Essentially, there is no difference between what is a political task and a spiritual one. The two are really the same. To pretend they are separate and different things results in amoral politics and irrelevant religiosity. And that is what we see around us most of the time.
We believe that our politics does not need any spiritual insight or guidance. If we are concerned about poverty, then the solutions we will look for will be political means of getting more money to the poor. We see that as a political task. It will involve getting a bill through the Congress, or getting a resolution passed by the City Council, or getting a grant approved by a bureaucrat, or some similar effort.
To save our deteriorating environment we look for laws that will impose restrictions on what we dump in our rivers, and plans for how we can cut down traffic into the central city, and proposals for how we shall use our land and its resources. These all have to be implemented through political bodies.
Or let us even take war. We strive for negotiations which will stop hostilities and cease the killing; or we work for agreements that will put limits to our existing arsenals of mutual self-destruction. Peace is the business of international politics to try to obtain and preserve.
All these political issues are seen as just that--the province of the secular, political realm. One’s individual faith, or its corporate consequences, have little if any direct relevance on these issues and tasks.
Similarly, we believe that our religious faith need not inform or compel our political activities. One’s spiritual devotion deals with one’s private life. In fundamentalistic terms, persons are concerned about the salvation of their souls. The purpose of going to church is to work out that salvation, or guarantee it, or celebrate it, or prove it, depending on the particular denomination. In more modern terms, we hear that Christianity is to give us a sense of acceptance and of self-affirmation, so that our lives can be integrated, will preach about things like pornography, which, while perhaps a local political issue, is mostly seen as a matter of personal morality. Then there is the Carl McIntire wing of modern Christendom, which fuses right-wing politics with fundamentalist theology, and aggressively pursues its politics in the same spirit as its faith. On the other side of the spectrum, there is the faction of the church which has preached a Gospel of social activism. Many young ministers out of prestigious seminaries in the 50s and 60s reacted against the protective piety of conservative Christianity and have seen their role as prophets of social justice. They have usually become deeply involved in political matters, even to the near exclusion of the spiritual and personal dimensions of faith. Frequently they became alienated from their congregations, and end up either working for social concerns in the “front office” of their denomination or else drop the pretense of being ministers altogether and become social workers, organizers, or even politicians.
Those Christians who have been sensitive to political issues have usually ended up trying to turn the church into a Christian A.D.A. or Common Cause. That has failed simply because most people sense, and correctly so, that Christian faith is something other or more than liberal politics. So this one attempt to relate Christianity to politics, which has been tried only by a small minority of Christendom, has generally failed because it has sacrificed any authentic spirituality in its mimicking of other’s political activism. We are back to the central, over-arching fact. For most Christians, politics is simply another world that is unrelated to things of the spirit.
We should recognize that there is one other way in which the Church has related to the political realm--that is to sprinkle holy water on the established system and status quo. Here is a civil religion that becomes operative. We put “In God we trust" on our coins, add the words “Under God” to our pledge of allegiance, and pray for His blessings at the appropriate occasions--particularly in times of war or hardship. Historically this all began around the time of Constantine, the emperor who claimed he was converted and eventually “Christianized” an entire empire by decrees and laws. Ever since, the state has longed for the blessing of the church, and usually gotten it; any political leader finds it quite helpful. The average Christian in America is affected by all this. Taking the superficial trappings of religion to sanctify the state makes it easier to believe that our side is always more virtuous in war, and more benevolent in peace. This civil religion builds up a kind of instinctive allegiance to the state and an automatic belief in its righteousness as well as our own. But while doing so, it still preserves the basic dichotomy between faith and politics. Spirituality is still purely personal. The day by day activities of government are purely political. It just helps to know that God blesses America, which further encourages a willingness to leave politics alone.
So we are left with this great division between politics and spirituality. Politics solves the problems of the world. Faith solves the problems of the inner life. These two spheres are independent, and not seen by the compartmentalized modern Western mind as being related together in any way. This separation of the Spirit from the affairs of the world accounts in large part for the inability of the modern secular mind to fully comprehend the nature of the so-called political problems which our society confronts.
