Christians and the Common Good

Charles Gutenson

Description

Christians across the spectrum have soured on religious involvement in politics, tempted either to withdraw or to secularize their public engagement. Yet the kingdom of God is clearly concerned with justice and communal well-being. How can Christians be active in public life without getting mired down in political polarization and controversy?For too long, the question of faith in public life has centered on what the Bible says about government. Charles Gutenson, a theologian respected by both evangelical and mainline Christians, argues that we should first ask how God intends for us to live together before considering the public policies and institutions that would best empower living together in that way. By concentrating on the nature of God, we can move past presuppositions regarding the role of government and engage in healthy discussions about how best to serve the common good. This lucidly written book includes a foreword by bestselling author Jim Wallis.

Sujets

• Philosophie et théologie
• Christianity

Informations

• Publié par: Baker Publishing Group
• Date de parution: 01 mars 2011
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781441214478
• Langue: English

Extrait

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© 2011 by Charles E. Gutenson
Published by Brazos Press
a division of Baker Publishing Group
P.O. Box 6287, Grand Rapids, MI 49516-6287
www.brazospress.com
E-book edition created 2011
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—for example, electronic, photocopy, recording—without the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.
ISBN 978-1-4412-1447-8
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file at the Library of
Congress, Washington, DC.
Scripture is taken from the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible, copyright © 1989, by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture marked NIV is taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®. NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2010 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com
Dedicated to Mary Louise Miracle Gutenson
January 26, 1932–January 24, 2010
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Contents
Foreword by Jim Wallis
Acknowledgments
Introduction
1: Faith and Politics
2: Reading Scripture
3: The God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Jesus
4: Biblical Vignettes
5: Human Governance and the Kingdom Agenda
6: Public Policy and the Kingdom Agenda
Index
Notes
Foreword
Jim Wallis
I have often said that God is personal but never private, and that the witness of the biblical prophets and Jesus must be recovered for our times and courageously applied to a whole range of moral and political issues. But what does it mean to use the content of what the Old Testament prophets, Jesus, and the New Testament writers had to say and apply it to our public commitments, our common life, and the social bonds we share in community?
Too often, we don’t seriously study the Scriptures; it is much easier to just use God to justify our own politics. Yet if we really look into the biblical texts, we find a God who speaks about “politics” all the time—about what believing in God means in this world (not just the next one), about faith and public life (not just private piety), and about our responsibilities for the common good (not just for our own religious experience).
In Christians and the Common Good , Chuck Gutenson outlines some of the common ways we use (and misuse) the Bible. He then systematically lays out a more serious, disciplined, and holistic way to go about reading the Scriptures that studies the importance of context, the place of the overall biblical narrative, and how they apply to our contemporary situation. He proposes that the central question we must ask is, What does the Bible tell us about the nature of God? He then outlines a series of central beliefs about the being and nature of God.
The big “political” questions that face us ultimately have to do with how we are to live together in human community. As we examine what the Bible has to say about the nature of God, we can draw lessons that help us answer those questions. What does it tell us about how we are to live together? What in God’s nature shows God’s intention and priorities for how we are to live together for the common good of all? The heart of the book is a study of biblical vignettes that illustrate God’s intentions and priorities for us and our society, and provide broad themes of what a community that pleases God would look like.
We must finally determine the relationship between God’s agenda and human governance—what is the proper role of Christian faith in developing public policies, and what are the respective roles for government and the church? With all of this as the foundation, the book uses some examples of applying biblical study to specific issues, and suggesting which policy themes would best empower an agenda for the common good.
At this time in American history when people of faith across the political spectrum are engaging more in public policy and in politics, this is an ideal book for Sunday school classes, Bible study groups, and other discussion groups. I have been blessed to work closely with Chuck for the past several years at Sojourners, and I am thankful that he has brought together his substantial theological training and his public policy concerns in Christians and the Common Good . At a time when the relationship between faith and politics, the role of government, and the vocation of the church are all hotly contested issues, Chuck Gutenson’s keen theological insights, deeply biblical approach, and clear political analysis will be a great help to us all.
