Defeater Ethics: Politics, Part 3
Time to get practical.
While intending to move on to our next defeater ethic, I received a request for more practical guidance on the intersection of Christianity and politics: "I have really enjoyed your teaching on politics, but I was wondering if you might offer some more practical guidance on the issue. Isn't politics still important? Doesn't God care who I vote for? I don't want to have the political idol you spoke about, but what's a healthy way for Christians to do politics? I would really appreciate some practical thoughts if you have them?"
This is a fair question, considering my proclivity to focus on ideology at the expense of practicality. Therefore, allow me to offer some more practical guidance on the topic.
The idea of moral neutrality in the political realm is a myth. Separation of Church and state is wrongly interpreted as the separation of religious views and state, as if elected officials are expected to divest themselves of worldview presuppositions, whether religious or some other philosophy. This is simply preposterous. Everyone is attempting to enact legislation according to their vision of a properly ordered society, and the Christian obviously wants that vision to reflect the Christian worldview. I can reject Christian nationalism and an established Church-state while also wanting our government's legislation to reflect what I believe is the truth, beauty, and goodness of Christianity, just like my neighbors want the government to reflect their deeply held beliefs. This is expected in a free democracy of competing ideas and philosophies, all seeking to find their views reflected in the halls of political power.
The question then becomes, how can the Christian engage in this arena of competing worldviews without being owned by the competition? How can we be faithful in our political responsibilities without falling into political idolatry? In many ways, that is answered by the conviction of God's Spirit and the faithful counsel of our community, but I will offer three practical thoughts that can perhaps serve as a diagnostic test of sorts.
First, a healthy Christian relationship with politics recognizes that though our faith has political implications, it must not have a partisan identity. Christians are free to believe that a particular political party best represents their views and consistently vote that way. Conversely, they can believe a party is antithetical to their views and never vote that way. However, the Christian is not free to believe and act as though the Christian faith perfectly aligns or, worse yet, is beholden to one political party.
We must reject a truncated view of Jesus that fits neatly into our two-party partisan divide. In the passage referenced in our last posting, the Herodians and the Pharisees conspired together against Jesus. These two groups were fierce political enemies, but they joined as friends against Jesus. This tells us that Jesus threatened both sides of the political divide in his day. And we must continue to present Jesus this way. Though both sides try to claim Jesus as a commodity for votes, we must declare in the strongest possible terms that King Jesus is not for sale. We will vote our Christian conscience, which may or may not benefit a party or politician, but make no mistake, Jesus reigns transcendent over all earthly powers and systems.
The litmus test of a non-partisan faith comes down to consistency and commonality. First, we must consistently critique both sides, not just the "other" side. Idolatry is never consistent. We blindly protect the idol by deflecting and justifying the idol while fixating on problems away from the idol. This we must not do. Our critique and rebuke must be bipartisan in its application. Second, we must test our commonality. Do we share more in common with those who do not share our religious commitments but do share our political commitments? Worse yet, do we question other's religious commitments if they do not hold our political commitments? If so, we must seriously ask whether politics has, in fact, become our religion.
The second practical assessment of a healthy Christian relationship with politics is a deemphasis on federal politics in favor of local politics. It seems to me that political idolatry tends to always manifest itself federally. This is because pundits and algorithms train us to direct our obsession nationally. But the often neglected reality is that what happens on the state and local level is far more significant to a community's common good and moral order than anything taking place in Washington, D.C. The surest sign that we genuinely believe politics are significant, elections matter, and therefore Christians have a civic duty to participate, is that our concern would be disproportionately focused locally rather than federally. The fruit of a properly ordered relationship between Christianity and politics is a county before country political approach.
The third practical test is to acknowledge the limits of the state by, first and foremost, being the change we long to see. Returning once again to Abraham Kuyper's sphere sovereignty, Kuyper argues that different spheres, though certainly connected, must be delineated in such a way that the unique integrity of the sphere is preserved. For example, for the family sphere to flourish, it cannot function like the business sphere, and vice versa. When we expect a sphere to be something it is not intended to be or operate in a way it is not intended to operate, we sabotage the sphere. This is a massively important principle to remember when approaching the sphere of politics. We have so politicized the Christian mission that we cannot imagine cultural transformation without the coercive power of the state. But this is asking politics to be something it was never designed to be. The government's role is to protect the Church's ability to accomplish its task, and the Church's role is to use that liberty to cultivate a righteous and just society, but political idolatry merges these two spheres together in problematic ways.
Therefore, a healthy indicator of a proper relationship between the Christian and politics is that private activism far exceeds political activism. This, I hope, is reflected in the work of Christ for Kentucky. We are currently working on several significant projects for our state, but only one involves the sphere of our state government. For that project, I have spent time in Frankfort meeting with political leaders, hoping to see it enacted. But in all our other work, we are not asking for the government's permission or relying upon the government's power. Instead, we are making use of our First Amendment freedom to strategize and mobilize Christians in our state to sacrificially give their lives to initiatives for God's glory and the good of their Kentucky neighbors.
Practically speaking, what does a healthy relationship between Christianity and politics look like? Our faith has political implications without a partisan identity; we deemphasize federal politics in favor of the much more consequential local politics; we recognize and respect the government limits by being the change we long to see.