94

Chapter V

THE CHURCH IN A STRUGGLING SOCIETY: SOME SUGGESTIONS FROM THE PROTESTANT PAST

The Icon and the People's March

Tempo News In a Flash is not known for its breadth of news coverage or for the depth of its news analysis. As one among very many tabloids that predominate in our newsstands in recent times, it tells us that photographs really speak much better and much louder than words. And if many of us would not say that we believe that in theory, many of us nevertheless believe it in practice. Tempo, after all, sells more than the more serious and sedate newspapers in circulation, and the reason for that, I suspect, is Tempo's photographs, and I mean especially the ones that appear in its centerfold. As I am sure most of us know, some of the most attractive people in our entertainment world appear regularly in that centerfold, and when they do, they are never in the most prudent of dresses, if they are dressed at all, but always in the skimpiest of attires that titillate the imagination about what lies in those small areas of human flesh that are covered.

I also suspect that because of our attraction to Tempo's centerfold, many of us did not notice a prominent and striking photograph that appeared on the front page of the May 7, 1984 issue. If indeed photographs speak better than words, then that photograph succinctly but decisively conveyed the point that photographs also speak better than theological words. That photograph was of the icon of the suffering Christ, being prepared for the Ash Wednesday activities, taken

95

within the backdrop of the people's march (the Lakad para sa kalayaan ng Bayan, or Lakbayan in short) as that now historic march entered the Metro Manila area. At the time that photograph was taken, the Lakbayan marchers have walked close to 200 kilometers, and the etches of pain and fatigue but equally of grim determination and courage showed clearly in the marchers' faces.

All of us by now should know what that march was all about. Like the 'Tarlac to tarmac" run that was held earlier to dramatize the call to ignore the National plebiscite that was held on January 27, the lakbayan was held to dramatize the call to boycott the forthcoming May 14 elections and to express indignation over the current state of affairs in the country. The endurance that the two columns of the march, one coming from the south and the other coming from the north, called for and the experience of pain and suffering that the marchers went through — including and especially the harassment that came from the military — made many compare the march to that equally historic "salt march" that was led by Mahatma Gandhi to protest and disobey the monopoly and taxation of salt by the British colonizers in India. Starting from a point that was some 200 miles inland, Gandhi led the "salt marchers" in a peaceful but militant trek through many villages to the sea — picking up marchers along the way — and then upon reaching the sea scooped salt-water from it and declared the salt belonged to the Indian people.

The Lakbayan did not quite end up in the sea, only by the seashore at the Luneta park in Manila, but it took on so many of the qualities of the Gandhian example: the participation of so many poor people, the endurance and the suffering along the way, the harassment and the threat from the powers, the peaceful but militant determination, and the very unequivocal declaration of civil disobedience to an uncivil regime. And it was a manifest

96

affirmation that this country and its resources still belong to its people.

What else really can we say of that march that culminated in that dramatic demonstration of protest and struggle at the Luneta that that Tempo picture did not already say? There have been in times past many ways by which the religious quest of Christianity and the meaning of Christian faith and spirituality have been summarily described and symbolized. There are in our contemporary religious life the very many religious holidays and commemorative events that presumably give focus to our religious quest and commitment, the very many calls to religious pilgrimage to various objects of devotion and adoration, and the very many sacrifices of time and resources that we are asked to give for so many presumably worthy religious causes. After Ash Wednesday, and during the Lenten season, we are reminded that whatever else the Christian quest is about it is about where we might find and locate the suffering Christ — where in short in our contemporary experience we might identify the passion of our Lord and be with him in that passion for the redemption of our world. For some the passion of our Lord remains a matter that is experienced in the inner recesses of individual guilt and suffering, and while not many will go through the extremes of physical flagellation to expiate that sense of sin and guilt, many will think that one can recall that passion through some form of personal sacrifice and spiritual flagellation. Several days of no usual movies, no meat, no nightclubbing, and the endless showing of 'The Robe," and of the life of "Jesus of Nazareth," and several more days of showing ultra-religious concern starting with the darkened services of Good Friday evening, and culminating with an early morning wake for the Easter Sunrise service — that is what it means to recall and experience the passion and suffering of our Lord. That Tempo photographer, I think, understands the Christian

97

message a little bit better when he or she suggests that the suffering Christ is best found in the midst of a suffering people and that the passion of the Messiah is best understood as the passion of a suffering and oppressed people for their freedom and liberty.

