The State Is Still The State

By David C from Young Anabaptist Radicals:

Yesterday was truly a big day in U.S. history. The inauguration of the first African-American President is truly a turning point for our nation, especially given our abysmal history on race. Moreover, it was encouraging to hear Senator Dianne Feinstein’s reflections on the nonviolence of Martin Luther King, President Obama’s message that we need not choose “between our safety and ideals” and his call to diplomacy and international aid over sheer violent force and military power, and Reverend Joseph Lowery’s prayer that one day we will “beat our tanks into tractors.”
Nevertheless, I had a difficult time getting too emotional or excited over this change of guard. For, while yesterday was historical from the perspective of the United States, it was a pretty small speck when history is viewed rightly. As John Howard Yoder tirelessly argued, the locus of history is not with the state but with God’s work through his church. The state is merely the context in which the real drama of history can unfold.

So, while the words and symbolism of the inauguration may be moving, the sobering fact is that the state is still the state. Yes, Obama seems more intent than Bush on using diplomatic tactics to secure peace, but his message to our “enemy” was still virtually the same: “We will not apologize for our way of life, nor will we waver in its defense, and for those who seek to advance their aims by inducing terror and slaughtering innocents, we say to you now that our spirit is stronger and cannot be broken; you cannot outlast us, and we will defeat you.”

Not much room there for Jesus’s message to love your enemies, pray for those who persecute you, and turn the other cheek. But this is as should be expected, because the state is still the state.

Ironically, with this change of guard many us open-minded, progressive Christians will begin to forget that the state is still the state. We will start to put our faith in the ideals of the state and our hope in its progress. As blogger Halden recently argued, now more than ever is it imperative (though difficult) to be resolute in our anti-empire polemics. It was far too easy to maintain a prophetic witness to the state when those in charge overtly sanctioned military aggression, torture, and seemingly unbridled increase of personal power. But when those in power seem to share many of our ideals, the temptation will be to give them a pass when they deem military violence necessary in this or that situation. And it will be difficult for us to make the unfashionable charge that those in power sanction the unjust extermination of the least of those among us. Indeed, to increase the irony still further, it may be the conservative Christians who begin to recognize with more clarity the separation between church and state (as many of my students, for example, ponder whether or not Obama is the anti-Christ!). They will now be the ones to speak prophetically, though their witness will be narrow and tainted by their continual use of political means to grasp for power.

It as at this time, perhaps more than any other, that we need to heed Yoder’s exhortation to what he calls “evangelical nonconformity,” quoted here at length:


When then Jesus said to His disciples, “In the world, kings lord it over their subjects . . . Not so with you”; He was not beckoning His followers to a legalistic withdrawal from society out of concern for moral purity. Rather, His call was to an active missionary presence within society, a source of healing and creativity because it would take the pattern of his own suffering servanthood.

Jesus thereby unmasks the pretension to use violence for the good as being a form of hypocrisy: these rulers call themselves “benefactors” but they are not servants. He who would claim to have the right to use violence, and especially legal violence, against another, places himself outside of the scope of Jesus’ mode of servanthood. This is not so much because he sins against the letter of the law from the Old Testament or the New but because he claims (with a pride intrinsic to his position) to have the right — (whether on the basis of official status, of superior insight, or of his moral qualities) — to determine in a definitive way the destiny of others. The older language in which the theme of “conformity to this world” was stated in Bible times had to do with “idols,” with those unworthy objects of devotion to whom men in their blindness sacrificed. Thus it is quite fitting to describe the use of violence as the outworking of an idolatry. If I take the life of another, I am saying that I am devoted to another value, one other than the neighbor himself, and other than Jesus Christ Himself, to which I sacrifice my neighbor. I have thereby made a given nation, social philosophy, or party my idol. To it I am ready to sacrifice not only something of my own, but also the lives of my fellow human beings for whom Christ gave His life.

- John Howard Yoder, “Christ, the Hope of the World” in The Original Revolution: Essays on Christian Pacifism, 174-75

In this time of celebration, may we not forget that the state is still the state. And we are still called to be the church.

Anawim: Radicals for Jesus

On Facebook, Anawim just began an Anabaptist "cause" called "Anawim: Radicals for Jesus".

These are the core priorities:
Living a Jesus lifestyle amidst a dying empire.

1. We believe in taking risks to serve Jesus. We don’t believe in church leadership as a profession, or in upward mobility.

2. We believe in setting aside our desires and resources for the sake of the needy. We don’t believe in the American dream or capitalism, nor in our own personal property or privacy.

3. We believe in accepting persecution for Jesus. We don’t believe in staying quiet or in remaining comfortable.

4. We believe in loving our enemies and accepting persecution. We don’t put any faith in violence, empires, or cultural prejudice.

5. We believe in Jesus’ community working together to create community. We don’t believe that any denomination or church has a monopoly on loving God.

