CHAPTER XX

THE VOCATION OF CHRISTIANITY IN A CONFLICTUAL WORLD

CHARLES C. WEST

Princeton Theological Seminary

            The vocation of our faith in a conflictual world means, con-cretely, that we are concerned with our responsibility as persons who believe in God amid the world’s conflicts, some of which are rooted in faith differences. But we do not do this as individuals. Each of us belongs to a community of faith. It is in this community that our vocation finds its source, its guidance, and its validation. For Christians this community is the church. About its vocation we must ask.

            This requires, however, further precision. What is the church? We see churches in great variety. Often they do not recog-nize each other’s ecclesiastical validity. Often they are on opposite sides of the world’s conflicts. Yet no Christian is content to use the word as journalists do, simply as a term for the place where Christ-ians meet, parallel to the synagogue or the mosque. It comes close to what Jews mean by the people of Israel, and Muslims when they speak of the ummah. The church, as discerned by faith, is the crucified and risen body of our lord Jesus Christ in the world. It is the people of God of whom Christ is the head, the temple of which Christ is the cornerstone. It is the community through which, despite all its divisions and sins, God is at work in the Holy Spirit judging and redeeming the world. The church is that part of the world which lives by, and responds to this work of God. It is about the vocation of this church, at work in all the churches we know, often despite their sinful members, that we must ask.

            Let me suggest, without claiming more than suggestion, three forms which this vocation might take.

METANOIA

            In the New Testament this word first appears in the mouth of John the Baptist: "Metanoiete, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand" (Matthew 3:2). The message echoes the great Hebrew prophets, and it is severe: "You brood of vipers," he said to the leaders of his community, "Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Bear fruit that befits repentance. And do not presume to say to yourselves, `we have Abraham as our father, for I tell you God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham’" (3:7-9)

            Nevertheless the people, perhaps because they sensed, as we do today, the urgent wrongness of their condition, "went out to him, Jerusalem and all Judea and all the region about the Jordan, and they were baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins" (3:5-6). And among those who came, in solidarity with sinful humanity, was Jesus himself.

            The Christian church today, amid the conflicts around us, has a great deal of which to repent. One need only mention Northern Ireland, South Africa, Rwanda, the Caucasus, Croatia, Bosnia, or Kosovo, all places where Christians are killing each other or those of other faiths, in the name of a nation, a culture, or a race. And for each of these there is at least one other place where warfare could erupt at any time, with the blessing of a part of the church, blindly identifying church with cultural heritage, with ethnic blood line, or with the national cause of particular peoples is everywhere. Churches are segregated along these lines even while they pro-claim a message of saving hope for the whole world. There is plenty to repent of. The call of the Baptist is as pointedly directed at us, as it was at the leaders of first century Israel.

            But metanoia is more than this. Literally the word means, to change one’s mind. Its antecedent, the Hebrew word nacham, implies a change of attitude toward others in a relationship, spe-cifically that of the covenant. God can and does repent of the in-tention to destroy the people for their sins. His response to Moses’ plea on Sinai is only the first example (Ex. 32:14). Time and again in their history the people appeal to God in the name of his mercy, to repent of his wrath and judgment; and God responds with a forgiving judgment toward them, renewing the covenant which they had broken. Psalm 106 offers a classic example:

"Many times he delivered them, but they were rebellious in their purposes, and were bought low in their iniquity.

Nevertheless he regarded their distress when he heard their cry. He remembered for their sake his covenant, and repented according to the abundance of his steadfast love (Ps. 106:43-45).

            So it is also in the New Testament. When Jesus took up John’s words, "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand" (Matt. 4:17), it was still a warning, but it was also a promise. "There shall be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents," he said to a group of censorious pillars of the community, "than over ninety nine righteous persons who need no repentance" (Luke 15:7). Repen-tance is new awareness of a relationship in which, by the grace of another, one realizes not only that one must change, but that one can. One’s own goodness and rightness cannot save one from the judgment of God. But in Christ God leads the way toward new creation, reconciliation, and peace.

