Some thoughts on the relationship between Christianity and Politics.
The
relationship between the Christian faith and politics is not an easy
topic for discussion, especially if we take our starting point from the
Christian Scriptures - the New Testament.
Whereas both the other
'religions of the book' (Judaism and Islam) saw their sacred texts
emerge in contexts where the faithful were in positions of political
authority, the New Testament was written at a time when the church was a
persecuted minority with no political power. Accordingly, while there
is plenty of material in both the Jewish Scriptures and in the Qur'an
that illustrates how a state should be run in accordance with religious
principals, there is nothing comparable in the New Testament. On the
contrary, the only references in the New Testament to political power,
suggest that it is something that believers should avoid having any
association with!
I suspect that the words of Jesus that most
immediately come to mind when most Christians think about His
relationship with politics is Jesus' response to the question of whether
his followers should pay taxes to the Roman occupying power. His
response - "Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's; and to God
the things that are God's." (Matthew 22:21) - suggests that God's realm
and the political realm are two separate spheres, and that one should
not interfere with the other.
I do not doubt that verses like this
have contributed to the current Western democratic dogma of the
separation of church and state, and indeed that position is consistent
with other statements attributed to Jesus, such as "my kingdom is not of
this world" (John 18:36), which is, significantly, said to have
occurred in conversation with the Roman procurator, Pontius Pilate - a
man of considerable political authority.
Whether words such as
these should be taken as forbidding Christian believers to seek
positions of political authority, or whether Jesus was just trying to
keep the spiritual and political sphere's distinct is open to debate.
What is less ambiguous is that Jesus had a concept of leadership that
was distinct from the model displayed by the political leaders of his
day.
"You know that those who are regarded as rulers of the
Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority
over them. It is not to be so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become
great among you must be your servant" (Mark 10:42-43)
This
command of Jesus is recorded in all three of the synoptic Gospels and is
particularly significant for our purposes as it explicitly
distinguishes between the accustomed way in which political power is
exercised - where rulers 'lord it over' their people - and the form of
authority that Jesus Himself modelled, which was an authority embodied
in service to others.
The language Jesus uses seems to be
deliberately extreme. Literally, He says that we are supposed to be the
slaves of those who are under our authority, rather than the other way
around! Instead of manipulating those under our authority, we are
supposed to serve them.
Countries like mine still display the
legacy of this teaching in the titles we bestow upon our political
leaders. We refer to our governmental leaders as 'ministers', which
means 'servants', and we refer to our most powerful political leader as
the 'Prime Minister', meaning the first amongst servants. Even so, we
don't see a lot of servile behavior amongst the political leadership in
my country. Regardless of the language, we lord it over each other just
as well as 'the gentiles' of old ever did!
My reading of the New
Testament, and of Jesus' life as well as His teachings, is that
institutional power was something that Jesus Himself deliberately
avoided, and whether or not He would have explicitly discouraged his
followers from seeking political office, I think it is beyond question
that Jesus expected His followers not to use positions of authority, if
they had them, to manipulate and exploit others.
This is obvious,
and the other thing that is equally obvious is that the church
throughout its history has paid scant attention to Jesus' teaching on
this subject! On the contrary, the church over the centuries has shown
itself time and time again to be as power-hungry and as manipulative as
any of its secular counter-parts.
My feeling is that Constantine's
victory at the Battle of Milvian Bridge in the year 312 was the
beginning of the end for the church! This was the battle through which
the Christian religion was elevated from being an illegal religious
sect, undergoing regular persecution from the authorities, to being the
official religion of the empire.
Prior to Milvian Bridge, if you
were a Christian and you received a visit from the local authorities, it
might have been to have you arrested and fed to the lions. If you
received that visit after the victory of Constantine, it was probably
because you were being offered a privileged position in the new
government!
I'm not suggesting that it was a bad thing that the
persecution stopped, but the power went to our heads! As Lord Acton
rightly said, "all power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts
absolutely". The church became too powerful too quickly and fell subject
to corruption. Tragically, nowhere has that corruption been more
obvious in the history of the church than it its persecution of the
other peoples of the book - in the appalling violence displayed to both
Jews and Muslims.
Recognising the historic failure of the church
to engage creatively in the political process, it remains to be asked
what role the church should play in politics today.
A popular
solution amongst Protestant churches is to have nothing to do with
politics. This approach is grounded in the 'two realms' framework that I
mentioned earlier, and I agree that it's better for the church to have
no involvement at all in things political if the alternative is another
Crusade or Holocaust. Even so, I do believe that there is an alternative
between these two extremes, and it's found in the teachings of Jesus
that I've already quoted: "whoever wants to become great among you must
be your servant" (Mark 10:42-43)
If the church is to engage with
the political process, we must do so out of a desire to serve those
around us and, I think, we must operate as servants - in other words,
from outside positions of institutionalized power.
We tend to
assume that the only way to fight a corrupt power is with an equal power
that is less corrupt. The problem, of course, is that all power does
indeed tend to corrupt.
When I think of movements that have made
for lasting and significant social change in the last century, three
great movements come immediately to mind:
- The independence movement in India that was led by Mahatma Gandhi in the early 20th century
- The Civil Rights movement in the United States of America, lead by Martin Luther King Jr. in the middle of the last century.
- The Iranian Revolution in the late 20th Century.
All three were profoundly peaceful revolutions that
avoided the use of violence to achieve their political goals. All three
movements were deeply grounded in religious ideals and were headed up by
spiritual leaders who were servants to their people.I do believe that
today, if we are going to confront the dark forces that are currently
threatening to tear our world to pieces, we need another spiritual
revolution, led by spiritual men and women, using the non-violent
weapons of prayer and self-sacrifice.
The proper path for the
church, I believe, is clear. The problem is that it has always been
clear and yet we, the church, have never had the courage to follow it! I
suspect that if we are going to finally prove true to our calling at
this late stage of human history, we will need the support of other
peoples of faith - support from our Islamic and Jewish sisters and
brothers most especially.
Together we can make a difference.
Together, if we remain grounded in our spiritual ideals and open to each
other in love, we can combat the forces that threaten to destroy
humanity. We, the church, will never be able to erase our checkered
history, but together I believe we can step forward into a better
future.
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