Revisiting “Jesus for President”
OK. I have to admit, the authors of “Jesus for President,” Shane Claiborne and Chris Haw make a pretty good argument for their viewpoint. Like President Clinton said of Mother Theresa once, “It is hard to argue with a life so well lived.”[1] But I’m going to try.
I’m having a hard time reconciling the idea of Christians not having a place in government. I still hold to the idea that the “powers” are still redeemable. (ala Walter Wink in The Powers that Be) In their discussion of the good intentioned yet fool-hardy goal of ridding the world of evil by humanity the authors say:
“The government is teeming with self-proclaimed Christians whose goal is to rid the world of evil. But they cannot obey Jesus and satisfy the state. Jesus was detestable to the state in his day and he is detestable to our state today. His teachings are impossible for the state to ever follow. What state would ever say, ‘do not resist the evil person.’ or ‘turn the other cheek?’ Indeed, for a Christian to participate in ridding the world of evil, one must replace Jesus with the history-god of the state. (Or get ready to lose their job.)” (p. 280)[2]
Really? Judge others much? “Teeming with self-proclaimed Christians?” I can see the hubris of the goal to “rid the world of evil,” but do they have to label their brothers and sisters participating in government in that way- questioning their status in the Kingdom of God? (They may not have intended those words to be taken that far but in the very least it certainly sounds patronizing.) Do they really know that all their believing siblings in Christ working in government have sold out to the “history-god”? I think it is very unfair to make this generalization. Many of these people feel the God revealed to us in the scriptures has called them to be in that position. It may be a difficult to stand as a Christian in that environment, but we were not redeemed by an easy Gospel.
Also the very metaphors of Jesus the authors reference can be used against them: mustard seed, yeast, salt, wheat and the tares/weeds. What would government be like if our believing siblings in Christ were not there? What decisions, policies, procedures would come about if Christians were not there to plant that mustard seed of the kingdom and flavor the decisions and policies with the salt of the God’s justice? (Note: I’m for a separation of church and state but God’s justice is applicable ethically into any culture, even in DC.) Even if we apply the parable of the wheat and the tares/weeds wouldn’t a withdrawal of Christians be counter productive to the harvest God has planned? Maybe we need to readjust our approaches and stop beating people over the head with morality, but I believe abandonment is not an option. In the end, I think Mr. Claiborne and Mr. Haw may be surprised at who is considered wheat and standing along side them hearing the words, “Well done, good and faithful servant.”
[1] I hope the Clinton comment isn’t an urban legend. Please let me know if it is…
[2] I came across something this week that helps me put a finger on what is bothering me a bit about the viewpoint. I occasionally visit the “God’s Politics” blog and found a post by Logan Laituri who my guess is the soldier highlighted in the book on pages 211-213. Laituri mentions Claiborn and describes him with “Having spent a lot of time interacting with Shane and many other friends who have a much better grasp of Christian anarchism than I…” Ahh…I now have a better idea of where they are coming from. I hadn’t known this was viewpoint being described and now it makes sense.
Tags: Christian Anarchism, Christians in Government, Jesus for President
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November 5, 2008 at 5:31 am
You make a very compelling point. I am right now wrestling with what role politics should play in my Christian life. I chose not to vote today and that was a very tough decision, but I stand by my choice. I think you’re right in saying that Christians should stop trying to beat people over the head with morality. But what role should we play? I don’t have a lot of faith in our government but when there is, for example, a plan to send more foreign aid to Africa I want to support our government in this worthy endeavor. I guess I want to use the government for my beliefs and goals but still stay separate. I think this is called trying to have your cake and eating it too. Even though I do think that good can be done through our government, I still think we can’t put too much faith in anything but God.
November 5, 2008 at 10:41 am
It’s pretty frustrating for me how ill-considered these guys are. For the amount I’ve read about how uncharitable Haw and Claiborne are as writers or thinkers in several of these posts, there sure isn’t a whole lot of even-handed consideration of what they are actually trying to say.
