The Next Step for Christian Big Thinkers: Part 2 May 1, 2008
Posted by Zack in Missouri , trackbackI grew up an atheist, but recently I have fallen in love with a movement that seems to be the most dynamic element of Christianity in American today. It’s a movement based on radical idealism, a faith that “all of creation will be redeemed.” These people are working toward a world with no poverty, no violence, no hatred or racism. And they believe they can do it. Even some of the most conservative evangelical churches are beginning shift away from the narrow, exclusive theology of “personal salvation” to a holistic gospel that calls Christians to build the “Kingdom of Heaven” right here on Earth. My whole life, I’ve been searching for a movement that has the guts to try to truly save the world. The progressive movement in which I grew up has been in a downward spiral of lowered expectations. Meanwhile, Christians are charging forward with revolutionary zeal—and are even calling themselves “revolutionaries”!
There is one big problem, though: These revolutionary Christians have adopted a theory of social change that is just as narrow and unimaginative as the old theology they just left behind.
Revolutionary Christians are throwing themselves into direct, person-to-person anti-poverty projects at home and around the world—sometimes with reckless abandon, sometimes with careful planning, but always with passion and love. And it’s a beautiful thing. It’s helping a lot of people, and it’s teaching wealthy Americans a lot about the world. (In this context, middle class Americans are wealthy.)
Even the Christians who are doing the most see that what they’re currently doing is not enough to really fix this broken world. And so they feel God’s call to do more. But most think that means only more of the same: dig more wells, fund more micro loans, build more schools and orphanages, etc… And for sure, God is calling us to do as much of that as we possibly can.
But a certain dogma regarding social change has taken hold of the Christian imagination, and limited it to only projects that are small, local, “relational” and that they can personally witness themselves. Those who have been bitten by this dogma go on the faith that, if we all just live as followers of Christ in our neighborhoods, churches and workplaces, then God will work out the rest. They believe it’s wrong to work for social change at the level of the whole society because that requires political power, and therefore leads to all kinds of messy compromises, unintended consequences and, ultimately, corruption.
For me, this selective limitation of imagination is heartbreaking because these are the only people I can find with an otherwise boundless imagination and faith that we can make the impossible possible. And it’s totally unnecessary.
This dogma, which is strangling the radical Christian imagination, has nothing to do with the Bible or any Christian tradition, but is actually just old-fashioned laissez-faire economic doctrine recast in a new role. We’ve been fed this doctrine all our lives in many forms, so it’s understandable that it should shape our instincts, usually without us even knowing it. (Those of us who went to college have been especially dumbed down by this doctrine.)
Radical Christians are dreaming of big, deep social transformations—such as reshaping a whole economy to make sure everyone has the means of making a living, and cleaning up the environment while we’re at it. Laissez-faire says that only families, small communities or individual companies can plan collectively, inside themselves, for goals like that. If you want any higher-level organization, then what you can do is form a “community of communities,” a trade association, or something like that, where no one member can be coerced by the larger body. The minute you try to plan on a social level, let alone a global level, then your on the road to serfdom with Stalin, Mao or…Caesar.
If you’ve read radical Christian writers like Shane Claiborne or Greg Boyd, that all sounds pretty familiar, doesn’t it? How did it happen that the global capitalists who party at Davos share the same fundamental ideology about society’s role in economics as the people camping out at Christian anarchist festivals?
Well, the doctrine of Laissez-fair is so alluring because it is so beautiful in its simplicity: Every individual, family, community and company only needs to take care of itself and act responsibly towards others*; if we would all just do that, then the big picture would take care of itself. It all goes back to Adam Smith (and a bunch of other classical economists) who created these ideas when feudalism was breaking down in order to justify the rising economic system that would eventually be called Capitalism. Nowadays, laissez-faire economists (also called neo-liberal, neo-classical and conservative) have math equations and charts to show how it works. But Smith said the “invisible hand” of God was the driver. In a way, laissez-faire is the big brother in economics of biology’s theory of “Intelligent Design.”
But is it biblical? Obviously, my answer is no. But before I get into that, let’s dig a little deeper into what exactly we’re talking about here.
