Perfect time for church to show leadership
This is a momentous time in political history. The Brexit vote in Britain, the Trump victory in the United States and the empowerment of numerous hard right parties all over Europe. There is an authentic risk of progress coming to an abrupt halt and something more twisted and reactionary taking over the road.
Surprising as it may seem, this is where the church could come in. Or to be more specific, it’s an opportunity for Christianity to live up to its name and reflect the shadow of its eponymous founder, who would have seen the current tide of anger, retreat, hysteria and blame as the hellish product it is.
Political parties aren’t doing the job: witness the collapse of the traditional Republicans, the failure of the established parties to persuade their people to support the European project and the triumphs of new, nationalist parties in France, the Netherlands and Hungary. Unions are similarly in chaos, with millions of their members voting for Donald Trump. As for media, we’ve seen just how ineffectual and inaccurate journalism can be in the past six months.
At first glance churches seem just as bad, but they were at the forefront of the campaign against slavery, led movements against child labour and unbridled capitalism in the 19th century, were some of the earliest anti-Nazis and championed civil rights. So why did so many white evangelicals vote for Trump and how is it that Christians are often seen in Canada as being apolitical other than when abortion, sex education, gay equality or euthanasia are on the agenda?
The religious rot set in at the beginning of the 20th century when modernism and the advances of science terrified many conservative Christians. Rather then engage the culture, they withdrew from it, confidently waiting for the end times. The problem with Armageddon, however, is that it’s seldom punctual. Irony is a bitch.
By the early 1960s, many evangelicals realized that indifference was no longer an option and they were joined by a Roman Catholicism fighting its own internal wars over social justice.
Rather than looking to the greater, more sweeping economic and social challenges, conservative Christians linked the left with atheism and immorality and conjured up the idea that the freer the market, the freer the faith and the more conservative the government, the more godly the society.
Instead of directing their energies into changing economic systems that created poverty, war or injustice, they tampered with a few of the consequences. They do indeed often try to feed the poor and warm the cold, but steadfastly refuse to ask why people are poor or cold in the first place.
The mantra was decided. Socialism is anti-Christian, climate concern is pagan, homosexuality is condemned in Scripture — actually it’s hardly mentioned and then with profound ambiguity — and, of course, abortion is murder.
The abortion phenomenon is fascinating. It’s never directly mentioned in the Bible, yet has become the prism through which so many Christians view the political world. Nor is it as straightforward as the secular left might have us believe and there are some genuinely worrying issues involved, such as the fact unborn children with disabilities face an immensely high risk of termination and gender-based abortion is increasingly common.
If we made contraceptives universally available, provided good and modern sex education curricula to children at an early age, empowered women, tried to eradicate poverty and invested heavily in care for the mentally and physically chal- lenged, abortion rates would fall dramatically. The Christian right’s response, though, is as simplistic as it is reprehensible. They threaten to criminalize abortion or remove a woman’s choice and control over her body. It’s a microcosm of the entire mess.
So it may seem strange that I would suggest this could be where the church comes in. Not so. Times and the church are changing. Pope Francis is gradually but skilfully sliding Catholicism into what it is supposed to be, countless younger evangelicals are asking new questions and demanding new answers, and liberal Protestants in, among others, the Anglican, Lutheran and United churches, are informed and mobilized around immigration, aboriginal rights, peace, global warming and economic equity.
“Socialism,” commented William Temple, “is the economic realization of the Christian gospel.”
Who was he? Archbishop of Canterbury, 1942-44!