Do people twist the truth or simply lie about us [Christians]? Are we treated with subtle and not-so-subtle bigotry? Are we mocked and belittled? Might we, soon enough, be facing actual persecution? If so, then we have our instructions:
Conservative Christians who seek to follow these commandments must be out there — they must — but I’ve struggled to find them online. Instead, I keep coming across people who loudly proclaim their orthodoxy, and give much sage advice to their fellow conservatives, and yet somehow never manage to land on these themes which, in my Bible at least, are pretty prominent. These pundits are fighters; they point fiercely at their enemies and denounce them; they cry that they are being treated unfairly; they mock and belittle those on the other side of the political isle; but if they ever ask God’s blessing upon those enemies and persecutors, or seek to make peace with their liberal sisters and brothers, it doesn’t seem to happen where I can see it.
As much as this reminder applies to conservative Christians (and, oh boy, does it every apply to conservative Christians right now) I think it can serve as a good reminder for progressive ones too, as the impulse to cancel and call out and mock and become wrapped up in our own political battles becomes more and more of a temptation. The words of Jesus about how to be towards those we perceive as our enemies always apply for us Christians, even when those enemies seem pretty despicable and unredeemable.
How seriously do we, and should we, take the ethical guidance and commands of Christ? This is a question that has long interested me as a Christian. Christ is fairly explicit throughout the Gospels, and especially in the Sermon on the Mount, that an ethic of nonviolence, mercy, and compassion is required of those who would be disciples. Jesus instructs in his sermon that we are to love our enemies, give quietly and without great fanfare to the needy, refrain from judging, and, most famously, to turn the other cheek.
These commands are key points of contention between realist and pacifist Christians arguing in the political and social realm. Should an ethic of nonresistance and even submission guide a Christian’s engagement in politics? While the more Niebuhrian will clearly answer no, they almost never go so far as to disparage these words of Christ; rather, their opposition is grounded in a realpolitik approach to social engagement, in which hard realities must be met, even if that means that we at times, like all sinners, fall short of our calling. (It is here that I think Niebuhr’s grounding in Reformed theology really shines through most clearly.) Christ’s words are the ultimate good, in this view, but our own sin, and the sin of the world, often prevents us from living up to them.
Jerry Falwell Jr’s new Falkirk Center at Liberty University, however, takes things in a completely anti-Christian direction in its mission statement. Apparently, the very words of Christ are just simply unacceptable to Donald Trump’s favorite court evangelical. According to Falwell, the specter of “leftism”, and the driving urge he feels to defend America first and foremost, takes precedence over the words of Christ:
Bemoaning the rise of leftism is no longer enough. Turning the other cheek in our personal relationships with our neighbors as Jesus taught, while abdicating our responsibilities on the cultural battlefield is not sufficient. There is too much at stake in the battle for the soul of our nation.
“There is too much at stake” for us to take the words of Christ seriously any longer. Being a follower of the Crucified God is all well and good, but winning the culture is much, much more important. God and Country, after all, right?
This is disgusting, frankly, and it really strains the bounds of what can really be considered Christianity. It’s one thing to grapple with these commands and come down on the side that they are sometimes simply unrealistic in the face of realities today. I don’t personally subscribe to this view – I am quite confident that the example of Christ is never deficient; it may sometimes result in our own personal discomfort, deprivation or even death, but such is the price we pay for following the One who offered himself up to death. But it’s another thing indeed to just declare, as a Christian, that the words of Christ just simply aren’t good enough anymore.
It’s enough to make me think that, if Christ were here today giving his Sermon, living his life of nonresistance and peace, that there would be large swaths of the American church who would label him a “snowflake” – or worse.
The words of Christ are never deficient. Are they sometimes inconvenient, hard, or unpopular? Will they sometimes ostracize us, separate, or even put us in bodily danger? Absolutely. But they serve a greater good than immediate political victory and support of conservative political causes. It seems like Jerry Falwell Jr – and many conservative Christians – seem to have forgotten this. Political achievement has replaced Christian principles.
I’ve written before about the relationship between democracy and Christianity. The piece linked here was from about three years ago, wherein I wrote that democracy does not ensure inherently more moral outcomes than other forms of government, but rather is just as subject (if not more so) to the poor judgment of human beings, and thus just as likely to produce immoral and undesirable governing outcomes (see Trump, Donald.)
