Forrester on Christian Ethics and Practical Theology

Collected Writings on Christianity, India, and the Social Order

Duncan B. Forrester

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781351936132
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Teologia e religione
• Subtopic: Religione

Bringing together articles and chapters from his considerable work in theological ethics, India, and the social order, Duncan Forrester incorporates new writing and introductions to each thematic section to guide readers through this invaluable resource. This book offers stimulating studies in three related areas - Indian Christianity with particular attention to the caste system, contemporary Christian theological ethics, and the distinctive and challenging theological approach that Duncan Forrester has developed in relation to public issues such as prisons and punishment, welfare provision, social justice, and poverty.

IV
Political Theology

Introduction to Part IV

Political theology in the broadest sense has meant from the beginning a theology which explains and justifies the political, social and economic orders. Thus, in the Roman Empire the cult of the Divine Emperor was something to which all loyal citizens were expected to subscribe, often alongside another permitted religion, religio licita, which did not conflict with the official cult. There was always in relation to Judaism tension between the claims of Jahweh and the formal sacrifices and so forth that were expected by the official political religion. Thus it is not without significance that Pilate insisted on putting on Jesus' cross the words The King of the Jews', while the Jewish leaders protested that they had no king but Caesar (Mk 15:26; Matt. 27:37; Lk. 24:38; John 19:19).

Three Types of Political Theology

In the early and patristic Church three distinct types of Christian political theology emerged, each of which has its exemplars today. First of all, there was the political theology which offered a theology very much in the classical mode, suitable for the new relationship between church and empire which followed the Constantinian settlement and the establishment of Christianity as the official faith of the Empire. Christianity took over the ancient role of civil religion, sacralizing power, legitimating the existing order of things and inculcating in the populace reverence for the authorities and obedience to orders from above. This approach, which initially had as its greatest protagonist Eusebius, continues today in those who promote a political theology that supports an establishment of Christianity as 'Christendom' and the shaping of public policy in the light of Scripture. Prominent protagonists of this position in modern times have been Abraham Kuyper and Oliver O'Donovan.

The second type of political theology was associated from the beginning with Tertullian and others who regarded the Church as a kind of counterculture, an alternative to the Empire and the civil order. 'Nothing', writes Tertullian, 'is more foreign to us than the state'. Christians live by their own standards, maintaining an absolutist ethic with a tendency to pacifism. A true church should have no dealings with political power or any involvement in the world of secular politics. Christians of this persuasion withdrew from politics in order to sustain communities of love, free from the compromises of the world of power, violence and greed. And these communities and their faith are a constant challenge to the broader society and not only a challenge but also the offering of an alternative to the 'way of the world' with its violence, greed and oppression. Communities of faith and love sustained faith, hope and love in the Dark Ages, according to Alasdair MacIntyre, and thus they ensured that civility remained a living option in an age of violence and disorder.

This type of political theology was sustained in monastic communities and in Mennonite communities today such as the Amish people in Pennsylvania. Its most potent advocates today are the disciples of the Mennonite, John Howard Yoder, and the Methodist, Stanley Hauerwas. And this voice is heard loud and clear in recent political theology.

The third type of political theology has its roots in the theology of St Augustine (353-430). His great work, De Civitate Dei, was occasioned by the suggestion that the sack of Rome by Alaric the Goth in 410 had been caused by the abandonment of the old civil religion of Rome; the gods of Rome were angry and the virtues that had been nurtured by the traditional patriotic cult were no more in evidence. Political theologians of the school of Eusebius were incapable of responding to this onslaught because for them the prosperity and power of Rome and the Kingdom of God had become hopelessly confused. Augustine produced not simply a tract for the times, but a theology of history and a political theology which was one of the greatest achievements of late antiquity and a classic of Christian political theology.

Augustine developed a political theology which sparked between the two poles of the earthly city and the City of God. The two cities are very different from one another, but in a real sense they are both cities of God. Augustine defines a city or a commonwealth as A gathering of rational beings united in fellowship by sharing a common love of the same things' (De Civitate Dei XIX.24). There are, of course, many loves that may bind people together in fellowship, but the highest love, which is the love of God, is the love which sustains the City of God, where alone true justice, true peace and true fellowship are to be found. The visible Church is a partial and incomplete manifestation of the City of God, and the earthly city operates in a fallen, sinful world where compromise is often the only way forward, and the task is often to provide a 'dyke against sin' rather than a complete manifestation of God's love and justice.

Augustine's political theology has been, and remains, immensely influential, but in some ways the most notable protagonists of an Augustinian approach in recent times were the American theologian Reinhold Niebuhr and his many disciples such as Robin Lovin. But it was developed particularly enthusiastically by Lutherans from the Reformation period until today. This Lutheran doctrine of the Two Kingdoms' allowed for dangerous and extreme accounts of the relation between the two kingdoms, as when Luther declared that a statesman is obliged, in seeming contradiction both to the law and the gospel, to resort on occasion to force, coercion and violence. And in such a case, Luther declared, 'the hand that wields this sword and slays with it is ... no more man's hand but God's, who hangs, tortures, beheads, slays and fights. All these are His works and His judgments.'¹ And, far later, some German Lutheran theologians and church leaders in the 1930s refused to recognize that the rise of Nazism was a matter of theological concern because, they said, it belonged entirely in the secular realm.

Political Theology in the Twentieth Century

The whole notion of political theology was for long deeply suspect among Christians because it was associated with theologies that were closely modelled on the old – and new – pagan political theologies, and performed the same function of legitimating the social order. This impression was reinforced in 1922 by the publication of a book called Politische Theologie by a German philosopher, Carl Schmitt, who taught that even in a secular age there was a necessary link between theological ideas and secular politics. Schmitt advocated a strongly nationalist form of Catholicism, and a reverence for the established order of things. Theology, he taught, is inherently conservative, and indispensable in an effective political order. Schmitt's thought had considerable influence on the emerging Nazi movement which developed as Schmitt-style political theology.

