The End of Evangelicalism 6

May 20, 2011 @ 0:01 By 18 Comments

I begin with this claim: the church, the local church as well as the church universal, is a politic. Instead of supporting a political party, which confuses the church into serving two masters, the church strives to be a politic. These are my words, not David Fitch’s, but I think they get to the heart of David’s section on how the church is to recover the core of our politics for mission. The problem is the Christian Nation vision, but the solution is to abandon that and to become a politic under the Lordship of Jesus, a politic of the kingdom of God. Fitch, in The End of Evangelicalism? Discerning a New Faithfulness for Mission: Towards an Evangelical Political Theology (Theopolitical Visions) examines four theologians.

The questions we need to face are these: How is your church shaping the politic of the church as part of God’s mission in this world? How is your church a “politic”? The gospel is performed as well as proclaimed. How does it perform the mission of God? Has your church been co-opted by political partisanship?

They are Henri du Lubac, William Cavanaugh, Nathan Kerr and John Howard Yoder. Here’s how he ties them together:

Lubac’s focus is on the Body of Christ in his physical body, in the Eucharist and in the church, but the eucharist has become a place for spectating instead of embodying that Body. Cavanaugh, another Catholic theologian, contends the eucharist births a political presence and engages society for redemption and renewal. It is thus a subversive presence.

Nathan Kerr, however, subverts both of these ideas (and Fitch’s) by contending the church is the church when it is dispersed into mission. Missiology precedes ecclesiology. The church becomes a non-site place! This leads to John Howard Yoder … who advocates the church as those who live under the Lordship of Jesus Christ — when the church embodies the “gifts.” It lives today what the world is to become. The church does this in binding and loosing, breaking bread, baptism, the gifts, and the rule of conversation.

And the church does this as the body that extends the incarnation, by living the kingdom, and by having a porous boundary.

Now Fitch digs: “Evangelicals have put forth the church as Christ’s voluntarist army dispersing individuals into the world to do the work of Christ and his mission.” He says it is “the social body of His Lordship (His Reign) incarnating Christ in the world for God’s mission” (166).

The Sunday gathering is in order to be shaped together into his body for the world in eucharist, preaching the Word and re-entry into the world. Sunday gatherings are not to be distinguished from daily living.

Filed Under: Church 18 Comments
About Scot McKnight

Scot McKnight is a recognized authority on the New Testament, early Christianity, and the historical Jesus. McKnight, author of more than thirty books, is the Professor of New Testament at Northern Seminary in Lombard, IL.

  • Dans

    Dictionary.com says:
    pol·i·tic – adjective
    1. shrewd or prudent in practical matters; tactful; diplomatic.
    2. contrived in a shrewd and practical way; expedient: a politic reply.
    3. political: the body politic.

    Scot, your are using the word “politic” as a noun. What exactly does that mean? I’ve read the post twice and I really don’t get the intent. Much about embodying Christ or living the mission, but those words are defined very differently in different circles, are they not?

    Will the social justice people let church be their “politic” and stop voting for democrats and advocating for immigration reform and universal health care? Will the social conservatives stop voting for conservatives and advocating for free markets, lower taxes, traditional marriage and the rights of the pre-born? Should they? Does voting prevent a church member from running a food pantry or volunteering at a crisis pregnancy center?

    If we are shaped together into his body for re-entry into the world, will we cease to be citizens and vote our consciences on local, state and federal issues?

    I suspect there is a false dichotomy, but there are so many undefined words here I can’t tell.

  • smcknight

    Dans, I’m using the term as it is used in much of the literature. Yes, I know “politic” is normally seen as an adjective, but there is a usage among academics that draws on the Greek term and it means “body politic”.

    The only assumption you need to make emerges in this question: Do we assume the church is our political body (body politic) or do we assume the federal/state governments the major playing field for politics? Fitch says Yes to the first and No to the second; I agree.

    How about you?

  • JohnM

    One question and a couple comments.

    Did Fitch intend this to be read at an academic level or at the popular level?

    Hoo boy! Whatever it means, wait till the militant seculars hear about it ;)

    For those of you who lean progressive, which is probably most people reading here, don’t you worry about traditionalist taking up this theme and running with it?

  • Albion

    JohnM: What theme do you mean?

