Faith and Politics after Christendom by Bartley Jonathan;

Author:Bartley, Jonathan;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Authentic Media

7

Signs of Contradiction

In George Orwell’s Animal Farm, the revolutionaries’ Seven Commandments are eventually reduced to just one: ‘All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.’1

In the last chapter, we saw how the church is engaging politically and flexing its muscle. It is taking most of the political opportunities it can find, defending old methods of engagement and creating new ones. But it is doing so quite uncritically. In the main, it accepts the values of the political system and is happy to engage in it in the same way that everyone else does.

But as it emerges from Christendom – a context in which it wielded power and influence – the church does not automatically begin from the same point as everyone else. It brings with it baggage from another era. Christendom may have passed but its ecclesiastical and social vestiges remain,2 and this has an impact both on how the church engages politically and on how others interpret its political activity.

The church may be fragmented and Christians may hold different political beliefs and positions, but the outside world does not easily make such distinctions and often considers Christians as a single entity. The ‘post-denominationalism’ of the post-Christendom church in general, and the advent of para-church campaigning groups in particular, further confuses the picture. Our uncritical engagement in the political system can lead to a number of difficulties and apparent contradictions, especially when it comes to the church’s political witness.

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