John the Baptist and Politics

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 4^th and 5^th 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

Prophecy & Politics

Preparing the Way

The Prophetic Voice in Politics

“Strengthen the weak hands, and confirm the feeble knees.” Is 35.3

This has been the prayer of many a curate at Sunday evening Benediction, which comes so soon after the last bottles of lunch have been drained. But it also reflects a ‘double theme’ which runs through Isaiah, and indeed all the prophets.

On the one hand, the prophets tell us, if we would but realise it, we are weak and depend on God for strength and encouragement more than we know.

On the other hand, having experienced that strengthening and support from God, we must in turn protect the weak and vulnerable in our society.

In most of the OT there was not yet developed an international dimension to this calling - that is to protect the weak and vulnerable in all the nations - indeed, a cursory reading of the OT prophets might leave you thinking that wholesale slaughter was the way of dealing with differences with neighbouring countries.

But there were hints in the prophets and law of a broader responsibility for universal care. So the refugees, sojourners, migrant workers - these are all singled out for particular care by the people of God.

And the prophets point forward all the time to an age when all the nations will be drawn into the loving purposes of God - a theme that is common to much of the Advent emphasis on the Second Coming of Christ.

This ‘looking forward’ has come to be so identified with prophecy, that in common language, prophecy is often synonymous with foretelling the future.

But it is not primarily that. It is speaking for God; bringing the message of God; reminding God’s people of the promises God has made to them and of the responsibilities he places on them.

In the 1960s and 70s, the charismatic movement produced a whole spate of modern-day prophets, exercising what they saw as the gift of prophecy referred to by St Paul in his list of gifts of the Spirit. There were many prayer cells where futures were foretold for various participants.

I remember my scepticism being fed by one particularly zealous young ‘prophet’ who started with the memorable words apparently spoken on behalf of the omniscient God: “Thus says the Lord: “I have nothing against you… as far as I know.””

Most biblical prophecy is in fact a forceful restatement of God’s principles for life and worship; and a forceful restatement of God’s love and mercy. The looking forward was in order to strengthen people in the eschatological hope of God’s coming. The idea that there would be a resolution when justice would be seen to be done.

On this 3rd Sunday in Advent, when we think of the role of John the Baptist, imprisoned and beheaded not for his religious beliefs, but because he meddled in politics; I want us to think about the church’s prophetic voice in politics.

We have only to look at the present war footing of the Britain and America to be reminded that politics is too important to be left to politicians.

The OT prophets, who play so prominent a part in our Advent preparations, knew no distinction between politics and prophecy.

What is our working definitions of politics? It is to do with authority, social structures, the exercise of power within society. The politics of different groups at different times in history have varied enormously. At present in the West, the two great shaping democratic ideologies have become capitalism and socialism.

Of course popularly, these are both regarded with great suspicion. As one cynic has put it: capitalism is man’s exploitation of man, whereas socialism is the exact opposite.

Now the OT prophets knew no distinction between politics and prophecy, 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. There was no need of a king, but Israel demanded one, and reluctantly God gave them Saul and that was the beginning of the end of theocracy.

Over the two thousand years following the anointing of Israel’s first king, eventually the church became the new Israel and arguably, 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 synonymous.

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 in politics?

Some of you might raise a mild St Mary’s cheer if I were to answer that question - where does that leave the prophetic voice in politics? - with ‘nowhere!’.

But that has not been the response of the historic churches over the last century. It has been the response of some sects - the JWs, the Mormons, strict Calvinists; but it has not been the response of either mainline Protestants or Catholics.

Sometimes political intervention and a so-called prophetic voice has been disastrous. It has added to the bigotry and misunderstanding that divide nations and encourages mental and sometimes physical violence.

So although theocracy is all but dead, thank God - it is still advocated by some fundamentalists. There are those in Britain and America - restitutionists - who want to bring back a state that enforces OT law. I’ve read their leaflets, for instance, advocating that after a two week warning to ‘change your lifestyle’, gays should be executed. It would certainly ease congestion in central London, but most of us would not recognise this as the prophetic voice in politics.

But sometimes the prophetic voice has been heroic and Christlike in it’s attempts to bring peace and justice: Bonhoeffer, Romero, Mandella, and hopefully, Rowan Williams.

