Against the background of plural worldviews and competing interests, the church event is assuming an increased profile in the struggle to maintain Christian identity, a bolstered status as the marker of what it means to be Christian. In the face of a secular culture, church events become sharply focussed as a way to remind ourselves who we are. Churches pour huge amounts of energy into the music, preaching, environment and promotion for church events. Compare this to the time of Christendom, when most went to church on Sunday and Australia was a “Christian nation”. The church event had less focus and less energy, because it was not the only reminder of Christian identity.

In Christendom, the church and its purpose was affirmed by other cultural markers of Christianity, such as public prayers, significant media comment by church officials, no Sunday trading, honouring of Christian holy days.

Now, the range of cultural markers of Christian identity has reduced. So, the church event has acquired increased importance. But should it be this way? What are the alternatives to spending huge amounts of time, energy and money on an event that still requires people to come to us? I still think the church event is crucial as a public opportunity for people to encounter God through the community of Jesus, but we need to spread our resources around. There are other expressions of church that need our attention.

I didn’t do this lightly, and had wrestled with both the idea of getting arrested, and with my convictions about war and violence. But us thinkers need to bite the bullet sometimes (not a very nonviolent metaphor, is it!), and do something, even when all the questions don’t have satisfactory answers.

We were arrested, and had our day in court today. We pleaded guilty to the offences. The magistrate found the charges to be proven, but did not record a conviction, and chose to dismiss the charges, and chose not to give us a punishment. It’s the legal equivalent of saying, “I know you did something wrong, but I like it!”. One of our number did receive a good behaviour bond (as a repeat offender) but still was not convicted.

Before we were sentenced, the magistrate allowed us to say a bit about why we broke the law. I hesitate to put my statement out there, because of 2 reasons: (1) There is a lot of misplaced talk of ‘heroism’, ‘sacrifice’, ‘inspirational’ applied to people who commit civil disobedience. I think it’s unwarranted unless the person is at real risk of jail time or harm. I am at risk of neither, nor do I like words like ‘heroic’ being applied to me; (2) the other reason is that I have a small, but significant profile in the Christian community of Bendigo. In smaller places, news that someone has been arrested spreads fast and can dent one’s reputation. Not that I care overly about my reputation, but if people are going to criticise me, then I’d rather they would do it from the basis of fact.

Please contact me to argue, disagree, converse etc. It’s what I love doing and I don’t mind talking about the tensions and difficulties in living out the good news of Jesus Christ.

This is what I had to say:

Your Honour knows from your records that in 2002, I was taken to court for refusing to vote in the 2001 Federal Election. I did so because of my belief that our political system tends to marginalise the powerless, and as a Christian I felt I needed to stand against it. I still think our political system is deeply flawed, but I now believe that I need to participate in it to reform it. So this year I voted in 2 elections…though their ambiguous results have hardly inspired me.

But that is what my actions at Queenscliff were basically about. I acted as a Christian citizen of a democracy. My trust in Jesus Christ inspires me to participate in our democracy for the sake of peace and justice. I can do this through voting, but I also take part in my community’s activities, and through my paid job as a youth worker. Political involvement means more than the ballot.

And when our government insists on fighting an unwinnable, immoral and unjust war, then we need to act. When our Prime Minister commits to another decade in Afghanistan, even though the war’s original reasons have been lost in the crippling need to appear resolute, then we need to voice our opposition forcefully. We have shown that such opposition can be done peacefully, and non-violently.

This war won’t root out terrorism: the war against terrorism needs to be fought with the weapons of peace or not fought at all. Using the violence of armies to extinguish the violence of small groups will only result in the proliferation of terrorism. We are already seeing that as a result of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Most Australians implicitly realise that the Afghanistan war will not solve terrorism. And a majority of us want our nation to withdraw. As a citizen, I want to participate in the democratic process to persuade my government that their actions are wrong. Drawing attention to the secretive Swan Island military base is part of that persuasion.

Your Honour, my Christian beliefs inspire me to advocate for a just peace. I was often told as a child that that Australia is founded on Judeo-Christian values. I sincerely hope that it is, and those values would include those of Jesus Christ, who advocated loving our enemies and refusing to take revenge.

Jesus continued in the tradition of the Old Testament prophets, who called the leaders of their day to justice and mercy. And that is what I call our leaders to today – to forgo revenge, to love mercy and do justice by withdrawing our soldiers from Afghanistan.

