God's Politics

"Will values be used as wedges to further divide up or bridges to bring us together--to find common ground by moving to higher ground?" --God's Politics, Jim Wallis (Sojourners), p. xvii

As a Christian I recognize the Constitution's first 10 amendments as a secular insistence on rights while failing to list corresponding responsibilities. After having participated in a six week study through First Baptist church (McMinnville, OR.) that reflected on Jim Wallis's book, God's Politics, I have been questioning more deeply what is meant by Christian values, and family values. I fear most of us don't truly wrestle with understanding and arriving at firm values, based in an orthodox, historical Christian faith, that embraces the paradoxes of truth, and the inexorable demands of authentic, redemptive, consuming LOVE. Many American evangelicals simply spout a canned Republican line, and have let someone else do their thinking and theologizing. I like Jim Wallis's periodical assessment of much of current evangelical, right-wing thinking: its just bad theology.

So how does a good theology, a reflective, faithful, sacrificial theology work, that desires the redemption of the world, and takes seriously Jesus's actions, strategies and teachings? I have decided to reflect and theologize practically: Let me propose an example using an actual cherished American value: car ownership. Now some may object immediately, and say that car ownership is not a "value," but I would say that it is, because obviously since we spend so much of our time purchasing, servicing, fueling and driving our vehicles, we value them. We value what they look like, how we look in them, how others look at us and regard us when we are driving in them or parking them in our driveways for others to see. We are quite ready to pay whatever price it takes to keep them on the road. They are valuable to us, therefore they are a value. We, as a society, value automobiles. Although we would describe this as an economic value or personal taste value, it can not help also being of moral value.

Let's see how one reasons theologically:
To own a car we must purchase a car. To use a car, we must drive it, fuel it, maintain and control it. Cars, however morally neutral they may be in themselves as inanimate manufactured vehicles, have associated with them conditions that effect us morally. Do we spend tens of thousands of dollars on one vehicle in order to boost our social standing and define ourselves as superior to others financially, when we could just as easily purchase an inexpensive practical sedan for under ten thousand dollars, or a used one for thousands less? The latter decision would have not only been a humbler choice, having achieved no social promotion or encouraged envy within a circle of friends, clients or family--it would also have freed up tens of thousands of dollars for serving others' needs and preventing debilitating indebtedness.

Do we purchase large vehicles with larger engines that will necessarily demand greater quantities of gasoline and take up more space on the road, or do we purchase smaller, fuel efficienct vehicles? This becomes a moral issue on numerous levels: Greater gas consumption (according to the economic laws of supply and demand) increases the demand thereby driving up prices for everyone. If my Hummer or SUV consumes more I end up forcing others to pay more because I have reduced the common supply of gasoline disproportionally more than my neighbor who drives a small, 4-cylinder, fuel efficient Toyota or Honda sedan. Additionally my larger vehicle pollutes to a greater extent, harming the environment. My large vehicle is also more difficult to park fairly in a common parking lot~~at times intruding on another parking space that forces another driver to find another space further away since they can't squeeze into the space I have left over. Larger vehicles are more difficult to slow down quickly (due to the laws of inertia that Newton explained cogently centuries ago) thereby making large vehicles less safe of other on or near the road (particularily bicyclists). In essence,then, larger vehicles so coveted by the American public are a selfish choice~~their purchase and use, consequently, involve moral values.