What does John 13:35 say to the Christian Right?

[micatala]

I have been reading a book entitled "I was just wondering" by Philip Yancey, who has written several books from a conservative but somewhat iconoclastic Christian viewpoint, including "The Jesus I never knew."

In the book I am reading, he writes the following passage.

. . . I am not calling for an ostrich-like stance of hiding from the issues that confront Christians in a secular society. They must be face, and addressed, and legislated. But Paul's words continue to haunt me: If I speak in the tongues of men and angels, and have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, but have not love, I am nothing. Somehow - unless our power is to corrode like that of the well-intentioned religious leaders who preceded us - we must approach power with humility, and fear, and a consuming love for those we will exercise it over.

Jesus did not say, "All men will know you are my disciples . . . if you just pass laws, quash immorality, and resotre decency to family and government, " but rather " . . . if you love one another" (John 13:35).

Yancey notes further that at the moment of his death, according to Christian theology, Jesus chose a path of "deliberate powerlessness." In Yancey's view, he did this because the one thing power is unable to do is the most important thing to be done in God's mind, and that is to engender love. Love cannot be forced, but only given.

Since God is most interested in our love, he is least interested in showing his power.



So, the questions for debate are:

1. Is Yancey's analysis good Christian theology? Why or why not?

2. If Yancey is correct, what does this say about current political activities of Christians in the U.S.?

3. To the extent that some Christians might be engaging in political activity 'without love' and counter to God's purpose, how might they correct this? Is it possible for Christians to engage in exercising political power and act in love?

4. In particular, concerning some of the current hot button issues, can Christians engage in constructive political engagement on issues like abortion, homosexualtiy, world peace/terrorism, women's rights, etc. and still maintain committment to "loving one another"? If so how? What would this look like and how would it be different from what is happening now?

[MagusYanam]

Is Yancey's analysis good Christian theology? Why or why not?

It is an interesting analysis, and I definitely think it is an apt one. But Jesus' message wasn't simply one of passive love, it was one of an active and all-reaching love, one that quests for social justice - Jesus went out of his way to minister to those who were spit on and considered unclean by the rest of society: prostitutes, tax collectors, lepers, et cetera. So I indeed agree with Yancey that power should be approached with humility and with fear and with love, but it should also be approached with a sense of responsibility - both to oneself and to one's neighbours - which must inevitably stem from the humility and fear and love that he mentioned.

If Yancey is correct, what does this say about current political activities of Christians in the U.S.?

If I were to analyse the activities of Christians in the United States, I would say that the modernist, mainline Christians are exercising it (by and large) in a responsible manner. We didn't stop the Iraq War, but we took to the streets all across the nation and delayed it as long as we could. We are continuing to provide aid to those suffering here and abroad, undertaking efforts to educate ourselves and others. We are continuing to push for human rights, universal health care, conditions that will humanise a hithertofore inhuman (and inhumane) corporate economy.

By comparison, the causes Christian conservatives take up seem to be non-sequitur at best, petty or vicious at worst. Their anti-evolution, intelligent-design and school-prayer campaigns are wasteful, confuse the public debate, attack (to my mind, without reason) the scientific community and put undue extra pressure on an already overburdened public education system. In my opinion, conservative Christian (i.e. Richard Land's Southern Baptists) support for an Iraq War was not only based on questionable theology but also immoral and irresponsible. And overall, the aims of the religious Right seem artlessly self-serving - they seem less concerned with creating an atmosphere of social justice and an even economic playing field than with getting a bigger piece of the pie. Also, I believe that dispensationalist theology causes Christians to behave in selfish and destructive ways in search of something they shouldn't be searching for. After all, Jesus warned that 'An evil and adulterous generation asks for a sign, but no sign will be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah... The people of Nineveh will rise up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it, because they repented at the proclamation of Jonah, and see, something greater than Jonah is here! The queen of the South will rise up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it, because she came from the ends of the earth to listen to the wisdom of Solomon, and see, something greater than Solomon is here!' (St. Matthew 12:39, 41-42)

To the extent that some Christians might be engaging in political activity 'without love' and counter to God's purpose, how might they correct this? Is it possible for Christians to engage in exercising political power and act in love? In particular, concerning some of the current hot button issues, can Christians engage in constructive political engagement on issues like abortion, homosexualtiy, world peace/terrorism, women's rights, etc. and still maintain committment to "loving one another"? If so how? What would this look like and how would it be different from what is happening now?

