We need talk about faith and politics

Diana Butler Bass writes about faith and politics in her newsletter:

From a theological perspective, politics is the argument about the nature of community, who counts in community, and our moral responsibility for community. It is an old argument. It existed long before Jesus, long before Rome. It runs through the Hebrew scriptures. It shaped ancient societies. These are questions are the heart of human existence, these theological-political questions. No society avoids them. Except, of course, to their peril.

She continues:

We must talk about religion and politics now. The long argument has largely been left out of the contemporary furor. The world is quickly coming to the conclusion that all Christians are Christian nationalists and authoritarians and that the only alternative is a society devoid of Christian faith - or any faith - altogether. 

A pox on both of these houses, I say. 

Let’s renew the long argument, with its complexity, ambiguity, tension, and conflicting options — in all its gloriously transformative messiness. Let’s remind one another that we are heirs of great traditions, remarkable theologians and activists who were, at the same time, both saintly and sinful. And they left us so many options — realism, irony, diversity, liberation, repentance, prophetic witness, justice, non-violence, peace, resistance, contemplative activism, care for the commons.

Sometimes the only match for the messiness of the world is the messiness of the possibilities gifted us by our ancestors — and the messy creativity of living the argument in and for our own times. 

Silence is not an option. There is too much to lose.

Long quotes, wise words.

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