I’m starting a new radio show on Phoenix FM. It’s shape will evolve, but I’m wanting to publically engage the community with great music, discussion of contemporary issues concerning faith, spirituality and church. It hopefully won’t be stereotypically “Left” or “Right”.

The first show’s theme is “The Rise of Spirituality” and will feature Andy Vincent from Cornerstone Community, an interview with Brent Lyons-Lee on his book Emerging Downunder as well as me fumbling with the confusing array of switches, slides and dials that I will be grappling with!

Date: Sunday 30th May 2010
Time: 6-8pm AEST

I hope you tune in: if you are in Central Victoria, the frequency is 106.7FM, and you can also listen online

Political Evangelism – the good news in the public sphere
Once upon a time, a young man in Europe was in court. His father, a wealthy textiles businessman, had taken him there because he had stolen some silk from his father’s factory, sold it and used it to fund some property development. During the public hearing, he renounced his father’s wealth, stripped off his clothes and strode away, naked, promising to serve ‘Lady Poverty’.

A while before that, another young man led the respected people of his nation to the rubbish dump, and informed them that they were responsible for a coming catastrophe. He told that they had filled the land with innocent blood, and that in return they would experience a military siege so terrible they would turn to cannibalism of their own families to survive. As a finale, he held a clay pot above his head and smashed it – “This pot is the house of Jerusalem and the house of Judah”.

The first young man was Francis of Assisi, and the second young man is the prophet known as Jeremiah. They were both prefiguring and continuing one of the most common practices of Jesus, which I call Political Evangelism.

Definitions
I realise I am using two words which are contested – often used for many different purposes. So let me define them.

By “political”, I mean:

• That which concerns power  and its use
• That which concerns the public sphere
• It is always personal, but never private (secret)
• I do not mean…’party politics’

By “evangelism”, I mean:

• That which concerns the good news, or the ‘evangel’ (GK) – the good news of God..a word used by the gospel writers to convey the message of the kingdom of God, which they had appropriated from the Caesars, who used the word ‘gospel’ to convey their victory in battle.
• That evangelism includes both a NO and a YES, judgement and mercy, criticism and invitation to a new life.
• Let us try to remove stereotypes of evangelism from our heads.

Political Evangelism, for the purposes of tonight is: Acts of public witness to the good news of God and his reign

Politics and Religion
Tonight I want to explore what place political evangelism might have in the life of the church, and in the interaction of the church with the surrounding public. We are often told that “religion and politics don’t mix”. The witness of the Bible and Christian history says that such a viewpoint is inaccurate, and also impossible. The problem is not that religion and politics mix, it is HOW they mix.

Tonight I will focus on one element of that mix – that of publically declaring (in word and deed) the good news. There are so many others ways that Christians act politically: from letter-writing to the clothes we buy, from how we make decisions in church to how we vote. Every act and decision we make is political, because human life is about allegiance. Who will we be loyal to? is the question to which the Christian answer is “Jesus is Lord”, not simply in a general sense but in a specific sense. Is Jesus our Lord in our finances, our employment, where our kids go to school, the kind of toilet paper we buy, how we produce and eat food etc etc etc .

I don’t have the whole picture, nor do I regularly do what I am going to talk about, but it’s something that I think needs to be thought about in the church, and acted upon. Also, I have my own political persuasions, but this seminar is not meant to be about my particular beliefs. I think that Christians of all political persuasions should be acting publically and politically. Again, the argument is not whether doing so is warranted – the argument is about HOW we do so.

Biblical Examples of Political Evangelism
Apart from the Jeremiah example, there are plenty of biblical instances of public acts of witness:

• Moses and the plagues (Ex 9-10)
• Elijah & the prophets of Baal (1 Kings 18:20-40)
• Jesus illegally healing on the Sabbath (Matthew 12:9-14)
• Jesus eating illegally on the Sabbath (Mark 2:23-28)
• Triumphal Entry to Jerusalem (John 12:12-15)
• Acts of Apostles: constant examples of healing and preaching in public, often provoking unrest, arrest, imprisonment and sometimes death.

Let us look at 3 of them, and for each I will look at what constitutes these acts of public witness: the setting, the symbols, the showing & telling, the consequences and why they are political and evangelistic acts.

