There are at least three wrong paths Christians in America might take today in their approach to politics and the public square. Wrong path number one is disengagement. Here Christians isolate themselves from civic life and focus only on their lives together. They tell themselves this is the “spiritual” thing to do. The prophet Jonah wanted to go nowhere near the deeply immoral Ninevah. Gratefully, for Ninevah’s sake, God would not let him and required him to preach a political message about God’s coming judgment. The city repented.
Many white South African churches thought they could avoid engaging with the nation’s apartheid regime. So they adopted an “apolitical” and “neutral” posture. After the regime fell, South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission observed that this supposedly apolitical approach allowed churches “to be misled into accepting a social, economic and political system that was cruel and oppressive.” The “fears of white church members,” it continued, led them “into sins of omission.”1 These churches thought they could avoid politics, but their neutral stance in fact endorsed an evil and unjust political status quo. In so doing they compromised their gospel witness.
Whatever you think of America’s public morality today, churches must not disengage. If you and I were standing in front of a whiteboard, I’d write down the words love and justice for you. God commands us to seek justice and to love our neighbors as ourselves. No, not every battle is worth fighting, but the call to love and justice alone should keep Christians engaged—somehow. Cynicism and separation are not options for us.
Wrong path number two is capitulation. This is not the path of neutrality but of positively endorsing the world and its ways. And how promising this path looks. It wins friends and offers immediate political status. Its short-term prospects are great. The prophets and priests of Jeremiah’s day therefore cried “Peace, peace” when there was no peace (Jer. 6:14). Paul, too, pointed to a people who knew God’s righteous decree but practiced and gave approval to those who defied God’s decrees (Rom. 1:32).
An extreme example of capitulation are the pastors in the German Evangelical Church (est. 1933), also called the Reich Church, who aligned themselves with the policies of the Nazi Party. A subtler example is liberal Christianity’s accommodating itself to the sexual ethic of the day.
To Christians on the political left I would say, grant no peace to the Democratic Party’s position on abortion. Fight against it. Make noise. To those on the right I would say, make no peace with any vestiges of white supremacy in the Republican Party. If you work in law enforcement, for instance, you have a great opportunity to be one of the most vocal in opposing it. Christians on both sides of the aisle will need to think carefully in coming years about how to make peace with friends identifying as LGBT while also affirming God’s purposes for marriage and sexuality.
Daniel and his friends Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego offer great examples of not capitulating. These high-ranking government bureaucrats worked hard for the king, but they also refused the king’s idolatry: “Be it known to you, O king, that we will not serve your gods or worship the golden image that you have set up” (Dan. 3:18).
Wrong path number three is worldly engagement. There is a way of engaging that’s right on the substance but wrong on the strategy or tone. As Michael Gerson and Peter Wehner documented in their book City of Man, the Christian Right in its heyday often comes in for criticism on this front.2 The movement stood up for good things, but its language tended to be apocalyptic. It gave earthly political outcomes—a vote on a law, an election, or a Supreme Court case—an outsized importance. Too many exclamation points and all cap sentences tell our non-Christian fellow citizens that our policy agenda is more important than the gospel itself. It says THIS ELECTION IS THE MOST IMPORTANT THING IN THE WORLD! It communicates that we’re really just a branch of this or that party. It says that God is not so big, after all. That is why we have to scream.
Something quietly hiding underneath the floorboards of this third error is utopianism. Utopianism is the belief that perfect justice is possible in this world and that we can bring heaven to earth now. Yet utopianism, whether of the Christian or the non-Christian variety, often produces injustice. The utopian mind-set relies on its own strength instead of God’s. It overestimates what can be done in this world and so forces its way. It exploits and abuses people in the name of a greater good.
In some ways, this last temptation is the most likely danger for the generation of Christians raised on the heroic stories of William Wilberforce and Hannah More, Harriet Tubman and Martin Luther King Jr. Indeed, a temptation for me when writing a book on faith and politics is to find such stories about the glorious things that Christians can accomplish for the public good.
“Look at what William Wilberforce did to abolish Britain’s slave trade! So get involved, work hard, and have faith, young culture warriors.”
Such stories are inspiring and wonderful. Praise God for the Wilberforces and Tubmans and Kings. They helped to end horrific injustices.
