The Paradox of Civility
As a prophetic presence, this church
has the obligation to name and denounce the idols before which people bow, to
identify the power of sin present in social structures, and to advocate in hope
with poor and powerless people…With Martin Luther, this church understands that
“to rebuke” those in authority “through God’s word spoken publicly, boldly and
honestly” is “not seditious” but “a praiseworthy, noble, and…particularly great
service to God.”
-ELCA Social Statement, The Church in Society: A Lutheran Perspective
It
seems almost trite to point out the deep and intense division in our modern
political landscape in the United States. The contrast between worldviews among
the different factions in our public life is so obvious, massive, and
apparently unbridgeable that it seems like an immovable obstacle to which we
just have to resign ourselves. It feels easier to just take it as a given,
rather than to ask how it might be reconciled. It is a very tough environment
in which to be a church premised on God’s reconciliation and love.
This,
nonetheless, is the context in which the ELCA finds itself, called presently to
speak into a riven reality, one where the only authentic public struggle seems
to be the contest for power. We are called to be a church with faith active in
love for God and for our neighbor. Love, in turn, “calls for justice in the
relationships and structures of society.”1 But what
are we to make of this call to be justice-seekers in a deeply divided world?
The Promise of Civility
For
many, there is great appeal to placing our hope in the promise of a “return to
civility.” Faced with the partisanship of a frequently-gridlocked Congress and
White House, one might naturally see civility as a rescuer of public dialogue
based on respect, integrity, and thoughtful consideration of opinions different
from our own. Few observers would describe the overall tenor of our present
discourse as ‘civil,’ much less respectful or dignified.
Perhaps
for this reason, the ELCA was one of many religious denominations to draft and
endorse a campaign called Golden Rule 2020: A Call for Dignity and Respect
in Politics. The goals of the campaign, launched in November 2019, are
twofold: one, to ask Christians to “pray for the healing of the divisions in
our country” (meaning the United States), and two, to reflect on the Golden
Rule in one’s ministry setting for the purpose of applying Christian principles
to our political discourse.2
The
call for civility in politics – which the campaign defines as showing dignity
and respect for those who disagree with us – appeals across a broad swath of Christian
traditions. The Golden Rule, to which the campaign’s name refers, can be found
in many forms in many faiths: treat others as you would have them treat you.
For Christians, this could be readily distilled from our Gospel call to love
our neighbors as ourselves. As an ecumenical pursuit and as an implicit
critique of the present incarnation of U.S. politics, the campaign is both
timely and straightforward.
Holy Restlessness
The
longer history of our country would suggest, however, that calls for civility
do not always manifest as calls for dignity and respect, a posture for how to
engage in dialogue. Such calls can be, and have been, deployed as cudgels
against the holy and restless impatience of God’s justice-seeking people. When
civility is taken to mean a critique of not just form but function and process,
it can easily mutate into an obstacle to our critical participation in the
social, economic, and political structures of our nation. It tells those who
would publicly confront figures with calls for accountability that the act of confrontation
itself is the real obstacle to reconciliation and progress, not the policies
which those public figures enact or the norms they embody in their public
conduct.
In
this way, civility can morph into “an attempt to extend complicity” to those
who would protest the brokenness evident in our public life - the move to deny
health insurance to vulnerable populations, the separation of asylum-seeking
families, the use of tax cuts for hyper-wealthy individuals as a justification
for cutting social services to the poor - and to make it seem like those people
who are speaking out are solely responsible for our loss of public comity.3 But it is precisely such policies that are the source of the rift itself. They
stir the outrage of those who want our economic and social systems to care for
the poor.
When
used as a model for dialogue, civility can be a posture of conciliation and
respectful engagement. This seems to be the intent behind the Golden Rule 2020
campaign. Unfortunately, civility has often been deployed in other contexts of
our public life as a pretext for silencing the urgency of demands for justice.
Politicians are increasingly wont to praise civility and disparage public
confrontation (especially when they are the ones being confronted). Such calls
for civility are often “little more than a plea on the part of those who
benefit from the status quo to be spared the discomfort of acknowledging or
addressing the pain of others.”4 But these are the wages of being a public servant in a democracy: that one
must, occasionally, confront the actual public who is ostensibly being served.
For the sake of the urgent needs of our neighbors, people of faith cannot
obsequiously continue to prioritize the comfort of those in power. Quite the
opposite, in fact.
Other
critiques might suggest that a call for civility is naïve, or that the ship has
sailed on any attempt to revive civil discourse into our political process –
that 2016 was, in effect, a Rubicon of cheapened discourse beyond which we
cannot return. And one could argue that the dichotomous framing of the campaign
itself (with an emphasized letter “D” and letter “R” in its logo, along with binary
red and blue color motifs) also buys into the Manichaean two-party gridlock
that deeply infects U.S. politics, foreclosing our imagination from other ways
of being that are not solely Democratic or Republican partisanship.