The Lakbayan manifesto looks at the history of the Filipino people as a long march to freedom and dignity. There have been glorious episodes in that long march, as there have been periods of great frustration and ignominy. But the march continues; it must, as a matter of fact, continue if the quest for freedom and justice is to continue and does not become stunted in the cosmetic proposals and machinations of the powers. Lakbayan in this sense is an icon of that undying quest of a people, and it is, in my view, appropriate that the icon of the suffering Christ be put against the backdrop of that march. I, for one, do not think that there would have been a crucifixion had there not been an identification between the Christ and the suffering of his people, and had there not been an antithesis between Divine purpose and the projections and programs of those who rule.

When the history of this country and of its people during the last decade and of the coming decades will be written, what will historians write about as the salient point of these times? Will it be about the Cultural Center of the Philippines and its presumably creative architectural facade? Will it be about the "Green Revolution", and more recently the 'Tangerine Revolution" and their supposedly beautiful and compassionate patroness and promoter? Will it be about Van Cliburn and his piano playing on Philippine soil, or about George Hamilton and his appearances before Filipino audiences? Will it be about the Manila Film Festival and the showing of such pornographies as Virgin People so that the money earned from a de-Virginized population would be enough to bring the likes of Brooks Shields to grace the occasion? Will it be about government projects such as

98

Masagana 99, or Biyayang Dagat, or KKK, or Sariling Sikap? Will it be about the building of the great "Marcos highway" and the great Marcos stone-face, several stories high, that adorns it?

Much of course will depend on who the historians will be. If, however, the historian will be one who is embued with the passion and the spirit which is symbolized in the icon for the suffering Christ, I am sure that history will be about the murder that took place on August 21, and of the massive outpouring of popular anger and anguish that manifested itself at the murdered man's funeral. It will be about the pouring of "yellow rain" and the march of yellow-clad people on various avenues and highways of the country. It will be about the "First Quarter Storm" and the days of "disquiet and nights of rage" that constituted it. It will be about Dulag Macliing, and about Bobby de la Paz. It will be about priests, nuns and pastors who went through mock trials because they refused service to the powers but instead gave testimony to their "preferential solidary option with the poor." It will be about the runners who were stopped at Meycauayan, and the hundreds of thousands of people who gave them spontaneous support. It will be about the People's March for Freedom and the quest which it symbolized. And it will be about farmers and workers who were never cowed, but who gave defiance to their oppressors, and then who died quietly in the night, never to be heard from anymore, but whose testimony of courage and conviction spoke more loudly than any words that could have been spoken in the public forums of this land.

It will, in short, be about people and their suffering, but above all, about people and their struggle to be free, about their indomitable spirit and their amazing resourcefulness, about their persisting conviction that this country's history is theirs to make and theirs to determine, and about their hope that in making that

99

history and in refusing others to make it for them, they become truly a people.

The Protestant Heritage As Courage and Conviction

Where, we want to ask the question, will Protestants be in that history? To use the words of a well-known song, "where," we ask, "have all the Protestants gone?"

Protestantism emerged precisely at a critical and hinge-point in the history of the modern world where not only society but also the Church was confronted by the winds of drastic change. Much can be said about the early protestants, about the doctrines they spoused, about the new perceptions of ecclesiastical order and structure they discovered, about .the contributions they made to the culture of modernity, and about the new understanding of the Christian life and of Christian piety they pursued. For purposes of our historical reference however, I want to draw attention to one fact that is often forgotten even by us who call ourselves Protestants: that fact is what I call the fact of "Protestant courage."