Calling them judgers, or implying that they are conceited or biggoted towards those in governmental office does nothing to critique their actual point. We need to make a choice or assessment about their argument, and not bring the conversation down to a level of blame or personal attack.
What Haw and Claiborne are doing to people like George Bush, or other self-proclaimed (they are self-proclaimed aren’t they?) Christian leaders, is nothing more than showing the inherent contradiction in what they “proclaim” and what they do. Claiborne and Haw are not condemning every person in government offices to Hell. What they are condemning is the mindset that Christians can use the State to violently “rid the world of evil”. The problem with wanting to rid the world of “evil” is not that its prideful, its that it entails killing your enemies. And all that Claiborne and Haw are saying is that killing your enemies is pretty different from loving them.
And the state really can’t abide by this mandate. No one is going to get elected on the platform, “let’s hunt down Osama Bin-Laden, and publically pardon his crimes!” And yet this (or something like it) is the attitude I think Jesus dictates in the sermon on the mount. He would not make a good president of a country. But he did create a subversive kingdom that I don’t think – regardless of Winks – has anything to do with the powers of this world. In fact, “power” for Jesus is a pretty strange word.
I think these guys point out that which is a difficult truth for all of us: when we proclaim Christ, we eventually have to begin to look like him, act like he does, take his teachings seriously. When I proclaim Christ, but do things (like retaliate against my enemy in an escalation of violence) that contradicts that claim, my Christian brothers and sisters should be able to point out that contradiction.
So maybe Claiborne and Haw could be a bit more careful about their rhetoric. But they’re not the only ones. And I don’t see what they’re doing as judging. I think they’re trying to be responsible to our shared faith.
November 5, 2008 at 2:53 pm
I don’t consider Claiborne and Haw to be judgey in the least– I like that they’re willing to take radical stands for what they believe in, and I think that the political ideal they espouse is quite close to the actual politics of Jesus. In terms of where we stand on various issues, I think we’re in a really similar place…
I think the difference between J4P and Becky’s point is not that she’s trying to pardon Bush’s hypocrisy but rather that there’s a continuum when it comes to following Jesus. Few of us are getting it totally right in every area of our lives, in terms of understanding what Jesus wants. But then even when we know what Jesus wants, we do an imperfect job figuring out how to put it into practice and actually doing it.
I think what Becky’s saying is, or at least what I would ask, is this:
J4P seems to assume a clear dichotomy: there’s Jesus’s-politics and not-Jesus’s-politics. Period. Take it all or take nothing.
The way I see it, there are Jesus’s-politics, not-Jesus’s-politics, and a plethora of options in the middle. The question is, is it worth compromising to take something in the middle?
The way I see it, yes. But intention comes into play. I think it would be wrong to compromise if my ultimate goal were compromise. In other words, a compromise of ideals, not just a temporary agreement to wait at an intermediate step in the pursuit of those ideals. I see Jesus’s politics as an asymptote, an ideal we can never fully reach anyway. The goal is to approach it. If we’re currently 100 yards away and we could be just 75, that sounds like great progress to me. As long as we’re still moving in the same direction with passion and integrity, I think we’re building the kingdom. (Though I also have respect for those that may feel the system has gotten to a point that they have to opt out entirely–it’s a legitimate consideration and respectable choice.)
I think it’s easy to say, “Ugh, well these two candidates are neither one completely on target,” but then we’d never get anything done politically. Of course much CAN and SHOULD be done outside of politics, as well. But I don’t think there’s a reason why politics shouldn’t be moving in a positive direction. And much of the time, injustices can only be fixed through the system because the system itself is causing the problem–or so I came to believe as an Af-Am minor–and I think that should give us pause before we do make the decision to abandon the political sphere.
I think that if we say Christians can’t be in politics, Christians can’t be in business either. And from there, we can probably find something wrong with just about every field. Nobody is perfect, no job is perfect. But there’s some legitimately good work that I think can happen within the system. We obviously should not compromise our ideals, but we may have to, temporarily compromise for the sake of pragmatism. A compromise may be part of what brings reality closer to the ideal itself.
And I say all that not with bitterness toward Chris and Shane but with great admiration for them.