Christian Politics?

Politics is the squabbling over who gets to polish Caesar's throne.

We are called to serve a different King and embody the ethic of a different kingdom and in so doing we will largely ignore Caesar and his throne.  Perhaps the greatest critique of all for those who bluster and swagger is to simply ignore them and get on with the business of life.

This isn't necessarily a call for a retreat from political engagement (although that might be appropriate at times) but rather a clarification about what we should hope for, and where we should turn for justice.  The irony is that those (on both sides of the aisle) complain about Caesar's past injustices, while simultaneously expecting Caesar's future justice.  Those who hope in Caesar for justice ought not be surprised when Caesar delivers.

Here is what Roman justice looks like:

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...our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ, who, by the power that enables him to bring everything under his control, will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body.
Philippians 3

Fighting Injustice: An Alternative Vision

“Gradually it was disclosed to me that the line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either -- but right through every human heart -- and through all human hearts. This line shifts. Inside us, it oscillates with the years. And even within hearts overwhelmed by evil, one small bridgehead of good is retained. And even in the best of all hearts, there remains ... an un-uprooted small corner of evil.

Since then I have come to understand the truth of all the religions of the world: They struggle with the evil inside a human being (inside every human being). It is impossible to expel evil from the world in its entirety, but it is possible to constrict it within each person.”

― Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago 1918-1956

Why I am Politically Disengaged

I am intentionally disengaged from the political process in our country.

To be clear, I voted in our recent election, indeed I have only opted out of voting once in my life.  I care about the direction of our country.  I am moderately informed about the policies that we create and enforce.  I have opinions about what those policies ought to be.  There are even a few people that I will discuss those opinions with from time to time.

So what do I mean when I say I am disengaged politically?

   I don't listen to 24-hour news media (right or left).
   I don't rant on social media.
   I don't put bumper stickers on my car.
   I don't call people communist.
   I don't call people racist.

I am disgusted by the vapidity and rancor of those who do these things, so I opt out.

Whats more, in the end I don't care too much who gets elected, or how things unfold.  I don't get angry or afraid, nor do I get excited or hopeful.  I definitely don't think about trying to have any significant effect on the process.  Indeed, US politics is like the weather in that I can no more change the course of our nation by voting than I can make it rain by spitting in the air.

The interesting part is that I actually studied Political Science in college.  For years I studied our political process formally, and sat around talking politics with my friends informally.  It was an enjoyable pastime, something akin to golf or chess.  We didn't yell, or call names; we were dispassionate.  Something in our national discourse, however, has changed.

In my mind it changed in connection with the 2000 election, but I may be wrong about that.  What I am not wrong about, is that I used to be able to sit with a group of people and talk politics without anyone name-calling, crying, yelling, or running out of the room.  In the years since leaving college it is increasingly unlikely for this to happen.

I may be wrong about the causes, but my suspicion is that the rise of social media and the 24 hour news cycle are to blame for this.  We are now inundated with conflict-mongering "news" channels that have to create drama in order to boost ratings.  This means we have to find the one KKK member, or the one Communist Party member, and put them on camera to create the idea that our nation is locked in combat between crazy people.  In order to make money they sell the story that the KKK and the Communist Party each represent 50% of our nation.  (In reality these groups together represent approximately 1 in 50,000 Americans.)

What is more, we then take our fear and anger and broadcast it without a filter, to everyone in our online social network.  It then gets re-broadcasted as fodder for the conflict-mongering cycle to continue.

As a follower of Jesus, my response is to simply walk away.

To be continued...

Christians and the Politics of Poverty

     The government should be responsible for alleviating poverty in our country.

     The government should not be responsible for alleviating poverty in our country.

As a Christian,* you can support either of those positions without violating your faith in God.  As a Christian, however, you cannot stop there.  Regardless of your political persuasion, a follower of Jesus is compelled to engage personally and sacrificially in the plight of those living in poverty.

Both of the statements often serve as an excuse to avoid following the clear teaching of Jesus.  We are taught to love our neighbor, and to help those who are hurting in any way.  This is not an action that we can ignore, nor is it an action that we can delegate to others by virtue of our vote.