Look again, if you may, at the structure and order of medieval society and of the medieval church, how entrenched the traditional powers have become in that order, how so beautifully intertwined the power of the sword and the power of the "word" of God have become so that temporal power was sanctified by divine ordinance and kings ruled with divine rights. Look again at the power and influence of the Papacy, of the divine claims and authority it had made for itself so that it assumed the capacity to determine "life on earth" and "life in heaven" and had under its command the military might of temporal rulers. How in this context can we look at Martin Luther and the other reformers save as they were an expression of the highest profiles in courage and firmness over a conviction that had been drawn and

100

a direction that had been charted in the deepest recesses of faith? After taking the decisive step to go against the papal condemnation that was issued against him in the bull Exsurge Domine, and well aware of the gravity of such a decision, Luther wrote,

The time for silence is over, and the time for speech has come... I must act, according to the proverb: 'A Monk must be in it whatever the world is doing, even if he has to be painted in.' A fool often says wise things, and frequently sages speak very foolishly... I am glad that I have the opportunity to fulfill my oath even in the guise of a fool.

Again, when the young Charles V, heir of all the domains of the House of Hapsburg, allowed Luther to appear before the imperial Diet assembled in Worms so that he might have one last opportunity to disavow his ideas, and when in that assembly he was asked pointedly, "Do you retract, Yes or No...? Luther replied,

Since your Majesty and your hardships ask for a plain answer, I shall give one with neither horn nor teeth... I am bound by my conscience and captive of the Word of God... Consequently, I cannot and will not retract, because it is not right or safe to go against conscience. God help me. Amen.

"Captivity to the Word of God," to use Luther’s phrase, was the anchor on which Protestant reform was hinged and on which Protestant criticism was so strongly posed by our Protestant forebears not only against the Church but also against the follies of the social and political order. There must have been subjective elements in that "captivity" and yet when one looks again at the whole gamut of the Lutheran perspective, it

101

is clear that the root of his protest and the courage and firmness with which he challenged both ecclesiastical and secular powers was not primarily subjective. There was an objective linchpin that held, both courageous act and critical theory together and that linchpin was the Word of god. Indeed, if there is one principle, or one concept, or perhaps better, one reality, by which we might sum up both the spirit and the substance of the Reformation, that principle or concept is the Word of God. Luther and the other Reformers rediscovered the majestic power and overwhelming authority of the Word of God and became fixated to and captives of that Word. Before that Word all other words were secondary, and before the majestic power of that word all other powers became relative. Popes and councils, priests and princes became subject to the critical and piercing power of this new criterion of truth and the Christian life. The Word of God, as it were, stood as a permanent critical principle and source of reform and renewal, constantly cutting into the Church's complacency, pretentiousness, recurring apostasy, and insipient sense of self-importance.

The critical protest which this impelled against the medieval Church is well-known to us; they have been driven home so strongly into our heads by our Protestant mentors as in the beginnings of Protestant work in this country Protestant identity was defined over-against the entrenched Roman Catholic majority and against what was considered the Roman Catholic "heresy." The protest which this critical principle posed against society and the secular powers has not been as well-known, and has not been well-learned by us. Thus, we have often been told that the Reformation was essentially and primarily a theological and religious event, and we have not, as a result, given enough attention to its political, economic and cultural impact, and more specifically to the Protestant Reformers' biting — and very direct — protests against the incumbent economic

102

and social arrangement of things and the sources out of which such social criticism and political protest emerged. When, for example, Duke Georg of Saxony tried to ban the circulation of the New Testament in order to stem the tide of the evangelical movement across his domain, Luther admonised him strongly in a manner that struck deeply at the issue of tyrannical rule:

My Lord, I owe you obedience in respect of my body and my property. Give me orders within the limits of your worldly powers, and I shall obey. But if you order me to believe, or to reject books, I shall not obey you, for then your behaviour is that of a tyrant, you are exceeding your rights and giving order in a sphere to which neither your jurisdiction nor your power extends.

The Duke, in short, even if the Christian is obligated to give him respect, must not intervene into the realms of religious belief. He can not prescribe what should or should not be read for the nurture of that belief, and he can not even begin to think that it is within his powers to indicate what is to be believed, how faith should be lived in the world, and which "religion" is true. When the Duke starts doing this, he becomes a tyrant, and tyranny is against the Word of God. The Christian, therefore, can not and must not obey him.

