I am amazed when I encounter Christians who are oblivious to the fact that most of the Bible is written from the perspective of a people who are being squashed by empire. These empires were historical realities: Egypt, Assyria, Babylon, Rome. They were powers that exercised control and surveillance over society. They were brutal particularly around issues of law and order. Various forms of segregation, ethnic cleansing, torture and slavery were common. It is in this context that the Bible speaks about a different kind of people who are called to practice other values and a way of life that differed from that of the empire.
But if you ask your everyday Christian about this, all you’ll hear is confusion. Here’s a test: Chat with any Christian you know, and ask one of these questions: “In what ways does your faith come into conflict with the economic, cultural and military practices of America?” Or “In what ways does your faith teach you to resist the American way of life?”
“Huh?” is probably the response you’ll receive. Christians don’t see themselves biblically. Christians see themselves as Americans and therefore follow the same rules as Americans. That’s why you don’t see much organizing in churches to confront our warmongering way of life. Instead, Christians, just like Americans, trust the Marines more than God. After all, Jesus was pretty puny compared to those soldiers that strung him up.
Instead Christians, just like most Americans, will align themselves as either Democrat or Republican, but rarely does a church confront capitalism or counsel its youth to get off the grid and walk away from a corporate career. Actually, churches have nothing relevant to say about the moral and ethical issues of our time because they have no alternative perspective.
Rare is the church that embodies the nonviolent practices of Jesus. That is, forbidding its participants from taking up arms. It is hard to claim to love your enemy while you’re drone-bombing his family. Rarer still is the church that proclaims the Jubilee as the standard of economic justice. That is, a political call for radical redistribution of wealth so that inheritance is given to the poor to prevent generational poverty.
Christians do have an anti-imperial perspective of history, and they have a wealth of ideas on how to practice an anti-imperial life. But they neither practice nor preach it. That’s why the Church has little moral authority to help change society. It has adapted and accommodated itself to the American way of life. We shelter the homeless, and we feed the hungry, but we don’t engage in discussions about why so many are homeless nor talk about why so many go hungry. We don’t do Jesus, we just do charity.
That’s our sin.