Beyond Rights: Christian Citizenship and America’s Conflict
Photo by Bonnie Kittle on Unsplash
We Americans are very focused on rights. This is understandable. Rights figure prominently in our origin story. Our declaration of independence reads: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”
When the U.S. Constitution was written, it was determined, after some debate, that it needed amendments, and that these amendments would be in the form of a written Bill of Rights. Those first ten amendments guarantee personal rights (including the freedom of religion, of assembly, of speech, and of the press), and set limits on the federal government.
Ever since those words were ratified, we Americans have been zealous for our rights, whether “states’ rights,” or “individual rights,” or “civil rights.” We frequently have been willing even to use violence against our fellow Americans to defend those rights.
Those who broke into the U.S. Capitol, vandalized it, and stopped the normal functioning of government, did so in the name of “rights.” It is the peoples’ building, and they believed they represented “We the people” and were acting, as the Declaration of Independence reads, “to secure these rights.” Echoing Thomas Jefferson, “whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it.”
What they did not consider is that others, who are also “we the people,” did not consent to breaking windows in their building or wreaking havoc. “The people” did not grant the right to invade the building, let alone injure or kill those whom “we the people” pay to protect it.
Likewise, those who have engaged in violent protests in cities in the past year, sometimes assuming governance over sections of them, did so in the name of “rights.” George Floyd’s and others’ right to life was taken unjustly. And people have a right to peacefully assemble, and a right to speak.
And yet, no matter how real and unjust the violations of rights were, when “protestors” destroy other people’s property, loot merchandise from their businesses, usurp democratically elected local governments, or (in some cases) cause the death of one of “we the people,” they have violated rights to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”
It is ironic that in a nation that wrote down our rights, in order to avoid confusion about what they are, we have endured, time and again, outbreaks of violence over different applications of those words. From slavery, to Indian removal policies, to the Civil War, to labor agitations at the turn of the twentieth century, to the Civil Rights Movement, to today, our written Bill of Rights has not seemed to bring about either clarity or peace. Rather, in our ethnically and economically diverse nation, it has often provided justification for the abuse of one group’s rights in the name of my group’s life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness.
The New Testament is not silent on the issue of rights. Paul, in his first letter to the church in Corinth, has quite a bit to say about rights. Like the church in the United States, that church also struggled mightily with what it means to have their accepted notions of culture, government, and what is right submitted to an invisible kingdom where “Jesus is Lord” (1Cor 12:3).
Corinth was actually a lot like the U.S. It was a young culture. Greek Corinth had been completely destroyed by the Romans in 146 B.C. A century later, Julius Caesar built a new Roman Corinth, and because of its location, it became prosperous, a trade leader.
People came from everywhere to this new Corinth seeking freedom or to make their fortunes. Its growing citizenship (estimates range from 100,000 to 600,000) was composed of many nationalities and religions. To them were added large numbers of sailors, merchants, and undocumented residents from all over the Empire. It had a very wealthy entrepreneurial elite, but, being a new city, not an established aristocracy. It also contained working class folks and many poor.
The church reflected this ethnic, religious, and economic diversity. The church at Corinth included Jewish believers (1 Cor. 7:18-19). But it was mostly made up of Gentile converts from the many pagan sects, philosophies and ethnicities of the Roman world (1 Cor. 6:9-11, 8:7, 12:2).
The majority of church members were fairly ordinary people. Some were slaves (1 Cor. 7:21-23). And while “not many … were wise by human standards; … influential; [or] … of noble birth” (1 Cor. 1:26), some were. One member of the elite, Erastus, “the city’s director of public works,” sent greetings from Corinth in Paul’s letter to the Romans (Rom. 16:23).
In chapter 8, Paul addresses a conflict over “rights,” stemming from some of the more “knowledgeable” members of the church. Apparently among those at Corinth who considered themselves to be “wise,” there had arisen a philosophical defense of their “freedom in Christ,” particularly their right to eat meat. This group had produced a number of rhetorical soundbites to advance their cause. And perhaps having read Paul’s defense of freedom in his earlier letter to the Galatians, may have thought Paul would be on their side.
They were wrong. Earlier in his letter, in regard to Christians’ freedom to do with our bodies as we want, Paul had responded to the slogan, “Food for the stomach and the stomach for food” with “and God will destroy them both” (1 Cor. 6:13). Now, in defense of their freedom to eat meat wherever it came from, the “wise” leaned on the logic of monotheism (perhaps as indebted to Neoplatonism as to Judaism). “An idol is nothing at all in the world” and “There is no God but one” (1 Cor. 8:4).
Up to a point, Paul was willing to concede to their point. Yes, “there is but one God, the Father, from whom all things came and for whom we live.” Then Paul adds that there is “but one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom all things came and through whom we live” (1 Cor. 8:6). And that is the rub. Because He is Lord, a Christian’s relationship to our “rights” changes.