Yet just as cynicism is not an option for Christians, neither is triumphalism. The biblical perspective on political engagement requires something a little more complex. Complexity never makes for a rousing campaign speech. Crowds don’t like nuance. But what if that’s what the Bible offers us?
Former Fox News commentator Bill O’Reilly opened his book Cultural Warrior, “At times you have to fight. No way around it. At some point, every one of us is confronted with danger or injustice.”3 That’s true, so far as it goes. There is a time and a place to fight. Yet the picture Scripture offers is less cultural warrior and more ambassador. Ambassadors know how to fight, but they also know how to be diplomatic. They’re not just trying to win a war; they’re trying to represent a whole other kingdom.
MATTHEW'S OTHER TEXT ON TAXES
This is the picture Paul provided when he referred to us as ambassadors with a ministry of reconciliation (2 Cor. 5:18–20). It’s the vision Jesus presented when he referred to us as sons of the kingdom who represent the heavenly Father.
You are probably familiar with the episode in Matthew’s gospel where Jesus said to render to Caesar what is Caesar’s when asked about paying taxes (Matt. 22:15–22). Do you know the other text in Matthew that refers to taxes? He told us we’re sons who are free from taxes. Yet then he told us to pay them for diplomacy’s sake. Talk about complex. Here it is:
When they came to Capernaum, the collectors of the two-drachma tax went up to Peter and said, “Does your teacher not pay the tax?”
He said, “Yes.”
And when he came into the house, Jesus spoke to him first, saying, “What do you think, Simon? From whom do kings of the earth take toll or tax? From their sons or from others?” And when he said, “From others,” Jesus said to him, “Then the sons are free. However, not to give offense to them, go to the sea and cast a hook and take the first fish that comes up, and when you open its mouth you will find a shekel. Take that and give it to them for me and for yourself.” (17:24–27)
It’s a slightly confusing text. The tax collectors asked if Jesus planned on paying the two-drachma tax, which is the tax used for the upkeep of the temple. Yet Jesus extended the lesson beyond the temple by referring to the kings of the earth. Then he said two different things to Peter. And it’s in these two things that we find the complex biblical perspective we need.
On the one hand, Jesus said that the sons of the kingdom are free. That’s us as Christians. We are not ultimately bound by the rules of the temple, the kings, or the kingdoms of this world since this world order will soon pass away.
On the other hand, Jesus did not wish “to give offense.” He wanted to be diplomatic. Plus, the present rule of the temple, as well as the kingdoms of this world, was established by God. They were legitimate. So he told his disciples to pay the tax.
How do we put these two hands together? We need to recognize the overlap of two ages: the age of the fall with its institutions and the age of new creation with its institutions. As Christians, we live in both ages simultaneously.
Here’s an illustration from ethicist Oliver O’Donovan. The Soviet Union, which was falling apart through the year 1991, was formally pronounced dead on December 26, 1991. In its place sprang up the Russian Federation. Imagine then that it is October 1991, and you’re an official of the up-and-coming Russian government. An official of the old Soviet regime asks you to do something, and you think to yourself, That’s ridiculous. This is exactly why you guys couldn’t keep the lights on! Nonetheless, you don’t want to show open contempt for the present regime, because it will create unnecessary trouble and you’ll look like an anarchist. Plus, you feel utterly confident that power will soon change hands and that you’ll be running things in a month or two. The old order is vanishing, a new one is coming, and so you decide to show respect by doing what the Soviet official has asked you to do.
Jesus, too, knew that the present authorities of this world had no future. Therefore, he didn’t need to respond with either contrite obedience or angry defiance. His response was somewhere in between.4 It was complex.
Paul adopted exactly the same attitude in 1 Corinthians 7. If you’re a bondservant, he said, get your freedom if you can, but realize it’s not the end of the world if you cannot (vv. 21–22). “For the present form of this world is passing away” (v. 31).
Let me try to whittle down the lesson for us: respect and honor the legitimate institutions of this present age. Let them do their jobs and work for their good. But realize that they are passing, and do not give them your ultimate allegiance and hope.
More concisely: work for love’s sake, but don’t let your hopes get too high.
No, that won’t stir up a crowd. No nightly news shows for me, I guess. But I think it is faithful to Scripture.
