5 - Does Religion Demand Social Change?

Does Religion Demand Social Change?
By Richard Shaull

"One of the few things that seems certain about Jesus of Nazareth is that he was condemned to death by the Romans on charges of sedition and was executed by the means commonly used for Zealots and other politically subversive characters. The early Christian communities were often denounced as subversive groups, and Christians were described as those who 'turned the world upside down.' From time to time in Christian history, those most committed to religious reform were social revolutionaries. . . . God's action in the world creates an ongoing process of social change, and consequently our faithfulness to him requires that we be involved at the cutting edge of change."

Speaking of religion in general, I think we would have to say that it has not demanded social change. In fact, it has tended to be a major bulwark against such change. Insights as to why this has happened have been provided by a number of modern scholars. For example, Arend Th. van Leeuwen in his book, Christianity in World History (1964), has shown how the great religious systems of the past strove after a unity of all elements of reality in a single and comprehensive totality. In them, the divine and the human, the temporal and the eternal become intimately related, and thus all the basic institutions of society are sacralized.

This paper was originally presented at the Institute for Religious and Social Studies, held at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America, New York, N. Y. 10027, January 21, 1969. It was one of several discussions on the theme, "Perspectives on Law and Order, Revealed in Recent Experience." Copyright for the text is held by the Institute, and inquiries about quoting from it should be addressed to the Director, Miss Jessica Feingold. Richard Shaull is Professor of Ecumenics at Princeton Theological Seminary. He is the author of Encounter with Revolution (1955) and (with C. Oglesby) Containment and Change (1967).

6 - Does Religion Demand Social Change?

God maintains the unity and harmony of the universe against the threats of disorder and chaos, and the king is the divine representative to do the same on earth. The state belongs to the "ontocratic" order; it is the embodiment of cosmic totality; and the king is therefore the guardian, executor, and servant of cosmic order, which is also the basis of order in society. Social institutions and classes constituting the status quo are divinely ordained; religion is the major factor which sanctifies this order, and those who are most religious will not be inclined to tamper with it. If and when change does occur, religion will attempt to restore the order which was subverted by change.

Even where such an overarching world view does not exist or has lost much of its power over men and women, the same psychological factors which produced it are often still operative. Man feels insecure and threatened by meaninglessness in the face of cosmic forces, historical developments, personal disintegration, and the inevitable fact of his own death. He longs to escape from this burden, and does so by giving an absolute value and sacral character to one aspect or another of his experience or of reality about him. This is especially evident in the midst of social crises. And as religion fulfills this function, it tends to create a psychological climate against change, to close men's eyes to the crises demanding change, and to attract to itself those who are most threatened and insecure in the midst of change.

I

Most of us must deal with this question not in general terms but in a more specific way. We are associated with one particular religious tradition, and we must ask ourselves whether it demands change. Simply because of my own limitations, my historical and theological analysis will be limited primarily to one branch of that tradition, namely, the Christian, and even more specifically, the Protestant. But I am making the assumption that the elements to which I shall refer are just as strong in other Christian forms and in the Jewish tradition, and that, in fact, what Kornelis Miskotte calls the Old Testament "surplus" is very much in evidence here.

If we take seriously what van Leeuwen and others have said about the nature of religion, the interesting thing is that time and again in Jewish and Christian history, things happened that completely

7 - Does Religion Demand Social Change?