1. Jeremiah 19 – the clay pot

• Setting: deliberately public – he leads the elders and senior priests to the entry of the Potherds Gate (entry to the rubbish dump)….sometimes called the Dung Gate (KJV)
• Symbol: clay pot –  visual as well as verbal; acts of public witness often use symbols to convey a message
• Showing and Telling of God’s judgement upon the idolatry and violence of Judah and Jerusalem:

Because the people have forsaken me, and have profaned this place by making offerings in it to other gods whom neither they nor their ancestors nor the kings of Judah have known, and because they have filled this place with the blood of the innocent, and gone on building the high places of Baal to burn their children in the fire as burnt-offerings to Baal, which I did not command or decree, nor did it enter my mind (Jer 19:4-5)

• Consequences: Jeremiah is imprisoned and ‘struck’ (whipped?)  in chapter 20.
• Political – pitting the powers of Judah and Jerusalem (the elders and priests) against that of God.
• Evangelism – God’s judgement is always for the purpose of God’s eventual mercy and restoration of Israe

2. Matthew 12: 9-14 – illegal healing

• Setting:  the setting is a synagogue on the Sabbath…illegal to do any work on the Sabbath
• Symbol:  the man and his withered hand is the visual method that Jesus uses to demonstrate the heartlessness of the Pharisee’s way.
• Showing & Telling: Jesus commits a crime for 2 reasons: one is to heal the man, but the second is to create a counterargument about the Sabbath and what its purpose is. (see previous story of illegal eating).  Ongoing battle between Jesus and the powers – “…so that they might accuse him” (v. 10b)
• Consequences – the Pharisees conspire to destroy him.
• Political – it is about who has the power to say what is legal, and an ongoing battle of myths between religious leaders and Jesus.
• Evangelism – Jesus is communicating that healing is more important than a law.

3. John 12 – messianic battle
This story is one of the most obvious examples of Jesus acting in public and political way. Let us look at the sequence of story:

1. Enters Jerusalem
2. Hears the crowd’s messianic myth – “King of Israel”….what is a King for them? Violent, restoration of Israel. Look at Jesus reaction to this last time! (John 6:15)
3. Decides to get a donkey
4. Rides it, providing a countervailing myth of what it means to be Messiah

• Public: 6 days before Passover, Jerusalem is filled
• Symbol: donkey, a ridiculing of the stallion, the usual victor’s steed.
• Showing & Telling: Jesus does no telling, but his message is clear – his kingship is different.
• Consequences:  all the people go after him!
• Political – they want him to have power over them, to violently restore Israel
• Evangelism – the good news of a nonviolent Lord

So, in summary, political evangelism:

• Is public – people are watching, they can see us!
• Communicates a message about God and his good news.
• Almost always in conflict with other messages in society which are taken as normative
• Uses symbols to communicate
• Consequences are inevitable, both punitive and positive.
• Nonviolent

Political Evangelism in Christian history

• Telemachus (404): intervening publically in gladiatorial contest
• Francis of Assisi (1205): disrobing to demonstrate non-attachment to possessions
• Martin Luther (1517): nailing theses to the church door
• Civil Rights movement (1960s): counter sit-ins
• Pro life (20^th C): picketing abortion clinics
• Oath Keepers (20^th C): taking public oaths
• Women Christian Temperance Movement (late 19^th C on) : prayer inside saloons
• St Maximilian (295): refused in court to be conscripted and was executed

Political Evangelism Today
When Crown Casino was being established, a small movement existed to call attention to its degrading social effects, and the inappropriate relationship between the government and the casino owners. Each Sunday, we got together outside the site and prayed. We had a banner, and talked to people who approached us. We had T-shirts made up that communicated our message and also used the Crown Casino logo in a humourous way. We had a plenty of verbal abuse hurled at us, but also plenty of people who agreed with us.

I found this to be a good experience, but also a hard one, not least because of the reactions of Christians I spoke to about it. From those conversations, I began to think about the barriers to political evangelism.

Barriers to Political Evangelism
Acting publically and politically is difficult for all of us. There a few key barriers to Christians acting publically and politically.

1. FEAR:

• This includes embarrassment, wanting to avoid criticism or abuse, and the fear of being recognised by someone who may think badly of you.
• These things are absolutely understandable, but are also predicted by Jesus as expected consequences of following him…it may even show that we are on the right track

2. PRIVATISM: this is the belief that religious concerns are separate from political concerns, therefore Christians should keep their faith out of the public sphere.

• As I showed before, faith is a matter of allegiance, and allegiance is a matter of which power we will be loyal to.
• Christian faith is always personal, but it is never private. It is impossible to look at Jesus, and the church of Acts, and conclude that our faith is meant to be kept out of the public sphere.
• Christian faith is not captive to party politics, but that hardly means it is nonpolitical. Again, look at the conflicts Jesus has with the powers of his day; look at the way the apostles come into conflict with the powers of their day.