  • John W Frye

    Scot, the church as a “body politic” over against being composed of members who are involved in Federal/State politics of whatever persuasion is a colossal challenge to the vision and practice of a very large segment of U.S.American evangelicalism. In my neck of the woods there is a huge elephant in the room, uh, church and that is civil religion where Jesus bleeds red…white and blue. Then, to espouse the church itself as a “body politic” committed to a “non-violent ethic” is, to mix metaphors, to pull the pin on a sacred hand grenade. Do you think prevailing U.S. evangelicalism will transform its vision of the church as a non-violent body politic?

  • Richard

    “Do we assume the church is our political body (body politic) or do we assume the federal/state governments the major playing field for politics?”

    I’m not sure this dichotomy is as practical as Fitch posits. Does he give some case studies or examples as to how this might work? I’m all for the church to be resisting other interests and practicing resurrection life in anticipation of the manifesting Kingdom but is there any engagement in this view being posited?

    It seems to me that this is reinforcing the modernist/Enlightenment notion that there is a public sphere and a private sphere and religion belongs in the privates sphere, even if it is communal.

  • Scot McKnight

    John, not any time soon but we can witness to that vision.

    Richard, the one thing Fitch is not doing is positing a public vs. private, but instead a secular public and an ecclesial politic.

  • Richard

    @ 7

    I’m still having trouble wrapping my brain around what he’s saying and how that’s not positing public vs. private (albeit communal). Am I understanding correctly that there is a “secular public” politic and an “ecclesial” politic? Do these entities interact in any way, shape, or form? Is the “ecclesial politic” like a third party in a two party system (to borrow some political jargon) – a new voting bloc? Or is it libertarian in the sense of, “let the world do what it wants and we’ll follow Jesus,” which would require withdrawal from the political process (i.e. Derek Webb advocating to not vote in the last election Presidential election because “the lesser of two evils” isn’t an option on Jesus’ ballot).

  • http://www.gettingfree.wordpress.com T

    I have family in the US military, as many do, but I am still unable to say or give an “Amen” to the phrase: “Pray for our troops” when it is used in church. Frankly, I think the phrase needs serious questioning. Let me say clearly that I do pray for the safety of each person that I know in the military. But when we say in church, “Pray for our troops” I recoil: Whose troops are “our” troops, exactly? If a Christian brother from Pakistan, for instance, is worshipping Christ with “us,” whose troops is he being urged to pray for? Perhaps more importantly, does he feel like one of “us” at all anymore after we all join in prayer for “our” troops? For whom are “we” commanded to pray? To draw from the great conversion and wisdom from Ruth, whose people are “our” people? In him there is neither Jew nor Greek . . . but there is, apparently, American ally or American enemy, or even Republican and Democrat. These colors often resist being made one color in the blood of Christ.

  • larry s

    to T #9

    I’m a Jesus follower (Anabaptist, Canadian).

    God bless you for your post. The post and its questions reflect the Kingdom.

  • http://in-Spirit-us.com Mick

    I think Bonhoeffer’s work speaks well to the church being the embodiment of Christ in and for the world, especially Sanctorum Communio. But the embodiment of Christ in the world is not primarily in proclamation, witness, sacrament, worship, service, etc, as separate and prioritzed aspects of being the body of Christ. It is in being all of these things before the Father and in/to the world.

  • http://www.grassrootskingdom.com Dan

    Fitch defines “politic” as a community with a belief and a practice. Therefore, the church is/should be its own politic- a community of people with a belief (Story) and a practice (communal way of living out their beliefs/Story).

    I think it can be said that America (patriotism) has its own politic- beliefs and practices that define what it “means to be an American”. (though Fitch and Zizek would say it is an empty politic). The church must primarily live out its politic within the American politic. While there is overlap- consistencies and inconsistencies- they are certainly distinct. And I think the church must do a much better job and discerning their differences and giving primacy to the church.

    –

    What I have found extremely helpful is deLubac’s understanding of the body of Christ. He flips the traditional Roman Catholic understanding of the Eucharist and church. Traditionally, the bread and wine are turned into the literal body of Christ (transubstantiation) and the church is the mystical body of Christ in the world. DeLubac (if I read him right) wants to say that the early church understood the body of Christ to be mystically present in the Eucharist, but the church to be the actual body of Christ (as it gathered around the Eucharist).

    I am not sure if I am completely with DeLubac, but I think the reason Fitch likes him is because of his strong emphasis on the church as a tangible politic in the world- the Body of Christ.

