Paradox and Tension in Pesonal, Social, and Theological Life

Recently my partner had a curious visit. A man stopped by his office to ask some questions about Lutheranism. He’s disaffected with The Episcopal Church. My partner was straightforward, pointing out he had a partner, as this seems to be a common reason for disaffection these days. The man was not concerned with this. He was concerned, however, that in his experience our leadership is preaching the Millenium Development Goals, lgbt inclusion, and opposition to war in Iraq, but Jesus is only kind of thrown in fourth hat at the end.

He has a fair point. All of these things may be good things, even things necessary for neighbor in response to God’s own love for us, but the grounding for doing any of them as Christians is the Gospel, is Jesus Christ. It also means that how we go about doing them is a place for legitimate disagreement among Christians. We might, for example, widely agree with the goals of the MDG’s but be concerned about the statist approach to their fulfillment. We might, for example, agree with the inclusion of lgbt persons, but think this best happens through local congregational and diocesan changes rather than imposing a national blanket policy. We might, for example, have opposed the war in Iraq while yet recognizing that pulling out now without providing for some form of policing and reconstruction may well do great harm all its own.

These are fine distinctions, but such that others have been concerned with as well. Just as the concern for family and personal responsibility are legitimate, which I won’t quickly mock, by those in the “Family Values” corner, so too are concerns for systems and social responsibility by those in the “Social Justice” corner. However, in both cases these must flow from our encounter again and again of Jesus Christ in our worship, otherwise, we are likely to make idols of them, suggesting that they are first things rather than response to God. Indeed, the continuation of our liturgy, worship into the week. Curiously, it seems to me, that in both situations, a tendency toward revolutionary talk sometimes develops. This is where, for example, I become hesitant with Dr. King's "Beyond Vietnam" speech. Not because I don't recognize the evils and ills he names, but because he veers too close to identifying revolution and God's reign. After all, some revolutions have gone horribly wrong and been quite worse than that which they opposed. I would say due to Sin. At best, grand moments like the end of slavery, the Civil Rights Movement, the end of Apartheid are FORETASTES of God's Reign, but work remains in their wake. They are not the Final Reconciliation, which is not something we of our own can acheive. Thus, a certain humility or paradoxical tension remains that preserves the final weight of the Eschaton every before us.

I think this is the other end of my recent thoughts on prophets and that we should expect our equilibrium to be upset by them. The prophetic can never equate the kingdoms of this earth with the kingdom of God, and brings us up short before the Law everytime even as it also offers us the word of God’s grace, namely Christ. What the Scotist terms our low left evangelical brothers and sisters, these cannot understand that some of us support many of the goals, for example, of the MDG’s, but have concerns with the statist orientation and alignment of the concerns of the church so closely with government and quasi-government entities, or that the grounding for doing them as Christians is sometimes too losely drawn. Or the seeming failure to recognize that large, government solutions themselves come with drawbacks and rely upon systems that may in fact fail the person on the ground (such as failure of dictatorial regimes to distribute food or the failure of welfare regimes to move beyond stop-gap measures through check payments toward providing meaningful labor--something all human beings need).

I know that this last year, in attending the American Academy of Religion, I stopped in on a workshop about using the Bible in applying the MDG’s. To my dismay, this was a workshop to begin discussions about how we might do so, rather than presentations that already were going to show us how to do so. It seemed to me that the tail was wagging the dog, not because I think tackling hard matters of poverty or human rights are unimportant or unChristian, quite the contrary, but because their grounding must be in Christ, related to the word in Scripture, connected to the Sacrament of the Altar, understood as Christian spirituality applied.

You can imagine, this all makes it hard sometimes to pin me down on ecclesial party and political issues.

Many of us, also, cannot accept that we’re “building the kingdom” or “bringing in the kingdom” or similar terms that suggest we can somehow, someday get it right and all will be well. For some of us, this smacks as severe spasms of naivete, for others as quite dangerous—indeed, a mirror of the politics of say the Roman Catholic Church in Franco’s Spain. Our low left evangelical sisters and brothers may not see the dangers, after all, liberalism is, well, liberal. But so was the French Revolution. Abuse of authority and power is not reserved to conservatives.

We have too much of what Fr. Sam identifies as a tragic Christian view of the human condition to think so boldly. We know that Sin will play its parts in human affairs always until the Day of the Lord. Hence, we decouple our salvation from our response to God (our works), which is God’s work alone, without then suggesting we do nothing because we’re mere worms before God. As Melancthon put it, “works are not necessary for salvation, but they are necessary.” So, we also recognize that that in nowise takes us off the hook in “fighting might and main for neighbor” (Martin Luther). But it does suggest that we will likely remain critically engaged with any suggestion right or left or center that suggests somehow that if we don’t do x, y, or z in this way, by this program, our salvation is in jeopardy (either by implication or by straightforward wording as such), or that the only way to acheive x, y, or z as a Christian response is through one and only one program or way.

I think Benedictine tradition walks a careful line, a via media of sorts, between a tragic vision that sees no possibility of taking up the Cross and practicing virtues and doing better by ourselves and neighbor in the light of Christ and a naïve vision that suggests Sin shall somehow cease to play a part in our affairs and we can establish a perfect vision on our own. Such a tradition recognizes a need for checks and balances, recognizes authority and power can be terribly misused, reconfigures all obedience in light of Jesus Christ. This tradition rejects suggestions that traditions and institutions should never change or develop, and thus ossify, and at the same time rejects notions of revolution that would tear assunder all that provides the necessary stabiliy for finite beings. Benedictine tradition refuses to decouple personal and social. Refuses that personal is equivalent to private or individual. Refuses to suggest that anything the Christian does is private, though it well may be personal. Refuses on the other hand to suggest its only about the personal, as if social realities are not of concern. What persons do affects those around them. Personal sin, thus, is quite serious. What societies do affects persons and can seriously deform or malform them. Social sin, thus, is quite serious. I think such smaller scale societies as Benedictine tradition recommends have a lot to offer for the arranging of human affairs within the dangers of totalitarianism and anarchy, within complete endorsement of capitalism or socialism.