Politics

A Simple Case for Christian Nonviolence

~ Mike Skinner ~ 6 Comments

[1] Jesus’ Direct Teaching

“Nonviolent resistance” might be a more accurate term for Jesus’ teachings: he commands a “third way” between doing nothing and responding to violence with violence, namely, returning evil with good; resisting with love.

  • Jesus clearly expects his followers to live nonviolently – rebuking them on many occasions where they stray from this expectation:
    Luke 9:51-56
    Luke 22:47-51

[2] Jesus’ Explicit Example

  • As the Incarnate God, Jesus’ nonviolent historical life is both: 

[3] Overall Narrative of the Bible – From Old Testament to the Kingdom of God

Despite the (divine and human) violence in the Old Testament, there is a promise of and clear trajectory towards a nonviolent community

  • Israel’s battles weren’t won with military prowess, but by simply obeying & trusting God
    Joshua 6:1-7
    Psalm 20:6-9
  • OT has clear promises of the Kingdom of God’s arrival calling God’s people to nonviolence
    Isaiah 2:1-5
    Micah 4:1-5

[4] The Early Church Thought It Was Obvious

  • The early church (from the time of Christ to the time of Constantine in the 4th century) was fully nonviolent. Here is a small sampling of quotes:

Justin Martyr (100-165 AD)
“We who were filled with war, and mutual slaughter, and every wickedness, have each through the whole earth changed our warlike weapons—our swords into ploughshares, and our spears into implements of tillage—and we cultivate piety, righteousness, philanthropy, faith, and hope, which we have from the Father Himself through Him who was crucified.”

Tertullian (160-225 AD)
“Shall the son of peace take part in the battle when it does not become him even to sue at law?”
“If one attempt to provoke you by manual violence, the admonition of the Lord is at hand: To him,‟ He says, ‘who strikes you on the face, turn the other cheek also.’ Let outrageousness be wearied out by your patience.“
“Christ, in disarming Peter, unbelted every soldier…”
“And shall he apply the chain and the prison and the torture and the punishment, who is not the avenger even of his own wrongs?”
“Shall it be held lawful to make an occupation of the sword, when the Lord proclaims that he who uses the sword shall perish by the sword? And shall the son of peace take part in the battle when it does not become him even to sue at law? And shall he apply the chain, and the prison, and the torture, and the punishment, who is not the avenger even of his own wrongs?”

Hippolytus (170-236 AD)
“The catechumen or faithful who wants to become a soldier is to be rejected, for he has despised God.”

Origen of Alexandria (185-254 AD)
“We have come in accordance with the counsel of Jesus to cut down our arrogant swords of argument into plowshares, and we convert into sickles the spears we formerly used in fighting. For we no longer take swords against a nation, nor do we learn anymore to make war, having become sons of peace for the sake of Jesus, who is our Lord.”

Marcellus (298 AD)
“I threw down my arms for it was not seemly that a Christian man, who renders military service to the Lord Christ, should render it by earthly injuries.” “It is not lawful for a Christian to bear arms for any earthly consideration.”

Martin of Tours (316-397)
“I am a soldier of  Christ. To fight is not permissible for me.”

A Sermon For Election Day: “A Political Eschatology”

~ Mike Skinner ~ 3 Comments

A brief homily for an Election Day Communion service I will be leading this evening:

Today is an election day, a political day, an important day.

People are passionate about politics, including Christians. This passion characterizes both Christians on the Left and Christians on the Right – who are all too often unable to see past their disagreements and recognize their unity in Christ.

Every two years, our nation is flooded with candidates, campaigns, promises, debates, and votes. Every two years, politicians seek for more power and political parties stretch for more influence. Every two years, citizens either eagerly anticipate a better tomorrow or become more disillusioned with the political machine.

And every two years Christians are tempted with a unique species of idolatry.

The danger of politics lies with the passion of politics. People believe in politics. This is why political disagreements often become shouting matches and ad-hominem attacks. A commitment to partisan politics, regardless of the particular politician, party, or agenda, always threatens to undermine our commitment to Christ and to each other as the Church.