Consider the three examples mentioned earlier of problems normally seen in purely “political” terms. The normal political response, at least among those who have a sensitivity toward the poor and a liberal frame of mind, is to believe that the State can solve the matter of our inequitable distribution of wealth by the passage of the appropriate laws. With the amount of money available to those who are poor slightly increased, it is believed that the problem which flow from poverty will be largely alleviated.
The problem with this perspective is that it is much too simplistic. And it is spiritually naive. First of all, the basic gap between the wealthy and the poor has not changed fundamentally in our nation for the past 25 years. The bottom one-fifth of the people receive 5% of the income while the top one-fifth receive 42% of the national income. That means that all the social programs which have been advanced by the government have just barely maintained the status quo. Operating under our present assumptions, there are real limits to just how much the action of government can alleviate the plight of the dispossessed in our land. The most urgent need is for those assumptions to be challenged. This means suggesting that as long as our society allows the rich to become richer, the poor will stay poor.
The modern liberal mind is inclined to see poverty as an imperfection in a perfectible system. The right programs and policies can alleviate these social scars. For the Christian, his faith and his Bible teaches him that that the existence of poverty in a wealthy society is a social sin of the people. Poverty exists, in the biblical view, because people become insensitive, selfish, and corrupted by their own wealth.
What, for instance, was the greatest sin of the city of Sodom, which caused its destruction by God? Sexual immorality?
Listen to the words of Ezekiel, in the Old Testament: “This was the iniquity of your sister Sodom: she and her daughters had pride of wealth and food in plenty, comfort and ease, and yet she never helped the poor and wretched.” For poverty to be alleviated, according to this biblical perspective, there must be social repentance; a willingness to accept social wrong, and corporate responsibility for those who are poor. It is essentially a response of justice and love that is called for.
But the secular liberal solution does not entertain those terms. Basically, it proposes programs of moderate social benevolence to alleviate these problems--programs that can make us feel a little generous and broad-minded for supporting them, without letting us feel guilty and responsible for the systems and attitudes which perpetuate poverty. About all those solutions can do is to slow down the rate at which the rich increase their wealth over the poor. In a society such as ours, with a gross national product of $1 trillion dollars--more than any mind can comprehend--the poor are poor largely because the rich are rich.
Without a spiritual response, which begins with repentance and results in genuine human involvement, compassion, and basic change, there will be no fundamental solution to this supposedly “political” problem. Further, such a spiritual perspective also realizes that the mere transferring of money and resources will hardly be sufficient. Personal, human caring is essential. And this is precisely the element most often absent from governmental, bureaucratic responses to our social problems.
In our society, the plight of those who are dispossessed goes beyond their lack of economic resources. Rather, it is the sense that society is actively hostile toward them; that society is structured to serve the wealthy and the powerful, giving advantage and opportunity only to those who can afford it. Overcoming this genuine and understandable sense of social affliction can only come through individuals who demonstrate in concrete terms, and in specific relationships, their compassion for those who are poor, their recognition) of society’s deep injustice, and their commitment to fundamental social change.
The building of relationships is absolutely key to this process--relationships which result in individuals who have benefited from society’s advantages sharing with those who have been down-trodden by the same society--sharing with their time, their money, their knowledge, or whatever they have which can be given over to the other, in a truly sacrificial manner if need be.
Further, religious communities could play an indispensable role in meeting the needs of the poor. For instance, if each church and synagogue were to take over the responsibility of caring for ten people over the age of sixty-five who are presently living below the poverty level, there would not be any need for the present welfare programs focused on the aged. If each church and synagogue took over the responsibility of eighteen families (a total of seventy-two adults and children who are eligible for welfare today), there would not be any need for the existing federal or state welfare programs to families. If each church and synagogue cared for less than one child each, the present day care programs supported by federal and state funds would be totally unnecessary. Our religious communities would be a natural focus of activity directed toward meeting the human needs of one’s fellow citizens.
