You Need Some Learnin'

Another thing I was thinking about during the You Need Some Learnin' meeting at Michelle and Christie's is when John spoke about Christians removing themselves from the political structure, and facilitating lobbyists to fight for what could be seen as a common good or a Christian stance if connected to the Church.

My thought was this - what is the difference between being engaged in a public political system as an individual, and, on the other hand, excluding yourself from the system and having someone else lobby for your interests? Couldn't having an external affiliate (lobbyist) for the internal group (the Church) be seen as condoning their actions because you define them as not part of the group?

In other words - isn't asking someone to lobby for the Church like saying "it's ok if you do this, you aren't one of us" - thus being inhospitible and ultimately seclusion-ist?

And to take a recent quote from Hauerwas on Eric's blog:

"If you ask one of the crucial theological questions--why was Jesus killed?--the answer isn't `because God wants us to love one another.' Why in the hell would anyone kill Jesus for that? That's stupid. It's not even interesting. Why did he get killed? Because he challenged the powers that be. The church is a political institution calling people to be an alternative to the world. That's what the cross is about."

Hard to be an alternative to the political institution, remove yourself from the institution, and then ask someone else to change that institution from the inside out....

Another side note: seclusionary should be a word.