• Valson Thampu

Today we eat, drink, inhale and exhale politics. But, it is doubtful if we know what politics should mean. The same is true for religion as well. It is impossible, wrote Voltaire in A Treatise on Toleration, to be tolerant and religiously zealous at the same time. This issue is basic to patriotism and nationalism, both being quasi-religions.
The statement quoted often from Jesus by political thinkers to validate secularism is, ‘Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s; and to God, what is God’s.’ This dictum is so interpreted as to mandate a divorce between religion and politics in sync with the Euro-American mode of secularism, which insists on the separation of Church and State. But, it is hard to believe that this was what Jesus meant. What, indeed, is it that we owe to God? The answer to this question must be sought in the total context of Jesus’s public ministry.
God’s prime agenda is to ensure that the whole of his creation is at its mighty best. Hence the spiritual mandate to ‘be perfect’. Hence, it is not only out of what we have, but also out of who we are that we need to give to God. Through lifelong conditioning we have got habituated to think otherwise. We assume that what we owe to God is merely a share of what we earn ‘to support God’s work’. This brings us to a curious state: what we owe to God and what we owe to Caesar are one and the same thing -money. Taxes to Caesar; tithes to God: but only money in both instances. In neither is there any reference to the kind and quality of persons we are. The shaping purpose of Jesus’s mission was different, though. He came that all may have life, and life in its fullness. Life is a matter more of being than of having. It is out of who we are, not less than what we have, that we are to give to God; for that is what is God’s.
This is the core idea in the Jesus mode of politics, to an examination of which we must now proceed. There are two kinds of politics. First, there is a mode of politics which is predicated on what is low, mean and animal-like in human nature. The successful leader in this mode must be adept at driving masses of humanity whither he likes like hordes of cattle. He thrives by awakening and exploiting the weaknesses and susceptibilities of human beings. But this cannot be done overtly. So, he must be an expert in popularizing the lie that he is the sole trustworthy gate keeper of people’s interests. He is an artist par excellence in fiddling the covetousness that lurks in human nature, projecting the fairy-tale-like gains that the people could gain by being coopted into his agenda. He promises a haven of development, but with the catch that its attainment involves ‘short-term pains’ for the people, which they are obliged to endure gratefully.
The dangerous thing is that in this delusional demagogic project religion is used as the opium of the masses. To Jesus, the purpose of true religion is to awaken what is true, good and noble in human nature. When Jesus said to his disciples, ‘You are the light of the world’, he did not intend that to apply only to the original twelve. He meant it to be the hallmark of humanity itself. To be human is to be the light. ‘Light’ is a symbol of the pure, the noble, and the self-transcending. Significantly, this ‘light’ is the point of convergence for religion and politics on the mountain of Transfiguration. Jesus, Moses, and Elijah constituting a Trinity of light! Moses-the liberator. Elijah, the prophet of truth. And Jesus- the fulfilment of both: sanctified politics that sets the people free and leads them to life abundant.
The light-radiating, life-affirming core of religion and politics is the duty to fulfill the Will of God. Leading humankind towards perfection -the perfection of being human- is the essence of that Will. Religion nor politics that deviates or disowns that goal should be acceptable. They belong to the order of darkness. It was to a people that ‘sat in darkness’ that Jesus came, announcing the Will of God. It is in fulfilling the Will of God that Jesus became ‘the light of the world’. So, the politics of Jesus is the politics of light -the light that defines our humanity. The alternative is to have the politics of darkness; the politics that projects darkness as light. We have given it a decent-sounding name: ‘post-truth-politics’. A Christian condemns himself, if becomes a camp follower, or a covert patron, of this subhuman brand of politics.
Religion relates to what we believe. Politics, to what we do. Ritualistic religion is mostly words; or, it substitutes words for deeds. Politics is action. But, when politics is cast in the mold of ritualistic religion, it becomes a sphere where words substitute, and belie, deeds. So, promised are made only to be forgotten, or disowned as ‘jokes’. To Jesus, there can be no divorce between the two. A tree, he said, is known by its fruits. We are not what we say, but what we do. Nothing that we do is outside the pale of politics. Everything ‘above-ground’, so to speak, is political. Giving, as well as not giving, to God what is God’s is as political as giving, and not giving, to Caesar what is Caesar’s. What we need to give to Caesar is not only taxes, but also a spiritually redeemed idea of politics. As Henry David Thoreau would have argued, the unwavering insistence on good and just governance must be deemed as basic a duty as giving taxes to Caesar.
To the extent this is ignored, politics gets defined cynically as ‘the art of the possible’, creating a jungle of expediency. At the same time, the presumed predators of this moral jungle are courted and fawned upon to extract, if possible, unlawful privileges and advantages, compromising thereby the missional consciousness we otherwise would have had. Our foremost political duty as a spiritual people is to be a prophetic presence in this domain of post-truth-politics to bear credible witness to the political vision of Jesus that truth alone safeguards a people’s freedom. Truth, as our national motto mandates, must triumph. We cannot sport this motto and take to the broad way of post-truth politics at the same time. A people who reduce their national motto to mere meaningless sounds mock the nation, even if they are liveried in patriotism.