Laissez-faire doctrine says that whenever society tries to organize and plan big solutions, it always fails. But for clarity’s sake, it’s important to understand that laissez-faire is OK with some types of organizing and planning. Most liberals and progressives believe in strong use of regulation and tax incentives to coax the economy in the right direction. And they believe in heavy investment in infrastructure (roads, research, etc…) and public services (schools, healthcare, etc…). All that is perfectly consistent with the laissez-faire doctrine, at least in it’s most honest form. If that sounds odd, just go to Frederick Hayek. He was the 20th century’s Godfather of laissez-faire who inspired and popularized the revival of the dogma after it had almost died out forever. Check out his book The Road to Serfdom in which he supports strong regulation, taxation for social services, socialized medicine, universal public education and more.
So, because of our upbringing/brainwashing in the laissez-faire ideology, we are OK with the society doing public services, regulation and tax incentives. But also because of that upbringing, we are terrified of the idea of we, as society, intentionally retooling our for-profit industries to make their impact on the environment sustainable, or to reduce the work week to give people more time with their families, or for any other non-accidental (a.k.a. “market-driven”) purpose.
The only way to do that kind of big transformation is with political power. And the rising generation of radical Christians are against anything that has to do with political power.
But, once again, is that biblical? I’ll have to get into that in the next installment.
Tags: anarchism, capitalism, economics, frederick hayek, greg boyd, Shane Claiborne
Comments»
The problem with using wider political power is not it’s “messiness” and corruption. The real problem is that it boils down to you — the religious person, zealous to save the world — using my tax dollars to force me to help.
I too find the new Christian revolutionaries exciting, and the work they are doing is inspirational, but limiting. Even one of their own heroes, MLK, recognized political action was necessary to effect radical change. I’m looking forward to your next post.
So, Diana, you want to use the force of guns to force me to do “good”, even if I do not believe it is so on my own accord?
I think that an important realization of the Kingdom of God is that we’re to partner with God in all things. It’s almost as if he’s required his body to be the catalyst and that as we continue His work of service in all ways (especially seeking justice and outreach), He’ll do much of the work.
Its like Isaiah 58 where it basically says that once we lay siege to justice and serve the underdogs, God will “satisfy with the inheritance of our [spiritual] ancestors.”
We must be careful not to think it’s all us. Its a privileged partnership with our Daddy…
Actually, Cal, that’s not what I said at all. I was just pointing out the usefulness of overturning unjust laws to alleviate some of society’s evils. While the Civil Rights Act didn’t erase racism, it did make certain acts in its stead illegal and punishable. MLK did not use violence to overturn these laws, though he did use political clout.
And I refuse to be drawn into a debate with someone who misstates my comments.
Diana,
The notion of justice that many Christians believe in is for “haves” to give to the “have nots”. Good enough — engage in charity all you will.
However, you seem to be suggesting that Christian version of justice should be imposed by the force of law, just like any socialist/marxist wants his notion (similar to the Christian one in this regard) to be imposed by the force of law.
The true purpose of the law is to protect individual rights of rich and poor, not to redistribute wealth according to the ethical view of the majority.
Hello all
Zack seems, in this 2-part article, to be getting at something that is fundamental to anyone interested in social change whether or not they are Christian, Marxist, or some other “ist” or “ian” — a driving theory of social change that is used as a vision for a better world.
So far in history, Marxist and Socialist philosophy has been the only model for social change for most people interested in the problem of socioeconomic inequality in capitalist societies. Even if you don’t consider yourself Socialist, you cannot deny the power of Marxist-based thought as a CRITIQUE of the capitalist economy. Since Marxism went out of fashion after the fall of the Soviet Union, there hasn’t been anything else that has replaced it as the overarching philosophy for an alternative to capitalism.
Zack seems (to me anyway) challenging Christians to think big — on the scale that Marxist philosophy thought big — on the questions of inequality, injustice, and how as a society these problems can be addressed by a social movement of ordinary folks. It is not enough to do good on a personal level — Zack is making the challenging argument of how does one in a practical, realistic way, address the problems that Marxism sought to address? If one has rejected Marxism as a solution — what would a Christian solution look like?
Zack leaves the question wide open and I am glad that he is inviting this sort of discussion.
[…] in the blog Revolution in Jesusland. In “The Next Step for Christian Big Thinkers: Part 1 and 2,” he discusses the desire of many Christians to address enormous, society-level problems such […]
I think large centralized institutional efforts are doomed to fail because of our fallen nature. We as humans do not handle absolute power well, even with the best intentions — only God can do that. Our human history is full of horrific examples.
