From Christianity Today: The Problem with Prophets by Paul Marshall. This is a must-read for anyone interested in Evangelicals and politics. (HT: Denis Hancock)
Evangelicals apparently have so much political clout that they are poised to install a theocracy, according to some commentators. Such critics don't notice there is little distinctively evangelical about the evangelical approach to politics. The evangelical emphases—on conversion, the Cross, the Bible, and activism—do not themselves amount to a full, independent theological system. Nor do they take us far in understanding politics, which requires at least some grasp of history, government, law, justice, freedom, rights, mercy, violence, and war. Thoughtful evangelicals trying to understand politics often draw on the wider resources of Calvinist, Anabaptist, Anglican, Lutheran, or Catholic teaching.
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When arguing their viewpoint on topics like economics or the nature of the family, evangelicals tend to move quickly from the biblical text to contemporary political prescriptions. They hardly address the entirety of the biblical story, and often ignore 2,000 years of Christian reflection on moral and political issues.
Well said! The historical ignorance and superficial examination of Scripture by all stripes of Evangelicals drive me crazy.
Take, for example, how some move from debt forgiveness—required in Israel's sabbatical and Jubilee years—to current programs for forgiving Third World debt. I sympathize with the cause of debt forgiveness, but it is a stretch to argue this from the Bible. Israel's Jubilee was about more than redistributing wealth. God ordained it as the response of a covenanted community, reordering its internal affairs in an explicitly liturgical process. That process began on the Day of Atonement, when Israel commemorated God's forgiveness of its own debts. The Jewish people were to totally depend on God as they abstained from planting crops for two years.
The Jubilee certainly has implications for current debt policies. It implies that debtors do not have an absolute obligation to repay. But it is no blueprint for modern policies to forgive Third World debt if, for example, such forgiveness alleviated fiscal problems and thus strengthened thugs like Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe.
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Consider eschatological speculation that tries to match biblical texts with current events, such as attacks on Israel or wars in Iraq, which fortuitously contains ancient Babylon. Prophetic proponents outline the latest eschatological scenario and sometimes lend their support to U.S. or Israeli policies, believing such policies might fulfill prophecy. Even apart from problematic interpretation, however, this approach gives no guide to action. For example, the fact that Isaiah says God delivered Israel into the Babylonians' hands (Is. 47:6) would give no reason to support the Mesopotamians as they enslaved Israel or destroyed the temple. Predictions about the future provide no guidance, political or otherwise, on what God calls us to do today.
A more pervasive—and perhaps pernicious—pattern makes a prophet the key political actor. This view's advocates implicitly claim the prophet's mantle for themselves. In his widely noted God's Politics, Jim Wallis writes, "The place to begin to understand the politics of God is with the Prophets." Wallis does not bother to justify this unusual contention. The Bible itself does not begin with the Prophets, but with Genesis, as does most Christian reflection on politics throughout history. Nor does Wallis relate the Prophets to the Torah. They challenged rulers on the basis of God's law, not on their own feelings of injustice.
The prophet's vital role cannot substitute for understanding the actual burdens of legal and political responsibility. If we take the Prophets as our political model, then we stress this critical outsider's role. Renowned sociologist Max Weber suggested the Prophets might well be understood as forerunners of a free press. But journalism is no substitute for government. Washington's leaders regard such modern-day prophets as betraying their limited political experience when they complain from a distance about what everyone else is doing wrong and offer no realistic alternative policies.
I especially liked this observation.
These "prophets" disregard the real, day-to-day problems faced by actual politicians. They present utopian societies to achieve, rather than guidance for governing the varied and brawling people politicians govern. It's as if parents received advice on rearing their children by hearing someone describe an ideal child. They might respond, "I know what kids are supposed to be, but that tells me nothing. What I need is advice on what, today, I should do with the little monsters I have."
This was another interesting observation …
Historically, Anabaptist theology has portrayed the state as "Caesar," a realm separate from Christ and inextricably intertwined with the threat of force. Hence, Anabaptists have avoided the government when possible and addressed it prophetically from the fringes. But left-wing politicians, while suspicious of military and police power, frequently call for an expansive government to redistribute income, reform welfare, and provide medical care, among many other social causes. Thus the realm of coercion, "Caesar," is urged to take over ever-larger swaths of society.
It has been my experience that too many on the Evangelical Left are dominated by a schizophrenic position that says the Church needs to be separate from the state and distance themselves from supporting military actions of the state (evoking Anabaptist and people like Yoder and Hauerwas). Yet their solution to almost every economic and social problem is increased government involvement through the power of the government to tax people. Either we are fully engaged as Christians with the state's operations or separate from the state. Pick one, please.
With time, evangelicals will grow wiser about the political arena just as parents do—through lived, practical experience. That experience will deliver a dose of reality about what politics can and cannot accomplish. Political action will not deliver utopia, conquer sin, or change human nature. But it can make a difference between rampant crime and safe neighborhoods, between hungry families and economic security, between victory and defeat in war. And only those who have never been mugged, never been hungry, or never been at war will think these differences trivial.
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