Category Archives: Christian Social Ethics

Christianity and the Social Order (Part 6)

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In part six of our series, we are finally ready to address the questions “May Christians argue in the public sphere of a secular state for their preferred public policies? If so, how?”

Inescapable Limits

We are born into already existing societies with long traditions of culture and civilization and finely-woven networks of relationships negotiated over the centuries. There is no possibility of creating a society from scratch. I see no way to escape history and dream up, much less construct, a completely rational social and political order. We do the best we can do where we live. I live in the United States of America on the eve of its 250th anniversary. As a citizen, I have access to the means other citizens have to influence public policy. But how should my Christian faith and Christian moral convictions affect the range of policies I support and how may I argue for them? And how may I exercise these rights while taking care not to misuse Jesus’s and his apostles’ moral teachings, given to individual Christians and the Church, by claiming his authority for my public policy preferences?

Reason, Tradition, and Moral Law

Christianity’s moral vision is not utterly unique and other worldly. Indeed, it includes extraordinary virtues, behaviors, and attitudes that cannot be legislated by a state. But it also includes the common principles and moral rules that make human society possible. Peace, order, and justice are Christian as well as universal human values. Christianity prohibits murder, stealing, lying under oath, rape, and many forms of violent, anti-social acts. In arguing for policies that operationalize these basic social rules, Christians don’t need to appeal explicitly to Jesus’s teaching or the kingdom-of-God vision. We can appeal to practical reason, common moral sensibility or a common sense of decency. Moreover, in the USA Christians can appeal to the Constitution and the Bill of Rights in legal arguments. Appealing in this way to practical reason we can be more persuasive to a public many of whom do not share our Christian faith. If we appeal to the authority of Jesus to support a policy that could have been supported by practical reason, we may unintentionally leave the impression that the rationality of the policy depends on faith in Jesus. Non-religious people may inadvertently be given an excuse to dismiss the proposal as religiously based. Additionally, such a strategy may provoke needless debates among Christians about the meaning of Jesus’s teaching for public morality.

Christian Realism

We may debate what virtues and vices may realistically be institutionalized in law. As examples, one can make some excellent rational arguments against drunkenness, divorce, fornication, adultery, pornography, and many other destructive behaviors. But society as a whole may not be convinced that making such behaviors illegal is worth the trouble. Even if we limit our arguments to those that can be supported by practical rationality and argue from moral principles recognizable by all people, we need to be realistic about how much restraint on their lust and greed people will tolerate. People welcome laws against murder, robbery, kidnapping, and theft, that is, laws that protect their persons and property. They can see the rationality of traffic and zoning laws. But they resent laws that restrict what they perceive to be their liberties. As we discussed in the previous essay, Christians should know that the kingdom of God cannot be realized in its fulness by human effort. I do not believe that it is our duty as Christians to impose morality on society beyond that necessary for the continuance of civilization. To attempt this is to risk becoming unnecessarily obnoxious to the general public.

Christianized Reason

If Christians need to limit their public policy arguments to practical reason and constitutional law, what difference, then, does being a Christian make in a person’s political involvement? In my view, something like the following may specify that difference.

Christians are being transformed into the image of Christ (2 Corinthians 3:18) and liberated from the powers of sin, death, and the devil (Romans 8:1-3). The Holy Spirit places the love of God in their hearts, and they are animated by the hope of the glory of God (Romans 5:1-4). Christians are called to live extraordinary lives, and they have been given the resources to do so:

Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry. Because of these, the wrath of God is coming.You used to walk in these ways, in the life you once lived. But now you must also rid yourselves of all such things as these: anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthy language from your lips. Do not lie to each other, since you have taken off your old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator (Colossians 3:5-10)

If they use the gifts they have been given, Christians can be liberated from irrational passions and habitual vices that obscure reason’s proper functioning. Christians may perceive the goodness and rationality of a policy that people blinded by bad habits and irrational passions cannot see. Even if Christians limit their public policy arguments to practical reason understandable by all, the policies for which they argue and the strength of their arguments will be affected by their Christian experience and faith. Christian citizens may be able to help non-religious citizens see what they could not otherwise see because of social pressure, passion, and habit.

Christianity and the Social Order (Part 5)

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In part four of our series on Christianity and the Social Order we explored how Christians will by their existence and day-to-day activities indirectly influence this order. In part five we will pursue the question of whether or not, given the inner nature of Christian faith, some public policies are to be preferred over others. This issue needs to be clarified before we can address the legitimacy of Christians attempting to influence the social and political order directly.

