(274)S11E8/4: Christianism, Power, and Prophetic Witness w/Dr. Nilay Saiya
Welcome back to the Fourth Way Podcast. In this episode, I had the privilege of speaking with Doctor. Nilay Saya, author of The Global Politics of Jesus. You know, up to this point in this section of the season, we have talked a bit about Christendom and, just Christianity in terms of its relationship to the state and the ways that we have or have not embraced the teachings of Jesus. Doctor.
Derek Kreider:Saia's book does a really good job of, extending this conversation into modernity, into looking at modern applications and modern situations that we should consider. Now, it's great to have a theological foundation. It's great to look at the early church and to see what they taught and how they thought. But then it's good to kind of fast forward to today and, look at what, our recent history has done for us. What have things like the Crusades and, and political graspings, where have they gotten us and what have they produced?
Derek Kreider:So in his book, Doctor. Saia kind of evaluates different perspectives on how Christians should engage in political action, and he takes a look at the results of those things. In this episode, we don't get to talk about most of Doctor. Saya's book. His book is is just packed with, with information and with examples.
Derek Kreider:We really just focus on a really small part of the book, which deals with Power and Christendom. So I recommend that you just check out his whole book. As far as what to look out for in this episode, I would say that the probably the main takeaway, the running theme throughout is prophetic witness, the importance of prophetic witness of the church. And with that go a number of other concepts like, distancing or the purity of the Church and trying to maintain, holiness. And these are some of the things that we've talked about throughout the various seasons.
Derek Kreider:In fact, season, I don't remember which one it was, maybe 8, we did on, incarnation and the idea of the importance in incarnation of purity and holiness. I think sometimes, you know, if you hear Doctor. Saya talking about, distancing and purity and holiness, you might say, well, that's kind of retreatism or that's moralism. Isn't that what the Pharisees do? They say, well, we have to maintain our purity.
Derek Kreider:And sure. There's, there's an aspect of moralism that can, that can come out of that, but you have to understand the importance of purity for, for incarnation. I mean, think about theology, right? Jesus Christ was incarnate, but we think that if Jesus would have, not maintained his holiness, his purity, then his incarnation would have done us no good. Then our season on incarnation, we kind of talk about that.
Derek Kreider:The example that I like to give is, you know, imagine that, you're drowning in the ocean, this rescue helicopter flies over you, and, this guy jumps down from the helicopter into the water with you, and then the helicopter flies away. You're like, dude, what are you what are you doing? Where'd the helicopter go? And he's like, I just decided to jump down in here with you and, and just stay with you. You know, like, wait a second.
Derek Kreider:So we're both gonna die together? Like, what good does that do me? I mean, you might have companionship for the last remaining minutes of your life, but, jumping down from a helicopter to die with you doesn't do you any good. Right? What you need is you need a rescuer who's tethered to a rope who can bring you up to where he came from.
Derek Kreider:Right? And that's what, I think Doctor. Tsai is talking about here with the purity of the church. Right? The church is supposed to be a depiction of the kingdom of God.
Derek Kreider:It is supposed to be something that the world sees and wants to emulate and says, I want what you have. If the church ends up engrossing itself in the world's ways, in trying to rule like the Gentiles rule and trying to grasp power, then the the culture doesn't want to emulate that anymore. They don't want a part of it. I think that's what what doctor Saia was was talking about when he mentioned that, hey, look, it's, you know, one of the explanations for why there's a secularization in America is because look what it started when the church grasped power, when you started to get the religious right, and people were like, Ew, that's gross. I don't want anything to do with that.
Derek Kreider:Right. Because the church no longer was tethered to that rope, to that rescue helicopter. And we just started engaging in the affairs of the world like the world. So we're not talking about maintaining purity and holiness in some moralistic way, but rather as a way that provides hope. In fact, the only way that provides hope because you're able to, to show the world a picture of, of the only hope that is possible of a different kingdom, of living a different way.
Derek Kreider:And that's, you know, that also goes into this idea of prophetic witness, which we've done some episodes on that. The season on Nonviolent Action, gives you maybe some insight into that. But specifically the episode on Benjamin Lay that we we did this season, as well as some of the other seasons. Just taking a look at how somebody's prophetic witness actually ends up changing, changing hearts and minds. And yeah, like I said, the season of Nonviolent Action looks a lot at that because people like Gandhi and King, they are, I mean, they didn't really have power, maybe King more than Gandhi, but they didn't really have power other than their influence, and their influence came from what they what they said and exemplified.
Derek Kreider:So pay attention to to, those ideas from the, to the prophetic witnessing and distancing, and I think you'll get a lot out of this episode. There's certainly a lot of other things that are brought up that, that we didn't get a chance to expound on that I know some people would find strange. For example, when doctor Syed talked about how, state is legit the state is legitimate in conducting violence against injustice, yet Christians should participate in it. You know, you'd be a lot of people are gonna be saying, wait a second. That seems kind of hypocritical that, oh, yeah.
Derek Kreider:We want other people to use violence, but we're not going to. And that's something that we talk about, probably in our our just war season, as well as our our nonviolent season, seasons 1 and 4, I believe. So that's something that you can you can check out elsewhere. But, it isn't something that Doctor. Shaya is saying hypocritically, it's something that, has a defensible position.