As I was reading When War is Unjust by Yoder last night, I came across this passage that struck me as making the same point, but in a more concrete and insightful way. Here is Yoder:
In order to gain a popular mandate and seem stronger than their adversaries, politicians may exploit nationalistic and xenophobic, even racist, enthusiasms of common folk, thereby putting themselves under pressure to perform in a way as “patriotic” as their campaign language. Once the battle has begun and lives have been given, it is far more difficult to contemplate suing for peace. The medieval vision of the prince as a responsible and wise decision-maker, able to lead his people because he knew more of the facts, had studied the craft of governing, and had the courage and also the power to make unpopular but right choices, is replaced be elected politicians who become captives of the patriotic sentiments and short-circuited analyses their own campaigning stirred up. The medieval monarch could, if wise, cut the losses and make peace. Democratic leaders may be less free to be wise, especially once they have cranked up the fervor for war. Whether we speak of the relatively genuine democracies, in which popular suffrage is effective, or of the many places in which the facade of an electoral process is used to cover less worthy policies and less valid processes of decision, it often appears that to involve the masses in decisions about war and national honor does not provide for more effective defense of the real interests of most people. The issues at stake are subject to rapidly changing moods and to deceptive rhetoric. Decisions about whether to have a war, about what, and how long are not made more wisely just because there are elections. Democratic forms may well work against restraint.
I don’t post this as an endorsement of a return to medieval monarchy as a government (or, even less, as some sort of theocratic technocracy bringing together Plato and Aquinas.) Rather, I read and share this as a reminder of my point in the earlier piece: democracy is not a cure-all for what ails the world and the nation socially and economically. Those of us who have stood opposed to Trump since early on should know this as well as any, and in fact, his election is what awoke this line of thinking in myself. The same democracy that elected a Barack Obama is just as likely and capable to elect a Donald Trump. It is also just as likely to turn around and elect an Elizabeth Warren next time, and who knows what after that.
I do think this passage is interesting in the sense of what Yoder points out specifically as the things democracy does less well. He notes the accumulation of facts, the art of governance, and the ability to use restraint as three things that the idea monarch could bring to bear that democratic forms of governance fail at more often. The depredations and downfalls of monarchy often impeded the exercising of these good points, but then again, the depredations and downfalls of democracy often override the positive elements of it as well. The use of restraint, and the making of hard decisions, stands out to me most as what the American project in democracy is failing at most often; we seem unable, as a democratic populace, to make hard decisions involving sacrifice or the giving up of privileges, in order to achieve a greater and broader good. Our democratic guidance seems all too often geared towards maximizing our own good in the here and now, at the expense of any longer-term vision. This is evident on the right in the denial of and refusal to deal with the overwhelming scientific evidence of climate change; on the left, we see this in the drive for further atomization and individualization of the body politic, driving towards intensely personal understandings of cultural engagement at the expense of some form of national coherence and unity, something that is key to the success of any community of any size and form.
When I think about these shortcomings of pure democracy, it makes me think of how prescient were the Founders in this sense, in their writing in of checks and balances in our governing documents. Madisonian democracy, enmeshed in the Constitution, is representative and limited, for the purpose of ensuring some semblance of a ruling elite; I like to think that this ruling class could be one that is elite in it’s ability to make hard decisions for the greater good, in it’s knowledge of governing forms and policy, and it’s attention to facts and details. But again, the ideal runs up against the realism of human fallibility; history has shown us that any form of a ruling elite inevitably turns into a kleptocratic, oligarchic economic elite.
This all brings me around to the reminder I feel I am constantly banging away at for Christians, namely, that democracy is not a “Christian” form of governance, any more than any temporal form of human governance is. As we get closer and closer to the 2020 elections, we cannot lose sight of the fact that all the problems we face will not be wiped away by the election of more favorable candidates to higher office; even more importantly, we cannot forget that no matter who assumes (or retains) the presidency and Congress next year, our role as Christians is one outside the structures of coercive power. Even our friends need a robust voice of criticism pushing them on towards a higher vision of the Good, beyond the needs of the next electoral cycle. Christians are not democrats; we are Christians, first and last.
Justin DaMetz 