Talking with Bird, as in Mike Bird. American or Australian, many Christians vote their conscience. Others do more than vote: they are engaged. Others are even more than engaged: they are activists. Others more than that: they run for office. Some even get elected and spend their energies in public service.
I heartily agree that Constantinian is an overused term, as vague and misused as 'marxist' is by those from the Christian right. What seems to be missing from this debate is the idea of the common good and how a Christian worldview intersects with ideas of justice and caring for the disadvantaged. In Australia we have a conservative Christian lobby group that seeks to impose its "Christian values" on the rest of society which is largely secular. Like most conservative Christian groups it focusses largely on abortion and gay marriage with the latest outrage being transgender issues. Unfortunately, the "Christian values" they espouse are not universally held by Christians and appear nowhere in any of the historical Church Creeds.
At the other end of the political spectrum we have Christian groups like Common Grace which focus of issues of justice and fairness which promote the common good. In Jeremiah's terminology they "seek the welfare of the city." Those of us who support such endeavours are not trying to impose a Christian worldview on those who are not Christians but are working toward a more just and compassionate society which is born out of Christian worldview.
I would like to see the discussion move to the role of the church in promoting the common good. Should we confine ourselves to spiritual matters or do we have a place in the public discourse even if we end up sharing views with others with whom we have little else in common? How do we determine what is in the common good? Does the institutional church have a role to play or do we leave it up to individuals and parachurch groups?
I've found that for myself, and most the people who have grown up in a similar environment (white middle class), these discussions can be very theoretical, as if these are topics of intellectual/theological/philosophical discussion. What happens when instead of thinking of influence and politics in terms of ideology and power, we think in terms of loving neighbhor?
If there is a dangerous intersection in my neighbhorhood where accidents are killing people every year, and I go to lobby at town hall to have traffic lights put it based on my love for neighbor, is that Constantinian, and if so, is that term doing way too much work to be helpful?
If there were democracy and "no one asked" regarding our opinions, it would make sense to work entirely from the margins. But if the government is set up to say, "what do you want to see in society?" that seems to volunteer wisdom and input. I wouldn't say this means to blanket legislate Christian belief as law for the sake of enforcing a kind of personal piety. I think it requires hard work and nuanced to make suggestions that honor dignity and agency in others with a Biblical preference/concern for those at the margins. If society doesn't want to go with it, that doesn't mean to double down in coercing the political structures or compromising. But to continue to vote when asked for your wish and not be afraid to speak about the kingdom of God in public, to call a fox a fox, that seems like reasonable stance and even calling.
To not at least actively criticize government IS to be joined to government in a complicit sense. It seems there's a quest for a disinterested, detached "only gospel" center, but such decontextualized objective stance looks to me like a modernist illusion. If we just roll with a political party or a political philosophy and "check out" our Christian views, we are still exercising a "belief system" to influence the nation, whether that's FDR, Eisenhower, or Goldwater, Marx, or Ayn Rand.
The point is no matter how you vote, you are enacting someone's worldview. No matter what you say or don't say or do or don't do, you are physically embodying someone's philosophy. I wonder if it's helpful to try to say one's Christian perspective should be excluded from that. In common use, is "Constantinianism" an overbroad scare term like "Pharisee" or "legalism" in current Christian discussion?
Reminds me of the CT editorial by Timothy Dalrymple where he talks about two visions: a church regnant and church remnant. American Christian's are far over indexing the weight and importance of their political contribution (usually watching the news and debating friends/family). It has proved to be a terribly destructive distraction. We should really re-consider how we "ideally advance" God's kingdom. It is surely not by disguised forms of entertainment that monetize our anger.
I think almost no one who votes thinks about political life and their faith in these macro terms. At the "micro" level, most of us want to vote for the people who believe in what we believe and will pursue policy aims that are concordant with those beliefs. I don't think I know anyone at my church of several thousand who is consciously thinking, "I want Christians to be in power, and I want to have a government that advances the aims of Christianity." This pursuit would be futile not because America is anabaptist in its approach to religion, but because we have SO MANY people who think just the opposite. So, pluralism is more an obstacle to this reality than anabaptism.
I would take your post a step further and say that those advancing an American project either for (Ralph Reed, Religious Right) or against Christianity or for or against an individual (the Lincoln Project in the case of Trump) is ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS a grift. As you aptly pointed out, they get nothing done, and a ton of money gets spent (read: stolen/absorbed) in the process. They *can't* do it because of pluralism.
