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.
