The works of Eric Voegelin (1901-1985) are the most challenging and rewarding of any philosophical studies I’ve ever confronted. For those of you wondering why Voegelin wasn’t profiled in my short-lived first run at a Weekly Sage column, my answer would be that his contributions to thought and literature earned much more than a single week’s treatment. If you are looking for something to read in these uncertain pandemic times (apart from the Scriptures of course), I recommend Voegelin as your Philosopher of the Year – take a peek at Science, Politics, and Gnosticism to start.

While his overall corpus is very complex, some of Voegelin’s ideas are very simple, and one of them drove me to this post today. He argued that “resistance to untruth is the specific origin of the search for truth,” and it is that insight, along with this morning’s confrontation with what I found to be a stark untruth that required me doing a bit of digging today.[1] Here I present to you the story of that digging.

Some of you may know that the NBA resumed games on Friday, with a new leaguewide commitment to allowing and promoting statements about American society. Many players engaged in such a statement by kneeling during the national anthem. As of this afternoon, only one player stood. Jonathan Isaac, a 22-year old, 6’11 forward from Florida State University, having played for the Orlando Magic since 2017, neither knelt nor wore a Black Lives Matter T-shirt. His explanation? His faith offered a different solution to our social problems: “Black lives are supported through the gospel.”[2]

Naturally, Isaac’s stand led to some criticism, including a piece by a writer for Yahoo Sports that contained what struck me as a profound untruth. In the sharply critical piece, the author confronted Isaac’s explanation head-on, asking “what did the gospel have to do with a killing on video, a man having his neck being kneeled on for eight minutes, 46 seconds, or a woman being shot multiple times on a no-knock warrant?” The question was presented as unanswerable. Isaac was only “using religion to avoid an intellectual conversation.” The author compared Isaac’s statement to committing minor criminal activities, calling the athlete’s explanation “dangerous.” While the sportswriter did not go into depth, these statements and others were meant to answer the question he directed at Isaac: the gospel has nothing to do with a killing on video, a man having his neck being kneeled on for eight minutes, 46 seconds, or a woman being shot multiple times on a no-knock warrant.

I probably shouldn’t have been surprised at the author’s sentiment, but I was just the same. When confronting what appeared so strongly to me as untruth, I was drawn to three places in the Scriptures.[3] First, beginning with what the Gospel is, Paul’s description in 1 Corinthians 15 stood out: “that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, and then to the Twelve.” At first glance, while the Gospel does appear as the good news of Christ’s perfect sacrifice for our sins (elucidated in the Scriptures Paul alluded to), the substance of the Gospel appears to be distant from our own time, pertaining to people and writings of long ago. How could such a message be relevant to the age of organized police forces and Internet video conjured by the author criticizing Jonathan Isaac’s Gospel-forward stance?

Fortunately, on many occasions, the Bible not only presents its audience with a teaching, but also demonstrates how to interpret the teaching, which is where the other two passages entered the picture. In Acts 2, when Peter gives a sermon presenting the Gospel message as Paul would later outline it, but in more detail and Scripture-integrating specificity, the narrative ends with a confrontation. In verses 36-41, Peter accuses his audience of a crime – a spiritual wrong: having killed an innocent man, “this Jesus…Lord and Messiah.” As the crowd recognized their guilt, they asked Peter what to do. In other words, what does the Gospel demand? What does it require of those who recognize its truth and believe it? Peter responded by calling for repentance and baptism, a wholehearted turning away from wrongdoing, recognizing the corruptness of their generation, or the sin permeating their society.

Peter not only presented the Gospel, but presented it in such a way that it condemned not only the killing of Christ Jesus, but also wrongful practices current to the audience, demanding an end of those practices on the part of those who believe. He met affirmingly his audience’s assumption that the Gospel had something to do with how to live. But Peter’s general appeal, attacking centuries-old evils still seems distant from our time. Does the Gospel really mean action on our part, today?

The third passage I dug into is the most direct. In the book of Philemon, we have an insight into more concrete and personal grappling with these questions. I’m sure you are all familiar with the story of Paul’s letter to a believing master whose runaway slave, Onesimus, had come to faith in Christ. I was as well, but some elements of Paul’s appeal stood out to me on this occasion. As you probably know, Paul did not give a point-by-point argument that slavery was wrong. Instead, he called Philemon’s attention to his conversion, seemingly with Paul’s involvement. “If he [Onesimus] has wronged you at all, or owes you anything, charge that to my account. I, Paul, write this with my own hand: I will repay it – to say nothing of your owing me even your own self.” Paul here does not divorce the material reality [perhaps Onesimus took some of Philemon’s money to aid in escape] from the spiritual reality of Philemon’s spiritual debt to Paul. He was calling Philemon to live differently in the material world, with regard to the inequalities common to his society, in light of the gospel, setting aside Philemon’s own apparent worldly-material good for the good of Onesimus.

 Indeed, a sentence to that very effect follows immediately on the quoted passage above. With gut-wrenching force, Paul wrote, “Yes, brother, I want some benefit from you in the Lord.” I want you to put your repentance into practice, Paul said. Using your gifts and position, set the corrupt society called out by Peter on its head. Unmake it, by concrete action, in light of the Gospel. Do something that demonstrates and is explained by your being in the Lord.

Now, we might wish that Paul had given Philemon something more like the Declaration of Independence – a straightforward proclamation of human equality and rights. This would be more abstract and therefore more applicable. None of us have recently had a runaway slave convert to Christianity, but any of us can easily believe in human equality and rights. However, by being more abstract, the Declaration of Independence is also less demanding than Paul’s moral injunctions. The Declaration’s author could believe beautiful and broadly applicable things, without actually being led to the action of freeing his slaves on the spot. By contrast, Paul required Philemon to match faith with action. Based on Philemon’s conversion, Paul called for a Gospel-forward life. The apostle expected the Gospel to influence Philemon’s approach to inequality and social institutions. Why should we expect any less of ourselves?

It appears to me, then, that the Gospel does have quite a lot to do with a killing on video, a man having his neck being kneeled on for eight minutes, 46 seconds, or a woman being shot multiple times on a no-knock warrant. The Gospel requires concrete action, from each one of us, as we reflect on the debts-demands of our own conversion and the resource-options of our God-given position. I don’t know you as Paul knew Philemon – your conversion story, personal means, life circumstances, and spiritual condition are beyond me. But in my case, today, for a start, the Gospel required my attention and my words – in defense of the importance of our Christianity to our conduct in the world around us. Thank you, Jonathan Isaac, for putting the Gospel first in your choices and reminding me that my conversion must not be boxed up, but applied in an active, ongoing interaction with the world as God leads.  

[1] Ellis Sandoz, “Introduction,” in The Collected Works of Erich Voegelin: Volume 18: Order and History, ed. Paul Caringella, Jurgen Gebhardt, Thomas A. Hollweck, and Ellis Sandoz (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 2000), 5:17.

[2] (That was the kernel – his explanation was much longer and is worth looking up online.)  

[3] I wonder what some of you thought of the sportswriter’s statements as I have presented them. Did any of you not find them such a strong untruth as I did? Or did other passages come to mind different from my own?