Scot McKnight calls our temptation an “eschatology of politics.” Eschatology is the study of the things that will make a lasting difference in our world. He defines his term, an “eschatology of politics,” as the belief (embraced by non-Christians and Christians alike) that the democratic political process has the ability to bring about Kingdom conditions (like justice and peace) if we can just manage to elect the correct candidates and pass the right legislation.

Christian eschatology, on the other hand, is wrapped up in the conviction that true change in our world comes only through Jesus and the working of his Spirit. The difference is subtle, but incredibly important. Christians are called to recognize that God’s Kingdom does not, and will not, ultimately come through candidates and laws. God’s Kingdom comes through conversion to Jesus and his social order. That is to say, through the worship and witness of the church. This confession is not an attempt to deny the importance of the political process, but it is an attempt to dramatically relativize it. For Christians, the most important election that ever took place occurred when God the Father raised Jesus and placed him on the throne in Heaven.

We are a people who expect the Kingdom to come as the Holy Spirit continues to work transformation in and through the local church. Our beliefs as a community are not most fully embodied in a polling booth but in our individual and collective lives. Our first calling in the world is to be faithful witnesses of the economic, social, and relational realities of the peaceable Kingdom of Jesus – no matter what is happening around us or who claims to be “in charge.” The church is called to show the world what God’s Kingdom looks like – serving as a model community of flawed people transformed by the Spirit and living in peace and justice.  A specifically Christian political eschatology frees us from the frantic struggle to gain more power, releases us from placing too much hope or trust in candidates and law, and rebukes us for the ways in which we have lost hope for our world.

Today is an election day, a political day, an important day.

And tonight, I invite you to table of King Jesus, to cast your vote of allegiance. 

Scot McKnight on the Politics of Jesus

~ Mike Skinner ~ 2 Comments

“Roman politics is about power and domination and might and force and coercion and the sword. The politics of Jesus is about sacrificial love for the other even if that means death from the sword. Lording it over others is the way of Rome; serving others is the way of Jesus. The lords of the empire are for Jesus lordless lords. Those are two stories at work in two politics, and the politics of Jesus counters the politics of Rome.”

– Scot McKnight, Kingdom Conspiracy, 61. (review coming soon!)

Martydom As Amnesia: Jesus & Martin Luther King Jr.

~ Mike Skinner ~ 2 Comments

“His martyrdom has somehow muffled his message….
We deify him in death, but we demonized him in life.” – Tavis Smiley

Tavis Smiley has recently released a new book, Death of a King: The Real Story of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s Final Years, in which he argues that Dr. King’s death has overshadowed the subversive message that characterized the end of his career. In his last years, Martin Luther King Jr. came out strongly against the US war in Vietnam and called America “the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today.” The world saw his concerns expand beyond civil rights as he turned a sharply critical eye towards the “triple threat of racism, poverty, and militarism.” And almost everyone hated him for it.

I can’t help but wonder if the same thing has happened to Jesus. If somehow his martyrdom has muffled his message. If perhaps we have deified him in his death while forgetting that we demonized (and continue to demonize) him in his life.

The Western world revels in Jesus as a martyr and embraces him as a sacrifice for their sins. But when it comes to his message of radical care for the poor and unrelenting nonviolence, we want none of it. This is not unlike Jesus’ first-century audience, who were so threatened by his message that they killed him for it. Make no mistake about it: Jesus wasn’t killed because the Jewish & Roman leaders knew that God desired a spiritual sacrifice for sin, he was killed for challenging the religious and political status-quo of the day.

Racism, poverty, and militarism continue to be the “powers of our age.” Thus, I fear that today Jesus’ message would poll equally as low as it did in the first-century … and I’m more scared that perhaps even western “Christians” who love Jesus the martyr have still not come to terms with his actual message.

Comedians and Curbside Prophets

~ Michelle Mikeska ~ 1 Comment

It was in N.T. Wright’s book, Simply Christian, where he observes that both laughter and tears clue us into the fact that something has gone wrong in the world.  This statement came alive to me while reading a recent blog post.  The author came up with 15 episode ideas for Seinfeld if it were still running today.  The beauty of Seinfeld was that it took scenarios that we would describe as common, mundane, and typical and would point out their insanity.  The show subverted our values/neurosis with brilliance and seemingly lack of effort.

