The Little Friar

Twenty-something years ago now, I read Philip Turner's Money, Sex, & Power:  An Essay in Christian Social Ethics .  There was an insight early in that book that has stayed with me ever since:  Early Christian monastic revolutionaries focused on the three vows of poverty, chastity and obedience for a reason.  Those are the three temptations of leadership that must be controlled for leadership to be faithful. It's an insight I've returned to again and again in exploring the moral life with pastors -- and with politicians.  American politics is not about morality.  It's about power.  Particularly, American politics is about amassing as much power as one might in order to rig the American experiment toward one's own version of reality.  Put another way, American evangelicals supported Trump not because he was moral but because they wanted to win.  And this same desire to win is now being played out in Alabama among evangelicals supportin...

John raises his voice alongside those of other protestors like the authors of 4 Ezra and 2 Baruch.  John was not a solitary, raving lunatic.  The asylum was full of people who just couldn't "see things" in line with the official picture.  The multiplicity of voices calling out against Rome's injustices at the close of the first century, of which John's voice was one, help us to see that Jews and Christians in Asia Minor were not only concerned about local affairs, internecine strife, or throwing stones at the church or synagogue across the way.  The "system," together with all its local manifestations, was also a major problem.  Uniting the practice of exerting control and maintaining peace through violent suppression of dissent, the promotion of an economy arranged for the great benefit of the few, and the prominent use of religious language and ritual claim sacral legitimation for these arrangements -- uniting these is both the genius of Rome and the ...

I'm no fan of fundamentalist evangelical theology, but I'm also not a Liberal Christian, either. I suppose if painted into a corner of my own choosing, I'd self-identify as a "radical Christian" -- radical in the sense of getting at the root of the Christian faith.  I think Liberal Christians insist too much on the separation of church and state.  I think that demand is self-defeating and naive.  The distinction only makes sense when the church is powerful in its own right (this is what we call "Christian domianism").  That's why the separation of church and state exists:  The state in the modern world has always attempted to insulate it from the church's political power. Things are different now.  Ours is a church of the largely middle-class which bears so much of the work to keep the state in possession of its own power for political and economic purposes.  Protestantism (by which I probably should say "bourgeois religion") has ...

I have, for quite some time (20 years now), been thinking of what a theology of politics might look like.  Since my own context is American, my thinking about that theology has been shaped by and in that American context. Then I happened upon a thought while reading through Ecclesiastes this week. What would happen if we treated the Old Testament book of Ecclesiastes as if it were a theology of politics? Solomon, after all, supposing him to be the author (as tradition does), was perhaps one of the greatest political figures of the Old Testament. So why was he so depressed? When I first discovered the book of Ecclesiastes, I was a college student, and taking a course on Old Testament Wisdom Literature.  I was struck by the book's existential angst and found it one of the more meaningful texts at the time (given, as I was, to reading guys like Miguel de Unamuno et al ).  The main point of reference that I have for Ecclesiastes is "vanity", "dung" -- that...

The prophetic witness of Christians in the face of the State is muted, I think, by a serious misreading of Romans 13.  Particularly 13.1:  "Every person is to be in subjection to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those which exist are established by God".  I want to explore what it means to read Romans 13 in light of the rest of Scripture, in order to help us understand that we don't necessarily have to accept every line that proceeds out of a particular politician's mouth or every policy proposed by any certain politically reigning group. A caveat lector is probably in order here, though:  What you're about to read is the way I read Romans 13, which is informed by the way folks like Bonhoeffer and Barth read Romans 13 and resisted the Nazi German agenda.  It's the foundation of why I resist Donald Trump (and, before him, Obama and lots of other American politicians).  To let the cat out of the bag early:  ...