This is not to suggest that that the fundamental problems of poverty can be totally solved by relying solely on the charity of individuals or churches. There are very basic changes which must come in the economic and political systems themselves. It is essential to work for such change. But we are misled if we believe those changes, in and of themselves, will be sufficient to solve the problems of poverty. What is needed as a fundamental part of our response to poverty in our land is a spirit of repentance and the deepening of compassion among people. Those are spiritual qualities--they are prompted from spiritual resources; yet they involve concrete “political” acts as well.
Consider the problems of a deteriorating natural environment. What is really at stake here? In my judgment, this involves far more than wondering how we can clean the air and water, and find new sources of energy, sufficient to meet our needs.
Our environmental crisis is a nearly natural by-product of our economy, dominated by consumer needs and the continuing quest for greater affluence. The extra cars we drive, the demands for air-conditioners in every room, auto, and even boats, and the technological choices made in our society for the sake of the dollar, rather than the conservation of the environment--these are the types of basic forces which cause direct threats to our natural environment.
The solutions commonly talked about in dealing with environmental problems are really not solutions at all; they are short-term crisis responses designed to stave off imminent catastrophe. The causes of the whole crisis are not being addressed; only the symptoms.
At the heart of it all is a simple question: Can our society continue its present patterns of economic growth, affluence, and consumerism without permanently scarring our natural environment in ways that will cause direct or indirect physical harm? More and more, the answer seems to be no.
The environmental crisis only reflects the deeper conflict of values in American life. The primary economic values we are committed to--unlimited growth, productivity, and affluence--are becoming incompatible with the more elementary essentials for human survival--like air, water, energy, and even food.
When this picture is seen in global terms, the crisis is far more acute. Then it becomes obvious that unlimited economic growth, and our ceaseless worship of materialism, will lead to a global environmental disaster. The problem, then, is that of our values, our affluence, our life style, our consumerism. But how can these honestly be changed? Does it not take a spiritual response--in at least general terms--for a person, or a society, to re-mold basic patterns of life in ways that are less selfishly oriented, and more sensitive to the corporate needs of people as a whole?
Our environmental crisis demands a lot of specific and radical changes in the law, and in our political and economic system. But at the heart of our crisis lies the human greed of affluent Western society. Acknowledging and responding to this dimension, and calling for self-transcendence in our values requires spiritual perspectives and resources.
Finally, consider the problem of war. All of our efforts at peace-making are focused on balancing powers, on reducing tensions, keeping some international crisis from turning into bloodshed. Faced with practical realities, it is understandable that the attention of diplomacy be devoted toward these ends. But to believe that anything like a generation of peace can come from such international gymnastics of power is folly.
The essential problem preventing peace is that people are still prepared to kill strangers they have never seen because they hold to different ideas or different beliefs, or are subject to a different political system. More than this, our nation stands ready to annihilate millions of others, and other nations stand ready to destroy us, because we believe there is no “safer” way to guarantee what we call “security.” We still believe that peace will come only through fear, and through the threat of military might. So we blindly accept policies that advocate mass destruction, believing that this is the only way to peace. What is completely lost in these calculations is any recognition of our common humanity with all peoples.
At heart, we must take a new starting point in our approach to the problems of the world--the truth that humanity has not been preordained to exist in groups meant to hate and kill each other because of race, politics, and economics. Humanity is one, placed together on this small finite globe. But we have become so conditioned, and so preoccupied by our divisions that we think they are what is normal and natural rather than the simple but compelling truth that the bonds of humanity are more basic than any of the artificial divisions that governments would have us die for. I do not mean to suggest that there is no place for modern day Metternicks who can try to defuse potential conflagrations, and preserve some sort of order. But it is a cruel deception to even call that a search for peace. Peace is inseparable from a shared realization of people’s unity.
