« Make Poverty History Edinburgh - some personal highlights | Main | G8 Blogging 4 - Debt »

July 05, 2005

Protest and the kingdom of God

What a difference the protests in Edinburgh were last night from the peaceful rally of 225 000 people on Saturday. The protest of several hundred anarchists and anti-capitalists began yesterday in apparent good mood. And it seems many wanted to keep it that way. But it soon turned disruptive, with clashes between a minority of protesters and the police. Accusations were flying thicker than the stones, bottles, and supermarket trolleys. Some locals accused the protesters of starting the trouble, while others blamed the police with antagonising the situation and using "bizarre" tactics. 90 people were arrested, and 20 injured.

It is easy to dismiss the whole protest because of the violence of the few, but it is worth asking some deeper questions. I am sure that some were out for violent confrontation from the start, although one does wonder if that would have happened if the police hadn't been there in such force, since it was they who seemed to be the object of the violence.

Looking at the websites of some of the groups concerned, the Carnival for Full Enjoyment say "we seek the end of this system based on profit, and we work towards a global community based on freedom and cooperation." I am sure there are those in this movement who are genuinely angry at injustice, and frustrated by the apparent powerlessness of peaceful protest. As Christians, we might disagree with these protesters' approach and solution, but we too, surely seek a kingdom that is not based on profit, but one of "justice, peace, and full enjoyment in the Holy Spirit" (Rom 14:17). We are to be a community of an alternative lifestyle, called the church, where this is possible, and we are to refuse to bow down to the lordship of either Mammon or Caesar.

The zealots were of course the political revolutionaries of their time, and their approach was one of violent confrontation with the political authorities. I suspect Simon the zealot would have been there in Edinburgh yesterday. Yet, in Jesus, Simon found a different kind of revolutionary. Jesus called his people to live by a different set of values - the values of the kingdom of God that offered a true alternative to the self-seeking of this world's system. Instead of violent confrontation, he taught the way and power of the cross. He didn't seek political power, but he did call people to a total new affiliation - to himself and the values of his kingdom, where everybody, especially the poor and weak, found worth and freedom. Yet Christ and his teaching were seen as a political danger. The affiliation to a new Lord, and a kingdom that gave freedom and worth to the downtrodden threatened to undermine the ruling system value. The church by its existence was a protest. And the followers of Christ suffered for it.

We are not called to violent protest. We are called to Christ. And in bending the knee to him alone, in accepting his Lordship over our lives, we declare that Caesar is not Lord, and that we will not serve Mammon. We commit ourselves to be a people shaped by the cross, where we choose self-denial, serving, and suffering in the pursuit of obedience to God. We choose to be a kingdom where all people can find worth and freedom, where the poor, blind, and outcast can feast. We are to be people who demonstrate and proclaim a different system, and in this offer a challenge and protest against that of the world.

Yet we are too compromised to offer a threat. We have bought into the system of this world's values of possessions, prestige, and pleasure. We willingly bow down to Mammon, and to Caesar. We are not offering an alternative vision to that of the political pursuit of national prosperity. We are offering no hope of a different possibility for the Simons of today. We are no threat to the system that accepts the suffering of millions in the pursuit of our own prosperity. And so we enjoy our comfortable Christianity. And others suffer for it.

Posted by Keith at July 5, 2005 07:59 AM