I think you’re more concerned with the limited effectiveness of “grass-roots”, peer-to-peer social change. I would argue that these grass roots efforts are the fundamental stuff of social redemption. It needs to be cultivated like the fruits of a healthy society.
A decentralized network is resilient to failure and adapts well to change. Examples abound in biology, ecology, social networks (good and evil), and the Internet. Finding ways to decentralize and localize our economy, agriculture, manufacturing, and society will make us strong enough to heal ourselves, our brothers and sisters, and the world in which we live.
Our nation became great through its freedom-loving, decentralized roots, but has fallen victim to harmful concentration trends in the 20th century: suburbia, an oil-based economy, multi-national corporations, and global trade agreements. I don’t want to sound too sensationalist, but I regard this trend as the Rome and Babylon that threatens to consume and destroy God’s plan for humanity.
Liberal Arts Dude,
Iran was an example of a country where this has succeeded. The Iranian revolution was not about head scarves, but about “social justice”. The priests spoke of the inequalities under the Shah’s regime, they promised to let ordinary people share in the countries oil-wealth. The Iranian revolutionaries were not looking for their virgins in heaven, but for social justice here on earth. The Iranian communists mostly joined the priests in the fight against the monarchy.
The Russian communists of old built their altruism on an atheistic foundation. In par, that was their undoing. In the absence of outside interference, the religious style of socialism, as imposed in Iran will likely prove more long-lasting, because when one has to argue against faith, one is already disarmed by the very terms of the debate.
There are lessons in these events. Definitely, if one can pull it off, a religious basis is resilient, when it comes to imposing a collectivist state.
Hello Cal
Let me know if I am misreading you but I get the impression that:
a) “Social justice” to you seems to have negative connotations
b) A large-scale, society-wide action towards “social justice” concerns will always lead to negative consequences. You put the example of Iran as a real-life model of this notion.
This is something I find a bit weird about the way politics and faith mix in American culture. In the Philippines, where I am originally from, people of faith are quite active in social justice movements that seek to address social problems in Philippine society. Myself — I grew up an athiest and come to this blog as a curious visitor. But I see no negative connotations in the intersection of faith and real-life political activism. In fact, in the Philippines, many of the leaders and activists in movements that seek to address poverty and corruption are church-based people.
As a taxpayer and American citizen, I don’t want my tax dollars and democratically-elected leaders implementing policies that, to me are morally abhorrent. This includes issues that fall under the label “social justice.” As a citizen in a participatory democracy, I reserve the right to use the means available to citizens to have an influence in the way public policy is set. And if I see common cause with folks whose motivations are based on faith, I say the more the merrier.
Ok, good follow-up there. I’m taking away two main points (and looking forward to hearing more installments.) One: I think I hear you saying it’s frustrating to see Christians start down the road towards progressive “world-bettering” change, then stop short by clinging to old and rather safe ideas about how to affect that change. And I hear that one so loud and clear, and I see that in myself and think “that’s not good, how can I break out of that mental/spiritual trap?” Two: The water, she’s murky when politics and faith mix. If my govt. is meant to address my needs, that means it’s meant to address the needs of my atheist neighbor simultaneously. So at a certain point the govt. would damage me if it took his stance too dogmatically, and vice-versa. I know we still in most ways have a govt. by vote, so in theory majority rules and if more people agree with me then he… I don’t know. I guess I’m young enough to have a little “why bother, nothing changes” in me but old enough to know how selfish that notion is. I guess the bottom line on this for me is that if political legislation and action are the only way we can affect truly meaningful change in our world, then there’s a rather deep shadow of futility I will have to fight my way to get out of. And maybe that’s what I need to do? Thank you for forcing me to seek that answer.
Zach:
Frequent reader, first time commenter here. I think you slighty misrepresent the Shane Claiborne’s of the world in this post. I don’t know Shane but I’m fairly sure from reading his work that if you said the words “laissez-faire” around him, he’d probably vomit. What is at issue is not whether a Christian can wield “political power,” but what kind of power is being wielded. The radical Christians you’ve described often display sympathy for MLK, or Gandhi, and those are two instances of world-changing “political” action. I think what Claiborne is getting at is not that Christians should flee from trying to influence the world, but flee from the kind of influence wielded by the American empire. For example, Claiborne is a pacifist…can you imagine, in your wildest dreams, a President ever being elected in this country who promises to dismantle every weapon in our arsenal and base his “national defense strategy” on nonviolent civil defense?
