About That Wall
I try to avoid overt politicking from the pulpit—the sort of sermon that starts somewhere in the Scriptures but quickly turns contemporary and concludes with a rousing call for us to get behind some particular political proposal or movement. I often give three examples of this sort of thing. The first two are variable; they might be taking a side regarding a particular tax policy or a current war. But my third example, for the past several years, has been fixed: “building a wall at the Red River.” Sometimes people laugh. Many know that I am an Oklahoman living in Texas, and of course there is a long history of residents of the two states having strong views about those of the other.
Recently I used that example up in Denison, which is about as close to Oklahoma as the diocese of Dallas gets. Afterwards a gentleman told me that he remembers Bishop Stanton, years ago, preaching there and telling the congregation that they were “our first line of defense against Oklahoma”!
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Behind my feeble attempts at humor there is a serious point. Let me tell you a story.
A decade or two ago I was at a conference at a church in New York City. During the Q&A, someone asked our presenter, an esteemed theologian, about abortion. He replied by saying, first, that he was sure that we who were there would have many different views about what public policy on abortion should be. He wasn’t being cagey; he acknowledged that he himself had views on that question. But he wanted to turn to more fundamental matters, things like creation, human dignity, our care for one another, what it means to belong to a church. (As I recall his lecture had been about creation and the image of God.)
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Today as much as ever, we need to hold our own political views with the humility that understands: people of good will can come to differing conclusions about particulars of law and policy. But this humility is not an avoidance of politics. Christianity, as a matter of fact and conviction, is political all the way to its root. Our Savior preached about God’s kingdom, and he is rightly reckoned to be the King who rules over the cosmos. It is paradoxical—the political character of Christianity is not the sort of thing that is usually thought of as “political.” Jesus did not act like other kings. He did not summon armies of angels to vindicate his innocence against the trumped-up charges thrown against him. Yet he claims the ultimate allegiance of more people than can be numbered.
When a person is baptized, she becomes a citizen of the city of God. And right there is the politics that is the true hope of the world.
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Out & About: This Sunday, August 11, I am to preach at St. Matthew’s Cathedral in Dallas; the services are at 9 and 11:15 a.m.
The Good Books & Good Talk seminar is to resume on Sunday, September 22, on Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World. Subsequent fall discussions: October 13 on Russell Kirk’s Old House of Fear and November 10 on Marly Youmans’s Charis in the World of Wonders—all in Garrett Hall at St. Matthew’s in Dallas, from 5 to 6:30 p.m.
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On the Web. I recently wrote on singleness on the (nicely redesigned) Covenant blog of the Living Church, reviewing of a book of that title by an Anglican deacon from Australia, Danielle Treweek. To understand singleness today, she says, we have to recognize the grip romanticism has upon marriage—that marriage is where we are most fulfilled, where greatest happiness is to be found. Single people are defined negatively as unmarried, as not being something. This makes single people are problematic for churches. What Treweek aims to provide is a positive reclamation of the meaning of singleness in the church.
You can read my whole review here: https://livingchurch.org/covenant/singleness-eschatological-and-evangelical/