Regardless of our politics, we must follow the example of Jesus, the leading of the Holy Spirit, and the teaching of Scripture, to get personally involved.  To fail to do so would undoubtedly violate our faith in God.

*If you are not a Christian, then you can safely ignore these words.

The Problem with Politics

"I agree with your politics, but I don't share your vitriol."

Obviously I don't agree with everyone's politics, but even when I do, I still find myself uneasy around people when they talk politics.  It's not because I don't enjoy hearty debate, or thinking through practical issues, or engaging in theoretical hypothesizing.  It's because I'm sick of the posturing.  At almost every point along the political spectrum the one commonality is the demonization of one's political opponents.  This tendency is not only immoral, but counterproductive.

It is precisely after hearing something like this that most people will respond with "uh-uh, cuz they did it first, and they do it worse!"  Which only proves the point...

Health Care

The House I Live In

Do you agree?

"A society that will trade a little liberty for a little order will lose both, and deserve neither"

-Benjamin Franklin -

My Change pt IV

My own change has been the result of one simple conversation.  It took place in my head.  I have to assume the other voice was the Holy Spirit.  In reevaluating my political position I was confronted with the plight of other human beings.  My response was to ask, "Am I my brother's keeper?"  The other voice said, "someone else asked that question first."  The Christian answer is obvious, "Yes!  I am indeed my brother's keeper!"

As I evaluated myself it became obvious that it was this question that prompted me to avoid contact with those who were poor, suffering, or simply different.  As I look at the lifestyle of conservatives I have to acknowledge the same pattern.  Our political platform declares, "I am not my brother's keeper," and our lifestyle simply reflects that declaration.  We may give to organizations, we may pray for the homeless, and we may even purchase free-trade goods; but we would never invite homeless people over for dinner, invite addicts to pray for us, or give up patronizing international conglomerates altogether.  Such tactics hit too close to home, and impinge upon far too many of our comforts.  In short, I didn't really believe that individuals are the solution to social problems, at least not if the individual in question is me.  That is just a line I could use to blind myself to the reality that I could indeed be the solution if I weren't so greedy, lazy, and self-centered.

I confess, I still have some fairly 'libertarian' opinions about policy.  I still think the government is possibly the worst place to look for help in solving any kind of problem.  But I have come to despise the way those policy opinions so often go hand in hand with private decisions that are patently non-Christian.

My Change pt III

Now here is where things get tricky (we'll keep it to two main points):

1) Systemic issues exist.

Systems exist; roads, power grids, delivery services, food production and distribution, education, etc.  Where systems exist, they benefit some more than others, and may even benefit some at the expense of others.  Irrespective of the good intent of individuals within that system, the system itself is constructed in such a way as to promote the welfare of some, and not others (this can be intentional or unintentional).

Examples abound.  Historically disenfranchised communities are the typical sites for social malcontents and environmental pollutants; we put our industry and waste-water treatment, prisons and half-way houses, in poor and marginalized neighborhoods.  Our system for choosing how zoning laws will be put into effect is set up to give certain people control, and inhibit others from entering the process.

The Libertarian position assumes that all individuals start at the same place, have the same opportunities and live in the same world.  But we are each embedded into the systems of our society at different points, and that necessarily shapes what is possible for individuals to accomplish, irrespective of their drive, work ethic, and innate ability.

2) Communal responsibility is necessary to form responsible individuals.

Individuals are a social project!  Individuals within our society are put together by their interactions with other individuals, groups, systems, and their environment.  Individuals are formed by the relationships they have with parents, teachers, neighbors, coaches, and peers.  Individuals are formed by their experiences in classrooms, on teams, in the playground, and in family units.  Individuals are formed by the educational system, the political system, and our infrastructure.  Individuals are formed by the physical world around them.

All of these factors shape an individual.  They do not predetermine the course of his/her life, but they do direct it.  The individual still has a will with which to respond to the world, but the world provides significant limits as to what is possible and what isn't.  Our unique cultural paradigms helps us to make sense of the world, but they also limit what is possible.

