The voice of the faithful is the most powerful when it gives up human assumptions of power, victory and control. But the Church has become so politicized, and our language and behavior–both within our groups and towards society–are so focused on winners and losers, that we frequently lose sight of the fact that Jesus’ power comes from his willing powerlessness. So says the Archbishop of Canterbury in a speech he gave last week, on September 10th, at King’s College, Cambridge called “Faith Communities in a Civil Society–Christian Perspectives.”
He says that only “…When religion ceases to appear as yet another human group hungry for security, privilege and the liberty to enforce its convictions” will it have the power to change human institutions and have an impact on human suffering in a significant way. He goes on, “To have faith, Gandhi might say, is to hold something in trust for humanity – a vision of who and what humanity is in relation to a truth that does not depend on worldly victory.”
In a paradox that never ceases to challenge and puzzle both believers and unbelievers, it is when we are free from the passion to be taken seriously, to be protected or indeed to be obeyed that we are most likely to be heard. The convincing witness to faith is one for whom safety and success are immaterial, and one for whom therefore the exercise of violent force against another of different conviction is ruled out. And the nature of an authentically religious community is made visible in its admission of dependence on God – which means both that it does not fight for position and power and that it will not see itself as existing just by the license of human society. It proclaims both its right to exist on the basis of the call of God and its refusal to enforce that right by the routine methods of human conflict.
For the Christian, of course, this paradox arises from the ministry of Jesus and the Gospel narratives themselves. When confronted with the both the possibility of state execution and the accusation that he is a king, Jesus tells Pilate that his kingdom is not of this world but it’s power and authority comes from God. Christians believe that Jesus is a different kind of king and that the Kingdom of God is a different kind of realm. To participate in the reign of God is to at once claim participation in it; and, at the very same time, to give up all claim to earthly power.
In a paradox that never ceases to challenge and puzzle both believers and unbelievers, it is when we are free from the passion to be taken seriously, to be protected or indeed to be obeyed that we are most likely to be heard. The convincing witness to faith is one for whom safety and success are immaterial, and one for whom therefore the exercise of violent force against another of different conviction is ruled out. And the nature of an authentically religious community is made visible in its admission of dependence on God – which means both that it does not fight for position and power and that it will not see itself as existing just by the license of human society. It proclaims both its right to exist on the basis of the call of God and its refusal to enforce that right by the routine methods of human conflict.
He says that the Church is, “in this perspective, the trustee of a vision that is radical and universal, the vision of a social order that is without fear, oppression , the violence of exclusion and the search for scapegoats because it is one where each recognizes their dependence on all and each is seen as having an irreplaceable gift for all.”
There are two essential “non-negotiables” that the Church brings to the table whenever there is a tear at the fabric of civil society: First, that all people are created in the image of God and have an inherent dignity regardless of their situation or station in life.
…each has a unique gift to give, each is owed respect and patience and the freedom to contribute what is given them. This remains true whether we are speaking of a gravely disabled person – when we might be tempted to think they would be better off removed from human society, or of a suspected terrorist – when we might be tempted to think that torture could be justified in extracting information, or of numberless poor throughout the world – when we should be more comfortable if we were allowed to regard them as no more than collateral damage in the steady advance of prosperity for our ‘developed’ economies.
The second thing that the Church brings to the table in civil society is the “non-negotiable” that every person is “involved in either creating or frustrating a common good that relates to the whole human race.”
In plainer terms, we cannot as Christians settle down with the conclusion that what is lastingly and truly good for any one individual or group is completely different from what is lastingly and truly good for any other. Justice is not local in an exclusive sense or limited by circumstances; there are no classes or subgroups of humanity who are entitled to less of God’s love; and so there are no classes entitled to lower levels of human respect or compassion or service. And since an important aspect of civil society is the assumption that human welfare is not achieved by utilitarian generalities imposed from above but requires active and particularized labour, the fact of the Christian community’ presence once again puts the question of how human society holds together the need for action appropriate to specific and local conditions with the lively awareness of what is due to all people everywhere.
There is, Williams says, an “absolute difference of the power and action of God as against human power (embodied in the fact of Jesus’ crucifixion as the climax of God’s incarnate work), and the universal promise offered in the Resurrection (embodied in the mission of the Church as mediating Christ’s living presence).”
The Church, he says, cannot claim that it consistently lives by by this notion of God’s power operating above and beyond human assumptions of power. “Its failure is all too visible, century by century” Williams says. “But its credibility does not hang on its unbroken success; only on its continued willingness to be judged by what it announces and points to, the non-competitive, non-violent order of God’s realm, centred upon Jesus and accessible through commitment to him.”
Read the whole speech here.