Keeping Faith in a Season of Change

Last updated on: July 1, 2015 at 5:36 pm by Guest Contributor

Keeping Faith in a Season of Change 2015-07-01T17:36:19-05:00 Guest Contributor

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The reaction of some conservative Christians to recent political events in the US continues to interest me. The vitriol and defiance directed against the SCOTUS for its decisions on same-sex marriage and the Affordable Care Act, the silence or dissembling amidst the upsurge of racial terrorism, the angst over the Confederate flag, and other developments are feeding on a fear that is bordering on paranoia for some folks. There’s an emerging theme among the disaffected that we are about to enter a new age of persecution of Christianity in this country.

As I reflect on this theologically, I think these conservative folks are right about one thing — “the times, they are a changin’.” We are beginning to feel more acutely a social and cultural shift in this country. It’s the shift to a form of Post-Constantianism in which we recognize that America is not a Christian nation. And this reality, by the way, is not the product of some new liberal agenda but was envisioned and intended by the nation’s founders.

Conservative Christians will no longer assume their seat at the head of the table. They will simply occupy one seat at a big table, and they will be one voice among many in the national conversation about communal life and the common good.

There are Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, Christians, and the faithful of a host of other great religious traditions at this same table. All of them are American. Around this table are also atheists, agnostics, and “nones.” And within each group itself there is great diversity. We’re going to have to learn to listen and talk to one another, finding common ground and some level of consensus for a shared life where we can, acknowledging differences graciously and generously where we must.

Just because you are no longer at the head of the table, and just because it’s not a Christian table doesn’t mean you’re being persecuted. It means you’re a citizen — one among many, no less, no more.

A choice lies before us.

Christians can respond to Post-Constantinian America with fear, paranoia, violence, and indifference to the well-being of all people. This is the path of church burnings, confederate flags, threat letters to women pastors, thumping rather than studying the Bible carefully, and ideological adulation of propaganda masquerading as news.

But there’s a second possibility that involves seeing Post-Constantinian America as an opportunity to retrieve and recover a more authentic Christianity. This choice will be awkward and difficult at times, and we will surely look clumsy as we practice our way into it. It is the way of kenosis, of a self-emptying of one’s own power and privilege to make room for the other. At times it may feel like we are losing our lives when in fact we are really only losing that old, false life mortified in our baptism. As a baptized people, we will discover that power is not “power over” others but the empowerment of others. We will discover renewed authenticity when we realize that a great deal of the hate directed outward toward others is really a manifestation of the discomfort, fear, and hate we actually feel toward ourselves but are too dishonest and spiritually ill-equipped to confront directly.

As I see it, the challenge for Christians generally, and pastors and theologians specifically, is to prepare people to be Christian in a Post-Christian America. And paradoxically, that work may begin at a distinctively Christian table — the Eucharistic one where we eat and drink the life of the self-emptying One.

Matt Matthews is currently Professor of Theology at Memphis Theological Seminary and Theologian-in-Residence at the Church Health Center in Memphis, Tennessee

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