On the future of the religious Right- and the religious Left
I happen to agree with Cal Thomas (and even, to a limited degree, with Jim Wallis) that political issues which ought to be of concern to Christians go beyond abortion and gay "marriage" and the cannibalization of fetuses for stem cells and other such issues beloved of the political and social Right to other matters of social justice and just plain charity more often identified with the Left.
That was the reason (aided and abetted by experience of being regularly appalled by the incredibly loveless and reactionary views of many conservative Lutherans on issue after issue) that I was a pro-life Democrat for so long. It was the defeat of pro-life Democrat Tom Miller in the 1990 Iowa Democratic gubernatorial primary (he was by far the best-known candidate, and the only one with a realistic chance to win) soley because he was pro-life that finally demonstrated to be once and for all that I could not continue to support the socially radical positions of the party which which I continued to agree on legitimate matters of social justice- and, more often than not, of foreign policy.
If their are any members of our species whose lives, in principle, are not sacred, everything "progressives" stand for is in danger. As long as they don't recognize that fact, the tragedy of the acceptance- by "liberals," of all people!- of the notion that there is a class of human lives intrinsically not worthy of life undercuts what I have always believed at at a level so deep that any talk of "social justice" thereafter is mere hypocrisy. Of course, the experience of the mindlessly one-sided left-wing lunacy of the Wartburg Seminary community helped make the choice much, much easier.
Bottom line: Christians cannot stand by silently in the face of social injustice, whether of the kind decried by liberals, or the more basic and foundational kind decried by social conservatives. Nor can they stand by in the face of the erosion of the institution of society's most basic institutions by the maudlin appeal of politically correct sentimentality.
Have liberals suddenly "found religion?" Good- though I wouldn't make any automatic assumption that the religion of mainline Protestantism and liberal Catholicism is always much more than an excuse for subjective and often errant political opinions in the first place. But abortion and stem cells and gay "marriage" are very much political issues, and no matter what position one takes on them, it is not possible to honor one's religions obligations on these matters without discharging them in the political arena.
The Kingdom of the Left Hand- the arena which God rules by law and compulsion, in the civil as well as the ecclesiastical arena- is a kingdom in which neither the social injustice customarily winked at by the political Right or by the political Left has any place. And is is also a kingdom in which the legitimate concerns of each have not only equal validity, but an equal demand on the consciences of voting believers.
Comments
I assumed (which I shouldn't have) that everybody who read this would understand Luther's doctrine of the Two Kingdoms. I need to quickly summarize it in order to clarify that last sentence.
Luther taught that God exercises His rule in this world in two ways, which are entirely separate and which must not be confused. First, there is the Kingdom of the Right Hand- the kingdom of grace.
It is found in the Church, and only in the Church. Only Christians are its subjects. There is no question of compulsion or force or coercion here. There are no rules or laws. The Kingdom of the Right operates entirely on grace, on love. It is the realm of the Gospel, and the arena of the proclamation of the Gospel.
The Kingdom of the Left Hand, on the other hand, is the realm in which God governs by means of laws and rules and force and compulsion. We are all citizens of the Kingdom of the Left, believers and unbelievers alike. It is the arena of both civil and ecclesiastical government (contrary to a common misunderstanding, the Kingdom of the Right is not the Church, and the Kingdom of the Left is not the State; while the Kingdom of the Right is only found in the Church, the Kingdom of the Left exists in both).
Thing is, both the legitimate concerns of the political Right (abortion, the killing of embryos for their stem cells, the redefinition of marriage, etc.) and the legitimate concerns of the political Left (social justice, racism, etc.) fall into the realm of the Kingdom of the Left. I don't think I made that distinction clear. The "Left" to which I referred is not the political Left, and
I am going to edit the post in order to make that clear.
As to Barak Obama and Rick Warren, they're old buddies. As someone who doesn't have much use for Rick Warren's theology (or Barak Obama's, beyond a certain very limited point) I am neither surprised nor particularly gratified by their alliance. Both, it seems to me, truncate the biblical message by watering it down to a kind of "least common denominator" which - though more palatable to modern Americans than the genuine Christian proclamation- is both
diluted and powerless.
Do you have any biblical support for this supposition?