I know of no hope for our future other than the growth of this consciousness. And I know of no other way for this vision to be spread than through it being grasped by others as a spiritual reality. When Christ told us to love our enemies, I believe this is part of what he meant. God’s love for people is indiscriminate, overflowing, abundant, and total. Such love destroys any of the distinctions and divisions that would prompt people to set themselves over against others, and would justify mutual recrimination. This requires a spiritual love--love which puts the welfare of the other ahead of ones own, love which senses the vision of persons united together by God’s presence and being. Our contemporary readiness to hate to resort to violence, to trust in might, to be obsessed with our military power--these are all the symptoms of a spiritual failure.
So we would maintain that the problems which we regard as political issues involve basic spiritual dimensions. The separation we have made between politics and spirituality prohibits us from understanding the true dimensions of our political crises, which is in every way also a crisis of our barren spirituality. Our politics cannot be genuinely divorced from our spirituality. And by the same means, we cannot divorce our spirituality from politics.
By spirituality, here I specifically mean Christian faith. It has become a modern misapprehension that somehow faith in the Person of Christ is a purely spiritual experience that has nothing to do with the political realm. The most revealing thing one can do is to simply look at the life of this person--Jesus of Nazareth--and see how his spirituality was inevitably linked to political realities.
The Magnificat--the words uttered by Mary in praise to God for the word that she was to give birth to the anointed one--reads like this; in speaking about her son to be, and thanking God:
He Has shown strength with his arm, He has scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts. He has put down the mighty from their thrones, And exalted those of low degree; He has filled the hungry with good things, And the rich he has sent empty away.
And so was the pattern of his life, death and resurrection. The implications of what he said and did were totally laden with political consequences.
Christ called people to a genuine rebirth; to repent and live in a totally new way. And this is the most profound of spiritual journeys. But it was for his disciples, then, and
should be for his disciples now, a journey inevitably involved in the ways in which people relate to each other--in what we today call politics. We must not make the mistake, however, of assuming that spirituality for the Christian calls him only to the outward service of one’s fellow man, and the external corporate mission. Genuine spirituality is deeply personal and individual in one sense. There must be the intense searching of the soul. For that is what true repentance requires. Jung once wrote:
This war has pitilessly revealed to civilized man that he is still a barbarian, and has at the same time shown what an iron scourge lies in store for him if ever again he should be tempted to make his neighbor responsible for his own evil qualities. The psychology of the individual is reflected in the psychology of the Nation. What the nation does is done also by the individual, and so long as the individual continues to do it, the Nation will do likewise. Only a change in the attitude of the individual can initiate a change in the psychology of the Nation.
There is the key. There is no short cut around the need for this inner spiritual exploration, for without it there can be no way that our hatred, our greed, our envy, and our selfishness can be transcended. When these inner forces are repressed, in perhaps a mad rush to political activism, we end up often merely projecting our own evil onto others. So it is that the political tensions and hostilities evidenced externally are reflected within our lives as well.
True spirituality--the spirituality nourished by faith in Christ--leads us to the continual renewal of the self. One’s whole being, including one’s being at its deepest parts, is made new. But that inner, solitary quest leads one inevitably into the midst of the world; it thrusts people dramatically to love others more than their own lives, and to see a whole new order for mankind. To seek what is called the Kingdom, people seek to discover this Kingdom and to build it, and that means they are involved in what we call “politics.” We must see a whole new integration of our politics and our spirituality. We must understand them as the same.
Perhaps Gandhi can serve as a model. His movement was essentially a spiritual one. It was aimed at the inner liberation of people, and through that, at social and political liberation. So it was also a deeply political movement. But not really in the Western sense at all. He understood that social change and individual change can never be artificially separated; that politics and spirituality are the same thing.
Gandhi once said that most people who called themselves religious people were essentially politicians. But he, whom people called a politician was essentially a religious man. For our salvation, today, we need such a union of spiritual wisdom and political action.
When this article appeared, Wes Michaelson was an active member of Church of the Saviour, executive assistant to Senator Hatfield, and a Contributing Editor.
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