I wonder what a Christian martyr dropped into our cultural moment in history would think of the Church? A people who rejected the idea of the religion of Empire so strongly that they would die rather than accept that religion might be horrified at our embrace of power. I suspect they would quote Paul’s letter to the Ephesian church when confronted with how comfortable we are with the powers of this world.
“For our struggle is not against enemies of blood and flesh, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers of this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.” (Eph 6:12, NRSV)
While we may see this statement from Paul to be dealing exclusively with the spiritual, our ancestors would recognize the powers of the world and the wielding of that power as part of that struggle. The powers of this world usually work to keep that power. Any nod to religions, humanity, or progress is embraced by power only inasmuch as it keeps the powers in power. This is so much a part of our world that we may not notice it as something askew.
The Church should always be skeptical when the powers embrace or claim to protect faith. The question, as the Church asks it, should be what do the powers mean by faith? Which faith tradition and which expression of that tradition is being embraced? Or even more important - is the power subjugating a particular faith for its own use? We only need to look to recent laws demanding the display of the The Commandments in schools to see how the powers operate. Those laws demand a particular version of the Ten Commandments stripped of the themes of liberation and words that would diminish the power of the political authorities.
Speaking of the Ten Commandments, if we look to the third commandment we need to read that as it was intended. Taking the name of God in vain is not saying “oh my God” or other variations. Taking the name of God in vain is to use the name of God to control others or further personal or powerful agendas. If we read the third commandment in this framework, then we might understand the position the earliest Christians took to the powers of the world. There was intense mistrust of the use of religion by the powers, until there wasn’t. When Constantine seized Christian language and symbols, he used those as a talisman to gain and keep control of Empire. It is not much different today.
Now we get to the place where there be dragons.
The place of struggle against powers has been on my mind recently as I see reports of contrasting expressions of Christianity and the way the powers respond to those expressions.
The first image is of a worship gathering at the White House. This was led by Sean Feucht and Paula White. They are Christians who have an expression of Christianity that leans heavily into partisan politics and the access to power that provides them. Feucht has led worship gatherings in many places of power and used those gatherings to further political ideology as well. Paula White leads the White House Faith Office. She is also a pastor of a prosperity gospel church. White has made claims that criticizing Donald Trump is criticizing God. Leading up to Easter, White offered followers the opportunity to get a special assigned angel and angel armies to defeat their enemies…
…all for the low price of one thousand dollars.
There was a celebration of being close to power and the worship was mainly about blessings upon the gathered worshippers. The below image claims that White has supported pastors across the country. That may be a true claim, but many pastors have also been criticized by White for not being part of partisan political cheerleading.
Contrast this picture with the one of a small group of pastors gathering in the United States Capitol Rotunda to pray for mercy and in opposition to cuts that impact programs for the poor and marginalized in our society. In contrast to the worship and claim of blessings, Rev. William J. Barber led prayer for the human beings the powers decide do not matter. Rev. Barber was praying for those who Jesus explicitly said he came for. The claims of fighting anti-Christian bias falls is exposed as protecting only some expressions of Christian faith. The expressions of Christianity that challenges the powers finds itself told to quit speaking and praying. In an act of concealment, the Capitol Police cleared the Rotunda of the press and others as they moved in to arrest Rev. Barber and other pastors for…
…praying in protest.
“Among the practices not allowed in Congressional buildings, Capitol Police said, are sitting, kneeling, group praying, singing, and chanting.” Funny thing coming from a power claiming free speech is important and that peaceful protests should be allowed in places such as the Capitol Rotunda. I also see a highly ironic twist in that praying is forbidden in a place in which members of Congress who use the threat of government forbidding prayer as a tool to get elected. Religion friendly with Empire becomes alright with Empire silencing the religion that dares to speak prophetically to Empire.
Because many of us see our identity centered in expressions of culture and cultural Christian practices, it is challenging for pastors to speak prophetically in our time. You realize how easily your words can be taken as insults or attacks on people in this environment. We struggle to separate ideas and systems from the people caught up in those ideas and systems and believe that any criticism of systems is a criticism of the people caught in those systems. Christians can be a people within, but not shaped by the world. Alan Kreider shares the words of Tertullian’s defense of Christianity in its early centuries.
For Christians are no different from other people in terms of their country, language, or customs. Nowhere do they inhabit cities of their own, use a strange dialect, or live life out of the ordinary. . . . They inhabit both Greek and barbarian cities, according to the lot assigned to each. And they show forth the character of their own citizenship [politeias] in a marvelous and admittedly paradoxical way by following local customs in what they wear and what they eat and in the rest of their lives. They live in their respective countries, but only as resident aliens [paroikoi]; they participate in all things as citizens, and they endure all things as foreigners. . . . They marry like everyone else and have children, but they do not expose them once they are born. They share their meals but not their sexual partners. They are obedient to the laws that have been made, and by their own lives they supersede the laws. . . . They are impoverished and make many rich. . . . To put the matter simply, what the soul is in the body, this is what Christians are in the world. (Kreider)
When I see the competing images of Christians worshipping while embracing power versus the image of Christians being arrested for praying in protest, I see the latter as more faithfully reflecting the life of Jesus we find in the Gospels. It is the contrast of Religio Exclusorum contra Religionem Imperii. Religion of the Outcasts versus the Religion of Empire.
Kreider, Alan. The Patient Ferment of the Early Church: The Improbable Rise of Christianity in the Roman Empire (pp. 98–99).