This is a feature, not a bug, of the United States.
This is an interesting post. As for me, I care little about the so-called Christian Right. I’m conservative in a Scrutonian key. A Buckleyite. I still plant my flag with Barry Goldwater: namely, limited government, low taxes, market economy, self-reliance, communal autonomy, Constitutional rule of law, etc. The Christian Right seems to care little about these principles. Those on the Christian Left are so politically absurd I don’t even take them seriously.
Politics is a messy business. It requires a good dose of realism that too many on the Christian Left and Right aren’t willing to acknowledge and don’t have the stomach for. And you’re just talking about domestic politics. Foreign policy is a whole other ballgame about which many (most?) Christians are not ready to discuss.
I agree that the pursuit of power is futile (contra-Christian, too). My own $.02 is that the big $ grift is somewhat less about promising political power as much as scaremongering about alleged apocalypses if the one ‘wrong’ person gets into office. The resulting hysteria is positively unhelpful to civil discourse.
The tight alignment between the Repub party and evangelicals in the U.S. almost becomes a form of judaizing, where a Dem could be led to believe they must first change their politics prior to becoming a Christian.
“Seeking the common good”. Amen. We might hope to find more ‘common humanity’ in our pluralistic society and less hyper-partisanship. We might also hope that Christians can learn to advocate for their view of the ‘common good’ in the public square on the merits, whilst refraining from cloaking their own opinion as “THE ONLY” Christian/Biblical view. As others have noted, the world of politics is one of messiness and compromises, and we hardly need to drag the Lord’s name into every last issue.
Q: I wonder how/if the paradigms McKnight/Bird discuss change, if at all, if one is talking about how the institutional church, vs individual Christians, engage in the public square. It’s one thing for an individual believer to choose to express his faith by weighing in on a certain public policy matter, but perhaps quite another for the institutional church to do so and attempt to speak for all believers.
Has any government or political party considering itself "Christian" EVER lived by Luke 10:27, with attention to the plethora of needs of "the least of these" guiding all aspects of government? I know of none. If that is so, then has any nation or party the "right" to call itself "Christian"? And when ethicists engage such issues, is anyone waving the flag for laws that truly support issues like "Black lives matter" - not just some passing rhetoric, but some serious legislating instead of spending their time defining all the terms in their favor?
I heartily agree that Constantinian is an overused term, as vague and misused as 'marxist' is by those from the Christian right. What seems to be missing from this debate is the idea of the common good and how a Christian worldview intersects with ideas of justice and caring for the disadvantaged. In Australia we have a conservative Christian lobby group that seeks to impose its "Christian values" on the rest of society which is largely secular. Like most conservative Christian groups it focusses largely on abortion and gay marriage with the latest outrage being transgender issues. Unfortunately, the "Christian values" they espouse are not universally held by Christians and appear nowhere in any of the historical Church Creeds.
At the other end of the political spectrum we have Christian groups like Common Grace which focus of issues of justice and fairness which promote the common good. In Jeremiah's terminology they "seek the welfare of the city." Those of us who support such endeavours are not trying to impose a Christian worldview on those who are not Christians but are working toward a more just and compassionate society which is born out of Christian worldview.
I would like to see the discussion move to the role of the church in promoting the common good. Should we confine ourselves to spiritual matters or do we have a place in the public discourse even if we end up sharing views with others with whom we have little else in common? How do we determine what is in the common good? Does the institutional church have a role to play or do we leave it up to individuals and parachurch groups?
I've found that for myself, and most the people who have grown up in a similar environment (white middle class), these discussions can be very theoretical, as if these are topics of intellectual/theological/philosophical discussion. What happens when instead of thinking of influence and politics in terms of ideology and power, we think in terms of loving neighbhor?
If there is a dangerous intersection in my neighbhorhood where accidents are killing people every year, and I go to lobby at town hall to have traffic lights put it based on my love for neighbor, is that Constantinian, and if so, is that term doing way too much work to be helpful?
If there were democracy and "no one asked" regarding our opinions, it would make sense to work entirely from the margins. But if the government is set up to say, "what do you want to see in society?" that seems to volunteer wisdom and input. I wouldn't say this means to blanket legislate Christian belief as law for the sake of enforcing a kind of personal piety. I think it requires hard work and nuanced to make suggestions that honor dignity and agency in others with a Biblical preference/concern for those at the margins. If society doesn't want to go with it, that doesn't mean to double down in coercing the political structures or compromising. But to continue to vote when asked for your wish and not be afraid to speak about the kingdom of God in public, to call a fox a fox, that seems like reasonable stance and even calling.
