Pocket Sized Pastor*

I really shouldn’t respond to things posted on Huffington Post but, well, this piece on Christian Social Ethics really ticked me off. It makes me feel annoyed about being a progressive Christian. Though, to be honest, it is also hard to be a Christian since the body of Christ contains people quite different politically, socially, and morally than me. The gulf between me and, say, Rick Santorum, is vast but that’s the very nature of the church. The problem with God is that God keeps being bigger than me.

But what I really struggle with is when progressives start touting the argument about “conservative” Christianity being Pauline. The problem with that argument is that it tries to do a couple of things: 1) it removes Paul from the canon 2) it tries to get us off the hook when it comes to dealing with statements that Paul makes and 3) it cuts out later Christian thought from Augustine through Martin Luther and down to me. It actually undercuts my theology and I’m (probably) on their side! It also, dangerously, declares my theology and tradition as, somehow, anti-social justice, anti-Jesus, anti-poor, and anti-loving-my-neighbors. It also makes some mistakes because it generalizes Paul, forgets that he collected money for the church in Jerusalem, and forgets that Paul wrote Romans. There is a lot wrong with the kind of argument that Mike Lux is making because it starts in the wrong place. It is arguing for a purity of practice, trying to somehow return to “Jesus” and pull out his “true” teaching as a way to influence current social and Christian practices. It is, in a nutshell, doing exactly what the “conservatives” do but switching to a more socially liberal direction. And that’s fine but if you’re going to undercut tradition, the canon, and use weak exegetical and theological arguments to make your point, you’re going to weaken your argument, not strengthen it.

I completely disagree with what Santorum said but I’m not so sure that he is using liberal the way that Lux thinks he is. Actually, I don’t think Santorum knows what the word liberal is because, when it comes to the concept of liberal in the Christian world (and specifically in Catholic teaching), liberal is a specific thing. My definition (that it’s not liberal to say that Jesus healed the sick and we should to; liberal means saying things like the resurrection didn’t happen) is a product of the development of liberal thought in the 19th and 20th centuries. Santorum is taking the term liberal, as it is used in our current political structures, and merging it with a system of theology that the Catholic church reacted against. He’s also equating theological liberalism with liberation theology (which, honestly, I think is a very hard case to make) and trying to tie those two things together through the social liberalism. He’s combining terms, misusing them for sound bytes, and people ARE BUYING IT. He’s using the term liberal to claim that all progressive Christians are theologically liberal and aren’t true Christians. It’s a fine attempt at word play but it is extremely inaccurate. He might not be doing this combination on purpose but if a writer responds like Mike Lux did, you fall into Santorum’s trap and you begin to make the mistake of throwing Paul under the bus. Take Santorum down for saying that liberation theology is not a salvation theology (how can he even make that claim?). Or, better yet, take him to task for disavowing the language of liberation theology, the same language that Pope John Paul II loved to use when he talked about the God’s “preferential love for the poor.” That’s social justice! Point out Santorum’s own flawed reasoning and have him do battle with his own Catholic heritage!

To claim that “conservatives” or “evangelicals” or the religious right are somehow “Pauline” (i.e. not Jesus Christians) makes the mistake of throwing entire groups of people under the bus for no reason. On Sunday, I preached on what Paul says that the Corinthian community (and Paul) do – “we proclaim Christ crucified.” As a Lutheran Christian, I cannot see myself proclaiming anything else. In Lux’s definition, I’m not on Christ’s side.

In Lux’s defense, he’s arguing against a specific framework or ideology that, in his mind, does not change behavior. He sees a Jesus who ate with sinners and sees professing Christians who don’t match that image. Christians, for Lux, are to be transformative characters in the world. His criticism is a valid and is not a new point to make. But he never actually brings up a counter to the theory. He attacks the outcome of his theory of individual salvation but never counters with a different point of view. Instead, he shuts down the theory by saying that to a true Christian, one can’t be “only Pauline” (whatever that means). He doesn’t argue salvation, he doesn’t argue theology, he instead argues actions, morality, and behaviors. He identifies proper Christianity with proper action. In my mind, he’s making the same theological mistakes that the conservatives he dislikes are making! (but, hey, I’m Lutheran so I would make that jump). In Lux’s eyes, to not do as Jesus did is to, in some ways, be an incomplete Christian. He’s taking Santorum’s quote and using it in reverse, to exclude Santorum and his ilk from the body of Christ. The underlying assumption (the notion of salvation, what that means, where it comes froms, etc) in Lux’s argument is never questioned. Rather, Lux’s version of Paul’s theology gets attack, thrown under the bus, and painted as something wrong. He falls into the talking point trap. And it’s this type of argument that fails to actually encourage debate. It doesn’t engage with the other side. It does what the Santorum does and I really don’t see what’s very progressive about it.

