(from a sermon preached May 27.12
Your parents may very well have taught you that there were certain things that you shouldn’t speak about in polite company. Well, I’m about to combine two of them in this sermon. This is one of the topics purchased at our congregational auction last fall, where several generous people bid for the chance to name the focus for a sermon. I reserved the right to handle it in my own way! It may seem odd to begin a sermon on Christianity and politics with the Pentecost reading from the Book of Acts (Acts 2:1-21). But that’s precisely where I begin today. When we hear that list of nations our eyes may glaze over at the collection of ancient and strange names. But if you were to plot those nations on a map you would have a rough circle encompassing the width and breadth of the Roman Empire. The Roman Empire was the greatest human organization ever created and it was done so by force. It was held together at the point of the sword. In the Pentecost story an important counter-claim is being made: through the power of God’s Spirit another empire has come to be. An empire based on love and the unity of followers of Jesus Christ. And when the Romans persecuted the Christians it wasn’t that they missed the point. Indeed they got it quite clearly. The followers of Jesus the Risen One were a challenge to the Empire. For if Jesus is Lord then Caesar cannot be. That goes for every ruler and leader in history who would take Christ’s place.
The Pentecost story reminds us that
God in Jesus Christ is making a claim on all
parts of our lives. Jesus himself taught us to pray for our daily bread and
to love our neighbours in concrete ways.
But how do we live that day by day?
There have been different approaches. Some branches of Christianity –
the Mennonites and Amish amongst others - have seen government and society as
inevitably so corrupt and violent that they have chosen to withdraw. A broader tradition has seen government – and
service to government – as a legitimate forum for expressing our faith. So it has been common for the Parliament of
Canada and all of the provincial legislatures to have clergy from the mainline
denominations as members – sometimes several.
You would generally find them on the social justice side of all the parties:
so-called red Tories like the Rev David MacDonald; New Democrats like Rev Bill
Blaikie or Fr Bill Ogle; more recently Liberals like Rev Rob Oliphant. Indeed, in the United Church Manual membership in parliament or legislature is
specifically named as an acceptable form of call for ministers. For lay members, as well as clergy, active
participation in Christian congregations is not in obvious conflict with their
role in politics.
There has, however, been an
interesting shift in public perception of religion and politics in the last
twenty years. During the ‘90s I attended
a forum on Christianity and government in Canada held at Queen’s
University. The most interesting part
was a panel discussion with several politicians of every political allegiance
imaginable who spoke quite candidly about the impact their various religious
affiliations played in their political lives.
There were some variations, as you would expect, but the general
consensus was that while the intrusion of religious doctrine into public life
was not appropriate there was an admissible and fitting role for faith.
Contrast that with what may jump to mind when the
subject of religion and politics is raised today. We may think of some of the spectacles played
out south of the border, where candidates seem compelled to cater to a portion
of the electorate who have no hesitation in imposing particular religious
doctrines on the public – on everything from what is taught in public schools
to abortion to sexual orientation, as well as larger and quite a bit more
dangerously complex questions such as Israel-Palestine. There, for some very powerful figures, the
interpretation of specific biblical passages leads to a foreign policy position
with international ramifications. That
is not something of which we have seen much in Canada historically, although it
appears to be on the rise.
The truth is that “people will come to politics with
some view of what is ultimately real and true.
Questions of peace and war, the economy and the environment”[i] do
not exist in a vacuum. Our answers to
those questions have to come from somewhere.
I would argue that it is at least as legitimate to shape our answers
from a faith perspective as from any other. That’s not the same as saying if
your church or faith perspective has a particular position on a subject that as
a lawmaker you must slavishly follow that.
But surely it is worth putting into the decision-making mix.
