The Church and The Vote
Aug 6th, 2008 by Sonja

Yesterday I wrote the story about the nexus of my political perspective and my faith.  It has been a place that’s been filled with tension for a very long time.  After all, I live in a state where tobacco is king.  And football is a prince.  It’s the Bible Belt, sweetie and I shouldn’t expect anything different.

And yet perhaps I should.  For all the sermons, from the literal pulpit and the bully pulpit, that I’ve heard about how Christians are to be in the world but not of the world, it would seem that we ought to be somehow different.  Yet we are not.  We look just like everyone else.  We fight our neighbors, sue our co-workers and friends, we marry and get divorced at the same rates, according to some studies abortion rates are actually higher among evangelicals and fundamentalists (p. 160-161, We The Purple … I tried to find the original article that Ms. Ford quoted, but the magazine website is no longer available).  We look for ways out of the Sermon on the Mount, rather than how to live in it.  In short, according to all available data, we are just like everybody else except that “we’re also busy for a few hours on Sunday morning.” (I can’t remember where I heard that, but it stuck and it’s sorta funny.)  For many of us we also have a more than annoying habit of being supercilious, hard headed, and power hungry.  The reputation that Christians have is unsightly and unworthy.  What we’re doing is not working.  So perhaps we ought to try something else.

So take a step back from all of this with me and let’s look at this from another perspective.  For the past week or so The Church of England has gathered some of it’s top leaders and thinkers together at the Lambeth Conference.  They did something new this year and invited a rabbi to speak at their gathering.  I’m indebted to Mike Todd at Waving or Drowning for linking to the full text of Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks remarks.  Reb Sacks spoke on the nature of covenant and the context it gives to our lives.  Here’s the link to the full text, I highly recommend you download them for yourself and read them.  I’m going to wrestle with a couple of quotes below.

And let’s begin our journey at the place we passed on our march last Thursday, in Westminster. It was such a lovely day that I imagine meeting up with my granddaughter on the way back and taking her to see some of the sights of London. We’d begin where we were, outside Parliament, and I imagine her asking what happens there, and I’d say, politics. And she’d ask, what’s politics about, and I’d say: it’s about the creation and distribution of power.

And then we’d go to the city, and see the Bank of England, and she’d ask what happens there and I’d say: economics. And she’d say: what’s economics about, and I’d say: it’s about the creation and distribution of wealth.

And then on our way back we’d pass St Paul’s Cathedral, and she’d ask, what happens there, and I’d say: worship. And she’d ask: what’s worship about? What does it create and distribute? And that’s a good question, because for the past 50 years, our lives have been dominated by the other two institutions: politics and economics, the state and the market, the logic of power and the logic of wealth. The state is us in our collective capacity.  The market is us as individuals.  And the debate has been: which is more effective? The left tends to favour the state.  The right tends to favour the market.  And there are endless shadings in between.

But what this leaves out of the equation is a third phenomenon of the utmost importance, and I want to explain why. The state is about power.  The market is about wealth.  And they are two ways of getting people to act in the way we want.  Either we force them to – the way of power.  Or we pay them to – the way of wealth.

But there is a third way, and to see this let’s perform a simple thought experiment. Imagine you have total power, and then you decide to share it with nine others.  How much do you have left?  1/10 of what you had when you began. Suppose you have a thousand pounds, and you decide to share it with nine others.  How much do you have left?  1/10 of what you had when you began.  But now suppose that you decide to share, not power or wealth, but love, or friendship, or influence, or even knowledge, with nine others.  How much do I have left?  Do I have less?  No, I have more; perhaps even 10 times as much.

The Chief Rabbi is on to something here. The state is about the distribution and manipulation of power. The market is about the distribution and manipulation of wealth/money.  Where does the church fit into this equation?

