Engage Evil With 'Politics of the Spirit'

ROSEMONT, IL (February 4, 2005) - Christians must prophetically engage systemic evil with "a new politics of the Spirit," Rev. Eugene Rivers III told worshippers attending the Thursday evening service during the Midwinter Pastors Conference of the Evangelical Covenant Church at the Hyatt Regency O'Hare complex.

Rivers is pastor of Azusa Christian Community Church in Boston. He was a co-founder of the Ten Point Coalition, a group of ministers credited with helping to greatly reduce the city's gang problem in the 1990s. He has been invited to speak across the country because of the work he has done in the inner city and with youth development.

The new politics is one that is informed and empowered through the Holy Spirit, who is unleashed through prayer. Rivers drew from Daniel 10, in which the prophet learns his prayers are being answered because he finally admitted he didn't have all the answers and humbled himself before God in prayer. The church must humble itself and pray as it engages in politics, the speaker suggested. Prayer, Rivers said, must be seen as a political and insurgent act upon the powers. In speaking prophetically, the church must speak in the power of the Spirit to those with whom they agree, not just disagree.

"It is more difficult to speak to your friends," Rivers said, describing his own as tending to the political left, noting he has never held to the "party line." He has been criticized and admired by all sides of the political spectrum. "We are called to speak prophetically to everybody," Rivers said. "People on the right don't listen and are too narrow in their view of what is a moral issue, saying it only focuses on abortion and gay marriage as moral issues. If I am on the left, there is no proclamation. On the left, you have all the people who feel your pain, but have nothing to say." Rivers said he did not understand how people can fight against "capital punishment for the born" but not "capital punishment for the unborn."

Conversations must be held that discuss the moral and political issues of the day, Rivers argues. He believes the church is the only place in which these discussions can be held. "Secular conservative and liberal society does not have the theological authority and basis to have these discussions," he explained. He suggests that it can be fun and interesting to discuss theology, warning that such discussions can be reduced to "meaningless theological debates" that are wasted because they don't "inform you to better serve."

It is a power that comes from prayer that seeks justice and is a form of resistance, Rivers said. "It's very difficult to argue with power." The prophetic power speaks against those who continue to promote policies that contribute to poverty around the world and at home, including against those who would give tax cuts to those who don't need it and do so on the backs of those who suffer as a result. The body of Christ must speak to all who seek to place the "created above the Creator," Rivers said. Praise and worship are necessary in addition to meet this challenge. "God is telling me he wants more praise," Rivers said.

God, he said, will meet us like he did with Daniel when we seek with humility. Then God will work.

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