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 anyway - the broad sweep of Biblical ethics, reinforced by our Lord’s own teaching: summed up in Isaiah

“Cease to do evil; learn to do good; seek justice, correct oppression; defend the fatherless, plead for the widow.” (1.16)

or in 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.

And this has little to do with party politics. When we say ‘we don’t like politics in the pulpit’ we usually mean we don’t like politics which are different from ours in the pulpit…

A Christian who is involved in politics - and thank God for the many who are - must in the end decide on certain policies; and these result from political ideologies.

But these political ideologies must never be presented as the prophetic voice of God. The church is on catastrophically shaky ground when it starts making policy statements. This is to try and return to a theocracy, where we presume to know the mind of God on specific issues.
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: 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.

Doesn’t it strike you sometimes, as you look at our world and some of the chaotic forces at work within it; the proliferation of nuclear arms; the development of biological weapons - just how fragile our world order is? That anarchy lurks just below the surface?

We need the humility to look at ourselves and others and to cry with the prophets:

“Strengthen the weak hands, and confirm the feeble knees.” Is 35.3

Ascension 2002

Ascension Day

“until the day in which he was taken up, he spoke of the things, pertaining to the kingdom…” Acts 1.3

Sometimes, when I’m surfing the net, which being interpreted for the Luddites means, spending two hours on the computer gathering fascinating information from around the world while in fact trying to find the time of the train from Waterloo to Esher...

...when I’m surfing the net, I think, all this is done with the two numbers 0 & 1; or more simply, with ‘off’ and ‘on’. There is an electric current, or there is not. The computer knows nothing of nuances; there are no middle positions; there is no New Labour.

The scourge of good theology has often been this cybernetic polarity; the simple either/or which is rarely illuminating, but can at least serve to point us towards the both/and; the media via for which Anglicanism is both famous and famously mocked.

At the Ascension of our Lord, the disciples fell into two opposing errors:

1 The Political Error
“Lord, wilt thou at this time restore again the kingdom to Israel?” (v.6)

Calvin comments scathingly on this enquiry from the disciples: “there are as many errors in this question as words.”

The disciples still thought, after these three years and all the events of Easter, and Christ’s teaching during the past 40 days about the kingdom, that he was to establish an earthly Utopia, with himself as King.
But as long as human nature is flawed - that is until the end of the cosmos - there will be the need for democracy.

Democracy is the political way in which we recognise the limits and weaknesses of all human institutions, whether in society or in the church. There can be no Theocracy. The Pope is but a man.

Frustrating and imperfect as they are, synods and councils are the safest way forward, for since Christ has ascended, there can be no heaven on earth. Humanity is not perfectible. Nature will always be ‘red in tooth and claw’.

2 The Pietist Error
“why stand ye gazing up into heaven?” (v.11)

There are those who are so disillusioned with the Big Bad World, and so daunted by its challenges, that they would rather stand gazing into heaven, hoping for a glimpse of the heavenly Jesus, hoping he will come back to establish an earthly kingdom.

They call people to devotion at the expense of action. They look to the ‘then’, and endure the ‘now’.

Or in our own tradition, sometimes like the early Gnostics, they make heaven so spiritual and earth so carnal, that it ceases to matter how they live here on earth - for only the spiritual counts.

Whichever way - excessive piety or careless indulgence - it is not the way of Christ. Since he has ascended, there is a better way.

It is the way of the Spirit. The way of the kingdom.

The disciples were sent to wait for the Holy Spirit. At Pentecost he is to give them heavenly power for earthly responsibility.

I was reading that little booklet today by Canon Donald Gray about Percy Dearmer (The British Museum Religion) - you can tell I have 101 unpalatable tasks to do when I’m reduced to reading tracts about Percy Dearmer.

And I was struck by the sentence about Dearmer: “At Oxford the art master’s son began to realise that there were social, political and religious implications behind his natural instinct to celebrate beauty.” (p.4) Dearmer struggled to follow the media via between these two errors over the following years.

He pursued God through the beauty of Anglo-Catholic liturgy, and at the same time he worked for social justice and to establish the kingdom of God on earth.

Christ, our warrior-king, the priest-victim, returns into his own kingdom. He ascends triumphant, leading captivity captive, commanding us to wait with bated breath for the gift of the Spirit, who will save us from error, lead us into all truth and enable us to live on earth as citizens of the eternal kingdom.

“until the day in which he was taken up, he spoke of the things, pertaining to the kingdom…” Acts 1.3