I read an interesting article by the late John Howard Yoder about christian civil-disobedience. Yoder was a theology professor at the University of Notre Dame and the preeminent Mennonite scholar of his day. I came on to Yoder through the work of Stanly Hauerwas. Anways, the article, which was thick and not an easy read, talked of the different philosophies supporting civil disobedience. Christian Civil disobedience is when a Christian decides to disobey a law of the land because it is in conflict with what he knows God desires. Yoder does a good job of laying out the reasons for civil disobedience. They are: when the governing agent inteferes with God's call of the church; to avoid sinning by following a specific law; to speak against the flow of the governmental system; to respond to the Holy Spirit's work in one's conscience. I don't want to give an evaluation of the paper, but if you are interested in reading it click here. Instead, I want to mention a few things that this paper stirred up within me. 1. Sometimes I believe we are called to stand against governments of this world, not in violence or by using the weapons of the world, but as a visible representation of the kingdom of God at work in this world. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. comes to mind, with his leading many in non-violent protests against immoral laws. 2. In many ways, we as the church (I must speak of the American church here, since I am only familiar with the American church) have so colluded with human authorities (i.e. government) and the philosophy that pervades from them and about them, that it is hard for us to see where we are to be different and where we are to object. Where does American start and Christian begin? Sometimes I question where our ultimate allegiances lie as Christians in this country. Are we Christian Americans or American Christians? Does patriotism and love of country inpede following Jesus in a way that helps bring in the kingdom to this world? 3. Many times we choose the wrong battles. Over and over agian many Christians stand up against things that seem to miss the point. We hold our banners protesting Gay Marriage, while silently supporting a war that is not only not justified, but based on lies and=] economic factors. We line up to sign a petition to keep a statue of the ten commandments in the court room foyer, while not even recognizing that people are being killed by the thousands every day in places like Darfur. If you have a theology of spiritual warfare, you will understand that the enemy loves to get Christians distracted on peripheral issues, so as to take the attention off of the areas that will be successful for the Kingdom. 4. We have been strongly influenced by Plato. With out getting too deep here, we as a society are very much influenced by the dualistic Platonic philosophy of the separation of spiritual from physical. Thus we can compartmentalize things into the "spiritual relm" and the "physical relm", helping us to not see the need for one to affect the other. Luther had the "two sword idea". This nees more explanation later. Any thoughts so far? Labels: Christianity, civil-disobedience, disciple, Jesus, patriotism, politics, Yoder |
