The Politics of the Table

Keith at Among the Ruins meditates on how Christians should exercise power in the world:

…I tend to shy away from any blending of the church with political power because I believe that it is inherently dangerous and almost always corrupting for the church. But, at the same time, I am not ready to give up the idea that the church ideally can be and should be a political force to be reckoned with in the world: a power that can evoke change on behalf of those who are weak as it lives out its calling to be the kingdom of God on earth. So the question is raised: how should the church exercise power in the world?

For the Falwells and the Dobsons, the answer can be found in organization, motivation, and mobilization. But that’s just playing on the world’s turf, and while you may win sometimes, you will just as often lose; in the end, nothing much will change. So perhaps we should turn to something else—the sacraments. Those who seek to overthrow the status quo through votes or influence will likely scoff at the idea that the sharing of bread and the pouring of wine can influence something like a government, but I think they underestimate the power that these sacraments have for the church. The bread and the wine represent Christ’s death and burial, and the word that they preach is that, in the midst of the hopelessness that springs from seeing love resisted and annihilated, powerful and reinvigorating forces can spring forth, ones greater than any previously imagined. The sacraments preach to the nobodies of this world that there is someone for them and with them, and that someone has chosen them to help shake and confound the very foundations of power.

More here.