So that’s what I want to write about today.  For the last 20 or 30 years, evangelicals have posited that they could play the political power game and play it well.  We’ve seen organizations such as the Moral Majority (headed by Jerry Falwell) and the Christian Coalition (headed by Ralph Reed) come and go.  Up until very recently, (as in the campaign cycle of 2006) it was a foregone conclusion that the evangelical voting block would vote Republican.  That is slowly starting to change.  Those thinly veiled voter information guides produced by Concerned Women for America and Christian Coalition are (hopefully) a thing of the past.

So, the question still remains, who would Jesus vote for?  Or would He even vote?  It’s my belief that He probably would not participate in the political process.  The state is about the creation, distribution and manipulation of power.  It works hand in glove with the market.  The market exists to create, distribute and manipulate wealth.  Both of those operations are/were an anathema to Jesus:

The Holy Spirit led Jesus into the desert, so that the devil could test him. After Jesus had gone without eating for forty days and nights, he was very hungry. Then the devil came to him and said, “If you are God’s Son, tell these stones to turn into bread.” Jesus answered, “The Scriptures say:

`No one can live only on food. People need every word that God has spoken.’ ”

Next, the devil took Jesus to the holy city and had him stand on the highest part of the temple. The devil said, “If you are God’s Son, jump off. The Scriptures say:

`God will give his angels orders about you. They will catch you in their arms, and you won’t hurt your feet on the stones.’ ”

Jesus answered, “The Scriptures also say, `Don’t try to test the Lord your God!’ ”

Finally, the devil took Jesus up on a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms on earth and their power. The devil said to him, “I will give all this to you, if you will bow down and worship me.”

Jesus answered, “Go away Satan! The Scriptures say: `Worship the Lord your God and serve only him.’ ”

Then the devil left Jesus, and angels came to help him. (Matthew 4:1-10)

Every place in the gospels where Jesus was offered the chance to have power and/or wealth he passed it by.  Even when that power would serve a so-called higher purpose.  He knew that in the end, the power would end up serving itself rather than the purpose.  It always does.  Power consumes itself.  Power becomes it’s own end and requires more and more fuel for its engine.  Jesus knew that.

He could have come as a political king.  In fact, the Jews of the day fully expected that.  That’s what they were looking for and why so many missed out on their Messiah.  He wasn’t what they were looking for.  They were looking for their savior to come and overthrow the Romans, give them back their Promised Land, their Holy City, their Tabernacle, their Temple, their status before G-d.  They’d been looking, watching, waiting for hundreds of years, tens of generations … waiting.

But it didn’t happen the way everyone expected.  And here’s the thing.  We can’t fully comprehend how things went down in those first century days when Jesus walked the earth.  Because everything changes once you know the end of the story.

Have you ever read a book and gotten about 4 chapters in, then read the last chapter?  I have.  Sometimes I’ll just read the last page.  I just need to know who’s still alive at the end of the book.  Once in a while I’ll read the whole last chapter.  It completely changes the way you read the book.  The whole plot of the book comes into play in a different way.  You understand different nuances of character and see things differently.  You begin to understand how things work together differently.  It all makes more sense when you know the outcome.

In the same way, we know the end of Jesus’ story from the beginning.  We know  that He came born as a baby in a stable, heralded by shepherds, spent part of his childhood in Egypt, got separated from his parents at the Temple as a boy, etc, etc., etc.  We know all of his story now.  But at the time, it all came out piecemeal.  One little bit at a time and must have been quite bewildering.  Even down to His death and resurrection.  Which were one more bit of evidence of Jesus laying aside power in place of relationship.

Now, it’s fairly easy to rationalize and say that, “Well … He’s God.  I’m not.  I need to keep some power for myself and for others … how else will we get along in this fallen world?”  Well, that’s a fair question.  How else will you or get along in this world?

Power is a zero-sum game.  That is, in order to keep some for yourself, someone else has to lose some.  Wealth is also a zero-sum game.  In our capitalist culture we excel in zero-sum games.  We love them.  We begin teaching them as soon as our children have consciousness.  Here are the things that are not zero-sum games … that is if you want to get some for yourself, you have to share it with others (which is counter-intuitive in our capitalist culture):  knowledge, influence, love, kindness.  Or maybe you don’t necessarily “have” to share with others, but the sharing with others will not in any way diminish the amount that you have and it will likely increase what you have.