I'm quite sure I could find something in Paul that teaches the opposite. Of course, it depends on what you mean by "not stand by silently".
I think what you mean by "not stand by silently" is "work to change the society that caused the injustice". I think it is our calling to live as contently as we can in whatever society we happen to find ourselves in, showing compassion to our immediate neighbors.
If all Christians did that, society would change from the grassroots up, with a strong foundation.
No mention there of our private lives vs. the public square.
Our mandate is to stand with the poor and the hungry and the oppressed, and that mandate doesn't end with private charity to our immediate neighbors. That's a cop out with no scriptural support at all.
No, society wouldn't change from the grassroots on up. We're fallen creatures, Jeff- even Christians. Even professing Christians sometimes value their human political theories about who should do what (read: excuses for not being inconvenienced by additional taxes, if the government should be the most expeditious agent of help) be more important to them than that the poor be given a fair chance and the hungry be fed. It's about love, Jeff- and that "transforming society from the grassroots up" is a threadbare copout, as well as being something that we both know isn't going to happen this side of the Parousia.
Human beings are fallen, and will always be natural libertarians, letting the Samaritan bleed and passing by on the other side. That's why even Luther recognized the necessity for compulsion at times. A person who would rather that people go hungry than be fed with tax money is a pretty poor practitioner of that mandate.
He fails to love, you see. His political theory is more important to him than the people.
No, society wouldn't change from the grassroots on up.
I didn't say that I had any hopes that it would.
Even professing Christians sometimes value their human political theories about
who should do what (read: excuses for not being inconvenienced by additional
taxes, if the government should be the most expeditious agent of help) be more
important to them than that the poor be given a fair chance and the hungry be
fed. It's about love, Jeff
I am of the sincere opinion that history has shown that forced redistribution stifles prosperity and therefore starves people. Therefore a free market is the more loving system.
My response:
But nobody is suggesting the abandonment of the free market, and "forced redistribution" is a rather extreme term for simple provision for the poor and hungry and the removal of artificial obstacles to opportunity by
means of government intervention.
On the other hand, I am sincerely of the opinion that it's remarkable how tortured the logic is by which some people try to convince themselves that "passing by on the other side" is somehow the "loving" thing to do .
It is not simple. Those provisions you speak of did not materialize out of thin air.
I would not encourage anyone to "pass by on the other side". It is simply my sincere opinion that the freer the market, the fewer needy people on the side of the road.
Only that government fulfill its divinely ordained function of restricting evil and
helping those who cannot help themselves.
As far as this thread is concerned, yes, that rhetoric did come from nothing.
I agree that government's role is to restrict evil. I think you are asking too much of a government full of fallen human beings in asking it to help those who cannot help themselves.
But this is way off the original topic I started. I originally wanted to know if it was true that "Christians cannot stand by silently in the face of social injustice".
capitalism would actually reduce poverty and hunger and injustice, you are hallucinating on some pretty bad stuff.
The statement that "I think you are asking too much of a government full of fallen human beings in asking it to help those who cannot help themselves" is probably the single most absurd and downright silly line I've ever read in a comment on this blog- and believe me, there have been plenty of them. The government is nothing more or less than all of us, acting in concert- and fallen though those who make up the government may be, they injustice and suffering such programs alleviate and even prevent is massive. Granted, such efforts may be inefficient. But you are suggesting that they be replaced- if by anything at all- by churches and charities and other private agencies without even a modicum of the resources necessary to do the job that government agencies are doing now.
No civilized government on earth is without such programs, and most are both more far-reaching and more efficient than our own. I do not, for that reason, advocate emulating them in every detail. I do not advocate our going socialist. But I do stand with them in recognizing that all of us have a moral duty- it is not optional- to help the less fortunate, and that government has a role which only it can play in that regard.
Jeff, I've said it many times, and I'll say it again: your trouble is that you live in an ivory tower. Your politics bear absolutely no relationship to the real world. I do not think you are as heartless as this comment makes you appear (without your even realizing it, I'm sure). But the position you advocate is not merely less than Christian; it's less than civilized. And the obligation of Christians under the second of the Great Commandments is to speak out against precisely this sort of evil and heartless nonsense.