Only Slightly-Less Complicit than Before: Some Reflections on Christian Worldly Responsibility

I’ve just read Halden’s entry, “The Ethics of Complicity,” which treats the problem of Christian responsibility in and to a capitalistic and militaristic state. Many Christians, both in the academy and the church, call for a radical break with the “world,” and decry all forms of compromise with the “gods of this age.” However, Hadlen insistes that there’s no “outside” to reach, no “moral highground” from which to act or judge, so it isn’t a question of if we will comply, but only of how. He writes,  

The key to proper theological action in a world in which we are all guilty lies precisely in not allowing our complicity to lead to resignation. 

 I agree, but with some reservations. I wonder if Reinhold Niebuhr’s famous distinction between the equality of sin and the inequality of guilt isn’t pertinent here. If we say all of us are equally guilty, then aren’t we weakening – even abrogating – all penultimate moral judgments? If some of us aren’t more guilty than the rest of us in our complicity with capitalism and militarism (amongst other things), then haven’t we rendered any discussions about justice and peace absurd? Niebuhr (in his Nature and Destiny of Man) contends, 

Though it is quite necessary and proper that these distinctions should disappear at the ultimate religious level of judgment, yet it is obviously important to draw them provisionally in all historic judgments. The difference between a little more and a little less justice in a social system and between a little more and a little less selfishness in the individual may represent differences between sickness and health, between misery and happiness in particular situations.   

 Of course, Niebuhr himself (arguably) proved to be too complicit with the capitalistic/militaristic society in which he lived and worked, perhaps precisely because he was too ready to concede that history is not like eternity and that the City of Man cannot be like the City of God. Nonetheless, I affirm Niebuhr’s basic insight.

In Luke’s Gospel – which more than any other Gospel, concerns itself deeply with issues of economic and political justice – we hear John the Baptist’s now-or-never call to ready for the impending kingdom and judgment of God. Notice how the people respond to John’s message: 

What should we do then?” the crowd asked. John answered, “The man with two tunics should share with him who has none, and the one who has food should do the same.” Tax collectors also came to be baptized. “Teacher,” they asked, “what should we do?” “Don’t collect any more than you are required to,” he told them. Then some soldiers asked him, “And what should we do?” He replied, “Don’t extort money and don’t accuse people falsely—be content with your pay.”   

This seems to me a clear case of quantitatively lessening one’s complicity. John doesn’t command the tax collectors to refuse to collect taxes. He doesn’t tell the soldiers to give up soldiering. (Though, admittedly, it is possible John meant for them to intuit this, much as Paul meant for Philemon to intuit the inappropriateness of holding Onesimus as his slave.) John required that they do something to increase the justice and peace of their world. Anything, I believe, is better than nothing.