An Introductory Reminder

Many Christians take for granted their right and duty, guided by their faith, to exert through political means a moral influence on the social world in which they live. The only debatable issues are what policies, parties, and candidates are most likely to shepherd society to be more like the kingdom of God envisioned by Jesus. They vote, make campaign contributions, place political stickers on their cars, and run for office—all without asking themselves whether Jesus’s moral teachings warrant or even permit their efforts. I designed this series to examine this unexamined presumption.

Christian Preferences for Public Policies

Believers live in many different forms of political order. It is possible to be a Christian in any of them. My question here is this: beginning with the inherent nature and logic of the Christian faith, are certain public policies to be preferred over others? We are not yet ready to ask whether or not Christians—as individuals or as the institutional church in reliance on Jesus’s teaching—may attempt to influence the state to institutionalize their preferred policies.

The Kingdom of God

Christianity envisions a perfect community, which serves as the ideal by which it measures all other communities, including the church. Jesus taught us to pray “your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as in heaven” (Matthew 6:10). For Christianity, the ideal society involves universal justice, peace, unity and love of neighbor and love of God grounded in unanimous acknowledgement of Jesus Christ as Lord. Paul explains that the humiliation and exaltation of Jesus aims at Christ’s universal lordship:

that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow,
    in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord,
    to the glory of God the Father. (Philippians 2:10-11).

Christians long for the coming kingdom and would prefer that it come sooner rather than later. However, I can detect no reason to think that Jesus or the early church expected the kingdom of God to be realized in its fulness through ordinary political means—war and legislation. It will be God’s work and will arrive only at the end of history when God will be “all in all” (1 Corinthians 15:28).

Christians should of course prefer that all people freely embrace the values of the kingdom, and in living as light in the world and preaching the gospel, they work toward this end. Given the nature of the kingdom, however, Christians should know better than to attempt to establish the kingdom by political means.

State Church

It seems to me that no Christian should want the state to establish Christianity as the official state religion. Many evils flow from such arrangements: religious persecution, widespread hypocrisy, and the politicization of doctrine. But I think the most basic Christian arguments against church establishment are that the individual act of faith must be free and Christian behavior must arise from sincere love. Legal coercion or worldly advantage are destructive of faith and love.

State Persecution

I don’t see how a Christian could prefer to live under a state that is actively hostile to Christianity. We are called to endure persecution if we must, but we are not obligated to seek it. Surely it is better from a Christian point of view to live in a situation where we can believe and practice our faith freely and share it with others without fear of state persecution.

Freedom of Belief and Practice

The logic of Christianity supports neither coercing people to practice Christianity nor persecuting them for doing so. It seems rather that Christians should rejoice to live within a society where one is free to practice Christianity, some other religion, or none at all.

Next: May Christians argue in the public sphere of a secular state for their preferred public policies? If so, how?

Christianity and the Social Order (Part 4)

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In the first three parts of this series, I argued that Jesus and his apostles addressed their moral teaching to individual believers, not to institutions. I examined three different ways people attempt to apply this moral teaching to the social/political order and pronounced them all failures. Does Jesus’s moral teaching, then, have no relevance to the order and conduct of society? Must Christians keep to themselves and “Let the dead bury their own dead” (Luke 9:60)? Or, is there a way Christians can participate in political society without distorting Jesus’s moral teaching?

No Easy Task

I acknowledge that this is a difficult and controversial subject. I have no illusions that I can resolve issues that have been debated since the Emperor Constantine legalized Christianity in the Roman Empire. Additionally, Christians find themselves living in vastly different societies in every country and among every people in the world. I cannot presume to understand their situation well enough to answer their questions. They must think through their own situations. My thought is stamped with the fact that I was born in the United States of America and have lived there my whole life. The best I can do is methodically think through the question, given my experience. Perhaps I can shed a little light even for those who live in other nations.

Indirect Influence

Unavoidable

The first thing on which to get clear is that Christians cannot avoid having some influence on the society in which they live. To live in a society, we will have to participate in the market place and the workplace. We will relate to the state, at least passively, by abiding by laws and regulations, paying taxes, and many other ways. We will interact with family, neighbors, fellow workers, store clerks, doctors, and many others. As those shaped by the moral teachings of Jesus—if we truly are his disciples—even our ordinary interactions with people will witness to our faith. People will notice our “good lives” and perhaps ask why we live this way (1 Peter 2:12). And some may awaken to the moral law written on their hearts long buried by social corruption.

