Whatever you think of the Trump administration, they are
handing progressive Christians a golden
opportunity for us to get serious about
who we are. This means finally throwing
off the mantle of the “quasi-state church” of mainline Protestantism and risk
our lives for the sake of the gospel. At
least two things are required of us from the beginning. They are only a start, but I believe they are
a significant start.
We must get clear that we are first and foremost the People
of God, citizens of God’s realm or kingdom, with Jesus as our one and only
Lord. Individually we are many things.
Our identities are rich with diversity, and we claim this as part of God’s
creation. We cannot, however, put the
word “first” in front of any of them. In
particular, in the present moment, we are not “Americans First” nor can we buy
an “America First” agenda. Our common baptism
puts us on an equal footing with brothers and sisters across the world. It also
gives us a “human agenda,” the dignity of human life. This agenda calls us even
outside our Christian tradition. It
gives us a biblical worldview that is as old as Genesis: we are
our brothers’ and sisters’ keeper. Our
human agenda is the Common Good, in which we love and live sacrificially. The
point of human living is not to die with the most wealth. The point of human living is to serve the
common good, from which we have the right to exclude no one.
Second, we must get clear on the reality that free speech
may be an American value, but Christians have a particular take on it. There is for us, always accountability. Speech that seeks to undo the vision of God
for this world, including the dignity of all and the service of the common good,
is not okay with us. It participates in
evil, which is anything that draws us from the love of God and neighbor which are
our primary commandments. If we are not,
as Jesus said (being perfectly serious, I think), to call anyone a “fool,” than
we are certainly not to use hate speech against anyone. If you call yourself a Christian, then you
are accepting the biblical value that we are not to call our neighbors anything
but our neighbors. Of course, we can
disagree with them, but any disagreement we have is trumped by “love your
neighbor as yourself.”
Christians have been infected over the centuries with the
evil thinking that they are better than everyone else because of our allegiance
to Jesus, and we have baptized our national citizenship in the same evil. But the primary question we are to bring to
any relationship with any other person, no matter their identity, is not, “Will you agree with us and become one of us?” (or, in evangelical
parlance, “Are you saved?”). It is, “How
can we serve you?”
When we get clear about these things we risk pissing people off. They will say we are being political. They will say this is not the way the real
world works. They will say that we are
advocating an “anything goes” society.
The antidote is to read Jesus and St. Paul, both of whom were accused of
the same things. We cannot give into our
fear. We have to stop wringing our hands
on the sidelines wishing that everyone would just get along, and quietly
telling them so. We do have at least two
lines in the sand to draw. One is that
we belong to God first. Two, we have
zero tolerance for hate.
If we get clear about these things then we can have
productive conversations about our purpose, God’s mission for us. But this conversation is worthless if we are
not clear about who we are, first, and what our values are, first.
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