Coopted Christianity

Is there any hope for us, Christians, to be saved from ourselves? Better, is there any hope for Christianity to be rescued from its politicalization in the United States?

If you study the history of our longstanding denominations you will find that most of them split during the Civil War. Where did those Southern Baptists come from? Why is there a United Presbyterian Church? Fittingly, some that split before or during the War reunited when… well… the country did.

Scripture will sometimes use the image of a mirror in an astoundingly ennobling manner:

And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord <em>as in a mirror</em> are being transformed into that same image from one degree of glory to another. (2 Corinthians 3:18)

How on earth is looking at Christ’s glory like looking in a mirror? Is he so base? No, the opposite: what we see is who we are becoming. We are reflecting the shining, glory-light of Jesus as God transforms us by the Spirit.

At least, that’s how it’s supposed to go.

And there’s the paradox, as well, that we are transformed as “clay vessels” that hold this magnificence.

But still–that idea that the mirror we gaze into shows us simultaneously Christ and ourselves is an image of indescribable hope.

That’s why it’s all the more poignant that our Christianity gazes at the political climate of North America and is transformed into its image from one degree of degradation to another.

In a recent blog post Richard Beck commented:

By and large, on any given issue, there will be little to no daylight between the “Christian” right and the political right, or the “Christian” left and the political left. And what this means is that Christianity has been wholly captured and co-opted by Empire.

He is exactly right. In the U.S. there is no “Christianity” that stands over and against or outside and alongside of the politics that shape our culture. The increasing rancor and division in Washington is mirrored in the increasing division and distrust among Christians of different stripes.

For a few hopeful years, I imagined that a rising generation’s failure to thrive in the systems handed to us would create a new, purple middle that would change the landscape for the better. I think what happened instead is that by attempting to create new associations and by backing away from the establishment, folks with moderate tendencies left the parties to the more extreme voices.

Be that as it may, here we are. Now. In a world where whether or not you are a Christian does not unite you with a tribe nearly so much as whether you are a conservative or a liberal.

So here’s my big question: Is there any hope for a church in which their is no longer male and female, black and white, Democrat and Republican, conservative and liberal? Would we be willing to live and worship in a church like that?

And maybe the question behind the question: is there a way for us to imagine how our faith intersects with our politics that might give Christianity the strength to stand outside and alongside politics rather than being so many indistinguishable drops of water swept along by its rushing river?