Baptising Politics
I get very scared when I see politics being baptised. For a frightening example of this go and read here. The problem with this is it is too much of a cartoon picture. It's so ridiculous and weird, it's funny. But, the reality is that politics is the driver for a lot of our theology (views about God). Who you vote for says a lot about your views of the Christian faith. I'm treading carefully here because it's easy to step on landmines on these issues. For some people, they can't believe Christians would vote Labour. For other people, they can't believe that Christians would vote National! Within our church we would have people right across the range: from people who vote for the Greens through to people who vote for the Destiny party. I have 2 questions:
1). How do we co-exist? (Jesus prays in John 17:11b - "Holy Father, protect them by the power of your name, the name you gave me, so that they may be one as we are one."
2). Faith and politics are always inter-related because voting is based on convictions just as faith is based on convictions. However, how can faith transcend politics? Could you change who you vote for because of the gospel (e.g. from National to Labour or vice versa)? Or does who you vote for determine your Christian faith?
4:20 PM
I dont know alot about politics, but I do think it is sometimes taken too seriously....(I remember hearing in an interview that Helen Clarkes parents got divorced because one preffered National and the onther, Labour)
But, in saying that, I suppose in this day and age, you have to take it seriously, especially with the things that the governement have made legal/illegall these past few years.
But still, I think leaving a church, like what that guy did, is crazy. I dont know what the bible says about politics, but making people vote for something has got to be wrong.....?!
10:28 PM
Question 2 affects Question 1 :-)
If you favour more a 'right-wing' socio-economic view point, then you can tend to see those bits of Bible that emphasize individual responsibility before God. Likewise, 'left-leaning' people might see only those texts that favour emphasize communitarian values. The trick is to try and get both in balance, to draw people's attention to the broader picture, and to highlight the strengths and weaknesses of each position. (And also not just the left-right spectrum, but other variations too.) Oh, and you need to take your own biases into account too.
But, it's quite complicated to pull off in practice. Even sermons that try to highlight objectively various issues to reflect upon before voting can carry their own messages by which points are selected and how much time is spent on each point.
I liked Brian McLaren's article in Sojourners on talking about politics. Some useful pointers in it.
http://www.sojo.net/index.cfm?action=magazine.article&issue=soj0409&article=040910
One thing I did in the past was to get a former house group to put in a group submission to a government agency that was wanting input. Gave us a focus to shape the discussion around, as well as time to reflect on how our various political differences interacted with our faith. Working towards a consensus was hard at times, but gave us a feeling of what MMP is like :-)
9:36 AM
Great comment Stephen, very helpful. Yes, our own biases come into play hugely. I think you're right about question 1 being affected by question 2. If we can acknowlegde that in many ways Jesus transcends simple categories of "left" and "right" I think that would be a great start. Perhaps Trinitarian (the one, the three and the many) reflections would helpful to comprehend the tensions of individual responsibility and community responsibility? I really like the group submission idea and then working through the various political views we hold and how they shape our understanding of the Christian faith. Did that help avoid the demonising of right/left categories and stimulate some critical reflection on how much our political views shape our understanding of the faith?
8:40 PM
In our case the submission asked specific questions. So we asked the group a question, people responded, we looked at how our understanding of our faith lined up with those responses, and then we tried thrash out what as a group we would answer. Hard work some weeks, but good anyway.
However, we had a group who'd been together a while, and who enjoyed each others' company and discussion, in spite of (and maybe because of) the differences of opinion.
One week someone came in and mentioned they'd bought a new SUV, to which another person responded was that so they could put more ACT bumper stickers on the back, and from there on it was an interesting night :-)
Anyway, to get back to the point - having one to two specific questions that can be wrestled with is a good starting point, rather than trying to critique an entire political ideology.