There is a woman in Kentucky who works for the government in an office that is supposed to be issuing marriage licenses to couples but she has refused to issue such licenses to gay people because she holds that it is against her Christian faith to do so. She has been thrown in jail. She sees what she is doing as her way of resisting a government which many good Christian people see as becoming increasingly godless. This post intends to show this this is a different form of Christian resistance than has hitherto been the case. It is a form of Christian resistance that is wedded to power. However, original versions of Christian resistance have been anchored in powerlessness.
The first Christians lived in a context which they saw as positively godless and working against their very existence in the world. One only need to read the Book of Revelation to see what those first Christians thought of this world. In a world which was seen as positively godless, the way of resistance these Christians chose was that of separation. Thus, many early Christians would not participate in occupations which they saw as compromising their moral integrity. They would not be teachers if that meant teaching books that promoted Greco-Roman polytheism; they would not become actors because they saw that as promoting a false notion of life, and they would not join the military because it involved killing - Christians were not to kill. However, when after about three hundred years Christians began to get comfortable with the power that be, they began rationalizing why and how Christians may participate in these activities. By the time Christianity came to America from Europe, many Christians had come to believe that Christian distinctiveness meant that everyone living in a city had to be a Christian. This means that the way that had to prevail in a city had to be the Christian way. This could be so because Christians were the ones now running the government.
It is in the context where Christians run the government that the gay marriage debacle in Kentucky may be understood. Because Christians run the government, they have power to say what was to be the nature of society. However, increasingly, Christians are not only divided about what should be the nature of society; the nature of society is also being questioned by people of other religions and people of no religion. Christians who used to run society are therefore feeling power evaporating from them. That is why many Christians, especially the professional politicians (politics being about who has the power), are portraying Christians as a persecuted people in America.
However, there are some scholars who are making peace with the fact that America and the West in general has entered a post-Christian era, that is, an era in which Christians may not have all the power. It is like being again in the era of the early church. What needs to happen at this time is that Christians who want to resist need to behave like their early Christian forebears. This means that Christians do not have to join the army if they believe that killing is wrong. Christians do not have to join the civil service if they believe that they may be called upon to perform services that contradict their faith. Thus, the best thing for the woman in Kentucky to do at this point is to resign her post and look for a new line of work that honors her conviction. However, because many Christians still associate being Christian with power, they want to be Christian only if all other people will succumb to their vision. It is the opposite of resistance in early Christianity.
The first Christians lived in a context which they saw as positively godless and working against their very existence in the world. One only need to read the Book of Revelation to see what those first Christians thought of this world. In a world which was seen as positively godless, the way of resistance these Christians chose was that of separation. Thus, many early Christians would not participate in occupations which they saw as compromising their moral integrity. They would not be teachers if that meant teaching books that promoted Greco-Roman polytheism; they would not become actors because they saw that as promoting a false notion of life, and they would not join the military because it involved killing - Christians were not to kill. However, when after about three hundred years Christians began to get comfortable with the power that be, they began rationalizing why and how Christians may participate in these activities. By the time Christianity came to America from Europe, many Christians had come to believe that Christian distinctiveness meant that everyone living in a city had to be a Christian. This means that the way that had to prevail in a city had to be the Christian way. This could be so because Christians were the ones now running the government.
It is in the context where Christians run the government that the gay marriage debacle in Kentucky may be understood. Because Christians run the government, they have power to say what was to be the nature of society. However, increasingly, Christians are not only divided about what should be the nature of society; the nature of society is also being questioned by people of other religions and people of no religion. Christians who used to run society are therefore feeling power evaporating from them. That is why many Christians, especially the professional politicians (politics being about who has the power), are portraying Christians as a persecuted people in America.
However, there are some scholars who are making peace with the fact that America and the West in general has entered a post-Christian era, that is, an era in which Christians may not have all the power. It is like being again in the era of the early church. What needs to happen at this time is that Christians who want to resist need to behave like their early Christian forebears. This means that Christians do not have to join the army if they believe that killing is wrong. Christians do not have to join the civil service if they believe that they may be called upon to perform services that contradict their faith. Thus, the best thing for the woman in Kentucky to do at this point is to resign her post and look for a new line of work that honors her conviction. However, because many Christians still associate being Christian with power, they want to be Christian only if all other people will succumb to their vision. It is the opposite of resistance in early Christianity.
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