Yes, we changed the title. It looked as if we were picking on Catholics or other Christians. No, we offend everybody.
Earlier this week we were copied on an e-mail that was in response to last week’s election. It seems there was a lot of discussion in religious circles whether a committed Christian (or a member of any other religion) could even vote when the choices on all sides were so bad. The obvious response, of course, is “If you know how the job should be done, why aren’t you running?”
Earlier this week we were copied on an e-mail that was in response to last week’s election. It seems there was a lot of discussion in religious circles whether a committed Christian (or a member of any other religion) could even vote when the choices on all sides were so bad. The obvious response, of course, is “If you know how the job should be done, why aren’t you running?”
That’s a little flip, however. More to the point, it’s also individualistic,
and the Just Third Way is about economic and social justice. That’s why the brief comment in response to
(somebody else’s) statements about how to vote sparked this response.
The respondent stated, “I don’t think Christ is about
politics.” In a larger sense, the
respondent was disclaiming any role for any organized religion in civil
society. Religion is off in the corner
somewhere, and must be completely separated from “real life.”
In one sense we would agree that, “Christ [or any other
religious leader from any faith] is [not] about politics.” In another sense, He is about nothing but politics. So was Moses.
So was Mohammed. So was the
Buddha. So was Confucius. The list is endless.
If by “politics” we mean the particular machinery of
government, electioneering, squabbles between parties, jockeying for advantage
over opponents or constituents, pork barreling, then, yes, Christ is not about
politics. That sort of thing doesn’t
really have all that much to do about maintaining the common good as the
environment within which humanity acquires and develops virtue, thereby
becoming more fully human, either.
If, however, by “politics” we mean what Aristotle and
Aquinas meant, then it is a different story altogether. Pius XI made this clear in Quas Primas, his 1925 encyclical on Christ
the King, the Feast of which is coming up on November 23. Any sincere member of any religion would
logically have to make the same claims for the pivotal figure in his or her
faith tradition.
According to Aristotle, man is by nature a “political animal”
(Politics, 1253.a2). The human person therefore only develops more
fully as a human person within the institutional framework of an organized
social unit, the pólis, hence, political. As a political animal, humanity is uniquely
endowed with individual rights that
can only be realized within a social
context — we are political.
We must as a matter
of reason (Humani Generis, § 2)
acknowledge that “Christ the King” rules over the human heart through our conformity
to the natural law of which Christ is the living embodiment (John 15:5). This is individual ethics (bios theoretikos), the life of the individual as an
individual.
Aristotle covered individual ethics in the Nicomachean Ethics. Again, this applies in the same way to all
faiths. Don’t forget Aristotle was a
pagan. Christianity is here used as the
exemplar — besides having the clearest social and political teachings of any
major religion.
By conforming our behavior as individuals to the precepts of
the natural law (the chief of which is “good is to be done, evil avoided”), we
acknowledge Christ as King of our personal lives. This is true even if we are not Christian or
have never heard of Christ (Matt. 21: 28-32) — this, as we keep saying, applies
to everybody.