shattered that framework and moved the tradition in a quite different direction. Emil Brunner used to say that the prophetic books of the Old Testament contained the most powerful condemnation of social injustice to be found in ancient literature. One of the few things that seems certain about Jesus of Nazareth is that he was condemned to death by the Romans on charges of sedition and was executed by the means commonly used for Zealots and other politically subversive characters. The early Christian communities were often denounced as subversive groups, and Christians were described as those who "turned the world upside down." From time to time in Christian history, those most committed to religious reform were social revolutionaries, such as Thomas Munzer, the English Calvinists, and a variety of more modern examples that could be mentioned. The question we must explore is whether these sporadic manifestations are the expression of a central element in our religious heritage or are quite secondary and marginal to it; whether these developments represent the dynamic logic of our faith or are a betrayal of it. What I should like to argue is that the inner logic of faith leads us inescapably to the front lines of social change. Or to put it in terms which are theologically more exact, that God's action in the world creates an ongoing process of social change, and consequently our faithfulness to him requires that we be involved at the cutting edge of change. The reason for this I find in the convergence of three central elements in our religious heritage: the radical historicizing of man's outlook, the messianic struggle for the liberation of man, and the disruption of the established order.

II

The radical historicizing of man's outlook on life and the world has received so much attention in recent years that I hardly need do more than mention it here. What seems to me to be important is this: such a shift represented a break with the dominant religious world view that was so radical it could have occurred only as the result of an overwhelming experience of a people. It is to this that the Old Testament witnesses: the experience of an encounter with creator implied a fundamental split in reality. It meant a separa-

8 - Does Religion Demand Social Change?

tion of God from the created order, of time from eternity, of man from the rest of creation, of darkness from light. The presence in history of a God who calls a people and makes a covenant with them implies that God is met, known, and responded to in the midst of historical existence. A-historical time, the endless round of meaningless chronos, is overcome by a sense of the meaning of historical life as man moves toward the future. And the ritualistic, sacramental approach to reality, by which elements of the temporal are sacralized as they are integrated into absolute time, is replaced by the joyful perception of mystery and grace in time.

The Christian conception of incarnation is the climax of this Hebraic revolution. To the degree that it is taken seriously, it implies not merely the shifting of the focus of religious life to the secular realm, but as Miskotte indicates, the possibility of a growing discovery of the richness, meaning, and joy to be experienced in the fullness of bodily life, in human relationships, and in social involvement.

Unfortunately, across the centuries the working out of the logic of this discovery has been blocked again and again. In the Old Testament, the struggle constantly goes on against the infiltration into Israel, of the pagan ontocratic world view and the religious practices that go with it. In the first few centuries of Christian history, the "loss of world" which occurred with the growing crisis of Greco-Roman civilization, and the consequent drive toward Gnosticism, had a profound effect on Christianity. Later the marriage of Greek metaphysics and Christian theology led to a new ontocratic perspective which proved to be widely satisfying throughout the Middle Ages and even beyond.

With the modern process of secularization, this dynamic logic of the Judeo-Christian heritage has broken through with new power and now creates a context for the living out of faith which has wide implications for social change. To the degree that this dimension of our religious heritage is operative, we must affirm the de sacralization of all areas of thought and of life, accept the breakdown of old patterns of authority, and recognize the functional character of all social structures and institutions. Rather than creating a religious refuge of stability and security, we can venture out into and rejoice in a situation of insecurity and instability. Our deepest religious experiences will not be esoteric in character, nor occur in isolation

9 - Does Religion Demand Social Change?

from the world, but will rather be experiences of joy and celebration, of grace and fulfillment, as we move forward in history. And we will discover the paradoxical fact that we are free to take history seriously because we do not take it too seriously. To meet God in the midst of our social existence means that we need not absolutize any aspect of it. This, I contend, is the foundation of a religious experience which frees us for and pushes us toward involvement as agents of social change.

III

In a context defined by the breakdown of the ontocratic pattern, the Hebraic experience introduced an even more revolutionary element: an understanding of history as the arena of a messianic struggle for the liberation of man in a new social order, a struggle moving toward its consummation. The primal expression of this is the story of Abraham, who is called to move out of the security of a great civilization, is led by God into and through the chaos of many races and peoples, to be the creator of a new humanity. The Exodus of Israel from Egypt and the pilgrimage toward the Promised Land become the central paradigm of the Old Testament. Within this framework, the prophetic witness with its focus on the expectation of the coming of the Messiah directs the attention of the man of faith toward a new and promising future.

