A Pluralistic Public Theology

A Defense of Pluralism and a Certain Brand of Christian Political Engagement

Since human history began about the time Abraham migrated from Ur to Canaan, the world has been getting smaller and smaller. Never has this been more true than in this cyber-cultural world we now live in. As facts on the ground evolve and the world becomes more culturally diverse, our ethics, our politics, and our theology need to likewise evolve. Nowhere is this ideological evolution needed more than in the area of public theology. Public theology is the discipline of theology which answers the question, “How ought the Christian participate in the area of politics and its process of public reasoning?” 

In what follows, I intend to argue that Christians participate in politics according to very specific rules that govern (and thus limit) the aspirations of all participants in the politics of a pluralistic, constitutional democracy. In making my argument, I will begin with the philosophical insights of secular intellectuals Michael Walzer and Jurgen Habermas. After using Walzer and Habermas to define the rules and limits of democratic engagement in a pluralistic society, I will then incorporate the words of Jesus of Nazareth to give examples of positive advocacy which is guided by Jesus’ ethics of radical love. 

In summary, it is not wrong to conclude that christian should not mix our faith and our politics. Instead, the issue is whether our politics defends pluralistic, constitutional democracy and is motivated by the radical love of Jesus. 

Rules Based Ethics, Michael Walzer, and the Idea of Spheres of Justice

In ethics there are three fundamental approaches, consequentialism, virtue ethics and deontological ethics. In this essay, I will only contrast the latter two approaches. Virtue ethics argues that a person ought to behave in such a way as to cultivate virtue. Deontological ethics or rules based ethics instead defines certain rules that one ought to use to determine one’s action. The most famous rule in deontological ethics is Kant’s “categorical imperative.” Kant’s overarching ethical rule usually goes something like this: 

"Act only according to that maxim whereby you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law."

Kant’s categorical imperative is an attempt to discover a transcendent rule that governs all our ethical lives. Another definition of deontological ethics is ethics based on “duty.” The ethical rules describe one’s duties. The Jewish listeners in New Testament times were often thinking in terms of duty or covenant. When the lawyers asked Jesus “Who is my neighbor?”, they were asking “To whom do I owe covenantal obligations and duties?” Jesus answered this question by telling the subversive story of the Good Samaritan. In the story, Jesus describes a situation where a Samaritan man crosses cultural boundaries and meets the needs of a wounded man. The Samaritan was being neighborly to his political and cultural enemy. Jesus was saying “everyone you encounter in life is your neighbor and you have neighborly obligations to everyone regardless of their religious, ethnic or national identity.” Jesus taught ethics in terms of rules when He gave us the golden rule. The christian is to “do unto others as you would like others to do unto you.” I believe it is best to think deontologically when considering the ethics of Jesus. 

We can do this by asking questions like the following: 

“What rules in various situations define my duties and obligations to my fellow citizen?

Or thinking more systemically, “What are the rules that govern a given institution by which that institution does right to all the people it serves?”   

Michael Walzer took this rules based approach to ethics and gave us a wonderful method to apply rules to various spheres of life. Walzer’s insight is that different institutions have different rules or ought to have different rules. Injustice arises when we apply the wrong rules to a given institution. Walzer gives us a method to discover the just rules of a given institutional sphere. 

For example, consider college admissions. What should be the primary rule to determine who should be admitted into a college? The currency used to determine admission to a college should be the student's pattern of academic achievement. Those who have worked hard academically and achieved good grades and test scores should be the students that move onto higher education. But, to a large degree, many very good students do not even apply to college and, therefore, subsequently, do not attend college because of cost. The fact is that parental income often determines college attendance. Walzer would argue, and I would agree, that this situation is not fair and undermines what should be a meritocracy based on academic achievement. In the present system, the currency for college attendance is a mix of access to money (rich parents) and one’s academic resume. This is not fair. Making money the currency of college admission is a sphere violation. The wrong rule determines distribution of the good or service. 

Now, even if you disagree with my above example, I hope the reader can understand Walzer’s method. Different spheres have different rules that ought to govern that sphere. Maybe another example is needed. Let’s compare the rules that govern the military and the rules that govern, or ought to govern, the church or maybe a high school classroom. In the military, the hierarchy is extremely rigid. If a soldier is asked to run 2 miles and deliver a message to a commander down the line, the soldier must obey. Lives are on the line. Insubordination results in incarceration. In the church, it would seem quite cultish if a pastor called a congregant and demanded that the congregant attend a particular bible study. Attendance in church gatherings is by and large voluntary, as it ought to be. But, in the military commands are the norm and obedience is the law. And again, this is how it ought to be. Why? Because the military and the church are different spheres with different rules of fairness and justice. In the classroom, the teacher's job is to assign school work. The student is to perform the work and in fact must perform the work to get a good grade. If they fail to do the work consistently, the student fails the class. These rules are somewhere between the voluntary nature of church life and the rigid command process in the military, and this is how it ought to be. Different spheres have different rules. 

What then are the rules which ought to govern our political institutions and our political engagement in a pluralistic society?