Good Works

We will exert influence not only by being law-abiding, peace-loving and helpful people but by doing good things beyond what we must. Jesus explained to his disciples:

You are the light of the world. A town built on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven (Matthew 5:14-16).

From the beginning, Christians have engaged in ministries to the poor, widows and orphans, founded hospitals, build schools, helped with famine relief, and braved plague-ridden cities to care for the dying. Christians don’t do these things to exert social and political influence; yet by displaying true virtue they gradually, indirectly transformed the moral ideals of whole cultures.  And these moral ideals gradually influenced the laws, order, and policies of nations.

Evangelism

Jesus imposed on his disciples a mandate for evangelism. Jesus said,

 All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you (Matthew 28:18-20).

As is obvious from these words, evangelism combines the call to believe the good news, to be incorporated into the church and to adopt the way of life Jesus had taught his disciples. Evangelism speaks a message to the world: repent, believe, receive baptism and learn how to live as a disciple of Jesus. Even though the evangelistic message is not a direct attempt to influence social policy or the individual morality of the general public, it may have an indirect influence toward those ends. The evangelist aims to convert people to Jesus Christ and won’t be satisfied with “making the world a better place.” Nevertheless, the good news of Jesus and the call to a life of high morals may indirectly have this effect.

Next: In part five, we will ask if some political orders, systems of laws and social policies are more compatible with Christian faith, morality and practice than others. If so, can a serious disciple of Jesus actively seek to bring about the order most compatible with Christianity?

Jesus and the Politicians

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In the previous instalment I argued that Jesus and Paul did not address their moral teachings to institutions, such as the state, corporations, professions, or clubs. Only individuals can obey Jesus’s moral commands. On what grounds, then, do advocates invoke Jesus’s moral teachings to justify their public policy proposals? And what are their motivations for wanting Jesus’s support?

I think these strategies fall into three categories.

Thoughtless Clichés

Some politicians, social media junkies, and political pundits quote the teachings of Jesus, the apostles or the prophets without any attempt to justify using them in contexts and for purposes alien to their original settings. Examples are abundant: one often hears Jesus’s words “Do not judge, or you will be judged” (Matthew 7:1) quoted to deflect criticism of immoral acts. Or, it is argued that we should support a universal right to government funded healthcare because Jesus said that God “has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free” (Luke 4:18; quoting Isaiah 61:1-2). Again, should not government act as a counterweight to the rich and powerful and take the side of the poor, because, in the language of liberation theology, “God is always on the side of the poor”?  Jesus’s words are often quoted as proof of this liberationist thesis:

Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God…But woe to you who are rich, for you have already received your comfort (Luke 6:20-24).

And James says,

Listen, my dear brothers and sisters: Has not God chosen those who are poor in the eyes of the world to be rich in faith and to inherit the kingdom he promised those who love him? But you have dishonored the poor. Is it not the rich who are exploiting you? Are they not the ones who are dragging you into court? (James 2:5-6).

Misapplication of the Old Testament

Another group, composed of Christian socialists and Black “prophetic” preachers on the left and so-called “Christian nationalists” on the right apply the Old Testament’s moral and social teachings to the United States of America and other Western democracies to very different ends. But neither left nor right take into account that the Old Testament law was given to the ancient people of Israel, which was a theocratic state governed by a specific covenant with God. The covenant laws—religious as well as moral—were binding on all the people within the realm. In contrast, the New Covenant announced by Jesus (Luke 22:20 and 1 Corinthians 11:25) is based on faith and obedience to Jesus, not on national or ethnic identity. This community is the new covenant people of God; it is not a political entity with sovereignty over all people within its borders—Christians, atheists, moral and immoral. To apply the OT laws given to ancient Israel or the moral instruction given in the NT to the disciples of Jesus to the United States (or other modern states) without due consideration for the differences is a misuse of Scripture and a case of flawed ethical reasoning. The United States of America is neither the Old Covenant nor the New Covenant people of God.

Academic Abstraction and Transposition

In my experience, most academic Christian ethicists understand that the moral teaching of the Bible should not be applied to modern societies uncritically. They are well aware that OT moral teaching was addressed to the ancient covenant people and the NT moral teaching speaks directly to Christians only. Moreover, they understand the point I made in the previous essay in this series, that is, that Jesus’s and the apostles’ moral teaching asserts a strict unity between the inner condition of the soul and external behavior. Good works without love are worthless (1 Corinthians 13). And one who claims to love but does nothing to help others is a liar (1 John 4:20).