INVESTING AT KENT ELEMENTARY
My friend Eric adopted such a faithful posture in all his work through the Kent Elementary School Parent Teacher Association. When their oldest child reached kindergarten age, Eric and his wife carefully considered whether homeschool, a Christian school, or the public school Kent Elementary (not the real name) was best. They chose Kent because it was a block from their home. At the time, Kent was not in good shape. The facilities were run down. It lacked teachers. Test scores were middling. And few of the neighborhood residents sent their children there. The students who did attend had uninvolved parents.
Eric and his wife, however, decided not only to send their children to Kent, but to pour themselves into the school. “As we did the cost-benefit analysis of going to Kent versus a better school, we knew that living a block away would allow us to be present in the school and the community. My wife could drop in to teach art or Spanish. I could easily meet with the principal or teachers. And having parents present is half the formula for any school’s success, whether public or private.”
Eric joined the Parent Teacher Association. He recruited other parents to join. Eventually he became the president. Wisely, Eric did his best to support the school principal and tried not to work at cross-purposes with him. “I described the PTA as the wind in the sails of the boat of the school. We’re not the professionals. We don’t have the time. But as parents in the community we have a responsibility to come alongside and help the school. That’s the role we took.”
Likewise, Eric’s overtures were received by a flexible principal who was willing to partner with Eric and the PTA board. In fact, the PTA helped the principal do some of the things he wanted to do but couldn’t due to the bureaucratic and political constraints on him. The parents in turn used their various vocational skills and connections to help the school. The grant writers wrote grant applications. The fundraisers raised funds. Someone at the park service worked on outdoor education.
I personally recall how multiple members of my church bought their Christmas trees through a Kent Elementary fundraiser several Christmases in a row. I felt a little guilty for buying a cheaper tree elsewhere!
Gradually, the PTA built up its own budget of about $300,000 for this school of three hundred kids. They hired a science teacher, a physical education teacher, a language teacher, and an art teacher. Once those teachers were in place, the principal found ways to absorb them into the school’s budget. The PTA also undertook building beautification projects. They renovated the playground and the gardens, and undertook other landscaping projects.
Little by little, Kent earned a great reputation in the city. Test scores rose. The facilities improved. The neighborhood developed a strong sense of ownership of the school, which contributed to the neighborhood’s own sense of community. Parents became excited to get involved. Eric’s two oldest children began as kindergartners and have both graduated out of the school. His third and youngest child is now entering the third grade.
“It’s like farming,” Eric said. “Growth doesn’t happen overnight. It took blood, sweat, and tears. And it had to start with a commitment from me and my wife. DC Public Schools did their part in working to get good teachers. In the end, it took a joint venture to better steward everyone’s resources.”
Kent is in many ways a school-revitalization success story. It’s a mini-Wilberforce narrative. I want it to inspire you to get involved wherever you live: in a school, in a city council, in writing letters to the editor, in a crisis pregnancy shelter, in a homeless shelter, in a neighborhood revitalization project, or in any number of other ways to honor the institutions in place, and, in so doing, do good.
THE SISYPHEAN NATURE OF POLITICS
But that’s not the end of the story.
In the last few years, Kent has begun to refuse to acknowledge any birthdays or holidays like Thanksgiving or Christmas. If children do sing holiday songs, they are instructed to change the words, like “Merry, merry, merry winter” instead of “Merry, merry, merry Christmas” There is no pledge of allegiance or opportunity for patriotism. Instead, the school sticks to pushing black history month (good) and Gay Pride (not good) on bulletin boards and in school-wide assemblies. They’ve also adopted a curriculum that downplays learning facts and instead teaches children to express themselves.
Eric discovered after the fact that his second-grader’s teacher, whom Eric befriended, was reading transgender stories to his daughter’s class in circle time. The teacher never told the parents he was doing this, so they weren’t able to give their input. “It feels like we helped build this school,” said Eric, “but now DCPS is starting to cut us out.”
The principal with whom Eric had worked for years had retired, and Eric had helped to bring in a new principal with impeccable credentials. After the hire, however, Eric learned that she was a lesbian with an aggressive social agenda. Now, Eric said, he feels divided. “I plan on meeting with her and extending an olive branch, saying I’m here to help. But I also want her to keep parents in the loop.” He said he is entering his youngest daughter’s third-grade school year with apprehension. “If the school really imposes this progressive agenda in a way that won’t allow us to be involved, we will have to pull her out of the school.”