3. QUIETISM: this is the belief that ‘making a fuss’ in public is unproductive, and that the general public will be alienated from Christianity by public acts of witness.

• It is true that political evangelism will alienate people, as it will attract some people. Jesus predicted this, and demonstrated it in his own ministry. So that’s not an argument against political evangelism
• The question I would ask is – When has our social conformity assisted the church?
• Nonconformism was the order of the day in the early church, and that attracted people!
• I’m not arguing to be nonconformist unthinkingly, but for us, the church, to be our true selves, and not worry so much about what the world thinks
• Quietism is actually a product of the Christendom worldview, in which state and church gave each other power. The  church didn’t want to rock the boat because it had that power. Well, now we don’t have it! Let’s enjoy the freedom!

4. THE POWERS AND FAITH

• The most insidious reason we don’t want to do Political Evangelism is that we believe that the powers of state and corporations are basically in sympathy with the aims of the church, that we are walking arm in arm, that we basically have the same idea of what a ‘good’ society is.
• Now, if you believe that, then there is no reason for you to think about Political Evangelism.
• But if we don’t believe that – that is, if we believe that the aims of the community of Jesus are in conflict with the aims of political and economic powers, then we need to use every weapon in our arsenal to bring that conflict to light.

Conclusion
Public witness to God’s kingdom is clear throughout the Bible and in Christian history. The questions is not whether to do it, because that has been answered, the questions are WHEN and HOW.

My dear boy, you can’t imagine what anonymity is like in a profession like mine – it’s like a warm cloak

(Max, arms dealer, Mission Impossible)

Last year, I wrote an opinion piece for a local newspaper, decrying the demonization of the ‘mall rats’ – people who spend time in the mall and behave in (sometimes) offensive ways. This provoked a few fiery letters in reply, some rather personal. It got me thinking about the extent to which public, prophetic & protest action can be sustained in rural and regional areas.

In urban areas, protest is generally anonymous. Unless the protestor is arrested, or appears in the media, her actions are hidden from her neighbours, and others on whom he relies for other endeavours, such as employment or community activities. Most forms of protest (vigil, rally, public meeting etc), when they take place in the centre of a metropolis, remain anonymous. For example, I took part in a rally against the Iraq war in 2001; I could be close to certain that no-one could discover I was there unless I told them. In this sense, I can protest with impunity or fear of censure, because no-one will punish me for it.

However, take this protest to a regional, rural or even suburban area, and your cloak of anonymity is quickly whipped off. It is like uninhibited dancing on a darkened stage upon which a spotlight is unexpectedly trained. There is a feeling of vulnerability, of everyone knowing. This is because in rural/regional areas, it is easy to know who people are, especially if such towns have their own newspapers. Those that don’t are small enough for everyone to know everyone directly. Once a protest becomes public in a regional/rural area, people become attackable, boxed, their face in the cross-hairs of those who support what is being undermined by the protest.

Of course, if protest & closed community is the total end of your endeavours, then this is not a worry. Protest and damn the consequences. However, I’m seeking to build an alternative world inspired and sustained by Jesus, and in this I assume that in every person there is the potential to do and be good. Therefore, the good I attempt to do, I want to do in partnership with others. I want my public actions to be prophetic, not simply protest-ant.

But this partnership can be threatened by our prophetic actions. Those we wish to partner with (morally, logistically, financially etc) will, at some point, become offended by our actions. Even if they are not offended, they may feel unable to cooperate with us because they need to co-operate with others who are offended. Though they exist in metropoli, these links of interdependence are more obvious and less distant in regional/rural areas.

Some of our partners in community activities in Bendigo may be quite happy to co-operate on some initiatives, such as a community art project, but may be appalled at being associated with a group who protests publically. For example, if I protest against the production of the Bushmaster military vehicle in Bendigo, I may anger a wide variety of people: politicians who have lobbied for this business; people are employed by this business, and their families; and the general population, because I am criticising a local ‘success’.

So, what to do? Obviously, refusing to engage in any kind of political action is inexcusable, so these are my thoughts so far:

·         Choose issues carefully and keep to them

·         Start with dialogue

·         Continually articulate the issues respectfully

·         If confrontation becomes necessary or unavoidable, prepare for backlash

·         A ‘coalition of the willing’ is necessary