Our United Church of Canada has some of its roots in
the social gospel. This was a Christian
movement that flourished in the 19th and into the 20th
century. In essence, the social
gospellers looked around at society and said we can do better. In fact, not only can we, we must! Our Christian commitment to love our
neighbour is not exhausted by prayer and individual acts of charity – important
as those are. If we can clearly see
that the system keeps people in need we must give a Christian response. For instance, if the system is set up in such
a way that a worker must buy everything from the company store and the basics
of life cost more than even the most diligent worker could expect to earn, our
Christian faith not only deplores that but pushes us to action. Or if the system says that a family must go
from doctor to doctor trying to find one they can afford in order to get
treatment for a sick child, faith moves us to action. What the social gospel affirms is a
relationship between faith and politics.
Not a relationship between religion and the state or government. No religion should receive preferential
treatment. Nor should there be a
negative prejudice against any religion on principle. There can be a positive, respectful, mutually
beneficial conversation between all religions and politics.
The social gospellers were not all socialists by any
means. But they saw and were willing to
name – on the basis of a Christian world view – the need for fundamental
changes to the system around them. They
were not content with a Christianity that stopped at “saving souls” while
bodies were enslaved. Social gospellers
shared a conviction, based on the teachings of Jesus Christ, that it is a lie
to claim that competition is the best basis for society. Unfettered profit is simply a license for
greed and exploitation. They believed in
cooperation as the truest expression of social life. They were sufficiently realistic to see that
society had to create restraints to greed.
Fundamentally they believed that God is as concerned with justice in the
world here and now as with the eternal salvation of individual souls.
With that background you can perhaps understand why I
get so annoyed when a cartoon version of Christian faith, concerned only about
a couple of hot button issues, is presented in the public media. Or when religious opinions are excluded from
public discussions as if faith is always and irredeemably selfish, narrow and
bigoted. The essence of the social
gospel is that we have responsibility for one another, we need to share equitably
in the resources and well-being of our rich land and our lust for easy and
unearned gain needs to be contained.[ii] That is by no means the same as socialism or
communism. But it does say that there is
something wrong with the system when the gap between the wages of the CEOs and
the shop floor is 187 times. Or when the
proportion that corporations pay to the public good has dropped from 45% to 15%
in the last twenty years while profits soar and programs for the most
vulnerable as slashed for lack of funds.
It reminds us of a time when a minimum wage was actually a living wage;
or when unemployment insurance covered far more Canadians; or when Canadians
with mental health challenges weren’t tossed into the street to fend for
themselves; or when there were no food banks because they weren’t needed; or
when the government knew it had a role in housing the most vulnerable
Canadians; or when the tax cut narrative had not become the new infallible
scripture of public conversation.
Bringing religious and spiritual convictions to the
discussion of public policy will not make the hard decisions of government any
easier. It shouldn’t. In fact, when you bring Christian faith in as
an element in decision-making I can see how things might get harder. If you have a pure capitalist outlook – get
rid of everything that gets in the way of maximizing profit – then I imagine it
can be pretty straightforward. When you
start mixing in concern for workers or the vulnerable or the environment the
water gets murkier and the balancing more difficult. That’s OK.
It’s appropriate that decisions affecting the lives of many should be
complex and challenging.
Dietrich Bonheoffer was a German pastor and theologian
who was martyred for his part in opposing Adolf Hitler. He knew quite vividly the challenges that
arise when our faith draws us into the arena of public activity and life. He wrote that, for Christians, the choices we
make about politics need to be both provisional and concrete. Provisional choices remain open to
change. We can say, to ourselves and others,
“We do not know everything.” We are open
to instruction from the Holy Spirit, by experience, by dialogue with others and
so on. It is wrong to put our choices in
concrete just because we’re worried that someone might accuse us of changing
our minds. On the other hand, Christian
political decisions need to be concrete as well. Our faith and our politics need to result in
something in this world. Christ’s
followers need to be of some earthly use.
Mouthing general principles is not enough. At this point and time we have to do
something, and that something has to be the best we can accomplish. Sometimes we do that most effectively through
the political process. Let those with
ears hear the Spirit’s word to the church.
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