Christ and Politics
My previous story centered on my Catholic Jesuit soul. This story is about how it might contribute to the soul of America.
In the mid 20th century, Theologian Richard Niebuhr wrote an influential little book on Christ and Culture that identified how Christians in five varying traditions dealt with their prevailing culture, its beliefs, language, religion, science, art, and values. He not only taught the importance of religion in culture, e.g. the expressions (or as Richard Dawkins calls “memes”) which form our world, but also the importance of culture to our politics, i.e., the collective decision making that shapes our community and our relationships with one another.
The question is rising among the populist nationalists of today as to whether the United States of America is a Christian country. The exceptional nature of the American democratic republic, as architected by the Founders, is the toleration of religious persuasions or organizations in the private sector, but not in the public sector. Most founders had experienced or studied the negative role of religious persuasions in European wars, in the Inquisition and heresy trials, in the Protestant reformation and break with the Roman Empire, and in the Crusades on the Islamic caliphate. So they struggled to maintain a strict separation between religion and its institutions and the republic and its institutions.
The commitment of citizens of a democratic republic is to the proposition that all persons are equal with unalienable human rights regardless of cultural, including religious, designation. While it took time, struggle, including a civil war, to affirm that African Americans, certain immigrants, women, and those with different sexual orientation are indeed human, nevertheless, that proposition is the very cornerstone of the Union.
Ethnicities, genders, religious beliefs, languages, skin colors, educational achievement, or financial worth do not determine who is human or, for that matter, who has the right to exercise citizenship. The American proposition is read by many as a gesture to the Jesus who in his time challenged the use of religion to justify an existing and violent social order and is therefore very consistent with the Jesus persona. And insofar as the Christian churches have represented that character and intentionality, they have positively influenced our politics. But the same for other non-Christian traditions, like Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism, Unitarianism, and Humanism.
Today our nation is in danger of losing its soul. At certain times throughout the history of the nation we have been asked to choose who we are. The nation is now so polarized, thanks to the demagoguery of Trumpism, that we have an opportunity to choose once again. But the stakes are so much higher than before. Because of the ravages of our economic activity, the whole world and the future of the species are in the balance. Many of us think that economy, not just the right to the necessities of life, but the accumulation of wealth, has taken over our politics and that it is supported by a religious culture that we need to change.
We DO need to take advantage of this crisis in America and so many people are ready. Seldom have we had such clarity as to choose — not in party or candidate — but in who we want to be as a community. What is the soul of the nation? What does true citizenship mean? Lines are being drawn and people divided starkly. How do we use this polarization? To respond, some of us have been advocating for a New Great Awakening movement by which the Soul of America could be revived in dialogue with all the cultural traditions that American’s might share.
The Sestercentennial or Semiquincentennial (250th Anniversary) of the birth of the American nation is 2026. Could we use this event as a culminating point for a New Great Awakening movement? During the Bicentennial year in 1976, the Catholic Church, then in a renewal spirit, tried to use the event for a renewal around “freedom and justice for all.” A commission from the Bishops was organized to reach and consult with all American parishes. A very forward-looking pastoral letter on the economy was written and approved. A Call to Action for social justice was developed by, and put to discussion from, delegations from dioceses and congregations. Could we connect with other religious as well as community and educational organizations to pull something like this off?
A movement has to have solid and broad-based organization. Community colleges, churches/synagogues/mosques/temples, elderly and youth organizations, worker and community organizations might see an avenue here for their own revitalization. Who would be willing and able to be part of the leadership team to pull this together? I confirm that this would be consistent with my Catholic and Jesuit heritage along with my American one.
While I answered my original question by pointing to the Christ persona of Jesus, I also point to others who embody the Jesus consciousness and walk the same path. Sojourner Truth, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Nelson Mandela, Harriet Tubs, Frederick Douglas, Martin Luther King, Mahatma Gandhi, and many people with whom I have talked, worked, and acted, whose names you would not recognize, are guides on the Way, examples of transcending consciousness, re-presenters of the Jesus Persona whether they would use that language or not.
My life in Hawaii brought me in touch with the religious consciousness of native Hawaiians, the Aloha Spirit. My time at a New Mexican Pueblo, in a sweat lodge in Michigan, and with indigiousness Mexicans in the Central Valley of California made me aware of the religious consciousness of native Americans. And now in Maryland I am learning the way of the Prophet and his condemnation of idolatry — including the idolatry of nationalism.
No, we are not a Christian nation though many fundamentalist believers have tried to make us so. We are no more Christian than Jesus was who also fought the oppression of religion in his time. The link between christianity, capitalism, and country must be broken if America is to survive as a democratic republic. But our religious consciousness must be rekindled and brught to bear on our politics, our public relationships with each other.
I am grateful to my Jesuit comrades and their partners, especially those with whom I have convened over the years, for keeping me in touch with the Christ spirit. Many of these companions are classmates or workmates. Some are still in the Order, some not. Some are no longer Catholic or do not practice organized religion at all. I consider them all companions of Jesus still driven by the Christ spirit or, in my philosophic language, a transcending consciousness.
In communion with them, I repeat my Jesuit vows to walk as much as possible as a companion of Jesus. I affirm my vow of poverty or simplicity, that is, to use the earth’s resources so that they and the earth are renewed; my vow of chastity or selfless whole bodily love without any exploitation of the other; and my vow of obedience or submission to truth as we discover it while advancing universal community among all humanity.
It is an unending and joyful journey.