A Thinking Reed

Between Eusebius and Tertullian

Written by

Lee M.

in

There’s an interesting conversation going on over at Eric’s about Radical Orthodoxy and whether someone like Jim Wallis represents a “Constantinism of the Left.”

I have trouble coming to grips with the argument because I think the “sectarian vs. Constantinian” debate rests on a false dilemma. In fact, I’d go further and say that they are in some ways two sides of the same coin. Both seem to think that the Kingdom can be realized in a present social configuration; for one it’s the church and for the other it’s society at large (“Christendom”).

By contrast, I would argue that something like Luther’s “Two Kingdoms” is an inevitable part of a viable Christian social ethic. “Two kingdoms” can sound like a static notion that rigidly separates the church from the world; a better way of thinking about it might be to think of it as the two ways in which God governs the world. There is no “secular” space from which God is absent – rather God is everywhere dynamically present in the care and redemption of his creation.

In the church God reigns through the proclamation of the gospel and the administration of the sacraments, freely bestowing his grace upon sinners. In the world God reigns through his law and the so-called orders of creation – the spheres of life that provide a certain degree of order and justice, making human flourishing possible despite sin. This is the political, or civil, use of the law.

In this perspective, one of the duties of Christians is calling the secular authorities to account when they fail in their appointed task of securing justice in this age. The role of the authorities is not to usher in God’s Kingdom, which comes in God’s good time and not through any effort of ours. In that respect, the “Constantinians,” whether of the Right or Left, are mistaken in their desire to create a “Christian” social order (I’ll leave aside the question of whether it’s accurate to describe someone like Wallis as “Constantinian”).

However, the sectarians (for lack of a better term) are, I think, mistaken in setting up such a stark church-world dualism. They seem to want to make the church into what Gerhard Forde calls an “eschatological vestibule” – a polis unto itself that embodies the Kingdom. The church is not necessarily more virtuous than the world, but lives entirely by grace. And like the surrounding social order, the church belongs to “this age” and is destined to pass away.

The church does better, I would say, to equip its members for their various vocations in the world rather than trying to replace the structures of the world. The key here is that because Christians know they are justified by faith, they are then turned back out into the world, free to serve their neighbors.

Comments

21 responses to “Between Eusebius and Tertullian”

  1. Joshie

    “The church is not necessarily more virtuous than the world, but lives entirely by grace. And like the surrounding social order, the church belongs to ‘this age’ and is destined to pass away.”

    How do these statements jibe with idea of the church as the first-fruits of the Kingdom of God? Or do they?

    Reply
  2. Lee

    I guess what I want to say is that what distinguishes the church as an institution is not that it is per se more “virtuous” than the world. Rather what distinguishes it is that it is where the gospel is proclaimed and the sacraments are administered.

    Which is not to deny, of course, that Christians are promised the “first fruits of the Spirit” (Romans 8:23). And that the Spirit equips them (us!) for service in the world.

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  3. Eric Lee

    Although you didn’t address it, I’ll say that it’s actually not an accurate to label Wallis a “Constantinian.” He did mention that there was an intentional rhetorial flourish used in the “humanist” label, and I think it’s even more prevalent that he’s using a similar device in his original blog post where he put a question mark after “Constantinianism on the Left”. I do agree with his conclusions about where he takes it concerning Wallis’ values language, though.

    That aside, I really don’t see at all how you draw this conclusion from the Two Kingdoms perspective:

    In this perspective, one of the duties of Christians is calling the secular authorities to account when they fail in their appointed task of securing justice in this age.

    …especially considering we’re given absolutely no model for that from the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. I don’t think I disagree with the two Kingdoms perspective (and yes I agree there’s no “secular” or neutral space), but I’m not exactly sure what “viable Christian social ethic” means here. What does “viable” entail?

    What I’m confused by is this:

    sectarians …are, I think, mistaken in setting up such a stark church-world dualism. They seem to want to make the church into… a polis unto itself that embodies the Kingdom.

