final point (feel free to sigh with relief). Why do we have to use the term Christians here? Keeping in mind that Bryce and I have this delightful discussion most days, let me put forward a couple of my more winning points (I’ll try to preserve some humility whist doing so). Primarily, isn’t humanity enough to drive us to support the poor, not kill in revenge, etc? I think that we don’t need a Christian President, we need a President who seeks the justice that humanity demands. By virtue of being human, we are connected with all the suffering, all the poverty and despair, all the injustice in the world. We have to care, we have to do something merely because we are human. I agree that the theory of Christianity wants to accomplish these things, but so do all world religions, right? (I took world religions in maymester, so feel free to disagree). I think there is a basic human instinct that pervades those distinct doctrines and unites us as humans.
This may be my biggest struggle with Christianity. I like it, in theory, and think it is a good and just doctrine. But I also feel like, in this particular realm, it is redundant. I don’t need a religion to be just. Being a person makes it so.
Bearing witness is never the role of a president. It should be uniting us, providing for our health and safety, and insuring that we are not oppressed. If that corresponds with Christianity, then great. If not, we’ll be okay, and maybe, just maybe, a little bit more tolerant. And human.
Thanks for the comment, Katie. I always appreciate what you have to say.
First of all, a word on my (and this blog's) use of the word "Christian". When I talk about "Christians" I do say this descriptively, but I mostly do so in the normative sense. I can't help but do this as a student of theology; it's our endless task to reformulate what it is we are called to and what we should be doing in the name of Christ. So when I say the Christian thing to do is to lay down our arms while monsters come in and take what is most precious to us, and Amish Christians are the only ones doing this, then you guessed it: there's nothing very Christian about what the rest of us have been doing all these years. The Amish school shooting in 2006 served as a searing reminder of how far so many of us American Christians had left behind our call to embody a Jesus-like ethic in the world. It made everyone question how liberally we apply the adjective "Christian". (I also find it curious that it happened less than a month before the congressional elections that signaled the beginning of the end of American Christianity's love affair with the Republican party, but that's another story.)
I would have to disagree that this is no longer the Christian message. Present day Christians have done a terrific job of muddling up that message with our disastrous political alliances/sellouts, but the message is clearly still there, although it's often voiced by a minority. In fact, ever since the conversion of Constantine in the 4th century, I would argue that the central message of Christianity persists primarily as a subtext in the subsequent history of the church. There are occasionally whole groups who bear witness to it authentically (such as the Desert Mothers and Fathers, the Franciscans, the Anabaptists, monastics, to name a few), but apart from that the central message of Jesus is more often than not obscured. It is obscured, but it is still there.
Generally speaking, I agree with the statement that "we were never supposed to care about a president's religious affiliation". However, it would really depend on who the "we" is in that statement. Americans or Christians? Venezuelans, Iraqis, or Christians? One thing I would like to press Liberals--Christians or not, and in the classic as well as the contemporary sense--to recognize is that there is not just one narrative at work here. The Christian narrative and the state narrative are distinct, and although sometimes their planes of interest are nearly coterminous (the abolition of slavery), sometimes those narratives are at stark odds with one another. What the state has done with reliable regularity for hundreds of years is assume elements of the Christian narrative (because it is a powerful narrative) to achieve its own ends, and 9 times out of 10 the church has been guilty with letting the state get away with it. And let's be honest, ever since the Wars of Religion in the 17th century--which really had little to do with churches fighting each other and everything to do with the secular state consolidating its monopoly on violence (see William T. Cavanaugh, "Cities")--there's no question who has been the power broker and who has been the sucker. Antebellum arguments for slavery would have been alive and well regardless if they had co-opted Scripture for their own use or not. The US would have had its way invading Indian and Mexican lands anyway, with or without the aid of the spineless pastors who blessed those wars.
I'm sure you understood that in saying "Barack Obama Will Not Be a Christian President", I didn't mean to advocate, in Dobson-ian fashion, the Christian support of some other candidate (God forbid). I meant to underscore the absurdity of that line of thinking in the first place, so I agree with you that we shouldn't expect the brand of "Christian President" to work or even be desirable. On that we can agree. Where we come out on different ends, if I read you right, is that for me this is cause for us to eye the political arena with overall suspicion, whereas for you it is a green light to go ahead with the political process. Another difference is that my presumed audience is those who are interested foremost in the integrity of the church (so we don't keep selling out to the ones who have the guns and money), whereas your audience is those who are interested in the perfection of the democratic state (so it doesn't keep exploiting theology). I'm not saying they are mutually exclusive, I'm not ready to go that far just yet, but I do believe if we don't get clear about the distinction between those narratives, the authenticity of the Christian message is easily diluted/co-opted by the more powerful political apparatus.
On your last point (and this is my last point, so I'll return the favor of letting you have the sigh of relief), I also think that being human should be reason enough to want justice, equality, et al. And I also think that the word "Christian" can, indeed, get redundant. But I still really like that word. In fact, I need it. I still need it, even after growing up on Focus on the Family. My ideas of justice and equality are profoundly informed by the word, and I'll even say, not without trepidation, that the word is a major basis for the modern concern for human rights. And there are plenty of people out there who still need it as well. So I'd rather hang on to it and join the larger effort of defending its meaning against the cacophony threatening to overwhelm it.
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