CHRISTIANS HAVE A BIBLICAL MANDATE: BE POLITICAL

Published in The Age (Melbourne), Opinion, September 4, 2003

by Rowan Forster and Rowland Croucher

The comments by Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer about clergy ‘rushing for cheap headlines’ by getting involved in political statements, and the subsequent debate got us thinking…

Barney Zwartz, in his article on meddlesome priests (The Age, Opinion, 2/9), notes that the Judeo-Christian faith is not only about personal piety, but also social justice. Interfering clerics and prophets have, for 3000 years, been the bane of those who benefit from an unjust political system.

Take for instance that troublesome Baptist minister, Martin Luther King. He really should have kept his nose out of political issues, and kept his dream to himself. The duly elected Governors of Alabama and Mississippi were doing just fine until he came along. Why is religion getting mixed up with human rights?

Then there were those interfering archbishops, like Desmond Tutu in South Africa and Janani Luwum in Idi Amin’s Uganda. They should have left their political leaders alone, to govern as they saw fit. Same goes for Cardinal Jaime Sin in the Philippines under the enlightened rule of Ferdinand Marcos, and church leaders who opposed Pol Pot in Cambodia.

And what about Archbishop Oscar Romero in El Salvador? If only he’d kept his mouth shut, he might still be alive. As for the likes of Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Martin Niemoller in Nazi Germany, they should have stayed inside church cloisters instead of blundering into political activism.

Closer to home, meddlesome clerics like Tim Costello and Ray Cleary shouldn’t be shooting off their mouths about gambling and other social issues. Don’t they realise gambling addicts have a democratic right to sacrifice their homes and families and commit suicide if they want to, without interference from religious do-gooders?

And it’s not just clerics, either. Look at all those religiously minded laymen and women who have meddled in matters that don’t concern them. Like William Wilberforce dragging his Christian faith into the slavery issue, or the Earl of Shaftesbury interfering in the politics of child labor and other forms of exploitation. Or William and Catherine Booth meddling in issues of social and economic inequality, and founding the Salvation Army.

Then there’s Elizabeth Fry interfering in the field of prison reform; Florence Nightingale who founded the modern nursing movement; Cicely Saunders who founded the modern hospice movement; Henri Dunant who founded the Red Cross; and other meddlesome religious zealots who founded Alcoholics Anonymous, Amnesty International, Habitat for Humanity, Opportunity International, World Vision, TEAR Fund, and a host of other enterprises that can be traced back to a religious motivation.

Is a world without religious interference what we really need? The resultant welfare bill would send all governments flat broke. Expediency would be more likely to triumph over conscience, and brute force over moral persuasion. There’d be less of a check on the excesses of genocidal tyrants, murderous despots and ruthless pragmatists.

New Testament Christians, as Karl Barth pointed out, faced the dilemma of relating to Nero’s Rome, which in Romans 13 is a divinely-ordained institution to be obeyed, but in Revelation 13 is ‘the beast from the abyss’. When governments invoke order at the expense of freedom, tyranny usually results. But, yes, freedom without order is anarchy. The Christian social philosopher Reinhold Niebuhr used to say ‘There is no peace without power, and no justice with power.’ So a Christian has two responsibilities: to support legitimate law and order, but also to promote social justice.

Christians with a social conscience – whether clergy or not – have a biblical mandate to get involved in political debate. Pericles put it well: ‘We do not say that a man who takes no interest in politics minds his own business. We say he has no business here at all.’

http://jmm.aaa.net.au/articles/1768.htm

DEAR MR RUDD (Ed. Robert Manne)

The Gist of DEAR MR RUDD (Ed. Robert Manne, 2008).

Here’s a book addressed to Australia’s recently-elected Prime Minister,
in which 20 experts (mostly left-of-centre, as you’d expect if they’re
chosen by Robert Manne) offer ideas and suggestions for Australia’s
future. This was a rush-job, written and edited during the couple of
months after the November 2007 election, but with some brilliant
offerings by academics and others on such key issues as Aboriginal
affairs, climate change, the economy, human rights, education, health,
the republic... and much more.