    Because those who are, for lack of a better term, [I think] mistakenly referred to as “sectarians” are not actually creating a Church-world dualism that’s any starker than it already is. There’s a world, and there’s a Church within it, ever present, calling the world to itself by being a witness to the Triune God by taking part not in statecraft, but by the works of mercy.

    And if we were are creating a “polis unto itself that embodies the Kingdom,” then we should repent right now because we should be a part of a polis unto God. Otherwise it just becomes an idol unto itself. The ends here are different, I think.

    See, “Sectarians”/RO-types wouldn’t disagree with this at all:

    The church is not necessarily more virtuous than the world, but lives entirely by grace. And like the surrounding social order, the church belongs to “this age” and is destined to pass away.

    But the RO-types would definitely add that we seek genuine virtues that have their end in God. It doesn’t mean we actually are more virtuous, though. We are still sinners.

    And I’m even more confused by the criticism here of what is actually “viable,” because again, I wouldn’t disagree with this, either:

    The church does better, I would say, to equip its members for their various vocations in the world rather than trying to replace the structures of the world. The key here is that because Christians know they are justified by faith, they are then turned back out into the world, free to serve their neighbors.

    I would definitely agree with the above in so far as we do so in such a way where grace is costly. To live in “cheap grace” as Bonhoeffer rightly talks against, would be to just go about doing the same ol’ stuff in the same ol’ places, but we’re “justified by faith” so that’s okay. I would argue that there would definitely be some places where it’s not okay to be anymore, such as working for Penthouse magazine or other porn industries. Just to clarify, though, that doesn’t mean we can’t still find creative ways to be present! Take the xxxchurch.com people for instance — they go to porn conventions to be present and to be a witness.

    (Note, as these disembodied internet communication things are often murky, the above paragraph is not meant to mean that the fact that you didn’t say that means that you weren’t saying it, if that makes any sense (?) — just that I wanted to clarify that for myself as I think aloud through this.)

    We are to be filled with new wine, and as the Catholic Worker inspires, to use the structures of old and fill it with the philosophy of the new. I’d be hardpressed to hear Jamie Smith or even Pastor John Wright calling for the “replacement” of worldly structures. There is much good to be had in many of the world’s structures, but I think it’s our job to direct them not toward a pagan telos but instead to their end in God.

    It is true that I don’t read the Bible as I faithfully should, but I still see no example in Jesus nor in the overarching narrative of the New Testament as it speaks to the OT that we should be calling secular authorities to their own version of “justice.” In Acts, immediately after Pentecost, there are just more works of mercy: being with the sick, healing them, etc.

    I think too often our creativity as Christians is stifled because we’re so used to conceding to a different discourse than our own Christianity. Same sorta thing happens in Just War/Pacifist discussions: too often the path of violence was taken in situations for us to imagine history happening in other ways.

    If I seem a bit confused, it’s probably because I am. I’m still very new to this stuff (like, slightly over a month!) and am open to more discussion 🙂

    peace,

    eric

    Reply
  4. Lee

    By “viable” what I mean is nothing else than an ethic that takes account of all the facts. In particular I take it that any Christian ethic has to reckon with a couple of things: 1. that the church is where God is (preeminently) working to bring in his kingdom, 2. that “the world” and “the flesh” are still, to a certain extent, under the sway of the powers of evil and 3. that nevertheless God’s rule extends to everything – there is no space “outside” of God’s rule and providential care.

    From this it follows, I think, that Christians have responsibilities in the world and are not called “out” of it (a la the Essenes or somesuch group). I think everyone agrees on this.

    Where the dispute arises, it seems, is over what form that responsibility takes in the world.

    It’s true as you point out that Jesus doesn’t model for us the kind of engagement with the secular authorities that I’m talking about, but I would contend that that’s at least in part a function of the time in which he lived. ROers and others like to say that the condition of the church today is akin to the 1st century church. But that’s an oversimplification at best, I think. We don’t live in Rome after all, we live in America. So I don’t think we can translate without alteration the stance of the 1st century church toward the secular powers into the 21st.