Acknowledgments
I t is hard for me to imagine writing any book without serious support and encouragement on any one of a number of fronts—colleagues to brainstorm with and to critique your ideas, friends to urge you on, and family willing to bear the pensive periods that accompany thinking through difficult issues. In my case, thanks be to God, I had support in every one of these ways, and I want to take this opportunity to express my thanks—though, undoubtedly, I will overlook some. A number of colleagues participated in many, often passionate discussions over the topics addressed herein. These include my doctoral mentor, William J. Abraham; my dean at the time of writing the first draft, Joel Green; my teaching colleagues, Lawrence Wood, Virginia Todd Holeman, Mike Rinkiewich, and Michael Pasquarello; and my good friend, Will Samson. On later drafts, I benefited from various conversations with my Sojourners colleagues Jim Wallis and Duane Shank. At a point when I was not sure the project could go on, friendly and affirming encouragement from Brian McLaren was indispensable. To Heidi Thompson I owe thanks for some key structural changes I made early on; I am sure these made the final product much stronger than it would have been. My daughter, Sara Gutenson Monroe, has been a source of joy and inspiration from the day she was born to a degree far greater than she will ever know. And last, but hardly least, how can I say thank you enough to a wife and partner of over thirty years who was willing to follow a young man who felt the call to abandon a blossoming career in business because he felt “there had to be more than this”? Thanks, Bobbie!
In giving these thanks, however, I own the claims in this work as my own. May God grant you remembrance of all that is in alignment with his intentions and forgetfulness for all that is not.
Charles E. Gutenson
Introduction
I am sure you recall the old adage: religion and politics are two subjects to avoid in polite conversation. Well, the times have changed. Now it seems one can hardly discuss one without the other, even if mostly to criticize those who disagree. Those who are right of center characterize those who are left of center as “Godless liberals.” Those left of center charge those who are right of center of having a penchant for “fundamentalism,” if not theocracy—a government where the nation is ruled directly by God. (Of course, that this “direct rule” is to be carried out by those who happen to be the advocates of theocracy and their particular interpretation of God’s will might legitimately raise eyebrows.) What has made these discussions more popular and at the same time more difficult? Perhaps it comes from a general loss of civility and our growing inability to live in peace with those who have commitments different from our own. Maybe these trends preclude the gentility of an earlier day. Or maybe we simply never really lived by the injunction to avoid politics and religion in polite conversation. Maybe this notion is a revisionist, wishful remembrance of our past. Who knows?
I grew up in what would today be characterized as a “fundamentalist” Christian tradition. Of course, for us to admit back then that we were fundamentalists was only an abstract theological observation. While we were comfortably fundamentalist in our Christian outlook, we had not yet been educated about the necessity of combining that religious commitment with political commitments. In fact, given that my fundamentalist church was located among the working class, I suspect that we were overwhelmingly populist in political outlook, which means that we would have mostly voted for Democratic candidates. I say “I suspect” because we rarely talked about political office, campaigns, and the like. We knew about the work of Martin Luther King Jr. and others who were engaged in the struggle for civil rights. However, that seemed like a faraway world that had little if anything to do with our everyday lives. And even though we realized that King’s work was connected with the church in some way, it always seemed more political to us than religious. From time to time, however, I would read something about King or, say, something from the life of the early church, and a nagging suspicion would develop that there was more to being a Christian than I was aware—for example, that the life of faith had intimate connections with the struggle for justice, fairness, and so forth. Few if any Christians were around, however, to help resolve those nagging suspicions.
We certainly thought we were living in community (though not an intentional or monastic community). If someone had pushed us on the connections between what it means to be “in community” and what it means to be “political”—after all, to be political first and foremost means to be concerned about the lives that we share together in community—we might have understood. Unfortunately, in that day our focus on community was in the very provincial sense of the term—we were interested first and foremost in those things that concerned us . While we would have affirmed the biblical concern for the poor, we did not really see the obligation to p