Advent 2
Isaiah 11.1-10; Romans 15.4-9; Matthew 3.1-12
“The earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.” Is 11.9
Tony Blair and that defender of atheism, Christopher Hitchens, debated last weekend in Toronto the proposition that 'Religion is a force for good in the world'. In a vote after the debate, the audience voted two-to-one in Mr Hitchens' favour.
This is a long way on from 2003 when an American journalist from Vanity Fair asked Mr Blair a question about belief, and his former communications manager, Alistair Campbell, stopped the interview in its tracks with the memorable shout from the side: “We don't do God.”
Even the editor of the Economist has recently co-authored the book: “God is back”. Although many of us suspect he never went away.
In Advent, the readings encourage us to think of the role of John the Baptist, imprisoned and beheaded not for his religious beliefs, but because he muddled in politics.
The Old Testament prophets knew no distinction between politics and prophecy. Generally, they were to speak to the powerful on behalf of God and the powerless. Isaiah’s vision that we read earlier was a call to the people of Israel to work towards a godly commonwealth.
St Paul’s plea in today’s epistle to the Romans was for greater international harmony and understanding. Christ, the root of Jesse of which Isaiah prophesied, was to be the hope of all nations and not just the Jews.
I greatly enjoyed Hilary Mantel’s novel Wolf Hall on Thomas Cromwell and life in the court of Henry VIII. And that led me on to start reading the CJ Sansom detective novels set in the same period.
It reminded me that the politics of different groups at different times in our history have varied enormously while all claiming to be Christian.
At present in the West, the two great shaping ideologies have become capitalism and socialism. And popularly these are both regarded with healthy cynicism.
So as one pundit has put it: capitalism is man’s exploitation of man, whereas socialism is the exact opposite.
It reminds me of that schoolboy witticism about the difference between democracy and feudalism: in democracy, your votes count, whereas in feudalism it’s the other way round.
The reason the OT prophets knew no distinction between politics and prophecy, was because they operated within a theocracy. God was Head of State. His priests and prophets spoke on behalf of God and received revelations from him in the Divine Privy Council.
Although when we look back on some of the actions they took in the name of God, it could just be possible that they misheard occasionally!
So in the days of the prophets and the judges, there was no need for a king. But Israel demanded one, to keep up with the neighbours, and reluctantly God gave them Saul which was the beginning of the end of theocracy.
Fourteen hundred years after the anointing of Israel’s first king - we’re talking about the 4th and 5th centuries - the church arguably became the new Israel and Christendom became the new theocracy.
But now it was no longer prophets who spoke the voice of God, it was the rulers of church and state - which were often the same men.
Another thousand years on and one of the struggles of the last three centuries in the West has been to try and separate religion from politics. In America, they have constitutionally done it in theory, although not in practice. Whereas in Europe, we have generally done it in practice, while not in theory.
So where does that leave the prophetic voice of the Church in politics?
Well some would say, nowhere. If John the Baptist had kept his head down, he wouldn’t have lost it!
But that has not been the response of the historic churches over the last couple of centuries. It has been the response of some sects - the Jehovah’s Witnesses, the Mormons, strict Calvinists, some Pentecostal groups; but it has not been the response of either mainline Protestants or Catholics.
Now we know from history that sometimes political intervention by the Church and a so-called prophetic voice has been disastrous. It has added to the bigotry and misunderstanding that divide nations and encourage mental and sometimes physical violence. And sadly that is still true in parts of the world.
The majority of that audience in the debate between Blair and Hitchens last week thought this is more often the case than not.
But sometimes the intervention of the Church in the politics of the day has been heroic and Christlike in its attempts to bring peace and justice. Think of Wilberforce, Bonhoeffer, Romero, Mandela, Martin Luther King… the list goes on.
Well theocracy is now all but dead - although it is still advocated by some fundamentalists in all three of the historic faiths – Jews, Muslims and Christians.
There are those Christians in America and a few in Britain - restitutionists they are called - who want to re-establish a state that enforces Old Testament law. I’ve read their leaflets, frightening though they are.
For instance, they advocate that gays should be given warning to ‘change their lifestyle’ and if they fail to comply, they should be summarily executed! It would certainly ease congestion in central London, but most of us would not recognise this as the prophetic voice in politics.
If the church is to speak into our society, including the political structures, in any sense as ‘for God’, then we are left with what the prophets majored on - the broad sweep of Biblical ethics, reinforced by our Lord’s own teaching, summed up in the Advent prophet Isaiah “Cease to do evil; learn to do good; seek justice, correct oppression; defend the fatherless, plead for the widow.” (1.16) or famously in the prophet Micah “He hath shewed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the LORD require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?” (6.8)
Our Lord echoes these prophetic signposts with his command to love God with the totality of our being, and to love neighbour as self.
John the Baptist was perhaps politically naïve, but his call to repentance and holiness was a necessary preparation for the ministry of Jesus – and the ministry of Jesus would bring about in time the greatest political upheavals the world has ever seen.
The prophetic voice of the church in politics must always be to call our leaders to pay heed to those underlying truths of human authenticity which Jesus exemplifies: goodness, justice, mercy. And to remember, lest we get above ourselves, that we need God’s help and Christ’s example in ordering our society.
We need to tread carefully, but to pray for our politicians, especially those who own the name of Christ, and to work through our democratic structures for a society where:
“The earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.” Is 11.9