Luther's harsh judgments on the economic order were even stronger, more direct and more stinging. In his An Exhortation to the Pastors to Preach Against Usury, Luther struck very hard at those who say that pastors and religious workers should only deal with "religious" matters, and preachers should not in their preaching wander into the realms of economic and social life:

These matters (referring to usury) are legal and lawyers ought to teach them. But lawyers are not

103

preachers and their knowledge remains in their books, dead and buried, so that it does not sound loud and high amongst ordinary people. We preachers must therefore talk and exhort on these matters if we do not want to be antinomians and, with the world, go to the devil for the sake of other people's sins. Even lawyers are not excused

In other words, it is the responsibility and duty of the lawyers, and one might add, the economists, the social scientists, and the politicians, to expose and oppose injustice incurred on people. But if they fail, the Church can not and must not remain silent. The formulation of political opinion, in this sense, is not an extravagant hobby that pastors and priests may take at their leisure, if they want. The Word of God would be truncated if injustice is allowed to flourish without opposition, so that it is integral to the task of preaching that Word that unjust works must be spoken against.

His words against those who practice usury which, in his time was not only the specific practice of certain individuals but also the representative expression of the prevalent structure of economic injustice, was as strong as it could be:

If you know for sure that a person is a usurer you must not give him communion nor forgive him his sins if he does not repent of his usury. Otherwise you make yourself party to his usury and his sin and you will go to hell for somebody else's sin... You ought to let him remain a heathen in death and not to bury him amongst Christians. . .Since he is a usurer and an idol-worshipper who serves Mammon he does not believe in Christ and cannot therefore receive forgiveness for his sins or be allowed to live in the community of saints. He has turned aside to condemnation and

104

damnation so long as he does not recognize his sin and repent.

The full powers of the Church, in other words, must be lined up against the perpetrators of economic injustice, and against those who mistreat and make money out of their fellow-human-beings. They can not and must not be given the benefits of the Christian community, and must be cast aside from the Communion of the Saints, unless they repent of their sins and change their ways. Can anyone at any time, or in our time, be stronger in his or her condemnation of a practice of economic injustice than this? Which bishop in our present situation would dare say harsh words like this? Perhaps we cannot expect such harshness from bishops and archbishops, but only from reformers. Reformers are "lunatics," while bishops are the "shepherds", of their flock. But if there are some Christian "lunatics" among us, who feel like saying words to the same effect, take heart; this old-fashioned Protestant Reformer of the sixteenth century uttered them already. You are, in short, in good company!

Luther's passion for justice reminds us of the Old Testament prophets who he constantly cites:

Who suffers first when exhorbitant interest is charged? Is it wholly the poor? Because of your usury the poor are deprived of every penny and every crumb since by your usury prices increase and everything becomes unreasonably expensive. Who suffered by usury in Nehemiah 5 when the poor finally had to sell house and home, vineyards and fields and every thing they had including their children in order to pay the usurers? Even if the rich can survive and pay increased prices caused by your usury the poor cannot manage. Even with the hardest labour the poor man cannot earn enough to buy bread for himself

105

and his children since you increase prices and make everything more expensive by your usury.

Of course, times have changed. In our time, there are not only individual usurers; there are also institutional ones. And what these institutions do is no longer called usury. It is called "rescheduling" and "devaluation." As in Luther's time, however, the economic devastation which these create, especially among the poor, is equally staggering, if not more staggering than Luther could ever have imagined. And what do we say to them? Our officials tell us to be patient, for through the beneficence of these same institutions, economic recovery is around the comer. Let us therefore show cooperation and give stability to our political life.

For Luther, the tirade against usury and economic injustice and his comments on political questions were matters of profound theological significance. Though he was always cautious about the fact that a monk like him does not become suspect of aspiring for secular political power and that his call for reformation does not become considered a form of political rebellion against the established powers, he nevertheless also saw that economic and political questions belong to the purview of theological concern because economic and political practice embody in the practical realm one's answer to the question "who is your God?" "What does it mean to have a god, or what is God?" he asked in the Large Catechism. He proceeds to answer the question: 'Trust and faith of the heart alone make both God and idol. . .for the two, faith and God, hold close together. Whatever then the heart clings to... and relies upon, this properly is thy God."

