My Last 3 Posts come to me today as a reaction and a further thinking about the issues raised in this post from Steve Bush, and the comments it brought about. I had set aside this stuff for a while in the interest of focusing on the matter of finding a church, or what to do while NOT finding one. This has to do, as I said earlier, with the ability and willingness of a church to stand against the culture where it needs to, and enabling discipleship and an intense devotion to sharing life and knowing one another.

The issues raised by Steve, and the ensuing comments, raise some concerns I have expressed before about the way those who engage in some activity considered “statecraft” by the RO-ers, but considered “working to ease SOME burdens” and “make things a little easier for those who need some breaks”. My contention is that both groups share a lot concerning the realization that the U.S. is not the “friend of the faithful” they (the government) make themselves out to be. In fact, the notions of Empire and Constantine are discussed at length in both activist and RO groups, and both groups share in common much of the vision of a “transformed” or “redeemed” sense of justice and freedom as embodied in the Kingdom of God.

The matters of who is “ceding too much to the state” and engaging in “statecraft” is moot, in my view, up against the issue of whether or not these same Christians are involved in the kinds of churches that DO the kinds of things that are needed; and that activist types are often seeking to get embodied into law or state action/aid. I want to encourage both; but I would say that the church is first in line, and that seeking to get the state to recognize this is “after the fact”, or a “bonus”. But , the best “canvassing” is embodiment, as I explored a little earlier.

Generous Orthodoxy ThinkTank: Between Hauerwas and Constantine

Anthony commented to James KA Smith something I wanted to affirm as well:

Jamie,

I really appreciate your honest reply. I in no way have dismissed RO. As a matter of fact the more I read your book the more I become convinced of how important this kind of discussion needs to take in other areas of the church.

I really do asppreciate and value this discussion as well. With a little bit of patience with one another and toward those who may be relatively new to such ideas as “statecraft” and the notion of questioning how and when and where we “engage the state on its terms” —-and not ignore how many Christians are sincerely concerned about “witnessing to the state” and advocating for arrangements which ease the burden on the poor. The more cynical or the more wise need not be so hasty in their remarks that “you’re just playig into their hands” kind of talk. Even though that often proves true, the efforts often bring that lesson home to the activist, and they learn by experience to place more trust and hope in the church and less in the constructs of state. I keep reiterating that it is the “telos” that counts (the ultimate goal– I learned that from RO) — and that the telos of “those Sojourner types” and many of the RO-types are very similar. Perhaps both of these would learn quite a bit from one another that woudl help the both of them if they were to be in a real church together and be devoted to one another in love. We’ve too much to do to counteract the real enemies of truth than to fight over what our motives are in seeking a truth we both affirm: that history belongs to God, a nd that we are all called to be in God’s story.