Introducing: Jesus Returns to Washington

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About a year ago, then T.V. and radio celebrity, Glenn Beck, told the world that there is no place in Chris­tian­ity for social jus­tice. The terms “social jus­tice” and “eco­nomic jus­tice” were, he said, mere code words, rep­re­sent­ing the infil­tra­tion of polit­i­cal agen­das incom­pat­i­ble with Christianity.

Chris­tians were quick to respond. They pointed to scrip­ture, to Exo­dus and the prophets, to Jesus’ beat­i­tudes and state­ments on the poor, to the early church in the Book of Acts. They lifted up a long his­tory of Chris­t­ian resis­tance to oppres­sion and exploita­tion. They spoke of Bon­ho­ef­fer and Karl Barth, and their resis­tance to Nazism—resistance which resulted in Bonhoeffer’s exe­cu­tion. They asked, “What about Mar­tin Luther King Jr., Desmond Tutu, Mother Teresa… heck, what about Jesus?” Notable Chris­t­ian lead­ers, such as Rev. Jim Wal­lis (evan­gel­i­cal and pres­i­dent of Sojourn­ers) and the Rev. Peg Chem­ber­lin (pres­i­dent of the 45 mil­lion mem­ber National Coun­cil of Churches of Christ U.S.A.), spoke out. To those Chris­tians who had devoted their lives work­ing for the dig­nity of all God’s chil­dren (i.e. social jus­tice), Beck’s remarks seemed utterly ridicu­lous. Humanity’s bib­li­cal call­ing is clear:

Learn to do right; seek jus­tice.
Defend the oppressed.
Take up the cause of the father­less;
plead the case of the widow. (Isa­iah 1:17)

Many, at the time, were tempted to dis­miss Beck’s remarks as the thought­less rant­i­ngs of a man appar­ently unversed in either scrip­ture or the­ol­ogy, a man gov­erned by a self-serving polit­i­cal ide­ol­ogy that actu­ally is incom­pat­i­ble with Chris­tian­ity. But sim­ply to dis­miss his remarks and con­tinue with church-as-usual would be to over­look a deeper, far more trou­bling trend among Chris­tians today. After the ini­tial fall-out, Beck’s exec­u­tive pro­ducer explained, “Like most Amer­i­cans, Glenn strongly sup­ports and believes in ‘social jus­tice’ when it is defined as ‘good Chris­t­ian char­ity’… Glenn strongly opposes when Rev. Wright and other lead­ers use ‘social jus­tice’ as a euphemism for their real intention—redistribution of wealth” (ABC World News, March 12, 2010).

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Many of us do not want to ask how our own pri­va­ti­za­tion and a-politicization of faith is a politically-motivated, cul­tural inheritance—a set of val­ues that per­mit us to dis­as­so­ci­ate our faith from con­sumer prac­tice, vot­ing, con­duct in the work­place, treat­ment of the stranger, and other “pub­lic” eth­i­cal deci­sions.
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In other words, once we set aside Beck’s bloated rhetoric (and his own polit­i­cal agenda, includ­ing the intent to con­nect Jere­miah Wright and Pres­i­dent Obama), an intel­lec­tual dis­tinc­tion emerges—one, I sus­pect, many Chris­tians sup­port: the dis­tinc­tion between the “good Chris­t­ian char­ity” of food banks and cloth­ing dri­ves and the pro­tracted work of ana­lyz­ing and trans­form­ing social sys­tems. The first empha­sizes indi­vid­u­als; the sec­ond, sys­tems and com­mu­ni­ties. The first does for; the sec­ond, with. The first—as the com­mon say­ing goes—pulls bod­ies out of the river; the sec­ond, goes upstream and tries to stop the bod­ies from falling into the river at all. The first is less obvi­ous in its ide­o­log­i­cal moti­va­tions (though it cer­tainly has them); the sec­ond is more clearly mired in the com­plex­i­ties of pol­i­tics, law, and cul­ture. The first tends not to threaten estab­lished power; the sec­ond, cer­tainly does. The first is why we have home­less shel­ters and char­i­ta­ble gift deduc­tions; the sec­ond is why we have min­istries at the United Nations and in Wash­ing­ton, D.C.

