As Christians, we want to see the world be a better place. Jesus has taught us to love our neighbor and to be concerned for the least of these. The problem is that when we try to get involved, we do not know what to do. We find it harder than we supposed. This can lead us to give up, but then what of our obligation to love the world?
In my view, few Christians have thought about this issue with as much clarity as the American theologian Reinhold Niebuhr. I have learned much from him. What I have learned has enabled me to keep going in big and small ways with outreach to the communities of which I am a part. Here I want to summarize seven principles that continue to be sources of wisdom, challenge, and encouragement to me when social engagement gets hard. I will not quote Niebuhr here. You can see my summary of his views on Christian political engagement here. I am just writing these in my own words, but my thought owes much to him.
1. There is no limit to human anxiety, insecurities, and ambitions. One reason it is so tough to engage with people is because we are filled with anxiety. Anxiety is part of human life. It arises from the fact that we can see all sorts of problems that we can do little or nothing about. We are anxious about our survival, our life, our possessions, our money, our kids, our nation, our significance, and on and on.
And there is no point where this stops. No matter how much we succeed there are always new problems. We have anxiety that we will lose the things we have gained or not reach the next level. In America and the West, we have solved a lot of problems that were huge issues for our ancestors, but we have simply run into bigger problems. Anxiety explains why people accept even bad situations. They fear that if they change them, they will encounter something much worse. In engaging with society, we are dealing with anxious people.
2. Human pride is born out of anxiety. Why do people exalt themselves at the expense of others? Why do they act in selfish ways? It is in part because of their anxiety. They are worried about their survival and the survival of the things they enjoy, and they will fight for their position and prestige as much as if it were their very life. Why does a nation invade others? It is in part out of the anxiety over the prosperity, prestige, or survival of their own nation. Why do people amass goods and not worry about others? It is in part anxiety over their own position. Why does a parent think they can continually make their child happy? Some of it is anxiety about their child, but it is also pride in their own ability to solve every problem for someone else.
Pride born of anxiety is a factor in human life. We stubbornly cling to our own position and power and exalt ourselves, our things, our people, and our ideas above others, even at the expense of truth and justice. This deserves our condemnation, but it also calls for compassion because it is born out of an attempt to solve the basic problems of life, relationships, meaning, and security that we all deal with. This can take some of the edge off of the opposition of others because it is born in part out of trying to solve the same problems that we ourselves are trying to solve.
3. Religion is not a pure quest for God, and reason can be just as fanatic as religion. Religion and reason should mitigate our anxiety and humble our pride. However, religion can easily become a tool of our pride. Thinking on the absolute, we identify ourselves with the absolute. We borrow the sacredness of the holy and apply it to our own faulty and sinful ideas and actions. We use it to exalt ourselves at the expense of others. Even the idea of grace, which should humble us, can become a way of looking down on others who don’t get it and baptizing all our ideas because we “understand” God’s grace. Continue reading “7 Principles for Christian Social Engagement”