    Also, it’s worth noting that there are a lot of respects in which Jesus doesn’t model how to live for us. Jesus doesn’t show us how to be in a marriage, or work for a multinational corporation, or be a citizen of a democratic nation. I think those are things we have to work out for ourselves as circumstances change.

    As soon as the church became a force to be reckoned with in society it’s leaders were not at all shy about calling secular leaders to task. A good example is Ambrose calling Theodosius to account for his massacre of some 7,000 civilians.

    I find it kind of baffling when Jamie Smith dismisses the idea trying to get the state to stop killing Iraqis. It seems like a pretty big deal to me (and no doubt more so to them!)

    None of which is to say that I think “politicking” is the primary responsibility of Christians. But I do think that at least some people have that as their vocation.

    Okay – I’ve gone on too long already!

    Reply
  5. Joshie

    I think Jesus can be a model for enagement with the political powers. Jesus faced Pontius Pilate, the Sanhedrin, and possibly Herod Antipas. Certainly Jesus’s encounters with them could teach us something? Jesus did a lot of teching in the temple at the end of his life as well, the temple was the heart of Judea, and any teaching there would have been very public and would have been seen in a political context, like a speech on the national mall would be for us.

    The OT prophets and John the Baptist are certainly good examples of the calling of ruling authorities to justice, I would think.

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  6. Lee

    Great point Josh!

    Reply
  7. jack perry

    joshie: I think Jesus can be a model for enagement with the political powers. Jesus faced Pontius Pilate, the Sanhedrin, and possibly Herod Antipas. Certainly Jesus’s encounters with them could teach us something?

    And what does Jesus say in these encounters? (or rather, what does he not say?)

    Jesus remained silent. … Jesus made no reply, not even to a single charge—to the great amazement of the governor. (Matthew 26.63, 27.14)

    Jesus remained silent and gave no answer. …Jesus still made no reply, and Pilate was amazed. (Mark 14.61 15.5)

    [Herod] plied him with many questions, but Jesus gave him no answer. (Luke 23.9)

    Jesus said, “My kingdom is not of this world. If it were, my servants would fight to prevent my arrest by the Jews. But now my kingdom is from another place.” (John 18.36)

    I don’t know if Jesus’ confrontations with the Sanhedrin, with Herod, or with Pilate are really the model that you want for confronting the authorities as regards social justice.

    I’m not saying that the Church should remain silent in the face of social injustice, by the way, nor should she shirk her duty to teach what is right and wrong. But there really isn’t any model presented in the Gospel for the priority that so many people give to the social engineering of God’s kingdom on earth, especially considering how such attempts have historically turn out.

    The OT, on the other hand, does have examples, and I’d say that they’re examples we shouldn’t generally follow, unless you intend to stone adulterers in addition to proclaiming a jubilee to forgive people’s debts.

    Reply
  8. Eric Lee

    Jack, thank you for reminding us of what those verses actually said.

    Lee, I’m sorta baffled in turn by this:

    I find it kind of baffling when Jamie Smith dismisses the idea trying to get the state to stop killing Iraqis. It seems like a pretty big deal to me (and no doubt more so to them!)

    When did Jamie Smith do this? I don’t think Jamie would ever think we should just “let” the state continue to kill Iraqis. However, I don’t think Jamie would do it in the way Wallis would. The whole point here is that there are better ways to be a witness.

    I’m not saying we should never hold leaders accountable. I’m not saying we should never tell people the truth of things.

    However, the reason I wanted to ask Jamie Smith specific questions about his critique of Wallis is that the position of Wallis all too often gives too much credit to the state. Wallis also finds himself too often in a position of defining himself against the religious right that he practicall concedes to their own language (granted, he does have sections about how “the left doesn’t get it”, but when hearing him talk, all that really amounts to is bringing “faith” back into politics so that we don’t let the “secular left” dictate what we do).

    It can be pretty tricky to bring up certain saints here and there to defend one’s position on “speaking truth to power”, especially since many saints who did great things in some ways also were completely correlationsist to the state in other ways.