A woman who works hard, graduates college, earns a good salary, and is a faithful wife and loving mother, owes a serious debt to society.  She was shown the value of hard work, told she could go to college, given the tools to succeed in school, taught the value of family solidarity, and was born with the ability to pursue these things.  She did none of these things herself.  Only one thing was hers, the diligent pursuit of what was taught her.  For her diligence she should be commended, but she stands on many shoulders.

A man who lives on disability, abuses drugs and alcohol, and fathers children with many women without concerning himself with their upbringing is owed a serious debt by society.  We taught him the value of free money and self-destructive pleasure, we raised him in a social setting that was fractured and violent, and we never let him suspect that there was any other way to exist.  (I know, I know, you are pulling your hair out at this point.  But ask yourself, is it possible that this person learned to do this without being shown how?  I know, I know, YOU didn't do it... but then, thats kinda my point.)

My Change pt II

Libertarians are accused of insensitivity to issues of public good, and private misfortune, i.e. what happens when we could pave the road at the cost of a few tax dollars; what happens when we could advance our own economic interests abroad with a larger 'defense' budget; what happens to individuals who are unable to pay for their families basic living expenditures.  Big government folks assign these tasks to centralized, tax funded structures, and they see Libertarian policy restraint as a refusal to address these issues.

Libertarians, however, respond by pointing to individual, private action as the proper way in which these situations should be dealt with.  For the Libertarian, it is true that public good and private misfortune should be addressed; at issue is how they should be addressed.  If the individual is the pinnacle of our society, then the individual is the key to addressing these issues.  Individuals, acting independent of their governing structures, will address issues of public good, and private misfortune, and will do so much more efficiently and effectively than governments are able to...

...that is the Libertarian assumption.

The Libertarian is in favor of redistribution of wealth and the maintenance of infrastructure, s/he just believes that the private individual is able to achieve them more effectively and efficiently than public institutions.  Furthermore, the Libertarian believes that public attempts to accomplish these goals move forward at the expense of individual liberty, and are therefore ideologically unsound as well as practically irresponsible.

My Change pt I

Disclaimer!

I don't usually talk about my own personal politics because they are so often intertwined in such unhealthy ways with our faith.  But I think this is a spiritually helpful line of thought, so here goes...

Over the past 10-15 years my understanding of politics has changed significantly. I used to be a self-avowed Libertarian.

Most people would consider libertarianism to be 'ultra-conservative' and in some ways that is true, but in other ways Libertarianism is fundamentally opposed to conservative politics. The explicit underlying philosophy of Libertarianism is 'initiate no violence.' This is applied in the international sphere, the national sphere, and the interpersonal sphere; which means no preemptive war, no government regulation of personal sexuality or drug use, strict demarcation of individual rights, as well as no taxes. Many of these positions look scandalously conservative, but many look scandalously liberal.

Libertarians would argue (and I would still argue) that they are the party that consistently applies a political philosophy to our political system in order to craft a platform. Republican and Democratic platforms are a hodgepodge of contradictory impulses. Republicans are clamoring for government intervention and taxes on some issues (lets say, military expenditures and reproductive health) and simultaneously decrying government heavy-handedness on others (business regulation and fire-arms restrictions). Democrats are the same.

In many ways I continue to hold to the explicit Libertarian philosophy of 'initiate no violence,' and the underlying distrust of collective policy-making that goes along with it. But there is an implicit philosophical commitment within Libertarianism that I have come to disavow.

That implicit commitment is this: the sanctity of individualism as an ethical and political philosophy.

The individual and his/her rights to life, liberty, and property, are untouchable; there is no reason whereby any of those rights can be impinged upon, except where the exercise of those rights infringes on the rights of other individuals.  This means that projects for the common good cannot be promoted at the expense of individual good, nor at the cost of limiting the exercise of individual rights.  Again, the only common good that this political philosophy will work toward is the maintenance of inviolable individual rights.

The Inevitability of Institutionalization

"In any bureaucracy, the people devoted to the benefit of the bureaucracy itself always get in control and those dedicated to the goals the bureaucracy is supposed to accomplish have less and less influence, and sometimes are eliminated entirely."

