Father Richard Rohr recognizes how a focus on religion as a matter of personal belief has discouraged some Christians from engaging in political action.
For many people, politics and religion are so personal that neither topic is deemed appropriate to discuss publicly. While separation of church and state is an important protection for all religions, it doesn’t mean we as people of faith shouldn’t engage in our civic duties and the political process. The idea of “staying out of politics” doesn’t come from God. My sense is that it arises from our egoic, dualistic thinking that has a hard time hearing a different perspective or learning something new. [1]
Christianity in its first two thousand years has kept its morality mostly private, personal, interior, fervent, and heaven bound, with very few direct implications for our collective economic, social, or political life. Politics and religion remained largely in two distinct realms, unless religion was uniting with empires. Yes, we looked to Rome and Constantinople for imperial protection, little realizing the price we would eventually pay for such a compromise with foundational gospel values.
This convenient split took the form of either the inner or the outer world. We religious folks were supposed to be the inner people while the outer world was left to politicians, scientists, and workers of every stripe. Now this is all catching up with us, as even the inner world has largely been overtaken by psychology, literature, and the huge world of self-help. Fewer and fewer people now expect religion to have anything to say about either the inner or outer worlds! But if we do not go deep and in, we cannot go far and wide.
In my opinion, the reason we lost our Christian authority is because we did not talk about the inner world very well. We were much more focused on believing doctrines, practicing rituals, and following requirements, which are not, in and of themselves, inner or deep. Frankly, Buddhism spoke to inner transformation far better than the three monotheistic religions. We Christians did not connect the inner with the outer—which is a consequence of not going in deeply enough. Christianity now has become increasingly irrelevant, often to the very people who want to go both deep and far. We so disconnected from the political—the welfare of God’s aggregated people and the public forum—that soon we had nothing much to say.
I am not talking about partisan politics here, but simply the connecting of the inner world with the outer world. We have allowed the word partisan to be the first and sometimes only meaning of the word political and so people don’t even allow us to preach a purely gospel message from the pulpit—as it might sound “political”!
Here is my major point: There is no such thing as being nonpolitical. Everything we say or do either affirms or critiques the status quo. Even to say nothing is to say something: The status quo—even if it is massively unjust and deceitful—is apparently okay. This “nonpolitical” stance is an illusion we must overcome. [2]
References:
[1] Richard Rohr, “Affirm or Critique,” Daily Meditation, November 17, 2019.
[2] Adapted from Richard Rohr, introduction to ONEING 5, no. 2, Politics and Religion (Fall 2017): 11–12. Available as PDF download.
Image credit and inspiration: Eyoel Khassay, Untitled (detail), 2020, photo, Ethiopia, Unsplash. Click here to enlarge image. We plant trees as an offering of communal good for the future.
Story from Our Community:
Fr. Richard Rohr’s Daily Meditations encourage me to experience greater awareness of the continuously manifesting Love of the universal Christ. Each day I find more moments of unfolding sacredness and oneness.
—Maria G.