    Again, I’m not against doing this per se, but I really don’t think the ones who have made it very popular in a “we’re not the religious right” kind of way have a very poor model of doing so that still talks on the same terms as those they are proposing to be “against.”

    I’m still quite deeply troubled by Wallis’ statement about “democracy shaping religion.” I really think that kind of talk has no place in a distincly Christian discourse, and would love to hear Wallis actually explain that one. I was never satisfied with Dale’s explanation of it on his blog, as it didn’t realy make any sense.

    Especially as far as pre-modern Christian Father types go, I’d really be hard pressed to find any that engage in “statescraft” in the way that Wallis does. Well, I guess that’d be impossible anyway because the nation state as we now know it didn’t even exist until recently.

    But anyway, I think it says something that when Jesus had the chance to “speak truth to power” and “confront” the powers that he was just silent and appealed to a higher power. It becomes extremely dangerous to engage with the state on it’s own terms, because it’s quite easy to end up sounding like you’re one with the state’s terms. It’s hard to see Jesus as relieving our suffering, because I think he made it clear that he didn’t come to bring that kind of peace (as liberation theologians want to contend), as he said — to bring it around to today’s Gospel reading in the lectionary.

    I think the role of the Church is a bit different.

    Reply
  9. Lee

    I think it’s true that Jesus didn’t come to bring “peace as the world gives it.” At the same time, mightn’t Jesus’ mission be different from our vocations? There is the “peace from above” and there is the fragmented and partial peace provided by the law that keeps God’s creation from flinging itself apart, so to speak. And I think it’s very important to distinguish the two (Law/Gospel as it were). I don’t see any reason to think Christians don’t share in responsibility for the latter as well.

    The quote from Jamie Smith I’m referring to is where he said in your interview that “I don’t deny that, on good liberal, capitalist grounds, one could perhaps convince ‘the state’ to stop killing children in Iraq or Taiwan, but to consider that a ‘success’ would be to adopt quite a utilitarian criteria.” Now, I may have misinterpreted him, but, liberal capitalist grounds or not, I think convincing the state to stip killing children in Iraq would be no small accomplishment!

    I think that no less a “sectarian” than J.H. Yoder provides at least one part of a good model for this – for Yoder the primary witness of the church is to witness to the peace given by Christ, but it can also ask the state to temper its violence by appealing to what he called “middle-axioms,” which are appeals to the state to live up to its own stated principles.

    I wrote about this more here:

    http://verbumipsum.blogspot.com/2004/10/john-howard-yoder-and-christian.html

    Also, I absolutely agree with you Eric that Wallis is wrong if he thinks religion has to be “shaped by democracy” (at least if that entails compromising the Christian witness). At the same time, though, I’m not sure there’s anything wrong with assuming the premises of your interlocutor in order to convince them to change their mind.

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  10. Joshie

    Too bad Jack has no idea what the OT prophets actually said.

    Reply
  11. Lee

    Well I think it’s helpful to distinguish between the OT law and the OT prophets when looking at models for political engagement.

    I’m one of those antinomian types who think that the Law was made for man and not man for the law, so we need to figure out what best seves the concrete needs of people in this age.

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  12. Joshie

    I think its also necessary to have some basic knowledge of the (whole) Bible and basic Christian theology before one goes around chasing after the latest academic fad. Without a sufficient knowledge base, anything one reads or encounters is bound to be misunderstood.

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  13. Eric Lee

    Joshie, well, I guess I can understand your dismissal if it pertains to Radical Orthodoxy because perhaps it infringes on what you hold dear, but I guess unfortunately, it also shows an ignorance of it because RO actually espouses nothing new: it gets back to pre-modern sources like Augustine and Aquinas to help us figure out how to live today. Nor is it an “academic fad,” so I hope one would read a little more about it before blindly dismissing something about which one hardly knows. The professor and pastor that I know pretty closely (my own pastor) has quite the good grasp on the whole Bible, as you seem to be concerned about here. In fact, he’s a Chronicles scholar and is very much in tune with the Jewishness of Jesus and the 1st Century Church and all that, and even teaches a Biblical Theology class that looks at the Bible as a whole in narrative theology-style. I bring him up because everything I know about RO comes from that dude.