The United States of America and other modern states concern themselves for the most part with external behaviors that significantly affect the peace, security and general welfare of society. They do not make policy based on the moral teaching of First Corinthians 13. Jesus said the greatest command is to love God with all your being and the second is to love your neighbor as yourself (Matthew 22:34-40). No state has ever enshrined these teachings in law—not even in Calvin’s Geneva, Cromwell’s England or John Knox’s Scotland—nor could they be policed if they were. Additionally, modern states find it prudent to allow some external behaviors to be practiced that are clearly taught to be immoral by Jesus and the apostles. How, then, do Christian ethicists develop a Christian political/social ethics for a society that is religiously diverse and contains significant numbers of atheists, agnostics, nihilists, libertines, Marxists, anarchists, and others?

Admittedly, there are a variety of ways Christian thinkers go about developing “Christian” social ethics. But all of them have one strategy in common. They all abstract principles or rules they judge to underlie the moral teaching of the Bible, remove them from their original setting in ancient Israel or the early Christian community and transpose them into a modern secular setting. As one example, as a graduate student in a course in theological ethics I studied the ethics of Reinhold Niebuhr. In his book An Interpretation of Christian Ethics (1935), Niebuhr argues that the Christian ideal of agape love (First Corinthians 13!) cannot be realized even in the life of an individual, much less in political society. But accepting universal love as a moral ideal can inspire us to work toward the closest approximation possible in this world, that is justice. Hence Niebuhr’s theory of ethics is called “Christian Realism.” But is “Christian Realism” Christian in any meaningful sense? The abstract concept of justice as “giving to everyone their due” (Aristotle) is common coinage in all the great ethical systems. What do we gain by calling it an “approximation” of Christian love? How can you have Christian ethics without faith, hope and love, that is, without Christ? Something else is going on, but I won’t take the time here to pursue that issue. I will just say this: Niebuhr’s Christian ethics resembles Roosevelt’s New Deal socialism more than it does Jesus’s radical discipleship ethics.

Liberation theologies—Latin American, Black, Feminist—are also examples of this third type of distortion of Jesus’s and the Apostles’ moral teaching. Liberation theologies latch on to the biblical theme of liberation exemplified most dramatically by God’s liberation of the Israelites from Egyptian slavery in the Exodus and taken up in the NT as liberation from sin, death and the devil. Political liberation becomes the total focus of this theology. Liberation theologians adopt the persona of Moses when he said to Pharoah, “Let my people go.” But of course, modern states are neither ancient Egypt nor unfaithful Israel. And liberation theologians are neither Moses nor Amos. Something else is going on here also. I will just say this: Just as Niebuhr channeled Roosevelt’s New Deal socialism, liberation theologians have more in common with Karl Marx’s utopian communism than with Jesus and Paul.

Next: You may be left with some questions: Do Jesus’s moral teachings have nothing to say to political society? May Christians not bring their faith and moral convictions into public policy discussions? Are there ways to bring our faith to bear on the great issues of the day while avoiding the three mistakes I just outlined? In future essays I hope to address these questions.

Christian Ethics is for Christians!

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In this essay we continue our study of Christian ethics in which we attempt to reclaim Christian moral teaching from political opportunists. In the previous essay I listed five ethical principles that do double duty as conclusions and guiding principles of this series. Today we will address the first two:

  • Jesus and the apostles address their moral teaching to individual persons; not a single line is addressed to an institution.
  • The only entity capable of moral dispositions and actions is the individual human person.

I assume that most of my readers are familiar with the full range of the New Testament. Given this assumption, I will not take the space to document every instance of moral teaching in the NT. Nevertheless, in preparation for this essay I reread the four gospels and the letters of Paul just to make sure that my memory served me correctly.

Jesus

Jesus teaches his disciples about many things: the character of God and providence, the coming kingdom of God, and sincere religious practice. Included in his teaching are what I am calling moral teachings, that is, how we ought to act. The Sermon on the Mount serves as a convenient summary of Jesus’s moral teaching. Among the moral imperatives in that section of Matthew are:

  • Don’t get angry or insult your neighbor.
  • Don’t harbor lust.
  • Don’t divorce.
  • Don’t swear an oath.
  • Don’t take revenge.
  • Love your enemies.
  • Don’t worry. Trust God.
  • Don’t love money.
  • Don’t judge others.

Elsewhere in the gospels Jesus teaches his disciples to:

  • Forgive others.
  • Love their neighbors.
  • Purify their hearts from all hypocrisy.
  • Be humble and serve others.
  • Don’t seek honor from others.