The problem for Corinthian Christians who wanted and could afford meat was that a lot of what was available had been sacrificed to pagan idols. At their temples, and there were lots of them, part of a sacrifice was burned on the altar, part was for the priests, part was eaten by those making the sacrifice, and the rest was sold for profit. Some temple meat might be served at the temple, at a kind of restaurant. The rest would be sold in markets throughout the city. Paganism was good business.
Now, obviously, meat served in temple restaurants had been sacrificed to idols, but it was difficult—nearly impossible—to know, for sure, where the meat for sale in markets came from. There were no government certifications on packaging (or even packaging), so if you wanted to eat meat, it was tough to avoid connections to idolatry. The so-called “knowledgeable” wanted their right to meat. They believed they were in the right philosophically and theologically. And they were perhaps a little puffed up about it (1 Cor. 8:1).
The problem was that one person’s right to enjoy meat was another person’s stumbling block. Those who had formerly been entangled in the demands of pagan worship and had been freed from the tyranny of “many ‘gods’ and many ‘lords’” (1 Cor. 8:5) were convinced “no one can serve two masters” (Matt. 6:24). For them, “Jesus is Lord” (1 Cor. 12:3) meant giving up all association with the demonic so-called gods of their former religion. Seeing elites from their own church playing with idolatry for the sake of meat was confusing at best.
In his response, Paul dispenses with any arguments about rights. It does not matter if you have the best intellectual argument. It does not matter that you have the right to do what you want. What matters in the economy of Christ is one thing: love. “Love builds up. Those who think they know something do not yet know as they ought to know. But whoever loves God is known by God” (1 Cor. 8:1-3).
And that is the point. The children of God do not contend for our rights if doing so does any damage to the gospel or to those God loves. “Be careful,” wrote Paul, “that the exercise of your rights does not become a stumbling block to the weak” (1 Cor. 8:9).
This is why, for example, Methodists typically use non-alcoholic grape juice instead of wine in communion. It is not because we think it is a sin to touch alcohol. Jesus drank. But out of love for our brothers and sisters, who have been freed from the dominion of alcoholism, all of us abstain in this communal meal. It is not about us, or our rights, it is about love.
When Paul talks about his own rights in chapter 9, he is not talking about freedom of speech or religion, which he did not have as a Roman citizen, hence his eventual martyrdom. He is talking about his right as an apostle to receive care and hospitality from his beloved brothers and sisters in Christ.
And yet, out of love, Paul sacrifices that right for the sake of Christ and the Corinthians. “We did not use this right. On the contrary, we put up with anything rather than hinder the gospel of Christ” (1 Cor. 9:12). A Christian’s first concern is our brothers’ and sisters’ rights, as beloved of God, to be built up by us in love for their salvation. It is not about us, not about our individual rights. It is about love.
There is actually no direct evidence, in what has been revealed by our Creator in Scripture, that the rights articulated in our Declaration of Independence or our Bill of Rights exist, let alone are “endowed by” Him. Those rights for which we Americans contend and which shape our common life and discourse as Americans, are largely the invention of Enlightenment philosophers, the “wise by human standards” (1 Cor. 1:26).
Rather than human rights, according to Scripture, all humans have dignity as made in the divine image, which may not be violated. We may not murder, because that person is made in the image of God. We may not steal from them, because they are made in the image of God. We may not seduce their spouse, because they are made in the image of God. We may not bear false witness against them, because that does injustice to someone who is made in the image of God.
I am grateful for arguments (wise or otherwise) that compel people, especially those who do not subscribe to a biblical anthropology, to treat others better. And I hugely value, as a worshipper of Jesus, living in a nation that declares a right of religion, and of speech, and of assembly for its citizens. But we Christian Americans must acknowledge that the myth of Enlightenment progress and peace is a myth.
If we look honestly at what Enlightenment projects to demand rights have brought about historically – the French Revolution, the subsequent Reign of Terror, the Napoleonic Wars, nineteenth-century colonial expansion, Russia’s Communist Revolution, America’s own contentious rights culture – the “wise of this world” have vastly overpromised and underdelivered. Without Jesus and His transformational work among His followers, wise Enlightenment projects to secure “rights” fail time and again.
There is one right mentioned in Scripture that belongs inherently to Christians. It is mentioned in John 1:12. “To all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God.” Each of us, when we believe, has a claim on God’s love, a right, and so does every other child of God.
On God’s part, that love meant sacrifice on a dark day on a hill called the “place of the skull.” On our part, it means that, for the sake of our brother or sister, and even for our sinful neighbors whom God wants “to be saved and come to a knowledge of the truth” (1 Tim. 2:4), we will sacrifice even what the “wise by human standards” (1 Cor. 1:26) tell us we are owed by right. When we become a Christian, our lives cease to be about us or our so-called rights. They, instead, become about following Jesus.
Scott Kisker is Professor of the History of Christianity at United Theological Seminary.