The Uprooted Church: On Violence in the Church (4 of 6)

What answer do the so called “Conservative/Evangelicals” and the “Liberal/Progressives” have to this dilemma of the Reformed church sitting on a one-legged stool?  Are they even asking the right questions?  The evidence is all around us that mainline Protestantism is collapsing in North America.  And what is our response?  To hurl vitriolic accusations that the other is unfaithful to the gospel.  The ship has struck a massive iceberg and is about to go down, and we are arguing about who broke the china.  The debate continues to get more and more caustic as both sides become more and more desperate for victory.  Even if one side prevailed, is it not obvious that it will be a Pyrrhic victory at best?

Scottish Reformer John Knox.

It is well known among Knox scholars that John Knox, the great Scottish Reformer, was influenced most by John Calvin in theology and by Niccoló Machiavelli in politics.  This explains to a great extent Knox’s advocacy of diplomatic intrigue, war and violence as a way of ridding Scotland of Catholicism and ensuring Presbyterian hegemony.  In addition to Calvin and Knox, American Presbyterianism must include Machiavelli (via Knox) as a major influence if it is to understand the present struggle.

Observe carefully the tactics of the political/ideological affinity groups in the Presbyterian Church (USA) as an example, and one will find unbridled Machiavellianism on the Left and the Right.  On the Left, favorite tactics include heavy-handed policy activism with narrow majorities, intentional procedural obfuscation, and emotional manipulation.  On the hard Right, they intimidate the church with the threat of withholding money, use character assassination among their own ranks for anyone not “in line”, and endlessly threaten schism if they don’t get their way.  Some may call this politics as usual.  I call this violence.

Jesus said that he is the Way, the Truth and the Life (John 14:6).  To put it another way, we find the Reformed tradition teetering on the one leg of Truth.  Liberal/Progressives believe that the truth lies in God’s grace, a grace so boundless as to include gay ordination.  Conservative/Evangelicals believe that the truth lies in the Bible and its seemingly plain teaching that homosexual practice is beyond scriptural bounds.  Both these camps have demonstrated time and again the willingness to use any means necessary to advance their own position while crushing the opposition – whatever it takes as long as the end is achieved.

But the Way mattered for Jesus.  He would not take any shortcuts to the cross, or use any violence along the way.  When the devil offered him bread in the wilderness, Jesus not only declined to satisfy his own hunger but declined to solve once and for all the persistent problem of world hunger.  When the devil offered Jesus authority to rule the world, he declined not only his own glory but the chance to end war for all times under his reign.  He would not settle for worldly peace without heavenly shalom.  And when the devil offered Jesus personal security and prosperity, and hence the prosperity of all humankind, he rejected that too as challenging God’s sovereignty.  Jesus did not do whatever it took to gain power, even power to do great good for the world.  Only equal faithfulness to the Way and the Truth leads to the fullness of Life.  We cannot have two masters: Jesus and Machiavelli.