It seems to me that the last two questions as part of a greater question - is it possible for Christians to be, at once, active members of society and loving members of a Christian community? If one were to ask my father, he would reply that the two are not opposites that need to be placed in a dialectic with each other, but one necessitates the other. Creating an atmosphere of justice for those less fortunate necessitates an active role in society - if you make yourselves an island, what can you do for anyone outside? And political power can be exercised in a loving manner, through education and reform. Conservatives couch their exercise of political power in the language of war and conquest; mainliners in the language of dialogue and reform.

[ST88]

Jesus did not say, "All men will know you are my disciples . . . if you just pass laws, quash immorality, and resotre decency to family and government, " but rather " . . . if you love one another" (John 13:35).

Isn't this exactly the reasoning for not allowing people to fall into immorality? If you loved them, you would want them to follow the righteous path, would you not? What better way to express your love then to forcibly keep them from repeatedly sticking their hands into the fire, as it were, to burn without knowing it?

[micatala]

Jesus did not say, "All men will know you are my disciples . . . if you just pass laws, quash immorality, and resotre decency to family and government, " but rather " . . . if you love one another" (John 13:35).

Isn't this exactly the reasoning for not allowing people to fall into immorality? If you loved them, you would want them to follow the righteous path, would you not? What better way to express your love then to forcibly keep them from repeatedly sticking their hands into the fire, as it were, to burn without knowing it?

Certainly many make the case that by confronting people with their sin, they are acting in love. The question is are they really acting out of love or are they just using the 'acting in love' phrase as cover for another motivation?

The second question is are they misinformed?

These are not always easy questions to find a correct answer to. However, I think there are some approaches that can help.

1. Is the person acting hypocritally? Do they only confront some sins while leaving others unmentioned? Are they unequal in how they address different sins?

2. Are they really acting for the benefit of the person confronted? If their actions cause more harm than good, then the answer would seem to be know. In particular, by their own criteria, if they actually drive a believer away from the faith through their actions, they could be considered to be doing more harm than good. They are in effect acting as reverse evangelists.

3. Are there actions and attitude consistent with scripture. In particular, are they consistent with passages like I Corinthians 13.

And overall, the aims of the religious Right seem artlessly self-serving - they seem less concerned with creating an atmosphere of social justice and an even economic playing field than with getting a bigger piece of the pie.

Out of a very good post, this in particular stuck out. If one is seeking to exercise political power simply for the sake of power, without a discernible benefit or service to anyone else, than this would seem to be counter to Jesus' teachings.

Of the current list of rightist issues, I really only see abortion as having a possible beneficial effect. One can make the case that one is defending 'persons' who cannot defend themselves. The question is, can this be done responsibly without bringing harm to the pregnant women and their partners. This is on top of addressing the arbitrary assumptions about where rights should begin (which is a discernibly separate issue from where life begins, in my view).

[MagusYanam]

Out of a very good post, this in particular stuck out. If one is seeking to exercise political power simply for the sake of power, without a discernible benefit or service to anyone else, than this would seem to be counter to Jesus' teachings.

Yes; in fact, Jesus had some very specific condemnations (St. Matthew 23) of the kind of attitudes of the religious authorities that I am today seeing in Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, James Dobson, Richard Land et cetera. 'Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you cross sea and land to make a single convert, and you make the new convert twice as much a child of hell as yourselves!'

Or, 'Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint, dill and cummin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faith. It is these you ought to have practised without neglecting the others. You blind guides! You strain out a gnat and swallow a camel!'

Or, 'Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you build the tombs of the prophets and decorate the graves of the righteous, and you say, "If we had lived in the days of our ancestors, we would not have taken part with them in the shedding the blood of the prophets." Then you testify against yourselves that you are descendants of those who murdered the prophets. Fill up, then, the measure of your ancestors. You snakes, you brood of vipers! How can you escape being sentenced to Hell?*' This one strikes me as particularly apt when one considers that the Moral Majority was founded in opposition to the Civil Rights movement - against everything Martin Luther King, Jr. stood for until he was martyred - and later switched primarily to an anti-abortion, anti-homosexual stance. And then Jerry Falwell has the gall to hint that his movement is the equivalent of the Civil Rights movement for Christians, singing 'We Shall Overcome'!