Here I’ve selected a fairly representative miscellany of
opinions/suggestions – one from each contributor. Add these to the 2020
Summit ideas, and Mr Rudd has quite an agenda in front of him, eh?

‘”Dear Mr Rudd” hopes to help resume the conversation between public
intellectuals and government, which broke down so badly during the
Howard years’ (Robert Manne)

‘On what basis should Australia remain a constitutional monarchy? There
is no credible argument left... If the queen died tomorrow, the streets
of our cities and towns would not be lined with thousands of mourners as
they were in January 1936 with the death of George V, when the empire
“stood still and silent in grief”’ (Mark McKenna)

‘Over the last decade, this nation has experienced a diatribe from
ultra-conservatives attacking Indigenous people’s quest for recognition
as a distinct culture and acknowledgement of past injustices’ (Pat Dodson)

‘John Howard presented himself as the protector of the national culture
against the social engineering of the left-wing elites who had got their
hands on state power’ (Geoff Gallop)

‘Viewers of the televised segments of [Question Time in Parliament]
would be surprised to learn that past speakers’ rulings... forbid the
barracking, cat-calling and other nonsense that moves so many of those
viewers to write furious letters about the poor quality of their
representatives’ (Harry Evans)

‘”Yes Minister’s” Sir Humphrey put it epigrammatically: “If you want to
do those damn silly things, don’t do them in such a damn silly way”.
Ministers need their departments’ help... There has not been a single
case since 1901 when a minister has been forced to resign for actions of
the public service about which he did not know or could not reasonably
have been expected to know’ (Patrick Weller)

‘After almost 120 years it is time to cut the labour movement’s Gordian
knot, that most intricate relationship between the fortunes of the
political wing (the Australian Labor Party) and the industrial wing
(trade unions affiliated to the ALP’ (Mark Aarons, no less!)

‘Howard [built] his credentials as a national security leader largely on
his close identification with the personality and policies of the US
president, and his standing suffered accordingly as the president and
his policies were discredited... American policy is drifting in a
dangerous direction – towards an attempt to build a coalition of
democracies designed to contain China’s challenge to American primacy’
(Hugh White)

‘[Minister for Foreign Affairs] Stephen Smith... is well-placed to
engage with neighbouring states in a civil rather than a patronising
manner... The Tampa affair ... was orchestrated to win back the votes
of bigots... Achieving one’s [foreign policy] goals requires a
willingness to listen rather than preach’ (William Maley)

‘When arguments get heated, battles so often occur over words: are
asylum-seekers refugees or queue-jumpers? Is Hamas a terrorist
organization or liberation movement? Was Australia settled or invaded?’
(Martin Krygier)

‘[Professor Ross] Garnaut described the response to climate change as
“the defining challenge of our time”... Over the years the aluminium
industry has made more threats than any other to take its business to
countries without emission restrictions, and has bankrolled the
greenhouse mafia... If unconstrained, aviation emissions will account
for half or more of Australia’s total emissions by 2050 and will
undermine all other efforts’ (Clive Hamilton)

‘An independent, expertise-based Murray-Darling Basin Authority... like
the Reserve Bank [should] be required to communicate with great
discipline, always mindful of the weight given to its statements’ (Mike
Young)

‘The fundamental economic fact of Rudd’s victory is that he won in a
boom. This is rare... Ultimately, economic growth comes from two
sources: you can get more people into work and/or get the existing
people to work more efficiently... Australia is suffering a skills
shortage, as several industries struggle to find the qualified employees
they need to expand and grow’ (Andrew Charlton)

‘The Australian health-care “system” is a structural and organizational
shambles that has nevertheless produced world-class results... In the
absence of any grand over-arching vision, the system is a product of one
hundred years of short-term fixes... We have too few staff for too many
hospitals, many [of which] are located where people used to live rather
than where they live now’ (Bill Bowtell)

