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 PrintableVersion Letter from AmericaNow that's what I call (church) politics!Obama has finally won the presumptive Democratic nomination for the next President of the United States. If it did not quite go down to the wire (or to the Convention) it came as close as could be. Hilary Clinton, apparently stunning even her close supporters, still did not resign her intentions immediately, but left a day or two before announcing that she accepts that Barack Obama has won. It must be difficult for Hilary. She, we might guess, thought she had the market cornered on ‘firsts’, running as potentially the first woman President, only to be defeated by potentially the first African-American President. Even as late as this week, her supporters were claiming victory in the ‘popular vote’ (sounds familiar?), others suggesting that Clinton had been subtly disparaged by anti-feminist or misogynist sub-texts — how can you be both tough enough and likeable as a woman in power? Distance from churchMeanwhile — back at the ranch, as they said in those old cowboy shows on TV — Barack was further distancing himself from his home church of 20 years. He has now officially resigned. The members of Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago are said to be somewhat peeved at the negative attention their church has received (www. latimes.com). They feel the media has misrepresented their much-beloved, recently-retired pastor, presumably (they must feel) taking out of context his infamous ‘God damn America’ comment. But Obama resigned — inevitably, we are told, he felt — while he was running for President. And the church has undergone and finished a ten-week fast for spiritual power and unity, as it seeks renewal within the tradition of Black Liberation Theology that it practises. Is it me, or do we grow tired of this stuff? The inevitable ‘worldliness’ of the world is what drives some to the church. Yet when we get to the church — well, as we all know there are no politics in church are there? I remember asking one person with ample experience of politics both in the world and in the church what he thought the difference between the two was. He replied, ‘Well, in the world the politics are more honest’. I suppose in the church, even at our very worst, we feel we need at least to pretend to be holy. The world and the churchIn his old and brilliant preacher’s commentary on Colossians, Dick Lucas writes about Colossians 2.20 that the prince of this world ‘has his emissaries as closely involved with established religious institutions as possible. His whole aim is to see that everything in his religion belongs to the world (verse 20). He discourages all eternal and imperishable concerns (verse 22). His is a religion not of faith but of sight. His ministers refuse all otherworldly teaching, and insist that people look neither up to the throne of heaven, nor beyond the practical concerns of the present day’ (The Message of Colossians and Philemon, R.C. Lucas, page 128). I have a horrid feeling — as I look at the evangelical movement, prepare to attend the Southern Baptist Convention in Indiana next week as I write, and compare it all to worldly politics — that we may find more similarities between the world and the church than we may wish were the case. I think of the Master’s teaching to his disciples, caught (as the Americans would say) ‘with their pants down’ discussing on the road ‘who is the greatest’. ‘If anyone wants to be first, he must be the very last, and the servant of all’ (Mark 9.35, NIV). I can see him taking that little child (perhaps Peter’s child?) and hugging him in front of all the disciples, and saying, ‘See — accept people like this and you accept me and God who sent me’. I hear his warning to not cause straightforward (‘little ones’) believers to sin, and I am moved to wonder how much of our ‘movements’, our ‘programmes’, our ‘agendas’ would fall under Christ’s stern, but loving, question, ‘What were you arguing about on the road?’ Strategise, not politiciseIf there’s one thing we need about as much as a good kick in the head, it’s the strategies of coalition building and worldly networking. Sure, we are to organise. Sure we are to strategise. But we are not to politicise — not, that is, if we wish to be a part at all of Christ’s upside-down kingdom. Josh Moody,
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