Dr. GP Wagenfuhr—False Dichotomies of Sin and the Kingdom
“Racism is a systemic evil and injustice! We need systemic reform!”
“No! Racism is a sin problem! We need moral transformation of bad actors!”
Among the virulent mix of voices on social media surrounding the protests, riots, and demands for confessions of the orthodoxy of various groups arises a false dichotomy surrounding Christians’ discussion of sin.
The Dichotomy
In our world today, sin is either personal moral failings, or sin is systemic. What I perceive in this dichotomy is that the attempt to Christianize the wider secular discussion between long-held conservative and liberal political positions on how to enact social change. Of course we want our Christian faith to be relevant to the world’s discussions, but the problem is our starting point. We are beginning with a shared assumption about injustice that is rooted in the political philosophies of the Enlightenment.
Enlightenment political philosophy is based in the primary assumption that God is absent from the world (either because God does not exist, or because God does not intervene). It is sometimes noted that the Constitution of the United States is the first “godless” political constitution in human history. It contains no mention of divine power. Rather than receiving divine order, the US Constitution, like most all others that have followed believes in constructing a just human order using resources we have at hand within ourselves.
Building the Modern Moral Order
This distinction between reception and construction is vital, because it totally transforms any notion of what-is-wrong-with-the-world. For all pre-modern cultures, justice was defined by relation to the will of the king who himself was the representative of the gods, God, or Allah. Injustice was an offense to the king. For modern cultures, justice cannot lie in any person, but must lie in a system. For the founders of the United States, it wasn’t simply that King George III was insane and oppressive, but that the whole system of monarchy enabled such insane people unfit for office to be kings.
This means that the great project of modernity is to construct a world that is less evil than it previously was by creating better and more perfect systems. Or in the words of the preamble of the US Constitution, “We the People… in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice… do establish this Constitution…” That is, our modern moral order is built upon the idea that the people establish justice, union, peace, prosperity, tranquillity, etc. The people must work together to forge a social contract that will make the world a better place for everyone. This means that what is wrong with the world is a broken system of government, and that perfecting the system will perfect the people, and vice-versa.
In the modern moral order, there are generally two opposing sides. The political right says that personal moral virtue is more important for the establishment of justice, which will result in the success of society with minimal structures of government. The political left says that establishing systems from the top down enables the development of personal moral virtue. These are two political philosophies debating how to make the vision of the US Constitution come true: starting with individual liberties, or with government-led justice-establishing systems.
More mature political theorists will note, of course, that this is itself a false dichotomy. Systems alone without personal virtue will become corrupt. Personal virtue by itself also depends on the possibilities given to a person through privilege or lack thereof.
The Bible’s Vision of Brokenness
But that modern moral order does not easily match up to the vocabulary of the Bible, let alone Jesus’s announcement of the “good news” of the kingdom of God. The New Testament’s perspective on what is wrong with the world is not given in terms of ether personal moral failings, nor systemic injustice. But in terms that seem arcane to us: uncleanness, iniquity, unrighteousness, missing the mark (sin), judgment. These terms fit a monarchical perspective of justice. God is the rightful king and the only one capable of establishing justice through his rule. But the God of the Bible chooses not to exercise his right to rule through force, but subversively works through a people he is forming to spread his kingdom reign by love.
Our political camps cannot cope with the basic acknowledgement the Bible has for the existence of brokenness: the reign of powers other than God. What do we do with 1 John 5:19, “We know that we are from God, and that the whole world lies in the power of the evil one.”? Modern political philosophy has no room for this kind of discussion of why evil exists.
Translating Evil Power into Broken Systems?
This leads us to the classic problem of all missionaries. How do we translate the gospel without losing it? Can we get rid of talk of evil powers and shift that into talk about just/unjust systems? But if we translate evil powers out of the problem, doesn’t that mean we end up translating the power of God out of the solution? Yes, indeed it does. All solutions imply the problem they are designed to solve within them. So, the way we describe a problem demands a solution that fits. Impersonal systemic injustice demands systemic reform, and that implies the possibility of systemic justice apart from God. This is the subtle form of atheism inherent in secularism.
At the same time, if sin is only about personal moral failings, then personal moral transformation becomes the gospel, which again doesn’t fit the Bible’s perspective of the power of the evil one. This leads to a form of political Pelagianism, in which we are able to create a more perfect world through trying harder and Jesus becomes a tool to aid in morally transforming people. And through modern techniques and systems of therapy, Jesus is proving a less efficient tool than even Buddhist-derived Mindfulness practices.
Put another way, modern discussions of moral order on both political right and left are founded upon, and thus lead to, atheistic (or deistic) conclusions. That’s not to say there are not overlaps! There are principles we can find in the Bible that fit the agendas of either political party, and in our desire to be relevant, it is all too tempting to find “biblical principles.” This translates the Bible into the modern moral order by removing the contexts we can’t use. But biblical principles divorced from the reign of God in Jesus Christ is the very move of antichrist, using the Word of God to kick God out of the human world. The Devil tempted Jesus in very similar terms to use God for his own ends, rather than submitting to the Word of God.
These types of subversion of the kingdom are shown by the use of construction words in relation to the kingdom by various Christian organizations: “building the kingdom” is something that is tossed around commonly. But a kingdom cannot be built, because a kingdom is not a construction project, but the conquest of a people by a ruler. Kingdom only spreads by the reign and dominion of the king. The justification that has been used throughout the last few hundred years is that God is at work through these systems, that the kingdom is delegating authority to human systems of justice. The time has come to name this as a lie. God is at work through the people who are faithful to him, not to those who submit to this or that system of political authority. Again, the whole world lies in the power of the evil one. What about God’s sovereignty? The book of Hebrews answers thus, “We do not yet see all things submitted to him” (Heb 2:8).
Ad Fontes!
The first way to begin to approach this problem is to return to the Bible. What does the Bible actually say is wrong with the world? If we answer “sin” then we’re only partly right! The Bible in both Old and New Testaments has a much more complex answer than “sin” defined as breaking God’s law. It uses categories of uncleanness, iniquity, unrighteousness, lawlessness, missing the mark, corruption, and the heavy influence of supernatural power. I have prepared a resource to help us re-educate ourselves into the world of the Bible that helps us be more equipped to engage in the project of announcing the good news of Jesus. We cannot announce good news without setting the terms of the bad news!
Resisting Resourcification of the Kingdom
From there, if we are to answer questions about systemic injustice and personal virtue, especially as it concerns racism, we will end up with a very different third-way option that lies outside of the realm of the modern moral order’s basic understanding. Because, if we don’t change the terms of the debate to fit those of the Bible and Jesus’ world, we will engage in little more than the state’s continued use of the church as a moral resource for the establishment of a “more perfect Union.” And, if the church is deemed to no longer have enough moral resources within it for the building of this “more perfect Union,” we will inevitably be tossed to the margins of society, as is indeed happening. For our voice to have the power of God, and be a revelation of the kingdom of God, we must speak the Word of God to the world, which is not the word of constructing a more perfect union, but the overthrow of the evil one who now holds dominion over all nations of the world.
So, are there systemic injustices in the world? Yes. Is personal moral virtue essential for a more just society? Absolutely. Does the Bible help us build such a world? Not without subverting (commodifying) its core message of the coming reign of God as king.