‘Australia is the only [OECD] nation with the dubious distinction of
combining long hours – over one-fifth of all employees work more than
fifty hours per week – with very high levels of casualization... In his
essay on Bonhoeffer, Rudd wrote that “the time has come for a vision for
Australia not limited bythe narrowest of definitions of our national
self-interest.” The family must not be “sacrificed on the altar of
market reality.” Two large British studies... concluded that “high
levels of group care before the age of three (and particularly before
the age of two) were associated with higher levels of antisocial
behaviour at age three”.’ (Anne Manne)

‘The “Bringing Them Home” report... found that race-based child-removal
policies were a special instance of genocide... This is crystal clear,
for instance, in Western Australia, where the instructions and
justification were aimed at eliminating the entire “race”... Throughout
the last decade , Andrew Bolt, Christopher Pearson and their ilk have
engaged... in polluting Australian political debate with a vicious
account of the nation’s history... I have heard the life stories of many
of the victims and read the documentary evidence’ (Marcia Langton)

‘The ALP’s “Forward with Fairness” policy [re workplace relations]
adopts the notion of “fairness” as its underpinning ethical principle.
By contrast, the Howard government’s WorkChoices revolution arose
primarily from an economic perspective...’ (Jill Murray)

‘House prices are now less affordable in Australia than in almost all
other developed countries... Our three levels of government should
cooperate in providing... a scheme to provide subsidies and other
incentives for institutional investors in low-rent housing... At least
initially, the scheme should be managed by non-profit organizations’
(Julian Disney)

‘Australia has just two universities in the top 100 [Shanghai Jiao Tong]
universities [in the world]... ANU at fifty-seven and Melbourne at
seventy-nine. Canada... has two universities in the top forty’ (Simon
Marginson)

‘The arts need government patronage because they create minds that
matter... The optimistic claims made by Keating: “Culture creates
wealth... Culture employs... Culture adds value”... Artist fees in most
art forms remain pitifully low’ (Juliana Engberg).

(After reading these chapters with hundreds more generalizations and
suggestions like the above, I’ve moved Mr. Rudd up my prayer-list!)

Rowland Croucher

April 2008

WHERE HAVE ALL THE PROPHETS GONE?

Here’s the gist of Marvin McMickle’s Where Have All The Prophets Gone? Reclaiming Prophetic Preaching in America, 2006. It’s black writing-as-preaching at its most passionate, biblically enlightened, and intelligent (he has a couple of earned Drs).

When (American) preaching isn’t prophetic you won’t hear anything about the two million persons packed into overcrowded prisons, most of them for drug-related offences that could be treated more effectively and at a fraction of the cost; or the 46 million persons without medical insurance; or the still-prevailing racism and sexism. Instead there’s an emphasis on just two ‘justice’ issues: abortion and same-sex marriage; the emergence of an oxymoron called patriot pastors; a focus on ‘praise and worship’ that doesn’t result in compassionate discipleship; and finally the vile messages of prosperity theology which have dominated the preaching of televangelists and many pulpits.

Where have all the prophets gone?
Gone in search of megachurches, every one.

Where have all the prophets gone?
Gone in search of faith-based funding, every one.

Where have all the prophets gone?
Gone in search of personal comfort, every one.

Where have all the prophets gone?
Gone in search of political correctness, every one.

Where have all the prophets gone?
Gone into a ministry that places praise over speaking truth to the powers, every one.

When will they ever learn? When will they ever learn?

Walter Brueggemann (The Prophetic Imagination) says the prophet offers us an alternative consciousness to the prevailing ‘royal consciousness’ of the entrenched political, economic, social or religious powers.

An example: Tony Campolo (Speaking My Mind) writes about the hypocrisy of those who staunchly oppose same-sex marriage, but whose heterosexual divorce rate is 50%: ‘Gays often ask why evangelicals seem willing to accept couples who are divorced and remarried, a sexual relationship Jesus specifically condemned as adultery, and then come down so hard on a sexual relationship Jesus never mentioned.’ If we follow the Levitical laws proscribing same-sex behavior, why do we not also forbid the eating of pork, or promote the idea of Jubilee – releasing people from prisons and from debt? Reason: homophobia, ‘the last acceptable prejudice in America’.

