David Brat's Godless and Cruel "Christianity."

In the April 2011 issue of Interpretation the now-famous David Brat published an article attempting to justify Capitalism from a Christian perspective.  Here is the response I wrote back then.

Dear Editors of Interpretation,

            David Brat succeeds in being both sophomoric and patronizingly condescending in his article, which is far beneath Interpretation’s usual standards.  His self-righteous complacent triumphalism about Capitalism is the same sort of pompous prattle that every empire declaims about itself before it falls.  No empire is ever “here to stay,” and this one will collapse as well, either by the revolt of the billions of people who are routinely ground under its wheels, or by the very planet it has made a virtue out of degrading.  He writes: “We spend more time on market activity than God activity.  Thus Calvinism.”  What does that even mean?

            His early paragraph attempting to show Capitalism’s benefits fails to reveal the wildly uneven distribution of those benefits.  We are led to believe that Capitalism’s rising tide of prosperity in places like China and India has raised all boats, when actually the lion’s share of the benefits have been devoured by the people at the very top (though the “averages” still look wonderful).

            Brat’s reduction of morality to the merely individual level, while he claims it is inherent to our Reformed tradition, would have attracted Calvin’s ire.  The libertarianism Brat is trying to squeeze out of the Bible and Calvin is antithetical to the teachings of both.  The Bible, Jesus, Paul, and the whole Christian tradition, including Calvin, are about the formation of healthy and blessed communities. 

            What Brat derisively frames as “forcing some to pay for the benefits of others” is actually the whole point of Capitalism, which deliberately jiggers the economic system for the increasing enrichment of the wealthy.  But when it is reversed to benefit the poor, that statement becomes the centerpiece of biblical morality.  Does Brat’s Bible not include Exodus 23:11, Leviticus 19:9, Leviticus 25, or Deuteronomy 14:26, just to name a few that spring immediately to mind?

            Brat implies that what Jesus demands from us as his followers is not to be extended into our responsibilities as citizens of a democratic state.  “Do we have the right to coerce our fellow citizens to act in ways that follow our Christian ethical beliefs?”  Yes.  It’s called democracy.  Within constitutional limits, the majority always “coerces” the minority to participate in its vision and agenda.  Are Christians supposed to withdraw from the polity?  Brat’s mistrust of democracy reflects the attitude of the rich and powerful of every age.  They are generally the ones so afraid of coercion since they have the most to lose.  In real life, Capitalism resists democracy at every turn, preferring to give power to capital and rights to people with capital.  He ignores the inherent coercion involved in transactions between people with unequal resources.  The fantasy that “all voluntary trades are beneficial to both parties and the easiest way to see this is that if one were not better off, one would not partake in such a trade” may work in the fairy-land of Friedmanian academia.  But where the rest of us live such a statement is absolute nonsense.

            Brat’s analysis of the current economic crisis, as: “we wanted to force low-interest loans on the banks so that the poor could magically afford houses” is so breathtakingly self-serving, cruel, and stupid, that the only other people I have heard this from are Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck.  Great authorities.  Presumably our hearts are supposed to bleed for the banks.

            It may have been fruitful for the church to synthesize Christianity with other philosophies.  But none of these is a godless ideology that renames sins as virtues for the purpose of enriching the wealthy by means of the wanton rape of planet and people.  No synthesis between Christianity and such an ideology is possible.  

Letter to The Christian Century.

Dear Christian Century,

In his attack (in your May 14 issue) on the Zionism Unsettled study guide, Christopher M. Leighton advocates a more fair and balanced approach to the Israel-Palestine question.  Your own editorial as well buys into the idea that both sides are equally responsible for the current situation.  “Recognizing the legitimacy of both narratives” and pleading for both sides to “weep together” sounds all gracious and even-handed and everything, but it belies the actual facts on the ground in the lives of real people.  Your refusal to acknowledge gross inequalities of wealth and power makes your opinion on this matter little more than a rationalization for an intolerable status quo.

Having just returned from the area, I have witnessed a dominant, sophisticated, Modern military State systematically oppressing an indigenous population.  The Palestinians are subject to daily indignities and inconveniences, often flaring into one-sided violence by heavily armed soldiers.  Land is routinely stolen, homes are bulldozed over legal technicalities, people – including many children – are arrested and held indefinitely without charge, a precious resource like water is hoarded and even wasted by a privileged few while rationed out to the majority of the population, and the heart of a city like Hebron is placed under perpetual lock-down to protect a handful of settlers who appear to be immune from any kind of legal responsibility for their own bad behavior.  And so on.

Equating some strident rhetoric and sporadic violence of feeble and largely ineffective resistance with a massive military assault and occupation is ridiculous.  One can observe the absurd one-sidedness of the situation by simply looking at who ends up with the land and who ends up dying.  You also neglect to mention that the Palestinians have largely recognized the futility of armed resistance and embraced non-violence.