I recognize that not every reader will agree with Eric’s decisions about sending his children to a public school in the first place, particularly one with an aggressive social agenda, but let me refer to the last chapter’s discussion on making room for other Christians’ political judgments. Here, I want to draw out three lessons.
First, we are to live as ambassadors, not as cultural warriors. Eric is an excellent example. He is a strong Christian who has tirelessly engaged one of the key political institutions of this present age, a public school. He has sought to do his children and neighbors good. No, his precise calling may not be yours, but all of us are called by Scripture to love, honor, obey, and do good, as we’ll see in a moment.
Second, we need to remember that politics in this world will always be Sisyphean. Do you remember Sisyphus? He was the king in Greek mythology who was condemned by the gods to roll an immense boulder up a hill, watch it roll down, and then repeat the act for eternity. So it is with our political accomplishments in this world. Build the freest nation in the world, and then watch it enslave its subjects, abort its babies, or maybe even persecute Christians. Down the hill the boulder rolls. The Wilberforce stories inspire the soul, but don’t forget the realities and upside-down judgments of Ecclesiastes either:
I saw under the sun that in the place of justice, even there was wickedness. (3:16)
He who quarries stones is hurt by them, and he who splits logs is endangered by them. (10:9)
Eric has quarried stones and split logs to help build the school. Now, it’s working against his children. Several weeks after my conversation with Eric, his brother told me that the new principal is adding to the school uniform selection. Students will still have the choice of a green or white shirt, but they can also choose a rainbow shirt that says “Equality.”
This makes me think about Abraham Kuyper and the Netherlands. Christians often point to the example of Kuyper as a model for Christian public service. He served as prime minister from 1901 to 1905 and is a remarkable example of a life well used for the kingdom in many other ways. Read his material and learn. But also realize that following World War II the Netherlands took a hard turn toward secularism and today is one of the most godless countries in the world. Work to do good while you’re here, but know that nothing lasts. This isn’t heaven.
One of my fellow church members, who works for a congressman, said over lunch recently, “I’m just grateful to be a disposable congressional staffer working for a disposable member of Congress. It’s a brief opportunity to do good and to stave off evil.” That sounds about right. Try to leave your corner of earth’s garden in better condition than when you got there, but watch out for rolling Sisyphean boulders.
Eric understands this. Gratefully, he hasn’t just invested himself in Kent. He invests himself in our church—serving as a deacon, employing church members at his company, consistently giving of himself generously. His hope and treasures are stored up in heaven, not on earth. Therefore, he can keep a loose grip on the school.
Again, I would say, engage in your church as Eric engages. Do not place your ultimate allegiance or hope in anything you can accomplish. But be willing to leave any particular project behind if necessary, even after investing blood, sweat, and tears.
When we add these first two points together a third emerges: recognize that political success for a Christian equals faithfulness, not results. God calls us to efforts, not outcomes. When a Christian confronts a nation and its leaders, whether in a Senate bill or in a gospel tract, opposition will come. But that does not change our task: Christians must speak faithfully as prophets and priests on behalf of Christ.
Speak faithfully, and then expect the lions. Our witness will be vindicated over time, occasionally in this world, certainly in eternity.
Here are twelve more lessons for Christians on how to engage politically and live as ambassadors, not as culture warriors.
1. Join a church.
That’s not the first thing you expect to hear on political engagement. But this is the cumulative lesson of the last chapter. If the church’s most powerful political testimony is being the church, you should join one. Submit your discipleship to a congregation’s oversight and fellowship. Partake of those signs of kingdom citizenship, baptism, and the Lord’s Supper. And learn everything that Jesus commanded by sitting under good preaching. Following repentance and faith, the political life begins here.
For instance, I remember one evening when Doug and Brady joined my family for dinner. Both men are single. Both are members of my church. One had an abusive father. One had an absent father. And one of my daughters that evening blessed us all with an ornery attitude. She had been that way all day, and I was tempted to be impatient with her. Yet aside from all the other reasons not to be impatient with my daughter, it occurred to me that Doug and Brady were watching me. I had the opportunity to demonstrate and define how a Christ-following dad should respond to difficult children. They had seen the outlines of such a father drawn through the church’s teaching ministry. I had the opportunity in my home to color in those lines.
