Salvation usually is rescuing someone from something. For Christians, Jesus the Savior saves our eternal souls. Yet Jesus recognizes two forms of salvation: personal salvation, and salvation through compassionate works to care for others in need. Ideally, Christians acknowledge and engage in both kinds, first personal salvation and baptism through one’s Christian tradition and also the practice of doing good works as a habit, or rule of life.
Personal salvation
In our overwhelmingly white and Evangelical country, salvation in the US is understood only as personal salvation that gives one eternal life. To be saved in this context requires someone seeking salvation to declare a somewhat established statement of faith in front of others, such as “I believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and accept him as my personal savior.”
Baptism in the name of the Holy Trinity almost always occurs at some point after such a public statement is made. No further good works are required, and the salvation is “permanent.” This has been referred to as “being born again.” The phrase relates to the conversation between Jewish elder Nicodemous and Jesus, and when Jesus says that we must be born again by water and spirit (John 3). I was baptized like this at age nine via full immersion into water after proclaiming Jesus as my personal savior.
Salvation through compassionate works and public theology
However, another kind of salvation requires us, as disciples of Jesus Christ, to love and care for one another. This commonly occurs through doing charitable works and engaging in public theology.
Reminder: I’m defining public theology as 1) speaking about our faith as the reason for our work, 2) in a public forum of some kind, and 3) to as broad an audience as possible.
By working publicly for justice, we naturally experience spiritual growth when we stop focusing only on our personal salvation — our personal gain. Jesus models what working for justice looks like as a public theologian.
After John the Baptist baptized Jesus, wherever Jesus went, he helped others. Jesus’ work often occurred before a crowd and in opposition to Roman or Jewish leaders. He challenged systems of oppression throughout his ministry. This is public theology in a nutshell.
Jesus continues to call us to heal each other, to bind each other’s wounds, and to call out injustice wherever and whenever we can. It is a good and joyful thing to lift our hearts to God by helping others. In doing so, we experience the gift of salvation via spiritual growth. Our compassion for the beloved community therefore expands, and we become invested emotionally in the well-being of that community.
Oppressors need salvation, too
Exploiting others eats at our souls whether we realize it or not, and causes us to believe we are “god-like,” and therefore better than others. In fact, oppressors need healing from these selfish beliefs and behaviors. Oppressors must be freed from both the need and the sense of entitlement to exploit others. In working to ease the suffering of others from marginalization and deprivation, we thereby free ourselves from the loss of wholeness when we live a life solely as an oppressor.
At times, political theology stirs up controversy by challenging others to consider their own erroneous embedded theologies. By embedded theology, I refer to what we were “taught” to believe without questioning it, usually as children. Sometimes what we are taught is not correct, and therefore we need to make shifts in longtime cherished patterns, or paradigms — and that can feel very threatening.
Often these paradigms have been passed along by multiple generations, that is, attitudes about social diseases like racism, sexism, and classism. These “isms” exist because we don’t challenge our embedded paradigms on large scales.
The cost of being a disciple of Jesus Christ
Nevertheless, just because it is difficult to challenge such ingrained conventions of hate and discrimination, there is no sufficient excuse to avoid doing it — it is the cost of discipleship in Christ Jesus. Doing public/political theology imparts a duty for us to be humble and clear about what our beliefs are and why. Additionally, we must make ourselves available to engage in dialogue after the fact. We must strive in the pursuit of salvation while we live on earth.
Salvation as discussed in the Bible
The theme of salvation runs through both testaments of the Bible. Much of the saving that occurs in the Old Testament is earthly. God rescues the Israelites repeatedly, and people are healed, and even raised from the dead to continue a life on earth.
The New Testament describes the idea of salvation as past (including the Old Testament), present, and future events. It’s ongoing and never-ending.
Specifically, the New Testament speaks of salvation in the past tense (we “have been saved” [Eph. 2:8]), in the present (we “are being saved” [1 Cor. 15:2]), and in the future tense (we “shall be saved” [Rom. 5:10]). Salvation works fluidly, across time — it is not a “one-off.”