It frustrates me to no end that these people still have as much sway in this country as they do, and frustrate the efforts liberals make toward building a socially, economically and politically fair society.

*Greek version has Gehenna

[Nucc]

John 13:34-35
34 "A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another.

35 By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another." (NIV)

Some of the comments were very interesting, however, I'm not sure of the exact PERSPECTIVES of everyone.

I personally think if we consider vs 35 in the light of vs 34 we might view a bit differently. In vs 34 Jesus DOES SAY to Love one another >>>BUT<<< He also says; As I have loved you Now as I look at Jesus in relationship to people, He often related to some people MUCH DIFFERENT than He did to others, YET I don't believe God's love was absent in any case. I spoken these verses to others on other forums and have been called everything from a hatemongerer to false prophet, but I don't agree.


John 2:13-17
13 When it was almost time for the Jewish Passover, Jesus went up to Jerusalem.
14 In the temple courts he found men selling cattle, sheep and doves, and others sitting at tables exchanging money.
15 So he made a whip out of cords, and drove all from the temple area, both sheep and cattle; he scattered the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables.
16 To those who sold doves he said, "Get these out of here! How dare you turn my Father's house into a market!"
17 His disciples remembered that it is written: "Zeal for your house will consume me." (NIV)

My personal thoughts that WOULD BE CONSIDERED "RELIGIOUS RIGHT" are that while Christ's actions, thoughts, and words were ALWAYS motivated by HIS LOVE this LOVE was at certain times expressed differently as needs for the situation at hand.

Sadly I think modern relativists want to sweep this God under the table and falsely form ONLY a gentler more peaceable, smiley face God. However, for objective observers of Scripture that God is just NOT IN THE BIBLE. There are times that God DOES GET ANGRY and RIGHTLY SO.

[Alamanach]

Sadly I think modern relativists want to sweep this God under the table and falsely form ONLY a gentler more peaceable, smiley face God. However, for objective observers of Scripture that God is just NOT IN THE BIBLE. There are times that God DOES GET ANGRY and RIGHTLY SO.

Right on. Contrast this with what micatala said about hypocriticality and even-handedness, and what MagusYanam said about building a fair society, and I think you can establish two polar views on this. And if I'm understanding him right, I'm with Nucc.

Fair doesn't exist. There's no such thing as fair. We use this idea of fairness when raising our children as a tool to help teach them how to be morally upright. But "fair" isn't real, it's something we made up. There's nothing at all fair about the fact that I live in 21st century America and other people lived in 7th century France. (We can be morally upright in either century, but that gets into different issues.)

And it is not my place-- nor will it ever be-- to determine how our overall society ought to look. I'm not a society, I'm an individual. What I'm responsible for is my own backyard, and I distract myself from that responsibility if I try to engage in activities that are way outside its scope.

Did Jesus really go "out of his way" to help the downtrodden? or did he merely choose a way that was sure to bring him into contact with some downtrodden, and then helped whomever he happened to actually encounter? The difference is major. If Jesus set out to tackle the issue of, say, poverty, then his life was an unmitigated failure; we have poverty with us now. But if Jesus set out to help feed the particular folks that came to hear him speak-- because it turned out that they were hungry-- then the Bible reports that he succeeded.

I think the lesson to draw from Jesus-- as far as social activism is concerned-- is to help the individuals who are right there in front of you. Don't worry about the larger issues; just clean up your own backyard. In the course of helping individuals, you are almost sure to be uneven, unfair, and possibly at times a little hypocritical. These failings are caused and cancelled by the fact that the different people you encounter have different needs. You can't love "homeless people", that's an empty abstraction. You can love Sue, and you can love Dreadlock Bob, and when you help them, it's never going to be the same thing twice. This opens the door for all kinds of unfairness.

For these reasons, count me amongst those who are uncomfortable seeing churches getting involved in politics. Are they really doing that because their spiritual path brought them there? Or is it just a mechanism so that they can feel good about themselves? I suspect it's more often the latter, and then they are not loving as Jesus loved. They are really loving only themselves, aggrandizing themselves, and acting for the "greater good" out of a camouflaged selfishness. If people would just reach out to the individuals around them, right there in arm's reach, then these greater social issues wouldn't exist.

Don't try to heal the world. That's a vanity.