Derek Kreider:We just didn't get a chance to, to get into that here. So I hope you enjoy the episode. Please forgive me. There are a couple of places where my questions kind of ramble. I got up at at 4 AM to have this discussion, so I was a bit, tired.
Derek Kreider:But, anyway, what doctor Saia says is good, so you can skip to those parts. I'll make sure to put time stamps in the, in the show notes. So without further ado, here is the interview with doctor Saia. Before we dig into the questions, I would love for you to just briefly introduce yourself and what led you to write the the Global Politics of Jesus.
Dr. Saiya:Yeah. So as we were talking offline here, you know that I grew up in Central Pennsylvania and very much inculcated in a kind of evangelical culture. So I attended a church with my family that was very patriotic, and this was a church that had a giant American flag in the middle of the sanctuary. And, during the 4th July, the pastor would hold a an emotive patriotic service, and the congregation would sing national hymns like battle hymn of the republic and god bless America. And so this was kind of the culture that I grew up in, but I also realized from a pretty young age that there was something wrong.
Dr. Saiya:And I began to understand that what we were doing in this church was actually a form of idolatry. We were, claiming to worship God, but we were worshiping at the altar of country. And so I think that's what kind of got things moving for me. In writing this book, I wanted to understand the roots of what was going on and also the consequences of that kind of thinking. But the thing that really got me started writing this book was the 2016 presidential election because this was an election in which 81% of white evangelical Christians, cast their vote for Donald Trump, Trump perhaps being the most immoral, president in certainly recent, American history.
Dr. Saiya:And and what really confused me was that many of the Christians who cast their vote for Trump were making Christian arguments for why they were voting for Trump. And I just couldn't wrap my head around the kind of hypocrisy that was taking place in, evangelical communities, you know, how they could be saying one thing, about the importance of Christian values and then voting for this man who in no way represented these values. And in fact, he represented the opposite of these values. And so this was a book that was trying to grapple with that reality. You know, what happens when the church throws its support behind immoral leaders?
Dr. Saiya:What happens when the church seeks political power and tries to become, unified with the state? And so that's kind of how this whole thing got started. Now my background is in international relations. So I kind of wanted to take a different approach, and I wanted to look at church state relations in a global perspective. And that is to say, you know, what was going on around the world, and do we see similarities between what's happening in the United States and what's happening in other important Christian countries like Brazil and Russia?
Dr. Saiya:And, of course, what I found is that, yes, there are many similarities, between these kinds of Christian nationals movements around the world, and they're having similar implications, in different countries. And so that's kind of what the book is, getting into, looking at the spiritual consequences and also the political consequences of these, kinds of church state relations. And it's it's actually very troubling. But from a scholarly perspective, I think quite interesting as well.
Derek Kreider:Alright. Yeah. Thank you. 2016 was was definitely a turning point for me. It it's something that, you know, one of one of the the stories I go back to is in my Christian school, I remember, one of my teachers, you know, he has this, like, stupid Garfield poster up on the front and says, integrity is doing the right thing even when it, even when no one's watching.
Derek Kreider:And I watched the 2016 election, and I'm like, okay. So so you don't get your guy in office, and you lose power for a little bit, but that seems like the right thing to do. And then I just I just saw integrity go out the window. And so I'm thankful for that in a sense because that kind of woke me up. Nevertheless, it's also a sad thing to see that your your community is different than you thought it was.
Dr. Saiya:Yeah. No doubt. No doubt.
Derek Kreider:So, my focus this season has been on on propaganda and, you know, the manipulation of truth in order to to garner power. So your book, I found, you know, I've read a lot of books on on nonviolence and politics and those sorts of things. Your book kind of covers a huge spectrum of content, from past to present and then in terms of just topics. So really, what we're gonna talk about is is really a small subsection of your book, but I think it's it's such an important subsection that, that I wanna chat about. So I wanna kind of take us logically, through, to the end, and I think maybe the first place that that would be best to start would be talking about, Christendom.
Derek Kreider:And Christendom is is a term that, I've kind of heard used, and I've I've always thought it was a good thing until fairly recently, you know, like, yeah, Christendom. And you use you use a different word sometimes too. You use, I believe Christianism. Mhmm. So I would love for you maybe to talk a little bit about, this this term, Christendom or Christianism, and describe what it is and whether that's a good thing or not.
Dr. Saiya:Well, I think, the first thing to note about, Christianism is that it is not Christianity, and Christendom is not Christianity. Okay? So Christianity is a monotheistic Abrahamic faith that centers on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth. And Christians believe that Jesus of Nazareth was the son of God incarnate, that he died for the sins of humanity, that he was raised from the dead on the 3rd day, that he ascended into heaven, and that he will return to earth someday to rule and to reign. So Christianity is the world's largest religion.
Dr. Saiya:It comprises some 2,500,000,000 people or 1 third of humanity. Okay. Now Christianism, I think you could also argue is a religion, but it's a religion that is diametrically opposed to the teachings of Christ, and it has nothing to do with Christianity. So by, so that term Christianism means simply Christian supremacy, and that supremacy can take different forms, in different places. It can look like a Christian state with an officially established, Christian church, or it can be the quest for political power on the part of the church, or it can be the, attempt to create some kind of Christian nation.
Dr. Saiya:But, all those different things are forms of Christianism. Right? But let's take a step back and talk about the roots of Christianism. So the roots of Christianism lie in an approach that I call transformationalism. K?
Dr. Saiya:And the whole idea behind transformationalism is that because God is the sovereign of the entire universe, that Christians have a responsibility to manifest that lordship in every area of life, and that includes in government and politics. So Christians have this this divine obligation to try to redeem and to transform and to ultimately control their political systems and bring them in line with a Christian worldview. Now as I see it, there are some problems with the transformationalist worldview. The first is that the scriptures in the New Testament that directly address this topic of civil governance always uphold the distinction between the sacred and the profane, and we can extend that to church and state. So, we find this even in the teachings of Jesus.
Dr. Saiya:When Jesus was being questioned by Pontius Pilate, he told Pilate, my kingdom is not of this world. Yes. Jesus is a king. He has a kingdom, but that kingdom has nothing to do with the worldly kingdoms, of the world. Also, one time we read in the scriptures that Jesus was being challenged by the Pharisees.
Dr. Saiya:They brought him a coin, and they asked him, should we pay taxes to Caesar? And Jesus held up the coin, and he says, whose portrait is this, and whose inscription is it? And they answered, Caesar's. And Jesus responded, give to Caesar what belongs to Caesar, and give to God what belongs to God. So, again, we find Jesus upholding this distinction between the realm of Caesar and the realm of God.
Dr. Saiya:And in no way does he suggest that these two realms should be 1 and the same or that we should try and unify them in some way? And, finally, the teachings that we see, in Romans 13 and first Peter 2, from the apostles Paul and Peter, also uphold the distinction between church and state, the obligation of the Christian and the obligation of the civil authority. So, again, as we read the New Testament, we find this consistent theme that church and state constitute separate entities. Both have a responsibility, an important one, but the task of the church is not the one that's given to political authorities. Now another problem that I see with this worldview is that a different theme that we find throughout the New Testament is that dominion over the earth is ascribed to dark forces.
Dr. Saiya:So we read this in the book of, I believe it's, first John, when John the evangelist says the entire world lies under the control of the evil one. And Jesus himself suggested, this in the book of Matthew, which records the temptations of Christ. And, the devil came to Jesus and said, you know, all this I will give you. All the kingdoms of the world I will give you if you bow down and worship me. And Jesus says, away from me, Satan.
Dr. Saiya:For it is written, worship the Lord your God and serve him only. But importantly, Jesus never questioned Satan's claim that he held dominion over the kingdoms of the world. So I think when you put all these things together, there are some real serious problems with the transformationalist worldview, and transformationalism can lead to Christianism under certain conditions. Now the difference between transformationalism and Christianism is that Christianists believe that Christians have a divine right to rule, and they have no problem, repressing minorities or those who don't hold to their prescribed version of Christianity. And so when that happens, it becomes something really dark.
Dr. Saiya:And that's what I mean when I use the term Christianism in the book.
Derek Kreider:Yeah. So, one of the things that drew me to Reformed Theology was, I don't know if you'd call it transformational sort of theology, but growing up dispensationalist, which I assume you're probably familiar with, where you grew up. There there's this, you know, the world is a sinking ship, and and and it's going to hell in a handbasket type of thing. And so there was kind of this, separationist mentality. But with reformed theology, there's a lot of god is redeeming sort of theology or or transforming.
Derek Kreider:And so I can be a baker for God. You know, I can be I can be anything for God because God has has is redeeming the world through just mere vocation, no matter what that is. And so I I really like that. And, this idea that you talk about the the dominion of the world being under Satan, I think a lot of people would think, okay. Yeah.
Derek Kreider:But but originally, dominion was given to humanity, and it seems like, well, Satan has it, and we should be trying to take that back and and redeeming the world for God. But, you know, I kind of take Stanley Hauerwas' approach, which which says that, okay, but the the church's role, the way that we we wage war, is that we're to be a prophetic witness in an alternative political community. And I I think that that's something that I see more clearly now, especially like reading Kierkegaard and and other people attack on Christendom and and they're exposing of that. But I think for most people, they don't understand the importance of prophetic witness and how that actually accomplishes something. And legislation seems like it, it's participating and redeeming and doing good.
Derek Kreider:Whereas just sitting back and being a prophetic witness seems like you're you're an escapist, and you're just kind of doing nothing. There's a lot there, but maybe you could talk a little bit about the importance of of prophetic witness and, how how we wage war as the church and how that's that's not escapism.
Dr. Saiya:Yes. So in the book, I'm kind of critiquing 2 opposite political theologies. Right? So the first is Christianism, as we discussed, and the second is what I call a theology of detachment or what you just described, the church kind of, you know, sitting back and letting events unfold because we know God is in control. So this calls for an a kind of escapist mentality.
Dr. Saiya:The world is seen as a sinking ship, and the job of the church is to save as many people from that doomship before the end of the world. And I'm equally critical of that perspective as well. So when I use the term prophetic witness, I'm talking about an approach to public life in which the church is active. And so it isn't just sitting on his hands, but it also isn't trying to control government and politics. Prophetic witness is a third way between the extremes of Christianism and detachment.
Dr. Saiya:And prophetic witness requires prophetic distance because a church can't speak prophetically, to a state that it is intertwined with. That's just impossible. And so, in the Bible, the prophets are depicted as counter cultural revolutionaries, and they mourn the tendency of the holy people of God to seek accommodation with the world. They also lambasted the values of the surrounding culture. And I think that's kind of the approach that Christians today need to take.
Dr. Saiya:They need to see themselves as an alternative political community of prophets that has its own unique way of dealing with social and political problems. But the way that the church does this is very different than conventional politics. So I think the book of James, chapter 1 verse 27 gives us some insight into what a prophetic approach looks like. And this verse says, religion that god our father accepts as pure and faultless as this, to look after orphans and widows and their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world. So as we read this verse, we see 2 different dimensions of prophetic witness.
Dr. Saiya:The first is an active approach that seeks to take care of the marginalized of the world, the poor, the orphans, the widows, the distressed. Those are the people who should be who should be getting the attention of Christian communities first and foremost. Now the second aspect of prophetic witness as found in this verse is that the church is to keep itself, pure. And it's not possible for the church to remain holy and blameless if it finds itself trying to grasp for for political power, if it finds itself in alliance with the state. Nothing will do more to tarnish the reputation, the credibility of the church than the pursuit of political power.
Dr. Saiya:So, again, Christianism is one extreme. Detachment's another extreme. I'm looking for a third way here that I call prophetic witness.
Derek Kreider:Yeah. One of the other things that you discuss in your book is you talk about, that the ways that human kingdoms are antithetical to the the kingdom of God. Now, just, talking about keeping yourself pure, you have a you have a quote in your book also from, Morgenthau, I believe, that talks about like the impossibility of being involved in politics while remaining pure. And I thought that that was that was extremely insightful. And, you identify kind of 4 4 ways or 4 reasons why, why engaging in politics tends to to be corrupting.
Derek Kreider:So you identify, you know, 1st power is the primary concern of politics. 2nd power is is backed by violence or threat. 3rd, kingdoms and power are inherently exclusive. So thinking about, it others people, you know, for the foreigner, whoever. And then king, 4th, the goal of human kingdoms is survival.
Derek Kreider:So essentially, when we grasp at politics, we're grasping at power, and it's the power that seeks self preservation or in group preservation. And that's just, you know, a corrupting sort of thing, and we see that with things like the January 6th insurrection and and all those sorts of things. Would you, could you describe this, this power a little bit? And maybe describe how does this power corrupt? Because I think most of the time people say, well, you know, that power, it corrupted other people.
Derek Kreider:But, you know, my group's good or I'm good, and I'm going to take this, and I'm going to wield this for good, and I'm gonna change things. Talk about powers just corrupting influence and whether that's something that can be avoided.
Dr. Saiya:I think it's important to note that there are 2 different kinds of power. Okay? So the first kind of power is the power that we see at work in the world, and that kind of power is a coercive power over kind of thing. So it seeks to dominate, other people or in the case of states, other countries. But it it's always this kind of coercive dominating power.
Dr. Saiya:And it is, prevalent in international relations, but we see it domestically as well. And the political scientist, Hans Morgenthau, as you mentioned, referred to this kind of power as an animus dominandi. And what he meant by that is it is this inherent thing in human nature that seeks to assert dominion over others. It's a lust for power. And, again, it's always this coercive kind of thing, trying to get another person to do what they otherwise wouldn't do or to stop them from doing something that they want to do.
Dr. Saiya:Now in the scriptures, we find a completely different kind of power at work, and it's a kind of power that makes no sense in the world of power politics. We see it described as, the power of the cross, which is foolishness in the eyes of the world. And the reason why is because in contrast to the course of dominating power that we see at work in the world, the power of the cross is a power under kind of power. It's a power of serving. It's a power of humility, and that is the power of Jesus Christ.
Dr. Saiya:So, again, we have these 2 different kinds of power at work, the coercive dominating power of the world and, the foolish kind of power of the cross. And this is why some Christian authors like Donald Kraybill have referred to this, or have referred to the kingdom of god as a kingdom turned upside down. Right? It's a kingdom that makes no sense in the eyes of the world. And this is the kind of power that, the church operates from.
Dr. Saiya:So, I'm I'm reminded of this story that we find in the gospels when the mother of James and John comes to Jesus, and she requests a favor of him. And the favor is that one of her sons would sit at Jesus's right hand and the other at his left hand in the coming kingdom. And in response to this request, Jesus gathers his disciples around him, and he gives them this teaching. You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lorded over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them, but not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to be great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be your slave just as the son of man did not come to be served, but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many.
Dr. Saiya:That is the kind of power that, we find at work in the life of Jesus, and it's the kind of power that his followers are to imitate today. Now, the reason why worldly power is always corrupting and has no place in the church is because it's always tied to violence or the threat of violence. So you can't possibly have power if it isn't backed by force of some kind, And that's extremely problematic, from a Christian perspective. So in the world, violence is considered perfectly normal and natural. It's a way that states can keep the peace domestically, and they can fend off external aggression.
Dr. Saiya:And I'm not condemning, the use of state power when it is used in, a proper kind of way. But even there, it's not something that Christians can participate in, because there's no way that one can uphold the teachings of Jesus, especially as found in the Sermon on the Mount, and engage in violence or the quest for power. So Jesus taught his followers in Matthew chapter 5 that we are supposed to bless our persecutors, to love our enemies, to do good to those who hate us. If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also. So these are the kinds of teachings that we find, in in the ministry of Jesus.
Dr. Saiya:And I don't see any way that a person can reconcile, those teachings of Christ and engage in violence of any kind. It it seems completely incompatible to me. And so how do we reconcile this tension between the nonviolent teachings of Jesus, but also the necessity of violence on the part of states? So what I advocate from in my book is what I call Christian pacifism. Now Christian pacifism is somewhat different from universal pacifism or liberal pacifism.
Dr. Saiya:Universal or liberal conceptions of pacifism hold that violence is always wrong no matter who is undertaking the violence because violence will always reproduce violence. Always violence always begets violence. Now I take the view that when states employ violence, properly and in pursuit of upholding justice and fending off external aggression, that that is a legitimate use of force. At the same time, I also believe that because Christians are to renounce the sword and all of its manifestations, either in their personal lives or, you know, if if they find themselves in positions of authority, what this means is that Christians can never participate in violence themselves. And I believe that this is a teaching that is upheld in the book of Romans chapters 12 and 13.
Dr. Saiya:So Christians will often point to Romans 13, and they'll say, well, look. In this passage, Paul refers to the civil authority as God's servant, and he does this three different times. He refers to the political authority as God's servant, and therefore, Christians not only should take up these positions of authority, but they have a responsibility to do so. 2 things that I would say about this argument. Number 1, is that the term God's servant, is also used.
Dr. Saiya:That exact term is also used in the old testament, to describe the nation of Assyria. And if you know anything about Assyria, it was one of the most godless nations that ever existed. And yet even there, god is using this term god's servant to describe how he is able to work through even godless nations to bring about some kind of justice. So just because, you know, we find the term God's servant doesn't necessarily mean it's a role for Christians to take on. And the second thing I would note about this interpretation is that it also seems to take, you know, these verses out of context.
Dr. Saiya:Because what we read in Romans 13 is that vengeance is the job of the state. But in the previous chapter, Romans 12, we read that vengeance is something that Christians are never to participate in, and in fact, they are to leave vengeance to the Lord. And so when you put that all together, we can make a strong case that God uses the kingdoms of the world and the political authorities that exist for the purpose of, justice and and vengeance. But at the same time, it's not a calling, for Christians. So that's kind of a long winded answer to your question of how power corrupts, and it's primarily through the application or the threat of force.
Derek Kreider:Yeah. No. Long winded is is always good because, there's there's a lot of content. Of course, there are lots of things that, we could draw out from that, but we'll just move on a
Dr. Saiya:little
Derek Kreider:bit. So, one of the things that you talked about there was, you know, the so you've been talking about distancing, a little bit and and how that's important for Christians in terms of of purity to distance from that, that power and the sword. One of the the individuals that, I sort of feel is like feels like a traitor sometimes is Reinhold Niebuhr. So, you know, because he was a pacifist and then he, he kind of turned a little bit towards consequentialism and, you know, realism. And so I don't like that.
Derek Kreider:Yet, towards the end of his life in 1969, he pens this article about the king's chapel and the king's court, which is amazing. He's basically criticizing, like Billy Graham and and others for their proximity to power. And it's like Niebuhr kind of recognizes where where Christianity is headed. Like, he can see the moral majority before they they kind of rise. And, that to me is is really insightful now in in retrospect looking at where, where Christianity has has gone in the United States.
Derek Kreider:And, you know, I've been reading broadly for this season, and it's been fascinating to me how, a lot of times it's the people who are far away from power who end up being the the ones who change things. So, for example, I don't know if you're familiar with Benjamin Lay. Have you ever heard of him?
Dr. Saiya:I have not. No.
Derek Kreider:He was he was, just this this hunchback, dwarf guy, Quaker guy, in the the late 1700. And he influenced people like Benjamin Franklin and Voltaire. Like, they write about him. And he's he was influential in the Quakers eventually getting rid of slavery because of his his prophetic witness. But, like, he he went and lived in a cave, and he, like, he did all kinds of weird things.
Derek Kreider:But through his prophetic witness and his distancing, he was able to kind of shine light on people, on the institution of slavery. And, and just reading a book recently about, the Belgian Congo, you know, you've got all these Catholic missionaries who are paid by the Belgian state, who are like, there's nothing going on here. You know, they're they're not, they're not critiquing the state because they're that they're a part of the state. And it's people who come in from the outside who don't have an affiliation, who are able to to witness. And so I I think a lot of times people just don't understand the importance of prophetic witness.
Derek Kreider:So, expounding on Romans, 1213 was really helpful. So for the next question, you know, many Christians, I think they, they seem to grasp at power because they think that, I think they, they believe that the government offers some legitimacy and maybe, the thinking of, of marriage would be a big one in the States right now. Right? We don't want the government to give legitimacy to that form of marriage, and it's the government recognition of marriage that that gives us legitimacy. And you could take other issues too, but, we kind of view that that the state and legitimacy kind of go go hand in hand.
Derek Kreider:They have to control morality. Yet you argue that rather than bolstering Christianity, the marriage, of Christianity and the state actually lends legitimacy to the state. Right? So, by Christianity trying to go through through the state rather than the state lend Christianity legitimacy, Christians end up lending the state legitimacy and making what they do look good. So if the state goes into a war, you know, because they've got Christians on their side, that's that christens the war as good.
Derek Kreider:So can you explain how power and and the seeking of state power counterintuitively actually weakens Christianity when we gain control and how it props up immoral state actions.
Dr. Saiya:Yeah. So I wanna take a step back and kind of address something you said with Reinhold Niebuhr, because I think that's important. I kind of see Niebuhr as coming full circle towards the end of his career. Right? So as you note, he starts off kind of as a pacifist.
Dr. Saiya:Then he becomes a consequentialist realist in some ways. And then he, towards the end of his career, in that essay that you mentioned, seems to understand the, perils of the church seeking political power. So I think that is, it's very interesting. And, the way I laid out in the book is that prophetic witness requires prophetic distance, And the church can never speak prophetically to a state that it's entangled with. If the church is trying to speak prophetically from inside the king's court, that is a logical inconsistency, because the king will always have his own ambitions, and those ambitions will almost always be in contradiction to the ambitions of the kingdom of God.
Dr. Saiya:So prophetic witness from inside is impossible, and that's why Christians have to practice a, prophetic distance if they want to be a witness in the world. So that's kind of why I say that. And I think here Reinhold Niebuhr is a good example because, in the field of international relations, Reinhold Niebuhr is associated with a school of thought known as Christian realism. And if you know anything about international relations, one of the core ideas is that international relations is driven by a quest for power. So it is the attempt for states to exert their power over other states.
Dr. Saiya:And so this is why wars occur, and this is this is what explains the rise and fall of empires and so forth. Now what Niebuhr is trying to do is he's trying to apply Christian ethics in some way to, this whole worldly pursuit of power. But what he ends up doing, and he says this kind of explicitly in his book, moral man and immoral society, that in order for Christians to play this game, they will have to leave behind the ideals of the kingdom of God because bringing those ideals into, power politics is naive, and it's not going to work. And so we end up having Niebuhr affirming things like the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Right?
Dr. Saiya:And so in the end, Niebuhr's kind of Christian realism looks exactly like political realism, and there's really nothing Christian about it. So that's just another way in which, power can, corrupt. And when Christians try to bring their own Christian morality to public life but do so in a proper way that actually seeks to align the interests of the church with the interests of the state, this will almost always be the kind of outcome that we see. Now, regarding this idea about how, the pursuit of power weakens the church, I think we can point to 2 different things. The first is that in this grand bargain between the church and the state, both sides think that they're getting something.
Dr. Saiya:Right? So the church thinks it's getting a leg up on the religious competition, and the state also wants something in return. What the state wants is spiritual legitimacy from the church, and it wants spiritual legitimacy for all kinds of actions, whether those actions are, you know, moral or even immoral. And so because the state expects the church's support no matter what it does, we find the church often supporting terrible abuses of power and abuses of human rights. So I have in mind the church's support for the racist system of apartheid in South Africa, or the American church's support for the institution of slavery, or the era of Jim Crow that followed it.
Dr. Saiya:We also find Christian complicity in the Rwandan genocide. Back in the 19 eighties, Guatemala had a Pentecostal dictator named Rios Mont, and, he killed tens of thousands of his own people. But Mont was supported by his Christian counterparts in the United States. And we can even see it today in the war in Ukraine where the Russian Orthodox church has given, you know, pretty much carte blanche to Putin to do whatever he wants in Ukraine. And the church has literally blessed the war effort, in Ukraine.
Dr. Saiya:So these are some examples of how the church can corrupt its witness when it seeks, entanglement with the state. Now the other part here is that we also find that when the church has achieved some kind of political empowerment, that it's almost always detrimental for actually growing the church. So we can think of the example of the United States here. Back in 1990, only about 6% of the American population was religiously non affiliated. But today, what we see is that about a quarter of the population claims no religious affiliation.
Dr. Saiya:And so what's happened? I think there are a number of possible explanations for religion's decline in the US, but I think one of the most powerful explanations is that the decline of the church kind of coincided with the rise of Christian nationalist organizations like the Christian Coalition and the Moral Majority, the so called Christian Right. And a couple of things ended up happening with the rise of the Christian right. One was that it repelled people from the church who were already in the church, and they, saw that the agenda of the Christian right was not really a Christian agenda. It wasn't really aligned in any way with the teachings of Christ.
Dr. Saiya:And so they ended up leaving the church because they found it to be hypocritical. And also, there are those outside of the church who point to the hypocrisy of the church and say, this is something that I want nothing to do with. And perhaps if the church was really practicing the teachings of Christ, if it was really, attempting to pursue justice for the oppressed and if it was really committed to, you know, kind of the core values that every Christian claims, I think that's something that would be appealing to a lot of people. But instead, we find something completely different at work, and it's having this effect of repelling people who might otherwise join the church. And that helps explain the rise of, this kind of secularism in American society.
Dr. Saiya:And it's the same thing that we witnessed in Europe decades before. It just took a little bit longer in the US. So in Europe, you know, this is the most secular part of the entire world. And I think European secularism can also be tied to the establishment of national churches and, the quest for political power in different ways in these churches. See, what happens is that once a church grasps grasps for political power, it ends up being distracted from its mission of evangelizing, of looking after the poor.
Dr. Saiya:Instead, it needs the support of the state if it wants to continue to exist, and that creates a lazy, apathetic kind of church. And, and and so these churches end up being consumed by politics because they need the continued support of the state, and that almost never turns out well for, Christian communities.
Derek Kreider:Yeah. I, I like Kierkegaard's attack on Christendom because I I think it's, it's such a good glimpse at at somebody speaking from the outside, and I I think it gives such a a good depiction of where we're at in regard to, to the state. So one of the things that I think Kierkegaard and others identify the state as doing is that it it tends to co opt Christianity. Maybe that's a good word for what we've been discussing. And so there, there are lots of examples of, of things being co opted.
Derek Kreider:So where I'm, where I'm, I've lived the last, like 10 years before moving to Romania, Atlanta, right, you see Martin Luther King Junior boulevards and all kinds of things. Right? When there's still we dismiss a lot of what he said. But, hey, if we we put his name here, then, then it looks like we've embraced him. Or I think it was Richard Rohr who talks about the Franciscan order.
Derek Kreider:You know, Saint Francis, he's he's going to Muslim leaders. He's, you know, trying to win them to Christ instead of fight them in battle. He's he's, giving up his wealth, and he's embracing the poor, and that threatens the church at the time. And so what does the the church do? They they give him the whole order.
Derek Kreider:And, I I was recently in Italy and saw some of these Francis Franciscan order, you know, churches and things, and they didn't look very Franciscan to me, what I would envision Mhmm. You know, from Saint Francis. They're ornates and and all that. And so a lot of times, co opting something, ends up giving the thing the entity that does the co opting. It gives them the power over, over that thing that they're co opting.
Derek Kreider:And I think, you had a quote from Jonathan Fox in your book that says, supporting religion is among the most effective strategies to make religious institutions dependent on the government and thereby more subject to its control. And you talked about how Fox's research, suggest that governments and churches, you say, enter into a quid pro quo where the state depends on churches to propagate to the masses the message that resistance to the state in any form is sin, which I think we've we've seen quite a bit over the past, 5 years especially. But, one of the questions that that I have for you, and you don't I don't think you get into this in your book and maybe you don't really have too much of a position on it, but I was talking with a a friend a few weeks ago, who's who kinda specializes in more like late 1800 American sort of history stuff. And he was talking about, Cyrus McCormick in the, the industrial revolution and, how how Cyrus McCormick, you know, ran into this problem right around, the the Haymarket affair and everything. You've got a whole bunch of workers strikes.
Derek Kreider:You've got workers who are fighting for more rights and and more pay and all that kind of thing. And Cyrus McCormack is is really in a bind because he's got this business and he wants profitability. And so McCormack ends up giving a ton of money to Dwight Moody, and Moody ends up kind of being a mouthpiece for for business and, kind of helping Christians to stay in their place and recognize, you know, labor is good from god, and they need to respect their their employers and such. And really, that just enables Cyrus McCormack to maintain profitability and, not have to worry too much about workers' rights. Do you see a parallel at all with, I know in the States, communism is kind of the this thing that we are all all fighting against.
Derek Kreider:And not saying that it's good or anything, but do you do you feel like the same thing happens in the business sphere, in the corporate sphere with Christianity and authority? Like, is Christianity co opted in the United States or in the West by, by business just like it is with the state.
Dr. Saiya:Mhmm. Well, you mentioned this quote from Jonathan Fox, first of all. And I think that Fox is exactly right that offering tangible support to religious institutions is how states can keep religion under their control. But this is extremely problematic for Christian communities because once the state has that kind of control over religious institution, it can interfere in internal religious matters. And we see this happening in the Nordic states, for example, where the state is attempting to dictate religious conscience, on issues like, gay marriage and the ordination of women when in fact these are internal religious questions.
Dr. Saiya:And in Sweden, there's been a little bit of a backlash against the state involving itself in these, religious matters of conscience. But I think it's also a natural outcome when you get this unspoken grand bargain or quid pro quo between governmental and and and Christian leaders. Now as far as this question about, the relationship between the church and big business, I definitely think that there is something there. But as you mentioned, it's not something that I deal with in my book. However, there is an excellent book that's been written by Kevin Kruse.
Dr. Saiya:The title of that book is One Nation Under God, How Corporate America Invented Christian America. So I'm not sure if you're familiar with that book, but it does an excellent job making exactly this argument. And what Cruz's argument was or is is that, this idea of America as a Christian nation didn't exist until about the 19 thirties or so. And what happened in the 19 thirties is there was this backlash, on the part of big business against Franklin Delano Roosevelt's New Deal. And big business was trying to get out from under the thumb of what it saw as oppressive government practices.
Dr. Saiya:And business leaders recognized that a great way to be able to fight back against the New Deal would be to forge an alliance with American Christian Communities. And so they went to these Christian leaders and said, okay. We both dislike the new deal for different reasons. Right? You're looking for, Christian privilege.
Dr. Saiya:We want, benefits for big business, so let's come together and support the, candidacy of Dwight Eisenhower. And so you have these different constituencies coming together in support of Eisenhower for different reasons, Christians for one reason, business leaders for another reason, but they made common cause. And so Eisenhower comes into power, and we see kind of a revolution. Eisenhower instituted practices like the National Day of Prayer, and it was under the Eisenhower administration that the national motto, in God we trust became a thing. It was the, first time that under God appeared in the American pledge of allegiance.
Dr. Saiya:And so, yeah, I think that the roots of Christian nationalism in the United States can be traced perhaps to this, this alliance between big business and, Christianity. And at first, it actually worked out pretty well because, Christianity experienced a boom, but then it kind of fell apart in, you know, several decades later.
Derek Kreider:Yeah. I am familiar with, with Cruz's book, and I I liked it a lot. It was very helpful.
Dr. Saiya:Yeah.
Derek Kreider:So, final question, for you, and maybe the most important question. You know, you argue that, that the church advances the kingdom in 2 primary ways. You say that it speaks truth to power and advocates for justice from a position of autonomy, so that distance, and then you say, that it advances the kingdom by representing Jesus to the world through acts of loving service. That doesn't seem very revolutionary to a lot of people. It doesn't seem, you know, I can't go out tomorrow and vote the right person in, to command the armies to bring justice to the world.
Derek Kreider:It's it's, they're just actions that seem like they're not gonna do very much in the world. So maybe you could you could talk about where do we go from here as Christians? How do we get a vision for, it seems like, the way that Jesus wanted to change the world? And, now just where do we go from here?
Dr. Saiya:I would start by saying this. If it doesn't seem viable to Christians to practice prophetic witness as a way of transforming the world, I think it just shows the extent to which the Christian imagination has been co opted by this belief that we need to secure political power in order to make a difference. Regardless of whether that idea is compatible with the teachings of Christ or not, I think that's what we see occurring. The idea that it just it it isn't a viable way for Christians to let the light of Christ shine in the world. But I disagree with that whole, mentality.
Dr. Saiya:I think that prophetic witness is the only way that Christians should be engaged in the public realm. And, again, this is an active approach. It's not a passive approach. It calls on Christians to be taking concrete steps to look after the poor and the marginalized and the oppressed. So I don't think we have to look far to find examples of how prophetic witness has worked, in the past and how it's working today.
Dr. Saiya:So let me just give you a couple of different examples. Okay. So one example would be, an idea that the sociologist James Davison Hunter came up with in his book, to change the world, the tragedy, irony, and possibility of Christianity in the late modern world. And, Hunter is a Christian sociologist, and he argues in this book that the quest for political power has actually worsened the issues that Christians are trying to solve. And so he comes up with another idea, and he calls that idea faithful presence.
Dr. Saiya:And what this means is that Christians are to be faithfully present in a spirit of love and peace in whatever area of life that they find themselves, whether it's in their families, in their neighborhoods, in their places of employment, or wherever else. Christians are to be faithfully present. And in being faithfully present to the witness of Christ, that's how Christians ultimately transform the world. But it can never be this kind of top down thing where Christians are seeking political power because they want to enforce their version of Christianity on everyone else. That's never going to work, and that's something that Jesus himself explicitly rejected.
Dr. Saiya:So I think that's one example. Another example, comes from, Catholic social teaching. And even for those who are not Catholic, I think that Catholic social teaching offers much for us to learn from. And Catholic social teaching is concerned primarily with the building of just societies and the living out of holy lives in an unjust world. How do we do that?
Dr. Saiya:That's what Catholic social teaching is all about. And there have been numerous exam numerous examples of Catholics practicing social, or prophetic witness effectively. So I'll give you a couple of examples. One is a Catholic lay organization known as the community of Santa Egadio, and this is a Catholic peacemaking group. And the community of Santa Egadio has been responsible for brokering peace agreements between war in fact war in factions all over the world.
Dr. Saiya:And its greatest success came in Mozambique when it helped broker a ceasefire between the government of Mozambique and rebel forces helped and it helped, bring an end to a 17 year long civil war. And the reason that the community of Sant'Egadio was so successful in this case is because it was not tied in any way to either faction, the government or the rebels. So it had this neutrality and credibility that it could bring to bear in in brokering this peace agreement. Another example is the Catholic Worker Movement in the United States founded by Peter Morin and, Dorothy Day. And this also is a Catholic lay organization that seeks justice for the poor and the oppressed, and it was highly successful because it explicitly rejected an alliance with the American government.
Dr. Saiya:So these are just some ways in which protestants can learn from the prophetic witness of the Catholic church. And then a final idea is, known as confident pluralism. And what confident pluralism calls on is for Christians in a spirit of truth, seeking and respect to enter into dialogue with those who hold different opinions. And, they do this in a quest for truth, and and they they seek jointly the betterment of society. It no way entails the idea of relativism, that we leave aside our truth claims as Christians, but it also understands that Christians have a lot to learn from everyone, whether they hold beliefs about Christ that we hold or not.
Dr. Saiya:And so that would be a third way that, Christians can pursue a faithful public witness through this idea of confident pluralism. So I think, those are three examples of how the church can retain its purity and its distance from the state and yet remain active as it seeks to promote a prophetic witness in the world.
Derek Kreider:Alright. Well, thank you so much for, for all of your insight, for taking your time to have a discussion with me.
Dr. Saiya:Absolutely. Thanks for having me.
Derek Kreider:That's all for now. So peace, and because I'm a pacifist, when I say it, I mean it. This podcast is a part of the Kingdom Outpost Network. Please check out the links below to find other great podcasts and content related to nonviolence and Kingdom Living.
