We Christians can’t avoid participating in messy democratic process

A pastor asked his church superior for help. An executive involved in a corporate ethics scandal had shown up on Sunday and had come forward to receive Holy Communion.
“How did you respond?” the official asked.
“Well,” the pastor answered, “I asked myself, ‘What would Jesus do?’”
“What?” the shocked superior said. “You didn’t do that!”
We may fill in the blanks in this story with different views. We might agree still that church action in the public arena does tend to bypass Jesus as a model.
“Unrealistic, impractical” has been policy makers’ basis for this judgment, whether on war, the death penalty or other issues recently discussed in a Sunday school at Colonial Hills UMC, San Antonio, after watching the Rev. Adam Hamilton’s video series
Mainline churches always proclaimed a “social gospel.” Now some conservative evangelicals have “gone social” with intensity, either on different issues, such as “cultural” values instead of economic justice, or on different sides of the same issue.
More people agree at least that united action is necessary to make a serious impact, not just individuals acting on their own.
Jesus claims lordship over all of life—God’s way. Jesus rides into town as king—on a donkey. Jesus says, “Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.”
The idea of “separation of church and state” retains this ambiguity. “Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion….” There shall not be a national church.
Absolutism in church and state go hand in hand, mainly when both are co-opted by “organized money versus organized people.”
Yet there must be Christian values guiding power. Democracy versus theocracy is the better church-state blend: influence without control.
Church and state should complement, not dominate, each other. In democracy, “state” offers the Greek concept of tyranny versus government by and for the people.
“Church” provides Jesus’ command: “…rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them…whoever would be great among you must be your servant.”
This servant leadership can happen when religion and the secular both, at their best, combine commitment with humility. How sure are we that we are on God’s side?
Lincoln in his Second Inaugural Address said, “With firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right....” Commitment means acting as if we are 100 percent right. Humility means being open to correction.
That is as true among social groups as it is within families.
One option we don’t have is abstinence from the messy democratic process. This process calls for participation, even if this takes only the form of deciding who speaks for us and engaging them.
The best religious/democratic separation-and-combination has been rooted and pioneered in United Methodist tradition. It consists of finding ways to build a voting constituency that dialogues enough within itself to speak with a united voice and then makes sure our leaders are being truly servants of all.