Preached by Winton Boyd on Sunday, August 8, 2010
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Christian love of neighbors includes preserving religious freedom and the Church’s ability to speak prophetically to government by resisting the commingling of Church and State
In the five churches I have served, as a youth minister or ordained pastor, in my adult life, nothing has been more divisive in congregational histories than wrestling with this question. How does a church enter the political realm, plays a prophetic role while maintaining the separation of church and state? How can a involvement as a voice of conscience can be a source of hope and light?
In the text from Luke, Jesus makes it clear that while people of faith need to have a devotion to God, we are also part of a nation state that requires something of us. In his setting, the Jews were a minority religious community within the larger Roman empire, which added other complications. Nonetheless, Jesus was – as the song Tammy and Deb sang said – “attuned to what the ancients exposed, proclaimed and wrote” – and he often defied the power of the state by “rendering to God the things that were God’s.”
In Peter’s text there we see another balancing act. While honoring the state, we can’t forget that above all we are to honor people, love our community, respect and worship God. The early church knew that part of its prophetic and anti empire witness was its unusually devoted commitment to community, to care for one another and to care for the sick, the orphaned, and the widow. This also trumped the demands of the empire.
As Christians, we strive to live as responsible citizens of our country, just as we seek to live as Christ’s disciples. We celebrate the separation of Church and State as much for the protection of the Church, and other faith communities, as the State.
We affirm that the Path of Jesus is found where Christ’s followers honor the role of the State in maintaining justice and peace, but ONLY so far as human discernment and ability make possible.
We affirm the separation of Church and State, even as we endeavor to support the state in as far as Christian conscience allows.
Nonetheless, as progressive Christians we move away from this Path when we forget the Church’s calling to speak prophetically to the State.
The first reality in all of these dynamics is to recognize that there aren’t hard and fast rules for knowing how to honor the state, or what it looks like to speak and act prophetically against it. As a creative, evolving, community that seeks to be attuned to situations and issues of our day; we realize that different situations summon us in multiple ways.
Context matters…Some Christians have celebrated the role of the prophetic church speaking out against the state’s oppression, injustice, neglect (War on Poverty, Vietnam). At other times, those same Christians, have cringed as other religious views seem to have taken over the mindset of those in power (Moral Majority or Religious Right). Not only do people of faith disagree on what they believe is the moral responsibility of the state, we ourselves have taken different postures toward the state’s power and responsibility at different times.
While many people of faith in the world live in countries where there isn’t the separation of church and state, it is usually the case that the more aligned with the state a church or religion is, the less likely it is to be an independent voice of conscious and compassion. It doesn’t matter, really, whether we are talking about the religious right in this country, the Orthodox Church in Russia, religious leaders in the Middle East, or the Anglican church in England – when the two become one it is hard for the faith to not become an institution centered around control, power and its own survival. So, while the manner and opportunity for how the voice of protest and prophecy varies, in our context we celebrate the historical separation of church and state.
Our personal and national history matter… Did we come of age politically during WW2, during the ‘question authority’ period in the 70’s, or in the wake of Obama’s election? I remember talking with a member of this church a number of years ago, a WW2 veteran, who didn’t talk about his experiences in that war until the first Gulf War. For years, he realized his experience of the horror of war was at odds with the public story of WW2 being a noble war. It was only as the validity of another war was questioned that he felt free to speak from his heart about the terror, the smell, the senselessness of that “noble war” of his youth. How might his handling of his experience been different had he grown up in a different time? How might the church this person attended reacted differently over the course of several wars in the last 50 years? The same church that supported and nurtured soldiers in WW2 might have been a leader in the anti-war, pacifist movement of the 70’s. In one era, for example, the state supported communism was experienced as a threat to our Judea-Christian life; in another era it represented a collective form of living that many saw as akin to the New Testament community.
Our faith background matters… Were we taught by our faith elders, if we had them, to be activists? Were they silent on matters of politics and social issues? Has our experience of the church been that of an activist, outspoken institution where people take a risk to speak publically on issues of social importance; an institution that includes many who have been jailed for their beliefs and their willingness to speak and act prophetically against the actions of the state?
Or has our experience of the church been that of a silent, irrelevant inward focused institution – caring more about organs and stained glass and personal morality than how one’s faith is lived in the world? Won’t each of those experiences shape our expectations of what we as people of faith can and should do? Isn’t our different perception of the role of the church part of the reason conflicts arise around how to be engaged politically?
