The Church in Public Life
INTERVIEW
The nations of the world including ours are coming under tremendous scrutiny in every aspect of society including governance, economy and politics. In this hour of the modern nation state system of governance, everyone has something to say about the state of world affairs. But what is Christian and the church's role in all of this? Is there a biblical basis from which to engage the world? Is there a place to articulate what should take place in our society?
In this series of articles, we interview Eugene Yapp of Kairos Dialogue Network to draw from his experience and knowledge on as a educator and practitioner of public theology to discuss the church's role in public life. Apart from his involvement Kairos Dialogue Network, he also equips the Malaysian church in different ways including giving lectures at Seminari Theoloji Malaysia among others. Eugene Yapp worships in City Discipleship Presbyterian Church, is a husband, and a father of two children.
What is the church’s role in the life of the society or nation?
Before we talk about the church’s role, we need to have some understanding about what is society.
Firstly, society is made up of individuals, but the individuals do not live alone, they live in family units. But families also do not live alone, they live in wider families with relatives such uncles, aunties and so on. But even in wider families, they do not live alone because they live with neighbours as a community. But even as neighbours in a community, they do not live as neighbours in a community alone, they live with other people from other parts of the neighbourhood, and as people live together with other people from other parts of the neighbourhood, they form what we call the wider society.
When we are talking about society, we are talking about the whole encompassing arrangement or structure of society that contains me as an individual, the family, the bigger family unit, the wider family unit, the neighbourhood, and this eventually reaches to every part of the country.
So the question of how the church relates to society will depend on which level of society that you are talking about. If we are talking about family, the church can be involved in build strong families. But the church engaging society can also refer to how they relate to their neighbours or wider neighbourhood in every part of the country.
In this case, if the church wishes to engage in this broader level of society, we are talking about institutions, legal structures and ultimately, what kind of social order or political order that is good for everyone within this wider landscape.
Now that we have defined society, let us now define the church. Simplistically, the church is both institutional and organic. When I say institutional, the church is organised in such a way where the pastor or bishop or elder is a church official – they have a particular office or role to play. It is also organised in the sense that it has its own procedure of doing thing; in a Sunday service there is a liturgy, which is a format or order of programme. There is also an accountability system. So the church is both institutional and organised.
But the church is also organic in that individuals are the temple of the Holy Spirit. So, these two concepts are different in its application. When we are talking about the institutional church we are talking about the collective whole. When we are talking about individuals you are talking about the person. Consequently, when we talk about the church engaging society, when the church engages as a collective whole, there will be certain ways of engagement and when the church engages society as an individual, there will be certain ways of doing it.
They differ primarily because the institution and individual differs.
What are the differences between how the institutional and individual church engages society?
As far as the church collective is concerned, the church is an institution of society. So, the church as a religious body is one of the many institutions of society. So we will have to relate on matters of religious significance and implications because the church is basically a religious body. For example, the church will overstep its boundary if the church collective starts engaging in political activities, start making decisions as to what is good for society as a whole, or they start making policies for societies as a whole, or they start making laws or legislate or pontificate on what they think are good laws in society. That is not the role of the church collective.
In a modern democracy where there is modern constitution, that role is actually the role of the government. The church as an institution does not usurp the role of the government nor supplant the role. Their institutional role in society is to be a moral voice and moral conscience of society, in terms of religious education and religious understanding.
This differs from the church as individuals. The individual is not just the temple of the Holy Spirit, but in the scheme of modern constitutionalism and the modern nation state, the individual is also a citizen of that country. So he or she is vested with certain rights in the modern scheme of things – in the modern nation state, the modern conception of the nation state. He or she is vested with certain rights, with certain authority, carrying certain liberties and freedom. In the scheme of modern constitutionalism, the most fundamental right of a citizen is he has the right to live, the right choose, the right to liberty, the right to freedom. This freedom is translated in very practical actions such as the right to vote, the right to earn a living, the right to make profits, the right to economic and social life. So these rights, freedoms and liberties is to be exercised by these individuals as citizens of the country, as well as being the temple of the Holy Spirit. And so, when the individual engages with society as an individual with such rights, he is informed by his own Christian moral values and moral persuasion, so you can see the two distinct applications in how the church engages.
I’m simplifying here as there are complex engagements and sometimes they overlap but in basic terms this is where the distinction is.
Finally, there is a communal aspect to the church, as it is also a community. As a community, you can reach out to another community. As an institution, you can decide what is good for your community. But that decision and whatever you decide is good for your community, must never overstep the boundary into other areas where other institutions are assigned or are appointed by God to function. Church is an institution and the government is another institution. One must not subdue the other.
What is public life?
In a modern nation state, there is a space that does not belong to the government and politics—that space is that of the individual. The individuals will decide among their family, community, and neighbours on what is good for them. This is what is known as the private space. But between the space of the political realm and the private realm, there is a space that belongs neither to the political realm or the individual. That space belongs to everyone.
This is how the word “public” is derived. Public means that everyone gets to participate, everyone gets to say something, everyone gets to express their opinion as to what is good for society and when I say everyone I mean, literally, everyone in the country, everyone in society. That space is what is known as public life or seculum that pertains to the temporal ordering of society i.e. whatever space that is given so that everyone can express what society is and what society should be.
Is it like civil society?
Civil society comes from the fact that there is secular space, a space that is not dominated by religion, not dominated by the government, not dominated by the governmental authorities or institution.
How does one express or contribute to that public space? You can do so in various ways – you can go as an individual, campaigning by yourself, but an individual has limited capacity so he or she looks for another individual who shares the same opinion, who looks for another individual, and another– until in the long run these individuals become a group. They may remain an informal group or they may organise themselves as an association or a society. Now, that whole spectrum of activities is what is known as civil society, which is done to express themselves in the public space.
How do you think Christians can impact this public space? How has public theology contributed to this thinking?
There is a very small percentage of church people who are engaged in society in public space matters. And so consequently the church rarely talks about public theology and public space because by composition there are very few believers who are in it, even in political life. More recently the church talks more of how to make an impact in the marketplace, naturally because the majority composition of the modern church is actually in the marketplace through people who are working the workforce.
So there must be holistic education about the role of the church not just at a personal individual level, not only on frontier missions abroad, or the role of Christians in the marketplace—but also education in understanding how we engage in public life.
This sort of teaching and education contents that present the basis in which Christians engage in public life is called public theology. Public theology is a relatively new discipline, at least in Malaysia. It was not heard of until quite recently in the last 10 years. Local seminaries have never really emphasised it, and churches have not really emphasised on it to their congregation. Nevertheless public theology is important and the first question we need to ask about public theology before anything else is this—“What does it mean to have a public theology and what is the biblical basis for it?”
When we discuss public theology, we draw from the biblical basis and about 2000 years of Christian tradition relating to society. We ultimately study not just biblical Christian traditions, but also the way in which Christian tradition has impacted or developed Christian social ethics. Studies in these areas are primarily lacking in the local church for now.
How do we move forward? Firstly it is through education, but more than education, churches need to struggle with what is meant by public witness in a plural i.e. multicultural and multi-religious society like Malaysia. We need to struggle with it, come up with its content and understanding, and communicate that to our congregations and people. That is the challenge that will take the next 10 years in the church’s life. END
>> Next: The church working for common good
