Political Engagement as Biblical Mandate

Hanson

• Publisher: Cascade Books
• Year: 2010
• ISBN:
  9781621890140
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Religion

How does the Bible shape the perspective from which Christians view politics, the manner in which they engage in public debate, and the strategies they adopt when they translate faith into action? In Political Engagement as Biblical Mandate, Hanson suggests that many believers give insufficient thought to the basic principles that biblical study contributes to the lives of those who simultaneously seek to live in obedience to the central confessions of the Christian faith and to engage constructively in the life of a nation guided by the First Amendment and populated by an increasingly religiously diverse citizenry.

1 In Search of a Biblically Based Political Theology

Our Task

It has become common parlance to speak of a global economy. Whether in boom times or recessions, the interdependency of nations—large and small, industrial and developing—is evident. The banking crisis that struck the member-states of the G10 in 2008 threatened the financial stability not only of the world’s richest countries, but had crippling effects on nations that even in more normal times were finding it impossible to service their debts and provide minimal care for their poor and infirm. In the area of economics, the world clearly is woven tightly into a single web. As much as individual states would like to step outside of this web, they are bound as economic partners “for better or for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health.”

In the meantime, many people of faith live in a world that is confined to their particular congregation, denomination, or locality. Charity is directed to the immediate neighbor and the spiritual family is coterminous with one’s own parish, whereas references to Darfur, Somalia, and Pakistan register with the hollow sound of far away places. Such are the fruits of a spirituality that has become increasingly individualistic, of an ecclesiology excluding any concept of the individual congregation being part of a worldwide network, of salvation construed as a gift of eternal life given exclusively to those adopting a particular set of beliefs.

Fortunately, the classic biblical view of the church as a universal phenomenon has not been extinguished completely, but lives on in congregations in Minnesota vitally connected with sister congregations in Tanzania, among doctors devoting months of pro bona service in disaster areas throughout the world, and within organizations raising millions of dollars for food, medicines and agricultural equipment in striving to serve “the least of these my brethren.”

Perhaps the need to re-experience the world as one global family of God’s children is especially urgent in a country like the United States where endemic isolationism fosters a hegemonous sense of superiority. To the extent that engaging in the commerce of religious and ethical ideas is entertained, it is construed as exporting aspects of the world’s most advanced civilization to more benighted parts of the world.

Although such a parochial worldview can be challenged both by rigorous news reporting and commentary such as one gets on NPR and PBS and insightful fictional and nonfictional books like Khaled Hosseini’s The Kite Runner, Greg Mortenson and David Relin’s Three Cups of Tea, Elias Chacour and David Hazard’s Blood Brothers, and Rory Stewart’s The Places in Between, Mark Twain’s antidote perhaps remains the most effective for the fortunate minority that can afford it, namely, the exposure of “innocents abroad” to other cultures through travel. Three times in the last several years, my own “innocent” eyes have been opened thanks to invitations to lecture in South Africa, the Philippines, and India. In each case, what modest scholarly contribution I could offer was repaid many times over by lessons taught by courageous women and men who in their struggles for justice and acts of compassion have demonstrated to the world the profound relevancy of the Bible for contemporary political policy and action.

One cannot avoid the question: “What is it about the culture of creaturely comforts and assumed security that turns our attention inward and leads to a dulling of the sense of shared global humanity and the preciousness of every single newborn baby?” The answer comes through pilgrimage to Nelson Mandela’s cell on Bird Island, through conversation with a Jesuit priest fasting in solidarity with Manila’s impoverished shanty dwellers, and in the testimony of a parish pastor in a district of India threatened by anti-Christian prejudice and violence. In the visitor’s homeland, liberty is taken for granted and demands little in return; in the host society, liberty is a daily struggle demanding great courage and entailing suffering. In the visitor’s homeland, a sense of the contemporary meaning of Hebrew slaves escaping willy-nilly from a ruthless oppressor must be sought through a scholarly exercise; in the host society it is encountered daily in crowded streets and marketplaces. In the visitor’s homeland, the thought of a God who would sacrifice his own son to win back rebellious children hell-bent on their own destruction is about as comprehensible as forfeiting all one’s possessions and giving them to the poor; in the host society only such a God can offer hope to those experiencing all earthly forms of power as agents of their exploitation.