The problem is that the church, from the time of Constantine, has engaged in the affairs of the state and rationalized it by saying that it’s for a greater good.  Sometimes waxing, sometimes waning, the church has made greater and lesser grabs at power in the state.  Remember, the state is concerned with the creation, distribution and manipulation of power.  What did Jesus do with power?  Every single time it was offered to him?  He turned his back on it.  Now there’s a good reason for that.  Which can summed up in one word … possibly two.  But for now the one word is, covenant.  No, two.  Covenantal relationship.  Jesus has a covenantal relationship with us, individually and as a group (His Bride).

Once again, I’ll let Chief Rabbi Sacks explain this:

One way of seeing what’s at stake is to understand the difference between two things that look and sound alike but actually are not, namely contracts and covenants.

In a contract, two or more individuals, each pursuing their own interest, come together to make an exchange for mutual benefit.  So there is the commercial contract that creates the market, and the social contract that creates the state.

A covenant is something different.  In a covenant, two or more individuals, each respecting the dignity and integrity of the other, come together in a bond of love and trust, to share their interests, sometimes even to share their lives, by pledging their faithfulness to one another, to do together what neither can achieve alone.

A contract is a transaction.  A covenant is a relationship.  Or to put it slightly differently: a contract is about interests.  A covenant is about identity.  It is about you and me coming together to form an ‘us’. That is why contracts benefit, but covenants transform.

So economics and politics, the market and the state, are about the logic of competition.  Covenant is about the logic of co-operation.

For the last 20 to 30 years the church has busied itself with the logic of competition rather than the logic of co-operation. We are to be in the business (as it were) of transformation. Go back to the beginning of Reb Sacks speech, where he said that “The state is about power.  The market is about wealth.  And they are two ways of getting people to act in the way we want.  Either we force them to – the way of power.  Or we pay them to – the way of wealth.”  The liberal end of the spectrum in our country tends to favor the state, the conservative the market.  And in the church (on both sides) we’ve bought into this.  We’ve agreed with the rest of the world that there are only two ways to get people to do things.  And it may just be time to admit we’ve been wrong.  We’ve been trying the way of the world in different forms and fashions for 2000 years.  And we’ve tried especially dogmatically in this country for the past 30 years.  It has not been a crashing success.

So I’m suggesting that perhaps Jesus wouldn’t even vote.  He eschewed all power in favor of relationship.  He worked the logic of co-operation in order to transform.  I’m beginning to wonder what it might look like if we, his followers, started to do that as well.  If we stopped worrying so much about being right (as in correct, no matter what sort of correct you might be talking about), and started worrying about our relationships with our families and our friends and just made that enough for each day.   If we engaged in the logic of cooperation and love.  If we became truly people of covenant and understand what that means, both the responsibility and the privileges, I just can’t imagine the supernatural “Power” that it would unleash.  None of us would gain anything by it.  We’d all individually likely lose.  But until we’re willing to look past what’s immediately in front of us and see what Jesus was talking about we will remain concerned with the small things of this world.   We have to come together, be able to look at a larger horizon, and be known finally for our love for each other as He said in order for any of this to come true.

Won’t Get Fooled Again (July Synchroblog – God’s Politics)
Jul 22nd, 2008 by Sonja

Won’t Get Fooled Again … The Who

first recorded 1971, the above was filmed in 1978, lyrics below:

We’ll be fighting in the streets
With our children at our feet
And the morals that they worship will be gone
And the men who spurred us on
Sit in judgment of all wrong
They decide and the shotgun sings the song

I’ll tip my hat to the new constitution
Take a bow for the new revolution
Smile and grin at the change all around
Pick up my guitar and play
Just like yesterday
Then I’ll get on my knees and pray
We don’t get fooled again

The change, it had to come
We knew it all along
We were liberated from the fold, that’s all
And the world looks just the same
And history ain’t changed
‘Cause the banners, they were all flown in the last war

I’ll tip my hat to the new constitution
Take a bow for the new revolution
Smile and grin at the change all around
Pick up my guitar and play
Just like yesterday
Then I’ll get on my knees and pray
We don’t get fooled again
No, no!

