The politics of theology

“At the bottom of politics, one always finds theology.” I’ve seen this sentiment attributed to the anarchist-socialist Pierre Joseph Proudhon. I think it is a profound insight (though easily reversible), one that you should keep in mind when you read the Gospels.

And Jesus called them to him and said to them, “You know that those who are considered rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones exercise authority over them. But it shall not be so among you. But whoever would be great among you must be your servant, and whoever would be first among you must be slave of all. For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many” (Mark 10.42-45).

Something that bothers me about the Reformed Tradition as it now exists in the Christian world is that it is pretty acceptable to question whether this passage is a genuine revelation of God. It isn’t hard to find people questioning whether humility is a genuine characteristic of God or if it only appears in Jesus due to his assumption of a human nature.

But this simply won’t work. It was precisely because Peter recognized Jesus as the Son of God that he decided it was perverse for Jesus to go to the cross. Jesus called Peter Satan for this line of reasoning. We should hesitate to accept the presuppositions that would cause us to follow in his steps.

(A more global point I am going to make without argument. The Bible does not present the incarnation, life, trial, torture, and death of Jesus as things that just happened to be necessary for God to accomplish certain goals. No, the cross is a revelation of the true God who made and will judge the world.)

It was in the face of one of Jesus’ re-explanations that he was going to Jerusalem to die that James and John asked to sit at his right hand when he was enthroned, effectively announcing their disbelief in what Jesus said about himself. This attempt at climbing raised the resentment of the other disciples, provoking Jesus to say what I quoted above.

The term “lord it over” is a Greek verb that is same root word as the title Jesus ascribe to himself, kurios. The word is used both for Jesus’ kingship and his deity and here Jesus points out that many want to abuse this. Jesus does a different kind of “lording.”

Which brings us to the crucifixion itself:

And the soldiers led him away inside the palace (that is, the governor’s headquarters), and they called together the whole battalion. 17 And they clothed him in a purple cloak, and twisting together a crown of thorns, they put it on him. And they began to salute him, “Hail, King of the Jews!” 19 And they were striking his head with a reed and spitting on him and kneeling down in homage to him. 20 And when they had mocked him, they stripped him of the purple cloak and put his own clothes on him. And they led him out to crucify him.

And they crucified him and divided his garments among them, casting lots for them, to decide what each should take. And it was the third hour when they crucified him. And the inscription of the charge against him read, “The King of the Jews.” And with him they crucified two robbers, one on his right and one on his left. And those who passed by derided him, wagging their heads and saying, “Aha! You who would destroy the temple and rebuild it in three days, save yourself, and come down from the cross!” So also the chief priests with the scribes mocked him to one another, saying, “He saved others; he cannot save himself. Let the Christ, the King of Israel, come down now from the cross that we may see and believe.” Those who were crucified with him also reviled him.

The Priests and Scribes could no more recognize God’s king than could the pagan Romans. They both knew one didn’t lord by dying on the cross. The only way to lord was by coming down from the cross.

So they did not recognize the Lord of Glory.

Recognizing who the Lord really is means realizing the right way to lord.  Theology is about politics.

3 thoughts on “The politics of theology

  1. pentamom

    Hmmm….your “more global point” intrigues me. It flies in the face of something I have often heard from those of the Eastern Orthodox tradition, and bought into until now — that “the Incarnation changed everything.” If you are right, and I think you are, the Incarnation actually “changed” nothing. It only revealed “everything” — everything that wasn’t revealed before, that we are given to know.

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  2. mark Post author

    I had different considerationsin mind when I wrote that, but you are absolutely correct. Of course, I think it is true that God joined with us in a new way in the incarnation, and that would be some sort of change. But even so, we shouldn’t exaggerate the previous distance.

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  3. pentamom

    Right. “Nothing” is an overstatement in one sense — God becoming man IS a change. But it didn’t really change anything about God’s attitude toward His creation, or the principles by which He interacts with it/us. When the EO’s say “The Incarnation changed everything,” I think they DO mean that something about God’s attitude toward creation changed. Their view of pre-Incarnate redemptive history seems much more “forbidding” — almost as if God surprised Himself when the Incarnation happened.

    And yes, I realized that wasn’t your main focus there, but it was an implication of the thought that struck me as important. Thanks.

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