Dionne:The liberating theology of Christ

Holy Thursday and the Last Supper feel ominous each year because they are preparation for Good Friday and the story of Jesus' crucifixion. Yet two days later, the tale ends in triumph and resurrection. Christians rejoice when the words "He is risen, alleluia!" are shouted out on Easter.

Christianity, like Judaism, is rooted in liberation. The Exodus and Easter are both about release from oppression and the victory of freedom, promises that have left a lasting mark on our culture.

Yet it's hard not to notice at Easter that Christianity hasn't been presented in its own best light this election year because Christians have not exactly been putting forward their best selves.

What I'm not saying is that Christianity should be disengaged from politics. In fact, the early Christian movement was born in politics, in oppositional circles within Judaism fighting Roman oppression. There is debate over how to understand the relationship between Jesus' spirituality and his approach to politics, but his preaching clearly challenged the powers that be. He was, after all, crucified.

But because Christians have a realistic and non-utopian view of human nature, they should be especially alive to the ambiguities and ambivalences of politics. The philosopher Jean Bethke Elshtain captured this well. "If Augustine is a thorn in the side of those who would cure the universe once and for all," she wrote, "he similarly torments critics who disdain any project of human community, or justice, or possibility."

Christians, she's saying, have a duty to grasp both the possibilities and limits of politics. This means that the absolutism so many associate with Christian engagement in politics ought to be seen as contrary to the Christian tradition -- even if many Christians over the centuries have acted otherwise.

Similarly, some Christians encourage a view of their faith as profoundly anti-intellectual. Faith is seen as more about experience than reason, more about loyalty than dialogue. The desire to assert The Truth takes priority over exploring what the truth might be.

In his important book "Jesus Christ and the Life of the Mind," Mark Noll urges Christians down the second path. He argues that "if what we claim about Jesus Christ is true, then evangelicals should be among the most active, most serious and most-open minded advocates of learning. Evangelical hesitation about scholarship in general or about pursuing learning wholeheartedly is, in other words, antithetical to the Christ-centered basis of evangelical faith." Noll might have added that a devotion to learning doesn't make anyone "a snob."

So if Easter is about liberation, this liberation must include intellectual freedom. It entails a tempered approach to politics involving a steady quest for human improvement, not false promises of perfection or wild claims about the demonic character of one's opponents. Elections should not be routinely cast as Armageddon. I have always been moved by this presentation of Jesus from a Catholic Eucharistic prayer: "To the poor he proclaimed the good news of salvation, to prisoners, freedom, and to those in sorrow, joy." To which one can say: Alleluia.