I’ll move myself and my family aside
If we happen to be left half alive
I’ll get all my papers and smile at the sky
Though I know that the hypnotized never lie
Do ya?

Yeah!

There’s nothing in the streets
Looks any different to me
And the slogans are replaced, by-the-bye
And the parting on the left
Is now parting on the right
And the beards have all grown longer overnight

I’ll tip my hat to the new constitution
Take a bow for the new revolution
Smile and grin at the change all around
Pick up my guitar and play
Just like yesterday
Then I’ll get on my knees and pray
We don’t get fooled again
Don’t get fooled again
No, no!

Yeaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!

Meet the new boss
Same as the old boss

Well, by now you’re thinking that the old girl’s finally done it … she’s gone completely off her rocker.  Left her last marble far behind.  What on earth does this classic rock song have to do with politics and God and the election of 2008?  For me … everything.  It’s the refrain echoing in the air, just out of hearing, every time I hear a person of faith speak about politics these days.

Here’s a short course in US politics.  This country is not democracy.  We have a republic.  That is, we elect representatives to enact our (the people’s) will in terms of laws and spending.   In a true democracy, we would all come together to do this ourselves.  We would all vote directly on every single piece of legislation that Congress currently votes on.  So we have what is known as representative government.  See how easy that is?  We speak through our representatives.  At the federal level, this means our Congressional representatives (based on state population) and our Senators (2 from each state).  The congressional representatives (legislative branch) are up for election every 2 years, the senators every six.  In the mean time, we also elect a president (the executive branch of the government) every four years.  Now, to complete the system of checks and balances, our Founders threw in the judicial branch of the government; the Supreme Court.  The justices are appointed by a sitting president and serve for life and/or until retirement … whichever comes first.  The Supreme Court oversees the laws enacted by the legislative and executive branches to ensure that those laws are within the scope of the Constitution.  Likewise each of the other branches have veto power over the other two.  No one branch of the government has enough power to run things on their own.  All three must get along with each other in order for our government to continue functioning.  They all three simultaneously hold a carrot and a stick for each other.

If you look around you, you will see a similar pattern echoed in your state and local governments as well.  Three branches (executive, legislative and judicial) each simultaneously holding a carrot and a stick for the other two.  They will have different names at different levels, but you look; they’re there.  This is because our founding parents (don’t fool yourselves, the wives had a lot of influence on the men), were profoundly persuaded of the notion that humans need governance of themselves and of their worst inclinations in order to provide space and the ability to bring out their best inclinations.  In other words, if one could curb the greed for power with a system of checks and balances it might be possible to allow the best side human nature to blossom.

So that’s the short course on political systems in our country.  I hold a bachelor’s degree in political science and international studies and have been fascinated by study of politics from a young age.  I’ve been intrigued by politics and movements the way some people watch soap operas.  What will happen next and the speculation is a source of endless enchantment for me.

I’ve begun seeing posts here and there lately which encourage Christians especially those attempting to find a new way in the world to think about not voting in the coming election.  This is cloaked in language which helps those people feel subversive, powerful in meekness, and even Biblical.  Here’s the thing though … it’s none of those things.  Not voting is losing your voice and it’s playing right into the hands of the empire.  Here are my thoughts on why Christians should vote and vote carefully in each election.

My first thoughts are that all Christians need to take a course in critical thinking.  This is critical.  As an adult convert (at the age of 30) who went to a regular liberal arts college and learned the art of critical thinking and discourse, I have been regularly appalled at the lack of critical thinking that I see amongst the brethren and sistren.   It is why so many are now so bitterly disillusioned with President Bush.  Those of us who are critical thinkers saw him for who he was back in 1999; a charlatan.  But most Christians only heard what they wanted to hear in 2000 and again in 2004.  Having done that, and been so badly burned they seem unwilling to trust any politician again.

