麻豆社

Yesterday two of the most powerful political leaders in the world met, not for the first time as people, but for the first time as Presidents. At what most political commentators are claiming to be a low point in relations between Russia and the United States of America, Vladimir Putin, and Joe Biden talked.
Both men have been operating at a high level in international politics for decades. They are experienced. They know how this goes.

They lead countries that hold the greatest and second greatest arsenal of nuclear weapons in the world today. And in terms of Gross Domestic Product, their economies stand at number one and number eleven respectively. And for all the scrutiny that they are under from journalists, other governments not to mention body language experts and photographers, how much does it matter that they personally get on?

Both countries separate the practice of religion from their state infrastructure but there are theological reflections that might be helpful here. In the New Testament gospels, Jesus is recorded as addressing individuals within systems of government in a distinctive way. While living under occupation and encouraging non violent resistance to the militarisation of his society, he nevertheless healed the servant of one of the centurions oppressing his people. Before Pilate, he addressed the person in front of him as a human being, even while he knew he had the power to condemn him, release him or as he did in the end, wash his hands of him.

While issuing uncompromising criticisms of unjust economic practices and the abuse of political and religious power, Jesus never lost sight of the fact that the person in front of him was someone precious in the eyes of God.

This is not disingenuous or hypocritical but an ability to hold different interpretations of power together. To stand up for justice, never to be a doormat while at the same time remaining resolute in seeing another human being, whoever they are, as a creation of God.

Today鈥檚 challenges are not solvable by individuals or nations but by global cooperation. Within the wielding of great power are the daily decisions of a person driven by their own experience of life, their own fears and desires, hopes, temptations and frailties. This is as true for Vladimir Putin and Joe Biden as it was for the political and religious leaders in the gospels.

It鈥檚 a spiritual discipline taught over centuries for any human being to exercise our own agency in the service of justice, whatever that looks like at the time, which presents us, presidents or not, with a challenge. To look into the eyes of another human being, decide to act together, and make the world a more just and beautiful place.

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