Alternative
Writing three years after the end of World War II, Reinhold Niebuhr, having been thoroughly disillusioned with Utopian vision of modernism preceding and leading up to the war, wrote an article entitled, “Why the Church is Not Pacifist”, in which he expounded his theory of “Christian realism”. In it, he leverages the “law of love”, that ethic which he finds “ultimately normative” (Niebuhr, Pg. 305) against the depravity of man who is, “inevitably involved in the sin of infinitely making his partial and narrow self the true end of existence.” (Pg. 302) For Niebuhr, the reality of human sin rendered “the law of love” useless insofar as we employ it to “secure justice in a sinful world” (Pg. 305) and relegated to the concerned Christian, two stark, yet non-heretical alternatives:
Either she could disavow “the political task by freeing the individual of all responsibility for social justice” (i.e. disengagement), or she should affirm an existing, though understandably flawed structure (i.e. democracy with its “high degree of achievement”), in which, at the very least, “power has been made responsible, and in which anarchy has been overcome by methods of mutual accommodation.” (Pg. 311)
Huh.
Is it just me, or is this dichotomy still pretty prevalent 60 years later: Disengage completely or redeem the powers by participating in them like Jesus would. What alternative is there?
In discussing the Niebuhr article, it was the teacher of my Christian ethics class at Fuller Seminary that first pointed out to me that Niebuhr hardly ever talks ecclesiology. To use her words, “he has no doctrine of the church.” This is telling to me, because I think it belies a very prevalent identity crisis going on today in American politics. Who are we? Primarily? Do we believe that we are an alternative community?
In asking this question, I like to think of the term alternative in its full sense. I am not just asking if we should be just “different”. If those who are engaging in cultural syncretisms with the American Mythos are in danger of not diverging enough, those who completely disengage from culture may be charged with being only “different” – but not effective. Is there a third way?
For my part I see the church as being called not just to being alternative (and giving up on social engagement), but rather to being AN alternative. As in, a realistic option; one which does have power to secure justice in a sinful world.
Do we think the “law of love” is possible? Do we think it will work? And if we refuse to buy into some Utopian ideal of human achievement as Niebuhr rightly exhorts we should not, the question becomes more pressing. Do we believe that the Sermon on the Mount represents Gods intended modus operendi of working through his people? Or do we not. Did God, rather, intend that his people work through the ways of the world?
The question is still being asked and answers in both directions are being espoused. If David Dark is right; if reassessing the stories we tell can be both one of the most patriotic and kingdomly (of God) things that we can do, then it can only be because we are meant to engage over some of the areas that our patriotism and our allegiance to the kingdom of God bear no difference, and summarily, make a decision over whether or not this is appropriate.
How alternative do we want to be – and in what way?
Tags: Church, community, Kingdom of God, pacifism, Reinhold Niebuhr, Sermon on the Mount, war, WWII
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