[1] In the section above we situated the responses to our book in a historical framework of Lutheran thought. We now lean into thinking with some of the questions, concerns, and alternatives offered by our reviewers.
[2] Both Justin Nickel and Leah Schade commented that we had not clarified the precise notion of justice presupposed in our book. They are right to point out that in some respects, our argument might have been sharpened by distinguishing among various concepts of justice. Schade might be right to suspect that a notion of social justice is an assumed touchstone meaning. Our aim, however, was to focus the book on the play between “justification” and “justice.” While we articulated a specific meaning for justification by faith, we wanted to keep “justice” open-ended, leaving it to readers to think with us about the kinds of justice-seeking they were interested in and committed to. That said, we chose not to use the term “righteousness” because it is not part of our everyday language, and “ethics” does not get at the corporate decision-making we do through our body politic—through both ecclesial bodies and democratic political bodies and their processes. “Justice,” furthermore, is widely used today, and the gerund “justice-seeking” connotes the activity of thinking, imagining, and working together. We wanted to foreground the community dimension of justice-seeking, such that even the vision of what justice constitutes would be negotiated by participants.
[3] Some of that negotiation, of course, presupposes the richness of biblical language to which we are exposed in Christian worship. Like Christians immersed in liturgy and scripture, we had in mind the fuzzy, big-picture bearings of a verse from Isaiah or Amos, like “let justice full down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream” (Amos 5:24, used by Martin Luther King in his “I Have a Dream” speech). In other words, we had in mind Christians who hunger for a better world, sometimes around concrete issues and sometimes as an amorphous longing for flourishing.
[4] Moreover, we had in mind what justice-seeking variously means across the spectrum of polarized identities: between liberals and conservatives in the U.S.; among those who seek to end or to support access to legal abortion, to protect our borders or to welcome the stranger, etc.
[5] In short, we trust our readers will run with the vision of justice writ large, as in the first-order language of liturgy, and then flesh it out in sundry second-order ways-–with the various theoretical definitions of justice that Schade and Nickel name. This includes both identifying and defining terms associated with the shape of the togetherness of a Beloved Community in and beyond the church walls-–the ground of lived communities, not only among theoretically savvy theological ethicists. Amy Carr encountered an example of this recently when she had a friend visiting from Switzerland—Reto Gmünder, a Reformed pastor-–who said that as he drove across the Midwest he noticed how often he heard the word “community” on the radio. What is this “community,” he wondered? The terminology is different in Switzerland, where they speak of society, culture, and Landeskirchen. Yet he would describe parish-organized events in terms that in the U.S. we would frame as for the community, like using an unused parish-owned building for a weekly after-work gathering in the garden for art, music, and food. This is one expression of cultivating the Beloved Community that could tag justice-seeking with community-building itself, forging concrete relational ties among those in the neighborhood (an example of Nickel’s interpersonal “good works”).
[6] While we left open-ended the question “what kind of justice” as a pedagogical strategy to engage with readers interested in diverse kinds of justice, we also challenged Christians to be mindful about how they connect their version of justice to justification by faith in Christ. This too raises concerns by those who question the wider applicability among Christians of the inherited Lutheran idea that the gospel is equated with Paul’s notion of justification by faith in Christ. Some of the worry about working with Paul’s theology has to do with the inheritance of antisemitic tropes in Luther’s own articulation of the doctrine of justification, which Christians rightly seek to rectify. Yet does this legacy spell the complete rejection of the doctrine of justification? Even as we are mindful of these concerns, we think that most accounts of the gospel inflect in some way the core proclamation of Paul that in Christ, God justifies sinners without their own works or deserving.
[7] It is true, however, that not all Protestant Christians regularly include “justification by faith” as a phrase in their working vocabulary of Christian life. Amy recalls being startled that few in the adult education class at her town’s Disciples of Christ congregation had heard of the phrase “justification by faith,” when she was leading a six-week study of Paul there while their pastor was abroad on a tour walking in Paul’s own footsteps. Congregation members focused instead on themes of love and community. Someone had donated a large sum of money to the congregation for the purpose of serving the community, and individuals in the congregation were responsible for identifying what project or organization they would respectively support with their own portion of the funds. Could such service to our neighbors count as itself the good news, with Jesus as a teacher and role model? Or are the spiritual connotations of justification by faith—like forgiveness through an identity in Christ—present but more comfortably expressed by explicitly citing other New Testament passages having to do with the gospel? Is Paul’s emphasis on the phrase “justification by faith” at best a penumbra that can be either replaced or alluded to indirectly by other gospel-related themes?
