In recent weeks, Glenn Beck has stirred up controversy by instructing his hearers to leave their churches if they hear or see the words “social justice,” as he believes the words are “code” for nazism and communism and a perversion of the gospel. The words led to a blogging spree, as one would expect, and a series of rather comical exchanges between Jim Wallis of Sojourners and Beck in which Beck has promised a smear campaign in which he will “hammer” Wallis “all through the night, and over and over” as Wallis has turned the other cheek and asked for a civil dialogue on the matter.
My interest here isn’t to join the fray. Though it troubles me the lack of discernment shown by some Christians with this, it’s become clear Beck is wading into unfamiliar waters and making a fool of himself in the process. Even leaders of Beck’s Mormon church have called Wallis to apologize for Beck’s uninformed statements. My interest is instead to explore what I believe is really at issue here, but to my knowledge overlooked by commentators: the political nature of the church.
It’s become a truism that the church is not political and moreover should not be political. When the church and state are not kept separate, the logic goes, both the church and state suffer. The problem, I believe, is not that the church has become too political, but rather that the church in America is suffering because it has not been political enough. The church is itself a political body with its own brand of politics, and this politics has been largely forgotten and replaced by the world’s politics.
One key part of the church’s politics is the church’s unity. The church is to be one, in complete unity. This unity goes deeper than any loyalty to blood relations, any patriotic sentiment, or any political ideology, and it shows the world that the Son and the Father are one (Jn 17). I’m convinced that one of the best ways to spot idols in the church is to see what divides us. If we are divided by anything but the essential truths of the Christian faith, we are in effect placing whatever divides us over our loyalty to Christ and so each other. We may not do this intentionally, and we may even have the best of intentions for doing so, but by dividing ourselves we are implying that what divides us is more important to us than the unity of Christ’s body.
This is, in my estimation, the danger of what Beck has called for. Not so much that he denies social justice as being a part of the gospel (although I’d strongly disagree with him there), but that his statements imply that political views are more important than church unity. The world is divided by languages, religions, race, politics, and, our most recent invention, the nation-state. But Christ has shattered each of these dividing walls of hostility through His death and resurrection (Eph 2). In a constantly warring world, Christ is our peace. The peace Christ has created shows the world that division is not apart of God’s plan, and that something is more important than the world’s political games: that the Father and the Son are one.
I agree that Beck has made a fool of himself, though the fact that he has embroiled himself in such a debate doesn’t surprise me one bit.
What does surprise me, however, is the response of Sojourners. While Jim Wallis has called for a discussion, and has appeared to remain calm, Sojourners, the magazine he founded and of which he is editor, has jumped to the defensive. In their weekly emails they send out, presumably to thousands of people of faith and people of possible faith, their tone has turned sarcastic and condescending, which is a shame.
If unity is what we’re aiming for, doesn’t that unity involve respect, even when our feelings get hurt?
I haven’t kept up and would have to see it to comment further, but yes that’s a shame if Sojourners is stooping to Beck’s level. It’s easy to fight fire with fire, it’s hard to turn the other cheek. I definitely have trouble with that.
All I want to say is that I really appreciate your thoughts on the matter. You have given some good perspective to this whole matter.
I appreciate your thoughts, you put much more calmly and succintly what comes out as “blarhghbalarhalckhjancl” when I try to say it. The call to leave churches over social justice should rub us the wrong way, because it asks us to give our first allegiance to an american political philosophy instead of the Triune God and the church the Triune God sends into the world as a sign and foretaste.
For those of us who are Christians, I wonder if it might be truly productive to have a discussion about Social Justice and how it relates to involvement in government, or further how do we all hold as valuable what Jesus held as valuable while having strong differences in how we go about that.
@Heather – could you tell me what you found as sarcastic? The only thing I’ve seen that way is the campaign to report yourself as a social justice Christian to Glenn Beck which to me is more a non-violent response than anything else. Has there been something else that you’ve seen as sarcastic or demeaning that I’ve missed?
Good job. I’m proud of you!
The beauty of this blog is that we are challenging the whole Glen Beck divisiveness and of course, B.D.’s incoherent “blarhghbalarankharjnkh”(don’t worry, he’s actually speaking in tongues). I’m convinced that the tone that all of us on this site set and the respect for each other that we seek to maintain, is in itself a very real protest to all the non-relatioinal ranting and personal attacks that have become the new “normal” in the arena of public discourse.
In the short time I’ve been on this blog, I’ve been learning how to listen to others and how to disagree without being an a-hole. That said, I’ll probably have to make a public apology before the week’s out (change of heart comes slow). Thanks for offering us a refreshing alternative.
Great thoughts, thanks.
Wow – I’ve never quite looked at the church-politics paradigm like that before, but I think you’re absolutely right. Whatever divides us must be more important to us than the Christ who saves/reconciles. You put it so simply and so beautifully!
Amen. The allegiance to political views over against church unity is, I think, one of our nation’s biggest crises today. Politics is what tends to define people and church, religion, God, what have you, tends to be a pillar or accessory of that. I think arguing over politics and heated debates feed into the human drama a bit better–it’s proving one is right over another. Striving first and foremost for church unity is focusing more one one’s neighbor than one’s self and humbling one’s self for the preference of the other. This wouldn’t really make a hot, prime time political debate. We have such a craving for drama (and for proving ourselves) that we lose sight of Christ and the cross in the midst of it all. Ohh pride.
@B.D.–Sarcastic may have been a poor choice of words. I only know that, in their mass emails, they have switched (or at least did for a moment) to a defensive tone. Perhaps it’s just my reading of it, but their response seemed somewhat counter-intuitive. They called for more people to join them, for their website and outreach to be strengthened, etc. And while all of these things are fine, together in one email it seemed almost like an intellectual call to arms. But again, that’s just one read of it.
I totally appreciate the thoughts in regards to the church and politics even though I may disagree with them a bit. Much of what Glenn said though was taken out of context by the media and many people/friends I know have focused on a few mere excerpts instead of the whole of what he said.
Glenn Beck is not against helping the poor and needing. He in fact gives quite bit of his own wealth to various causes and encourages others to do the same. What he is against is what he views, ironically enough, is the politicization of this very act within the realm of the church. An article which discusses this well can be found here: http://newsweek.washingtonpost.com/onfaith/guestvoices/2010/04/what_glenn_beck_meant_about_social_justice.html
I’ve read the whole transcript, and invite anyone to look up the transcript and judge for themselves as far as taking anything out of context goes.
Otherwise, it really doesn’t matter what Glenn Beck meant about social justice. It’s a moot point, even if Beck and I were in total agreement. As soon as he instructs people to leave their church if they don’t agree with something for political reasons, he is instructing people to value their personal political philosophy over the unity of the body of Christ. That is indefensible. If a political liberal made an equivalent comment, I’d say the same thing.
Part of the church’s beliefs about social ethics has included not just charity to the poor and needy, but concern for the larger societal structures that made them poor in the first place. We may disagree with the political philosophy that corrects those larger societal structures, but when we divide ourselves based on political philosophy we turn politics into an idol.
No one, and no church community, is ever politically “neutral” whatever that would even look like. I, who have been “left leaning” (I hate the simplistic categories but for the sake of argument) since college, have put up with plenty of political crap I’ve disagreed with from the mostly in-love-with-the-right evangelical churches I’ve attended. I would never leave, and I especially would never instruct someone who trusted me to leave for such a theologically indefensible reason as Beck did. As O’Reilly pointed out, he’s asking all Catholics to leave their church… even after Beck corrected what he “really” meant.