I feel like I really should engage in the debate on Christians and the State by re-reading one or two of Poserorprophet’s latest posts on the topic (+ all the comments) and by also engaging with Stephen’s rather excellent responses. So let’s try…
To retrieve one metaphor used at some point in the debate, on the one hand we’ve got a sinking ship. The ship is really a galley that can only move forward by exploiting galley slaves and it regularly throws the useless slaves –the lumpenproletariat- overboard. The chattering classes on the deck barely know of the slaves’ existence and they don’t care anyway. You can’t really organise a mutiny either because power is so dissolved in society that beheading the king is no longer an option. These days, most passengers discipline themselves like zombies.
On the other hand we’ve got a tiny raft made up by a handful of dedicated Christians leaning towards Anabaptism and Christian anarchism. The people who end up on the raft are those who hate the big boat, don’t want to be part of it, jumped from it and swam to the raft. They're a rather demanding church, who does not shy away from advocating excommunication for members whose behaviour directly harms the brothers and sisters of our Lord. This excommunication is –they hope- temporary and encourages the would-be members of the raft to stop whatever harm they’re engaged in.
So we have some honest Christians on the raft, who mostly rescue the discarded Lumpenproletariat from the water. Some of them also yell out to the sinking ship in the hope that more passengers will take the jump and join the raft.
We also have some honest Christians on the sinking ship who don’t want to leave behind the 99.999 % of the population that will never join the raft. They’d rather die trying to fix the ship than leave the riffraff behind. They believe that there is something of God in everyone, Christian or not. So they will run down to the galley level and make a huge fuss there. Then they run back up to the leisure deck and make another fuss there. They try to fix the ship so it won’t sink all too quickly.
Finally, we’ve got folks like Stephen and myself, who work on the ship and yet they hear the raft calling (or blogging) and they don’t quite know how to respond. They're dead excited about the raft, but they won't leave their ship and the people who still depend on it.
To retrieve one metaphor used at some point in the debate, on the one hand we’ve got a sinking ship. The ship is really a galley that can only move forward by exploiting galley slaves and it regularly throws the useless slaves –the lumpenproletariat- overboard. The chattering classes on the deck barely know of the slaves’ existence and they don’t care anyway. You can’t really organise a mutiny either because power is so dissolved in society that beheading the king is no longer an option. These days, most passengers discipline themselves like zombies.
On the other hand we’ve got a tiny raft made up by a handful of dedicated Christians leaning towards Anabaptism and Christian anarchism. The people who end up on the raft are those who hate the big boat, don’t want to be part of it, jumped from it and swam to the raft. They're a rather demanding church, who does not shy away from advocating excommunication for members whose behaviour directly harms the brothers and sisters of our Lord. This excommunication is –they hope- temporary and encourages the would-be members of the raft to stop whatever harm they’re engaged in.
So we have some honest Christians on the raft, who mostly rescue the discarded Lumpenproletariat from the water. Some of them also yell out to the sinking ship in the hope that more passengers will take the jump and join the raft.
We also have some honest Christians on the sinking ship who don’t want to leave behind the 99.999 % of the population that will never join the raft. They’d rather die trying to fix the ship than leave the riffraff behind. They believe that there is something of God in everyone, Christian or not. So they will run down to the galley level and make a huge fuss there. Then they run back up to the leisure deck and make another fuss there. They try to fix the ship so it won’t sink all too quickly.
Finally, we’ve got folks like Stephen and myself, who work on the ship and yet they hear the raft calling (or blogging) and they don’t quite know how to respond. They're dead excited about the raft, but they won't leave their ship and the people who still depend on it.
Painting by Theodore Gericault, "The raft of the Medusa". Click for larger picture.
5 comments:
Hi, Dany.
I like your dramatization of our respective positions. What it says to me is, there's no ideal solution. We're not choosing between a right option and a wrong option. We're choosing between several options, each with something to be said in its favour — but each also has something against to be said against it. There is no perfect choice.
In my view, one of God's attributes is that God loves diversity. God doesn't want us all to think the same way and make identical choices. It's better if some choose one way and some another, thereby covering all the bases. And Dan, to his credit, has chosen a demanding path.
I have no objection to Christians who want to stand apart from the rest of society and create the purest, most Christian community they can. But I resent being told that that's the only way to be faithful to Christ: that those of us who remain with the ship are making a fatal (and faithless) miscalculation.
I'm with John Stott in his interpretation of Jesus' salt and light metaphor. Stott points out that salt is a preservative. In the days before refrigeration, people rubbed salt into their fish to hinder its decay. Decay is inevitable; we can't stop it completely, but we can at least retard it. However, salt only slows decay if it comes into contact with the meat.