But it’s not only conservative evangelicals who have a problem here: whenever the convocations of mainline churches gather, what’s the #1 item on their agendas? Same-sex marriage, and ordaining active homosexual pastors. What about the staggering number of people confined to America’s prisons, or the 46 million without health insurance (there’s that refrain again) or the scourge of HIV/AIDS, or the explosion of divorce and teen pregnancy in America?

And the black churches? ‘Too many black clergy, especially those heading megachurches, are either apolitical or apologists for the status quo. What about [the refrain plus] staggering rates of black unemployment, black-on-black crime, the rapid spread of Islam as the religion of choice among many inner-city young men?’

America is the most professedly ‘Christian’ of the developed nations (over 85% identify as Christians), and the least Christian in its behavior. It leads them all in the murder rate, the use of capital punishment, the number of persons incarcerated, the percentage of marriages ending in divorce, the rate of teen pregnancy, and the number of children living in poverty.

Meanwhile, Christians are locked into the two issues of abortion and same-sex marriage. Where have all the prophets gone?

President Bush has said ‘Owning stuff is good.’ But that’s hard for many when 85% of the nation’s wealth is controlled by 18% of the people. While conservative evangelicals focus on their two-pronged agenda, Enron and WorldCom and other companies have been looted by their chief executive officers, leaving their workers and retirees in financial ruin. But Focus on the Family won’t get too upset about these ‘family values’ concerns. Nor will they mention anything about African Americans comprising 13% of the population yet constituting over 70% of the prison population. In 9 states when offenders are released their right to vote is revoked for life. And it’s well known that if you have a black skin you’re much more likely to serve a longer sentence than whites for the same crime. (And if you’re white and rich like Martha Stewart you’ll get less than six months for securities fraud and lying to a grand jury, and then receive more television deals).

And re Iraq: many Christians do their best impersonation of ‘hear no evil – see no evil – speak no evil’. The world is full of brutal dictators, but the Bush Administration chose to eliminate one who sat on the world’s second largest reserves of oil. The war in Vietnam failed to end communism in that country; and democratization in Iraq looks to be in dire peril of suffering the same fate. The president wages these wars abroad at the expense of the war on poverty in America.

The justice agenda of Jesus (Matthew 25): poverty, sickness, prisons, and other forms of human need.

Abortion and human sexuality are not unimportant: but they are simply not the limit of what should occupy a justice agenda in the 21^st century.

PATRIOT PASTORS

‘Patriot pastor’ is an oxymoron: a pastor’s allegiance should be to God and not to a political party. Amos, Micah, Samuel, Nathan, John the Baptist and Jesus regularly stood against the political establishment of their day in the name of the God of heaven and in defense of a more just and compassionate world. Where is patriot pastors’ concern was for the homeless, the hopeless, the hungry and the heartbroken in our society?

The evangelical East Waynesville Baptist Church, North Carolina forced nine members out of their church because they didn’t vote for George W Bush in the 2004 presidential election! The pastor said these people were holding back the work of the Kingdom of God.

But not all evangelicals are narrow: Rick Warren has been advocating help for the poor in Africa and elsewhere: ‘It is a moral issue… Jesus commanded us to help the poor so it is an obedience issue as well.’ Others are pressuring the government to do more about religious persecution, Darfur, enact legislation about prison rape in the USA and push for more funds to fight AIDS in Africa [PS and recently, climate change issues]. ‘God bless America is a patriotic tune and not a theological mandate. ‘In God We Trust’ may be engraved upon our nation’s currency but there is no evidence that those words have been etched upon the hearts of our nation’s leaders.