Just after the Nazi takeover in Germany, Erik Peterson published Der Monotheismus als Politisces Problem (1935) in which he argued that any form of monotheism provided support for totalitarianism, whereas a Trinitarian theology was inherently associated with democracy.

The third 'father figure' of twentieth century political theology was Ernst Bloch, an independent Marxist who in 1959 published his monumental The Principle of Hope which suggested that a Marxism which sustained the hope of a better future both drew heavily on the Christian tradition, and suggested that believers should strive to realize on earth a better and more just state of things. Bloch was a major influence on Jürgen Moltmann, whose monumental Theology of Hope (1967) suggested that a Christian theology committed to serious debate with Marxism as well as the theological tradition could be challengingly relevant in the twentieth century and beyond.

Liberation Theology

Meanwhile, in Latin America, anew kind of political theology emerged from the slums and the congregations of the poor which were called 'Base Communities'. Drawing heavily on Marxist insights and also on the experience of the poor, liberation theologians emerged led by Gustavo Gutierrez, Leonardo Boff, and others who developed a theology which put at the centre the poor and taught that theology should present a 'preferential option for the poor', and should be deeply rooted in praxis on behalf of the poor, and should listen intently to the voice of the poor. Most of the Latin American libation theologians were Roman Catholic, which was only to be expected in Latin America where the vast majority of Christians were Roman Catholic, although the rapid growth of Pentecostal Christianity was already under way. Liberation theologians found Marxist forms of social analysis helpful in their search for a radical political theology which actually helped the poor, and stood with them in their trials. The early liberation theologians did not have the caution about Marxism that was common among the Europeans, who lived close to the communist dictatorships of Eastern Europe, and were aware of the horrors of many of these regimes.

Two controversies deserve particular notice. Miguez Bonino, a leading Protestant liberation theologian, challenged Moltmann to give concrete content to the 'identification with the oppressed' which he saw as the necessary implication of faith in the crucified God. There is, argued Bonino, no such thing as innocent detachment; even the most abstract theological reasoning has an ideological function. The way to avoid the reduction of the gospel to a political programme, Bonino suggests, is not to take refuge in critical detachment, but to illuminate what is going on with the help of the best economics and political science available. In a vigorous and incisive Open Letter to Miguez Bonino, Moltmann rejects the substantive charges, warns against a narrow provincialism in theology and suggests that liberation theology has problems and inadequacies of its own.

The Vatican, under a Polish Pope, who had experienced the tyranny of a Marxist dictatorship at first hand, and with a theologically conservative Cardinal, Josef Ratzinger, was highly suspicious of Liberation Theology and issued two cautious dissuasives in the form of Instructions, Libertatis Nuntius (1984) and Libertatis Conscientia (1986), while the Pope on his visits to Latin America made clear his deep suspicion of the movement in the Church that had produced Liberation Theology. But in some ways the two Instructions were among the most radical documents to emanate from the Vatican, embracing, for example, a preferential option for the poor. Yet in some notable cases, such as that of Leonardo Boff, individual liberation theologians were disciplined, or effectively ejected from the Church. And with the collapse of the European Marxist regimes in 1989, many expected liberation theology to disappear. But it survived, and in some places flourished, while the Vatican took stringent measures against some leading liberation theologians such as Jon Sobrino.

Political Theology Today

A range of different political theologies continue to flourish in a variety of contexts. On the right wing, 'conviction' politicians, such as Margaret Thatcher or the American Neocons declared that their policies were rooted in Christian faith, while radical political theologies continued to be active, especially in Africa, Asia and Latin America, but also among evangelicals in the United States. Political Theology is far from dead.

In this book the studies of the political teaching of Luther, Calvin and Hooker, and of natural law represent the fruits of my early attempts to engage with the tradition of political theology, and assess its relevance and usefulness today. This is followed by a range of specific studies examining the continuing relevance of liberation theology, and possible theological contributions to pressing issues of today, such as war and peace, and justice. The effort is made again and again to attend to the cry of the poor, the dispossessed and the vulnerable, and to speak truth to power. In particular an effort is made not to speak about ordinary people behind their backs, but to attend to their wisdom and their insights, as well as their hopes and their fears. And this is by no means incompatible with adopting an Augustinian- or a Tertullian-style political theology.

¹ M. Luther, Whether Soldiers, too, can be Saved, Philadelphia Edition of The Works of Martin Luther, 6 vols, in English, Philadelphia: A.J. Holman Company, 1915-32 (PE), 5, 36.

Chapter 24
The Political Teaching of Luther (1483–1546) and Calvin (1509–1564)

The great Reformers Martin Luther and John Calvin thought of themselves not as philosophers or politicians, but first and last as theologians and students of the Word of God. Accordingly, we should not expect to find them presenting a comprehensive political philosophy or a general theory of politics, for they did not see this as the task to which they were called. But the Reformation of the Church demanded the formulation of a general theological position, and this inevitably included some central affirmations about politics and political philosophy. And, willynilly, both Reformers were called upon to give much concrete political advice in practical situations and even to involve themselves in political activity in which their political opinions were elaborated and put to the test. They see their political affirmations as flowing directly from their theological premises and as derived from the same source, Holy Scripture. Their political teaching can only be understood properly in the light of their theology, for it was never meant to be viewed in isolation.

Their prime concern with politics is to define its proper sphere and place this in relation to its context. But it is impossible to mark out the frontier between theology and political philosophy without saying a great deal about both; and although Luther and Calvin take biblical theology as their standpoint, inevitably they are involved in saying much about the nature and function of politics. ...