    Even though we have the OT and NT, all Scripture should be viewed, I hope, first through the Revelation of Jesus. I think if the OT says one thing and then Jesus gives us an example to the contrary in the NT, we should first look to Jesus in those matters and not try to bash a “well you just don’t read the whole Bible” over someone’s head. I’ve been in too many conversations with fundamentalists (myself a former one) for that comment to hit too close to home. Sorry the discussion here has elicited such flippant language.

    Lee, I think I see what you’re saying now. I’m still working through this stuff, myself. I don’t think Jamie was saying we should get the state to stop killing Iraqis for the sake of itself, but for the sake of God and the fact that all of Creation is a gift. I think it’s another matter of ends, here.

    I think it would be fun to read Yoder’s For the Nations and then read Hauerwas’ Against the Nations, at least for myself to further this conversation (I haven’t read either). Maybe sometime later this summer I’ll give that a try. I have access to most of Hauerwas’ and Yoder’s works in a library of books donated by a former pastor of the Brethren who has been reading 3-5 books a week since the 60’s when he marched alongside Martin Luther King Jr.!

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  14. Lee

    We’re all still working through this stuff! 🙂 And thanks, Eric, for taking up the banner of RO here. I haven’t read nearly as much of it as I probably should.

    Incidentally, IIRC Yoder called his book “For the Nations” precisely as a counterpoint to Hauerwas’ “Against.” I think a lot of people tend to read Yoder and Hauerwas as though they’re essentially saying the same thing, but there are differences.

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  15. Joshie

    I was not implying that your teacher doesn’t know what he’s talking about, but that YOU do not know what you are talking about. More precisely, I am saying that you seem to be trying to run before you even know how to walk.

    Your ignorant, flippant dismissal of what I’ve written speaks volumes. Your assertion that I am a fundie is downright hilarious. It would be much more productive to take a look at what the Old Testament prophets actually say and how they say it, and then, if you think I get it wrong, tell me why I get it wrong, instead of leaping to conclusions and labelling me. You obviously have no clue about the OT prophets, the connection between what they say and what Jesus says or about any viewpoints other than the latest trendy ones you seem to have uncritically latched onto.

    For my view of Radical Orthodoxy take a look at other comments I’ve left on it. It seems interesting, I guess, and I am sympathetic to its overall viewpoint, but I really don’t see what difference it makes in the long run.

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  16. Eric Lee

    but that YOU do not know what you are talking about.

    Well, I’ve already easily admitted that I’m still working these things out, so it’s not like I feel like your attack on me holds any weight.

    Your assertion that I am a fundie is downright hilarious.

    Unfortunately, I never asserted this, if you’d re-read what I wrote. I know you’re not a fundamentalist — I’ve seen you post plenty here on this blog to know that quite thoroughly. I was just illustrating a point and invoking past frustrations I’ve had in other conversations and just wanted to make sure we didn’t tread down that path, because it seemed like you were becoming slightly stand offish towards me and making fun of my ignorance in how you were interpretting scripture.

    Uhm, since when did interpretting all of Scripture through Jesus become “trendy”??? Where on earth is that coming from?

    I would love if you would back up your own words as per the OT prophets too. Unfortunately, this is why I hate internet chat. You seemed to infer that you knew me in your response and it felt like you really wanted to slap me in the face. You apparently didn’t get at all what I was saying and took it as an opportunity to be defensive and shove something back in my face that I never shoved in yours to begin with. If you misread my comments as “flippant”, I’m sorry. They simply weren’t. No need to be divisive over this stuff, sheeeesh. I’m trying to stay humble here, but it gets really hard when I’m almost intentionally mis read and made to be some blog commenting pariah even though I’m quite open about the fact that I don’t know everything. I would hope we can try to sharpen each other without resorting to trading blows. We’re all Christians here! Holy cow.

