Was Jesus political? Tim Pawlenty, former governor of Minnesota and current Republican candidate for President, told an Iowa voter that Jesus was (is?) one of his political heroes. The full quote: "I've got a lot of political heroes too. I love Winston Churchill, Ronald Reagan, Abraham Lincoln, Jesus Christ." (He also loves the serial comma but detests conjunctions.) One hopes he loves the three former differently than that fourth. Much will be made of this in the run-up to the election or the early elimination of Pawlenty. In his defense, he shares a similar faith and ideology to the loon candidate, Bachmann, but seems saner, more grounded, and far less scary than the Tea Party pin-up. This is probably due in part to sitting under the pastorate of Leith Anderson.
Anderson has pastored Wooddale Church in the greater Minneapolis area for nearly 35 years. In fact, he is due to retire on December 31 of this year, with his final sermon being Christmas Eve. I read some of Anderson's books as a young pastor, and although they were less than brilliant, they were also solid, thoughtful, and predicated on long-term pastoring, much the same reasons I read John Stott back then. Wooddale is multi-denominational, with Baptist (BGC), Evangelical (NAE), and Congregational (CCCC) affiliations. It is middle to right evangelical with a strong literalist leaning. Anderson has earned respect in the world of megachurches by avoiding the douchiness and arrogance that sometimes comes with success, and by not having his name mentioned in a scandal of any kind in 35 years. He is a model of sobriety, integrity, and consistency. (Yes, this is me writing this, and I firmly believe it.) He is the sort of pastor, who, though I disagree with him vehemently, I trust will create a better class of Christians if they spend enough time with him. Pawlenty and his wife, Mary, seem to have benefited from his ministry.
Mary was raised Evangelical Covenant, a small denomination headquartered in the Chicago area with a statement of faith (list of affirmations) that any evangelical I know can sign off on. In fact, back in the pastoring days, I was seriously considering affiliating with the organization, thanks in part to my relationship with Craig Groeschel, whose lifechurch.tv was a new project of the Covenant Church. (Yeah, it was a while ago.) Tim was raised Catholic, but started the conversion to Evangelical when he and Mary met in law school. You can see various parts of their faith history here. Both settled in at Wooddale, where they have remained.
Back to Jesus the political philosopher. I have no idea how Pawlenty meant the statement. Likely it was a "dog whistle," one of those odious phrases meant to attract a certain species of voter by its resonance with their already firmly held convictions. Likely, Pawlenty meant only that he thinks Jesus is really smart and, oh yeah, the savior of the world. But politics? I'm willing to bet most of this year's salary that Pawlenty hasn't read Yoder's The Politics of Jesus, and I'm equally sure he meant nothing about Jesus' politics the way Yoder, Hauerwas, or even Wallis would talk about them. It really doesn't matter, though, because he doesn't mean it. He's lying. Not intentionally lying, I don't think. In nearly the exact same uncritical way that George W. Bush really considers Jesus one of his favorite philosophers, Pawlenty considers Jesus one of his favorite political heroes. It's completely unclear from Bush's behavior what he meant, but we can know he too was lying. No philosophy of Jesus would ever include "torture your enemies." Period. Anyone who wants to argue the opposite position should give back their Christian achievement badge. It's a failure to critically assess the dog whistles on the part of the whistler, as opposed to them actually articulating a firm position with regard to Jesus' politics or philosophy.
Pawlenty almost surely means he believes Jesus would support his political postions vis-a-vis abortion, taxation, private property, and gay marriage. He certainly would be hard pressed to talk about Jesus' politics in terms of poverty and justice; he might talk about both as abstractions, but it's unlikely he can fully articulate the radical politics of a god who has a preference for the poor and oppressed. I suspect he's never read Gutierrez or Cone either. It's clear that he thinks of Jesus as a moral philosopher, and while that might not be too far from the truth, a moral philosopher is not the same thing as a moralizer, an affliction suffered especially by denizens of literalist hermeneutics (except when applied to poverty and oppression).
I will not join the chorus of the anti-theocratic handwringers when they begin to lament Pawlenty's statements on the separation of church and state (they are predictable, just watch the video if you've not been paying attention for the last 30 years), nor will I wonder aloud if Pawlenty really feels like God is calling him to be the president. None of that matters. He's lying. He wants to be president, sure, but he has no intention of doing anything other than operating within the ground rules of conservative, Republican politician. The Jesus stuff is window-dressing. He surely believes he's been saved, and he probably feels called to run for the presidency, but he will do what countless politicians have done before; he will use the vocabulary of Christianity to play the language game of politics with the grammar of moral conservatism. That's it. Nothing shocking. Nothing new. Nothing revolutionary, and nothing very interesting. Nothing to see here, folks. Keep moving, and don't take your eyes off that lunatic pin-up girl.
