chisel or stylus or pen and meticulously record the dictated words. Rather, God is encountered in the raw stuff of human experience such as the dread moment when fleeing slaves tremble as a crushing army of the Pharaoh descends upon them to drag them back into captivity, and what will become a passage in Scripture arises as their joyous response to seeing calamity transformed into deliverance: “The LORD is my strength and my might, and he has become my salvation” (Exodus 15:2). And the hand of God is recognized by an anonymous prophet of the Exile as he observes the Persian Emperor Cyrus breaking the fist of the Babylonians and preparing the way for the return of the Jews to their beloved homeland: “For the sake of my servant Jacob, and Israel my chosen, I call you by your name, I surname you, though you do not know me” (Isaiah 45:4). Scripture is written when they respond to a miraculous deliverance in a hymn of praise (Isaiah 45:25). Revelation in this understanding is not the mechanical transmission of abstract truths, but the discovery of Immanuel, God with us, in the joys and tragedies of human existence. The Bible consists not of words frozen in eternity, but testimonies by a living faith community of their awareness of living not alone but in the ever-watchful presence of a loving God. The Word of God is not a set of propositions trumping human experience and excluding the ongoing exercise of discernment of that loving God in the here and now, but rather the framework of an ongoing conversation between a God continuing to create and to redeem and a people attentive to God’s presence in their midst. Part of the beauty of this historical understanding of the origin of Scripture and its ongoing interpretation in the community of faith is its congruity with central tenets of classical biblical faith, for example, covenant as relationship between humans and a God who chooses to enlist partners in his activity on behalf of fullness of life for all, and incarnation as God’s entering into intimate proximity with humanity not in the form of disembodied spirit but real flesh and blood. What is being affirmed in this description is the incarnate Bible of Luther and Calvin, described by the former as “a worm of a book” and the latter as “God’s stuttering,” powerful metaphors intended to stress the genuinely human dimension of Scripture.
Though it is far preferable to present the alternative to absolutism in positive terms such as the preceding, candor also leads us to note that the notion of an inerrant Bible resembles in an essential respect the timeless myths that defined the relation of ancient peoples like the Egyptians and the Babylonians to their deities. Unlike the epic of the Israelites, which we have described as arising out of historical experience and inviting ongoing development first through the stages of growth leading to canon and then through lively reinterpretation, the myths of Israel’s ancient neighbors depicted eternal realities in the realm of the gods that were mediated through scribal specialists to their particular cultures as a timeless template for the ordering of their religious cult, political institutions, and cultural mores. By repudiating myth, ancient Israel created room for all humans to experience dignity as equals before a God who related to them as one respecting their freedom and their right to accept or reject his beneficence. Such freedom involves far greater ambiguity and risk than the certainty offered by a timeless myth, but according to biblical faith, such freedom is the sine qua non of creatures created in the image of God. And it is within the context of that freedom that individuals and communities of faith today consult the living Word of God in the effort to be obedient and productive children of God.18
How does that obedience and productivity translate into citizenship? How can Christians enrich discussions in the public square by drawing on the riches of their scriptural tradition while still being respectful of the broad diversity of religious and moral perspectives within their society?
People of faith can view their civic involvement as an aspect of participating in the unfolding epic of God’s ongoing creation dedicated to the restoration to health of an order in which creatures large and small have been fractured and alienated from one another and in which even the inanimate world has been degraded. As free citizens of God’s reign of restorative justice and all-inclusive compassion, Christians are commissioned to be ambassadors of the New Creation through which God seeks to restore the entire cosmos to wholeness (2 Corinthians 5:16–21 and Romans 8:18–39). Though they view participation in government as an important part of their discipleship, their mode of engagement differs from zealots seeking to impose their theocratic visions on a godless order. Precisely because they regard all human institutions as imperfect and provisional and recognize the wisdom of those adhering to different views of the world, they accept the debate and compromise involved in policy-making as a natural part of laboring for the healing of the present order even as they yearn for the permanent and perfect peace that only God can inaugurate.
In our political engagement, we are deployed not with a timeless blueprint in hand, but with the example of ancestors in the faith who responded to the call to covenant partnership in an ever-changing world. Inspired by Abraham, we dare to move beyond comfortable boundaries, with Moses we dare speak God’s word of truth to tyrannical power, and like Amos we embrace as our strategy doing justice, loving kindness, and walking humbly with our God (Amos 6:8). Reformed theologian Paul Lehman contrasted the absolutist political philosophy of fundamentalism with the legacy of the Reformation, which legacy, in his words, introduced “a liberating grasp of the ways of God with men and thus also the possibility of ever fresh and experimental responses to the dynamics and the humanizing character of the divine activity in the world. This meant for ethics the displacement of the prescriptive and absolute formulation of its claims by the contextual understanding of what God is doing in the world to make and to keep human life human.”19
Application of this dynamic understanding of God’s redemptive presence in the world to political process leads to this conclusion: The specific form that the branches of a particular government should take is to arise from the diligent search of the citizenry for the structures most suitable for upholding mercy and justice within the concreteness of its global setting and its temporal location within an every changing and challenging world. This conclusion derives from a central tenet of the Christian faith, namely, that human governments are legitimate only to the extent that they serve the purposes of even-handed justice, provision for the needs of the poor and infirm, and global peace. It is solely from the promotion of these purposes that human institutions derive their authority to rule.
From this understanding the church derives these principles regarding its responsibility vis-à-vis society and government:
1. The perspective from which social and political issues will be viewed is its carefully delineated vision of God’s universal reign.
2. The responsibility of the church to government will take the form of representation of and advocacy for God’s Reign.
3. Its mode of action will include, as appropriate, critique, admonition, and support, uncompromised by penultimate claims such as patriotism and ecclesiastical loyalty, but respectful of the constitutional principles of a legitimately constituted host state.
Even after these principles are clear, an important practical question remains: With sensitivity to its particular location in time and place, how does a given community of faith go about the task of enriching political process with the specific wisdom and insight into truth derived from its own tradition while remaining respectful of participants from other religious and philosophical perspectives? What form of discourse will be faithful, legal, fair, and effective, given the wide diversity of religious and nonreligious perspectives present in a pluralistic society? A lively debate rages over this question, with three major alternatives being offered by scholars variously trained in philosophy, political science, and theology. The three alternatives are these:
1. Political liberalism: John Rawls has proposed that public discourse in a modern, religiously diverse society must be confined to arguments comprehensible to all participants, thus excluding appeal to comprehensive worldviews, such as religion, for warrants that will make sense only to adherents.20 He later modified this by conceding that religious warrants could be admitted into public discussion, but they carried no weight if not backed up with rational justifications, a modification emotively significant but without philosophical substance. 21 Richard Rorty argues along similar lines, except that his
