Are Christians in Exile in Babylon?
We read in 1 Peter:
Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, to God’s elect, exiles scattered throughout the provinces of Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia and Bithynia (1 Pet 1.1).
Dear friends, I urge you, as foreigners and exiles, to abstain from sinful desires, which wage war against your soul (1 Pet 2.11).
Certainly, the Christians of Asia Minor, living under Roman rule, felt very much disconnected from culture, and even chastised and chased out of town on occasions for failing to participate in civic and imperial religious rites. In the same way, the church today can feel ostracized and alienated from the center of culture, media, influencers, and the political class as our religion is not always popular with certain bastions of society.
But the repeated notion that the churches are “exiles in Babylon” is a tad over-drawn for my mind. Yes, we are alienated from the centers of culture in many respects. But the fact is that in the West, Christianity still has a privileged position of sorts, Christianity is not criminalized, and we are not besieged into ghettos, even if there are legal challenges around religious freedom and MSNBC journalists do not speak highly of you.
I don’t think “EXILE” is the biblical image of choice to describe the situation of Christians in the West. I’m not the only one saying this, listen to the words of John Goldingay:
We are not in exile; we are simply people who have been outvoted, literally and/or metaphorically. Exile happens to people who are not citizens and not members of imperial powers. We can’t use the image of exile to let ourselves off the hook of responsibility for the violence our nations undertake. Further, it’s surely not the case that most Christians see themselves as increasingly on the edge, at odds with the empire, or in exile from their culture – you might even suggest that the problem lies in our not seeing ourselves thus. I don’t think that most Christians in (say) Uganda or the United States think in that way. Further, while Europe and countries such as Australia, New Zealand, and Canada are post-Christian, most of Africa and the rest of the colonial/postcolonial world are not, and neither is the United States (which is of course a postcolonial entity, with the appropriate love-hate relationship with its European forebearers). In the United States, I like to say we are living in the time of Josiah, not the exile.
John Goldingay, “Four Reflections on Isaiah and Imperial Context,” in Isaiah and Imperial Context, eds. Andrew Abernethy et al (Eugene, OR: Pickwick, 2013), 211.
What do you think? Do you think “exile” is a valid image/metaphor to describe the position of the church today?
We can be disliked because of our beliefs per se, or we can be disliked because we have expressed ourselves in a thoroughly obnoxious way. Let's take care that we don't get caught up in the latter.
From the way ya'll framed the question I voted no. I think "exhile" can be useful in articulating a vision of life in the "already, but not yet" time. The sense we are away from our true home, that being the Kingdom of God (which is more of a time rather than a place). We as believers in all ages feel a disjunction as the pressure that comes belonging, but yet not belonging to the current time we inhabit. I think the thoughts of John Goldingay make sense. As a Canadian the Canadian state was founded by at least nominal protestants and Catholics and was made to work for ppl who identified as such. Therefore we cannot absolve ourselves So the pluralism of our religious landscape changes that a little bit, but Christians can still participate in all facets of civic life. Also, the posture of exhile is to usually articulated as a posture of being with dufferent types of people in a "pro-neighbour", cooperative, and Christ-like way. That being not obsessing over being in the centre, and not trying to reach for coercive power against our neighbours.