RELIGIOUS POLITICS by Esther Nelson

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I am a fan of Jim Rigby, a Presbyterian minister, serving a parish in Austin, Texas. I follow Jim on social media and read his posts regularly. I find his take on modern, American Christianity succinct, on-point, and very similar to my own experience growing up with evangelical, fundamentalist missionary parents.

Jim describes his initiation into religion in the following paragraph:

“As a child I learned an a-political version of Christianity. I…was offended if a preacher brought up social issues in a sermon. Religion for me meant a personal relationship with God so I could sing “Jesus loves the little children” but not feel any need to confront the possibility that my nation might be dropping napalm on them. I was taught to pray for world peace but to remain silent about my nation’s polices that made war inevitable. I could talk about Moses telling Pharaoh to set his people free, but was not permitted to break any chains in my own day.”

I’m uncomfortable talking with people who insist they are a-political.  Too many of us find that a “safe” place to land.  Only those with privilege, though, can afford to live there.    

Jim tells us he lived in that faux-comfortable space for some time. He writes:  “Of course, I WAS political. I just didn’t know it because my religious worldview was so in line with my culture’s power hierarchy that my own politics were invisible to me. I did not yet know that ignoring injustice was just as political as preaching about it. [H]ierarchies of power are invisible to people of privilege because they consider the status quo to be a feature of reality instead of a consequence of selfish political choices.”

I’m not a political junkie as are so many of my former colleagues. What I found, though, was that their analyses of certain political events left me flat—unsatisfied.  Most of them failed to include religion as a factor when explaining group (church/country) or individual (pastor/president) behavior. 

The recent and ongoing Israeli/Palestinian clash is a good example. Attempting to understand the tension between the Jewish state and Palestine without taking into account how a large swath of American Christians read and live out their sacred text, the Bible, is to miss a huge part of the puzzle. One need not be Christian or even conscious of the explicit interpretation some Christians give to current events (especially in the Middle East) to have absorbed what the powerful call “truth.” Some politicians (or more likely their aides), though, have understood this connection. 

Jerusalem, a physical location, is believed to be the stage where the world’s final events will transpire. As Jim notes, his politics were invisible to him because they were in line with those in power. No wonder there was little pushback to moving the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem! The Christian fundamentalist mindset sees this as a move advancing the second coming of Jesus when all will be made right. Any collateral damage is a small price to pay.

Not incorporating the religious component into political analysis leaves the analysis bereft of weight.

Jim continues: “By viewing religion as politically neutral, I could disguise the unfair privileges that came from being a white Christian heterosexual male. My complicity with various oppressions was unconscious in one sense, but I was aware enough to turn away from critiques that made me feel uncomfortable.”

I’ve often been told I think too much, push back at things too much, question things too much, and overall am just too, too much. It was never uttered as a compliment although I’ve come to see it as such. In the particular circles I traversed as a child and young person, gender roles were strictly enforced. Even though everybody in the community was subjected to this way of being, girls and women were more constrained and paid a much higher price were they to stray for their appointed role. Patriarchy ensures that the “boys will be boys” mantra infiltrates all our institutions—even those many like to think of as a-political such as our religious spaces. Experience garnered from all of the human family must be included in our conversations in order to bring about just policy and law.

Jim has this to say about his change of thinking: “When I began to work with survivors of rape I slowly came to an awareness of how my male privilege played into the oppression of women. Later, I began to notice how my heterosexual privilege was creating a danger for the LGBTQIA+ community. Finally, I came to understand that religion is a just a word for however I was building my frame of meaning, and politics was just a word for however I was treating people in the real world.”

Jim’s definition of religion bears highlighting: “[R]eligion is just a word for however I was building my frame of meaning.” Narrative and story, based on experience, are basic to our religious viewpoint. Stories reach us in places where didactic instruction manuals and mathematical equations cannot. Stories give us values that spur our actions in the world. In other words, our politics. As Jim notes: “[P]olitics [is] just a word for however I was treating people in the real world.”

Interesting that Jim needed experience (working with rape survivors) in order to understand and labor towards this elusive thing we call “justice.” Our experience shapes the story we weave into our belief system, giving us a view through a particular prism from which we live, move, and have our being in this world. Do our beliefs oppress or set us all free?

Jim’s last paragraph is exquisite:

“Not to preach about politics is just as political as to preach about it. Religion that does not break chains or address oppression within our human family IS political- the politics of Pharaoh instead of that of Moses.”

To be human is to be both religious and political.