Our various identities matter…We all have at least four identities as we make our way through the world and as we think and act on these issues.
We are people of faith, Christian or otherwise
We are members of a family or clan
We are citizens of a nation
We are citizens of the world
How do these identities support one another, clash with one another? When and how do these identities demand loyalty, time, and compromise?
A few examples:
I had the good fortune of hosting Benson Kishoyian, Kenyan pastor, within two weeks of 9/11. What we shared were identities as Christians and Global citizens. He did not share my identity as an American and found many of our expressions of loyalty and patriotism confusing. I did not share his experience of family or clan and found his sense of responsibility to them unusual and quite at odds with my experience as an individual within a family.
I see people all the time with are forced to balance their identities as Christians or Global citizens with their identity as a member of a family or clan. There is a reason family gatherings can be hard, as all of the ways we express these identities can easily clash. My sense of patriotism and faithfulness can conflict with another’s sense. My global citizenship can rub up against another’s sense of family obligation.
Many of us struggle, as mostly liberal Democrat Christians, with balancing these identities in the public sphere. A number of years ago, we had a book study discussion on the book, “God’s Politics” by Jim Wallis. While evangelical, Wallis has been a strong advocate for justice and care for the poor for 30 years. He’s an organizer and a prophet – speaking out publically on numerous occasions against the actions of the government (regardless of which party is in power). His “agenda” is to get things done, to mobilize people of faith in order to create change, to make concrete improvements in the lives of the poor – all of which he considers the biblical mandate. In his own experience, he says, God “is neither a Democrat nor a Republican.”
He stated in his book that the answer to bad religion in politics (religion that inspires hate, fear, distrust and exclusivist attitudes – his book was written in the wake of the 2004 elections) isn’t no religion, but GOOD religion (rooted in the prophets call to remember the poor, the call to renounce violence as the only weapon in a nation state’s diplomatic options). His call for “good religion” for us to speak and act with clarity of vision, rooted in our faith – was met here with caution and claims for the need to separate religion and politics. His call to for people of all faiths to participate publically as self proclaimed people of faith in a pursuit of a common good raised honest questions and tensions with how we balance being Christian and American.
Our goals matter…Wallis wants us to practice good, public square religion – religion that is active in the public debates of our time not because it seeks to convert people but because it seeks help a community define the common good. His goal is concrete, systemic change. He speaks to our church vision statement – our desire to be ‘committed to justice. ’ What he illustrates, however, is that sometimes this commitment takes the form of working at systemic change (ie. global climate change, reduction of nuclear weapons, concrete social policies that help the poor to name a few), and at other times our commitment takes the form of providing short term comfort and care –what the bible calls mercy. It might show as opening our church up to Interfaith Hospitality Network, going on a mission/service trip, or making breakfast for homeless men, to name a few . Some of us are hard wired to work on policy issues, others find the one-one care more fulfilling. Some of us find protest and prophetic work tiring, lonely, and discouraging; others find in it a sense of community and energy. On some issues we take an active role while on others we offer prayers or money but not time. Sometimes our lives are so all consuming in and of themselves we don’t have the energy or vision for others. What the church can help us do is reflect on and act on both our values and clarify our own life goals.
In the past week alone, we’ve had three major issues play out on the national, political scene that demonstrate the difficulty of navigating our role as a prophetic voice and as a patriot. The immigration issues playing out in AZ are issues we all face; the gay marriage ruling in California has implications in all of our lives; the BP oil spill – with a sealed well or not – affects us all. Each of these serious, national or international issues around which people of faith are actively taking a role – on many sides. They demonstrate that this affirmation speaks to a living reality in our lives.
In the midst of our history, our context and our background, Jesus’ words are an invitation to live out our identity as a person of faith above all else. His words, “render unto God that which belongs to God” are a reminder that compassion and mercy and justice can and must show up in different ways – but for people of “the path” – they are the cornerstone of our relationship with the world we inhabit. As we seek to live out the words and inspiration of 1st Peter, to ‘honor other people, love our community, worship and respect God,” may our prayer be, “God, help me to face these questions honestly and courageously. Help me respond to this situation with a life of compassion, a witness to justice, and a faith that is alive.”