The “exodus” Claiborne calls for is to act politically without compromise of first principles - all humans being infinitely sacred as images of God. If you cannot compromise on the sacred individual in any case - be it in violent self-defense, military spending, etc. - you will not be President of the United States, and if you got close, you can bet you’d be driving around with a target on your back. I don’t think the folks your citing are against political action…they’re just not going to do the things or say the things they’d have to do and say to win in this country.
Looking forward to your next piece, though. Should be interesting.
You’re right, I think: they would vomit. But that’s my point — our generation has unwittingly swallowed an ideology that we don’t agree with. It’s in our fundamental assumptions and therefore so hard to identify.
Regarding Gandhi: Our generation of activists (Christian or otherwise) holds him up as an example of a leader who wielded “power under” (is that a Greg Boyd phrase, or does he just use it?) his enemies. We imagine Gandhi and his movement merely “resisting” oppression, not trying to do anything so worldly as “take over.”
But that’s not the case. Gandhi led a complex political movement based around an actual political party that was seeking state power in India. It was cool that Gandhi refused to take a political post when they succeeded. But the movement he helped build became the ruling party in India for a couple generations — and are still in power now. Gandhi wasn’t concerned only with resisting the oppressive government, but with building a new democratic one…and not only that, but then *ruling* through that new government towards a better life for all Indians.
PS: Just to be clear: I’m not saying the church — or people functioning as church representatives — should be trying to take over.
I’m saying that thanks to the efforts of generations of resistance against empire, we now have this democracy thing… and we should use it. So now: being a representative in govt is a potential vocation for a Christian.
That’s a bigger topic and will deal with it in a whole post soon I hope.
Zack:
Hrm…I’m chewing on your comments, especially about Gandhi. I think you a) have a point, but b) may have sailed by the specifics of what it takes in the U.S. to serve, which I mumbled through horribly. Let me take another stab at it:
Some potential problems, not to exercising political power per se, but to exercising it in the form you’d have to in our representative government:
- The oath of office. Jesus said not to swear, but beyond that simple point, you swear to protect and defend the constitution of the United States of America, against all enemies foreign and domestic. Assuming you have not succeeded in leading a constitutional amendment through, you’d be swearing to defend against enemies a document that defines giving aid and comfort to the enemy as a capital crime. “Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you” is the absolute opposite of the treason clause. Lurking behind that is an even larger issue of defining who is your “enemy” along the lines of national identity.
- The demands of convictions along the lines of Shane Claiborne’s (or Gandhi’s) commitment to nonviolence are, at least for a population who is more than 70 percent in favor of just war theory, preclude getting elected in most congressional districts in the country, and absolutely would torpedo your chance at becoming President of the United States…unless you compromise “for the greater good” of getting elected.
Point being, I don’t think you’re being fair to Claiborne or Boyd by putting “laissez-faire” on them. My read of the situation is that it is not that they are averse to politics per se, but that they read in Christ’s words certain principles on which a disciple is not allowed to compromise, and it is those principles that a person would be most pressured to compromise if they seek to get elected in our democracy. Service in the machinery of the state involves its own kind of religion, and there are rituals that candidates must participate in or be rejected by overwhelming portions of the population…hence furor over lapel pins and/or hands over hearts during the pledge. It seems to me that their power aversion comes from more of a sense of danger to their own souls posed by our particular power paradigm, not a laissez-faire attitude.
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“We can do no great things, only small things with great love.”
— Mother Teresa
So I am a christian, and someone who is not as well read on the subject as the blogger and some of the commenters. But I would like to add something.
I am under the impression, that getting involved with government for the betterment of society, may innicially be beneficial, this is true. And certainly, it is not worth considering adding a little political pressure. However, I feel as though even if we attempt to change the political system, something will go sour again. Something will get messed up. Don’t we see that happen with governments? Even when they start out with some kind of good intentions, things will become messed up eventually, as is our human flaws get in the way if we are not careful.
So should our goal (as followers of Jesus) really be revolutionizing the politcal systems, or should it be to accept that no new political agenda will ever fix the worlds problems, while taking on the responsibilities to live out God’s love in living out what He commands? In keeping our minds open, our hearts from being hardened; In understanding that we really are flawed, and if we grow too proud, we will be no better off than when we started. That even when we think we know what is good, our vision is still yet to small to know all things.