For most of Protes­tant his­tory, Chris­tians have believed that both of these mod­els are important—vital, even, to their faith. In the early 19th cen­tury, Chris­tians worked to end slav­ery, stop alco­holism, advance women’s rights, plead the case of the Amer­i­can Indian, and end poverty, just as they clothed the poor, fed the hun­gry, and vis­ited the sick. They saw these min­istries as inex­tri­ca­bly inter­twined.[1]

Even then, the reform­ers had their oppo­nents: peo­ple who, for instance, said that the church was a spir­i­tual insti­tu­tion and should not, there­fore, get involved in “polit­i­cal” mat­ters like slav­ery. But begin­ning in the 20th cen­tury, a sig­nif­i­cant change began to take hold (for rea­sons explored and iden­ti­fied in this issue of Unbound): social jus­tice started to become a sec­u­lar affair as Chris­tian­ity began to con­fine its atten­tion to the pri­vate (sup­pos­edly apo­lit­i­cal… or “non-threatening”) mat­ters of spir­i­tual growth and con­ven­tional charity.

We, who have inher­ited the legacy of this sep­a­ra­tion, under­stand­ably won­der why the church has offices in D.C. or at the UN. We bris­tle when we hear from the pul­pit a cri­tique of con­tem­po­rary cap­i­tal­ism or of an Amer­i­can war. We start get­ting con­cerned about the sep­a­ra­tion of church and state. We fear the pas­tor is impos­ing her own polit­i­cal biases. We want faith to be sim­ple. We don’t want to get all tied up in polit­i­cal ques­tions, hav­ing to worry about the con­fu­sion of author­ity (Am I being led by scrip­ture or a polit­i­cal party?). Truth be told, we prob­a­bly do not want to ask how our own pri­va­ti­za­tion and a-politicization of faith is a politically-motivated, cul­tural inheritance—a set of val­ues that per­mit us to dis­as­so­ci­ate our faith from con­sumer prac­tice, vot­ing, con­duct in the work­place, treat­ment of the stranger, and other “pub­lic” eth­i­cal decisions.

Well, this issue of Unbound asks that ques­tion. Play­ing on the title of the movie, “Mr. Smith Goes to Wash­ing­ton,” this issue asks why the church should engage mat­ters deemed “polit­i­cal.” Does the church belong in the pub­lic square? And if so, why?

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Play­ing on the title of the movie, “Mr. Smith Goes to Wash­ing­ton,” this issue asks why the church should engage mat­ters deemed “polit­i­cal.” Does the church belong in the pub­lic square? And if so, why?
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Quick Takes
We start out with some “quick takes.” Here, we record rapid inter­views of Chris­tians explain­ing why they think the church should be “in” the world and what scrip­ture and lived exam­ples they look to.

Renowned social ethi­cist Gary Dor­rien briefly dis­cusses why he is still a Chris­t­ian, reflect­ing on the mean­ing of the Civil Rights Move­ment for his faith.

Sem­i­nary stu­dent Emily Mor­gan reflects on the true spir­i­tu­al­ity of the church and how, when dis­torted, the rhetoric of the church’s spir­i­tu­al­ity (such as used to jus­tify 19th c. neu­tral­ity on the issue of slav­ery) can be co-opted to pre­vent inter­ven­tion in the world and to pre­serve sta­tus quo power.

Eleanor Reed Held takes a quick look at the dif­fer­ent ways Chris­tians prac­tice church, argu­ing that prac­tice must extend beyond Sun­day morn­ing and pietism, reach­ing into pub­lic life, or what she calls the “sec­ond stage.”

Pas­tor and Co-Moderator of the Pres­by­ter­ian Peace Fel­low­ship, Roger Scott Pow­ers, describes “Pres­by­ter­ian Cit­i­zens,” remem­ber­ing that the Amer­i­can Rev­o­lu­tion was known as the “Pres­by­ter­ian rebellion.”

Debat­ing Church in the World
Next, Unbound “debates” why the church should be in the pub­lic square, exam­in­ing scrip­tural and the­o­log­i­cal rea­sons. Start­ing us off is “Gospel­ing Beyond Our Pre­ferred Agen­das” by past pres­i­dent of the Soci­ety of Bib­li­cal Lit­er­a­ture, Wal­ter Bruegge­mann, who offers lessons from the prophet Isaiah—that we must “nei­ther pri­va­tize evan­ge­lism nor claim the auton­omy of social action.”

Mis­si­ol­o­gist Dar­rell Guder, reflect­ing on our cul­tural inher­i­tances, con­sid­ers what it might take “to merge the pri­or­i­ties of evan­ge­lism and social jus­tice into one mis­sional con­vic­tion that embod­ies them both.”