    Onward…

    Lee, I actually didn’t know that Yoder wrote that in response to Hauerwas, although I did know that they don’t say the same things. I thought Hauerwas wrote that after Yoder’s work. Interesting!

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  17. jack perry

    Too bad Jack has no idea what the OT prophets actually said.

    Did I write “OT prophets“? Excuse me, that must have appeared between the time I wrote it and the time you read it, then disappeared again.

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  18. Joshie

    Methinks you doth protest too much, but for my own sake (at the very least) I’m going to let this die.

    Th prophets provide numerous examples of speaking to rulers in a varieity of compacities, Some of them being: Nathan’s parable to David, powerfully illustrating David’s abuse of power when he rapes Bathsheeba (2 Sam 11-12). The prophet Shemaiah speaks the obvious to Rhehoboam in 1 Kings 12.22-23, letting him know that the devision of the kingdom is the result of his own foolishness. Elijah confronts Ahab with a prophecy of the destrcution of his family in 1 Kings 21.20-21 after Ahab has Nabaoth murdered so he can expand his own already large estate. In these cases the specifics may not have many parallels to current situations (although abuse of power in general is certainly still a big problem), but what we can take away from this is the prophets’ boldness in speaking justice to their monarchs.

    In the prophetic books proper, Jeremiah is the quitessential example of this. He speaks in the temple (remind you of anyone?) against the unfaithfulness of the nation to God, and the top-to-bottom corruption of the people (Jeremiah 2-5). Most notably Jeremiah’s pro-Babylonian phophecies got in in a lot of trouble with multiple kings, even the wishy-washy Zedekiah (Jer. 37-39 and elsewhere).

    Amos is probably the most accessible example of what prophetic justice was. Amos 2 describes how the needy were sold for a pair of sandals, the sick shoved aside, there were drunken orgies in the temples and shrines, the narites were given wine, the list goes on and on. All of this was spoken by Amos in the “royal sanctuary” in the heart of the kingdom at Bethel.

    Jesus’ ministry is rife with parallels to the activities of the prophets. Aside from the miracles, he speaks in the Temple, the center of political/religious life, and performs symbolic actions to illustrate his message like the prophets did (see Jer. 13.1-14 for example) when he curses the fig tree and overthrows the money changers. The very concept of the Kingdom of God, the central theme of his teaching comes from the prophets, see Micah 4-5 where God assembles a new nation out of the lame and the outcasts and will reign over it as a king. The Hebrew word for reign has the same three-letter root as for the word for king, mlk. So the the OT prophets provide numerous examples of how to speak justice to rulers and what it means to be a just ruler or person for that matter. Jesus stands in this same tradition. Satisfied? Can I go to bed now?

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  19. Joshie

    You didn’t say Old Testament prophets Jack, but I did. See Lee’s post for clarification. I assumed when you responded to me you were responding to what I said, not what you wanted to pretend I said. Silly, Silly me.

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  20. jack perry

    Joshie,

    Of course you are right about OT prophets. My point wasn’t about OT prophets though, which is why I mentioned neither them nor John the Baptist. My point (which was perhaps a little hidden, and not well-expressed) is that the OT prophets were living in a completely different context.

    You’re comparing a theocratic society (mebbe not the right word, but I’m too tired to think of the right one) to a post-Christian society where the leader does not make pretensions (publicly, anyway) to rule by some divine anointing, or where significant portions of the populace don’t even give lip service to your religion.
    I don’t think the activities of the OT prophets would generally be appropriate for faith-based social action today. In fact, I think that a major stumbling block for a huge portion of modern Christianity is that they are trying to model themselves after the OT prophets.

    Maybe that neither addresses your point?

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  21. The political Christian « A Thinking Reed

    […] I agree with Heim that Christians can chart a middle course between Constantinianism and sectarianism. This involves seeking the good of the neighbor in a way […]

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