Advent #3 - The Demand
Pathways to Topple Empires and Be Well
“But they are not real Christians….”
Christians use this phrase to distance themselves from—ironically—other Christians.
It’s most often directed to the types who enmesh far-right ideology with Christian beliefs.
Trouble is, it’s not helpful. By name and association, Christians who intentionally brings harm to others—and there are a LOT of these types—are Christians.
What we do with that info is the question….
Welcome to Part #3 in this Advent series devoted to toppling empires. May you find what you need.
Christian Nationalism, and all adjacent forms of malformed Christian belief systems, are indeed Christian. Those who gather in the name of Christianity are exactly that. Believe them. And believe that what they preach IS what their Christianity is all about.
The oft cited phrase (I heard it first from Pastor Trey Ferguson), “there is no one Christianity, only Christianities,” aptly describes the historic fact: there’s never been a universal Christian church despite what the Roman Catholics say. There are many expressions and traditions.
That’s both a pro and con to the faith.
Pro. Christianity is contextual, translatable, transcendent throughout time. It can fit within any culture, malleable to stories and people, can be made unique to a specific land.
Con. Christianity is contextual, which means anybody can make it mean anything they want, and they usually interpret the Bible a particular way to get there too.
Across the colonial west you have five centuries of Christian belief systems where the bedrock contains DNA that condoned slavery, championed manifest destiny and with it the genocide of Indigenous people, rapidly embraced capitalism, and solidified the patriarchy.
All traditions that have emanated or multiplied on colonial lands are Christian, dirty laundry and all.
There are few traditions that escape this formation. The question is, how do Christians today contend with this wrongful legacy?
Some try to ignore it. Some will blame other Christians for dropping the ball. Some might acknowledge the complexity of legacies embedded with empire and adopt postures to make amends.
The latter makes sense because you would be hard pressed to find Christianities today that have not tied themselves at one point to the social ladder of empire. It wasn’t always this way, of course.
2000 years ago Christians were known for opposing the life-taking systems of empire and kingdoms. Christians in the first three centuries were persecuted because they defied the empire. This changed when Rome ‘Christianized’ and Christianity became the official religion of the empire™.
Today, there are clear delineating lines between Christians who rabidly embrace the lure of empire and capital for the sake of expanding social power and wealth. Malformed power to be precise. The rest of us watch in horror as those same Christians celebrate the expansion of ICE, embrace Zionism and the ongoing genocide in Gaza, spit utter disdain for the poor, gleefully to support far-right politicians so long as they satiate the desires to police minorities and protect cherished ideologies, and so on.
All of these broken postures are unsurprising to me. Given the legacy, Christianity has long been the tool of empire. From Rome, to western colonization, to American imperialism, Christianity and empire have walked hand and hand.
The next question we must ponder about these Christianities is:
Are they Christlike?
For Week 3 of Advent we return to Mary’s Song—the Magnificat—because she anchors not only the Advent season, but the entire Gospels as well.
Mary is a prophet foretelling the future vocation of her son. Every Jewish woman giving birth to a son would have dreamed her boy would one day save their people. It’s curious, however, that Mary knew what type of liberation Jesus would usher in. Because most moms would have thought liberation through the logics of empire which means the sword. Mary’s vision announced a different way—demands that also fundamentally outline how Christ followers ought to BE in this world.
She sings,
He shows mercy to everyone….
He has scattered those with arrogant thoughts and proud inclinations.
52 He has pulled the powerful down from their thrones
and lifted up the lowly.
53 He has filled the hungry with good things
and sent the rich away empty-handed.
Mercy to everyone; scattering the arrogant; pulling the powerful down; lifting the lowly; filling the hungry; sending the rich away empty.
The prophets in the Bible speak not with futuristic predictions. No. Prophets are truth-tellers showing the pathways Creator has in mind for our collective flourishment. Mary speaks to the future vocation of Jesus, and Christians interested in being Christlike must adopt the attributes of his calling.
Mercy to everyone; scattering the arrogant; pulling the powerful down; lifting the lowly; filling the hungry; sending the rich away empty.
These attributes combine towards a new order of how to be well. It involves individual and collective liberation for all of creation. It is obviously the antithesis of all things empire; the death-dealing ways of systems designed to curtail freedom.
The Christ way opposes the way many Christians show up in the world. Those who choose to hoard wealth and power, content to twist their faith to match the gaze of empire and extract their material rewards.
Christ however calls for a material liberation, one that can only come to pass when the way of empire is upturned and the new logics of being well in the world are upheld.
Mercy to everyone; scattering the arrogant; pulling the powerful down; lifting the lowly; filling the hungry; sending the rich away empty.
Jesus of course has his own sermons and one liners that define his vocation further. They can be summed up in certain demands, although they are never called as such. The love ethic; to love and be loved. And the posture of last shall be first and first last. Core attributes of Christianity for those who care to follow Christ.
A lot of Christians do not.
Some prefer the show. They prefer the wrongful inheritance that comes with malformed belief systems that extract life from the one next to them rather than expansive hope and love for all.
I could point the finger at those who willfully fall short. But what good is that? All I have is me and my community.
And I linger around the voice of Mary wondering how I might be well, how I might extend…Mercy to everyone; scattering the arrogant; pulling the powerful down; lifting the lowly; filling the hungry; sending the rich away empty.