The­olo­gian Cyn­thia Rigby expli­cates the con­cept of “social right­eous­ness” as a pub­lic, not just pri­vate, char­ac­ter­is­tic of faith, point­ing read­ers to a few scrip­tural maps.

Pas­tor Dou­glas Mitchell adapts cur­ricu­lum from a church adult edu­ca­tion class to pro­pose that the min­istry of social jus­tice can be a dis­ci­plined spir­i­tual prac­tice, bring­ing us into closer, more inti­mate (and joy­ful!) rela­tion­ship with God.

Finally, W. Travis McMaken dis­cusses why he sup­ports the Occupy Wall Street Move­ment as a Reformed the­olo­gian.

Prac­tic­ing Church in the World
The next sec­tion looks at “prac­tic­ing church in the world”—lived exam­ples of faith­ful engage­ment with the pub­lic square. Direc­tor of the Pres­by­ter­ian Hunger Pro­gram, Ruth Far­rell, kicks us off by describ­ing the con­struc­tion of eco-villages in Haiti, explor­ing the com­plex­i­ties of mis­sion, and invit­ing peo­ple will­ing to work with (not for) Haitians to join.

Tim­o­thy Njoya, Kenyan pas­tor and activist, dis­cusses preach­ing for free­dom and equal rights under a repres­sive regime. Rev. Njoya was detained, bru­tal­ized, and tor­tured for his “sedi­tious” sermons.

For my edi­to­r­ial offer­ing, I dis­cuss the impli­ca­tions of a new e-ministry that has one leg online and the other on the ground (through churches and local orga­niz­ers). I chal­lenge Unbound and the church to think strate­gi­cally about being both a cit­i­zen and a critic of the emerg­ing e-world, which, along with social media, I liken to the Greek agora—the new pub­lic square.

Senior Edi­tor, Chris Iosso, remem­bers jus­tice and ecu­menism advo­cate Eugene Car­son Blake, for­mer Pres­i­dent of the NCC, Gen­eral Sec­re­tary to the World Coun­cil of Churches, Stated Clerk of the Pres­by­ter­ian Church, co-author of the 1953 “Let­ter to Pres­by­te­ri­ans” denounc­ing McCarthy­ism, and a man once known as the “Protes­tant Pope.”

Direc­tor of the PC(U.S.A.) Office of Pub­lic Wit­ness, J. Her­bert Nel­son II, iden­ti­fies a new orga­niz­ing model invit­ing young adult participation.

Direc­tor of the Pres­by­ter­ian Min­istry at the United Nations, W. Mark Koenig, dis­cusses what it means to have a pub­lic faith and be global ambas­sadors for Christ, par­tic­u­larly in the con­text of the UN.

Paul See­beck closes this sec­tion with a tes­ti­mony to how Pres­by­te­ri­ans are com­bin­ing evan­gel­i­cal mis­sion and social jus­tice.

Preach­ing Church in the World
Unbound then reflects with scrip­ture on the ratio­nale for, and mean­ing behind, the church in the pub­lic square. Scholar Mar­garet Aymer offers one of nine lessons from her Hori­zons Bible study, Con­fess­ing the Beat­i­tudes, and says, Jesus promises sus­te­nance to the fam­ished, but calls the “stuffed” to account.

Pas­tor Jef­frey Kre­hbiel pro­vides an excerpt from his book, Reflect­ing with Scrip­ture on Com­mu­nity Orga­niz­ing, look­ing to Mark 6:30–44 (loaves and fishes) as a model for turn­ing a crowd into a com­mu­nity, orga­nized for lead­er­ship, power, and action.

Min­is­ter and Coor­di­na­tor for the Children’s Defense Fund, Shan­non Daley-Harris records a ser­mon, trac­ing the progress in Isa­iah 59 from com­plaint to con­fes­sion to call­ing. The pub­lic square—flyered with evic­tion notices and pho­tos of chil­dren gunned down—is, she argues, pre­cisely the kind of place the church belongs—a sacred space.

Finally, Unbound offers resources, rec­om­mended read­ings, and ways to take action as you grow and deepen the pub­lic wit­ness (and there­fore, spir­i­tual nour­ish­ment) of your faith.

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Notes
[1] Tim­o­thy L. Smith doc­u­ments this his­tory well in his book, Revival­ism & Social Reform: Amer­i­can Protes­tantism on the Eve of the Civil War (John Hop­kins Uni­ver­sity Press, 1980).

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