This same thrust moves to a new stage in the New Testament with the proclamation that in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth, the Messiah has come and the messianic kingdom has been established. He is the new man, the beginning of a new humanity. But here the eschatological motif comes to the foreground. The foundations of the new order have been laid, yet it becomes a reality only as man moves forward toward its realization. This new reality comes out of the future into the present and exists as an explosive force within it. Historical existence is purposive; it is oriented toward the future, and man lives expectantly as he moves toward ever new possibilities of individual and social fulfillment. The history of man is the story of his liberation.

If we take this seriously, then the theologian can speak of God's redemptive action in the world only as he accepts all the risks of attempting to describe the concrete nature of the ongoing process of human liberation. Personally I believe that the time for the

10 - Does Religion Demand Social Change?

formulation of overall philosophies and theologies of history is past, but this cannot provide an excuse for avoiding the task of discerning the new possibilities open before us as we move toward the future. At the very least, we can attempt to describe the specific forms of domination and oppression that have manifested themselves in our past and that are now with us, discover how they can be overcome, and help to create new models for the qualitatively new future that lies ahead of us.

Perhaps we must push beyond this, along the lines suggested by men like Eugen Rosenstock-Huessey, Teilhard de Chardin, and others. What they have undertaken is to discern something of the shape of that future toward which man is moving and describe the process by which that movement occurs. Teilhard de Chardin, for example, speaks of historical development as ever greater personalization and socialization, the expansion of human self-consciousness and the enrichment of personal existence in the context of ever greater "complexification" and universalization of social structures. This is not the place to analyze or criticize his theories of historical development. The point I want to make is merely this: if we take seriously the logic of a faith that cuts the ground out from under ontocratic and metaphysical world views and thrusts us into the midst of historical existence moving toward a new future, then the theologian or the preacher has a very specific burden placed upon him. To speak of redemption, to proclaim "good news," means to point concretely to the ways in which the established order is being overcome and to give form to the new possibilities for personal and social life that are opened up by the continuing action of God in history.

More fundamental for our discussion today is the conviction that this perspective must work a revolution in our lives as well as in our attitudes toward the world and our understanding of history, a revolution which the religious community is only barely beginning to perceive. It means that our entire existence, individually and collectively, is oriented toward the future as the future of promise. Our humanity is not a "given" which we must try desperately to preserve, within the patterns already established, but something toward which we are constantly moving and which we must create. Becoming takes priority over being. Life is a process of constant growth and liberation. The question is not whether the new is always better than the old. Rather, whatever our age or situation,

11 - Does Religion Demand Social Change?

we are confronted, again and again, with the choice between growth and death.

Likewise the ultimacy of every established order is overcome. The future is open, and we can look for and expect the qualitatively new. To the degree that we live expectantly, we necessarily experience a sense of alienation in relation to the present order. All of our thought about life and society is set in this context. We can understand the reality of our lives and our world only in the light of the future toward which it is moving. Reflection is participation in overcoming the present and is thus creative to the extent that it provides us with new models and paradigms. In this effort, Jew and Christian engage with secular man in a common task. But there is one difference in our approach to it. For us, the future toward which we are moving is both man's creation and something that happens to us and in spite of us. Thus we are free to throw ourselves fully into that task without imagining that its realization depends entirely upon our efforts, and to "hope against hope," whatever may come.

IV

There is another element that not only confirms our involvement in the struggle for change, but also gives us a hint as to what type of struggle we can expect it to be. In our western liberal tradition, strengthened by the optimism of the Enlightenment and the application of evolutionary theory to our understanding of history, we now take for granted that social change is a matter of gradual progress, of the improvement and reform of given structures. I would like to insist that, in this regard, the Bible is a strange new world, which shocks our sensitivities and challenges all such presuppositions. For time and again in the biblical story, God's purpose can only be achieved through the disruption and destruction of the established order; the qualitatively new can emerge only as the old is negated and overcome.