Your God, in short, is where your heart is. The usurer who misuses his or her fellow-human being's plight in order to earn money for himself or herself is, 'in this sense, committing not only a crime against humanity

106

and society; he or she has put his or her heart elsewhere than in the God and Father of Jesus Christ. The usurer is an idol-worshipper who has placed himself or herself outside the believing community because in his or her economic practice he or she has shown faith in Mammon rather than in the God whose Word is Jesus Christ. The economic and the political arena, in short, can become and does become the practical expression of idolatry and the embodiment of unfaith. The Word of God stands against such idolatry and against the tyranny and injustice which such idolatry entails.

One can go on. Suffice it to say that whatever else we might say about Luther and the reformers of the sixteenth century, we certainly must say above all and recognize that they were people of the highest courage and the firmest of conviction. Believing as they did that their life and their faith have been anchored in the Word of God rather than the words of any man, whether king or pope, they stood up when it would have been more comfortable to fall down on bended knees. They were not unreasonable and impractical people, but they knew exactly where the demarcation lines were between compromise and conviction, between pompous drift and firm commitment, between opportunism and faithful obedience, between adjustment and unequivocation. They were not perfect and sinless people, but they knew when it was time to stand, and when that time came, they stood up. And because they stood up, they could leave behind a legacy of faith that must continue to put pressure upon us in these times in which we are also being asked to stand and put courage ahead of compromise and drift.

Albert Camus, the supposed unbeliever and agnostic, pointed out to the Dominicans of his time (and that was not too long ago) when he was asked to address them that what is expected of them and of Christians in general is to say firmly and clearly what they were

107

willing to do and to invest their lives in the midst of the bloodstained face of humanity in their time, so that not any bit of doubt would arise in anyone who hears them. We are fast reaching the time, if we have not reached it already, when we must face the challenge which Camus posed to the believers of his time. And as Camus has suggested, the answer which the world and or people expect of us is an answer that is less a matter of theological precision and pious pretension as it is a matter of religious courage and clarity of action. For such an answer, the legacy of the early Protestants give us much inspiration and insight. Who, we might ask today, is capable of such virtue?

On Protestant Docility in the Present

If courage and conviction were, however, the hallmarks of the Protestant legacy, they are not necessarily the characteristic qualities of contemporary Protestant historical reality. The obvious contradiction is so marked between the courageous legacy and the contemporary record that a Catholic friend remarked rather pointedly that seen in the context of contemporary history, Protestantism is less an expression of religious clarity and courage and more of pious docility.

It has been said, and I think with a tremendous amount of truth, that theologies usually emerge out of Europe, get disfigured in America, and arrive in the Philippines in totally unrecognizable and garbled form. That in a sense is what happened to Protestantism as it arrived in our shores. Transplanted as it were into the "New World" of America less as a result of religious mission as it was of political expediency, it was disfigured further as it became entangled in the motivations for the conquests of the "new frontiers" of the American continent and for the new sense of "manifest destiny" and the sense of "providential mission" that became

108

major religious components of the expansion of the new American nation. Individual piety and self-righteousness, considered so important m the life of the "frontiers" became its primal characteristics, and "revivalism" became its primal mode of missionary operation. Even a relatively conservative Church historian like Gerald Anderson admits that the sense of a "providential design" and "manifest destiny" for the American nation was a very pronounced component of Protestant mission as it touched upon Philippine soil. The American spirit and the American way of life became the political and social conditio sine qua non of Protestant arrival in the Philippines, and the searing critical component of the Protestant spirit with its prophetic protest against any form of idolatry in social and political life became lost in the inordinate passion for individual salvation and piety.

One does not need to go very far back in time or very far away in space m order to give evidence of what a Roman Catholic writer refers to as the "Janus-faced" quality of Protestantism in the Philippines. Just a brief look at some of the actions of the National Council of Churches in the Philippines (NCCP), an organization already considered by many as too radical, and one can find ample illustrations here. During the Fourth General Assembly of the NCCP in 1969, the Student Christian Movement of the Philippines proposed the addition of a paragraph to the statement of social concerns that was then before the Assembly. The paragraph read,

Historically, Christianity has played a conservative role in our society. For several hundred years the Church has identified with the colonial ruler serving as propagandist and tranquilizer to pacify the rebellious. Christianity has become a captive of culture. Instead of transforming culture its prophecy has been reduced to pious nonsense and the call to

109

radical transformation of men and nations has become a vapid revivalism and a sterile exhortation to become do-gooders.