[MagusYanam]

Sadly I think modern relativists want to sweep this God under the table and falsely form ONLY a gentler more peaceable, smiley face God. However, for objective observers of Scripture that God is just NOT IN THE BIBLE. There are times that God DOES GET ANGRY and RIGHTLY SO.

Indeed. In fact, I pointed some of the few places where Jesus does get angry. But notice that the objects of his anger are never the sinful, the outcast or the downtrodden. One observes that the objects of his anger are the scribes and the Pharisees and the racketeers, who subscribe to a legalistic, mechanistic view of Scripture and the Law and whose closest equivalents today would be the authority figures of the religious right.

One merely has to look at the actions and words of such people as Ted Haggard to get some idea of what Jesus meant when he referred to 'white-washed tombstones'.

Did Jesus really go "out of his way" to help the downtrodden? or did he merely choose a way that was sure to bring him into contact with some downtrodden, and then helped whomever he happened to actually encounter? The difference is major. If Jesus set out to tackle the issue of, say, poverty, then his life was an unmitigated failure; we have poverty with us now. But if Jesus set out to help feed the particular folks that came to hear him speak-- because it turned out that they were hungry-- then the Bible reports that he succeeded.

For these reasons, count me amongst those who are uncomfortable seeing churches getting involved in politics. Are they really doing that because their spiritual path brought them there? Or is it just a mechanism so that they can feel good about themselves? I suspect it's more often the latter, and then they are not loving as Jesus loved. They are really loving only themselves, aggrandizing themselves, and acting for the "greater good" out of a camouflaged selfishness. If people would just reach out to the individuals around them, right there in arm's reach, then these greater social issues wouldn't exist.

Don't try to heal the world. That's a vanity.

In answer to the first, yes, Jesus went way out of his way to help the poor and the outcast. You need only look at the Pharisees' reactions to Jesus' ministry to realise just how far out of his way Jesus was going. He didn't draw much attention to himself in the ordinary course of events (he even went as far as telling the people he aided not to speak of what he had done for them), but when he felt it necessary, he spoke boldly and brazenly about the injustices he saw (and then drove the perpetrators of those injustices out from the holy places with a whip in hand).

My primary objection to the second part is that Jesus didn't come solely to battle poverty and social injustice. He came to preach the good news, that all people have been freed from sin and the grave. He came into a broken world and gave his own life so that in the end it might be completely healed and restored; what more could be asked? However, the fact that we still inhabit a broken world with us today, where poverty and sin and injustice still exist, does not mean that we should sit on our hams and accept them as inevitabilities, but rather that we should do what we can and let God's will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

Or did Jesus not tell his followers:

'Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.

'Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy.

'Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.

'Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.

'Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

'Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.'

Are the actions of these churches vain? (In particular the Madison Mennonite Church's Peace and Justice projects.)

While you consider the answer to this question, here for your perusal is a letter by a famous modern liberal theologian who took the principles of the Social Gospel deeply to heart and delivered a message in defense of his activities in a spirit of love to those ministers whose line of logic in criticising him was similar to Alamanach's.

[Alamanach]

My primary objection to the second part is that Jesus didn't come solely to battle poverty and social injustice. He came to preach the good news, that all people have been freed from sin and the grave...

Quite so. I only emphasize the social activism part because that's what we're talking about here.

Are the actions of these churches vain? (In particular the Madison Mennonite Church's Peace and Justice projects.)

Quite possibly. Allow me to clarify: there will be times when a person or group is legitimately driven to political action in the course of his/their spiritual walk. But there is a very grave danger in taking up some cause just because one thinks one ought to have a cause taken up. The efforts put forth won't be genuine, and love will be nowhere to be found.

Take the Israel/ Palestine conflict, for example. I never do anything involving that, because that problem never reaches me. I realize it affects a lot of people, but I don't happen to know any of them. Meanwhile, I know a woman who is going through a third divorce, her dad just died, she lost her job, and she had to move out of her house before they foreclosed on it. There is somebody who needs some help, someone right in front of me. I'm deluding myself if I think I should find a way to get involved with Israel/ Palestine right now, or any other big-name social issue.

As far as I'm aware, Jesus didn't assign any of his followers to a leprosy action committee. I don't know that he organized any seminars on the poverty problem. I doubt he set aside his Tuesday afternoons to work on his Gentile Outreach program. When I read the Bible, I see him addressing leprosy, poverty, and all the rest of it as the problems arise. He helped people who came to him needing help, and he doesn't strike me as the sort who was terribly concerned about categories: "Ah, you, you're a leper, you get this kind of help. You're a widow, for you I do this..." He dealt with people on an individual basis.

