Gideon Strauss

“Let princes hear and be afraid.”

I still remember the cold thrill with which I read chapter 20 in John Calvin’s Institutes of the Christian Religion on train rides toward downtown Cape Town in 1989.

Dissatisfied with passive resistance against apartheid, uncertain that I had an understanding of political life that was both faithful to the teachings of the Bible and adequate for making sense of the tasks of government after apartheid, and unaware of the tectonic shifts already taking place below the surface of South African politics — shifts that were to bring about a quake of change the following year — I had been reading backwards from a book that had opened up fresh possibilities for me, Bob Goudzwaard’s Idols of our time. Goudzwaard made Christian sense of the political situation in which I found myself, and I wanted to understand where he came from. So I read those that influenced him, slowly making my way backwards into history: Herman Dooyeweerd, Abraham Kuyper, Guillaume Groen Van Prinsterer, Johannes Althusius, a slight detour to Samuel Rutherford, and then, John Calvin.

I think I can date my grafting into this tradition — going beyond ambivalent interest, joining the tribe — to the morning that I read these sentences very near the end of the Institutes (in the Beveridge translation):

When popular magistrates have been appointed to curb the tyranny of kings … so far am I from forbidding these officially to check the undue license of kings, that if they connive at kings when they tyrannise and insult over the humbler of the people, I affirm that their dissimulation is not free from nefarious perfidy, because they fraudulently betray the liberty of the people, while knowing that, by the ordinance of God, they are its appointed guardians.

But in that obedience which we hold to be due to the commands of rulers, we must always make the exception, nay, must be particularly careful that it is not incompatible with obedience to Him to whose will the wishes of kings should be subject, to whose decrees their commands must yield, to whose majesty their sceptres must bow. And, indeed, how preposterous were it, in pleasing men, to incur the offence of Him for whose sake you obey men! The Lord, therefore, is King of kings. When he opens his sacred mouth, he alone is to be heard, instead of all and above all. We are subject to the men who rule over us, but subject only in the Lord. If they command anything against Him let us not pay the least regard to it, nor be moved by all the dignity which they possess as magistrates — a dignity to which no injury is done when it is subordinated to the special and truly supreme power of God.

(I prefer the Ford Lewis Battles translation, which I discovered ten years later when studying with J.I. Packer at Regent College. It translates the first of the sentences above in this more imaginatively compelling way: “I am so far from forbidding them to withstand, in accordance with their duty, the fierce licentiousness of kings, that, if they wink at kings who violently fall upon and assault the lowly common folk, I declare that their dissimulation involves nefarious perfidy, because they dishonestly betray the freedom of the people, of which they know that they have been appointed protectors by God’s ordinance.”)

The work of John Calvin changed cultures in ways that go far deeper than politics — and influenced my own life, eventually, in ways that go far deeper — but my first debt to Calvin is a political debt: he wedged open anew a way for Christians to understand that political authority is relative, and that there are times when tyrants must be resisted, and centuries later I, too, could slip through that wedged opening, with deep gratitude.

Come October I will be on the road much of the time, meeting face-to-face with the constituency of the Center. One of the challenges of the non-profit road warrior is the lunch meeting: how to ensure that it is (1) pleasant, (2) healthy, (3) cheap, and (4) conducive to good conversations.

My provisional plan is to turn my lunches on the road into a quest: the quest for the perfect urban picnic. I am looking for locations where I can meet with people for free, but locations that offer both comfort and a little urban magic. Some of these can be out of doors (for meetings in three of the seasons), some will have to be indoors. And I am looking for the kind of picnic lunch that I can put together from just a handful of simple but tasty foods, bought locally. A freshly baked bread, a great cheese, some fruit, and a drink, perhaps.

My travel schedule will take me, first, to a band of communities that stretch from Sioux Center and Pella, Iowa, through the Twin Cities and Chicago, to Grand Rapids and surroundings, Michigan. Then I will do some bicoastal travel: Los Angeles and San Francisco, Boston, New York City and Washington, DC. And then we’ll see …

If you have suggestions of great picnic spots in any of these  towns and cities, available to the ordinary traveller by public transport or on foot, please let me know.

And if you know of great places to buy fresh bread, artisanal cheese, local fruit, and local drinks, please also let me know. I shall post some of the advice I’ve received so far via Twitter and Facebook here, soon.