The paragraph was considered "too strong" by Assembly, and it triggered the feeling that its approval would cause no less than a disintegration of the NCCP. The Assembly then finally considered as its social concerns the following: population and family planning, agricultural development, urbanization and industrialization, employment and manpower training, cultural minorities, and a vague reference to "political responsibility." Fairly docile, one might say.

And yet six months later, the Executive Committee issues a 15-point statement entitled An Urgent Protest. Quite prophetic, one might add.

Dr. Alvaro Carino, summing up the biennium during the Fifth General Assembly in 1973 said,

If you read the essays and review the many state ments of concerns written during the pre-Martial Law period, you will be impressed by the dynamic influence of the Church on our leaders. I have the impression that today (with the declaration of Martial Law) the Church has quietened down as if it were afraid to speak up. It is behaving as if cowed down by a superior force that would threaten its existence...

Two years later in 1975, at the next General Assembly, Bishop Macario Ga proposed for adoption the "NCCP Resolution of confidence in the Leadership of His Excellency President Ferdinand Marcos of the Philippines" and the "NCCP's Pledge of Full Cooperation and Support to the Goals of the New Society." Over the objections of Bishop Pedro Raterta and a few others, the convention adopted the resolution in principle. On

110

July 26, 1976, the Executive Committee said that the "Spirit of the proposed resolution is already embodied in the NCCP Statement on Church-State Relations."

The "NCCP Statement on Church-State Relations" said among other things that "we should look beyond the perspective of industry and socio-political system or the demands of third-world peoples for a new social order that would satisfy the needs of social justice... In view of the conviction that no form and initiative of the State is perfect as to be beyond criticism and reproach, they (the Churches) may have to express their cooperation with the State through rational criticism and prophetic judgment."

What can we say about such warped posturing beyond the fact that it is so obviously hesitating in its prophetic testimony, if and when it attempted any at all? Hesitating prophetic here, but mostly docile there. Again, as my Catholic friend points out clearly, one is caught in a hopeless "hopping game" if one is to follow the directions implied in these statements.

We can of course say that the NCCP has become a bit more firm since then, and perhaps a bit more identifiable than it was in 1975. The statement on reconciliation which its officers released recently speaks unequivocably of the depth of decadence that has invaded the social and political fabric, of the need for discovering the root causes of such decadence, and for listening and responding to the true aspirations of the Filipino people, which one presumes is different from if not antithetical to the cosmetic programs of the current regime. But that statement, as all of us know, was challenged by the Bishops of the Methodist Church who came out with their own statement seeking a "Balm in Gilead" for our troubles, and proposing a National Council of Renewal, out of whose work clean and honest elections are to be held, under the auspices of the President and of the Commission on Elections, so that a successor to the

111

President, who may be himself, may be chosen and a peaceful and orderly transition can take place from our present troubled political condition. That proposal was made after the Bishops expounded and waxed eloquently on the radical demands of the Gospel, and after they had castigated and lectured those whom they considered to be "confrontationists" for their irrationality and unclarity of purpose and analysis. As in Methodist meetings, in other words, where tensions are aborted by praying them over and then assigning them to Committees, so also in political life social and political revolutions are given theological lectures and then channelled to conciliar meetings for peaceful and orderly resolution.

What can we say of such theological and political posturing other than that it is some kind of a religious hop, skip and jump? Max Weber, the noted German sociologist, pointed out at the beginning of this century that the Protestant ethic, with its emphasis on the divine character of secular vocation, personal discipline in work, and thrift in the use of material resources provided the religious component and underpinning for the rise of the "spirit" of capitalism. If all that Protestantism is about is what Weber said, then it is true what another noted German thinker has postulated that we have come to the end of the "Protestant era," and that it is but natural that such an ethic provide in our time the technocrats of the "New Society." Then it is also true what my Roman Catholic friend, to refer to him again, said, namely, that embedded in between the Protestant spirit, there is in the Protestant tradition, a hidden demonic element that makes of protestants natural "hoppers" and "jumpers" in the political arena, prophetic now, but docile then, and probably most of the time.