6. We believe in Jesus’ return and rule over the earth. We don’t believe in preserving our life, but are holding out for the next one.

If you're on Facebook, check it out!

Bono The Mennonite

 

What Is Community?

A community is a self-sustaining entity
A community is a collection of different ideals that coalesce into a whole
A community is an “us” that lives together
A community doesn’t always live in harmony, but issues are resolved for the sustaining of the whole
A community is usually recognized by other communities as being a unit—but even if it is not, it does not negate its viability.

Welcoming: Transfoming Culture 2

Jesus told the disciples another story: "God's utopia is like a mustard seed, a tiny seed compared to most other seeds. But a man took that insignificant thing and planted it in his land and he let it grow. And when it grew up fully, it became a sturdy tree so strong that the birds rested in the branches. Even so, you, my disciples, are insignificant and the least. But when the Father and the Spirit are done with you, you shall be strong enough that the nations of heaven will rest comfortably within you."

This alternative society of Jesus is not to be a separatist society, but an evangelistic one. In other words, the church doesn’t protect its purity, but opens up its purity to all the world. All are to be welcome to be a part of the church, no matter how corrupt, no matter what they have done in the past, no matter how far from the ideal they are. The great task of the church is welcoming all who desire to be transformed into God’s people, and then to help them to become part of that.

We accept people as they are, but we are not content with who they are. All of us, should we be a part of Jesus, must be transformed into the image of Jesus. This is not something that happens overnight, nor does it happen before conversion. Rather, this is the process we go through that conversion begins. We assist each other, allowing the Spirit to create diamonds out of coal.

Thus, the church does not remain completely separate from the church. Jesus places parts of the church within the world, commanding them to welcome the world into the church. Within the world, the church holds onto its unique purity, a purity based on love of God and neighbor, and opens itself up to be understood by the world. More and more people become a part of this community, embracing Jesus’ ideals.

In this way, the world becomes the church. Individual by individual, family by family, soon tribes and even nations become a part of the community of Jesus’ love. People flock to be a part of the alternative community because it works better than other communities, and it is led by Jesus, our example of patience, faithfulness and endurance.

Tolerance

 

Tolerance is a difficult virtue, Biblically speaking. Should we tolerate all? Should we separate some from ourselves for purity's sake?

These issues are being addressed in the series "Transforming Culture".

Transforming Culture, Part 1

In his book, Christ and Culture, H. Richard Niebuhr wrote about how the church influences the world. He was right, that Jesus asks us—even demands—that we transform the world. However, he set up a false dichotomy between passivism and activism. As if those who do not act in the political manner in which he was used to, then they were not acting at all.

Jesus, on the other hand, presented a kind of transformationalism that is not necessarily politically active, but is powerfully active, nevertheless. He established the following principles:
a. Creating alternative communities
b. Being welcoming to all who desire transformation
c. Gently, patiently influencing without force
d. Attacking the forces behind the evil

1. The church as saltYou are salt—essential for the world. But if you lose the basic qualities that make you important, you cannot regain them. You will be useless, cast out of God’s kingdom and trampled.
You are light—God’s glory and truth in the world. You are the kingdom of God to come, and you cannot be hidden. Nor should you be hidden—God’s glory should be displayed, not hidden. So display the true righteousness of God before everyone, so that people will see your acts of God and so glorify the Father. Matthew 5:13-15

The church is not a building, an organization or a political force. Rather, the church is, according to Jesus, an alternative society, a unique people, a separate nation which lives by God’s law of love. The church, in the form Jesus established it, is a group of people who are living according to Jesus’ principles of love. The church is made up of the outcast of society, engaged in community not to just improve ourselves, but to love all of those in need. And we strive to live out the principles of love found in Jesus’ law—we do not insult, we do good to those who persecute us, we do not look with lust, we keep our promises, we do our religious deeds before God, not for people’s being impressed, we do not judge others, but we are constantly repenting of our sin and forgiving those who repent. And we will strive not to be put in a situation—like the military or addiction to drugs—that will cause us to act in opposition to this way of life.

We will look and act different for all this. The world will see us as strange, as ignorant, as naïve or even as hateful because we will stand with Jesus, no matter what anyone else says or does to try to promote us or to try to oppose us. At times, we will act different from that which the world calls “the church” or “Christianity.” “And this is because a majority of the church is caught up in the ways of the world, and has become a part of the world—focusing on education, on politics, on judging, on intellectualism, on power and the manipulation of it. And so they, the façade church, looks at the church of Jesus, and thinks that they’ve missed the point.

The church of Jesus is a community, not a political party. It doesn’t seek to compromise its ideals so it can fit better into the world. It doesn’t seek to give a message less than the love of Jesus, ever. If it changes it’s ideal of love and mercy and hope in God’s future, then it is no longer the community of Jesus, but a part of the very empire it seeks so hopelessly to transform. The compromised church is in a place to be transformed, not to create transformation.