The reflections found in this book arose specifically and concretely from one visitor’s encounter with his hosts. For the gracious and courageous Christians with whom I became friends, the reality of a global spiritual family is as real and essential to humanity’s survival as a healthy global economy. Thus, for example, when Fr. Victor Salanga invited me to address the Annual Convention of the Philippine Catholic Biblical Society under the theme of “Scripture and the Quest for a New Society,” he had in mind not a new society designed for his country alone, but a society defined by the universality of the Kingdom of God. And he was not timid in making the connection between the two realms: “Our Bible has much to say about economics and politics.”

Much indeed, enough to fill many volumes, but the advantage of a short book is that it behooves one to move immediately to the heart of the matter. And as I see it, the heart of the matter pulsates with a central truth that flows through the length and breadth of Scripture: For the person of faith and for the faith community, there is but one government to which we owe our ultimate allegiance, and that is the universal government whose Ruler is the author and source of all that is just, compassionate, and respectful of the dignity of every creature. Our shared citizenship in that regime places upon us concrete responsibilities in relation to our specific nation-states. And the common task that thereby unites Christians throughout the world is unambiguous and urgent, namely, to clarify the mandate of Scripture for all those whose political starting point is the Bible, to aid one another in drawing forth implications for domestic and international crises that transcend nationalism and political ideology, and to forge strategic alliances with justice-loving adherents of other religions in obedience to the Creator and Redeemer of all families, creeds, and nations.

A History of Nationalistic Idolatry

If there is one fundamentally important lesson that nations have not learned from the tragic events of the past, it is the lesson of resisting the temptation of confusing human rule with divine rule. Let us consider the policy adopted by the United States towards the fledgling independence movement in the Philippines at the beginning of the twentieth century as an example.

In pre-colonial times, the inhabitants of the Philippine archipelago regarded the forests, fields, and waters as communal property, to be cultivated for the good of all. Of course there were differences in status between clan heads and their subjects, but one pictures a gentler way of life than the harsh conditions imposed by the importation of European feudalism by the Spanish, the ill-effects of which still afflict the lives of a large percentage of the Philippine populace. After the liberation struggles of the early 1890s were interrupted by the Cuban revolution and then the Spanish-American war, memory of their own nation’s earlier struggle against colonialism was lost by President McKinley and his cabinet as they strove to enhance the competitive edge of the U.S. in the increasingly lucrative maritime trade routes connecting East and West. In the congressional debates of that time over the annexing of the Philippines, national hubris rose to new heights, as illustrated by the speech in defense of U.S. intervention by Senator Albert Beveridge:

God has not been preparing the English-speaking and Teutonic peoples for a thousand years for nothing but vain and idle self-contemplation and self-admiration. No! He has made us the master organizers of the world to establish system where chaos reigns . . . He has made us adept in government that we may administer government among savage and senile peoples. Were it not for such a force as this the world would relapse into barbarism and night. And of all our race He has marked the American people as His chosen nation to finally lead in the regeneration of the world.1

Such imperialistic policy arises out of the blasphemous identification of one nation’s destiny with divine purpose. In ancient Egypt the corollary was found in the belief that the Pharaoh was the incarnate god Horus. Rome based its authority to impose the Pax Romana on the clans and nations it conquered on the claim of Augustus and his successors to be divine. The persistent tendency for the U.S. to claim the right to determine the political destiny of other nations rests on a typological connection, namely, that it is the new Israel. This was a notion the Puritans brought with them from England, but it matured in the nineteenth century in step with the growth of U.S. imperialism and was christened by John L. O’Sullivan in 1839 as “Manifest Destiny.”2

The reason why the concept of “manifest destiny” must concern us here is this: The primary warrant enlisted in its defense is the Bible. At the apex of Spanish colonial power, conquest was understood not simply as the means of advancing the cause of Philip’s kingdom, but as an instrument for the spread of the Kingdom of God to Central and South America and the Philippines. In recent U.S. history, the most ardent supporters of the Pax Americana in the Middle East and in East Asia have been the leaders of the Religious Right, that is, those religious and political figures who claim to understand the bearing of Scripture on international developments.

