Jesus Takes a Side by Jonny Rashid

Author:Jonny Rashid
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: MennoMedia
Published: 2022-04-02T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 8

The Kingdom of God Is

Not Bipartisan

“In politics, the Middle Way is none at all.”

—John Adams

Bipartisanship—cooperation across difference, being able to accomplish things despite political diversity—is an important part of American mythology. Americans idealize uniting together to work toward a common end. We see it as productive, decent, and mature. Christians are no strangers to the allure of bipartisanship, either. Many pastors who try to appear nonpartisan name Jesus as being neither liberal nor conservative. They rebuke people who make their politics plain, saying that it demonizes the other side. Those who espouse the third way talk down to people who are serious about the threats of creeping fascism, nationalism, and White supremacy. You hear them name progressives and conservatives as two sides of the same coin, claiming partisanship is the evil, instead of the content of the politics themselves. Here’s how one pastor, who prides himself on apoliticality and borrows some of his thinking from Anabaptists, put it:

After two National Conventions we have FINALLY found a conviction both sides can passionately agree on: America will enter the apocalypse if the opposing side wins! If we do not outgrow this venomous “You-Are-An-Enemy” mindset, both sides will eventually be proven right.1

I was astonished by this tweet from a White cisgender male pastor, since White supremacy, in the 2020 presidential election, was on the ballot. And today, White supremacy remains a viable political option for many, and apparently, to those unaffected by it, one that shouldn’t be resolutely condemned. For people of color, though, people who hate them are indeed enemies, and the revealing of White supremacy does truly feel apocalyptic. According to the pastor quoted above, the real problem is hostility between parties. For people of color, though, the major issue is racialized harm and abuse that can come from the Republican party, including, for example, the zero-tolerance immigration policy of the Trump administration.

What we hear is that resistance to polarity and partisanship is a new or different approach to politics. But it is just more of the same. Bipartisanship, cooperation, and shared interests are not an alternative to the American way of doing things; they are emblematic of America. Trying to strike a balance between political poles, or finding a moderate path between them, isn’t a radical alternative, it’s exactly what the story of the United States and its way of governance is laid on. National unity with shared interests is fundamentally a part of the American project. National unity without reckoning for the oppressed burdens them more than anyone. National unity without radical reform keeps things running as they are. It is through strong partisanship that change can happen. Unfortunately, partisanship and sidedness are nearly universally decried as negative, especially by our leaders. The pastor above may have thought he was resisting the cultural narrative, but in fact, he was reiterating it.

We see the same thing when politicians proclaim values of both justice and bringing a polarized community together—inevitably, one must fall when one side stands in the way of justice.

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