An amazing sight perches on the ridge in Uppsala, Sweden, in the spot where King Gustav Vasa built his castle. In 1527, the King made himself head of the Church in Sweden. This was a tumultuous time, as Sweden made the shift from Catholicism to Protestantism. King Gustav claimed the Church’s assets and property as his own and built himself a stronghold, far from the country’s borders, to protect his newly acquired assets.
He erected impressive bastions on a ridge outside the castle in the 1550s. But the amazing sight is that, along the ridge, he positioned a row of massive cannons and trained them on the beautiful, gothic Uppsala Cathedral -- the largest and tallest cathedral in Scandinavia -- across the ridge from the castle. These cannons were meant to keep the Cathedral bishops in check in this time of unrest. The bastion became known as “Bastion Styrbiskop” or the “Bishop Controller Bastion!”
The sight of these cannons still aimed directly at the Cathedral certainly makes one think.
What are the cannons aimed at our churches and Christian institutions today? Whose cannons are they? What are the forces that make us fearful, that make us consider the words we use, the decisions we make and the risks worth taking?
Perhaps a more important set of questions comes from another perspective: What are we doing that makes the powers that be fearful of us? That makes them want to train cannons at us?
Jesus’ teachings were so radical that he had to be put to death like a common criminal. If the church today ought to be about traditioned innovation, then sometimes the church might need to be a presence that causes people in power to want to point cannons. And if no one in power is pointing cannons at us, are we doing our jobs as Christian churches, institutions and institutional leaders?
The Christian faith has been -- at many times in its history and in many places around the world -- an affront to the status quo. Shouldn’t we challenge secular powers and logic, calling on the last to be first? Do our churches offer a clear call to feed the hungry, clothe the poor, or defend widows and orphans?
The Rev. Dr. Alton B. Pollard III, dean of Howard University’s School of Divinity says, “There is no prophetic witness without confrontation.” As dean, Pollard says he is “willing to take the heat from religious colleagues and school administrators for engaging in social and political issues, in order to stand authentically before God.”
The church in Sweden no longer seems to be a great threat to a state that takes such good care of the individual, through programs like universal health care, free university education, and 450-day maternity leaves.
But the cannons that have remained trained on Uppsala Cathedral throughout the centuries are an astonishing but still relevant reminder that Christianity is sometimes called to be a threat to those in power.
What does it mean to be a Christian institution today, rooted in the tradition of witness? Are we too comfortable, or are we leading in a way so that our witness is a threat to what Paul called “the powers and principalities of this world”?
