Toward a Counter-Imperial Faith

Toward a Counter-Imperial Faith

I am sorry to say that, for most people on the planet, religion is not about love, or justice, or leading a righteous or balanced life. No, for most people on the planet, religion is really about winning. Being on the winning side: being among the chosen, the saved, or having the last word. In this way, religion inculcates infantilism and only exacerbates the problems of the world. But occasionally, some religious people achieve maturity in their faith. When that happens, religion can become part of the solution to the problems of the world.

What I like about the linked article from Tikkun is that it is an expression of what I would consider to be "grown-up" religiosity; what Dietrich Bonhoeffer might have called an instance of "man come of age."

Christianity, in my view, as a salvation religion, has an unfortunate tendency to promote infantilism in its adherents. Moreso than other faith traditions? That is difficult to say--and probably impossible to determine empirically. But insofar as Christianity promotes a sort of "life-boat" mentality among its adherents, it is problematic in my view. And though I do not subscribe to the notion that origins are necessarily determinative of outcomes, I don't think that it is irrelevant to observe that Christianity began its history as an apocalyptic movement. Lifeboats are an intrinsic aspect of apocalyptic faiths and the monkey of apocalypticism is forever on Christianity's back. How Christians choose to deal with this monkey is what can make all the difference for the future of humankind. I heartily approve of the way in which the author of the above-linked article has chosen to deal with the monkey of his Christian faith.

Back in the last century, the Catholic social activist Dorothy Day likewise exhibited a healthy way of managing the monkey. According to her biographer Paul Elie, Day felt that it was during wartime that "the claim of Christianity to be a religion of love" was most severely tested. And she felt that it was during wartime that one witnessed most professing Christians betray their faith. She wrote: "Love is not the starving of whole populations. Love is not the bombardment of open cities. Love is not killing, it is the laying down of one's life for one's friend" (quoted in Paul Elie, The Life You Save May Be Your Own, NY: FSG (2003), p. 140.

More recently, New Testament scholar John Dominic Crossan published God & Empire: Jesus Against Rome, Then And Now, NY: HarperOne (2007) with an epilogue in which he asks several pointed questions of his co-religionists (Crossan, p. 237):

1. How is it possible to be a faithful Christian in the American Empire?

Then, "beneath" that question, Crossan unearths a second one:

2. How is it possible to be a nonviolent Christian within a violent Christianity based on a violent Christian Bible?

That's right, my dear reader: a violent Christianity based on a violent Christian Bible.

These two questions merge for Crossan into a third, more direct question:

3. How is it possible to be a faithful Christian in an American Empire facilitated by a violent Christian Bible?


Since we are living in an epoch of Christian triumphalism--predominantly Protestant Christian triumphalism--the time has come (indeed it is long overdue) for Christian soul-searching on these matters.

Conveniently, according to the Christian calendar, we are deep in the Lenten season.

From how many pulpits across this broad land do you suppose such Lenten reflection is being advocated?

I would be surprised if one needed the fingers of both hands on which to count them.