Perhaps no other statement expresses the heart of Jesus’s moral teaching better than Matthew 5:48: “Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” This command comes at the end of the section wherein Jesus insists, against the universal human inclination, that we ought to love our enemies. The moral actions Jesus commands can arise only out of a character assimilated to the character of God.

Paul

Paul’s writings deal centrally with the necessity in the first decades of the church of clarifying how trust in Jesus as the crucified and risen Messiah and Lord relate to the Law and how Jewish and Gentile believers can be united in one body. But Paul unmistakably continues to teach his converts—especially gentile converts—the moral vision embodied in the Law and the prophets as interpreted by Jesus. We can see this fusion clearly in Romans 13-15, Galatians 5, Ephesians 4 and 5, Philippians 2, and Colossians 3. But I am especially struck, however, by 1 Corinthians 13 where Paul, like Jesus, connects outward actions to the most intimate depths of the heart. God wants our souls! If we fail here, we “gain nothing” (v. 3).

4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

This description reminds me of Jesus’s statement in Matthew 5:48 “Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” In 13:10, Paul even uses the same word “perfect” or teleios to describe the state in which everything is as it should be.

The Individual Christian

In my rereading of the NT, I could not find a single moral imperative addressed to the state as it existed in that day (the Roman Empire) or any hypothetical state. There are no moral instructions about justice or love or mercy directed to public or private institutions composed of nonbelievers or a mixture of believers and nonbelievers. The NT does not read like Plato’s Republic or Aristotle’s Politics or Grotius or Hobbes or Locke or Rousseau or Hegel or Rawls. Nothing resembling public policy advocacy can be found. When the NT speaks to the world, it says “Repent and believe the gospel.” And even then, it speaks only to individuals, for only individuals can repent or believe. Moral instruction follows conversion.

Indeed, the NT speaks about the church as an institution but only in descriptive terms. When Jesus or Paul or John presents moral instruction to the church it is always addressed to the community not as an abstract institution but as individuals of one mind and heart.

When you consider Jesus’s and Paul’s inextricable linkage of moral action with the depths of the inner person, it becomes clear why the NT addresses its moral teaching to individual persons only. Institutions don’t have hearts. They can’t believe. They can’t love.

Why, then, do so many clergy, politicians, intellectuals, and others, quote Jesus and the apostles as if their moral teaching could be applied directly to the political order or organizations composed of atheists, adherents of other religions, and nominal Christians? Can this practice be justified?

Next Time we will examine three ways people apply Jesus’s and the apostles’ teaching to public institutions and attempt to justify particular public policies.

Is God Always on the Side of the Oppressed?

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In my previous essay I recounted my failed search for the Social-Justice Jesus. In reading through the Gospel of Matthew, I did not find a social revolutionary protesting systemic injustices or an advocate of the economic interests of one class in preference to another. Jesus was not a royalist, democrat, republican, anarchist, or a libertarian. In fact, I did not find Jesus preaching a worldly sociopolitical order at all. What I found was Jesus’s indictment of the greed, envy, lust, pride, and idolatry that corrupt every world order. And these vices find their home in every human heart.

Superficial Plausibility

Before I subject the assertion that “God is always on the side of the oppressed” to criticism, let’s consider its superficial plausibility. Interpreted in the most generous way I can imagine, the statement could be saying that God judges justly between the victims of injustice and their persecutors. God always rules in favor of the victim and against the perpetrator. Or, just as in a natural disaster, first responders help the worst injured before attending to the walking wounded and unscathed, God attends to those with the greatest need before he turns to those who need less. The former act embodies the principle of equal justice and the latter the principle of just proportionality or equity.

Liberation Theology

Unfortunately, those who assert that “God is always on the side of the oppressed” cannot be interpreted as merely asserting God’s justice and equity. That God favors the oppressed was a central claim of Latin American Liberation Theology, a creative fusion of Christianity and Marxism that became popular in North America in the 1970s. In the form I see it most often today, it replaces the economic categories of Karl Marx with those of race and gender.

“God [is]”

In the assertion that “God is always on the side of the oppressed,” we find at least four significant components that need to be clarified: (1) “God,” (2) “always,” (3) “on the side of,” and (4) “the oppressed.” Let’s assume that the “God” spoken of here is the God of the Bible, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. We must not, then, derive our picture of God from our own subjective ideals or a cultural image of a liberating power. We must, instead, examine the narratives and teaching of the Old and New Testaments. I do not have space here to construct a complete picture of the God of the Bible. But I think such a study would conclude that God is faithful, just, knowing, and merciful. God judges justly between the victim and the perpetrator of injustice. But there is more to consider.

