WHAT'S NEW

About
My Other Blog
Blog Schedule
Activism
Past Blog Posts
Various &
a Sundry Blogs
Favorite
Websites
My Stuff
On The Web
Audio-Visual
Library
Favorite
Articles
This Month's Scripture Verse:

But mark this: There will be terrible times in the last days. People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God— having a form of godliness but denying its power. Have nothing to do with such people.
2 Timothy 3:1-5

SEARCH THIS BLOG

Friday, May 25, 2018

The Time Is Now But This Message Is Not Yet

There is no time like the present for the Church to speak out about the injustices that are so pervasive both in our nation and in the world. And the Reclaiming Jesus movement has done just that. A collection of religious leaders met in order to issue a statement that tries to reassociate Jesus and the the Gospel with another, but very general, political perspective than what is promoted today. And considering Church history, the time for such a reassociation of Jesus with a new set of political views was needed yesterday. For in the pre-revolutionary times of France, Russia, and Spain the dominant branch of the Church in each of those times supported those with wealth and power. And the danger for the conservative evangelical Church today is that it is very prone to following those historical examples.

Here we should note that the Church can support wealth and power in two distinct ways. One way is to explicitly state its support for those policies and ideologies that preserve the status quo for benefit of those with wealth and power. That occurred in each of the examples listed above. The Roman Church spoke out in support of the aristocracy of France, the Russian Orthodox Church spoke out in support of the Tsar and the economic elites of that time, and the Roman Church spoke out in support of the Spanish Kingdom before the Spanish Revolution.

As for America, we do have, in part, a repeating of history. Before we go into that, we should note what is the dominant part of the Church in America. That title belongs to conservative Protestants or the combination of conservative Protestants and Conservative Catholics. That defines the dominant part of the Church in America at this time. And there are parts of that dominant part that explicitly speak out in support of those with wealth and power. One only needs to read a few articles on economics at the Acton blog or listen to some sermons from white evangelical churches to witness that support.

But another way that the Church can employ to support those with wealth and power is for the Church to remain silent on the corporate sins of state which are the result of the direction provided by those with wealth and power. For the Church to say nothing about those sins while it strives to point out all of the personal sins committed by individuals is to minimize, if not deny the existence of, those corporate sins. And that is despite the fact that there are fare more people who become victimized by the committing of corporate sins than those who are are victimized by the committing of personal sins.

When the Church is silent in the face of the injustices being revived by any government, the Church becomes complicit with those injustices. So in either case of whether the Church explicitly supports or is silently complicit with the corporate sins being committed, the Church is supporting the primary beneficiaries of those corporate sins: those with wealth and power.

Thus, part of the preamble of the Reclaiming Jesus document (click here for the text) states the following:

When politics undermines our theology, we must examine that politics. The church’s role is to change the world through the life and love of Jesus Christ. The government’s role is to serve the common good by protecting justice and peace, rewarding good behavior while restraining bad behavior (Romans 13). When that role is undermined by political leadership, faith leaders must stand up and speak out. Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said, “The church must be reminded that it is not the master or the servant of the state, but rather the conscience of the state.”

there exists another part of the Church, not a part of the dominant part of the Church in America, that is pushing back against the corporate sins being overlooked by much of the Conservative Church here in America.

There certainly should be little objection to what was cited by Martin Luther King Jr. The Church should serve as part of the conscience of the state. The Church should not be the only source of objection, but should be speaking out now. But the beginning of that quote also suggests a bit of an overreach by the Christian leaders who wrote the document. The role of the Church is not to change the world through the life and love of Jesus. The moment we say that is the moment we open the door up accepting some sort of vanguard position of authority in the state. And yet, acting as the conscience of the state is one of the responsibilities of the Church. Why? It is because the job of the Church is to preach the Gospel of Christ in order to persuade people to believe and follow Jesus. Preaching against all kinds of sins is part of that job. And some of the sins people commit involve corporate sins that exploit people and the environment and thus endanger other people either now or in the future.

So on the one hand, the Church is to preach against all kinds of sins including those state sins and other sins that consist of exploiting others or the the environment. At the same time, the Church must avoid justifying the seizing of power for the sake of preaching against all kinds of sin. So let's take a look at what the document promotes.


The Reclaiming Jesus document speaks against the prevalence of racism today. Though while conservatives would like to point out reverse racism on the part of some minorities, many from those from minority races have yet to fully escape the race-based marginalization that has been so much a part of our nation's history.

The Reclaiming Jesus document also speaks against the marginalization and abuse of women that has taken place in our nation's history and present.


In addition,  the Reclaiming Jesus rejects policies that target the most vulnerable in our society. When budgets allow the vulnerable to be ignored or exploited, then those budgets become 'moral' documents according to the Reclaiming Jesus document.  The vulnerable include immigrants, the poor, and refugees. And the beneficiaries of those exploitive policies and budgets are those with wealth and power. On a side note, in a very real sense our nation is undergoing an Ayn Rand coup of the government as more of our sponsored elected officials are preferentially voting for bills that benefit themselves and their friends at the expense of those in need.

The Reclaiming Jesus document then denounces the lying that is so pervasive not just in our government, but in our society as well. And all of that is well and good.

The Reclaiming Jesus document goes on to reject the consolidation of political power that is occurring in our nation, as well as the world,  today. This rejection includes the hostility that some political leaders show to those who disagree as seen in their efforts to discredit them. And all of that is well and good.

Finally, the Reclaiming Jesus document condemns the 'America First' agenda announced by President Trump. What comes with rejecting that agenda includes rejecting all policies of domination and the exploitation of the resources of other nations. And again, all of this is well and good.

But if most, if not all, of what is written is well and good, where is the problem? The problem rests in any part of the Church seeking a place of supremacy in society to control society regardless of the intentions of the Church. This document needs to include plans to collaborate with all other legitimate groups of people to address the wrongs noted in the document. That is because the purpose of the Church is to preach the Gospel, not to change the world. 


But being a conscience of the state, as was noted in the Reclaiming Jesus document, becomes an important subtask for the Church to perform anyway.  Why is that the case? It is because for the Church to preach the Gospel, it is must not only preach against all kinds of sins, it must also find ways to exist in the world. And in order to exist in any nation, the Church must decide on how it will share society with the resident of a given nation. And while some conservatives look at that line about sharing society as simply loving one's immediate neighbor, sharing society involves much more than that. It involves whether we will look to share society as equals or as superiors. And once that concept is introduced, sharing society revolves around what legislation we will support. Will we support legislation that promotes equality for all and collaborative efforts to write our laws or will we support legislation that gives our group a place of supremacy so we can exercise some degree of control over the rest of society.

So there are problems with the Reclaiming Jesus document. And to avoid the chance that any part of the Church would use the problems cited by the document to try to seize a place of supremacy over others in society,  one must talk about how the Church needs to collaborate with others. But all of that is insignificant compared to the problems pointed out by the document.




No comments: