Refugees, Border Control and the Calling of the People of God - Revised summary notes
ACS Seminar, St Philip's Anglican Church, Kingswood,
Sydney, Australia,
26th October, 2002.
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Refugees, Border Control and the Calling of the People of God - Revised summary notes ACS Seminar, St Philip's Anglican Church, Kingswood,
Sydney, Australia, Presented by Duncan Roper |
1. Introduction
2. Reading the Bible in Relation to our
Social and Cultural Responsibilities
3. The Question of National
Sovereignty
4. Refugees and
Border Control in Biblical Perspective
5.The Calling of the People of
God
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(a) Revelation 5.8 -6.8 and Revelation 3.15-22
Terrorism,Fear, Injustice, Hunger, Drought, War - if not Border Control - are all captured in the apocalyptic language of Revelation.
What does it mean?
Preterist -
emphasis upon the historic context of Roman Empire;
Futurist - emphasizing the symbolic language as
applying to the time in which Christ will return. E.g.
Dispensational Premillenialism
Spiritual
universal - emphasizing the symbolism of conflict as
an ongoing spiritual one largely involving the internal life
of the believer.
Cosmic universal -
emphasizing the ongoing conflict in the course of present
history.
The imaginative symbolism of the apocalyptic language of the book of Revelation from Chapter Four onward, refers to the cosmos writ large - heaven and earth. The immediate context of the latter is the Roman Empire of the first and second centuries. As such it seeks to paint a picture of the political, cultural, religious and economic powers at work in their true colours.
On the other hand the letters to the seven churches in Revelation Chapters Two and Three, call the people of God to a level of faithfulness that is to eschew the temptation to believe in the powers of Rome to be able to deliver on their promises.
Each and every generation has an historical context in which the powers of idolatry and covenant-breaking are unleashed. This is not a matter of Christians versus unbe-lievers. It is a matter of covenant faithfulness in the management of the earth, as it relates to all humankind.
It is in this kind of context that we need to think about our topic.
It is in this kind of context that we need to appreciate the quotes heading the brochure of the seminar:
'Blair, keep your England and let me keep my Zimbabwe' - Robert Mugabe
'President Mugabe is guilty of threatening the rule of law in his country' -Colin Powell
'We decide who come into this country' - John Howard
'We want people to come to Australia via the door, no the window' - Philip Ruddock
'Democracy is government of the people, by the people for the people' - Abraham Lincoln.
Romans 13: 1-7
During their occupation of the Netherlands in WW2, it is significant that the Nazis used these verses in an endeavour to subdue potential protest and opposition from the Dutch reformational Christians - including Corrie Ten Boom.
The most important clue to understanding the meaning of these verses is to be found in the words 'no authority exists apart from those instituted by God'.
There are two parts to this - 'institute' means to set up, inaugurate, found, ordain.
It does not mean that those who exercise de-facto power are appointed by God; it does not mean that they the way in which they exercise power may be equated with fulfilling the will of God.
It does mean that these authorities should exercise their power as servants.
Eg John 19.8-16 and Matthew 20.20-28.
It also means that, for those to whom the words were addressed, they should take their responsibilities to obey the laws of Rome seriously.
There are obviously strong points of potential conflict between what we have con- sidered in the Introduction with what may be entailed here.
Within the life of Israel, the contribution of the Prophets was vital in this respect. The prophets constantly reviewed the way in which the other cultural powers - be they priestly, marriage, family, civil, military or economic - were fulfilling the covenantal responsibilities, sometimes at the cost of their own lives.
Eg Isaiah 1:1-23
The major problem with Rome, of course, was that it would tolerate no basic critique of its exercise of power.
By contrast, we can be grateful for the kinds of freedoms we enjoy to enable us to exercise this kind of criticism.
In this respect, we may begin to look at Romans 13.1-7 within this broader context - more from the point of view from those who exercise political power.
In Genesis 1:24-28, God makes humankind in his own image, with the calling to manage the earth.
In Genesis 2.15-17, in the context of the image of the garden, the human calling is to twofold:
To care for it, tend it and thereby protect and nurture it so that it can continue to fulfill its God-given purposes apart from human needs. (Hebrew: shamar').
To cultivate, develop and unfold its God-given potential, in ways that bear in mind human needs. (Hebrew: 'abad').
In this respect we might consider difference between a garden, a forest and a 'con-crete jungle'.
The exercise of human cultural formative power - entailed with the full potential of the word 'abad' over creation - can produce both destruction as well as marvellous enhancement.
A forest knows neither the enhancement of a garden nor the destruction of wholesale felling and the gross consequences for the ecosystems.
A 'concrete jungle' knows nothing of the nurturing of the garden; it is simply charact-erized by replacing it by the products of human cultivation in the form of in animate and hard concrete.
Genesis 2.17 warns of the evils that result from the eating of the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil. This has manifold levels of meaning. One of them concerns the possibility of the exercise of our cultural power for ends that fall short of covenant-faithfulness in respect of our stewardship of the earth, thereby leading to evil.
Pagan religiousness attributes the ultimate order and meaning of the cosmos to gods and spirits in a way that greatly reduces the biblical view of the human responsibility to manage the earth.
Much of pagan cultic activity is orientated toward trying to manipulate or coax the gods to do the right thing - to provide water, fertility, food, the birth of children and to maintain the cosmic order of things.
The basic thrust of Israelite cultic activity is that of the confession of the sin resulting from the covenant-breaking occurring in the non-cultic realms of human life - in marriages, families, in social welfare, politics and economic life.
It was because the Israel came before God in the sanctuary asking God to fix up all the consequences of the covenant faithlessness outside the priestly realm - in a thoroughly pagan fashion - that caused the prophet's colourful language in the name of God.
Deuteronomy 17:14-20 is one of the more significant passages in the Bible for an appreciation of he way in which we should exercise our cultural and social responsibilities.
The pagan idea of Kingship grew up in Egypt with the Pharoahs. A king/queen was a god/goddess in his/her own right. They were above the law. Indeed their word was in many respects the law. They were accorded the level of obeisance and luxury ap-propriate to gods.
All this is expressly forbidden by the scriptures. The king, if Israel were to have one, was to be one exercising political office in a way that was not lifted up above his brethren, not multiplying horses, women, silver and gold. He was to inact and uphold the legal system set out in the word of the covenant, thereby realizing justice and fairness in the lives of the people.
The pagan idea of Kingship was continued by the Roman Emperor and given a superficial Christian baptism by Constantine - he now became God's representative rather than a god in his own right. However, as the era between Henry VIII and Charles II in English history well illustrates, the outward trappings remained intact.
James the I (Eng) and VI (Scot) might well have commissioned the writing of the King James version. However, I doubt whether he correctly read Deuteronomy 17:14- 20!!
For the present purposes we may content ourselves with paying some attention to the eighth chapter of the book of Proverbs:
Wisdom is spoken of as a person speaking in the streets, calling women and mean to listen and hearken to learn, so that they may rightfully exercise the exercise of their cultural power in their daily lives - whether it be tending the sheep, dealing with students (or lecturers and teachers), collecting the garbage, driving the buses, fixing the drains, mending the fences, managing a business, doing mathematics, exercising political, legal or church office,
Now, it is of course true that the ultimate source of the wisdom spoken of here is the covenant god, YHWH.
However, it is of some importance to appreciate that the activity of God's ordering the cosmos by way of wisdom is cosmic and valid for all humans. It is not something that is first of all in our minds, or in Scripture. It is first and foremost part of God's ordering of the world.
As part of our humanity we respond to the light of the normativity of the diverse aspects of the creation-ordering of wisdom - in the form of justice, honesty, mercy, humility, fairness, harmony, economy - in the form of our values, our moral, legal, political, knowledge and economic systems.
However, our responses are not only fallible. They are apt to be idolatrous and corrupt.
On the one hand, Deuteronomy 9:6-12 makes it very clear that the choosing of Israel as the special agents of God's redemption had nothing to with anything concerning their inherent goodness.
On the other hand, Deuteronomy 4:5-8 makes it very clear that the giving of the law to Israel involved them in an obligation of gratitude to live in a way that was in the form of covenant faithfulness, a witness to God's character and grace in the world.
These provisions of the Old Testament are not limited to personal morals applying merely to personal relations, family, marriage and 'church' life. They also apply to legal, political and economic life, as is evident from a consideration of the following:
Deuteronomy 16:18-20; 19: 1-13; Leviticus 25:1-55.
In this respect, we may appreciate the meaning of Hebrews :5-9.
Our human destiny to manage the earth as junior covenant partners with God is frustrated by sin and idolatry, in a way that will only be resolved in the New Jerusalem.
However, we are still called to the responsible management of the creation and, in that respect, our calling as the people of God is to draw attention to the way in which the voice of Wisdom speaks in the market place, calling all humankind into the ways of wisdom and righteousness.
The scriptures give us guidance in this respect. In particular, it is by their means that we appreciate that the Word speaking and ordering creation is the same word that was incarnate in Christ, testified to in the Scriptures.
In this respect, the Kingdom of God is characterized by that realm of Creation in which the covenantal norms incarnate in Christ - justice, love, mercy, faithfulness, humility, honesty etc are realized in everyday secular life.
In relation to our theme of refugees and seeking asylum, the Old Testament makes a very interesting contribution. This is the six cities of refuge, as places to which people, who had accidentally participated in the death of someone, and therefore all too susceptible to being pursued by angry relatives seeking revenge, might go for protection until a fair trial could be arranged.
Numbers 35:1-34; Joshua 20: -9.
It has become the custom in both political theory and popular discourse to speak of the words 'nation state' and the word 'nation' as if they were synonymous.
To say that you are an Australian, for example, is saying more than the fact that you are an Australian citizen, obligated to serve its domestic interests and uphold its laws. It increasingly means that this identity is the basic fabric of your identity as a person.
This carries with it a number of potentially serious problems. Thus we are apt to speak of ethnic Australians as those who have a Greek, Asian, Lebanese or other type of Arabic background. Yet we do not usually think that those of Anglo-Irish ethnicity as ethnic. Even worse, we usually consider ourselves as non-ethnic, but aboriginal Australians as ethnic.
In this respect, it is false, in my judgment, to view Pauline Hansen's politics as 'racist'. Rather, it seems to me that she believes that all those who, either come to Australia since, or else were here prior to, us Anglo-Celts arriving and establishing our colonial culture, need to adapt to the supremacy of that colonial tradition.
While the potential for ethnic, religious and racial strife in Australia, is high, we can be thankful for the greater part that all parties have exercise a considerable degree of wisdom in the way they have responded to the events of the last eighteen months or so.
However, the word 'nation' does carry some strong ambiguities that we would do well to contemplate.
Whilst we have no difficulty in considering Australia as a nation, is it One nation or many?
What about the Kurds. They have no territory over which a state bearing their name, has political sovereignty. They are a people with unique language, cultural and blood ties inhabiting parts of Turkey, Iraq, Iran and other states in Central Asia. Do they count as a nation?
What of the Basques in Spain and France? On our own doorstep, the East Timorese were but one of a number of national groupings within the state of Indonesia before their independence.
Should all nations have their own states? Should all nation states be characterized by a uniform dominance of a particular ethnic group?
In the light of this preliminary discussion I would like to offer some definitions:
A state is a political societal structure that exercises a de facto supremacy of political power, founded in the power of the sword, over a territory, that should be orientated to the realization of justice and liberty to all those under its jurisdiction.
