Did Jesus have a political philosophy? (Peace and the Bible #12)

Ted Grimsrud—February 2, 2024

I am finally returning from an extended break to continue my “Peace and the Bible” blog series. My most recent post, December 18’s “Peaceable politics and the story of Jesus” was the first that dealt with the New Testament after a number of Old Testament posts. I have several more planned on Jesus and then will consider some issues regarding both Paul’s writings and the book of Revelation. Before returning to my planned outline, though, I want to linger in this post on some issues that came up with my last one.

Politics, philosophy, and pacifism

I started by noting that the “Peace and the Bible” theme helps us focus on just how political the concerns of the Bible are. For most Christians, I imagine that point seems clearer in relation to the Old Testament than the New Testament. I suggested, though, that the New Testament actually “presents a kind of political philosophy” that has at its core “a commitment to pacifism, a commitment based on the centrality of Jesus Christ to the Big Story the Bible tells.” In thinking about this assertion, I decided I should reflect a bit more on what I am trying to say.

I pointed out that “Christians have tended to miss the social implications of the New Testament part of the story because of assumptions about both politics and Jesus.” One way to further analyze the issues is to suggest, in very much a general sense, that we might recognize two types of thinking about how to understand the cluster of issues related to (1) “political philosophy,” (2) “pacifism,” (3) “biblical faith,” and (4) “Jesus-oriented discipleship.” One way is to perceive that those items #1 and #2 belong to a certain kind of thinking and that #3 and #4 belong to a very different kind of thinking. The other way would be to argue for understandings of those terms that recognize that they all may (and should!) be understood together in a way that leads to redefining them all.

If we think of “politics” as having mainly to do with running governments, the supposed necessary use of violence, and the struggle for power, it is indeed something very different than Jesus-oriented discipleship. Likewise, if we think of “philosophy” as a style of thinking that systematizes and abstracts and analyzes in a detached, objective manner. In the orientation reflected in these understandings, “political philosophy” is indeed something of an entirely different genre than biblical faith, and it is a distortion of the biblical teaching to think of it as a “political philosophy.” If we think of “pacifism” as having simply to do with refusal to use violence or with political activism or with a kind of abstract philosophy, we will also need to recognize that this is very different than “Jesus-oriented discipleship” and operates in quite a different idiom than biblical faith. But might we rather try a little harder to seek a more integrated understanding of all these terms? The modernist project of philosophizing, of power politics, even of the philosophy of pacifism has not been all that fruitful in solving so many of the problems of modern civilization that have us all on the brink of utter catastrophe.

The Bible, I want to suggest, does indeed care about politics and philosophy in a concrete, on-the-ground, practical kind of way—and thus links with older, more general understandings of politics and philosophy. And, if we read the Bible attentively looking for how its politics and philosophy take shape, we will recognize that Jesus does indeed advocate a kind of pacifism—not as something separate from his call to discipleship but precisely as a way of providing clarity and focus for the meaning of discipleship.

Broadening the definitions

Let’s think of “politics” primarily as the processes human beings use to order their social life. It is how we organize for functioning as a collective. It certainly may be coercive, tilted toward those who are able to dominate others, centered on furthering the interests of the wealthy and powerful, and mainly about power struggles. However, we may insist that that kind of politics is self-destructive for human communities and that alternatives are possible. And we may also recognize that in his life and teaching, Jesus focused on articulating and embodying such alternatives. Thus, Jesus was political—not as an additional, perhaps secondary, aspect of his message of God’s presence among humanity but rather as the core element of his message of God’s presence (and, we may add, Torah and the prophets in the Old Testament also had as the core element of their messages political life, and Jesus intended to further the politics of Torah and the prophets).

Then, let’s understand “philosophy” to be simply our way of thinking about things, especially the big things such as meaning, purpose, truth, beauty, human flourishing, and wisdom. We may recognize that the Bible is indeed all about philosophy in this broad sense. The Bible, and lots of other forms of self-organizing among the various human cultures, addresses throughout questions of meaning and purpose, all oriented around the biblical communities’ core convictions regarding God and God’s will for human beings.

Thus, the Bible’s “political philosophy” may be understood as simply the perspectives the Bible gives on what matters most in life and how that should shape how human beings order their social lives. Such an understanding of political philosophy would then point directly to Jesus’s message about discipleship. Discipleship understood as embodying the way of Jesus in our social lives then, in a way, becomes almost synonymous with Jesus’s political philosophy.

How “pacifism” fits with all this depends greatly on our definition of that word as well. “Pacifism” is not itself a biblical term. However, “peace” (in the Old Testament, shalom) is a central biblical term—one that is crucial for how the Bible thinks about politics. If we link “peace” with “love,” as the Bible seems to do, we could define pacifism as the conviction that nothing matters so much as loving our neighbors (echoing the explicit teaching of Jesus and other biblical writers). Pacifism in this understanding then is not something that is secondary or extraneous to the call to embody the way of Jesus. Rather, it is simply one way of thinking about what discipleship and obedience to God’s will for our lives is about. The term “pacifism” is helpful in this context because it reminds us that Jesus’s call to love includes the love of enemies and all other human beings—love that does not allow for subordinating any precious human lives to some other value that would allow for killing.

Jesus’s political philosophy

I believe that it is important to affirm self-consciously that the Bible as a whole, the New Testament more specifically, and Jesus himself most specifically provide us with a “political philosophy” that is at its heart “pacifist.” Such an affirmation reminds us that the Bible provides an integrated view of human life that holds together the spiritual, the personal, the communal, and the societal. The Bible, in its overall message, does not allow for separating life into spheres that allow us to disregard some parts of life as not worthy of our care or that allow us to divide people between those worthy of our regard as fellow fully human creatures and those who may be seen as the Other.

The political philosophy of Jesus (and the Bible as a whole) insists that each person is precious and must be treated with care and respect. It orients all social relationships around love of God and neighbor. It opposes domination and exploitation in all their forms. It is suspicious of state power, and it forbids any national loyalties that would justify warfare and other forms of dehumanizing the Other who is outside one’s own people group. Jesus’s political philosophy follows the teaching from Jeremiah that calls upon the people of the covenant to seek the peace of whatever city in which they find themselves. Jesus envisioned communities of peacemakers who placed their loyalty to his way of love higher than their commitments to territorial kingdoms. It was (and is) a challenging philosophy. Those who have understood themselves to be Christians have not done a very good job of embodying it over the past two millennia—but the vision remains relevant and more necessary than ever.

[I want to thank Derek Suderman whose helpful comments in response to my December 18 post stimulated this essay.]

Blog posts in the “Peace and the Bible” series