Perhaps David Bentley Hart's advice from his review of Dawkins' Greatest Show on Earth will serve as a proper introduction. Hart writes:
One should always do what one does best, while scrupulously avoiding those tasks for which neither nature nor tuition has equipped one. This is not, obviously, what one could call a moral counsel; it is merely a counsel of prudence. Another way of saying it would be, try not to make a fool of yourself.
Glenn, please listen to Dr. Hart--try not to make a fool of yourself over your "leave church" statement. The easiest way to avoid making yourself a fool would be to say to Christians, "Yes, I said something stupid, and I apologize" (and Glen, this should be said sincerely, not in your annoyingly childish voice).
But you will not concede such will you, Glenn? No. You're much too strong to admit your stupidity in areas where "neither nature nor tuition has equipped" you to speak. So I'll ask you to do the following: instead of attacking your critics, speak with them civilly.
You seem unjustifiably worried about Jim Wallis and his message of social justice. You call him a Marxist? Please, Glenn. I fear you can't see clearly through all the smoke you've been blowing lately. You said something - Christians leave your churches - and now, not only will you not admit that you said it, but you will not even speak to someone, Jim Wallis, who has said repeatedly (1, 2, 3 and 4) that he will not attack you. Yet you attack Wallis. Why, Glenn?
I suspect it's because you know that you don't know squat about Christian theology. So by attacking Jim Wallis, you are "scrupulously" sticking to what you do best. Geez, Glenn, how sad is it that you'd rather smear a good man than talk to him? It is precisely at this point that you have made a fool of yourself.
Now Glenn, I've said before that I think you're a complete bastard, but that's okay because I'm a bastard too. So know that you're in good company. God loves us anyway. Thanks be to God!
But I'm really, really tired of your fearmongering and the way you warp seemingly logical people into paranoid neo-McCarthyians. And now you've come after the church, leading Christians out of the Kingdom of God and into the courts of the principalities and powers. And here is the very great irony of this whole situation, Glenn: you call President Obama and his administration Marxist, Communist Fascists but, at the end of the day, you are just another advocate for his administration because, at the end of the day, you worship at the altar of America. Your trust is in the powers-that-be. And thus, your attack on the Christian church becomes even more infuriating because, by telling Christians to leave their churches if they proclaim justice for the marginalized (and that's what you did), you are telling them to forsake their church's mission in favor of your idealized America, your god.
However, the Obama administration does hold one thing more sacred than you do, Glenn: America. Which is to say: you're a bad disciple of Americanism. That document that you're always drooling over--you know, the Constitution?--begins with an appeal to Justice, Tranquility, and Welfare. President Obama understands this and is trying to bring about reform that will lead to justice for everyone, not just for millionaires with their own entertainment television program. Glenn, your America is for you. Not for your listeners. Not for your viewers. Not for American citizens. But it is for you, and I am amazed that all the people who think you've "got it all figured out" don't understand this. You're not looking out for them; you're looking out for number one. President Obama actually cares about people. You should learn how to care about people too, Glenn. Remember, don't make a fool of yourself!
But Glenn the church is not about Right or Left, Republican or Democrat, Beck or Obama. The Christian church is about Christ. It is about God--the God who graciously created; the God who preserved Noah; the God who called Abraham; the God who raised up Moses; the God who established a nation; the God who protected his people; the God who sent prophets to his people when they rebelled; the God who exiled his people; the God who restored his people; the God who incarnated human flesh in the person of Jesus Christ; the God who inaugurated his Kingdom; the God who died on a Roman Cross; the God who killed Death once for all on the first Easter; the God who sent his Holy Spirit upon his people; the God who controls history; the God who loves; the God who preserves; the God who renews; the God who "wipes away every tear." The church bears witness to God. The church bears witness to God's justice.
So Glenn, when you say that social justice is a perversion of the Gospel, you are not only attacking the church, you are attacking God himself because by denying that the Christian witness involves social justice, you are denying that God cares about social justice. May God grant the church discernment to see that you are the voice of the adversary. You cannot speak to Christians because you are a prophet loyal the principalities and powers not to God.