From “Preaching the Sacraments” in The Preached God by Gerhard O. Forde. Edited by Mark C. Mattes and Steven D. Paulson (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2007). For future reference (cuz that’s the problem with library books – I have to return them and I forget where the quote comes from!)

But how shall we do it? No doubt sacraments should find their way into a good many sermons if not all of them. When there is a baptism or a baptism Sunday there should be a specific baptismal sermon. Perhaps the best way to close out this essay is to offer again some concrete suggestions and experiments to exemplify what I have been talking about.
I begin with baptism. If baptism is to be preached in accord with what I have been saying, it should be preached as the unrelenting and unconditional divine yes that cuts off our inward flight at every point, lays the old to rest, and calls forth the new. It would probably go something as follows. Baptism regenerates, it works forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation. But how can it do that? Simply by being what it is, a washing with water that cannot be erased together with the speaking of the promise, the creative word, the divine yes spoken over us, spoken to us from the outside, from the beginning, the first an the last word about us, the word calling us to life out of our death “in Adam.” “You are mine,” says the Lord God. “You always have been and always will be.” But that, of course, is incredible. Maybe even frightening. Thus all the questions come tumbling out, all of them attempts to take the gift and retreat inside, protests of the old Adam and Even who know themselves to be under radical attack in their inner bastions.
But in the preaching all the questions must be countered relentlessly by the divine yes. Is baptism enough? Yes! It works forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation. Live in that and hear it again each day. Believe that it is enough and that is certainly enough! Would it have all the significance even if I were only a baby and did not know what was going on? Yes, because it was God who spoke that yes over you. God is God. What about my response? Are you saying that I do not even have to respond? Now that, of course, is the trickiest question of all in the old Adam’s aresenal. It too can only be countered ultimately with what is perhaps an equally tricky yes. Yes, I am saying you do not have to respond. What is the matter, do you not want to? It is the old Adam who can only think in dreary terms of have to and ask stupid questions about it. The old is through, drowned in the water. If you think it is a matter of have to, forget it! Here we are calling forth the new who simply wants to. This is the divine yes calling to our yes in the Spirit. “Awake thou that sleepest and arise from the dead!” Come out of your stinking tomb! But, but, do you mean to say I am not free to reject? Yes, I should hope so! What in the world do you want to do that for? How could you call such rejection freedom? To reject must be only the most horrible form of bondage. It certainly is not “freedom”! Does that not mean that God is taking a great risk? Yes indeed. But he takes it nevertheless, even unto death. Are you saying, “Once saved, always saved”? Yes. What is wrong with that? I am counting on it, aren’t you? It is the divine yes, God’s Word. You do not mean that grace is irresistible, do you? Yes. I find it to be so, do you not? To be sure, grace is not force. Grace is just grace and as such it is by definition “irresistible,” I expect! Does that not mean it could be grossly misunderstood, misused, and abused? Yes, I expect it does. But God suffered all the abuse to bring it to light. Is that not what it’s all about? Should God, as Luther could put it, call off his goodness for the sake of the ungodly? If so, who at all would be saved?
The answer, you see, is yes, yes, yes. It is God’s yes, and he will go on saying it until finally you die of it and being to whisper, “Amen! So be it Lord!” Baptism does regenerate. Of course this is dangerous business! So-called evangelicals will howl about sacramentalism and object vociferously to the “magic” of such externalism. And they are quite right to do so if sacraments are only analogies of allegories of our inner life. If sacraments, that is, leave the old subject intact we could not speak like this or put such confidence in sacraments. Either we must preach them so they kill the old Adam and Eve or we’d better forget them. A sacrament that has all the objective validity we want to claim for it and still leaves the old subject intact is only an invitation to disaster.