Same thing with respect to light. Jesus says, Don't hide your light under a bushel — let it shine, like a city set on a hill. In other words, let the light encounter the darkness. And of course, that's what Jesus himself did. He entered as Light into a dark world. Praise God, the darkness has not overcome the Light!
I'm sure Dan would agree with all of that, and he's certainly out there in a very meaningful way, coming into direct contact with the lost. The "least of these, my brethren" that our Lord spoke of.
But I'm also acting as salt and light, in a different way, in a different place — and I won't let Dan rob me of that. I am faithful in serving Christ in the way He has laid on my heart.
I gather that you are on a path similar to mine. God bless you in it.
Thanks for the thoughtful comment! I was excited to read your reactions to Dan’s posts on the subject when this debate was going on and I think that I was enjoying the exchange just as much as you both did.
If we stick with the raft/ ship allegory, I totally agree with you that we are not choosing between a right option and a wrong option here, and I also believe that God doesn't want us all to make identical choices. Governments certainly conduct wars, they certainly placate oppositional forces in society and they often end up making life worse for those on the margins. But that’s not all they do. And I don’t think that a nurse working for a government hospital is directly complicit with the running of Guantanamo Bay.
I think that I’m also in favour of “digging where you stand”. I’d like to see some Christians everywhere, covering all the bases and exerting gentle influence on the processes around them. In fact, some people in government might just be real disciples. I don’t see why not. But even if they’re not very committed, I find that I can still work with whatever bit of goodwill people have got in them. And I absolutely love doing so.
And I can be quite critical of the “loving those on the margins” route. I think that its pitfalls are very real. I’m scared of lacking genuineness. I’m scared of spreading myself too thinly. I’m scared that I won’t have enough charisma to make Christianity appealing to those on the margins and that they’ll discard me a stupid do-gooder. The folks on the margins have seen enough of Styrofoam-plate charity. They probably cringe at the mere mention of Christianity and I find that I have to keep it my faith under wrap all the time until well after people have learned to know me. I’m convinced that there are a bunch of stupid Christian kids out there spoiling the field, as it were, by going about it without sensitivity and without love. (This is not to say that we should not do some outreach ourselves and that we don’t need to learn to grow in solidarity with the excluded. Working in nice, socially progressive jobs does not excuse us from engaging in the works of mercy. We should learn to be good at it, i.e. to love people like Jesus loves us, or at least try to come close).
As for me, I think that I would like to be a member of the raft, and I would like the raft to keep me straight each evening of the week. I could really do with a bit of Pauline high standards. Nevertheless, I’d also like the opportunity to swim back to do my job on the ship each morning. I actually care for all the non-Christians who make up the state and who, for the time being, have placed all their hope in it.
I’m aware that Dan may not think that this is possible. I must admit that in that case I just don’t get his point. I’ll still read his stuff though, if he is right, the penny might still drop. I keep telling my friends that he gets on my nerves by his ability to “loose” me on a regular basis.
God bless you too!
I knew the raft analogy would be misleading. Here is where your post most misrepresents what I'm saying: those who are building the raft are doing so on the boat.
To use the words of the Industrial Workers of the World (made popular by Peter Maurin), the raft-builders are "building the new in the shell of the old" -- not apart from the old, only apart from the institutions of the old.
If this point is realised, then I think we end up with a very different story than the one narrated here.
PS - re: "Styrofoam-plate charity" I am reminded of the lyrics of an old Death Cab song (called "Styrofoam Plates"):
Thirteen years old in the suburbs of Denver.
Standing in line for Thanksgiving dinner at the Catholic Church.
The servers wore crosses to shield from the sufferance plaguing the others.
Styrofoam plates, cafeteria tables, charity reeks of cheap wine and pity...
Thanks for your clarification. Still, I don’t think it changes the meaning of the narrative all that much. So if the raft is being built somewhere “on” the boat, people are not segregated onto two different embarkations that rarely interact. You are not proposing a sort of elitist Amish withdrawal from wherever the boat is going, but rather the boat passengers and the raft people can, to an extend, be the same.
Are you still saying that the people who work on building the raft cannot at the same time work on fixing the ship? What’s so wrong with working with the institutions of the old world? This is where I really don’t get you. Thanks for the Death Cab lyrics; I think there’s a rather old post of yours that already references them. Great song in any case.
Um sorry, hadn't seen your new post when I wrote the last comment. Some good points there.
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