To not at least actively criticize government IS to be joined to government in a complicit sense. It seems there's a quest for a disinterested, detached "only gospel" center, but such decontextualized objective stance looks to me like a modernist illusion. If we just roll with a political party or a political philosophy and "check out" our Christian views, we are still exercising a "belief system" to influence the nation, whether that's FDR, Eisenhower, or Goldwater, Marx, or Ayn Rand.
The point is no matter how you vote, you are enacting someone's worldview. No matter what you say or don't say or do or don't do, you are physically embodying someone's philosophy. I wonder if it's helpful to try to say one's Christian perspective should be excluded from that. In common use, is "Constantinianism" an overbroad scare term like "Pharisee" or "legalism" in current Christian discussion?
Reminds me of the CT editorial by Timothy Dalrymple where he talks about two visions: a church regnant and church remnant. American Christian's are far over indexing the weight and importance of their political contribution (usually watching the news and debating friends/family). It has proved to be a terribly destructive distraction. We should really re-consider how we "ideally advance" God's kingdom. It is surely not by disguised forms of entertainment that monetize our anger.
This is very, very clever and insightful.
I think almost no one who votes thinks about political life and their faith in these macro terms. At the "micro" level, most of us want to vote for the people who believe in what we believe and will pursue policy aims that are concordant with those beliefs. I don't think I know anyone at my church of several thousand who is consciously thinking, "I want Christians to be in power, and I want to have a government that advances the aims of Christianity." This pursuit would be futile not because America is anabaptist in its approach to religion, but because we have SO MANY people who think just the opposite. So, pluralism is more an obstacle to this reality than anabaptism.
I would take your post a step further and say that those advancing an American project either for (Ralph Reed, Religious Right) or against Christianity or for or against an individual (the Lincoln Project in the case of Trump) is ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS a grift. As you aptly pointed out, they get nothing done, and a ton of money gets spent (read: stolen/absorbed) in the process. They *can't* do it because of pluralism.
This is a feature, not a bug, of the United States.
Ben Davisjust now
This is an interesting post. As for me, I care little about the so-called Christian Right. I’m conservative in a Scrutonian key. A Buckleyite. I still plant my flag with Barry Goldwater: namely, limited government, low taxes, market economy, self-reliance, communal autonomy, Constitutional rule of law, etc. The Christian Right seems to care little about these principles. Those on the Christian Left are so politically absurd I don’t even take them seriously.
Politics is a messy business. It requires a good dose of realism that too many on the Christian Left and Right aren’t willing to acknowledge and don’t have the stomach for. And you’re just talking about domestic politics. Foreign policy is a whole other ballgame about which many (most?) Christians are not ready to discuss.
Helpful and thought-provoking posts.
I agree that the pursuit of power is futile (contra-Christian, too). My own $.02 is that the big $ grift is somewhat less about promising political power as much as scaremongering about alleged apocalypses if the one ‘wrong’ person gets into office. The resulting hysteria is positively unhelpful to civil discourse.
The tight alignment between the Repub party and evangelicals in the U.S. almost becomes a form of judaizing, where a Dem could be led to believe they must first change their politics prior to becoming a Christian.
“Seeking the common good”. Amen. We might hope to find more ‘common humanity’ in our pluralistic society and less hyper-partisanship. We might also hope that Christians can learn to advocate for their view of the ‘common good’ in the public square on the merits, whilst refraining from cloaking their own opinion as “THE ONLY” Christian/Biblical view. As others have noted, the world of politics is one of messiness and compromises, and we hardly need to drag the Lord’s name into every last issue.
Q: I wonder how/if the paradigms McKnight/Bird discuss change, if at all, if one is talking about how the institutional church, vs individual Christians, engage in the public square. It’s one thing for an individual believer to choose to express his faith by weighing in on a certain public policy matter, but perhaps quite another for the institutional church to do so and attempt to speak for all believers.
Has any government or political party considering itself "Christian" EVER lived by Luke 10:27, with attention to the plethora of needs of "the least of these" guiding all aspects of government? I know of none. If that is so, then has any nation or party the "right" to call itself "Christian"? And when ethicists engage such issues, is anyone waving the flag for laws that truly support issues like "Black lives matter" - not just some passing rhetoric, but some serious legislating instead of spending their time defining all the terms in their favor?