WHEN PROPHETIC PREACHING GIVES WAY TO PRAISE

On Christian television programs there’s an incessant theme of praise – but it, too, is severed from the prophetic message. Which is exactly what Amos condemned: ‘Take away from me the noise of your songs; I will not listen to the melody of your harps. But let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream’ (Amos 5:23-24). When upstretched hands in praise do not also become outstretched hands to lift up a fallen brother or sister, that is an abomination to God.

Now praise is good: read Psalm 150. The prophets are not calling for an end to acts of praise worship, but the striking of a balance so that deeds of justice are not overlooked or ignored while Christians are busy ‘having a high time in the house of God’. Lifting up holy hands is good: provided they extend to helping hands to those Jesus describes in Matthew 25 as ‘the least of these’.

PROPHETS TO PROFITS

‘Her leaders judge for a bribe; her priests teach for a price, and her prophets tell fortunes for money’ (Micah 3:11).

A favourite text for many ‘prosperity gospel/ health and wealth/ name it and claim it’ preachers is John 10:10, where Jesus promised his followers abundant life. But the good life and the abundant life are not synonymous. Indeed prosperity preachers who base their message on John 10:10 are in fact more reflective of the thieves and robbers who come to steal and destroy. ‘What will it profit,’ asked Jesus, ‘if you gain he whole world and forfeit your life? (Matthew 16:26)? The life of abundance offered by these preachers is more defined by television commercials and magazine advertisements than by anything found in Scripture. Jesus told us not to store up treasures on earth, but rather to store up treasures in heaven (Matthew 6:19-21). Paul says he’s content with whatever he has: ‘I know what it is to have little, and I know what I is to have plenty’ (Philippians 4:11-13).

And Jesus promised his followers that they would suffer trouble. Many preachers, writes Barbara Brown Taylor, are promising a smooth road which goes around the wilderness rather than one that leads people through the wilderness with its rough places, and crooked paths and low moments.

Item - Paula and Randy White have been blessed with an 8,000 square-foot home – and urge people who are broke to borrow money from others to give to their ‘ministry’!

Very little if anything is said by these preachers about the grinding poverty which affects hundreds of millions around the world. ‘Nothing is said about the thousands of US military who have been killed and injured in an ill-conceived and poorly conducted war in Iraq, a nation that did not attack us on September 11, 2001, and a nation that did not have weapons of mass destruction’.

In his book God Has a Dream Desmond Tutu says ‘To oppose injustice and oppression is not something that is merely political. No it is profoundly religious.’

The most prophetic voices among us today may well be the voices of women who continue to push both church and society beyond the single issue of race. If the role of women in society must remain unchanged from the days of the early church, then any opposition to slavery should also have been resisted, since Paul seemed to have accepted the reality of that evil institution in Romans 13:1-7. You would have thought Galatians 3:28 – ‘There is no longer Jew or Greek, slave or free, male or female, for all of you are one in Christ Jesus’ – would have settled this question long ago.

There are now about as many US fatalities in the Iraq war than there were fatalities on September 11, 2001. What will have been accomplished by this reckless venture?

We should be informed by a line from the hymn ‘God of Grace and God of Glory’ written by Harry Emerson Fosdick that warns ‘Save us from weak resignation to the evils we deplore’.

SERMON

The book ends with a magnificent sermon on the Pledge of Allegiance to the American flag where he takes to task those who oppose the inclusion of the phrase ‘under God’. One nation? What about he great divide between rich and poor? Liberty and justice for all? When over two million people are in prison? Republic? The inference is that no one is more important than anyone else and where everybody’s vote is supposed to count. But ‘what kind of republic allows what happened in Florida in the 2000 election? Indivisible? ‘We are divided by race, by region (ask the people in New Orleans whether we are indivisible).

And McMickle’s own moving story: His father abandoned the family when he was ten years old. Later, his mother tried to enroll in the music department at Moody Bible Institute, but was denied admission because she was a divorcee!’

Buy this powerful and moving book, read it, and suggest your pastor preach from it (if he/she is game!).

Rowland Croucher

April 2007