They need to listen for themselves and read for themselves what the candidates are saying.  Do not rely on the media reports … do not rely on Fox News or CNN or anyone else.  The internet is rife with the ability to get the speeches whole cloth.  Do this for yourself.  All you have to do is get one or two of the whole speeches and you will have enough to have the tenor of the candidate.  For instance,hen the story broke about Barak Obama’s pastor (Dr. Wright), I searched YouTube until I found his entire sermon and found the little bitty clips in context.  They meant something then and were not nearly as offensive.  If you know anything about the African-American church in this country, then you can understand where they came from.  If you don’t, then shame on you.  You have some homework to do.

Christians also need to understand the political process in such a way as to get beyond a single issue or even two issues.  Politicians, especially at the national level, must be more nuanced than that.  However, those same politicians are not above using and abusing naive voter blocks who may be lead around by the nose with a few well-chosen words.  We also need to understand the milieu in which we live.  We need to understand the vast difference between Israel of 4000 years ago and the United States of now.  There are some similarities, but we are NOT God’s chosen people.  Nor is this God’s chosen country.  It is different.

Here is the point I’d like to make the strongest.  We are not electing a king.  Ever since the time of Samuel (1Samuel 8:4-8) the people have been asking for a king.  When Jesus came as Messiah no one recognized him because they were looking for royalty and He was a peasant.  Now today in our country even those not in the church are still trying to elect a king every four years.  We try … every time … we keep looking for that savior who will make the country right again.  This time, this vote, is going to set us on the right path.  And it never happens.  It never will.  We are eternally disenchanted.  Every four years we keep waiting for a coronation, but we have an inauguration and we’re let down once again.  Because we do not have a king.

That’s a good thing.  We have checks and balances on aristocratic power and authority.  We, the people, have a voice.  As Thomas Jefferson wrote:

“Governments, wherein the will of every one has a just influence… has its evils,… the principal of which is the turbulence to which it is subject. But weigh this against the oppressions of monarchy, and it becomes nothing. Malo periculosam libertatem quam quietam servitutem. [I prefer the tumult of liberty to the quiet of servitude.] Even this evil is productive of good. It prevents the degeneracy of government, and nourishes a general attention to the public affairs.” –Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, 1787. ME 6:64″

“… nourishes a general attention to the public affairs.”  You see that’s the most important part of the quote.  In order for our republic to function, it requires a general attention to public affairs.  That means more than voting.  We cannot simply vote and walk away from the process, thinking our job is done.  Even so look at the statistics from the last presidential election:

In the presidential election of November 2004, the 64 percent of voting-age citizens who voted was higher than the 60 percent who turned out in 2000 (Table A).2 This was the highest turnout in a presidential election year since 1992, when 68 percent of voting-age citizens voted.3 The overall number of people who voted in the November 2004 election was 126 million, a record high for a presidential election year. Voter turnout increased by 15 million voters from the election in 2000. During this same 4-year period, the voting-age citizen population increased by 11 million
people.

The registration rate of the voting-age citizen population, 72 percent, was higher than the 70 percent registered in the 2000 election. The last presidential election year to have a higher registration rate was 1992, when 75 percent of voting-age citizens were registered to vote. Total registration in the November 2004 election was 142 million citizens, an increase of 12.5 million registered citizens since the 2000 election.

That’s pitiful.  Not even 2/3’s of the voting population in 2004.  And if you read the full report the breakdown of the statistics is even worse.  When you begin looking at age, education, and race the numbers are incredulous.  Those who use their voice in our country are white, rich, well-educated … and old.

It’s a self-selecting voice though.  We all have this voice.  Every single one of us.  Every race.  Every gender.  Education level doesn’t matter.  Hell, you don’t even have to be able to read.  The empire is hoping that these trends will continue.  Evil despises change.  And if Christians bow out now we will allow evil to have it’s way.

