Politics, Christian-ly

Lovers of politics know history's dirty secret: violence. Politics is an alternative.

Fine. Let the message be, colloquially: "You gotta vote. You gotta `do' politics." Never! Those two "gottas" would lead the next generation to rebel. Their children would yawn. Bo-ring! And-those two "gottas" are not good Christian, or Lutheran, ways to understand and promote the political order that I love.

Try again: "You get to vote. You get to participate in politics." You get to vote, as a free Christian, a free citizen. You get to because you look at the alternatives to politics-war on one hand and the jungle, or chaos, on the other. Then you rejoice that politics offers an arena in which you get to live out part of your Christian vocation. You get to work for justice. You get to serve others. And you get a better chance of prospering.

There is no single way to participate in politics. An older grandchild might ask me the question a St. Olaf College student poised: "On what moral grounds should I attend a party precinct meeting tonight-instead of studying or working for Habitat for Humanity?"

Maybe on no moral ground. You might do other, or less or more, than precinct life permits. For instance, the parent in me might urge a child into the political vocation or rejoice when one chose it, as one did. The "I" that sits under the theologian hat may have a more difficult assignment. "You get to vote?" When Christianity was born, no ordinary citizen got to vote. When Lutheranism was born, none did either.

What we call politics today may have roots in the preChristian era of Aristotle. It burst and blossomed in postChristendom circles of philosophers, politicians and drafters of constitutions. They helped tear down Christendom-with that "-dom" suggesting a "domain," an earthly rule. And in the process they ushered in freedoms that freed Christians to explore roots that commend them to politics. So in Christian freedom we get to participate.

Wearing the Lutheran-Christian hat, I'd wander over the scorching terrain where many old Christian political ideas lie and die and pick the one that is most refreshed and refreshing. That is the idea of vocation, or calling, including the calling as citizen.

The call tells me that whatever I do, I do in response to a God who calls me by name. I do it in response to a God who, in Christ, forgives me when I make foolish choices and can forgive me when I make evil choices, as some self interested politics can lead me to do. And I do it in response to a God who, in the action of the Spirit, inspires people to act in their citizen roles.

So I put on that "citizen" cap and rejoice in what my Lutheran-Christian and U.S. understanding tells me I get to be and do in politics.

First, I get to define: Politics does not save souls. It does not make profoundly sad hearts glad. It can never be pure since it involves the give-andtake of contrary wills and interests. It prospers through compromise. But it can be an instrument for the common good and justice. Lovers of politics know history's dirty secret: violence. Politics is an alternative.

Politics is limited

Second, the Lutheran-Christian citizen joins others in reminding ourselves-over against all the overblown claims of candidates, media and advertisers-that politics is limited. The church proclaims the limits of politics in the interest of eternity and of God's perfect will, which can never be realized in the power play of parties and citizens. In the words of author H.M. Kuitert's deliciously titled book-Everything Is Politics but Politics Is Not Everything.

The calling to political life, the vocation in politics, reminds me, third, that differences over politics within Christian congregations and movements can be made healthy. When we "do" our politics freely and fairly, we can question our competitors' claims to be lined up on God's side as they question ours-sending us both scurrying to our sources and consciences.

Here are some of the things I picture happening when we get to do politics Christian-ly in America today:

We get to resist efforts through legislation to produce a "Christian America." We instead get to be Christian in a pluralistic and, hence, more free America.

We will be less interested in the public professions of faith by candidates than by the way they connect their faith-which individuals and groups are free to do-with their policies.

We will not let everything political be sucked into the overhyped presidential campaign. We will pay attention to state and local politics, where so many matters of justice get confronted and where we stand more chance of having effect.

We will work for reform of campaigns so they become elections again, not auctions. We will do this through no single strategy as being the "Christian" one, but through various means of assuring access to power by more citizens, by all citizens. This is basic.

We will explore with political scientist Glenn Tinder in The Political Meaning of Christianity how his two basics stand up: that whatever else a policy should do, it should deal with "the exalted individual." And the church should be a "prophetic community," never content with things as they are.

We will work to counter cynicism and nihilism, both of them encouraged by cynics and nihilists, and both of them lethal to the vocation in political life. We get to rejoice in the partial measures of justice, the partial care of the other, and the partially wise moves that fallible citizens and those who would govern them make at their best.

We get to disagree with people who wear many hats like mine, none of which fit all sizes. I hope some of you will also find reasons to agree with the basic idea: not that you gotta be moralized into voting, but that as a free Christian you get to share in shaping earthly destinies in ways that go beyond the dreams of the early Christians and the early Lutherans.

So we can sing the Te Deum, the hymn of praise to the God of the nations, because we get to live in a republic, fully aware of the ways we citizens, not only politicians, can also fail to live up to our vocation, but being exuberant about the opportunity to do otherwise.

Martin E. Marty

Many, an ELCA pastor, is an emeritus professor at the University of Chicago and author of the new Politics, Religion, and the Common Good (Jossey-Bass).

Copyright Evangelical Lutheran Church in America Oct 2000
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