Habermas’s Distinction Between the Right and the Good

Habermas is a post-war, German political theorist. The German Nazi’s philosophy resulted in one of the darkest episodes in human history including World War II and the holocaust. In response, the entire western world of academia in almost every discipline has been forced to ask “what happened?” In theology, theologians must ask “how could a Christian people participate in the mass murder of European Jews?” “How could the German church become complicit in the cult of Nazism?” In post-war theology, there has been a significant emphasis on rediscovering the Jewishness of Christianity. For example, the new perspective on Paul situates the writings of Paul in Second Temple judaism. Christianity is now to a greater extent rightly seen as a sect of Judaism. These developments are all an act of repentance for the long history of anti-semitism in European Christianity, an anti-semitism that resulted in the horrors of the holocaust. 

So too, Habermas asked “what happened?” In response to Nazi horror, Habermas asks, “How can a pluralistic society and an ever shrinking world maintain social order?” In answering these questions, Habermas gives us great insight into how the state and the citizens ought to act in the public sphere in a pluralistic democracy. In particular, Habermas’s distinction between the “good” and the “right”  sets ethical limits on the role of the state which likewise limits the expectations and aspirations of the citizen on the state.   

In short, the “good” is a particular community's vision of the good life, and the right is the duties individuals and institutions owe to their fellow citizens. The state's duty is to do right by all its citizens and is, specifically, not to define the good life. 

For example, as a Christian, I believe the good life is to follow the teachings of Jesus Christ and to commune with Him in the Spirit on a regular basis. I also believe that the good life, for me, is to maintain a relationship of lifelong monogamy with my wife. I believe sex outside of marriage is generally harmful and therefore immoral. On the other hand, I have close friends who do not believe communion with Jesus is necessary to obtain the good life. In fact, I have friends that believe attempting to commune with Jesus is delusional. 

Would it be right for either of us to use the state to outlaw activities which we believe do not lead to the good life? Should I seek to outlaw sex outside of marriage? Should my unbelieving friends seek to outlaw gatherings where people seek to commune with Jesus corporately? 

God forbid. 

Why? 

Because in the political realm, we are not to enforce our vision of the good life in accordance with our religious or ethnic identity. Instead, we are to limit the activity of the state to doing right by all its citizens. In a pluralistic society, the state is not to have a religious or ethnic identity. In a pluralistic society, the state is not to be partisan toward any of its subcultures. The rules are to be equitable in doing right to all its citizens. It is easy to see that this distinction between the right and the good describes precisely what led to the horrors caused by the fascism of the Nazi’s. The Nazi’s were partisan toward ethnic Germans and attempted to define what it meant to be truly German. 

Thus, America

“E pluribus unum” has been the motto of the United States since July 4th, 1776. The United States founding documents set limits which prevent the government from being partisan to any subculture. The United States is great because out of many cultures, we are nonetheless one nation. 

BUT….with a few glaring shortcomings. 

Our job as citizens is to make us a more perfect union by refusing to advocate for our particular tribe's vision of the good life and by refusing to use the state to tip the scales to our tribe’s advantage. This American vocation to seek equity under the law is exactly why Christian nationalism is distinctly unAmerican.  

Our nation has many communities. 

We have christian communities. 

We have muslim communities. 

We have communities that identify with every religion on earth. 

In the USA, we have civic institutions that cater to particular ethnic identities or sexual identities. 

Historically, we have been proud that we are “the great melting pot.” 

What Ought the Church Teach Its Congregants on How to Engage within the Political Sphere? 

1. Be Critical: Jesus was critical of the world around Him in His advocacy for the marginalized. To be prophetic is to be critical of the unjust or unfair ways our culture distributes goods, services, and opportunity. To say “the Kingdom of God is within reach” implies an inherent criticism of the world around us. Faith in the “at handedness” of the Kingdom is inherently hopeful. Walzer’s method is an example of an optimistic cultural and political criticism. Democracy is a blessing to the Christian in that we can leverage our citizenship toward making right historically unjust systems. HIstorically in the United States, race, religion, ethnicity, gender, and sexual orientation have been arbitrary criteria used to determine access to all manner of goods and opportunities. It is our duty to right these injustices without defining other people’s path to happiness.  

2. No Culture Wars: The Christian pastor ought to teach their congregants that it is not our job to enforce via the state our cultural preferences or our vision of the good life on our fellow citizens. We are not to “put prayer back in schools” by having teachers lead students in prayer or any religiously suggestive activities. We are not to tip the scales toward hetero-normativity. These culture wars may be fought in the public sphere and the private sphere but must not be fought in the political sphere.

3. A Politics of Radical Love: Jesus was clear that Christians ought to be good news to the poor. Jesus’ advocacy was consistently for the marginalized. While we are not called to force our vision of the good life on our fellow citizens, we can advocate that the state do right to all its citizens. The democratic social contract does empower us to utilize the power of the tax authority of the state to solve social ills like transgeneration poverty resulting from our nation's history of ethnic prejudice. We can advocate for a politics of radical love that serves the needs of suffering people including the sick, the addicted, the poor, and the uneducated. 

In conclusion, I am contending for the use of secular political theorists in the church to combat the unAmerican and unchristian political theology of the Christian right. I strongly oppose the conservative, status quo empowering position that Christians be apolitical. The issue is not whether or not we are political but whether our politics are ethical and pluralistic. 

E Pluribus Unum. 

E Pluribus Unum indeed.