THE USE OF POWER IN AMERICAN RELIGION
Dr. Linda Seger
Author, Jesus Rode a Donkey: Why the Republicans Don’t Have a Corner on Christ
There is something counter-intuitive about many of the words and commands of Jesus Christ. We are to care for the poor and the powerless and oppressed – even though we all know that doesn’t seem to get us anywhere. It doesn’t make us rich, or prosperous, or successful, or respected. We are to seek peace – even though we believe this is impractical. We are to give away what we have, and trust God, even though it seems like silly nonsense.
So it is with the problem of power. As we are told, over and over again, we are the most powerful nation on earth, and it is implied this is Good. We are the richest nation on earth, and we are told this is Good. Those at the top, those with power, are looked up to. Admired. Respected. Fawned over. And we are told this is where we want to be – at the top. Although many will give lip service to the Bible, to Christ, to following Jesus, the truth is, most really don’t quite believe these commands are practical.
Although there are some nuances that are different between Liberal Christianity and Progressive Christianity, when it comes to the idea of power, it seems, to me, that these two great traditions merge. They both seem to take the words of Jesus seriously, and follow a central idea in Liberation Theology – “the preferential option for the poor.” We are to stand with the poor and powerless, the least of these. We are to have power with, not power over. To empower, not to use our power to oppress further.
It is also an essential idea in democracy – to protect those who do not have the numbers, or the power, or the wealth, to protect themselves.
As various Churches have become more powerful – in numbers, in wealth, in clout in the world, in their desire to make a difference politically and socially – Churches have also, sometimes, become seduced to see themselves as the bearer of the Right Standard and have tried to use their power to compel, persuade, and even force others to follow this same flag. The protection and care of those unlike them, which democracy demands of them, has seemed to run counter to their desire to have a stronger voice in society. The Evangelical message, particularly, of “go ye therefore and make disciples of all nations” has taken precedence over the message of the Social Gospel.
The Progressive Christian, however, seems to take the Social Gospel more seriously, and to see discipleship as, first of all, the following of Jesus’ message of Love, not Power, of Servanthood, not Lordship and Dominion, and secondly, the call for Justice paired with Mercy, and taking a stand with those who often have no one to stand with them. It is about Compassion and Action more than Belief and Rules. It is the power that comes from Solidarity, more than the power that comes from the accumulation of things – whether of money, votes, or the ability to bargain and compel.
To decide to follow the Social Gospel takes a tremendous amount of faith. We often have to believe, with very little evidence, that a more just and equal and kind society is possible through grass roots rather than through powerful arm-twisting, and that community is more powerful than isolated individualism. In spite of occasional evidence to the contrary, we have to believe that the option for the poor is practical, and democratically moral. And we have, as an example, the ways that Jesus dealt with power – by confronting it, but not through the violence of forceful destruction of human life. By seeing clearly when someone was led by materialism or pride. And by speaking Truth to Power.
Christ Power at home and at work
Linda was right when she wrote " We are to have power with, not power over. To empower, not to use our power to oppress further."
Along with being a fine reminder for those who exercise power in the Church, this motto can serve us just as well in the two arenas of our lives where we likely spend the majority of our time - home and work. Imagine what life would be like if we could all manage our power this way; with the acknowledgement of and respect for one another.
Use and Misuse of Power
I've been mulling over Linda's post on power and it reminds me of something that the Crossleft writers touched upon a few weeks ago. When we think of power, we often think of power being in opposition of the poor. But progressive figures and reform movements have often gained power in trying to help the poor and disadvantaged. I think power always has the potential of corrupting the holder of power, but it is also needed for any sort of positive change to be accomplished. Conservatives in the Republican Party are trying to gain power to be able to influence the direction of Republican politics and Progressives are trying to gain power to influence the Democrats. How do we gain power without having power corrupt us? What is the best way to make produce reform that will help the poor and marginalized that will last and will become a part of the society's fabric?
In the book "Not for Ourselves Alone" by Geoffrey Ward and Ken Burns, as a supplement of the documentary on Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony, it was written:
"Eighteen forty-eight was a year of revolution. Paris mobs toppled the King of France. Rome declared itself a republic and drove the pope from the Vatican. There were uprisings in Prague, Berlin, Vienna, Venice, Milan, Naples, Warsaw. But the brief, unsigned notice that Stanton and her friends placed in the Seneca County Courier on July 11 of that year signaled the start of a revolution that would have more lasting consequences than any of the others."
From the time of the Seneca Falls Convention in 1848, it took over 70 years for women to get the right to vote. In that time, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, Lucy Stone and the great women's suffagists worked patiently through the democratic process to change the laws and change people's attitudes. They lobbied their congressmen, challenged unfair laws through the courts, organized supporters, founded newspapers to put their views in print, and slowly built support to the cause of women's suffrage. It was slow. There were many setbacks and disappointments, but these women persisted. The change in attitudes that these women struggled to change is now permanent; who in American society nowadays question the right of a woman to vote or the right of a woman to own property or pursue a profession? The movement of women to gain the right to vote followed a pattern set by the abolitionist movement, and it is a good template for peaceful and lasting change for reform movements today...
An example of the bad use of power to try to help the poor would be the example of Huey Long, the governor and senator of Louisiana in the 1930s. When Long was in power of his state, he did a lot of good things for the poor: he enacted a free testbook program for poor children, created night classes for the illiterate, built roads and new schools, and fought for a program to radically redistribute the nations wealth so that all individuals were guaranteed an income of $2,000-$3,000 (which was a lot for the Depression). His Share the Wealth program would fund farmer assistance programs, free primary and college education, fund veterans pensions, and do massive public works projects. In order to enact these programs quickly, though, he filled the state government with his supporters, and worked to consolidate power so he could get what he wanted without any opposition. Though his goals were good, the consolidation of power was in the long run detrimental to the poor that Long was trying to help. When those reforms were so closely tied to the necessity of one person gaining so much power, when that person is no longer there or is discredited, then the reforms often go by the wayside. When the poor have to abdicate their political rights to gain economic rights, their economic gains are too beholden to the fortunes of the person to whom the power is centered. Because the New Deal and the Great Society were a culmination of decades of Progressive struggles, many of the programs outlasted the deaths of FDR and LBJ. Long's Share the Wealth programs, though, didn't last the death of Huey Long.
The rightness of the Progressive cause does not make us immune from the corrupting effect of power. When we see what happened when the Religious Right gained power in the Republican Party, we can see lessons to learn. A few weeks ago, we had some posts that touched upon this issue. I forgot what topic it was under or what date those posts were in, but many different Crossleft writers had good points on how to bring a Progressive Christian view to the national dialogue. Linda was right when she wrote " We are to have power with, not power over. To empower, not to use our power to oppress further."
I do think there are stirrings of dissent all around. There are the antiwar protestors, the people who are activists on global warming, activists against the excesses of globalization. There are people who do care about these issues. I've been reading a lot of Howard Zinn, and I love what he's writing, but I think he's just reiterating what Studs Terkel has been saying. We don't hear about these average everyday people, but they do care about the state of the world, what kind of world will they leave their children. Americans from other countries who've lived through dictatorships and famine and war, like my parents and their friends and my coworkers, read the paper and watch the news and they do sympathize.
Good post on Social Gospel
This is a good post on an emphasis on helping the poor as a primary spiritual practice. When you say the Social Gospel, I'm assuming you mean the one that's espoused by Walter Rauschenbusch. The America of today has much the same problems as the America of the early 20th Century: rampant corporate greed, a backlash against immigration, a growing desperation of the poor. The Social Gospel philosophy contributed much to the Progressive and New Deal reforms of the early 20th Century. It can contribute a lot to the Progressive movement today.
You wrote: "To decide to follow the Social Gospel takes a tremendous amount of faith. We often have to believe, with very little evidence, that a more just and equal and kind society is possible through grass roots rather than through powerful arm-twisting, and that community is more powerful than isolated individualism. In spite of occasional evidence to the contrary, we have to believe that the option for the poor is practical, and democratically moral. And we have, as an example, the ways that Jesus dealt with power – by confronting it, but not through the violence of forceful destruction of human life. By seeing clearly when someone was led by materialism or pride. And by speaking Truth to Power."
It's a wonderful piece of writing. I have to reread Rauschenbusch again to remember everything the Social Gospel teaches. Your piece has similar sentiments to something that Howard Zinn wrote in his book "You Can't Be Neutral on a Moving Train", one of my favorite recent reads:
"To be hopeful in bad times is not just foolishly romantic. It is based on the fact that human history is a history not only of cruelty, but also of compassion, sacrifice, courage, kindness.
What we choose to emphasize in this complex history will determine our lives. If we see only the worst, it destroys our capacity to do something. If we remember those times and places- and there are so many- where people have behaved magnificently, this gives us the energy to act, and at least the possibility of sending this spinning top of a world in a different direction.
And if we do act, in however small a way, we don't have to wait for some grand utopian future. The future is an infinite succession of presents, and to live now as we think human beings should live, in defiance of all that is bad around us, is itself a marvelous victory."
THANKS to: 'thejanet'
X-Left is a Progressive Christian site.
The word progressive means to move onward, forward and towards improvement, as through political or social reform.
I thank God you showed up 'thejanet' for you have given me hope that others on this site will also come to understand what we are really up against are the well organized neo-con fundamentalist Armageddon seeking Christian Zionists who have replaced Jesus as the fulfillment of the Hebrew scriptures with the state of Israel.
As the window of opportunity is only open for so long, Godspeed on it!
e
Eileen Fleming,
Reporter and Editor of
http://www.wearewideawake.org/
Author "KEEP HOPE ALIVE" and "Memoirs of a Nice Irish American 'Girl's' Life in Occupied Territory"
Producer of "30 Minutes with Vanunu"
From Rev. Sizer + power to the people for justice + peace
Gentlefolk,
This is what Mike Evans and his so called ‘Jerusalem Prayer Team’ is up to.
Please register your opinion for a SHARED Jerusalem and Palestinian State.
Yours warmly
Stephen
Stephen Sizer
Christ Church Vicarage
Callow Hill, Virginia Water, GU25 4LD
#44 (0)1344 842374 home
#44 (0) 7970 789549 mobile
skype: stephensizer
www.cc-vw.org : www.sizers.org
From: Jerusalem Prayer Team [mailto:jerusalemprayerteam@donationnet.net]
Sent: 13 December 2007 22:41
To: stephen@sizers.org
Subject: Protest Against Division of Jerusalem
Urgent! Send this to everyone on your list today!
We are a third of the way there. 31,189 people have already cast their votes, but we must get at least 100,000 responses or President Bush will think that Christians support dividing Jerusalem and a Palestine State in 2008.
In an article dated October 14, 2007, the following statement was made by former chief rabbi Avraham Shapira:
“The Land of Israel belongs to the Nation of Israel and was granted to us an inheritance by the Creator of the World. Neither the prime minister nor anybody else has the right give away areas, or even a grain of sand, of the Holy Land of Israel.”
It’s absolutely urgent that you vote today. President Bush will be traveling to Jerusalem on January 9th. Please get 10 of your friends to join you as we voice our opinion to the President.
Your votes will also be released to the Israel media to let them know that as Christians we do not support President’s Bush’s plan.
Vote your opinion now:
http://tool.donation-net.net/JPT_Area/Vote/Vote_ap1.cfm?dn=1032&source=3...
-------------------------------------
Jesus promised it is the Peacemakers who are the children of God-NOT the dividers!
PS-I was number 35,680 to vote and only one of 235 versus over 35,570 Christians calling for the U.S. Government to demand that Israel give up more land and pursue peace.
Eileen Fleming,
Reporter and Editor of
http://www.wearewideawake.org/
Author "KEEP HOPE ALIVE" and "Memoirs of a Nice Irish American 'Girl's' Life in Occupied Territory"
Producer of "30 Minutes with Vanunu"
self saludatory
Good post.
There are risks on both side of this divide.
I know I am drawing a conclusion about Boomers that so general as to be useless, but I cannot help myself. There is a certain malaise in the Boomer generation because they do not see lasting change in much of their socially conscious zeal from decades ago. They do not see gratitude. They do not see progress. Again, sweeping generalizations here. So, they lose their enthusiasm for the Gospel because "it doesn't work."
A theology of the eschaton is necessary for appropriate perspective within the social gospel. We cannot bring forth the eschaton with acts of kindness and justice as Sec. Watt could bring on the eschaton with his poor environmental policies. We are to point to the Kingdom. We can hold it up for the world to see. But in the end, it is God who will bring the fruition of the Gospel.
"Wars and rumors of wars" and all that.
I'm picking nits. Thanks again for the thoughtful post.
anglobaptist.org, Community Church, One of the Girls
NOT "malaise" but APATHY
As a boomer [1954] what i see in the Body of Christ in the USA is not a malaise-that vague feeling of uneasiness, a vague awareness of moral or social decline,
But outright apathy-a lack of emotion, interest and concern.
The Body is weak, fragmented and divided because it has lost connection to its very roots.
Every Sunday millions of USA Christians go to church and hear the readings about the most troubled part of the world; what we refer to as the Holy Land.
How many USA Christians are aware or care that the Christian EXODUS has reduced our sisters and brothers numbers from 20% to less than 1.3% since 1948?
How many USA Christians are aware or care that unless things change asap, there will be NO Christian witness left in the land where JC promised it is the Peacemakers who are the children of God, by 2020-recently adjusted down from 2025 by researches and scholars?
How many USA Christians cared enough to made a call or sent a fax to Bush regarding Annapolis because the Peacemakers are the children of God?
How many care or are aware that on Nov. 26, the U.S. State Department was flooded with a barrage of phone calls from neo-con fundamentalist Christians [ a press release proclaimed 10,000 calls in less than 48 hours] which overloaded the State Department's voice-mail system.
The group was voicing its opposition to any Israeli concessions on dividing Jerusalem between Israelis and Palestinians.
Will i remain the lone voice on this site crying out in the wilderness about the dangerously heretical and militant Christian Zionists who are the neo-cons base?
e
Eileen Fleming,
Reporter and Editor of
http://www.wearewideawake.org/
Author "KEEP HOPE ALIVE" and "Memoirs of a Nice Irish American 'Girl's' Life in Occupied Territory"
Producer of "30 Minutes with Vanunu"
re: NOT "malaise" but APATHY
No, Eileen, you won't stand alone. I just need to speak up more, here and everywhere.