Now to be fair to you Glenn, you are following in a long line of political idolaters--many of whom have claimed to be loyal Christians while pledging their allegiance to the principalities and powers. One such symptom of this idolatry is that so many Christians today think it is legitimate to kill in war. The command of Jesus to his followers was to love and pray for enemies and to turn the other cheek when struck. The early church understood that Christians were instructed not to wield the sword. But so many historians have identified something called "the Constantinian Shift," which simply refers to the conversion of the Emperor Constantine in the fourth century. Ever since Constantine baptized empire, Christians have been having a tough time discerning the difference between Christianity and Imperialism. That difficulty is still there, Glenn.
I am indebted to Richard Goode, Lee Camp, and Will Campbell for helping me understand this. I hope I can help you understand this too, Glenn. You see, the church should not be about the business of trying to shape governmental policies into what Christians think it should be. That is, when Christians see something wrong with the government, the Christian is called to do nothing about. Instead, as Will Campbell says, the church is called to be what it already is: a reconciled community bearing witness to the Kingdom of God. So (and here's some common ground, Glenn!), to the extent that Christians like Jim Wallis want to maneuver through the government, they miss the point of the gospel. The gospel--if it is really good news (which I think it is)--must give people an alternative to the principalities and powers that oppress from all sides. You see Glenn, you are advocating the oppression brought by the powers-that-be. Christian theology advocates freedom (which is not to say a Western liberalism-type freedom; Christian theology advocates a freedom to serve, a freedom "to consider others better than myself," and a freedom to bear witness to the victorious Kingdom of God).
So, at the end of the day, this confusion over what is Christian and what is Imperialism often leads to humanism. I think people like Richard Goode, Will Campbell, and Jamie Smith are right on this point. You see Glenn, not only are you a humanist (in that you believe humans can sort all this out), but Wallis is also a humanist (because he thinks the answer can come through the American political system). I do not have such confidence and that's okay because God has already sorted it all out. The problem is that we humans are notoriously bad at seeing what God has already done.
"Be reconciled!" Will Campbell shouts. "But Will," some might reply, "all that reconciliation stuff's just not very realistic. It doesn't solve the problem." But such a reply misses the point; God has accomplished renewal already. This is what Goode calls "Easter realism." Christians are not called to make things right; Christians are called to bear witness to the truth that things are already made right. Christians bear witness to the proleptic expectation for God's Kingdom. The church, as others have said, is to be an outpost of the coming Kingdom, living as though the Kingdom were already here in its fullness. But don't misunderstand me, Glenn; I am not advocating the withdrawal of Christians from society. No. Very much no! When we Christians understand that our call is to bear witness to the "already-not yet" Kingdom, we will understand that proclaiming that truth to society is intrinsically part of our communal call.
So on the one hand, Jim Wallis is right, and you should cut him some slack. He's not a Marxist. He's a Christian, and he understands that Christians should be concerned about justice for everyone in society (i.e., preaching good news to the poor, freedom to the prisoner, sight to the blind, liberty to the oppressed, and Jubilee to the debtors). But on the other hand, Wallis misses the point because he's trying to work with the powers-that-be. The point isn't social justice. The point is justice. The church bears witness to the world that God wills for everyone to live in justice, that there's to be no more poor people, prisoners, blind, oppressed, or debtors. Through the death and resurrection of Christ, we're all reconciled. Now we must take that redemptive act seriously. The principalities and powers will always oppress; they cannot be used to bring about God's justice. It is at this point that Wallis misses the point.
And it is precisely at this point that God becomes the only hope for humanity.
As Will Campbell has observed, theology must begin with God; when we work from human assumptions we enter the world of anthropology, and anthropology will not save us. Humanism will not save us.
God has acted. Now be reconciled!
Glenn, I conclude with a plea: please stop attacking my brother in Christ, Jim Wallis, and please stop attacking my brothers and sisters in Christ, the church. And please, for the love of God, don't think Christians like Jim Wallis are harboring some secret Marxist ideology; these Christians are trying to live the hopeful witness of the church as best they can.
It is my hope that Wallis and all Christians, whether on the "right" or "left," would see the futility of trying to shape the principalities and powers into the image of the church. Then we could abandon the language of "social justice" altogether and simply be about our Father's business in and for the world. It is my hope that the church will be the church.
Thanks for your time, Glenn. I sign this in love because my Lord has told me that it is right to do so. May his peace enter your heart.
Love,
-Dusty
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment