Terms of Engagement

I.        Vows of Affirmation

“We devote our daily life to God, and to serving our neighbors as images of God”

6. I will daily read the Scriptures and meditate on the witness of Jesus Christ.

Why this messy holy book? So many different voices, so many different genres, so many different pictures of God. For Christian people who believe Jesus calls us to a peacemaking discipleship that is always nonviolent, the Bible doesn’t always seem to yield a message in line with that calling. So why search for God in this messy book (anthology, really)?

Pastor Barbara Brown Taylor describes untidy scripture,  “God’s story has its own twists and turns, its own chapters of rage and repentance along with some magnificent cruelties, but it is above all the story of a God who does not break promises, a God who entered into covenant with humankind and who remains loyal to that bond, no matter what we may think of its terms…That is the God who walks toward me in the Bible…The Bible is the book in which the terms of that relationship are explored” (The Preaching Life, 53)

Our central confession is that Jesus—not anyone or anything else—is our Lord, our ruling authority. And when we see that Jesus himself was profoundly shaped by the Hebrew scriptures and that the earliest Christians searched those same texts trying to figure out what God had done through Jesus and how to order their lives accordingly, we are compelled to do likewise. In their example we see the pages of the Bible as the best way to discover God’s reconciling ways shown in Jesus. 

Pledged to Whom?

III.    Vows of Nonviolent Witness

“We pledge to act in allegiance to God alone, and to resist injustice with goodness”

by Dorothy Lange via Wikimedia

13. I will make no oath of allegiance to any nation or government of this world, nor will I salute any flag; I will honor and respect legitimate authority, but I will love and worship God alone, sovereign and judge of all nations

John of Patmos’ letter, what we call Revelation, has been variously understood as a horrific end-times scenario. But the letter is not nearly so cryptic and fantastical as we might imagine. At its heart, John’s Revelation is about our allegiances, or rather, our one proper allegiance to only One: the lamb of God who was willingly slain. The final book of the Bible is primarily about who we worship and why (and thus, implicitly who/what we don’t worship).

In our contemporary Christianity, we casually throw around a loaded phrase: “Jesus is Lord.” We may not realize it or use it as such, but this is a statement of total allegiance, of worship. It is the earliest confession of Christian faith appearing earliest in 1 Corinthians 12:3 and seems to be an overturning of the then common proclamation, “Caesar is Lord.”

The Messiah’s Revolution

III.    Vows of Nonviolent Witness

“We pledge to act in allegiance to God alone, and to resist injustice with goodness”

Paul Speaking Before Agrippa

12. I will be subject to civil authorities, unless they command actions which are unjust or protect injustice, or if they violate common human dignity.

This is a slippery vow to reflect on. Not being a political theologian, I danced around having to write something for this. I come from a Christian religious tradition historically wary of close Christian relationships to—much less involvement in—the civil governing authorities (enigmatically labeled “the State” in much contemporary theologizing).

As a called-out people (dwelling in the United States of America) commissioned by God in Jesus to self-emptying, nonviolent service to the least-of-these, how do we faithfully relate to civil systems and laws and even individual leaders? Especially ones who demand the right of our country to assassinate its own citizens abroad, that propagate poverty among already-disadvantaged economic classes, that create giant profit out of incarcerating (and not rehabilitating) a massive prison population, that call for enforced racial profiling against our darker-skinned migrant brothers and sisters?  “Be subject to governing authorities.” Really, Paul? “Accept the authority of every human institution, whether of the emperor as supreme, or of governors.” That’s not what I wanted to hear, Peter!