The Politics of Charity

An introduction to a new series of essays on the Church, politics, and effectiveness

The concept of charity is quite often maligned in progressive Christian circles. Contrasted against the work of social justice, charity is often viewed as simple good deeds that fail to acknowledge or ameliorate the structural issues underlying the need being met. For instance, soup kitchens do admirable charitable work, but are ultimately insufficient, as they don’t do the hard political work of discovering why people are hungry, and then wielding the power to solve hunger. This latter work - the work of social justice - is viewed as the proper purview of progressive Christian churches. Progressive churches shouldn’t spend much time on charity, when it could be putting all their energy towards justice.

There is certainly a good deal of truth in this view; it's the one I have subscribed to for most of my time as a Christian! I want to challenge this though. For a few years now, the bloodless, antiseptic focus on “justice” has been turning me off the progressive church scene. I’ve struggled to put words to this feeling I’ve had, but it has been very real. And I don’t think I’m alone. I only have to spend a couple of minutes on “progressive Christian Twitter” (yes, that’s a thing) to begin to see a simmering tension between strict social justice Christians, and those who are seeking a bit more. There is a real, growing desire among some on the Christian Left to disentangle our own faith commitments from the desires of the political left, and to rediscover and reclaim a spiritual drive to the work we want to do. The technocratic visions of progressivism aren’t good enough; the blood of Christ still flows and must play a role in discovering why we are called to love our neighbor and serve the weak. In short, we crave something a little more charitable in our social justice. Dr. Richard Beck, at his fantastic “Experimential Theology'' blog, has been someone who I have seen experiencing this same turn during the time I have, as he “reconstructs” his own Christian journey, away from a purely progressive, pseudo-materialist faith, back towards more orthodoxy, and in his words, “re-enchantment.”

In his 1977 book Truthfulness and Tragedy, theologian and ethicist Stanley Hauerwas has a chapter entitled “The Politics of Charity.” Upon reading this chapter, I felt as if I had finally discovered the words that were describing the journey my own personal political theology has been on for the last couple of years. Reading his take was eye opening, and intensely hopeful for me. I have struggled for a while now to come to terms with both sides of the political theology fighting in my own head, embodied in the two most prominent theological voices that influenced me: the politically engaged religious liberalism of Jurgen Moltmann, and the post-liberal Anabaptism of Hauerwas and John Howard Yoder. This internal struggle has led to a prolonged period of theological writers block. But, reading “The Politics of Charity” has been so hopeful for me because it bridged the gap for me like few other pieces have, and seems to have opened my mind back up to this work I am passionate about.

And so, I want to share the insights I drew from this chapter over the course of a few essays. In this series, I will walk through Hauerwas’ essay, unpacking his argument, highlighting the key points, and making connections to the situation of the Church today. This exploration goes beyond a merely superficial polemic about how the church is too “woke”, or too concerned with being social justice warriors. It's also not an argument that will satisfy theological conservatives; I (and Hauerwas) are not interested in absolving the church of the important work of justice. Social justice has a strong, biblically-grounded place in the Church, and to deny that is to misread Scripture. The range of these essays will stray far and wide, before coming back to make an important theological argument: namely, that the work of charity is the politics of the church, a politics centered on the poor, the oppressed and the needy, not because justice is our lodestar, but because the God we see in a suffering Christ on the Cross - the God we see in the hungry, the naked, and the sick - is. Without a crucified and resurrected Lord, the work of justice is drained of its salvific nature, for all involved. Instead, it becomes passionless technocracy and bureaucracy, not a life-giving way of being more authentically human. What this means for the real work of justice in the world is that the work the church must do may not always be the most politically effective or relevant work; as Paul tells us, the wisdom of God is often the foolishness of men.

The concept of “effectiveness” is what drew me to Hauerwas’ essay; its the word I keep coming back to, and the one around which much of this series will center itself. Political action is inherently effective in intent, even if it fails to become so at times. Effectiveness is crucial to the work of self-government; human beings must be able to effectively do something in response to crises and to the everyday happenings of communal life. Hauerwas argues, however, that effectiveness is not the purview of Christians, at least not effectiveness as the world understands it to be. Christians who take an active role in the life of the world are not merely trying to make progress for progress’ sake; nor are we so concerned with specific outcomes that we become utilitarian in our work for change. The “how” of social and political action is the first concern of Christians, because we have a “how” for life that is unconditional. Thus, Christians are meant to live a certain kind of life, regardless of the immediate political outcome. We can do this because of the Resurrection, which is the assurance of God’s victory over death. Thus, life as a Christian becomes a way of life that we know is in fact effective in the way we want to be effective. This is at the center of Hauerwas’ essay, and it is a scandalous claim for the church, where politicization has gripped both the right and left and many Christians seem to be gripping tightly to control and power in a desperate attempt to make of the world what they want it to be. The task I am taking over the course of this work is to remind Christians that we don’t need to hold on that tightly; our hope is not in this political victory or that electoral success. We don’t have to be effective to get things done; we merely have to be faithful. What a joyful way to live that would be!

The series will spread over about 10 to 12 weekly essays, plus this introduction, which I will aim to get out every Monday. While I am writing as a reconstructed progressive, I don’t mean for this to be only aimed at other progressives. I think there is great insight here for churches all along the theological spectrum who are eager to be the hands and feet of Christ in the world. As Hauerwas writes in an earlier chapter of Truthfulness and Tragedy, “Theology, therefore, is the attempt to keep us faithful to the character (the story and skills) of our community lest we forget who and why we are.” This is a challenge for every church; this series hopes to live up to the demands of Dr. Hauerwas in calling the community of Christ back to a faithful way of being the Church for the world.