Protestantism and salvation
In classical Protestantism, salvation is forgiveness of sins and rescue from the condemnation of the law. According to theologian Paul Tillich, “In the modern period, the ultimate threat is having a sense of meaninglessness and nihilism, and salvation is the gift of meaning, purpose, and wholeness of life,” especially in the West. In general, Americans are parched for spirituality and spiritual expression, and often seem to lack an understanding of our relationship with the Divine.
When our relationship with the Divine is impeded, our earthly relationships are likewise impeded. This speaks directly to humanity’s deep need for meaning-making, particularly in its respective contexts, in order to feel fulfilled in life, and to experience salvation on earth. The grace we received in personal salvation has a crucial earthly component that requires us to contribute our time, talent, and tithe as thanksgiving for that salvation. We are called to love one another in community as Jesus did.
Unfortunately, the word “salvation” has also become heavily freighted and coupled with only individual salvation in Evangelical dogma.
Yet, salvation involves both the final existence of the eternal soul, as well as our much-needed work in society to usher in the reign of God. Below is a broadcast form of Evangelical public theology on a billboard in Texas that refers only to personal salvation.
This billboard presents an example of a Christian Evangelical proclamation advertising the need for salvation. Perhaps the unidentified author of the billboard offers this communication as a faith-based opportunity for social change in response to the meaninglessness that so many Americans experience.
Motivation aside, it is disconcerting; it ignores the need to contribute to social transformation for four reasons:
1) It is excludes anything other than Christian conversion in an increasingly pluralistic country;
2) It is unclear who is in need of healing, or is it the actual real property that needs “saving?”
3) It is unclear as to who makes this designation of who should be healed; and,
4) It is silent as to how the saving and healing occur.
Draping Jesus in the flag
In the billboard, the American flag has been overlaid onto the letters, “USA.” Then the letters have been joined with “Jes,” so that the flag draped “US” letters become part of the spelling of “Jesus.” Basically, Jesus’ name has been crammed next to “Saves,” with a flag-bearing “US.”
This is a blatant mixing of Evangelicalism and the American nation-state or civil religion. The two spheres, the non-secular Evangelicalism and the secular patriotism or civil nationalism, have been transmogrified into this ideological mutant. Frankly, it smacks of a glaring attempt to establish this brand of Christianity as supreme in the land.
Jesus is not intellectual property!
This message claims that Jesus “belongs” to Americans, as if we have “copyrighted” him for ourselves or he has been sucked up into the American civil religion.
To further challenge these explicit and subliminal messages, I’ve inserted some copyright symbols into this phrase “JesUSAves.” I’ve done this to highlight how many Christians have “appropriated” Jesus as their property, even their “mascot.”
Imagine the sign appearing in these variations:
1) “ JesUSAves© ”
The first example copyrights the whole phrase that Jesus saves, or possibly saves the USA (but not other countries). In this scenario, the USA has claimed Jesus as our personal savior — a horrid twist on the concept of personal salvation in American Protestantism.
or 2) “ JesUS©Aves ”
The second phrase works to “copyright” Jesus. It telegraphs that Jesus is “US,” or the “USA,” and that the USA is “Jesus.” This message represents the USA and Jesus as interchangeable. Intellectual property law governs who owns copyrights, patents and trademarks. Holding a copyright allows the owner to “exploit” that item which is registered as intellectual property. The right to exploit intellectual property is exclusive, and “exploit” refers to the owner’s right to use or exploit the property for economic gain. The irony of “rightful exploitation” that rightfully occurs in asserting intellectual property rights
Or 3) “ JesUSA©ves ”
The third one seems to “copyright” Jesus “as property of the USA.” Perhaps the logic is: Jesus is legendary, and we, the American people, are legendary, so, “legendary Jesus” belongs to the “legendary USA.”
While obnoxious and possibly blasphemous, this attitude flows from our history, legal precedents even, of using Jesus to appropriate people for our own designs. We’ve exploited the Bible to justify chattel slavery of human beings. Remember that Jesus spent a large portion of his earthly ministry challenging empires and corrupt power systems.
