To recap, the first fork in the road regarding a taxonomy of Christian political action concerns Christian responsibility for history. For Christians answering "yes" to that question in Part 2 we described the political action available to them, Christian realism versus a revolutionary politics.
Now we turn to forms of political action that do not assume responsibility for history.
Before going on, what will become very clear, very quickly, is that all the forms of political action that we'll be talking about down this path can exist alongside each other and with expressions of Christian realism and revolution. A person can be engaged in multiple forms of political action. That, as I hope to argue in this series, is a part of what I want to be in the "secret sauce" of this taxonomy, that we don't have to pit various expressions of political action against each other. We can do many different things at once.
So a point of clarification. In my first post I said that the central question facing Christian political action is the question of historical responsibility. I framed that question as an "ought." Ought Christian take responsibility for history? Those saying yes move to Christian realism or revolution.
Which implies that those traveling down today's road would be saying "no" to historical responsibility. And to that implication I'd like to make a clarification. Yes, there are those who give a hard "no" across the board to historical responsibility and travel down the paths I'll be describing in the rest of this series. But as I just mentioned above, forms of political action can co-exist. They don't have to, but they can.
All that to say, the forms of political engagement I'm going to shortly describe eschew responsibility for history, they are not involved in using political power to affect the behavior of a nation state. However, just because a person is uninvolved in state politics in one area of their life doesn't mean they aren't involved in state politics elsewhere.
To summarize, then, there are forms of political action that are attempts to take responsibility for history. And there are other forms of political action that are not attempting to take responsibility for history. There is a distinction here, but a person can mix and match.
These preliminaries and clarifications out of the way, let me describe today the first sort of political action, among three I'll discuss, that doesn't involve itself in wielding the power of the state.
I'm calling this type of political action "leavening presence," borrowing some from James Davison Hunter's notion of "faithful presence" in his book To Change the World.
By leavening presence think of the stories of Joseph and Daniel as they serve in Egypt and Babylon. Think also of Jeremiah's letter to the exiles in Babylon:
This is what the Lord of Heaven’s Armies, the God of Israel, says to all the captives he has exiled to Babylon from Jerusalem: “Build homes, and plan to stay. Plant gardens, and eat the food they produce. Marry and have children. Then find spouses for them so that you may have many grandchildren. Multiply! Do not dwindle away! And work for the peace and prosperity of the city where I sent you into exile. Pray to the Lord for it, for its welfare will determine your welfare.” (Jeremiah 29.4-7)
The Jews in Babylon had no political power, and they were not tasked with righting the wrongs of the nation state. They were not asked to take responsibility for Babylonian history. They were, however, asked to participate in seeking the welfare of the city. Seeking that welfare, outside of state politics, is what I'm calling "leavening presence," actions that bring peace and wholeness to our communities. The Jewish people were to be a leavening presence in Babylon.
We see a similar leavening presence in the work of Joseph and Daniel. Joseph and Daniel found themselves embedded within political and institutional structures they were not tasked to change. Rather, they were called to serve faithfully within those structures as a leavening presence. Daniel and Joseph inserted wisdom and kindness into systems that would have otherwise lacked those virtues. Phrased differently, they humanized dehumanizing structures.
Leavening presence, then, can be expressed by individuals and groups. For example, in your workplace, like Daniel in Babylon, you can live within that system as a leaving presence, bringing kindness and wisdom to an organization that lacks those virtues. In addition to our individual presences in the organizations we inhabit, leavening presence also names how local churches care for their communities in numerous ways, providing food, clothing, shelter, and financial help to their neighbors. None of this political action attempts to wield the power of the nation state.
And these actions of aid and care are not limited to churches. Christians serve in all sorts of organizations providing care locally, nationally, and internationally.
In short, leavening presence is Christian political action that seeks to rehumanize a dehumanized world outside of the structures of the nation state. As individuals we serve where we find ourselves as people of virtue, inserting grace and peace to the limits of our power within a given institution or workplace. As churches or participants in organizations of care we provide material support and aid for our neighbors. We function, to use Jesus's phrase, as salt and light. We live as leaven in the world.
Now, let me return to the point I made above. Can a politically involved Christian also be a leavening presence? Does one have to pick or choose? Of course not, you can do both. In fact, most Christians do both. We vote and we act as a leavening presence in our cities and workplaces. But the two forms of political engagement are separate. You can live as a leavening presence in the world and opt out of national politics. You can refuse to vote, for example, and restrict your political action in the world to the ministries of a church or the compassion you show in your workplace. I was raised in just such a tradition in the Churches of Christ where we abstained from voting. I was taught that the church was the only legitimate means of political action in the world, and that we were not to involve ourselves, not even to vote, in the politics of the state. In short, Christian realism (participating in the politics of the state) and leavening presence are two distinct forms of political action. They often go together, but sometimes they do not.