This theme runs through the Bible from beginning to end. Man is created and put in a garden; God then expels him from it and embarks on the arduous struggle to bring him again into a new city. Israel must break the domination of Egypt and make an Exodus, in order to reach the Promised Land. There again the chosen people are eventually scattered, later to be gathered again. Jesus Christ fulfills his mission as he passes through death to resurrection, and this

12 - Does Religion Demand Social Change?

becomes the central New Testament paradigm. As van Leeuwen puts it, for the early Christian community, Jesus Christ "represents, sums up and fulfills in his own person the whole history of the people of Israel" (p. 105). In his life, death, and resurrection, Jesus identifies himself with the life, destruction, and restoration of the chosen people and their land (p. 107). Add to this the blending of the eschatological and apocalyptic elements in the New Testament, and you have a perspective on history in which, as Jeremiah put it, God tears down in order to build up, and the disruption of the old order becomes the occasion for a new beginning.

This suggests, as Paul Lehmann has often said, that we are free to look for order on the other side of change; to believe that institutions and communities remain alive and serve their purposes only as they are constantly willing to die and be reborn. It means that the terrible cycle, by which institutions, nations, and civilizations rise, achieve greatness, become sclerotic, and die, has been broken. Now they can allow their greatest achievements to be negated and their very foundations to be called into question and thus be open to a process of transformation by which the new is born out of the death of the old.

I would like to suggest that all this has very special consequences in terms of political strategy. When structures become rigid and incapable of meeting new challenges creatively, then our responsibility to them may lead us to acts of subversion and disruption. In those situations which are most rigid, our initial task will be that of introducing incoherence and violence. Whenever the interests of men can be served only by the development of qualitatively new structures, then our traditional liberal efforts to reform rather than transform the system can become acts of irresponsibility.

Likewise, when systemic change is called for, those in the vanguard of such change must choose contemporary forms of exodus and exile. Whether they are working inside the system or outside of it, only as they have a firm self-identity over against the system, as individuals and as communities, will they be able to contribute effectively to the creation of a new tomorrow. Especially in a society such as ours today, in which bureaucratic institutions seem capable of doing everything except bringing about such qualitative change in their own structures, the dynamic for the creation of a new order

13 - Does Religion Demand Social Change?

can come only from those who pay the price of playing a new game by a new set of rules.

Such a radical shift in our political action requires more than a reorientation of our perspective on social change. Here the New Testament, and I believe also the Old, opens up an interesting possibility. The paradigm of death and resurrection is important not merely for social transformation but also for personal existence. We discover what it really means to live when we are free to die, to call into question and, if necessary, to give up the values and ways of life we have most cherished in the past. We can admit to ourselves the failures in our family life, our professions, and our social and political struggles because we always have before us the possibility of a new beginning. The discovery of a new beginning, even though it may come at the end of our lives, contributes more to the meaning of our own lives and the service of man, than all our efforts to defend and justify the work of a lifetime.

V

If the dynamic of our religious heritage moves in the direction I have described, if this in any way describes the nature of God's redemptive action in the world, then the history of the church is, to a certain extent, the history of its failure to participate in that action. In fact, we must at least contemplate the possibility that today God's redemptive purpose is being carried forward outside and beyond the life of the church by those who are marginal to it or completely outside it. The most traumatic experience I have had as a Christian minister, first in Brazil and more recently in this country, has been the discovery that many young people brought up in the church and sensitive to the human struggle today, have felt compelled to leave the church in order to accept their responsibility for it. In that situation, those of us whose ultimate loyalty is to God rather than to an institution may have to decide whether we are willing, above all else, to try to discover what it means to participate in the building of a new tomorrow wherever we are, even if this means subordinating our service to the church to the fulfillment of that task. That will not be an easy thing to decide, but it may be the only way by which our religious heritage, now captive and victim of heretical ecclesiastical structures, can become operative once again in the transformation of man and his world.