Charles Marsh, Wayward Christian Soldiers
I should have written about Wayward Christian Soldiers a few days ago when I finished it, just to lock the thoughts down before they escaped.
Charles Marsh could be classified as a liberal Christian, which is a surprisingly rare breed. It’s odd that it’s so rare: the religion of a poor pacifist carpenter has been co-opted in the United States by a political party that believes in
excoriating immigrants, Catholics, “that communist Roosevelt,” Russian spies in the State Department, appeasers and other advocates of “better red than dead,” rootless cosmopolitans, advocates of “peaceful coexistence” and other graduates of Dean Acheson’s Cowardly College of Containment, uppity Negroes, Hollywood, liberal socialists who want to control your life, the nattering nabobs of negativism in the press, Mexicans, muslims, homosexuals, China, atheists.
Yet if you’re expecting Marsh to defend liberal policies on Christian grounds, Wayward Christian Soldiers is the wrong book for you. In large part Marsh wants to argue that Christianity will not be rescued until it dissociates itself from political power. As long as Christians sell their beliefs for a bit of access, they are in a state of sin. (Words like “sin” and “witness,” by the way, have specific meanings to Christians that I’m sure I’m misusing. I apologize for that.)
I do think that Marsh is walking a bit of tightrope. He seems to want Christianity to be apolitical, but of course that’s impossible and of course authentic Christian belief will mean siding with one party or another on given issues. Yet Marsh can’t very well propose that Christians should all be Democrats, much as he might believe that they’re more Christlike than the Republicans; that would defeat his whole goal of disconnecting Christians from politics altogether. So Marsh wants to be a political advocate, and indeed at times he is — as when he notes that American Christians are overwhelmingly in favor of the Iraq War, while every single Christian congregation outside of the United States opposes it. The best advice he can give is that Christians should follow their conscience, and shouldn’t trade their love of Christ for a bit of power here and there.
Marsh’s comparison throughout Wayward Christian Soldiers is to German Christians after World War II. How could the religion save itself after its complete ethical collapse in the face of the Nazis? Which brings up an issue that Marsh never seems to answer: what is it structurally about the Christian church that has made it so pliable so often throughout history? No institution, of course, escapes the glare of history unscathed (“Of course, unions are often corrupt and stifling; but this doesn’t exactly single them out from among governments, corporations, churches, schools, armies, political parties, social movements, think-tanks, bowling leagues, etc., as the most depraved and vicious of human institutions.”), but this does raise a question: why, exactly, should an outsider look fondly on Christians as against any other organization? What ethical command does Christianity hold over anyone? Corporations don’t claim (or shouldn’t) to be holding the ethical high ground; Christianity is, if nothing else, an ethical system — that is, a system for right living. If it has so often failed to respond ethically in the face of great evil, what exactly is left?
As with so many books that I’ve read by Christians (The Rise of Christianity and Thomas Aquinas: The Dumb Ox leap to mind), Marsh is already committed to the view that Jesus was the son of God, rose from the dead and so forth. If you don’t accept those premises, the rest of Christianity — and hence the rest of those books — will be hard to stomach.
I can accept that the right way to live is to give up all your worldly possessions and tend to the least fortunate. It’s debatable, but I can at least accept it. I don’t understand, though, why I have to believe anything about Jesus in order to believe that this is the right way to live. And thus far the only explanations I’ve found of why I should believe in Him are question-begging or groundless.
That’s because you have to buy the framework of Christianity where just doing good works alone isn’t enough to save you. You can’t just be a mensch. You have to believe certain things like believing in Jesus. There are variations on the importance of good works depending on the sect. Catholics are generally into faith + good works. Protestants are generally in favor of fatih alone which supposedly leads to truly good works. Of course, you’re still left with the question of “Why should I buy into this framework?”
Comment by mrz — November 4, 2007 @ 7:09 pm
That’s exactly my question. Nothing I’ve yet read has explained to me why I should believe all the stuff about Jesus.
Comment by slaniel — November 4, 2007 @ 9:43 pm
I think you missed my point. First, before you can even talk about believing in Jesus and what-not, you have to accept the framework tha the discussion of “You should believe in Jesus” makes any sense in. For instance, you need to accept the Christian God as being necessary, and then you may start to pull in other areas of the framework.
Also, from a faithful person’s perspective, I think it’s generally understood that you can’t really start by reasoning your way to God. You have to have some intuitive connection, which, will theoretically bring you toward a particular end. Once you’re in the framework intuitively, you can start to make sense of things from a reasoned standpoint.
Perhaps more concretely, most religions seem to have at their foundation some question or longing they are attempting to answer. So if you’re wondering why there is so much suffering in the world, and something like Buddhism comes along and says “You’re right. Everybody suffers…But, here’s what you can do.” or, if you wonder “How can I be a good person?” and Christianity comes along and says “Well, nobody’s really good, but here’s what you can do to be a good person.” Etc. That is, does a particular religion answer these kinds of questions for you. Once you’ve bought in, you can run with the tenents and see where they take you.
