Theological Journal – August 3 Lee Camp – Scandalous Witness (9)

PROPOSITION 9 Christian Partisanship Is like a Fistfight on the Titanic

If all empires fall, save God’s empire which is counter-imperial to all earthly empires, then partisanship in God’s empire is like a fistfight over table manners on the Titanic.

We are called to serve as agents of reconciliation in American society (which as we saw earlier is in no way a Christian nation (Proposition 6). Partisanship, esp. hysterical partisanship with the church, makes a mockery of this calling.

When “Christians takes on an increasingly militant nationalism, such partisanship is all the more devastating to Christian witness.” (Kindle Loc.1531)

This does not mean social policy is unimportant. But it means it must be set in a broader and relativizing context. (More on this in later chapters)

Because of the distinctive vision of the end these two apparently contradictory conclusions follow:

“-The politics of the world matters immensely—and consequently the metaphor of “table manners” is, at one level, inapt, if not offensive.

-But the politics of the world cannot, must not, claim our primary allegiance; the politics of the world must not be allowed to induce hostility among those who practice the politics of Jesus.” (Kindle Loc.1546)

We must avoid buying into the political imagination of our world (where theological conservative usually means conservative politically, that is, Republican, or vice versa). So much of today’s social and political contention in the church happens because the politics of the world are simply baptized by either the left or the right and made sine qua nons of genuine discipleship.

How we go about doing that is Camp’s next proposition.