Jesus belonged only to the Reign of God.
This message is arrogant for three reasons.
1) No religious entity takes responsibility for this theological content. This anonymity strongly suggests that the audience is unqualified to question it.
2) The message assumes it is the sole correct and controlling theology for every single Christian.
3) It creates a “you’re ‘in,’” or “you’re ‘out,’” binary. If you get saved you are “in.” If you don’t get saved, you are “out.” When someone is deemed “out,” it further erodes social structures of justice and equality. Hand in hand, such erosion creates an excuse to classify those who are “out” to an inferior status; often they become targets of violence.
4) The billboard is silent about ways to care for others. Viewers are expected to know where to go for salvation and how to get it.
Below are a few questions to spur discussion:
1) Who/what caused the injuries from which are we to be healed?
- Islam? Catholicism? Judaism? Anglicanism?
- Total depravity?
- Free will?
(certainly not Evangelical Protestants who very likely put up the sign)
2) How will this healing take place?
3) Who will do the healing?
- Jesus only?
- What about the Great I am?
- Allah?
- The Holy Spirit?
- Brahma? Etc.
(I must include an Interfaith challenge here because my mission field is near the largest population of Arabs/Muslims in the world outside of the Middle East. Our daily existence in SE Michigan includes interaction with the Abrahamic faiths as well as many Eastern traditions.)
4) Who will be healed?
- “Heathens” and non-believers?
- People of African descent, Muslims, Catholics, and Jews? (Favorite targets by white supremacy groups)
- Denominations that ordain women and LGBTQ people?
5) What will the healing look like?
- Reparations to First Nation Peoples?
- Legally quarantining Muslims per the US Constitution (Korematsu v. U. S.)? Limiting the number of new Mosques, Hindu Temples, Jain Temples, Sikh Gurdwaras?
6) What does “land” mean?
- Is it the US/territories only? (The people of Puerto Rico may wish to secede.)
- Does “land” include the whole world?
- Just the Western Hemisphere?
- Just the Northern Hemisphere?
- Just the USA?
- Just Texas?
7) What are the implications for groups who are excluded from Christianity if they are not healed, and if they do not convert to Christianity?
- Does healing also mean converting to Christianity?
- Does healing mean ending racism in the USA (for example)?
- Or is it just about personal salvation?
The sign serves as evidence that many whites in the US believe that they are a:
1) super-special Christian nation-state,
2) heirs of an “entitled-to-get-whatever-we-want-manifest-destiny,”
3) armed with Anglo-Saxon superiority,
4) backed by Jesus Christ himself against the rest of the world.
This billboard proves the existence of a well-established attitude of exclusionary, theological supremacy driving this unhealthy reality. These “billboarders” perceive themselves as the anointed, sole interpreters of the Bible and supreme arbiters of salvation. They broadcast that they determine who is saved and who is not.
It fails to address Jesus’s call for us to love God and one another. It is only concerned about the white individual’s formulaic, heavenly disposition. Basically, “whiteness has functioned in modernity as a surrogate form of ‘salvation,’ a mythic presumption of wholeness.”[1] (Italics mine)
Yet, our earthly existence has a heavenly component in the form of meaning-making. With right practice — good works, striving for our relationship with God, our neighbors, and creatures of the earth — we can experience heaven on earth, a form of salvation. These caring relationships provide a saving quality and can make us feel that “all is right with the world.” Our caring community restores us and provides strength for the journey. It reminds us of God’s love for us and provides that foretaste of that heavenly banquet.
We live in the tension between heaven and earth, here and not quite there yet. We must find ways to repair that breach between heavenly joy and our earthly experience . . . “weeping may last for the night, but joy comes in the morning (Ps. 30:5).” Let us achieve joy on earth through good works leading to the Reign of God, our saving grace.
[1] Charles H. Long, Significations Signs, Symbols, and Images in the Interpretation of Religion (Aurora Colorado: The Davies Group, 1999), 8.
