So, I've heard some positive feedback on my sermon from this week. If you haven't listened to it yet, you can find it at http://www.svlccommunity.org/ I spoke about Politics, and in particular about how we as Christians are Biblically called to engage in politics. I won't recap the whole sermon here, but I got one question from a number of people afterwards that I thought would be good to address in this format.
I argued that, Biblically, Christians are called to "support" our government. You see this a number of times in Paul's writings and I believe in many of Jesus' actions as well. But the question that was raised was, "What then do we do with an unjust government." What are Christians supposed to do in Germany under Hitler?
It's a great question. And one I don't think I have all the answers to. But, I did a little thinking and some research and I have a few ideas.
One, the truth of it is, Paul and Jesus lived under governments that were pretty unjust as well. They probably didn't have it as bad as life in Nazi Germany, but they were much worse off than life in most First World governments in our day today. So, for Paul to say to that Government leaders were put there by God, is a pretty bold step in his day. That shouldn't be discounted.
However, we also shouldn't discount that Paul almost certainly believed that Jesus was coming back very soon. In most of his writings it's very clear that Paul believes Jesus' return to be imminent. That colors much of his commentary on life style choices. It colors his thinking on marriage, and I think it colors his thinking about governments. Why worry too much about an unjust government when Jesus is coming to bring a new Heaven and a New Earth and all this be wiped away anyway?
But, as we have seen 2000 years later, although Jesus' return is imminent, God's time frame and our time frame don't seem to be similar. So, we still wait for Jesus. We still wait in a broken world where governments can be bad, and sometimes truly evil (again, the image of Nazi Germany comes to mind.) As Christians, do we just wait for Jesus to come back, or do we step into unjust situations and do something to combat that? Do we take a page from Dietrich Bonhoeffer, one of the great Lutheran leaders, and plot to kill Hitler because he is that evil? Good questions.
Again, I'm drawn to the Bible for answers, and here I'm afraid it's a little less clear. And it requires much humble thought on our part. To begin, let's look at a specific example with Jesus. Many are familiar with Jesus encounter with the crowd and the woman caught in adultery. In that instance, Jesus challenges the crowd who is seeking "justice" (blood, really) "Let he who is without sin, cast the first stone." And after all of the woman's accusers walk away He sends the woman away forgiven, with the command to not sin again. For me, this provides a great example of Jesus' response to an unjust situation. The woman, although guilty, was being treated without justice. By Jewish law, the man she was with should have been brought along with her for accusal. The whole scene reeked of a set-up, and flew in the face of Jesus' message of forgiveness and grace for all, regardless of sin. So, instead of letting the unjust action slide, Jesus stepped in, and acted. He did so in a very unique way, but He acted to subvert the unjust action no matter how you look at it.
Paul does something similar in his letter to Philemon. This is a story about Philemon, a slave owner, and his runaway slave Onesimus. Paul has come into relationship with Onesimus, and has discovered that he knows Philemon quite well. In fact, Paul brought Philemon to faith. So, Paul takes the radical step and sends Onesimus back to Philemon and urges/commands Philemon to forgive Onesimus and treat his as an equal in Christ. Paul sees slavery as unjust, and knows that if Onesimus is caught as a runaway slave he'll be killed. But instead of hiding Onesimus, Paul sends him back to his "owner" and says you can't hurt him, you can't punish him, you have to treat him as Christ treats you. Paul steps into an unjust situation and challenges it.
So, what do we learn. Well, my reading is that Paul and Jesus chose not to try and change the un-justices of the world, but they did stand up to the unjust actions before them. They did what they could when they could, and expected others to do the same. So, yes they didn't fight the unjust governments under which they served. In their wisdom, that wasn't where they thought they should spend the majority of their time (this was spent on bringing the Gospel to the World.) But, they didn't ignore it either.
So, that seems like our calling, to do what we can when we can. Sometimes that means individual action. A modern example might be to stand up to bullying in our schools when we see it, a real problem right now. But yes, sometimes that needs to be done on a large scale. To stop Hitler, or Stalin, you couldn't do that one encounter at a time. It needed to be done with millions working together, forcefully. On this, Reinhold Niebuhr did some great work arguing for Christian Realism, in direct contrast to those Christians arguing for a pacifist reaction to the Nazi's. Niebuhr argued that in this clear case, pacifism was not the Christian response at all, direct action was needed. It's not always easy to see when that is, but when it is clear, then our Christian response should be equally clear.
So, a few thoughts on a difficult idea. I'd love to hear your thoughts or further questions if this gets you thinking as well. Have a great week, and as always. . .
Don't go to church, Be the Church
Bill
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