Christian as Citizen: Class #1

                Yesterday afternoon I made my way down to the First United Methodist Church at the Chicago Temple for a class offered by Garrett Seminary called “Christian as Citizen.” This class is taught by the president of our seminary, Dr. Phil Amerson and asks the question, “What is the role of a Christian as citizen?” This class is not only offered to Garrett students, but also those who attend First UMC. Throughout the course we will be following different news sources, the presidential election, and different political and social movements to look for what it means to be a citizen and what it means to be a Christian citizen. We will have guest speakers (which I have posted below) each week that are citizens of the Chicago area and who are involved in politics, advocacy, etc.

                Over the three hours of the course we discussed many interesting and important questions that come up for us as citizens of the U.S.A., specifically as Christian citizens. We started off talking about how we, as people, have become a commodity. In the 1970s, the service industry made up about 25% of our workforce while the manufacturing industry (physical goods, farming, etc.) made up about 75%. Today, the service industry makes up more than 90% of our work force, while the manufacturing industry has been reduced to less than 10%. What does this mean for us as citizens? If most of our workforce is devoted to service, what is the actual product that is coming out of that? The answer is we are the product. We are reduced from living, breathing, human beings to a client; to a commodity. The important question to think about now is, “When did it all go wrong?” A member of our class pointed out that we can usually find the answer to that question by tracing the money.

                We then moved this discussion to think about citizenship in the context of the Bible. Where in scripture do we find the topic of citizenship and what does this mean for us? Many people recalled the many times Paul discusses what citizenship should/should not look like in his letters to various peoples. An interesting thing to note is that when Paul writes about citizenship, he is looking at citizenship through the lens of being a Roman citizen. Another instance of citizenship in the Bible is addressed when Samuel is wondering if he should anoint Saul as a king. Samuel warns the people about becoming a state. After discussing many other instances, we realized that our Christian heritage is full of questions about citizenship. This lead to the question, “Is democracy the ideal state for Christians?”

                If we think back to the early church, there was no Christian state. Christians were the oppressed and the marginalized. They were persecuted by the Roman Empire and had no form of government of their own. When thinking about Christians living in a democracy today, the term “liberty” is often used. We hear it in our own U.S.A. constitution, “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,” and because it is very close to the word “God,” we assume that this was meant to support Christianity as an institution. If we really look into where those words came from however, they were written by deists and many politicians today use them to support the oppressive institution of Christianity by not separating church and state. When we think about the term “liberty,” it is usually used to promote individualism (we have the right to freedom and we do not have to listen to anyone else; we can do things how we as individuals want to). This is not actually the Christian way, however, because Christianity is focused on community, not individuals. Maybe a democracy would work for the Christian citizen if he or she actually acted like a Christian.

                One of the books we are focusing on in this course is called, The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion, by Jonathan Haidt. One of the troubling and thought-provoking messages that Haidt mentions in his book concerns the many spheres of morality (care/harm, fairness/cheating, loyalty/betrayal, authority/subversion, sanctity/degradation, liberty/oppression) and how politicians address them. Being a very liberal person, it was difficult for me to hear (which Dr. Amerson also mentioned about himself) that Democrats tend to only address three (care/harm, liberty/oppression, fairness/cheating) out of the six aspects of morality, while Republicans usually address all six. Haidt argues that this is why Republicans appeal to a wider audience: they know how to address all areas of concern when it comes to morality. It will be interesting to see how many spheres of morality both Obama and Romney address in the upcoming presidential debates.

                At the conclusion of this first class meeting, I was left with many questions. Why, as people, did we let ourselves become a commodity? Do Democrats stand a chance in this upcoming election if they confine themselves to only discussing three spheres of morality? How did the foundations and understanding of Christianity come to be skewed by politics and the government? What is the ideal form of government for us as Christians? Although I hope to find some answers to these questions throughout the semester, I have a feeling that my question list will only get longer. However, I feel blessed to have finally found a place to openly discuss these important issues and be in dialogue with people who have different views from me. It is in places like these that we can truly have “holy conversation” around controversial issues.