            What does this mean in practice? Let me offer two illus-trations. The first is from the history of the church itself. The period from 1054 when the Pope in Rome and the Ecumenical Patriarch in Constantinople excommunicated each other down to about 1920, was one of ever increasing divisions. Churches formed the cultures to which they brought the message of Christ; they were also ab-sorbed by those cultures. Ethnic wars were too often also religious wars, in which Christians fought against Christians. On the central European front Orthodox Russians fought Catholic Poles and, yes even then, Catholic Croats had it out with Orthodox Serbs, squeezing between them the heterodox Bosnians who later be-came Muslim. The Protestant Reformers set out to reform the One Holy Catholic Church and then found themselves, after exhausting wars, becoming the national religion of certain states.

            Then, in the early twentieth century, something remarkable happened. Spurred by meeting in the mission field of Asia, Africa or the Pacific islands, churches began to seek each other out. Their motivation was clear. Prospective converts asked them, if Christ is one, why are you divided? So they had to ask themselves, of what must we repent in order not to obscure the Christ whom we pro-claim? How can we learn to know and make known the One who judges and redeems us all? In a series of conferences churches began to listen to each other, to compare ecclesiologies and doc-trines, to pray and work together. They formed the World council of Churches and through it continue to reach out to Christian bodies that are not members. The future of this ecumenical movement is in God’s hands, not ours. But it is an ongoing process of continual metanoia, which changes our theology and our practice, reminds us of our sins as we face those different from ourselves, and holds the promise of new life for all the separate churches to which we belong.

            This leads to paradoxes. Serbs and Croats continue, as they have for ages, to kill each other and destroy each other’s churches, while the Serbian Orthodox Patriarch and the Roman Catholic Ar-chbishop of Zagreb meet under the auspices of the Conference of European Churches and the Conference of the Catholic Episcopate in Europe to plead for peace. In Russia, with the help of the National Council of Churches USA, the Conference of European Churches, and the Vatican, the Russian Orthodox Church invites representa-tives from all the churches in the area of the former Soviet Union, along with Muslim and Jewish observers, to a conference on Christian faith and human enmity. Problems are aired. A common statement is issued, and, more important, a continuation committee is formed of representatives of all the 22 communions present, to work for inter-religious and inter-ethnic peace. It is the first time in history. Metanoia is at work. Will it prevail over the forces of division and conflict? Once again, the future is in God’s hands. We can only witness.

            The second example comes from the German church struggle during the Nazi period. The fact is, as German Christians now confess, that even those who put their lives on the line against Hitler in the Confessing Church, even those who sheltered Jews and smuggled them to freedom, understood very little of Jewish tradition, religion or community life. Before the Nazi challenge they had not known Jews as friends, nor seriously reflected on the meaning of the Jewish people for Christian faith and hope. So the period of resistance to Hitler in the name of Christ was at the same time a period of metanoia, a repentant discovery of the life and faith of the Jewish neighbor. This has continued in many German churches and among theologians since. The relationship has deep-ened, and both the theology and the spirituality of the church are the better for it.

MARTYRIA

            These examples lead to my second point. In and through its metanoia the church is called in a world of conflict to witness to the God it serves. The New Testament Greek word is martyria. The En-glish word martyr comes from it, because so many early Christians were put to death simply for testifying that the risen Jesus Christ, and therefore not Caesar, is Lord. Basically the word means giving evidence in court of the truth concerning what has happened. Let us face it: Christians are not first of all adherents of "a religion". They are people who believe that something decisive has happened in the history of the world with the coming on earth of God incarnate in Jesus Christ. Because of that event, the world is a different place. Its rulers and powers are being called into sub-jection to the one who was executed at their hands, but who rose from the dead to become their lord. We are different people be-cause our sins, our self-centered wills, our pride of culture, race, or nation, have been exposed, carried into the death they deserve, by the sacrifice of that man on the cross, and defeated in his re-surrection. This, we believe, has happened, is happening by the work of the Holy Spirit in the church and in the world, and will hap-pen as Christ comes again. As forgiven sinners, being changed by the Spirit through our continual repentance, we are witnesses to these events. This is the reality in which, and from which, we live. We believe it to be the reality of the world as well.

