When you have a few years on you, as I do, you start running into reruns, reboots and reiterations. How many Spider-Man movie reboots have there been since the 1970s? How many versions of Pride and Prejudice? How many efforts to start a true Jesus movement in America?
Ah, I surprised you there, maybe.
But recently I was approached by an energetic newcomer to the religious thinker/activist landscape I live in who asked me this question: “What would it take to organize a movement of people who are serious about actually following Jesus? If we could pull them together, we could defeat this MAGA-Christianity disaster that has so discredited the faith in America and so distorted our politics!”
David Gushee
At first, I offered cooperative thoughts about all the Christians who I think would meet my new friend’s description.
It would include many post-evangelicals, many Mainline Protestants, many CBF and Alliance type Baptists, the more progressive side of the Catholic population, a great many in the historic Black churches and denominations, many Hispanic Christians. There also are undoubtedly a good number of post-Christians, or non-Christians, or people of other faiths, who are attracted to the life and teachings of Jesus and could be enlisted.
Visions of Blue Christian America, the true adherents of Jesus, danced in my mind.
Imagine an organizing campaign on an epic scale around a shared vision of Jesus-following, either implicitly or explicitly opposed to what has become of U.S. evangelical Christianity and other versions of a MAGA-fied faith.
I remember saying in that conversation: “After all, culture-warring, reactionary, authoritarian, right-wing Christianity has so many blind spots and so much disregard for the basic teachings and spirit of Jesus that there is a huge opening there for a better vision.”
“Culture-warring, reactionary, authoritarian, right-wing Christianity has so many blind spots and so much disregard for the basic teachings and spirit of Jesus that there is a huge opening there for a better vision.”
And I said: “We ought to have both the winning argument and the numbers on our side, if we could just network our side effectively. It would take the right vision and language and organizers with particular kinds of skills and plenty of time and money to spend.”
If you are attracted to such a project, I can put you in touch with the people who are pursuing this dream.
But then …
But as I think further about it, I have significant hesitations.
I have known countless Christian scholars, pastors and activists who have invested their careers trying to get Christians to follow Jesus. Some of them have gone on to try various ways of linking serious Jesus-following with progressive politics, maybe even to the point of identifying serious Jesus-following with progressive politics.
What happens when these efforts are made? Non-progressive Christians tend to protest that progressive Christians are cherry-picking Jesus quotes to fit our preconceived political agenda, conveniently avoiding teachings we would rather not consider. Sometimes those criticisms are fair.
Other times, progressive Christians try to move from Jesus’ teachings like “give to the poor” to specific policy prescriptions like, say, “loosen entitlement program eligibility.” Or “Jesus taught peacemaking” is read to mean “oppose this or that military deployment.”
But ethicists have long recognized it is quite a leap to go from a biblical injunction to a specific policy prescription. There are many moral, legal and prudential considerations that must be taken into account when proposing what government policy should be.
Why we won’t follow Jesus
So that’s the first problem. But the next one is even more profound. Not even most Christians really want to follow Jesus. Or to put it more fulsomely: The example and teachings of Jesus are always available to stimulate renewal movements within Christianity. But Christian people and institutions quite often are pursuing other goals.
“Not even most Christians really want to follow Jesus.”
Don’t miss the kind of terrible and astonishing claim I just made. I just said Christianity and Christians are generally found pursuing other goals besides closely studying and following the teachings of Jesus.
Why in the world is this the case? Well, history has a lot to do with it.
Even if the earliest church documents show evidence of fascination with and commitment to the example and teachings of Jesus, a decisive turn took place when the church in the fourth century moved rather quickly from marginal community toward imperial establishment, from persecuted to eventually becoming persecutor. The habit of being married to state power and committed to the success of this or that state involved the churches in constant moral compromises and disasters over more than a millennium.
When Christian Europe sent out its colonizers from the 15th century forward on projects of combined Christian and state mission, compromised Christianity deteriorated all the further. What is pungently now called “slaveholder Christianity” was one result, in which people supposedly identified as followers of Jesus traded, owned and abused humans by the millions. Then, even after the end of slavery, slaveholder habits of mind and heart never really died.
We live with that toxic legacy still today.
Then there was this huge development in Christian theology: Christianity very early became not only the way taught and embodied by Jesus but also a religion centered on claims about Jesus, especially the saving significance of his death and resurrection. Over time, the latter could and often did overshadow the former.
Consider the absence of the example and teaching of Jesus in the creeds, for example. Some historians think the development of this lacuna is not coincidental; after all, the creeds themselves developed in the context of state Christianity.
Following Jesus is radical
Finally, I would add this: My study of Jesus’ teachings leaves me impressed with their stringent, compelling radicalism.
Jesus taught things like this:
- Love your enemies, pray for them, bless them
- Give even the shirt off your back to those who ask for it
- Forgive the same person hundreds of times
- Rich people should divest their wealth and give it to the poor
- Marriage is for life with no (or very few) exceptions
- Deny yourself and take up your cross
- True greatness is found in humble service
- Do not seek human recognition, only God’s recognition
- Anyone who causes harm or temptation to a child is in grave spiritual danger
- Take the initiative to make peace
- Tell the truth, period, and do not take oaths
- Do not judge other people
- Fear only God, not any other human being
- Love God, neighbor and self
- Act like the Good Samaritan did, with compassionate action
- You cannot love both God and mammon
- People who are indifferent to the poor risk eternal damnation
- Avoid all forms of spiritual pride
This list (by no means comprehensive) challenges everyone, absolutely everyone. That includes all of us who are sure MAGA Christianity is terrible — and who have very good reasons for believing our version is more faithful to Jesus.
It may be that focusing intently on the other side’s awfulness can become a good way to avoid dealing with the way Jesus challenges us — all of us. You and me. Our team.
How are we doing with loving our enemies? Forgiving those who hurt us? Divesting our wealth? Not judging other people? Telling the truth even when it is embarrassing to us? Not seeking human recognition? Avoiding spiritual pride?
None of this releases us from political responsibility. Nor does humility require pretending every political alternative is equally compatible with the way of Jesus.
It requires something harder: Acting responsibly in politics without turning ourselves into the righteous and Jesus into the patron saint of our side.
Jesus eludes our capture. He must never be turned into a mascot.
David P. Gushee serves as Distinguished University Professor of Christian Ethics at Mercer University, chair in Christian social ethics at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam and senior research fellow at International Baptist Theological Study Centre. He is past president of the American Academy of Religion and Society of Christian Ethics. He also is author of 30 books, including Righteous Gentiles of the Holocaust; Kingdom Ethics; Defending Democracy from Its Christian Enemies; Changing Our Mind; and The Moral Teachings of Jesus.