Rev. Leighton is remarkably breezy in dismissing Palestinian refugees’ right to return to their stolen property, comparing their claim to that of Native Americans.  (His analogy might make more sense if Cherokees were the majority of the population in Tennessee.)  And yet somehow Zionists have a right to claim as their homeland territory that has belonged to other people for two millennia?  Hello?

We Americans have been subject to an onslaught of one-sided propaganda about this issue for several generations.  The Zionism Unsettled document is a welcome antidote.  Where were the calls for balance and fairness from Rev. Leighton and his friends for the past six decades?

Finally, using the horrors of the Shoah (“disaster”in Hebrew) as a rationalization for oppressing a people who had nothing to do with centuries of European anti-semitism is irrational.  It’s not like the Zionists are retributively oppressing Germans here.  No one is asking the Israelis to “get over” Auschwitz; some are simply questioning whether that experience gives them the right to inflict a Nakbah (“disaster” in Arabic) on another people.

The real issue in Israel-Palestine has to do with human rights and democracy.  One people with wealth, power, and privilege should not be permitted to invade, conquer, and systematically oppress another people.  It’s as simple as that.  (Even Abraham did not appropriate the land for Sarah’s tomb; he insisted on fairly purchasing it.  (Genesis 23))  When Zionism Unsettled rejects a “Jewish State,” it does not mean driving the Israelis into the sea or denying them self-governance, as Rev. Leighton implies.  It simply means not privileging one class, race, or religion, and reducing all others to second- or third-class status.  In the 21^st Century, no country should get to do that.

Like it or not, these two peoples are going to have to learn to live side-by-side in the same territory.  With their extensive illegal settlements (connected by a network of private highways and protected by a ubiquitous, serpentine wall), the Israelis have all but foreclosed on the two-State-solution.  Some kind of federal/constitutional arrangement where the rights of all, especially minorities, are protected is probably the only answer.

Both sides need to renounce violence and agree on a legal framework based on human rights for all.  But that’s not going to happen unless we get over our delusion that one side doesn’t have a lot more on-going, daily, systemic, and often subtle violence to renounce.

Money and Talent.

                 

                  There is a prevalent lie at work in our culture that has also managed to weasel its way into the church.  This is the assumption that money attracts talent.  In other words, the higher package and salary and benefits an employer offers, the higher the quality of candidates will apply and eventually be chosen for the position.  More money = higher quality.

                  We see all over the place that this doesn’t work.  Yet we still proclaim the truth of this proposition with religious zeal.  It is even in direct contradiction with our theology and our understanding of vocation.  Yet even in the church I have to listen to this nonsense.

                  And it has burrowed its way into our consciousness so profoundly that many members of large, rich churches appear naturally to assume that since they have the highest paid ministers they must therefore also have the highest quality ministers.  According to this reasoning, lower paid ministers whom God has called to smaller, poorer churches are obviously inferior.  This is sometimes stated explicitly as if it were some universally accepted fact.  We use the same rationale when hiring presbytery executives, by whatever title they seem to be going these days.    

                  But anyone looking at the situation without these ideological blinders, using metrics having more to do with the gospel of Jesus Christ and the actual mission of the church, will clearly see that some of our most effective and faithful pastors serve small, poor churches.  And it is certainly no secret that there is a remarkable level of breathtaking incompetence – not to mention misconduct – on the part of highly paid ministers serving large, rich churches.

                  Furthermore, it is apparent and logical that offering more money will attract candidates motivated by – not the gospel, the needs of the ministry, or the gifts of the minister, but – … well, money.  Duh.  So what you are really guaranteeing is that the person hired because a higher salary and benefits package is offered will not necessarily be a high quality pastor, but almost certainly will be an ego-centric mercenary.  I believe the Lord refers to some folks like this as “hired hands”  (John 10:12-13).

                  I wonder if the people really making a difference in the church are not the pastors serving small, poor, even marginal churches where they are forced by nearly catastrophic economic circumstances to be creative, innovative, and imaginative.  This is where we see actual pastoral leadership.  And while small churches are not necessarily growing, many large rich churches are positively hemorrhaging members and money… but it goes unnoticed because they have so much left over, replenished by the Stock Market.

                  What if we looked for people who would come to a position because of their ministry gifts and their call from God, regardless of the money?  What if we called people to different ministry positions because they were excited about the actual work?  How many competent pastors is God calling to serve in important positions, but who can’t afford it because the pay is so low?     

                   In reality maybe salaries have nothing to do with it.  Maybe it’s really about what kind of exciting ministries can attract the best – as in most committed, called, gifted, faithful, and non-mercenary – talent.  We have seen the consequences of assuming that God calls the better pastors to the higher-paid positions.  Maybe someday we will see a fairer, more equitable call system.  In the meantime it is hard to see the upside of a system that wildly overpays mediocrity and critically underfunds the pastors and situations that may show the most promise.