This may in the form of a City, an Empire, or a territory comprising one or many ethnic communities.
The Old Testament provides us with a picture of a form of differentiated society in which their were a variety of societal structures, each of which that had no human authority over them - the priesthood, the prophets, the civil authority, marriage and the family. While they were bound together by the one covenant under God, they each had very different functions to fulfill. Covenant faithfulness was only to be found in each of them realizing their calling simultaneously.
We may speak of this kind of pluralism as a social pluralism. As such its principled articulation stands over against both the individualism and collectivism that have characterized well-springs of the economic and political life of the Western world over the last two hundred years.
In our modern world we also need to distinguish another type of pluralism. This is what we might call the religio-ethnic pluralism that gives the opportunity to various groups to foster their vision and traditions with in broader fabric of public life.
Primarily, a national community is a grouping of people sharing common ties of culture, language as well as a background of blood ties. Such communities very often play a major part in the shaping of the immediate political culture of a State. These have the potential for serious problems - as in the case of Northern Ireland, Cyprus, not to mention Israel/Palestine.
Alternatively, major changes in political ethos of a country can shape the political culture in a way that has a greater impact upon the lives of the citizens of a state than the traditional ethnic groupings. The best example of this is probably that of France in the time of the French Revolution and after. The political allegiance went from that of a subject of the French king to a citizen of France.
In the light of our earlier discussion, the summary definition of democracy offered by Abraham Lincoln has some serious deficiencies.
The main reason for this is the all-important question of the calling of the State. The is not mentioned specifically in the definition implies that it is quite possible to interpret it as simply the expression of the will of the people, a feature that, if followed literally in many circumstances can lead to some bad results.
The calling of the State is that of an exercise of its cultural power to the end of promoting justice and equity of those individuals and other societal structures within its boundaries and beyond into the international community.
This understanding is based upon the kind of experience of living in a world that is ordered by the Word of God - as indicated in the wisdom passage discussed earlier in Proverbs.
Democracy, in this context, is
fundamentally a means
(a) of holding those who exercise
political/judicial/executive office accountable to the
people governed by the political system developed by the
state concerned.
(b) a means of appointing/dismissing a
government or Parliament from office.
In this respect God, not Caesar is sovereign. However, God's ordering of creation - insofar as the State whether city, empire or 'nation' is concerned is not characterized by the kind of Church-State alignments so characteristic of the pagan ancient near eastern world and carried over into the Israelite world, and then into the Christian and Moslem worlds following the Constantinian settlement of the 4th Century.
A claim to political sovereignty is not primarily a claim for a nation to do what likes either within the territory claimed or beyond.
It is a claim to take full human responsibility before God and all humankind for the development of a political and legal culture over the said territory that endeavours to realize the joint aims of justice and liberty for all humankind.
Whilst this obviously applies in a particular way to those within the borders of the jurisdiction, its responsibilities go well beyond that.
In particular, the extensions of its interests beyond those borders should not be seen simply in the terms of extending their 'national interests'. Such motivation is the root of all forms of colonialism.
The whole meaning of the term sovereignty within the context of international law as developed from the sixteenth century, entailed the obligation of 'civilized' states claiming sovereignty over territories inhabited by tribal peoples, to respect their native title rights as well as the authority structures of the social orders.
The British in their colonization of Australia committed a major blunder in assuming that it was a terra nullius. Another major blunder was made in totally ignoring tribal eldership structures in such matters that lie back of the problems leading up to the Stolen Generation.
These are all matters of justice that affect the international community. We need to hearken to the calling of God to the covenant people of Israel:
Keep them and do them, for that will be your wisdom and your understanding in the sight of the peoples who, when they hear all these statutes will say, 'Surely this is a wise and understanding people'. (Deuteronomy :5-6)
It is on this basis, that the peoples round about them would recognize the character and righteousness of the LORD. (Deuteronomy 4: 7-8)
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