[8] How might those who do not work comfortably with the idea of “justification by faith” imagine an alternative basis for Christian identity, one that does not touch base in some primary way with a Pauline-inflected picture of baptismal belonging? Would an ethical posture of love that stresses Jesus’ moral commandments to love one’s neighbor as oneself, and to love and trust God in all things, be an adequate theory on which to build Christian identity? How would this proposal address creedal notions of Jesus’ divinity? Or can we envision the gospel to be characterized by a life in sync with a Spirit-guided sanctification-–a making-all-things-new in which we question norms and rules that no longer give life, viewing Jesus as our role model and progenitor? We welcome ways in which our interlocutors who are nervous about our Pauline commitments might themselves draw out the theological presuppositions regarding Christian belonging that ground their understandings of justice. If there is no theological basis, however, then one might need to give up Christian commitments altogether-–and that direction was not an aim we were seeking in our book.
[9] Here is a theological exercise we invite as a tool for reflecting on the gospel in relation to a vision for the Beloved Community: we might think from specific ways of expressing Christian values in the public square, and work backwards from there to ponder the theological presuppositions at play. For example, in Carr’s community, some Methodists invited the Interfaith Alliance of Macomb to participate in the Campaign for Kindness, which was begun by a Kansas City Methodist pastor and involves putting up yard signs that say “Kindness” and feature a blue/red/purple heart. It is interesting to think about whether the intent of this campaign is to make normative the kind of quietism Nickel might have been advocating, by putting up this sign and not any campaign signs. Would it be taken as a contradiction, or as a qualifier, if someone put up political campaign signs alongside the Kindness sign? And what are the various ways to interpret the evangelical signaling (i.e., the gospel-signifying) of the Kindness signage? For some, the Kindness campaign could be understood to follow the gospel of justification by faith as an expression of neighbor love-–a reminder of a norm to bring to bear as we engage in an election season. For others, it could be seen as an alternative expression of the gospel-–one focused, again, on the God-centeredness and the moral commands familiar in the Torah, prophets, and teachings of Jesus. We could also ask: is the Kindness campaign pan-religious? Or does it cut across any religious-secular divide? Is the meme “kindness” the primary desired norm of any civil religion-–and is that the gospel in a new key?
[10] What we offer to Christians engaged in conversation across differences is a theological framing that does not pit Christian identity on one side (or the other) of a divide where there are legitimate moral and existential claims at stake on either side. So often the theological resources for dialogue across differences are either left out entirely (drawing instead on best practices in difficult conversations from psychological and other framings-–all vital as well), or drawn upon to sketch out the specific ethical or policy proposals of one side of a politicized divide (also necessary, but insufficient). But for Christians uncomfortable with either justification by faith as the heart of the gospel, or with the ways we have threaded its relation to justice-seeking, we invite them to say more about their theological or sociological commitments.
[11] For example, to Christians operating out of the fractured inheritance of modern German notions of justification and who are interested in social justice, we might ask: what theology of the gospel lies behind a view of social justice? Liberation theologians have typically presupposed a robust doctrine of Trinity, sin and grace because as Roman Catholic theologians, they are steeped in these ideas and presuppose their orthodoxy. But for social justice-minded Protestants—what theological presuppositions are at play about the gospel that motivates justice? Who is Jesus? Is he primarily a Wisdom teacher, Sophia herself building community around koans (wisdom riddles) and reminders to live by a vision of right relationship and flourishing? Or a rabbi with compelling stories (midrashim) that compete, in a classic Jewish way, with other Torah interpretations? As Abraham Geiger suggested in his nineteenth-century portrait of the historical Jesus, is Jesus best described as a Reform Jew? For some, this gospel-as-social-justice might be preferable to a full-blown Chalcedonian Christology with its system of penance/repentance and sacramental grace. Add in the heritage of Christian anti-Judaism, often engaged in the name of Paul, and some might want simply to walk in a Unitarian (or generic monotheistic) direction by developing the gospel around a Judaism-for-Gentiles. Yet if one is interested in claiming doctrines like the Trinity and incarnation, one will find it hard to dispense with Paul, even if creedal definitions were not fully formed until several centuries after Paul. And even an effort to find bearings for Christian identity from a theology of the cross involves working with Paul’s idea of justification by faith in Christ crucified and risen. Thus we ask progressive Christians who are oriented to social justice to get clear on the theological nature of a community grounded in gospel, and to clarify whether and how that gospel vision is not at heart about baptismal belonging that can be interpreted meaningfully in relation to Paul’s own midrashic ideas about justification by faith in Christ Jesus rather than justification by works of the law.
[12] We could pose the same question to those who identify with the Christian right and who likewise equate the classic doctrines of Christian faith with their ethical and policy positions, as if they are the obvious and indeed only possible implications of the gospel. Here, however, our concern is more that the mantle of traditional Christian doctrines is being claimed in support of the particular ethical and political visions of those on the religious right, including Christian nationalists. Here we appealed to evangelical doctrine itself-–justification by faith-–but made a case for how justice-seeking follows in a collaborative and not preset way. Schade is right that we did not focus on describing and criticizing Christian nationalism in the course of our argument. Instead, we wagered that recollecting baptismal identity as primal already interrupts the moves of Christian nationalists. How? Christian nationalists set forth a package of ethical and legal norms and reforms that they defend as unquestionably essential to Christian identity itself. By marking their view as Christian and all competing views as secular, they block as illegitimate–as inherently not Christian–all efforts to voice progressive or non-nationalist Christian perspectives. In this context, to describe the heart of Christian identity in terms of justification by faith in Christ is to undercut a Christian nationalist move from the ground up–and on the basis of theology first and foremost.
