Salt of the Times
What does it mean to be the salt of the earth in today's political landscape?
You are the salt of the earth. (Matthew 5:13)
Jesus faced a big problem:
“God had called Israel to be the salt of the earth; but Israel was behaving like everyone else, with its power politics, its factional squabbling, its militant revolution. How could God keep the world from going bad—the main function of salt in the ancient world—if Israel, his chosen ‘salt’, had lost its distinctive taste?”
Matthew for Everyone, N.T. Wright
What happens when Christians in 2024 trade their kingdom-saltiness for a porridge-bowl of supposed political power?
When Jesus says to the crowd on the hill that Christians are called to be the salt of the earth, he is calling them to become agents of the kingdom. He points to a job description that focuses on preserving the good, true, and beautiful elements of creation. When we accept this job description, we simultaneously counteract moral decay and corruption in a way that is good for all humanity. Everyone experiences good when neighbors and enemies are loved. Love causes us to cherish and treasure others, automatically ruling out theft, betrayal, bodily harm, etc.
What on Earth?
Jesus describes his followers as salt of the earth. What did Jesus have in mind when he said the word earth? It commonly means land, ground, or soil. But it also implies era, arena, or space and time. Those words remind us of cultural and historical contexts.
In turn, we are alerted to something vital: Christians are not called to be salt of the good times, when economies roar and peace reigns, our team wins the championship, our car is new, our house is decorated just right, our political party is in power, and our candidate is elected.
Instead, Christians are called to be salt in our current moment. This means we are present to, and interact with, whatever is real right now. As prominent scholar Walter Elwell puts it in the Evangelical Dictionary of Theology:
…It is impossible to commit oneself to Christ in isolation from our culture. A measure of solidarity with our environment is inevitable; we are products of it and as Christians we are responsible to it as salt and light…[this] commitment to God frees us from subservience to lesser principles [of culture] and helps us keep [these lesser principles] in proper perspective.
Is Saltiness Looking for a Fight?
In contrast to much of the violent rhetoric we hear today, I’ve never heard anyone accuse salt of being a bully. Whatever Jesus meant by salt, he did not mean force or manipulation. We must come to trust that salt has its effect without adding our anxious, fear-based behaviors to it. A respected missiologist describes it this way:
Our Lord’s metaphors for his community of witness were all of them modest ones: a little salt, a little yeast, a little light. Christendom tried to be great, large and magnificent. It thought itself the object of God’s expansive grace; it forgot the meaning of its election to worldly responsibility.
The End of Christendom and the Future of Christianity, Douglas John Hall
As salt, the role of the Church is to stay connected to our world and our times, assisting and nourishing it to fruitful health. We are not called to fling poisonous weed killer around as a tactic in a culture war against our neighbors. The kingdom is an alternative culture, but not the rationale for creating a battlefield in the culture wars. The Church too often mimics rhetoric like, “Own the libs!” or “Down with some rightwing politician.” As esteemed historian George Marsden clarifies in The Twilight of American Enlightenment,
We cannot go back to either a secular enlightenment or a Christian consensus…and the culture-war stances are not helpful alternatives.
In his day, Jesus knew that the popular social, political, and religious schemes on offer would lead Israel further astray from their calling to be the world-healing, redemptive people of God. Jesus led Israel to a wholly different self-identity and way of practicing their religion. He helped them become salt.
Likewise, modern-day Christians are called to a different identity. We cultivate saltiness in worship, prayer, and the study of scripture. Then we pour ourselves out for the sake of others in the manner of Jesus–who was capital S salt:
Eugene Peterson in Tell it Slant memorably describes Jesus’ style:
When it comes to doing something about what is wrong in the world, Jesus is best known for his fondness for the minute, the invisible, the quiet, the slow – yeast, salt, seeds, light. And manure.
Hi Chris, you ask a super important question to which there is no short answer. The best recent treatment of the topic is Michael Wear's "The Spirit of Our Politics". If you don't have the inclination to read a whole book you can find summaries and reviews online which will give you his main points. From me, in brief: we do not abandon culture/politics--we engage from a distinctly Christlike/kingdom point of view.
Can you think of a good balance for political involvement? If we are pacifists, then it seems we allow evil to pervade society quickly. However, once we engage in politics at all, we can enter an ugly realm. Saul Alinsky advised any Christian to abstain even from regional level administration if they wanted to remain pious. It seems both activism and neutrality have potential for harm.