Wes Balda, Executive Director of the Centre for Advancing International Management and Professor of Management at St. George’s University, and a regular contributor with his wife Janis to Comment magazine, writes in response to my question “What do American evangelicals need most, today, to help us discern our political responsibilities?”:

In the sixties and seventies, with people like Sojourners, Ron Sider and Mark Hatfield speaking to our possibilities, I believed that we evangelicals stood poised to challenge the principalities and powers. It didn’t seem to happen, quite. The decades came and went and we’re in a different place. We may need many things to discern, and act on, political responsibility. Here are a few:
Freedom from fear: Shortly after the U.S. election, bumper stickers appeared announcing the “Obama-nation.” Sadly, several bumpers sported adjacent Christian messages; stereotypically, these could often be found on large, gas-guzzling SUVs. (Not sure if there’s a connection there.) A growing number of conversations reflected anxiety over loss of portfolio value or the future cost of healthcare for retirees, and some even tended toward survivalist themes. None of the participants in exchanges I overheard appeared poor. In fact, quite a bit of wealth was represented. Is it possible that a correlation between wealth and fear sabotages evangelical action? (Maybe something comes to mind here about camels and needles?)
“Fair and balanced” discernment of political responsibilities is hard if we’re afraid.
A re-imagined identity: “Evangelical” clearly carries new stigmas. The term may be unraveling and retrenching at the same time. It is a code word with an evolved meaning that has changed, and, frankly, some would say that it has been hijacked. Three scenarios are possible now: 1) do nothing and ride with the popular current, or, 2) reclaim the term, restoring a spirit of engagement in its meaning, or, 2) find a new term, phasing and framing its introduction carefully. The first works for the fear faction, the second will be a dubious uphill battle, and the third is a monumental task to coordinate and manage.
Squirming former “evangelicals” are trying on tags like “Christ-followers” or “apprentices of Jesus” (thanks to Dallas Willard here), in representing themselves to those outside the fold. Some labels make starting the conversation hard. Even “Christian” draws dividing lines in some places. A new, counter-intuitive strategy is needed. Perhaps our actions should come first and the terms could follow their good results? What if they know who we are by our love? Perhaps then we will be invited to the dialogue.
An ethic for strangers: A good friend is intrigued with the problem of strangers. Why are we so frightened of “the other”? (Back to fear.) She is writing a book about the obstacles that fear of strangers pose to finding peace. Race, ethnicity and language differences are almost insurmountable to some. But, even sans these barriers, who among us middle-class, middle-aged, male evangelicals would walk into a gay bar full of English-speaking, middle-aged WASPs and strike up a conversation? (Probably Jesus would.) Perhaps these are Samaritans with a different sexual orientation?
For my mid-life crisis I took an odd (my wife would say bizarre) detour and became a police officer. One motivation arose from my sheltered past, where my work as a highly-educated urban development specialist working in a faith-based organization mainly set me up for conversations with others just like me, to talk about how to fix things for people very unlike me. I wasn’t sure I could carry on a conversation with a bum, a robber or a prostitute. I wanted to learn things I couldn’t absorb where I was, so I went to a considerably different place – the police department – to figure some stuff out. I survived, my wife didn’t divorce me, and I met a lot of interesting people. If nothing else I’m more comfortable with strangers than I formerly was, but I wouldn’t suggest this cure for everyone.
Whether our goal is peace, or just a reasonable zoning solution for our neighborhood, the work of politics is necessary. We can’t communicate easily with those we fear or who fear us. We have to figure out how to get along with strangers.
A sacramental resolve: Holy doggedness is required if followers of Jesus are going to take political responsibility seriously. Tenacity, perseverance, a perception of conflict as necessary “vigorous fellowship” rather than destructive combat, and commitment emboldened and sustained by grace will work. Resolve is not a sacrament, but it can be sacramental. I would understand this as constant outward acts, almost a lifestyle of fearless action. William Stringfellow and Dietrich Bonhoeffer come to mind at once.
The real promises we make in life need to be immersed in sacramental unction. It imparts a sacred resiliency to our actions, whether political or not, and succeeds because it is bigger than we are.
Places of common grace: Those I know who take political responsibility seriously seem unconsciously to seek common ground as a way of life. Common ground creates space for change. Alternatively, the current crop of evangelicals appear to display almost a genetic antipathy to compromise. It has entered the DNA (maybe it was always latent before), and (we)/they now define the camp as uncompromisingly firm in several highly visible areas. Dialogue is no longer possible. Can “grace” and “evangelical” even coexist in the same arena?
A theology of compromise need not be an oxymoron when partnered with grace, and evangelicals need to get this right. So I want to sacramentalize compromise, like resolve (above), and create places of common grace where relationships with the stranger and the pagan are allowed. Without these evangelicals will not succeed at making political responsibility effective.
A commitment to planting sequoias: We all pick up “credos” that we live by. Christ-followers surely define their identities and journeys by some standards like those found in scripture or produced by church councils like the one at Nicea a few years back. One of my favorite supplemental credos to these is the “manifesto of the mad farmer liberation front” by Wendell Berry. He says we should invest in the millenium by planting sequoias. This means we do things now that will never bear fruit in our lifetimes. We take actions and believe in realities that will emerge maybe a thousand years from now. This is an eschatalogically-complex idea! When we pray “your kingdom come – on earth as it is in heaven” we’re asking for much bigger things than the quick deliverance of an immediate rapture. God knows what will happen on earth and in heaven. My job is to take the long view and courageously care for everything as if all the little Baldas of the future mattered. Which of course they do! (Wait til you have grandchildren – all your paradigms shift. Political responsibility means something entirely new.)
Investing in the millennium means creating places of realized potential. It has been two thousand years since the church was a start-up. That’s two millennia. As aware as Paul was of the Kingdom’s immediacy, when he set up communities in Corinth, Galatia, Phillipi, or wherever, he planted sequoias.
So my final step challenging evangelicals to take political responsibility requires embracing the millennium that their offspring will populate and making it work now.

