Acolytes of the Status Quo

Someone inquired recently if I’ve always been as vocal and as engaged politically as I am these days.  The answer is a resounding YES!  There were times and places where and when I could not speak as freely or as openly as I might have wished (in the congregations and in the military, for example), but I have always been vocal and always engaged.  My political ranting and raving has occurred with every US President (regardless of party) and every US Congress (regardless of majority).  In other words, I’ve never been an acolyte of the status quo, whatever that status quo has been, in times past or in times present.  An acolyte is a person who assists “the celebrant in a religious service or procession—an assistant or a follower.  I’ve always been critical of what is—no matter what it is!  I believe this resistance is my Christian duty and a biblical mandate. The Bible, as I hear it, says that we are called to overthrow the existing order (a fallen creation and in the bondage of death).  I take this seriously and literally.  The Attorney General recently suggested a biblical proof-text (Romans 13:1-7) for our edification in an attempt to make all of us less than human—simply acolytes.  Biblical malpractice runs rampant and is an attempt to make all of us mere acolytes—and the Bible is seldom “heard.”  

“The biblical lifestyle,” wrote William Stringfellow, “is always a witness of resistance to the status quo in politics, economics, and all society.  It is a witness of resurrection from death….Yet those who do not resist the rulers of the present darkness are consigned to a moral death, the death of their humanness.  That, of all the ways of dying, is the most ignominious.”  This resistance is to announce to the world the life to which the world is called; to proclaim the world which is to come.

One can be an acolyte of the status quo, living a moral death, without knowing it.  There are humans who know of no alternative to existence other than being a vassal, a subject of the powers that be (as in the phrase: “we must all support the present leader”).  There are those  who actually define their humanity as nonhuman or subhuman loyalty to the interests of a particular person or party.  There are humans willing to become automatons in order to be re-elected.  There are people who are programed and propagandized, conditioned and conformed, manipulated and cajoled into robots—caught up in mob hysteria.  There are people (and children) whose humanity is jeopardized,  humiliated, marginalized, and denigrated by a government supposedly “of the people, by the people, for the people.” 

I protest, I rant and rave, and I resist the status quo (the present darkness), because I not only want to be more fully human myself, but because I want every person to become more fully human, rather than acolytes of the status quo. 

Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses
yearning to be free.