Christian Politics and Dedrick Christian Church

Well, Dan and I did a politics series at Dedrick. Yes we are still the ministers there. It actually went pretty well, I mean as well as expected. We had intended to do five weeks of the topics I posted earlier. Instead however we did 3.

The first class was about whether or not Jesus was political, it went well everyone agrees Jesus was political cool. The second class was on Christian Politics and America. This was my class. It didn't go so well. The main point was simply that Christian Politics are not about America. I emphasized that while the arguement has been made that the founding fathers of America were Christian, many were deists including Jefferson. Also the declaration of independence names life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness as the primary values of the American constitution. I talked about the politics of Jesus revolving around service and sacrafice. I emphazied that the church ought to do politics the way Jesus did, i.e. through service, sacrafice and self abnegation (to steal from Mark Moore). I said that being political isn't the question, the question is how to be political. Thus the politics of America are not the politics of Jesus. I think the biggest difficulty most people had, especially Russel was asking, "Why can't Christians do both? Why can't Christians seek to change people through evangelism and engage in politics." My response was that by not engaging in certain politics were are not being apolitical, we are being political in a different way, which is our politic. Anyway, most people did agree or they didn't see why we don't need both.

The third class was done by Dan. It was intended to deal with a Christian repsonse to contemporary political issues. To begin the class, however, he decided to do a brief overview of the arguements from the previous class on why Christian politics aren't about America. The first one he brought up is that America didn't have a Christian reason to go to war with England. It is almost universally agreed upon that the main impetus behind the revolutionary war was taxation without representation. This sidetracked the class for the rest of the time. The discussion became about pacificsm and how Christians ought to protect themselves. Russel brought up the violent Jesus in Revelation. Anyway, the class got a bit heated as Russel questioned us. He said he felt that we were 'throwing away the blood of patriots that have fought for our freedom' I don't know if that is exactly what he said, but the gist of it. Anyway, because of how heated it got, Connie brought up a past situation where she left the church because of conflict. As a result we are discontinuing the series.

This situation has been a really important situation for me. I don't regret for a minute talking about politics or what Christians should do. I feel like some of the people listened to what Dan and I were saying, I don't know that anyone agreed, but some listened. I do wish we could have dicussed the issue without as much sharp disagreement. I don't mind disagreement, but there were some harsh tones in the room. I wonder, how is it that we have allowed our allegiances to American politics govern our relationship to other Christians. Hauerwas in Resident Aliens makes the point that though we all claim to be devoted to the kingdom first, protestants and catholics have killed each other in the name of their nations. What are your thoughts? I will admit that I prayed after I taught questioning whether or not I was doing the right thing. I did not hear an explict answer, but I'm okay with how things ended with the series. I just pray that God would help us to be more faithful as Christians. No King but Christ, right?