Dr Chuck Pearson

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April 13, 2005

Interest in people, not in governments

I have been reading a lot of stuff from all over the map lately about Christian reconstructionists or Christian dominionists, and when you put that side-by-side with Jeff's thinking about Christian worldview (to wit, when somebody accuses somebody else of having a "Christian worldview", more often than not they mean "really bloody conservative Republican and probably Christian as well worldview")...well, it's just about enough to completely break my brain.

Fortunately, Donald Sensing's brain doesn't break so easily. I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that Donald is quite possibly the best of the political bloggers right now - not necessarily always my favorite, just the best - because, even and especially from his perspective as a pastor, he can crystallize so many of these other ideas floating around that would otherwise really give me problems and cause me to stammer around going "uh, uh, uh..."

Donald starts, as any good teacher should, with definitions, and he works from there.

I’ll not repeat here what the links about North and Barton say about them except to draw a necessary distinction between Christian evangelicalism, Christian reconstructionism (aka, "dominionism") and Christian theonomy - sorry for the vocabulary lesson, but to understand present-day political Christianity you need to have it.

– Evangelicalism is a theology that holds the greatest imperative for a Christian is to lead others to confess personal faith in Jesus Christ as risen Lord and savior. Its primary fealty is to Christ personally rather to his ethical propositions or moral examples. Evangelicalism insists that human sins have been fully and eternally remitted by the sacrificial death of Jesus on the cross and his resurrection by the power of God. Hence, all persons who "believe in their hearts that Jesus was raised from the dead and confess with their mouths that Jesus is Lord will be saved," to slightly paraphrase Saint Paul’s teaching in Romans 10.

Please NEVER FORGET THIS, kids. Evangelicalism is NOT a political philosophy. The primary interest of an evangelical Christian is NOT in overthrowing or subverting a government. It is - or it should be - in the personal health and well-being, both physical and spiritual, of people around them. A basic part and parcel of this health and well-being is the life that is centered around Jesus Christ.

For me, this is plenty radical enough. Those of us who have grown up in a super-pluralistic academic world have been conditioned not to look someone in the eye and ask "do you have Jesus in your life? Because if you don't, you need Him." But if I buy into the Bible, I do have point-blank Scripture that justifies such evangelism:

Then Jesus came to them and said, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age."

So I am an evangelical Christian, by pretty much any standard.

More of Sensing:

– Christian dominionism is the idea that human institutions of every stripe should be brought under the umbrella of Christian teaching and practice. Some dominionists have not necessarily included the political organs of a country, state of local government under the umbrella, believing that the civil organs of society, if managed and membered by Christians, would inevitably lead to political processes and results that mostly reflected Christian virtue, even if not perfectly. Other dominionists - of whom Barton seems one - insist that every social, civil and government body must be brought under the control of Christians without exception.

Hence, dominionists see their primary role not in saving souls but in saving society’s operating organs at every level. I probably am belaboring the obvious that not just any kind of Christianity is suitable for dominion over society; you’ll have a hard time finding a dominionist among the United Methodist Church, for example (my denomination) or finding a dominionist who would include the UMC or its Wesleyan tradition as valid foundations for proper Christian dominion.

I'm not convinced that I'm not a dominionist. It does bother me that so much academic thought (and scientific thought in particular, and biological science thought even more in particular) happens outside of the influence of Christian thought. It does bother me that political decisions, particularly in secular-minded arms of public service, are made without the influence of that cliched-but-still-important question "what would Jesus do?".

But I absolutely do not go in for David Barton-style reconstructionism. (By the way, here's Barton's own biography from his WallBuilders organization, and here's a decently-journalistic summary from BeliefNet of who Barton is and how he's worked politically.) I don't believe that America was originally a Christian nation, and I don't believe that a body necessarily has to be led by Christians to be do good work (or to even do Godly work).

Probably the most-cited verse by people of a dominionist stripe (and I know, because I've cited it myself in the past) comes from 2 Chronicles 7, particularly verse 14:

When I shut up the heavens so that there is no rain, or command locusts to devour the land or send a plague among my people, if my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land.

(Your garden-variety churchgoer, of course, forgets or doesn't pay attention to the first part of that - that God was promising to heal land from famine or plague that he ordained, which would mean either (a) he's not saying anything about politics, or (b) any political calamity on a land was ordained by Him - which opens up a huge can of worms better reserved for another time. Suffice it to say it doesn't get thought of a lot.)

(But here's the big point:) God doesn't promise that people who believe in Him will be able to gain full run of the joint. He doesn't promise that people who claim full faith in Jesus Christ will be able to run unopposed for every political office from now to eternity. He doesn't propose any means of how He will "heal their land." He just promises to do it. And part of having faith in a big, omnipotent God is having faith that when God says He'll do something, he'll take care of the details - and what you think "healing the land" may mean might have nothing to do with what HE thinks "healing the land" might mean. Because He's God, he kind of knows a lot more than you do. And a whole lot more than I do.

For completeness, here's Sensing's definition of theonomy:

– Theonomy is a very strict form of dominionism that hold that the Mosaic, Deuteronomic and Levitical codes of the first five books of the Jewish Scriptures are ideal models for the civil code of the United States, suitably modified for 21st-century circumstances in their mode of application but not their imperatives of application.

And, if you really think that all the Levitical laws regarding sexual relations need to be followed to the letter, on pain of excommunication or death, then get thee back into the New Testament, you Biblical illiterate.

In fact, the Woman At The Well story from John 4 is a key example of how Jesus confronted people considered by religious authorities to be sinful. He did not condemn, nor did he pontificate. He stated the facts of the person's condition, and he let the facts speak for themselves. Jesus was only concerned, in that moment, with how the woman responded to him. He wanted nothing more than her faith in him. The rest, I'm sure he figured, would take care of itself over time - and even if it didn't, in this moment, he had affirmed the woman's importance and had been an example for her.

Nothing Jesus accomplished involved his place in any position of authority - the religious authorities despised him, and the Roman authorities either were completely apathetic towards him or actively aided his demise, depending on how you interpret the history.

And yet Jesus quite literally changed the world, simply by interacting with ordinary people.

There's a lesson in there somewhere.

Posted by Chuck at April 13, 2005 11:20 AM

Comments

Posted by: Celestia at April 14, 2005 01:29 AM

Posted by: Dr Chuck at April 14, 2005 05:39 AM

Posted by: Nancy at April 15, 2005 08:23 PM