Defeater Ethics: Politics, Part 1

A history of Christianity's relationship to political power.

Within our larger discussion on ethical objections to the Christian faith, we are considering the ethical failures of Christians, which our neighbors understandably hold against Christianity itself. Among these, the unholy political idolatry within the Church has quickly risen to become one of the most significant objections, particularly among our nation's youth.

American Christianity's political enmeshment is so entangled that conversion to evangelical Christianity seems to be a conversion to GOP politics. Likewise, progressive mainline Christianity demands a conversion of sorts to DNC politics. In this way, one could easily argue that politics is shaping American Christianity along predictable lines of partisan division. Far from rebuking America's political idolatry, Christianity seems to be one of its most ardent supporters. Sadly, Christians find more commonality with those who hold similar political convictions despite differing religious beliefs rather than the other way around.

While this politicization of the Christian faith is increasingly manifest, it is nothing new for American Christianity, and there is a reason for it. Historically, Christianity has experienced one of two scenarios with church/state relations: persecution or power.

For most of its history, the Christian Church has been persecuted by the state, and the notion of political power was not in the realm of possibility. Of course, Christians still longed and strived for a world shaped by Christian morality, but they did not, indeed could not, look to the coercive power of the state as a means toward those ends. Rather than a top-down, politically enforced moral order, Christians embodied and practiced the world they longed to see, trusting the slow process of organic social change.

However, after a few centuries of faithfulness on the margins, Christianity found itself positioned in the halls of societal power. In the 4th century, the Christian faith was legalized within the Roman Empire, effectively ending its persecution, and then shortly thereafter, Constantine made Christianity the empire's official religion. Thus began the long tradition of Western Civilization governed, whether directly or indirectly, by Christianity. However, this political power did not yield a Christian utopia. In many cases, it proved a disaster, including a newfound persecution tragically inflicted by Christians against fellow believers.

Though certainly, the power of the gospel can and has overcome the sufferings of persecution and corruptions of power, neither is preferable. This leads us to the uniqueness of the American project. What if a society is formed that constitutionally protects Christianity from state persecution but does not give Christianity state power? This historically unique relationship between the Church and the state seems to strike the optimal balance, but lurking between the extremes of persecution and power is insidious partisanship.

If Christianity is not threatened by political persecution nor handed political power but instead is one of many ideals within a pluralist society competing for democratic success, then Christianity is tempted to play the same partisan game everyone is playing. In this free society of competing ideas and worldviews, the Church can easily be lured by the competition itself and, in this way, be reduced to a political lobby. This was not as noticeable in the Founding Era for the simple reason that there was little worldview competition. Historian Sydney Ahlstrom estimates three-fourths of America's founding population were devout Christians. Therefore, Christianity did not need formal state power because it was culturally assumed and thus held informal power.

But what happens when Christianity in American society begins to wane in the 20th century and is then displaced from the center of cultural influence to the margins of the 21st century? What happens is Christians, like every other competing interest group, are tempted to turn to partisanship of American politics. This strategy is not unique to American evangelicals, but since the Moral Majority movement of the 1980s, it has sadly been a disproportionate fixation within evangelicalism. In our panic over the decline of Christianity in America, we have relegated hope of a better world to an unholy partisan alliance with conservative politicians who honor Christian values with their lips but whose hearts, and even votes, are far from us. Simply put, they exploit our Savior for political gain, and far from rebuking them for it, we continue to idolize them as our only hope of recapturing a supposed Christian society that existed only in mere sentiment.

Not only is this partisanship an ineffective social strategy, but more tragically, it is a harmful barrier to our gospel witness. Again, this is particularly experienced among our youth. The rising generation is wary of their elder's political obsession. If conversion to Christianity is conversion to partisan politics, and if Christian discipleship includes partisan demands, then we have unnecessarily constructed what is, for many, an insurmountable barrier to the Christian faith. This is anathema to Christ's gospel, which, though political, is never partisan.

Tellingly, there are few passages where Jesus engages in the political debates of his day, but the most well-known is his response to unjust Roman taxation. Those details we will consider in our next posting, but what is easy to miss about the politically charged confrontation is who has come to confront Jesus. It says the Pharisees and Herodians came to test Jesus on whether it was lawful to pay taxes to Caesar. This is significant because the Pharisees and Herodians were fierce political enemies, much like Republicans and Democrats in America. But Jesus has turned partisan foes into conspiring friends, which means that far from fitting neatly into the political divide of his day, he was a threat to both sides of the divide. And the true Jesus still is.

I am very sorry that we have presented a partisan Jesus who conveniently serves our side of America's embittered political divide. In reality, Jesus proclaimed and inaugurated a kingdom that transcends all earthly kingdoms and our pitiful divisions. This Kingdom of God does not come by force but is more powerful than all earthly forces; it is not visible but yields visibly tangible results; it cannot be reduced to one national border or culture, but it will bear the glory of every tongue, tribe, and nation. Make no mistake, Jesus is fixing the world, but with a strategy far more potent than partisanship. His strategy isn't politicians with their insatiable pride and empty promises; the strategy is you.

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