I was going to do a review of Gregory Boyd's The Myth of a Christian Nation as a stand alone, but realized that I was going to compare it to Jim Wallis' God's Politics. That being the case, I decided to throw in Faithful Citizenship, which is the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops' official statement on the same matter. There has been a lot of discussion of the Wallis book and his blog God's Politics, but Boyd's book is less well known and the Catholic document isn't even well known among Catholics.
Let's start with Wallis, since his book is a best seller and familiar to many here. As his promotional material says
God's Politics offers a clarion call to make both our religious communities and our government more accountable to key values of the prophetic religious tradition - that is, make them pro-justice, pro-peace, pro-environment, pro-equality, pro-consistent ethic of life (beyond single issue voting), and pro-family (without making scapegoats of single mothers or gays and lesbians). These are the values of love and justice, reconciliation, and community that Jesus taught and that are at the core of what many of us believe, Christian or not.
In many ways, Wallis agrees with the Religious Right about methods and disagrees about aim. Our governments (and our leaders) should be held accountable to the teachings of Jesus. Unlike the leaders of the Religious Right, Wallis takes a wider view of Christianity. They have focused almost entirely on changing laws on abortion and maintaining laws that forbid gay marriage. Wallis wants a broad agenda that more closely mirrors Christ's documented life, which is the above mentioned pro-this and that. Since Wallis has widely talked about this on his own, I will not attempt to speak for him. I will note that he too is mainly talking about passing laws. Following Christ means working for the laws that will best mirror what Jesus would want.
For many, the Catholic Church is a monolith dedicated to passing abortion laws and fighting gay marriage. Less well known are its very clear official stands against the Iraq invasion and occupation and the treatment of prisoners. Despite the talking heads that always show up on TV and the very conservative bishops that JPII appointed, the official Catholic viewpoint is varied and much like that which Wallis promotes.
Some quotes:
The Catholic community is a diverse community of faith, not an interest group. Our Church does not offer contributions or endorsements.
As we approach the elections of 2004, we renew our call for a new kind of politics, focused on moral principles not the latest polls, on the needs of the poor and the vulnerable not the contributions of the rich and powerful, and on the pursuit of the common good not the demands of special interests.
The Catholic community enters public life not to impose sectarian doctrine, but to act on our moral convictions, to share our experience in serving the poor and vulnerable, and to participate in the dialogue over our nation's future.
In the Catholic tradition, responsible citizenship is a virtue; participation in the political process is a moral obligation.
The document goes on to list Moral Priorities: abortion and euthanasia, the targeting of civilians in war, preemptive use of force, nuclear weapons, landmines, the global arms trade, the death penalty, just wages, school choice, economic justice, welfare reform to reduce poverty, increased child tax credits, affordable and accessible health care, food security for all, sustainable agriculture, standing for and with immigrants, reasonable restrictions on hand guns and assault weapons, reform of the criminal justice system, affirmative action, care for the Earth, humanizing globalization, a more generous refugee, asylum and immigration policy. In conclusion, it calls for the Church to be political but not partisan, principled but not ideological, clear but also civil and engaged but not used.
There is much in common between Faithful Citizenship and God's Politics. The Catholics probably have a wider and more developed framework that Wallis could present in one book, but they are working with 2,000 years of development. They may also be willing to incorporate more issues that Walls feels comfortable with, but I think he would echo their belief that participation is a moral obligation.
In The Myth of a Christian Nation, Gregory Boyd takes a purer and certainly more demanding route. Starting with Christ's temptation (when He is offered worldly kingdoms) and moving on to Pilate's question (My kingdom is not of this world), Boyd call for Christians to be members of Christ's Kingdom first and citizens of any group a decided second.
Yes, Christians should participate in the world's governance and should work to make that government as fair and just as possible, but they should not confuse that with their real calling – to live in God's Kingdom while still stuck in the world. Christians should be as soldiers stranded in enemy territory or resident aliens. This verges on Manichean duality, but Boyd isn't going there. Instead he argues for the separation of church and state as essential to the church.
Boyd is all for laws to help the poor, but that doesn't absolve Christians of a call to radical acts of charity and generosity. Changing laws is fine, but Boyd is more concerned with changing hearts. Laws control behavior, but God demands much more than just right behavior.
Rightly showing that Jesus rejected the politics of His age as a solution to the larger problems, Boyd doesn't distain politics and governance, he just finds them less important that living in the Kingdom. Jesus dealt lovingly with everyone He met, accepting them all, living and eating with them, changing them through His love. He was at home with prostitutes, those with incurable communicable diseases, and those who couldn't afford health care. These poor were always with Him. He rejected those who were hypocrites, those who set themselves up as judges and, always, those owned by their riches and power.
Boyd is also concerned by the damage done to the church's mission when it becomes nothing more than a nationalistic, civil religion. Thus the subtitle: How the quest for political power is destroying the church. How many Muslims hate Christianity after Bush has made so many religious references in justifying the US invasion and occupation of Iraq? How many atheists have all the ammunition they need to sneer at faith when religious leaders justify torture, call for assassinations of foreign leaders and identify tax cuts as a "Christian" value. Boyd is especially concerned about people who want to "take America back for Jesus" and gives them what for. How can any follower of Jesus be really concerned about whether Caesar's coins have God's name on them?
Note well that Boyd is not calling for mere personal piety, nor is he calling for withdrawal from the world's snares. What he wants is a church that looks like Christ. One that would have the poor always with them. One that would not condemn. One that would commit radical acts of kindness and generosity without counting the cost. One that would not grasp for power. One that rejects violence. This is a tough one and Boyd knows it. Jesus resisted the temptation to take up the sword, though He was more innocent than any of us and more powerful too. There is an example to make anyone humble.
As I think you can tell, I liked God's Politics and have made use of Faithful Citizenship, but The Myth of a Christian Nation impressed me greatly. I recommend all three, but the greatest of them is Boyd's book.