While you consider the answer to this question, here for your perusal is a letter by a famous modern liberal theologian who took the principles of the Social Gospel deeply to heart and delivered a message in defense of his activities in a spirit of love to those ministers whose line of logic in criticising him was similar to Alamanach's.

I'm happy to say, I predicted what you had linked to before I clicked on it. As I clarified above, there's nothing wrong with political action per se, I just worry that people engage in it for the wrong reasons. Of course, King was in the right on that issue, and the folks he was writing to had dropped the ball; this was their turf, and they should have been there with him.

People tend to gravitate towards big social issues I guess because it makes them feel they're doing something important. And they often don't notice the person right beside them who's quietly losing out to some deep personal crisis.

[MagusYanam]

Allow me to clarify: there will be times when a person or group is legitimately driven to political action in the course of his/their spiritual walk. But there is a very grave danger in taking up some cause just because one thinks one ought to have a cause taken up. The efforts put forth won't be genuine, and love will be nowhere to be found.

Take the Israel/ Palestine conflict, for example. I never do anything involving that, because that problem never reaches me. I realize it affects a lot of people, but I don't happen to know any of them. Meanwhile, I know a woman who is going through a third divorce, her dad just died, she lost her job, and she had to move out of her house before they foreclosed on it. There is somebody who needs some help, someone right in front of me. I'm deluding myself if I think I should find a way to get involved with Israel/ Palestine right now, or any other big-name social issue.

Interesting. But before we go on, am I correct in interpreting your view here that if you do take up a cause, it is because you can identify directly with that cause, and have a strong emotional attachment to it?

My view is that individual contributions to such large-scale political issues should be weighted from an objective standpoint, but also with an eye to ability. For example: the Madison Christian Community (the first link I posted) does environmental advocacy, but they also do social work that is more local and immediate. Likewise, the Madison Mennonite Church (the second link) does (or did, last time I attended) prioritise local charities before its secondary big-name Causes and Projects. Giving to the one does not necessarily exclude giving to the other.

I'm happy to say, I predicted what you had linked to before I clicked on it. As I clarified above, there's nothing wrong with political action per se, I just worry that people engage in it for the wrong reasons. Of course, King was in the right on that issue, and the folks he was writing to had dropped the ball; this was their turf, and they should have been there with him.

Yes, but the argumentation of the white conservatives to whom Reverend King was writing also went something like this:

I never do anything involving that, because that problem never reaches me. I realize it affects a lot of people, but I don't happen to know any of them.

I can see how the Israeli/Palestinian conflict might seem distant to you, but where would you draw the line between what 'affects' you and what doesn't? Given that U.S. foreign policy right now has its fingers firmly on the pulse of Israel, one could rationally make the argument that the Israeli/Palestinian conflict could have very real consequences for U.S. citizens.

(And here I am writing two blocks down the street from an ultra-Zionist Jewish community centre; guess I'm one to talk, huh?)

As far as I'm aware, Jesus didn't assign any of his followers to a leprosy action committee. I don't know that he organized any seminars on the poverty problem. I doubt he set aside his Tuesday afternoons to work on his Gentile Outreach program.

Well, I'd imagine that if you're just a street preacher with twelve hangers-on and a reputation for speech that doesn't make friends of the authorities, it's not very likely that you'll have the political leverage to have to organise action committees or outreach programmes or seminars. As such, I'm not quite sure what point it is that you're trying to make.

Most liberal churches are members of an erstwhile establishment, a vital-centre realpolitik that demanded a structural approach to addressing social problems. Sure, they might have had a more bureaucratic approach to the matter, but the end result was: 'Ah, you're homeless, let's set up some temporary shelter for you and give you something to get you back on your feet; ah, here's how we're allocating our energy, let's cut down consumption by mounting solar panels on the roof; ah, here's a Dominican village that's asked for our help with a construction project, let's get a few people on that'. Similar in many respects to what Jesus Christ did, only in a world where local and global problems are not so far removed as they were a hundred, two hundred or two thousand years ago.

And yes, the people in these churches care about what they do, and part of the point of the bureaucratic steps they take is ensuring that what they do is done correctly.