A Refuge from Exhaustion
It
would be a mistake, though, to presume that civility’s distortion as a
rhetorical weapon means that there is no place for civil discourse in our
politics. Put simply, it is not bad to wish for a more elevated and
dignified form of politics. Public opinion polls suggest that many Americans
are exhausted by the addiction to rage, tabloid sensationalism, and zero-sum
approaches to politics coverage in our media and public life. For the church to
function as a place of refuge from this exhaustion is entirely appropriate. Jesus
extends this invitation to all of us: “Come to me, all you that are weary and are
carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest.”5 In that context, the
church can be a place which calls for a politics that upholds dignity, respect,
and love.
It
is also true that Christian people are at different stages of their journey toward
imagining and pursuing a politics not addicted to rage, fear, and demonization
of others. Some people of faith may be ready to forcefully critique the
structures and institutions of our broken and sinful world, while others are
simply desiring to imagine ways to talk to their divided families, neighbors
and friends. All people need to continue to wrestle deeply with the meaning of
the Gospel’s call to love our neighbors. As much as we may wish for urgency in
the task of pursuing a reconciled civic discourse, not everyone walks from the
same place or at the same pace. Endorsing a resource that supports those for
whom beginning with civility is productive is a good thing. At the same time,
it must neither be our only resource nor our only framing of what God requires
from us in the present moment.
To What Are We Called?
In
doing so, we can affirm that calling the powerful to account for how they
propose to treat the poor, the orphan, and the stranger is a holy task.
Sometimes that struggle may mean publicly addressing the powerful. Sometimes it
may mean meeting privately with a decision-maker to exchange views. Sometimes
it may mean testifying at a rally, or testifying on legislation. It may mean living
out a counterexample in our own lives, caring for the needs of others in an
immediate, tangible way. And it may mean learning how to converse civilly with
our neighbors in our own congregation or ministry setting.
These
ways of struggling to address the suffering and brokenness of the world can all
be faithful. Jesus met with religious authorities and cared for the bodily
needs of the common people. Jesus subjected himself to the power of the empire
- a power which would eventually kill him - but not before charging into the
Temple to flip over the tables of usurious money-lenders. Loving but persistent
confrontation with prevailing authorities marked Jesus’ ministry on Earth, as
did speaking to, teaching, and healing individual people.7
The
Gospel proclaims God’s love for all people, including those who are powerful
decision-makers and those on the margins. Through our Lutheran understanding of
vocation, we know that some people are called into public service to make
policy on behalf of the body politic, while others are called to agitate for
change. All of us broken, imperfect sinners have various vocational callings in
the world. Regardless of what the call is, God does not leave us alone in it:
“In witnessing to Jesus Christ, the Church announces that the God who justifies
expects all people to do justice.”8 How do we treat our poorest neighbors? How do we show love, compassion, and
respect for all people, regardless of how the world might try to inflate or
diminish their inherent value? As people of faith, we believe that God calls us
to hold the powerful accountable for how they answer these questions. As a
church, we respect “the God-given integrity and tasks of governing authorities
and other worldly structures, while holding them accountable to God.”9
It
is a gift from God that our ultimate hope is not in perfectly accomplishing
this work. Politics can be a “prudential way to secure justice, beat back evil,
and mitigate the effects of the Fall.”10 But it is also not the
appropriate forum in which to place our hope of salvation. We should have no
illusions about our political ingenuity – civility, activism, and otherwise – fully
escaping the brokenness and sinfulness of the world; in short, we cannot expect
to “legislate our way to the kingdom” by deifying the potential of human
activity.11 Our call in this arena is not to ultimacy, but to pursue justice in a world
where we will nonetheless have to keep praying for God’s coming reign.
Conclusion
At
this critical juncture, during this electoral cycle but equally for those that
will come after it, we must claim the mantle of public church. Amid the
struggle to “discern when to support and when to confront society’s cultural
patterns, values, and powers,” we ought to remember that civility has value,
but so too does a restless and sometimes messy or unruly passion for God’s
justice for all people.12 We are called, as the hymn says, to act with justice, and to love tenderly, and
to serve one another: to walk humbly with God.13 The
Gospel does not promise that this walk will necessarily be easy or comfortable.
But it is in the liberation of a life lived in faithfulness to Christ that we
draw on the strength of our community in the church, as well as those
justice-seekers outside the church, to keep going.
“You
must feel with sorrow…all the unjust suffering of the innocent, with which the
world is everywhere filled to overflowing. You must fight, work, pray, and - if
you cannot do more - have heartfelt sympathy.”14
Endnotes
- ELCA Social Statement, “The Church in Society: A Lutheran Perspective” (1991)
- Jonathan Sturgeon, “American Jekyll, American Hyde,” The Baffler (July 20, 2018)
- Maximilian Alvarez, “Don’t Let Them Win,” The Baffler (June 29, 2018)
- Matthew 11:28, NRSV
- ELCA Social Statement, The Church in Society: A Lutheran Perspective
- Cf. Cynthia Moe-Lobeda, Public Church: For the Life of the World (2004)
- ELCA Social Statement, The Church in Society: A Lutheran Perspective
- Ibid.
- James K.A. Smith, On the Road with Saint Augustine (2019), 190-191
- Ibid.
- ELCA Social Statement, The Church in Society: A Lutheran Perspective
- Evangelical Lutheran Worship #720
- Martin Luther, “The Blessed Sacrament of the Holy and True Body of Christ, and the Brotherhoods”
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