Of What Protestant Stock Are We Made?

A few weeks ago, a group of theologians called the

112

'Theologians for Renewal, Unity and Social Transformation," THRUST in short, met and drafted a theological manifesto "On Boycott." The manifesto takes off from the testimony of three men, recorded in the Book of Daniel, who refused to obey the king's command because they perceived that that command, enticing and threatening as it was, was an embodiment of the king's attempt to make of himself into a god, and arrogate to himself what belongs only to God. The Plebiscite and the May Elections, the theologians go on to say, are a plastic form of "image-making," where neither the will and the predicament of the people, nor the purposes of God are served. Like Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego in the Book of Daniel, and like Peter and the Apostles, and one might add, like the Protestants of old, the Christian in our time is therefore constrained to say, "We must obey God rather than men" and ignore the "king's" command to vote.

Whether one agrees or goes with the call of that manifesto or not, one must recognize that the declaration "we must obey God rather than men" is what is at the heart of the Protestant principle. Beyond the various expressions of Protestant doctrine and Protestant life lies this salient Protestant principle that no human institution or human being can arrogate to himself that unconditioned loyalty and obedience which is consonant only to one's relationship with God. The Protestant principle therefore is an unceasing prophetic protest against any form of idolatry in social, political and economic life, so that those who call themselves "Protestants" must constantly be on guard against the pretensions of any human ruler or human social institution. Our time is such that such a prophetic protest is not only needed, but urgently demanded. The Protestant future depends a lot on our capacity and willingness, and, I might add, our courage, to say "No" to our pretentious rulers. It is only when that "No" is

113

clearly and unequivocably uttered and lived that a new beginning for our country and people can start.

One can go further. At the time of the Protestant Reformation of the sixteenth century, a Protestant reformer by the name of Thomas Muntzer picked up the theological teachings of Martin Luther and concluded that if one took those teachings seriously their only political consequence would be that one should join the German peasants in the Black Forest and give support to their aspiration of dismantling the very structures of feudalism in Germany. With the advise and consent of Muntzer, the German peasants drafted what had become known as the Twelve Articles of the Swabian League, three of which are the following:

1. A whole congregation must have the power to appoint and remove its own minister;

2. Tithes, e.g., the taxes paid for the Church, must be shared between parish-priest and the poor; the remainder to be reserved for the needs of the country;

3. No one should be a serf because Christ has made us all free.

The proposals do not look that drastic, but if you look again and look hard enough, you will notice that these proposals were a direct call for the dismantling of the economic order by which the German nation had been supported and within which the German Church had existed. Luther saw that, and could not stomach the radicality of the German peasantry. With Luther's blessings, the German princes unleashed the full force of their military power towards the German peasant movement and massacred the peasants in a major battle in May, 1525. Muntzer, who fought on the side of the

114

peasants, was captured, imprisoned, tortured and then beheaded.

The Protestant heritage we have received in this country has made us tangentially aware of Luther, and John Calvin, and John Knox. It certainly made us sc conscious of Billy Graham and the great evangelists of the American revival circuit. But we have hardly heard of Muntzer and of his radical reformation. Muntzer, we are taught, is a heretic, and our Protestant mentors have consigned him to the forgotten pages of Protestant history.

I am increasingly of the opinion that the Protestant future in this country can be built only with a reassessment of that heretical tradition that has been buried wit! Muntzer. I am increasingly of the opinion, too, that that is the only remaining way by which we can give sub stance to our "preferential solidary option" with the poor. Whether we have the courage to take that option o not is a matter that remains to be seen. It is meanwhile imperative that we look at ourselves squarely, and ask the question "Of what Protestant stock are we made? Are we going to be masters in hopping, skipping and jumping in the political arena, or are we going to be witnesses of "Protestant courage and conviction" as our Protestant forebears were? Can we be, like Muntzer Protestants for the people, and for the people's liberation?