Comment by mrz — November 5, 2007 @ 12:47 pm
I think what’s disappointing to people who are into science/mathematics about religion is that you want there to be a “Ok, so this boils down to something elegant and awesome, and everything is clear. Go!” but, in the end, religion doesn’t seem to work out that way. It’s messy. It looks like other non-scientific human endeavors. Pretty. Interesting. Intuitive in some ways. But seeming to lack rigor or a kind of elegance. Which, if you are looking for something “greater than oneself” seems to be contradictory. Why can’t the Divine get she/he/its/their act together and be clear already? Yeah, yeah, every D&D player knows there’s a difference between Intelligence and Wisdom, but for crying out loud, why is it such a fog? But, then again, certain branches of mathematics and physics are a fog to those uninitiated, but the idea is that with enough teaching and deisre, it could become clear. It doesn’t always seem so with religion…or maybe it is?
This stuff makes my brain go in circles.
Comment by mrz — November 5, 2007 @ 12:53 pm
Also, either logins are borken or I don’t see the edit feature. Also, fix the CSS. Light green on white, man. Light green on white. Need I say more? Also, this kind of stuff:
Stop having fun with your girlfriend and fix your blog!Comment by mrz — November 5, 2007 @ 12:54 pm
Wow. Thanks for this thoughtful post and conversation. I’d never heard of Charles Marsh before today, but I read a quote by him and Googled his name and the book to see what came up. This post was at the top of the list. I really appreciate hearing your point of view and your questions. I hope you don’t mind if I throw my two-cents, as a Christian, into the mix.
Humanity. Pure and simple. The same thing that messes up all the other organizations, institutions and religions in the world. God doesn’t seem to take the humanity out of Christians. Rather, He seems to expect us to be humble in admitting we are only human, and turn to Him for help to become more than we are right now, better humans than we are at the moment. The sad thing is, for most most Christians today this idea doesn’t even cross our minds. We tend to live trapped in legalism — which oddly is one of the things Jesus came to “deliver” us from — rather than living in the freedom of His grace. Our humanity, when we live in grace, is what allows God to shine through — through the grace with give others (and ourselves) for not being perfect, and through our humility — our ability to honsetly and humbly admit we ain’t got it all together or tied up in a bow.
Well, not exactly… yes, there is an ethical system within Christianity, but that is not the whole of it, or even the main thing. The whole reason Jesus came and died and rose again and all that is so that we could each, as individuals, have a growing, dynamic, deepening relationship with God. One where I talk and He listens and He talks and I listen. And our actions, God and me, are a product of that relationship. Kind of like when a person you love and have a good, strong relationship with asks you to do something that you may not want to do but you do it anyway — not because you have to in order to keep that relationship (or because of force) but because you want to, out of love. So it’s really not the faith that leads to works as much as it is faith that leads to relationship, which leads to works.
Does that make sense?
Good question. Does it mean, perhaps, that there weren’t really all that many true Christians to begin with? I dont’t know… perhaps. But what is left is still what is most important; that is, the relationship with God.
I still think that it is humility and grace that are a Christian’s greatest assets (when we actually develop and use them!). Even when we fail to respond in the face of great evil, God can shine through if we are humble and show grace to ourselves and others. And He uses that humility and grace to effect change, not just in the Church but in others who watch us.
You don’t don’t have to. You don’t have to believe in Jesus to put the lifestyle, the “right way to live,” into practice. The ethics involved are true (feed the poor, take care of the widows and orphans, pay taxes, treat others with kindness, be humble, live quiet lives, etc) whether you believe in Jesus or not.
The only reason I can see to believe in Jesus — based on my own life and experience, on my reading and study of the Bible, and my observations of humanity — is if you realize you are in need of redemption and restoration with God. If your humanity and failings and flaws have not overwhelmed you and gotten the best of you, if you are able to live that right way to live without help and without failure, if you do not need grace from an unfailing, always loving source that never runs dry and never becomes impatient with you, then you don’t need Jesus.
And if you have a relationship with God that satisifies you, you don’t need to believe in Jesus.
It’s not that I’m a horribly weak failure of a person, so I need to believe in Jesus who can make me “strong” and “good.” It’s that I recognize that my humanity is, in the words of an addict, “out of control and making my life unmanagable.” And it is that my soul, which seemed to be inherently evil once and still seems bent in that direction, needed redemption; my whole being needs supernatural help to mature into the (ethical, morally good, wise, humble, kind, loving, gracious, etc) person I God seems to want me to be. When I think if why I believe in Jesus, this is a large part of it.
And mrz is on the mark that this is not about reasoning your way to faith, or about boiling it all down to something elegant and awesome. It all seems awesome to me — but I think that’s because I’m on the inside looking at this glorious thing called “Abundant Life” that is truly messy and complicated and chaotic and incomprehesible most times. But it’s so good. Like an amusement park ride you can’t explain, you just have to experience. And it all really does start with “intuition” — or rather, God’s Spirit’s poking that feels like “intuition.”
Does that make sense?
I hope I didn’t offend you with any of this. That was not my intention. But I also realize that words on a page don’t have the same tone that they have in my mind. I really enjoyed reading your post and the discussion in the comments, and just wanted to add my two little cents for the half-penny they are worth.
Comment by Lu — November 14, 2007 @ 1:14 pm