Synod was much blessed to hear this talk by Jörg Haustein, a young academic with St John’s Egham who is uniquely placed to draw together thoughts on “religion and politics” through his multi-cultural multi-denominational background involving childhood in Eastern Germany and seeing the Wall come down, living as an exchange student in the US, later undertaking PhD research in Ethiopia and now living in the UK. Jörg teaches religion at the School of Oriental and African Studies and likes to think about the Christian message in a global Kingdom perspective.
His talk aimed to explore how the church might be called to react to the recent political developments, especially with regard to the rising xenophobia, populism, and political division. He built his input around four open questions, each supported by a Gospel verse and a visual representation to help his audience in processing each idea.
1. In light of the more unsettling politics of our time, we explored the question “Is it time to panic?” in view of Matthew 24:3-14. The end time struggles described here put our political uncertainties into perspective, as we are hardly far along that end time road laid out by Jesus. But more importantly, these verses change the outlook on all our political struggles, because they tell us the outcome – in the end God wins; love wins – and give reassurance that the Gospel does not change with the times. We can radiate hope today, because our gaze is fixed onto a different outcome, and coming toward us from a different time.
2. “Should we keep Church and politics separate?” was backed by Matthew 22:15-22 which at first sight seems to contain an obvious answer as to how to delimit the two: pay your tax to the State and worship God in Church. However, Jörg pointed out that this scripture has been interpreted very differently throughout history: from subversion and rejection of the state to tacit co-operation. The reason the Pharisees are amazed at Jesus’ answer is that he manages to keep Caesar and God in tension: they are to be separate, but the dividing line is not clear. (E.g. what do you do if it is not about a coin/tax?) As religion and politics vie over the same terrain (how should people behave, society organised, etc.), they define each other in a competitive relationship. It may be time for the Church to seek to gain some ground again: not to be pulled into the political fray or partisan divides, but to proclaim the coming kingdom of God in arenas normally reserved for political battles.
3. John 5:1-15 was the verse for “Can we fix the system?”, progressing from the previous finding to how we might move boundaries between religion and politics and claim Kingdom space. The key to overcoming hatred and suffering, and keeping injustice at bay, perhaps is not trying to fix the “system”, but to turn to the individual: the Kingdom comes one example at a time. Jesus did not heal everybody at the pool but rather highlighted the plight and rescue of just one man, creating a ripple effect from the news about his action. His answer then irritated the status quo, because in God’s kingdom the small and the big are identical. We may not have the perfect solution to the refugee crisis or know how to overcome the contemporary callousness toward migrants, but we might simply tell a refugee’s story in our churches every Sunday and see what might change if we consistently highlighted the plight of those struggling and celebrated those finding justice.
4. Finally we looked at “Who will listen to us?” with Matthew 5: 27-30 which was not as intuitively understood in connection to the topic. Jörg selected it because it is one of the few texts of Jesus’ teaching that is hardly ever interpreted literally, and yet we understand its truth: be radical in avoiding sin. Jesus knew how to communicate in ways that reached people’s hearts, but as Church we often get stuck in literal, rational ways of proclaiming truth. Meanwhile, politicians around us, as well as our media landscape and social networks, are exploiting felt “truths". Trump's campaign worked, not because it was consistent, but because it was systematic and cunning in invoking the felt “truths” of its target constituents. Jörg questioned the Church’s ability to translate the Gospel to a truth that people feel and resonate with, often preaching a message of rational assent. People connect to truth in different ways at different times. When Martin Luther translated the Bible, he reacted to democratisation of truth through education and rationalisation: if you knew how to read and think, you no longer needed to rely on what your priest said, but could claim the Gospel truth yourself. Jörg challenged us to translate Gospel truth to the fragmented way people consume information today, and to accept some uncertainty and overlapping truths as we seek to connect people deeply to the Gospel message.
The four open-ended ideas sparked a lively question and answer session with a consensus that Christians should perhaps not go “into politics”, becoming part of the system and subject to its rules, but rather use the platforms widely available in our time, from churches to pubs, Facebook to Twitter, to show plurality out there, to ask big questions and speak Gospel truth into them.