I was reading a book which has just come out by a guy called Shane Claiborne. It’s called Jesus for President, which isn’t as I first guessed about getting another George Bush wannabe in the White House over in the US of A. It’s more to do with the resistance of what could be called Empire, whether it’s Roman, American or whatever hit’s close to home by the Church. It also talks about in a short chapter that you can view online called (Mohammed for President?: Pluralism and Uniqueness) that amongst other things how some Christians would rather say something like “I like Jesus but not the Church” or “I’m quite spiritual but not very religious” to avoid the brush the Church tends to be painted with. When the word itself was something of an derogatory insult given by those around the early church because these followers acted and lived their lives like the Christ. Shane then poses the question that the word Christian is something we should not paint ourselves with but seek to be known by, by our deeds and lives. To be defined as such a thing whether it be for better or worse.
In that then the Christian becomes something of the body of Christianity, something less individualistic as per the flow of the prevailing culture at this point in time. It’s also possible and exceedingly common that we find ourselves acting “religiously” in some situations and “secular” in others. This neutral behaviour it’s suggested is simply part of our culture, part of another ‘faith’ which we ‘amend’ our Christianity with. Is this always right?
“Even if someone has “no religion” she still chooses to order her life in particular ways, eat in certain ways with certain types or numbers of people, keep to certain rhythms of life, obtain life-supplies from the earth in a certain way (tan a hide or go to Wal-Mart), attend meaningful ceremonies (be it the pub’s conversation or a football game’s pomp), etc.”
Shane highlights the fact that the root word in the word culture is ‘cult’ which among other connotations is the referral to group worship. This reminds me one of my sociology lessons in which we talked about ‘pseudo-religions’.. the fact that people will always end up worshipping something be it a football team, a music genre etc. The fact is we do not have a default behaviour which we then choose to spruce up or “cultivate”, and if we do not actively seek out our religion then we will go for whatever is closest or readily available quite often that of money, the state, relativism, fabricated TV lives. The state.. or the circles we are born into then provide us with our Weltanschauung (Wittgenstein) or world-view which ultimately is then our religion. For someone then who finds themselves “in the world” that is.. immersed in the world-view of the state or popular-culture and yet called to be “not of the world” as a Christian will inevitably be called to a conflict of the heart and mind.
So the view that religion and politics doesn’t mix or the view that “I’m not religious” or “I don’t like politics” doesn’t add up. Everyone is religious, everyone is political it is how which is the real question. The question or challenge then concerning the Christian faith, which makes truth claims in a world of relativism is how do we know the truth if we know so little of the world around us. It’s important to know about other religions whether they openly claim to be religions or fervently deny that fact, not simply to convert but for a better understanding of what it is to understand truth. If we trust truth then we shouldn’t be afraid to learn about it, it should be something of a Christians pre-judgement or prejudice. So when Pilate asks “What is truth?” we’ll be able to speak of that with greater confidence and understanding than the self which had never asked that question.