            So we cannot help but bear witness to the God who has thus claimed and liberated us. Our calling is, in the words of the martyr-theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer, to discern and respond to the way Christ takes form in the world today. This has, I think, two con-sequences for interfaith relationships.

            First, we are free to take each other seriously as believers, in the same God perhaps, but in different revelations. To seek some common denominator of doctrine, ethics, or social analysis as the basis of discussion and action, privatizes and makes irrelevant the very core of our believing selves. We are asked to hide from each other what is central to each of us. Rather, let us confess our faith to one another. Let us expound it, commend it, show the richness of its resources in giving form to human life and peace to a world of conflicts. Let us bear witness to, listen to, and get to know each other as human brings who understand differently the reality of God in the world. Then we can work out how to live together as whole selves who share many things, secular and also religious, while we challenge each other, with mutual respect, about others.

            Second, inter-faith relations, like all other human relations, are rooted in prayer; not common prayer, save in very exceptional situations, but intercessory prayer, which each of us offers for the other. Here is where the unpredictable, free action of God takes place. What more can I pray for a Muslim or Jewish friend for whom I care, than that he or she will be more deeply sustained and nourished by the love of God, may know and rejoice in God more fully? How can I refer him or her to any other than the triune God whom I confess? So I find myself praying for my friend’s conver-sion. I am an evangelist in prayer. I do it badly. I am a sinner, also at prayer, whose insensitivity and selfish will distort even my address to God. God, however, answers prayer in his way, not mine. The very act of formulating one’s thoughts in God’s presence is enough to warn one about being too sure of oneself or of one’s witness in human discourse. God is his own witness; he may or may not use me or another agent. So we are free to be honest, open, even persuasive with each other, confident that the result, what-ever it is, will not be our work, but God’s. This should humble, and reassure us all.

JUSTICE

            My third point concerns our calling to seek justice in human affairs. God is just. Indeed the word so defines God in the Bible that early English translators adopted another word, "righteous", to translate the Hebrew word tsedeq, to symbolize its scope and to distinguish it from iustitia in the tradition of the Roman law courts. This means that God defines, as God embodies, justice, in co-venant with the people; first with believers, then with all humanity. So revelation deepens human knowledge of the just character of God, and therefore of human justice, as the Biblical story unfolds.

            The great paradigm was, of course, the Exodus. The people of Israel had no righteousness of their own, other than being op-pressed, poor and needy. God sought them out in Egypt, called them, and gave them a new humanity in covenant with him. This was the justice of God. The covenant people were to be its wit-nesses continually through their history as the Psalms and the prophets record, as they learned more of the undeserved com-passion, the mercy, this justice implied.

            So also with human justice. It has meant, in the Hebrew Christian tradition, not the balance of human claims or the en-forcement of contracts, but outrageous partisanship for the poor and the helpless, enabling them and empowering them as equal members of the covenant community. One of its most moving ex-pressions is in the words of Job, protesting his justice to God and to his "comforters".

When the ear heard, it called me blessed, and when the eye saw, it approved; because I delivered the poor who cried, and the fatherless who had none to help him. The blessing of him who was about to perish came upon me, and I caused the widow’s heart to sing for joy. I put on justice and it clothed me; my judgment was like a robe and a turban. I was eyes to the blind and feet to the lame. I was a father to the poor, and I searched out the cause of him whom I did not know. I broke the fangs of the unrighteous and made him drop his prey from his teeth" (Job 29:11-17).

This is the justice of God, qualified by his faithfulness, mercy and love. This is the character of human justice which God calls us to realize in the fallen, sinful conditions of this world.

