Jesus as President: Politics For
Ordinary Radicals, part three: When the Empire got baptized…discussion based on
book by Shane Claiborne and Chris Haws
1.
When those who followed the way of
Jesus were called atheists for not following the Roman Gods way and instead the
way of the gospel, when persecuted for not adhereing to the Empire way of life
and markets and military, when they didn’t believe the state was the savior.
2.
They didn’t celebrate the festivals
of the state (what would that mean today? Like Black Friday coming up in
November? Others?)
3.
Baptism for jesus followers was a way
of conversion and dedicating their lives to the dangerous way of following the
God of Israel as shown in Jesus instead of the way of Caeser. It meant for many
having to change their jobs, how they made money, whether from the brothels or
from the government and the early church had to support those making that
change.
4.
They started living Jesus’ vision
now, not just waiting for him to come back and do it for them, not waiting to
do it in an after life….but how could they get food from the markets without
supporting the Empire? They had to get the mark of the Empire before they could
enter the agora; John in Revelations and others cry out against the Empire and
collaborating with it and that it is already fallen so need to find another way
of living by sharing, not only food but life: they lived near one another,
daily sharing of worship and friendship, and resources, and gradually effected
change and a small alternative society within the Empire, like leaven and
mustard seed. Image of the New Jerusalem: city of God come to earth, where
mourning is turned to dancing, death is no more, the gates are left open for
everyone, and the gardens take over the ghettos.
5.
Who they were: from the fringes of
Empire, and from the middle of it: those who had been left behind in the
Imperial progress, without family, without health, without country, and those
who were converted from it. Both became “martyrs” which means witnesses. Rome
was not just violent and evil but it was alluring in its wealth, art, society,
roads, security. By contrast the early followers of Jesus were considered the
scum of the earth: from 1 Corinthians 4: We are fools for Christ, but you are
so wise in Christ! We are weak, but you are strong! You are honored, we are
dishonored! 11 To this very hour we go hungry and thirsty, we are in
rags, we are brutally treated, we are homeless. 12 We work hard with
our own hands. When we are cursed, we bless; when we are persecuted, we endure
it; 13 when we are slandered, we answer kindly. We have become the
scum of the earth, the garbage of the world—right up to this moment….and from 2
Corinthians 4 If you only
look at us, you might well miss the brightness. We carry this precious
Message around in the unadorned clay pots of our ordinary lives. That’s to
prevent anyone from confusing God’s incomparable power with us. As it is,
there’s not much chance of that. You know for yourselves that we’re not much to
look at. We’ve been surrounded and battered by troubles, but we’re not demoralized;
we’re not sure what to do, but we know that God knows what to do; we’ve been
spiritually terrorized, but God hasn’t left our side; Our lives are at constant
risk for Jesus’ sake, which makes Jesus’ life all the more evident in us. While
we’re going through the worst, you’re getting in on the best!
6.
Constantine: before his military rise
to Emperor, the church had gradually become more mainstream, widespread and
populous, easy for it to be coopted by the rulers. It had lost much of its
Jewish roots by this time. 300 years after Jesus. Now it was influential on a
major level and could be “relevant” in the world. From baptizing all those
within the Empire, to resist the Empire, it instead baptized the Empire itself.
As if we felt we needed the state to do what God and church couldn’t….one
aspect of the Nicene Creed, making Jesus deemed same as God, was to make clear
that Caeser wasn’t.
7.
Movement away from places of power to
the desert and abandoned places of Empire, in order to find self and faith and
God. Every 500 years or so a major movement of renewal…from Constantine to
Crusades to Conquistadors in Americas, the effort to take God to people and
control them instead of going to serve them and find God there.
8.
Puritans City on A Hill vision;
American exceptionalism?; beware all efforts to see yourself as a special
people different from others, beware having God on your side; we are a
Christian nation insomuch as the USA looks like Christ….Shane’s Traitor
response from Iraq, p. 175….like Frederick Douglas’s depiction of difference of
Christianity of slave holding America and Christianity of Christ….but the
church is not just called to opposition to the American Empire, but also to the
dictatorships and power-over values of other nations as well
9.
The Gospel of America and Beyond:
global reach of consumer values and also military presence, 700 stations in
more than 100 countries (Rome had peace but throughout its Empire years, its
legion out on the edges was not in war but only a few days; and the cost to the
Empire consumed half of its budget that could have gone to the poor)…What are
our idols? What would we kill for?...Who provides for our economy and cheap oil
and food and products? Who is exploited for our lifestyle? Wendell Berry’s
words calling us to a kingdom of God economy, not just distinction between
church and state, but between church and economy, how we live and make our
homes; in Rome people began dropping out and going to edges to farm and live
and not need the economy of war…Read America through the eyes of the Bible, not
the Bible through the eyes of America….The theology of power-over translated
into kinds of church today (Mark Driscoll’s words that drive the mega-church
world power church macho church today: “I cannot worship a guy I can beat up.”
So he presents Jesus as warrior prize-fighter Hollywood action hero….Replacing
flags and crosses that signify death and power with that of the “slaughtered
lamb of God.”…God bless the whole world: no exceptions.
10.
What about Hitler? Example of Jesus telling
Peter to lay down his sword not to prevent Jesus’ death. Bonhoeffer and Hitler,
but he did it recognizing he was doing evil. And knowledge Hitler’s don’t come
from nowhere, but we are called to be active in stopping them before they get
power. Unintended consequences when we try to take God-like action; Hitler was
even more emboldened after assassination attempt, thought he was protected more
by God. Violence is not redemptive but damages the image of God within us. Evil
done in the name of Good….christians leaving the military or saying they will
go die for brothers and country but won’t kill for them anymore….the case of
Catholic air force captain George Zabelka who blessed the men who dropped the
atomic bomb on Nagasaki, including Catholic soldiers, and they later regretted
what they had done as the bomb landed on the cathedral in Nagasaki, the heart
of Catholicism in Japan. He said he didn’t preach to them the Sermon on the
Mount, to love their enemies; something for three hundred years the Church
preached and lived after Jesus even though during those three hundred years it
had been bearing the brunt of the Empire trying to wipe it out by killing.
Church needs to begin by confessing how it has not been the church, and needs
to wash feet of those it has wronged, and become the church as it does that,
not as it holds a sword and is capable of beating up evil-doers in the name of
God. People might pay attention to the church that does that.
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