Citizens of nations that have not yet become as secularized as countries like France and Sweden but retain the biblical story as part of their own epic understanding of nationhood face a particular challenge: The Bible remains ensconced in the cultural ethos as a powerful warrant in political argumentation. And, as Willard Swartley has documented, it can be used with equal force on opposite sides of moral struggles involving issues such as war, slavery, and women’s rights.3 Any reflexive, uncritical invocation of biblical authority in defense of a policy or action that places millions of people at risk must raise serious moral and theological concerns for all people of faith. Have not the testimonies of Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Desmond Tutu burned with sufficient clarity into our modern consciousness the urgent need to treat any political interpretation of the Bible with diligence and attentiveness to the critical scrutiny of interlocutors of all nations and creeds? Dare we lack the courage to name every self-serving domestication of the Bible an heinous act of nationalistic idolatry?

Harold Lindsell in 1976 published a book defending biblical inerrancy under the title, The Battle for the Bible.4 Fifteen years later and from a very different, though no less deeply committed Christian perspective, James Davison Hunter authored a book bearing the title Culture Wars: The Struggle to Define America.5 More recently, in a book titled The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order, Harvard professor of government, Samuel Huntingdon, predicted increasing strife between the Muslim East and the Christian West leading to a decline of the latter and the emergence of China as a world power.6 While these books differ widely with each other in their underlying assumptions and conclusions, they converge in painting a somber picture of a future in which religious and ideological differences will be a driving force in cultural and international conflict. Conscientious believers dare not stand by passively as imperious religious and political leaders exploit the Bible to defend reckless foreign policies in the pursuit of self-serving economic and geo-political objectives.

What Is the Nature of Biblical Authority in Relation to Politics?

What this question requires is a hermeneutic capable of translating the meaning of Scripture into contemporary political, social and economic relevance in a manner that is both in accord with the legal norms and social mores of a given society and faithful to the central tenets of the proponent’s religious tradition. The problem facing the modern world resides not in a lack of efforts to apply various scriptures to world events, for we see ample examples within various branches of Islam, Christianity, and Judaism to inculcate and disseminate what is purported to be the political message of the deity. Rather, the problem is the nature of that application, or, to use the technical term again, the hermeneutic by which it is directed. Let us cite several examples to clarify the problem.

During his second term of office, Ronald Reagan, Commander-in-Chief of the world’s mightiest nuclear power locked in the grips of a Cold War with the Soviet Union, shared his biblical “hermeneutic” with Israeli lobbyist Tom Dine: “You know, I turn back to your Old Testament and the signs foretelling Armageddon, and I find myself wondering if—if we’re the generation that’s going to see that come about. I don’t know if you’ve noted any of these prophecies lately, but believe me, they certainly describe the times we’re going through.”7 On the surface, these words remain cryptic, but read against the background of Hal Lindsey’s bestseller, The Late, Great Planet Earth,8 it seems that Reagan was envisioning the possibility of a coordinated attack by the Soviet Union and China on Israel, which would set in motion the end-time cataclysm of Armageddon, a scenario sure to provoke the U.S. to unleash its nuclear arsenal.

On January 14, 1991, President George H. W. Bush was on the eve of announcing whether the U.S. would attack Iraq in response to Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait. His own Episcopal Bishop, Edmond Browning, had expressed his opposition to Desert Storm. That evening the President invited Evangelist Billy Graham to the White House. The next day CNN televised the pyrotechnical extravaganza of bombs falling on Baghdad. A year later the by then former President Bush had the opportunity to express his thanks at the annual meeting of The National Religious Broadcasters: “I want to thank you for helping America, as Christ ordained, to be ‘a light unto the world.’”9 What hermeneutic underlies this stingingly ironic scriptural reference? Is it simply an exploitation of biblical language in defense of a military action that was already etched in the sand? It is said that former presidential advisor Ralph Reed commented that he was glad that when he turned to the Christian faith his politics could remain unchanged. Is such a docile role of faith in relation to politics in accord with the examples of Christian leaders remembered by history for their acts of courage in times of crisis? What is the role of the Bible in relation to domestic and foreign policy? Is it simply to provide politically exped...

Table of contents

• Political Engagement as Biblical Mandate
• Introduction
• 1 In Search of a Biblically Based Political Theology
• 2 Worship—Touchstone of Christian Political Action
• 3 Covenant and Politics
• 4 Jesus Christ, Savior and the Human Condition: The Biblical Background
• 5 Old Problems, New Opportunities
• Bibliography
• Scripture Index
• Author Index