I’ve been talking for a while now about my ambivalence regarding voting, political involvement, and the like. And let me say again: it’s not that going to a neighborhood meeting or pulling a lever or being a councilman is morally wrong. None of these things are bad in and of themselves. The trouble comes when these things put themselves in the position of saying that the religious life or the lif e of discipleship becomes conflated with these things. In other words, I worry about the line of reasoning that as a Christian, the political life (participation in government change) is the final goal, the apex, the summum bonum of Christian existence.
Case in point: I teach an introduction to Christian Heritage class on Tuesday-Thursday at 8 a.m. I’ve had a student ask if, in light of the inauguration, we can cancel class. My response was, “No, we’re going to have class. If you choose to watch the inauguration, that is your preroggative.” I know of other colleagues who are cancelling class for the inauguration, and that too, is their preroggative. But to that, I offer the following caveat:
Obama is not the Messiah.
Yes, I cast my vote for President-Elect Obama; yes, I think that his policies had more promise than McCain’s vis-a-vis war, energy, job creation, and host of other issues, but do I think that he’s going to be able to do all he promised? Not a chance. I think he’ll do a good job; I hope he’ll do a good job. But if the two come into conflict, I hope that Christians everywhere would have the courage to say that the church offers something that Obama does not, namely Christ, the one who establishes true polity and union, and who renders all other political life provisional at best.
There’s a ton of ways to slice up religion and politics:
–You can see the church and state cooperating toward a single common good.
–You can see the church as the conscience within the larger public sphere.
–You can see the state as the telos towards any good religious teaching, that all religion is ethics.
–You can see the state as guiding people toward the church.
These are of course, just four options. My own take is somewhere near #1, with the following provision: what the state defines as goods and what the church defines as goods are not the same. When the state promises ‘freedom’ or ‘equity’, this is a purely pragmatic definition, a detente between warring parties; one only has to look at the way that Rick Warren and Gene Robinson are both part of the festivities to see that Obama is part of this as well. But when Christianity speaks of ‘freedom’ or ‘equity’, this is an entirely radical thing, speaking of the Christ who cuts across geographic boundaries and who relativizes incomes and offers a singular vision of God. These two are not the same.
So, no, I’m not cancelling class on Tuesday, because I believe that what theology offers is not the same as politics, and that as much promise as Obama offers, what he offers is ultimately a difference of degree, rather than type, in politics. The radical Christian vision is one that can be called a number of things, but to call it quietist or sectarian because it refuses to honor civil events is to misunderstand the relationship: that politics is ultimately provisional, and can lead to Christ, but only if politics understands itself as not the ultimate end of the religious life. Aristotle, as Laura reminded me, said that ethical reflection leads to political life; my counter to that, however, is that what Aristotle has in mind here vis-a-vis ethics is only partly encapsulated by Christian teaching: there comes a point at which–as Aquinas saw–Aristotle can be a guide to Christian faith, but ultimately finds himself grasping at the meaning of life apart from the guidance of faith.
Let the church be the church.