I'm vocally critical of worldly politics, no matter which political party is in place (be they Democrat, Republic or Independent).  So I thought this might be helpful in understanding where that criticism comes from.  And might be helpful the next time voting rolls around.  This list is far from exhaustive, but it's a start: Christian politics begins with one simple claim:  Jesus is Lord. 1.  Remember, if you're a Christian then you're part of a pilgrim people who ought never really feel at home in this world because we have been made for another.  Jesus is Lord and King, and his Lordly Kingdom is not of this world. 2.  No matter which government is in power, the Church's charge remains the same -- Jesus' lordly challenge to preach the Gospel.  This will include, among other things, at least a 4-fold word:  (a) challenging the structures of our society that demean humanity made in the image of God; (b) challenging the agendas of our s...

The problem with identity politics and white nationalism is that they're flip sides of the same coin.  When you reduce mainstream politics to the attempt to establish and represent your identity, you invite racists/white nationalists into mainstream politics.  The language of identity is as appropriate for the alt-right as it is for oppressed minorities.  They can snag a victim-narrative, a label, and a t-shirt as much as anyone else.  The white nationalists -- who've been ever so vocal in the most recent landscape of American politics -- want nothing that the #blacklivesmatter folks don't want.  In fact, the alt-right folks are fond of  describing their platform as "identity politics for white people". Over the past 20 years, since I first encountered the insidious alt-right philosophy, I've noticed their trend to refute labels that end in describing them as "white supremacists".  Instead, they're "nationalist" or "tradition...

Okay, so it's election season in the United States.  I've seen any number of Christians lamenting that the current candidates for President presents them with a choice between two evils.  In that scenario, they say, you choose the lesser of the two evils.  And depending upon one's perspective of which evil is "lesser", then that's the particular candidate they put forward as the "obvious" choice. For years, I've urged Christians to take their obligations to their neighbors seriously and therefore not to take a particular vote every four years with the kinds of seriousness that border on idolatry.  One vote on one day every four years is far less significant than the decisions we make every day -- the votes we cast -- with our time, money, and attention.  "Policies" on the economy, war and peace, justice and the like are made every day, in myriads of ways, not just one day every four years in November.  So if we want to take our votin...

The "Benedict Option" is the brainchild of conservative author and journalist Rod Dreher .  To catch yourself up, read Rod's Benedict Option Frequently Asked Questions post summarizing his thoughts over the years and his responses to various questions and criticisms of the Benedict Option (or Ben Op, for short). Succinctly, the Ben Op argues that Western liberalism -- especially, I would argue, its neo-liberal economic manifestations -- has been corrosive to the Christian faith.  To survive in cultures shaped by modernity, neo-liberalism, and capitalism proponents of the Ben Op argue that Christians will need to invest in creating rich, thick and distinctive cultures that cultivate the counter-cultural virtues necessary to sustain the church and Christian spiritual formation. In his FAQ post here is how Rod describes the Ben Op: The "Benedict Option" refers to Christians in the contemporary West who cease to identify the continuation of civility an...

Well, American Christians are at it again.  They're protesting another store (this time, Target) for perceived social corruption that finds them either cavorting with the Enemy or standing resolute against the powers of evil that destroy our political and social fabric.  Yesterday, some 500,000 folks decided to target Target for protests, because Target his begun recognizing restrooms that don't follow a binary gender categorization. How far we've come from Jesus' own imagination about political and social power. Early in his ministry, before he'd even preached his first sermon, Jesus was confronted by Satan, who made Jesus an offer few of us would apparently refuse: Then the devil led him up and showed him in an instant all the kingdoms of the world.  And the devil said to him, "To you I will give their glory and all this authority; for it has been given over to me, and I will give it to anyone I please.  If you, then, will worship me, it will all be you...

Let me be honest here:  I don't give one whiff about American practical politics.  I refuse, on principle, to watch presidential debates.  I will not become embroiled in the race to the political and social bottom that has become the American electoral cycle.  And, again on principle, I will always vote third party (mostly Green, but that's subject to change). My allegiance is now and will always be with King Jesus. So it's hard for me to be drawn into the fray of American politics -- doing, as it always does, this horrible pitting of the teaching of Jesus against practical politics. Such, of course, was what Reinhold Niebuhr did. Much as I hate Niebuhr's capitulation to that struggle, I have to admit that he was on to something in his distinction between sentimental and cynical approaches in politics. According to Niebuhr, the sentimental thinker -- typically associated with Democrats (or the Left) -- assumes that universal values of love and compassion...

