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.
