Political Engagement as Biblical Mandate
Paul D. Hanson
Cascade Books - Eugene, Oregon
POLITICAL ENGAGEMENT AS BIBLICAL MANDATE
Copyright © 2010 Paul D. Hanson. All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in critical publications or reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without prior written permission from the publisher. Write: Permissions, Wipf and Stock Publishers, 199 W. 8th Ave., Suite 3, Eugene, OR 97401.
Cascade Books
An Imprint of Wipf and Stock Publishers
199 W. 8th Ave., Suite 3
Eugene, OR 97401
www.wipfandstock.com
isbn 13: 978-1-55635-515-8
Cataloging-in-Publication data:
Hanson, Paul D.
Political engagement as biblical mandate / Paul D. Hanson.
isbn 13: 978-1-55635-515-8
viii + 160 p. ; 23 cm. Includes bibliographical references and indexes.
1. Bible—Hermeneutics. 2. Christianity and politics—Biblical teaching. 3. Covenant theology—Biblical teaching. I. Title.
bs680 p45 h35 2010
Manufactured in the U.S.A.
Introduction
The infusion of public debate with religious arguments, though as genuinely American as apple pie, has in recent times generated a carefully articulated position for “checking religion at the door” before a citizen enters the public forum.1 It would appear that at least in part this position is the liberal’s response to the success that has accompanied the Religious Right’s discovery of its public voice. As a result of the collective efforts of a broad coalition of Christian Evangelicals, elections have been influenced if not determined, judicial appointments have undergone uncharacteristically rigorous litmus tests, and local and state school boards have been pressured into aggressive tactics in the selection of science curricula and textbooks. The ironically un-liberal argument from the left seems to be this: Though for over two centuries, American political decisions have been hammered out on the anvil of religio-political debate, the civic manner in which that debate historically has been conducted is being threatened by a sanctimonious appeal to purportedly uncontestable biblical warrants for criminalizing abortion, banning gay marriage, and mandating the teaching of creationism in public schools. The argument goes on to claim that with the maturing of our culture into a post-Christian secularism and the increase in religious and ideological diversity (e.g., presently in the U.S. Muslims have come to outnumber Episcopalians), the free expression of religious ideas in public debate exacerbates civic tension and undermines a society’s ability to solve its most urgent problems.
In the pages that follow I seek to make the case that religiously informed thought has played and can continue to play a constructive role in the public forum over domestic and international issues that are weighted with moral content. At the same time, the stark fact that religion has often been introduced into public controversies in a manner more manipulative and coercive than civil and engaging underlines the need to clarify what style of religious argument is proper, legal within our First Amendment tradition, and helpful in relation to the health and vitality of the Republic. Beyond the issue of what can be called the etiquette of public discourse is the equally controversial issue of the nature of a religious tradition’s authority within the public realm, and it should be granted from the outset that in a religiously diverse society, all scriptures must be treated on an equal plain. As we shall see, widely divergent views emerge, ranging from the fundamentalist view that a given Scripture infallibly circumscribes divinely revealed truth that is normative for all human questions and social issues to the view that all scriptures are to be understood strictly as the products of human authors.
Inasmuch as my view occupies a position between the fundamentalist/absolutist and the humanist/relativist views, I shall seek to articulate a position that accepts a particular scriptural tradition, the Jewish-Christian tradition, as a reliable witness to divine purpose for human existence and the entire created order while affirming at the same time that any interpreter of that tradition participates fully in the epistemological limits that define the viewpoint of every human, no matter what his or her religion or philosophical position.
Because both facets of the problem facing the person of faith who seeks to explain the relevance of Scripture for our life together in a diverse society are complicated and resistant to any comprehensive answer, the chapters that follow are best viewed as explorations. But rather than haphazard, they seek to probe several of the questions that I believe lie at the heart of the question, what light does the Bible shed on life in our nation and world today? In terms of my personal scholarship, it can be viewed as a “trial balloon” sent out into the open skies of the public square in hope for constructive criticism and lively debate.
1. Richard Rorty, “Religion as Conversation-stopper.”
1 In Search of a Biblically Based Political Theology
Our Task
It has become common parlance to speak of a global economy. Whether in boom times or recessions, the interdependency of nations—large and small, industrial and developing—is evident. The banking crisis that struck the member-states of the G10 in 2008 threatened the financial stability not only of the world’s richest countries, but had crippling effects on nations that even in more normal times were finding it impossible to service their debts and provide minimal care for their poor and infirm. In the area of economics, the world clearly is woven tightly into a single web. As much as individual states would like to step outside of this web, they are bound as economic partners “for better or for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health.”
In the meantime, many people of faith live in a world that is confined to their particular congregation, denomination, or locality. Charity is directed to the immediate neighbor and the spiritual family is coterminous with one’s own parish, whereas references to Darfur, Somalia, and Pakistan register with the hollow sound of far away places. Such are the fruits of a spirituality that has become increasingly individualistic, of an ecclesiology excluding any concept of the individual congregation being part of a worldwide network, of salvation construed as a gift of eternal life given exclusively to those adopting a particular set of beliefs.
Fortunately, the classic biblical view of the church as a universal phenomenon has not been extinguished completely, but lives on in congregations in Minnesota vitally connected with sister congregations in Tanzania, among doctors devoting months of pro bona service in disaster areas throughout the world, and within organizations raising millions of dollars for food, medicines and agricultural equipment in striving to serve “the least of these my brethren.”
Perhaps the need to re-experience the world as one global family of God’s children is especially urgent in a country like the United States where endemic isolationism fosters a hegemonous sense of superiority. To the extent that engaging in the commerce of religious and ethical ideas is entertained, it is construed as exporting aspects of the world’s most advanced civilization to more benighted parts of the world.
Although such a parochial worldview can be challenged both by rigorous news reporting and commentary such as one gets on NPR and PBS and insightful fictional and nonfictional books like Khaled Hosseini’s The Kite Runner, Greg Mortenson and David Relin’s Three Cups of Tea, Elias Chacour and David Hazard’s Blood Brothers, and Rory Stewart’s The Places in Between, Mark Twain’s antidote perhaps remains the most effective for the fortunate minority that can afford it, namely, the exposure of “innocents abroad” to other cultures through travel. Three times in the last several years, my own “innocent” eyes have been opened thanks to invitations to lecture in South Africa, the Philippines, and India. In each case, what modest scholarly contribution I could offer was repaid many times over by lessons taught by courageous women and men