            But there is a further qualification. God’s justice reaches out to justify the unrighteous. God creates anew the covenant which a rebellious people has broken. God renews the heart and transforms the society that has broken down. "By his knowledge," writes the prophet of the exile, "the righteous one will make many to be accounted righteous" (Isaiah 53:11). And Israeli will say, in the words of Jeremiah, "the Lord is our righteousness" (Jer. 33:16). Christians believe that this is what has happened in Jesus Christ. Justice is not a human possession. It is God’s liberating and forgiving judgment that creates a fresh relation and renews the covenant with us all. To claim to be just, in the sense of needing no repentance or reconciliation, is the greatest sin of all. To share the triune God’s transforming and reconciling mission is to live in and respond to the righteousness of God.

            This has, I believe, four consequences for action in the struggle for human justice. First, God both inspires and judges our efforts to achieve justice in human society. God’s law in the Bible - the torah, the injunctions of the prophets, the Sermon on the Mount, the rules of behavior in the letters of Paul, Peter, James and John - is guidance in our search for justice, but none of it is absolute. Revelation is not in laws and propositions which human beings can master and execute, and thus themselves become little gods. It is in the character of the living God whose justice and mercy inspire and correct us every day. Of this justice we are not arbiters, but stewards and witnesses, as we try to order our lives and our society justly.

            Therefore no one community, not even a community of one faith, and certainly not a national or ethnic community, be it Jewish, Christian, Muslim can define justice for all humanity. By faith we know that none of us is selfless, sinless, or wise enough to impose God’s law on our neighbors without their consent.

            Second, and more deeply, justice as God has revealed it in the covenant and in Christ, is not laws, but a relationship which we have with our neighbors near and far, which corresponds to and is continually informed by God’s relation to us all. We are called to cultivate these relationships, across all lines of ethnic, class, social, and religious divisions. This means helping to liberate others who are victims, disadvantaged, or whose culture and beliefs are strange to us, so that they too may become full participants in our society. In a heated debate in the German Bundestag, the late President of Germany, Gustav Heinemann, once declared: "Jesus Christ did not die against Karl Marx. He died for all human beings." For those of us who claim to be followers of Christ that forness defines the justice we are called to seek.

            Third, the justice of God is distorted and defied in this world by all kinds of powers that organize and manipulate God’s creation, including human beings, for their own ends. The Psalms are full of references to these powers. The Pauline letters in the New Testa-ment are explicit about them. They are part of God’s creation, but rebel against divine authority. They are superhuman, but rooted in human lust for pleasure, wealth and power. They are enemies of justice, both human and divine. Yet the purpose of God is not that they shall be destroyed, but rather subdued, conquered, made to serve their true created functions in a world where justice reigns and where all things are fulfilled in the divine economy.

            These powers were never more real than they are today. Never have so many people been enthralled by them, as agents or as victims. One great ideological power, world Communism, has collapsed, but its place has been taken by a hundred ethnic na-tionalisms and group struggles, with which churches are also involved. Meanwhile a free enterprise ideology without effective challenge, undergirds the forces of science-based technology, har-nessed to the economic power of globalized corporations. They run by their own laws and power across the world, subject to no responsible public control. Never was the calling to the church so urgent to resist these powers, even when they capture the allegiance of Christian people, and to confront them with God’s call to repentance and responsibility. We believe that Christ is lord over them. Our task is to discern how, and to make it known.

            Finally, of all these powers only one, the government, is named in the New Testament (Roman 13:1). The world was simpler back then! In any case this power has, in the providence of God, a clear mandate, however it may be misused. This mandate is not to be the instrument of one culture or ethos against others. It is not to establish faith by political coercion. It is not to realize all of God’s justice in human community. Rather its mandate is to enforce an external, relative justice, so far as that can be done by coercive power. That was all that Jesus asked of Pilate. It was all that the apostle Paul demanded of the authorities in Philippi (Acts 16:35-40) or in Jerusalem (Acts 26).