The really subversive and Biblical thing to do?

  1.   Read the report I linked to above; here it is again called Voting and Registration in the Election of November 2004  
  2. Pay special attention to portions devoted to who did NOT vote.
  3. Get involved in voter registration drives for the other (that would be uneducated folks, hispanics, african-americans, anyone who doesn’t look like you)
  4. Help someone get to the polls on election day … maybe help more than one

These are the ways that we work against getting fooled again. Just bowing out of the system or not thinking about it ensures that evil wins … again. And the new boss will be the same as the old boss. Like or not, we do owe a few pennies to Ceasar as well as some to Jesus.

UPDATE:  The discussion here got far too personal and filled with ugly slurs that are not becoming for those who claim to follow or be disciples of Jesus Christ.  Because those who were participating in the conversation cannot seem to restrain themselves, I’ve closed comments.  7:30 EST July 23, 2008

*****************************************************************************

This is a synchroblog … here is a list of others who wrote about this fascinating subject today

Phil Wyman at Phil Wyman’s Square No More
Lainie Petersen at Headspace
Jonathan Brink enters The Political Fray
Adam Gonnerman explains The Living Christ’s Present Reign
Sonja Andrews at Calacirian
Mike Bursell at Mike’s Musings
Sally Coleman at Eternal Echoes
Steve Hayes on God’s Politics
Matthew Stone at Matt Stone Journeys in Between
Steve Hollinghurst at On Earth as in Heaven
KW Leslie tells us about God’s Politics
Julie Clawson is Singing the Songs of Zion in Babylon
Dan Stone at The Tense Before
Alan Knox asks Is God Red, Blue, or Purple?
Beth Patterson at The Virtual Teahouse
Erin Word discusses Hanging Chad Theology

Speaking Truth To Power
Jul 17th, 2008 by Sonja

I’ve wanted to post a photo of this sign for months now.  It appeared late last summer in my town.  Some consider it an eyesore.  Others call it “The Liberty Wall.”  I’m in the latter group.  Suddenly now it’s getting national attention.  That’s a good thing.  I’ll tell you why in a minute.  First read the sign.

There’s a battle taking place in my town.  I did not even know about this battle until the first skirmish had been won last summer by local xenophobes.  They managed to pass the most restrictive, invasive, fearful anti-immigrant laws in the country.  It was such a horrible law that we managed to come under the scrutiny of the United Nations.  Not the US … not my state … my COUNTY!!!

The bare bones of the law are that the police may ask for anyone’s papers that they consider to be suspicious.  So … if anyone gets stopped for any traffic violation, the police may question them about their immigration status.  It amounts to a Fourth Amendment violation of our Constitution.  But who among the immigrant population has the wherewithall to take this fight to the Supreme Court?  Or who among them knows that this is possible?

For the first several months, the nativists strutted around waving their flags considering themselves the victors.  What protectors of the castle they!  Houses began to go vacant.  Families began to disappear.  Stores locked their doors.  Teachers in our schools lost their jobs.  Mortgages were defaulted upon.

The law of unintended consequences began to make itself felt.

As more and more of our population fled the county, our economic substructure has begun to crumble. Our housing market is in the toilet and while real estate prices have fallen around the region, they have fallen so dramatically in my county to have made national news … on PBS! Or so my mother reports.  While the number of children attending ESOL classes has fallen in our county, it has gone up in neighboring counties.  So these families are not going “home” (where ever that might have once been), which is the law’s express intent.  But they are merely shuffling their place within this country.  This has become a high stakes game of NIMBY (Not In My BackYard) where we are using human beings for game pieces and the federal government as our hostage.

So, my question is … how’s that working out?

From what I can see no one is gaining from this foolish law … our local jail is overcrowded with people awaiting deportation because the federal facility has not yet been built.  Our economic structures are beginning a sad crumble because whether we like or not we depend upon these people for support and assistance, just as they depend upon us.  We all live in a system together and when you remove part of it, the ripples cause problems …

So … how’s that working out for ya?

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