Irshad Manji in her 4th of July reflections quotes this from Abraham Lincoln:

I have often inquired of myself, what great principle or idea it was that kept this confederacy so long together. It was not the mere matter of the separation of the colonies from the motherland, but that sentiment in the Declaration of Independence which gave liberty, not alone to the people of this country, but, I hope, to the world, for all future time. It was that which gave promise that in due time the weight would be lifted from the shoulders of all men.

Which raises one of the biggest of the big questions — a question with which Americans, and certainly American Christians, must wrestle: What is liberty?

Jim Skillen raises a big question in today’s Capitol Commentary:

On this Fourth of July let’s celebrate again the independence of our beloved country, its survival through a Civil War, its endurance through the world wars of last century, and its leadership in international affairs for almost a century. Yet in our celebrating we should reflect anew on what American “independence” has come to mean.

Susan Fikse writes in byFaith magazine (quoting our Jim Skillen):

If Kim’s vote for Obama is part of a trend, what might account for the move of young evangelicals like her to the Democratic Party? Amy Black, associate professor of politics and international relations at Wheaton College, thinks much of the shift can be attributed to this generation coming of age during the George W. Bush presidency. “They will associate the Republican Party with an ongoing and increasingly unpopular war and with economic decline,” she says. But, she suspects that there are broader reasons than just a reaction against the Bush legacy. “I see my students resonating with a broader political agenda [than their parents],” she says. “They are very concerned about international issues such as the AIDS pandemic, religious freedom, and human rights … . This broadening of interests does not mean that other matters are no longer important—indeed, abortion remains a very significant issue for most of my students, but it is not the sole or central focus of their concerns.”

Jim Skillen has identified this gradually emerging trend through more than 30 years of teaching at Christian universities and as head of the Center for Public Justice in Washington, D.C. “As tolerance has become more important on the university campus, if you’re a young person in college—if you’re trying to get along with your neighbor—you don’t want to be in the middle of fights all the time [about abortion, the death penalty, homosexual marriage]. Instead, evangelical students who want to have an intensity of involvement choose issues that can’t be denied as urgent: AIDS, poverty, human trafficking.”

This generation has experienced pluralization like no other, agrees Greg Thompson, senior pastor of Trinity Presbyterian Church (PCA) in Charlottesville, Va. “Tolerance has become the dominant social ethic.” Therefore, the younger generation has a different view toward other nations and those with other belief systems. He explains, “Whereas fighting the ‘bad guy’ made total sense to those growing up during the Cold War, this generation values diplomacy. They say, ‘We have to live at peace with others.’” For Thompson, who is also pursuing a Ph.D. in religion and politics at the University of Virginia, this cultural shift explains the appeal of Obama among younger Christians. “It’s about ethos, not policy,” he says. “Obama embodies the ethic of tolerance.”

With the traditional Christian right still focusing primarily on abortion and gay marriage, some young believers feel a disconnect. Black says, “As key spokesmen—what I call the ‘old guard’—pass away and many of the organizations they founded close or dwindle in size, these leaders and organizations are fading from the political spotlight. The evangelical organizations with the numbers, energy, and prominence in today’s politics are much more likely to emphasize a broader political agenda than those from the previous generation.” And while Obama’s staying power may be limited, Black predicts that the broadening of the evangelical political agenda is a long-term trend.

I recommend reading the whole article. There is also a podcast on the issue available, with Richard Doster of byFaith interviewing Greg Thompson, pastor of Trinity Presbyterian Church in Charlottesville, Virginia.