  • Randy Gabrielse

    Not unlike theo-politics today, much of the political discourse of the 1820s-1840s was shaped by the decline of the power of the Anglican-Presbyterian-Congregationalist establishment of the day as 1) People moved west and diluted cultural power, 2)immigrant laborers became more and more visible as part of the nation, and 3) Methodists, Baptists and other revivalists became more numerous and strove for power, and 4) Native Americans and African Americans became subjects of political discourse (even if they were not visible to most of American society in the North).

    The American evangelical establishment of the 1820s-1840s argued loudly and militantly against Christians being loyal to any political party; they argued instead that Christians needed to be loyal to God and Christ. Party loyalty would lead them away from God. Eventually though, the Presbyterians who dominated most theological and theo-political discourse sided against the Democratic Party because they saw it as dominated by Catholic and other immigrant groups. The 1840s and 50s saw a sort of wildness as the parties shifted alleigances and formed new alliances that resulted in the all-Northern Republican Party — that opposed slavery because it allegedly denied white men opportunity to compete for jobs — and the Democratic Party — that generally supported slavery. Thus the election of a Republican President in 1860 quickly led to Southern Secession and the Civil War.
    Peace,
    Randy Gabrielse

  • Joe Canner

    T #9: I have often wondered some of the same things, namely how does God respond to prayers from both sides in a conflict (more common in civil wars like ours or like Northern Ireland)?

    Similar questions are also ignored when we discuss the fate of Israel/Palestine, e.g., what about the Palestinian Christians? Do they not deserve our support as much as the Jews do?

  • Jeff L

    Scott, would “polity” be a better noun than “politic”?

    from Merriam-Webster:
    1: political organization
    2: a specific form of political organization
    3: a politically organized unit
    4a : the form or constitution of a politically organized unit b : the form of government of a religious denomination

  • Dans

    Finally able to return to the conversation.

    My point in #1 was that I don’t think we can have a hard line in terms of “politic” between our responsibility to church and responsibility to state.

    Surely no one would say the church should be responsible for building roads, maintaining the police or fire departments, national defense or IRS. Those are real activities that are essential but not in the realm of church.

    Likewise we specifically don’t want the state determining doctrine, selecting church leadership, etc.

    As Christians we have legitimate responsibilities in both spheres. It is legitimate for a Christian to vote, to hold office, to petition for grievance (as Paul did using his Roman citizenship) and to campaign for candidates and causes.

    What is usually at question in these debates is whether a church organization should support candidates (most conservatives and liberals say no) and what to do when state policy violates Biblical moral precepts. The abortion issue is the prime example.

    My views on economic policy have a very limited basis in my Christian faith and beliefs. My views on abortion or the definition of family or capital punishment have much more to do with how I understand scripture and the history of exegesis. Those moral viewpoints can and should affect how I vote and participate in this democratic republic. I don’t see any way to completely separate faith from public politics.

    All we can do is debate and discuss how much the overlap between faith and secular government covers.

  • JohnM

    Albion, #4, If you’re still reading and if you wanted an answer – Theme? Theopolitical visions. The church becoming “a politic under the Lordship of Jesus, a politic of the kingdom of God.” I don’t know what should be scarier from a progressive’s perspective, that the words are so fuzzy almost any content can be read into them, or the possibility conservatives might actually come to the same understand of the meaning as progressives. Do you think that means they’ll necessarily do things progressives like? Because it doesn’t.

  • http://www.wendymccaig.wordpress.com Wendy McCaig

    “Nathan Kerr, however, subverts both of these ideas (and Fitch’s) by contending the church is the church when it is dispersed into mission. Missiology precedes ecclesiology. The church becomes a non-site place!”

    This resonated with me in the work we are doing. Really wish more of the comments would have answered the question “How does your church perform the mission of God?” While many reading this post would not see me as a pastor, I think the quote from Kerr legitimizes my responding in that vein.

    We have no weekly worship service, no sermons, no bible studies, no weekly offerings – we are truly the “church dispersed” and a “non-site place” kind of ministry. The cool thing about being the family of God on mission together is that worship just spontaneously happens, the word of God randomly enters into our conversations, testimony becomes the message and people regularly offer not only their physical things but their entire being.

    While many seemed to focus on the work “politic”, for me the point of the post was focused more toward the embodiment of the political nature of our faith. Maybe I am missing something here. Sorry if this comes off as arrogant, I am just concerned that we spend too much energy dissecting words and missing the larger point.

    I read this as affirming of the path God has called me to walk. Thanks Scot