“Always”

To say that God is always on the side of the oppressed is a bold claim, and I think it goes too far. Does “always” mean under all conditions, thoroughly, and in every respect? Even if an individual is treated unjustly in one respect might they not in other respects be guilty of sin, of injustice, greed, hatred, envy, lust, etc.? Is God a mere partisan who overlooks the sins of his friends because they are mistreated in some respects by individuals whom he does not favor? This “always” obscures the perfect unity of God’s judgment and mercy. Perhaps in human courts we must distinguish starkly between innocent and guilty parties, pure victims and pure perpetrators. But God judges the human heart, and no one is purely innocent.

“On the side of”

What does it mean to say that God is “on the side of” the oppressed? In the preceding paragraph I raised the possibility that this assertion makes God a mere partisan, motivated not by justice but by favoritism. What does the assertion say about the speaker? It sounds high-minded at first, but then you realize that implicit in the statement is a claim about the speaker: “I too am on the side of the oppressed. God and I are on the same side!” This claim does not place you in good company. During the American Civil War both the North and the South claimed that God was on their side as they slaughtered their brothers, sisters, and cousins. The present Russian Patriarch claims that God is on Putin’s side in “liberating” Ukraine. Iran, ISIS, Hezbollah, and Hamas cry “God is great!” as they slit the throats of pregnant Jewish women. For some, God is white. For others, God is black, or gay, or lesbian.

Sadly, history shows that when people claim that God is on their side, they often do so to justify using extralegal and immoral means to achieve their ends: violence, theft, genocide, betrayal, murder, rape, lying, and deception. In the Bible, God is the judge of all the earth; it is spiritually safer, then, to assume that God is not on anyone’s side! Perhaps we should focus on striving to be on God’s side, without, however, presuming that we actually are!

“The Oppressed”

Who are the “oppressed”? What does it mean to be oppressed or to be an oppressor? Each of the other terms in the sentence, “God is always on the side of the oppressed,” opens the door to mischief. But the concept of “the oppressed’ blows a hole in the wall. In contemporary progressive culture, the official list of the oppressed grows longer every day. It seems that everyone wants to be oppressed. People of color, black women, black lesbians, white lesbians, gay people of all colors, trans and bi, questioning, nonbinary, fat people, short people, indigenous people, differently abled…God is on your side always! In the case of these groups, what does oppression mean? Are they legally proscribed or stripped of civil rights? Have they had their goods confiscated unjustly? Are they prohibited from pursuing the professions or attending university? What makes a black, lesbian professor of law at Harvard or a gay Secretary of Transportation one of the world’s oppressed?

Again, what does it mean to be oppressed? What do all these people and groups listed above have in common that makes them oppressed? Of course, you can find instances, past and present, wherein members of these groups have been treated unfairly. But you can also find among these “oppressed” people rich, famous, powerful, and glamorous individuals. It seems that what they all have in common is that they are not white, straight, and male. Perhaps I am oversimplifying matters, but it seems to me that the ideology that determines who gets recognized as oppressed has been designed with one purpose in mind; to dethrone the group it views as having at the beginning of Western civilization illegitimately acquired hegemonic power to which it still clings.

What does it mean to be an oppressor in contemporary social theory? It does not mean that you cheat widows out of their houses and orphans out of their inheritances. Nor does it mean that you enslave people on the official list of oppressed groups. In fact, you may be a benefactor to widows, orphans, the homeless, and the poor. Or, indeed, you may be among the poor yourself. Nonetheless, if you are white, male, and straight you are an oppressor. And if God is on the side of the oppressed, God is not on your side. The only option for you is to engage in perpetual confession and continual penance for being born into privilege. And one of those penitential exercises is to repeat the assertion, “God is always on the side of the oppressed.”

Tear Down this Wall (Ephesians 2:14)

The New Testament envisions a community of brothers and sisters under Jesus Christ, indwelt, transformed, and made one by the Holy Spirit, forgiven, reconciled, and directed to the Father from whom all good things flow.

As a prisoner for the Lord, then, I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received. 2 Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love. 3 Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace. 4 There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to one hope when you were called; 5 one Lord, one faith, one baptism; 6 one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all (Ephesians 4:1-5).

Judged by this standard, the assertion “God is always on the side of the oppressed,” as it is used by contemporary liberationist theologians is profoundly heretical; for dividing the church into oppressors and the oppressed is a grave sin against the unity of the body of Christ.