Christians and Politics
We define a “disciple” as “a Christ-follower who is constantly about the task of bringing every aspect of life into obedience to Christ.”
There are a thousand avenues to explore in that definition, so many aspects of life to submit to the Lordship of Christ:
the way I steward my resources and privileges;
the way I manage my relationships with family members, friends, co-workers and neighbors;
the way I manage my private thought life, my ambitions and fantasies;
the way I cultivate and maintain the rhythms of my personal and spiritual habits.
You get the picture. This is a life-long process in which God’s Spirit continually uses His Word, His people, and my own life circumstances to bring to my attention aspects of my life that I must bring under the Lordship of Christ. I might make a one-time decision to follow Jesus and make him Lord, but I must ratify that decision over and over again.
One aspect of life that thrusts itself upon us every four years is how well we steward our opportunities as citizens. Although there are elections every year, the presidential election always brings to the fore that whole complex of questions surrounding how Christians should interact with the political process.
There’s no quicker way to start a fight than to wade into the debate about the proper relationship between faith and politics. And the spectrum of opinions on this matter runs all the way from those who would insist that a faith perspective is entirely irrelevant to the political process (“leave your faith outside the voting booth”) to those who would argue that the role of the Church is to bring every human institution under the law of God (in case you’re interested, this view is called “theonomy”).
Most of us, of course, have no interest in either of those radical perspectives.
But there’s plenty to occupy (and divide) us in between those extremes, especially since our two-party system so often leaves us with a choice between two bad options. After all, the systems of politics are operated by fallen men and women like us. So it’s no surprise that politics is messy and chaotic at best and why it’s so easy for politics to be bent toward corruption and oppression.
So what does it mean for a Christ-follower to bring the realm of his or her political involvement into obedience to Christ?
I think there are two over-lapping principles that apply:
1. The scope and method of our political involvement is a matter of personal conviction, not biblical mandate.
The question of how Christ-followers should use their political clout is not a matter of a biblical mandate; we simply don’t have chapter-and-verse guidance on how we ought to conduct ourselves the choices we make in the voting booth or what we ought to say in the town hall meeting.
Part of the problem is that Scripture was written not in the context of a participatory democracy but in the age of monarchies and empires. In the ancient Near East there was not really a political apparatus for the people to have their say in the appointing of leaders or the creation of laws, so we don’t find much biblical guidance about how we can steward our opportunities as citizens of a modern republic.
But it’s not just the silence of the Scriptures that comes into play here. We also have the New Testament witness of Christ and apostles. Whatever we say about faith and politics must take into account how remarkably apolitical Christ and the apostles were.
Much of the opposition to Jesus in his day came from Jews who wanted a Messiah to turn the political world upside down, and he refused to do that. He was not opposed to paying the Temple tax, and he submitted himself meekly to the atrocities of Roman justice, even though he could have called down angelic powers to deliver him.
Jesus had little interest in overturning the oppressive Roman government. And his apostles followed suit, concentrating their efforts on church-planting and evangelism, even though they lived under the same brutal regime that had crucified their Master.
In fact, the apostles urged their people to comply, as much as possible, with civil authority (Rom 13:1-7; 1 Pet 2:13-17). The only time we see them resorting to civil disobedience was when they were specifically forbidden to do what Christ has commanded them to do, preach the Word (Acts 4:19-20; 5:29).
That’s about the extent of the biblical witness about how Christ and the apostles interacted with civil authorities.
So absent a clear biblical mandate about how to participate in politics, we can see that questions about the scope and manner of our political involvement are largely a matter for the individual conscience of the believer.
This means that some Christ-followers will be called to throw themselves into the process professionally as political office-holders working for the common good, others will take their quest for justice to the street in lawful protest, and most of us will do our duty by educating ourselves on the issues and voting according to our conscience.
There is no one right way that we must all participate, and we must give one another room and grace to participate in the process as we see fit.
But this lack of biblical guidance doesn’t mean that participating in the political process is only an option for us because…
2. Political involvement is mandatory for Christ-followers.
Because we live in a nation where the people have a say in who governs us, Christ-followers have an obligation to participate in the process by which those leaders are chosen.
Here is where we do have clear guidance from God’s Word. Our Lord told us that the command to love our neighbor is second only to the command to love God. Of all people, Christ-followers ought to be the ones most consistently occupied with caring for the welfare of their neighbors. Unlike our brothers and sisters in the ancient Roman world, we actually can contribute politically to creating and maintaining the common good. And we have an obligation to use that power to help our neighbors.
Yes, politics can be ugly and discouraging, and it is tempting to throw up our hands in despair and walk away from politics altogether.
But staying out of politics isn’t an option if I love my neighbor and want what’s best for him and for my community. Out of love for my neighbor, I have the obligation to use the power of my vote to help make my community a better place for everyone to live.
And “everyone” includes everyone: people of color as well as the unborn as well as the sojourner who lives among us. I know, the two major parties have differing agendas here, but that only means that our choices call for keen discernment and moral wisdom.
But notice the emphasis on motivation. If Christians participate in politics out of neighbor-love, they will be out of step with politics as we know it today.
Let’s face it, most political appeals are built on some clever combination of fear, outrage, and self-interest. That’s why we all have to brace ourselves for the onslaught of ugly political advertising in the next few months. (If we culled out all the political ads designed to appeal to our fear or anger or naked self-interest, there wouldn’t be much political advertising left.)
And those political appeals are precisely targeted. They know what we’re afraid of and what makes us angry, and they know how to appeal to our self-interest. I think we would be embarrassed if we knew how often and how successfully well-financed political campaigns influence the way we perceive the candidates and the issues.
Christians must participate in the political process, but not out of fear or outrage or mere self-interest. We have an obligation to wade into the messy business of politics out of love for our neighbors. It is not just in our best interests but also in the interests of the common good that we appoint wise leaders.
This clarity about motives does nothing to simplify things, of course. Even with the purest of motives, we are still often left with no really good options. Sometimes the best we can hope for is to hold our nose and choose the less objectionable of two bad choices.
But as ugly and distressing as politics can be, we simply don’t have the option of dropping out. We owe it to our neighbors to do what we can to get good people into the seats of power, people who will govern wisely for the common good.
If we are followers of Jesus, nothing about our lives falls outside the scope of his Lordship, including our political lives.
That is why each of us must examine our own hearts, examine the issues and the candidates, and engage in the political process as an act of love for our neighbors.
Persevere,
Paul Pyle
Discipleship Pastor
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