In her first paragraph, Weil explains why the Church is so important. Political parties are necessary to our democratic system, but they are limited by their own ideology. For democracy to work well, we need institutions that stand outside of party politics, critique it, broaden it, even goad it. The Church is one of those essential institutions. In terms, for example, of the poor and oppressed: the Church wants the focus to be on them, on their needs, on the obstacles they face. Parties look at the poor and oppressed through ideological lenses of the Left and the Right; the Church wants them to be seen in their own right. The issue should not be how an issue can be framed to advantage a party, but how the sufferings of real people can be addressed.

In her second paragraph, Weil points out that societies are intricate webs and that the party system can contaminate the independence of thought of schools, charities, and even churches. We fall under the "dominance" of party thought. For all my criticisms of the ELCA (and their name is Legion), I have always admired us on this issue. Whether it be on the issue of poverty or sexuality or the environment, even on the war, the ELCA has really tried to enable a dialogue that can bring people together or, at least, to allow people to hear one another's concerns and vision. This does not mean that we come out at the right place--I'm convinced that on the issue of full inclusion of gay people, we failed the Gospel (just one example). And I do admire how in some churches, prophetic positions are taken on issues while the ELCA gets bogged down in endless dialogues and qualifications. Sometimes I wish the Church of Luther and Bonhoeffer would take actual stands the way Luther and Bonhoeffer did. But, that said, there is something refreshing, in our divided, "us verses them," world, about a church that calls us to a search for common ground, beyond all the anger and demonizing of one's ideological opponent. We have our crazies of the Right and the Left in the church. I, sometimes, am one myself. That's okay. Taking a position is necessary to dialogue, but so is listening to the other position. We must not let go of each other if we want to follow Jesus. Our love for each other in Christ is the ground upon which we can safely have all our debates.

Simone Weil is not easy on us Christians. She demands that we speak out, forcefully and prophetically, on all the great issues of social and personal morality of our time. But she also demands that we speak out in a new way, in a Christian way. We are not to become religious parties. We are to provide an agapic alternative to the Party model. Jesus called it "speaking the truth in love." Boy, does the world ever need this model today!!

Yours in Christ,

--Pastor Bastien