[13] Ole Schenk recognizes a formal parallel to this dynamic in Amartya Sen’s appeal to notions of shared reason that can interrupt the perception of a necessary opposition between Hindus and Muslims that portrayed the partition of India and Pakistan as inevitable. Sen argues that both Hindus and Muslims can break the spell that dulls one into seeing partition’s inevitability by reflecting on (in Schenk’s words) “the shared marketplace conditions where neighbors build relationships and interact on the basis of common economic grounds.” Schenk then constructively develops for Christians Sen’s approach to interrupting the presumably inevitable equation of Hinduism with a national “Indian” identity, and of Asian subcontinent Islam with a national “Pakistani” identity. Schenk does so by pointing out that “[l]earning to become fluent in the theology of justification” enables Christians to define their own identity around the “‘tree’ of one’s relational rootedness in Christ” rather than around the “‘fruit’ of specific choices” about ethics and public policy–including the choices of white Christian nationalists.
[14] Resisting the equation of Christian identity with one side of a polarized identity, however, need not imply equivocating between both sides, or drifting towards a both-sideism, to use Schade’s term. The aim of our book was to depict Christian identity in theological terms that have purchase with both the Christian right and left. We focused on identifying the central nature of Christian belonging in the theological terms of justification by faith, thereby positioning debates about what exactly it means to love our neighbors as debates occurring within the corporate body of Christ. But this model does not advocate that both (or all) sides need to be brought into the conversation at all times and with equal time. There are issues of power and heresy (in our use of the term) that sometimes disrupt and foreclose conversation. Our model aims to offer room for the other with whom we disagree, and this on theological grounds. Thus, we acknowledge that some will find our chapter on abortion much too tilted to the progressive side. Others, like Schade, might see our naming the dangers of white liberal purity-seeking as eclipsing (or being on a par with) the far more potent legacy of systemic racism. It is likely that we all scan the words of others to measure the degree to which we ourselves-–and our cluster of values-–do and do not feel seen and recognized. But because that is true, we have hoped that our theological sketch of a way of relating Christian identity to Christian debates about the nature of the moral law and justice (however construed) invites readers to think with us not only about what we leave out that they would have stressed, but also to see-–and to hold steadily in view-–an ecclesial basis for sitting down to listen to what is really going on with our Christian neighbors who hold ideas we find abhorrent.[1] Such listening can be interpersonal, narrative, and draw on broader analyses of our social constructions and their fault lines.
[15] Finally, we consider Nickel’s approach to civic engagement. He seems to be interested more in personal works of charity to neighbors than group efforts taken up by churches or political groups. One example might be prioritizing fellowship among congregation members. Think, for example, of a lay minister in a rural Lutheran congregation who might avoid using the ELCA prayers of the church, and in his sermon and prayer emphasize that we should instead simply spend time sharing coffee, visiting and taking care of each other. His motivation might be the conviction that this is what church should be about, not programs that are initiated by the denomination. Advocacy of this sort might be helpful in the context of a purple church that seeks to keep the peace by excluding political discussions from the church entirely. Indeed, Nickel’s preferred approach could be seen as a third option for describing congregations who do not like the abusive rhetoric on the religious right, who are baffled by or resistant or simply indifferent to progressive rhetoric, and who would rather just experience church as a place apart from all the cultural and political noise. This offers its own kind of counter to the Christian nationalism about which Schade worries, and it can potentially retain liturgically central doctrines like justification by faith. Yet it should be acknowledged that this approach, as Nickels rightly mentions, can be seen as quietism and as such can yield the public floor to those who ally Christianity with an authoritarian religious right or left, such that only one side grabs the power in the public sphere.
[16] Whether persons in their respective local belongings take up particular kinds of justice-seeking and how they do it (quietistically or actively) is precisely the kind of “ordinary faith” our book addresses. We encourage Christians to reclaim a profound theological resource—our baptismal belonging-–with which to engage in debates about the nature of justice without breaking the body of Christ. Schenk suggests with better conceptual clarity than we provided that our use of “ordinary” implies neither a middle ground (or both-sideism), nor avoidance of conflict, but honestly and messily engaging fellow Christians without all too readily declaring them “not truly Christian” if they disagree. That includes tuning in to the stories and experiences that shape one another’s perspectives on what norms and values they would like to see expressed in their communities and nation. Our book offers theological and spiritual resources for those who are shy about beginning this practice or those who have been practicing this for some time, for those who fear conflict and for those who have developed strategies for sustaining connections through good conflict.
Written by Amy Carr, with the assistance of Christine Helmer.
[1] For those interested in reading about how we respond to issues of power in conversation, please see https://syndicate.network/symposia/theology/ordinary-faith-in-polarized-times/
Amy Carr is Professor of Religious Studies at Western Illinois University.