"...in any bureaucratic organization there will be two kinds of people: those who work to further the actual goals of the organization, and those who work for the organization itself. Examples in education would be teachers who work and sacrifice to teach children, vs. union representatives who work to protect any teacher including the most incompetent. The Iron Law states that in all cases, the second type of person will always gain control of the organization, and will always write the rules under which the organization functions."

Jerry Pournelle

Is Suburbanization Evil?

In my mind, there is no question that it is.

It is only the conservative values ingrained on the mind of the evangelical church that blinds us to this. The suburbs were formed when technology gave people the ability to commute; and hence to choose to live apart from where they work. People were beholden to the cities for jobs and economic infrastructure, but did not want to live with the problems that such environments create. In moving to the suburbs they could have the benefits of the city without the problems. They could share in the resources of the City without taking responsibility for the City.

Were this all there was to suburbanization it would be bad enough...

Unfortunately there is an explicitly racial component to the entire structure as well. The suburban environment is vastly different than the urban one in terms of ethnicity. This means that our economic system treats people of different ethnicities vastly different. Conservatives argue that it is okay that we treat minorities worse than whites because we don't treat minorities bad because they are minorities; we only treat them bad because they are poor.

It is the same argument used to disenfranchise minorities historically. "We aren't preventing blacks from voting, only illiterates!" Intentionally ignoring that blacks largely couldn't read because our nation had set up the educational system to educate whites and not blacks...

The real question is, will we see that no matter what has caused the problems the poor face, whether that is the actions of evil men with power, or well-intentioned but ignorant men with power, or the apathy and sin of the poor themselves; as Christians it is our duty and our joy to be among them!?

Zion & Babylon

Oh great mammon of form and function
Careless consumerist consumption
Dangerous dysfunction
Described as expensive taste
I’m a people disgraced
By what I claim I need
And what I want to waste
I take no account for nothing
If it’s not mine
It’s a misappropriation of funds
Protect my ninety percent with my guns
Whose side am I on?
Well who’s winning?
My kingdom’s built with the blood of slaves
Orphans, widows, and homeless graves
I sold their souls just to build my private mansion
Some people say that my time is coming
Kingdom come is the justice running
Down, down, down on me
I’m a poor child, I’m a lost son
I refuse to give my love to anyone,
Fight for the truth,
Or help the weaker ones
Because I love my Babylon
I am a slave, I was never free
I betrayed you for blood money
Oh I bought the world, all is vanity
Oh my Lord I’m your enemy
Come to me, and find your life
Children sing, Zion’s in sight
I said don’t trade your name for a serial number
Priceless lives were born from under graves
Where I found you
Say, my name ain’t yours and yours is not mine
Mine is the Lord, and yours is my child
That’s how it’s always been
Time to make a change
Leave your home
Give to the poor all that you own
Lose your life, so that you could find it
First will be last when the true world comes
Livin’ like a humble fool to overcome
The upside-down wisdom
Of a dying world
Zion’s not built with hands
And in this place God will dwell with man
Sick be healed and cripples stand
Sing Allelu
My kingdom’s built with the blood of my son
Selfless sacrifice for everyone
Faith, hope, love, and harmony
I said let this world know me by your love
By your love
Oh my child, daughters and sons
I made you in love to overcome
Free as a bird, my flowers in the sun
On your way to Mount Zion
All you slaves, be set free
Come on out child and come on home to me
We will dance, we will rejoice
If you can hear me then follow my voice

St Paul's Politics

Funny, No matter which way you vote...

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Jesus Is a Liberal Democrat
www.colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor & Satire Blog March to Keep Fear Alive

The Strength of Our Convictions...

Where have all the Martyrs gone?

"In Acts, chapter 17, Paul is assailed on a charge of saying that there is another king, namely, Jesus. Wouldn’t it be great to have Christians in the Western world hauled up on that same charge today?"

N.T. Wright

The American Caesar

"After all, in a democracy ‘Caesar’ is ‘all of us’, and though we have Presidents and Prime Ministers the critique of ‘empire’ is more complicated now than it was in the first century."

NT Wright