The New Christian Zionism by Gerald R. McDermott

Author:Gerald R. McDermott [McDermott, Gerald R.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: InterVarsity Press
Published: 2016-11-14T16:00:00+00:00

CHRISTIAN REALISM

Niebuhr successfully avoided both sentimental idealism and cynical Realpolitik in his approach to international relations and especially in his stance toward Israel. He did this by keeping the Christian notion of agape love in a dialectical relation to all historical achievement. We have already shown how his theological anthropology led to a realistic assessment of how will to power plays an inescapable role in the actions of large entities. This leads to a strategy of balancing powers so that a measure of justice (free self-determination of nations) will ensue.

But such balancing is not sufficient. More can be done in most historical situations. Moreover, the participants in the struggle for power can be distinguished by the quality of their moral and political commitments. Such relative distinctions are extremely important in the unfolding of history. The relatively good entity gains more favor for the Christian realist in the interplay of powers.

Already by 1934 Niebuhr had developed a Christian moral vision in which love plays an indirect but relevant role in political affairs. The ideal of agape love is articulated and realized most clearly in the teachings and life of Jesus of Nazareth. Agape is heedless of the needs of the self but focuses on the other, even to the extent of sacrificing the self. It goes out of itself to initiate care for the lost, the last and the least. It has a universal scope of respect for all those created in the image of God; every human being counts. It is strategically focused on the most vulnerable. It invites to mutuality, not keeping the recipient dependent. It is steadfast in its commitments. And, unsurprisingly, it involves suffering in a fallen world.18

The radical nature of this love, Niebuhr thought, made it an impossible possible. It was impossible to apply it directly to the interactions of worldly groups. If tried, it became a sentimental perfectionism which led to dangerous imbalances and then finally to disaster. Pacifism is a case of such perfectionism. But such love was possible because it was lived out in one life—that of Jesus as the Christ. Though that love ended on a cross, it is not completely defeated in history. The resurrection was God’s yes to such Incarnate Love. Yet this love cannot be completely triumphant in history either. The persistence of sin precludes that.

However, this impossible-possible norm is relevant to political life, but only indirectly and dialectically. This “relevance of an impossible ethical ideal”19 is exercised in four ways:

1.As indeterminate possibility and obligation. Love always “presents possibilities of action higher than the conventional and traditional habits and customs of men. . . . It always presents a challenge which stands vertically over every moral act and achievement.”20 Without this pull of love upon it, “justice degenerates into mere order without justice.”21 Thus, the transcendent norm of love is relevant when it presses toward a more imaginative achievement of human justice. “Imaginative justice leads beyond equality to a consideration of the special needs of the life of the other.

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