In this way, comedy actually plays a prophetic role in our society.

Now by prophecy I am not talking about a power to predict the future, but prophecy in terms of the ancient prophets in the Hebrew Bible.  Prophets were given a special kind of authority by God, usually empowered by the Spirit, in order to urge their people to see the error of their ways and repent.  Prophecy is truth telling through powerful, symbolic acts with the goal of righteousness and justice.  Prophets had a heightened sensitivity to the injustices around them, which usually led to their own despair (i.e. Jeremiah).

Comedy is a gift because it is one of the few forms of truth telling that our society is willing to hear. And the truth it is trying to tell us is that something has gone drastically wrong.  Comedy depends on this for every punch line (okay, maybe not knock, knock jokes).  Think of the following as prime examples of this: Colbert Report, Saturday Night Live, Stuff Christians Like, Stuff White People Like, The Onion, and the list goes on.

Through the guise of shallow entertainment we have invited these comedians into our hearts.  They’re clever lines aim right for our subconscious and consciences.  Now sometimes they miss and go straight over our heads, but for those with eyes to see and ears to listen we start to hear the cries of the victims of our broken world.

I wish the American church had half of the prophetic power of these comedians.  Truth telling is a vital role of the church, but we have warped it in the same way we have a warped our understanding of prophecy (Left Behind…need I say more).  We are so obsessed with assigning blame for the evil around us (i.e. “Thanks, Obama”) that we miss the evil that resides within us.  Truth telling has become a power play– a way to fill up the seats.

So what has made these comedians so successful and what, if anything, can the church learn from them?

1. Comedians consider their audience.  A good comedian knows what kind of demographic they’re going to attract and tailors their material accordingly (Jeff Foxworthy comes to mind).  This is rhetoric 101.  If you want to move or stir your audience, you have to consider what they value and how they think.  This does not mean that we change what the gospel is, but that, as Paul says, we become “all things to all people.”

I was at an assembly where an elder stood in front of a largely teenage audience and said that America was going to fall into ruin because of its tolerance of homosexuality.  Here is a classic example of the church thinking they are taking on the role of a prophet when in truth they’re just being a jerk.  Truth telling is not bullying, and if you’re not sure of the difference I recommend befriending a homosexual or any other person who has been marginalized/victimized by the church.  The American church for far too long has played the victim, when they are more often than not the bully.

2. A Comedians’ worldview is shaped by their task.  I loved the show Everybody Loves Raymond. One of the writers came to work and shared that he had accidentally recorded over his wedding video.  On the night of their anniversary he popped in the video and to his and his wife’s horror, their wedding day was now a football game.  The writers knew that his unfortunate mistake was a goldmine for the show and immediately started writing the episode for it.  They confessed at the end of the series that many of their episodes were drawn from their own lives.

A comedian is never off the job.  Every experience could be a potential punch line or sketch.  They can’t afford to turn off this part of their brain because they might miss something.  Most comedians are saturated in their craft, which means that they can’t help but think a bit differently than the rest of us.

Christians need to adopt this kind of transformative thinking.  Our minds need to be saturated with the words of the Sermon on the Mount, the cries of Lamentations, and the prayers of the saints.  Perhaps when we have become so saturated our truth telling will seem more authentic and feel less like a party line.

Unlike these comedians, the prophets of Israel were not very popular with their audience.  Speaking the truth confronts injustice and so it will always ruffle some feathers.  Nevertheless, the church has a vital role to play by simply speaking the truth.  This is why we must constantly examine our hearts to fight against any hidden agendas or desires for power.  Truth speaking is always cruciform (cross–shaped).  The church will never be the city on a hill by casting stones, but by taking sin’s weight (with all of its guilt, shame, and despair) off of the world and placing it on its shoulders.  For when we take on the wounds of the world we start to look a whole lot more like Jesus.