So I suppose what I am trying to say, is that fixing the political system is not the solution to the worlds problems. Even with the best welfare systems, the ultimate problem is the broken individual who harms the world through pride, selfishness, and greed.
On the other hand, I really enjoyed reading this post, and the comments! Thanks for challenging the system and keeping me from getting to comfortable with the way things are:)
Nice shout-out.
I think MaryAlive hit the nail right on the head. Even more than Greg Boyd or Shane Claiborne I think John Howard Yoder is the guy who really spelled this out coherently (interesting that he’s on of the people that Claiborne and Boyd are drawing heavily from). Yoder’s work was in essence a response to Reinhold Niebuhr (who whether you want to admit it or not you fall in line with quite nicely and subsequently are drawing off some liberal presuppositions of your own - not to say that we all don’t but…that might be a comment that belongs in the Hauerwas Mafia post) who said that Mennonites (and other Peace churches) are nice and Biblically sound but they are politically irrelevant. The Politics of Jesus and The Christian Witness to the State were all about how a Church can radically follow Jesus but not just let the rest of the world fall apart around us. Now, I have a lot of respect for Niebuhr (and Chuck Colson who makes the same argument you do in his newest book, if I’m understanding you correctly), but I think if you are going to do Boyd, Claiborne or anyone who reads your blog it is only fair that if you are going to rail on others for their biases that you offer people an opportunity to understand where your biases are.
I also feel the need to say, that with my comment, I was not saying that Christians can’t be involved in adding a little political pressure to help the world function better, but what I was saying is that it should not be our ultimate goal. That it should be a result of living out what God commands, because no political system will ever be perfect, and the only way for things to actually function well is for the individual to be changed.
I hope that adds some clarity.
Peace!
I share the heartbreak caused by this “localist” dogma, much as I sympathize with it and believe I understand its causes. But as the blog Nonviolent Jesus puts it, “Apparently most Christians don’t even suspect a connection between a society that promotes atomization and competition and the anti-Christian attitudes they profess to deplore. They accept and even bless the mystification of social relationships as “human nature”, a state of mutual strife to which there can be no alternative. Or they promote a ‘one soul at a time’ solution in which as individual souls are saved, society will gradually (how gradually?) start to resemble the New Jerusalem.” http://nonviolentjesus.blogspot.com/2008/05/people-of-resistance.html
Fundamentally, it seems that since the anti-Christian evils we deplore are systemic, then only a systemic response is adequate. Otherwise, we are implicitly reinforcing the reigning ideology that says that social problems are the result of bad decisions by individuals. If we begin by surrendering any claim to political influence, we are saying in effect that our Christian perspective only applies at the individual not the political level, which is precisely what the powers that be wish to believe.
Hi there,
I’ve just read this, and think I can agree with it - in part. I’m glad to be able to read something by someone who’s obviously thinking about this ‘movement’ clearly and cirtically. However, I feel there’s something in there that isn’t quite right - which I’ve pinned down, I think.
Following Christ is about being born again - repenting and turning completely around to become a new person, and turning the world around and building it anew. Now, as far as I can see, this is something that cannot be acheived [b]practically[/b] through political means. This is because not everybody is a christian, and to rule the state is to rule over them too! If Christians try to run the state, either they’ll end up with a compromised vision, trying to staisfy all citizens, or else they’ll have to govern by the sword - forcing those who don’t sign up to there ideas into compliance. Neither of these alternatives really seem to equal the idea of a society completely changed. What I think Shane, and others are advocating is something Dorothy Day spoke about, ‘building a new society in the shell of the old’.
Since most of the big problems in the world today are a result of many individuals willingly behaving sinfully, it only makes sense to try to tackle these problems on a personal, rather than a ‘political’ basis. Instead of trying to run the old, broken and corrupt societies that are already there, we need to invite people to join a new one - the kingdom of God. Although it can be frustratingly small at times, changing people is the only way real change can happen (that’s why non-violent resistance is so powerful).
That’s not to say we don’t need organisation in christianity - as you say we do. But lets not try to fit our new life into the old wineskin of the state.
Hope this isn’t too long,
Tim
P.S. Since I’m from the UK, some of what I’ve said may not quite relate to what’s going on ‘across the pond’. There’s a much smaller proportion of Christians over here, for a start. We also have a prime minister who doesn’t seem to able to do anything without criticism from somebody, precisely because the problems he’s addressing relate to the way individuals live, and like to live.