I was working through Mark 13 the other day, reflecting on Jesus' admonitions to his followers regarding the destruction of Jerusalem. Basically, for those listening to Jesus their world was going to end.   Rome was finally going to move in and raze Jerusalem and destroy the Temple.  The heart and soul of the Jewish people was about to be ripped out.  The world, as the Jews knew it, was coming to the end. This would be the equivalent, I'm guessing, to an invading force entering America and destroying Washington, DC.  The White House, the Capital, the Lincoln Memorial.  All of it, torn down or desecrated.  The ultimate national humiliation.  Our world, our proud history, ended. And speaking to those who would be living in the middle of this most horrific and epochal event Jesus says this:  Flee to the hills.  Don't stand with your nation and the freedom fighters making a last stand.  Let Jerusalem fall.  Let the Temple...

I'm always surprised that Bonhoeffer is popular among American Christians. I'm surprised because his theology, his politics and his activism seem to out-of-place for Christians in the United States.  So many different conservatives praise him. Some people laud him for his non-violent pacifism, and other for his violent attempt at activism.  Some laud him for his commitment to community, and others for his religion-less Christianity.  Some laud him for his non-metaphysical theology, and others for his pastoral care.  Some laud him from the far left, and others from the far right. When this happens -- as it inevitably does -- I just look at them and wonder, "Is there something else going on here?" Lots of folks like to think of Bonhoeffer as a hero.  Personally, I view him as a cautionary tale . The forgotten lesson, it seems, is that far too many of us strive to be like Bonhoeffer, instead of being the Church that wouldn't need him. Instead of ...

The politics of the Kingdom, if we pay close attention to Jesus, has a very distinctive feel.  To quote the maxim of Stan Hauerwas: The church does not have a social ethic.  The church is a social ethic. Encapsulated within that little maxim is a fundamental Anabaptist confession: The social and political witness of Christians is simply to be the Church. When Christians begin talking about politics, I think that's where we have to begin.  Just be the Church.  Being the Church is political engagement.  This imperative distinguishes the Church from conservative and liberal/progressive Christian politics, which can be tempted by theocratic impulses and, thus, contaminated by Constantinianism and the temptations of Empire. Being the Church -- really being the the Church -- is a political intervention, the Church is a counter-politics to the politics of the State.  Which means that to think politically in the Church is to think locally , focusin...

Perhaps the most difficult argument to deflate these days is that Islam is, by its nature, essentially violent/militant.  I hear this so regularly from Americans that I have to wonder if it's not a matter of selective memory (Americans, in case we've forgotten, can be pretty violent and militant, too).  But it's perhaps the most difficult argument to reject precisely because there are images flashed at us on a regular basis (twenty-four hour news cycles will do that to a person) like this: The problem here, of course, is that the folks making this argument are Americans first, and Christians second.  Which is to say, they've forgotten the Apocalypse of John from the end of the New Testament.  What I hear most often from American Christians who see these images:  It just doesn't seem right!  Those twenty-one orange-clad Egyptian Copts herded out on the beaches of Libya to be beheaded by practitioners of a repugnant ideology ... and it's impossible t...

In the early 1950s a man named Clarence Jordan founded an interracial farm in Georgia called the Koinonia Community, which at the time was a very foolish and dangerous thing to do.  He asked his brother Robert, a lawyer, to act as counsel for the farm.  "Clarence", Robert said, "I can't do that.  You know my political aspirations.  If I represented you, I might lose my job, my house, everything I've got." Clarence, not one to miss a theological response, said:  " We might lose everything, too". "It's different for you", Robert responded. "Why is it different?"  And Clarence went on to remind his brother how, when they were baptised, they were asked:  "Do you accept Jesus as your Lord and Savior?"  "What did you say, Robert?" Robert paused, and then said, "I follow Jesus -- up to a point." "Could that point by any chance be -- the cross?" his brother challenged ...