What gave me that opportunity? The fact that I am a baptized, Lord’s Supper–receiving member of a church. A church had marked me with “the Jesus nametag” of the ordinances, effectively saying to these men, “Here is a Christ follower. Watch him to know what Jesus is like.”
Suppose, however, that I spoke to my daughter abusively. Doug and Brady would have learned a very different lesson: “Oh, I guess Christian dads can be like other bad dads. There’s no difference.”
Or suppose, following this second scenario, that they challenged my abusiveness and asked other mature members to challenge my abusiveness but I refused to change. Therefore, the church might finally remove me from membership. In that case, Doug and Brady’s conception of a Christ-following dad would be protected and redeemed.
The bottom line here is this: it’s in the gathered and scattered life of a congregation that we learn and rehearse and live out a new politics. That is our first form of political engagement. It grows those inside the church. It serves as a witness to those outside the church. I cannot tell you how many people have become Christians, in part, through watching the gathered and scattered life of our church. How did Jesus say the world will know we are his disciples? By our love for one another (John 13:34–35).
At the risk of annoying you, here are three short books to help you along these lines (and notice the subtitles): my own Church Membership: How the World Knows Who Represents Jesus, Mack Stiles’s Evangelism: How the Whole Church Speaks of Jesus, and Mark Dever’s Discipling: How to Help Others Follow Jesus.
2. Fear God and get wisdom.
The apostle Peter told us to “fear God. Honor the emperor” (1 Peter 2:17). And fearing God comes before honoring the emperor in every sense.
Fearing God is the beginning of wisdom, says Proverbs, and successful political engagement depends on wisdom. “By me kings reign,” said Wisdom, “and rulers decree what is just” (Prov. 8:15). Ambassadors, to be sure, are men and women of wisdom.
The fear of God and wisdom give us the right heart posture. It defeats the fear of man. It enables us to play the long game and make the tough decisions. Sadly, pastors and politicians too often play only for short-term gain. Leaders of the land prove constitutionally unable to do the politically costly thing. They fear the next election or church leadership meeting too much.
The person who fears the Lord will put a career on the line in order to do the right thing. She knows there is something greater than a career. He doesn’t worry about being called names.
The fear of God and wisdom recognize that Jesus is Lord over parties and party bosses, armies and nations. Germany’s Confessing Church, watching the Nazi cloud slowly creep across German skies, reasserted Christ’s lordship in the 1934 Barmen Declaration.5 In article 2, they declared:
We reject the false doctrine that there could be areas of our life in which we would not belong to Jesus Christ but to other lords.
They continued in article 3:
We reject the false doctrine that the Church could have permission to hand over the form of its message and of its order to . . . the prevailing ideological and political convictions of the day.
No, Hitler is not lord of the church. Christians rightly grant the state authority in some areas of a church’s life: building codes, child-protection policies, nonprofit requirements, if a church wants such a status. But the state does not possess authority over a church’s membership or message. The Confessing Church made this clear in article 5:
We reject the false doctrine that beyond its special commission the State should and could become the sole and total order of human life.
Within a year of the Barmen Declaration, the Confessing Church realized that Nazism offered nothing more or less than a new religion. They declared in a 1935 synod, “We see our nation threatened with mortal danger; the danger lies in a new religion.” They also said Christ’s churches “will be called to account” by their heavenly Judge “if the German nation turns its back on Christ without being forewarned.” Their task was to warn. They feared God. They were ambassadors for another king. Shortly after making this latter statement, the Gestapo arrested seven hundred pastors. Some members remained under surveillance, others were imprisoned, and still others were sent to concentration camps.6 Soon the Confessing Church was outlawed.
Do American Christians possess such courage and fear of God in the face of the prevailing ideological and political convictions of our own day? Or do we pander to power? John the Baptist did not pander to Herod. He spoke truth and lost his head. Certainly, there is a place for Christian leaders to befriend the mighty. But I worry about any Christian leader who is not willing to offend the mighty on behalf of the Almighty, even if it means losing political access, or worse.
It seems like once a month my own senior pastor, Mark Dever, is reminding our Capitol Hill congregation not to respond to darkening changes in our culture with panic or alarmism. To do so is to contradict the Bible’s teaching on ordinary Christian discipleship. It exposes a latent utopianism. It might even suggest we have swallowed a kind of political prosperity gospel.
Instead, Dever reminds us, a heart that fears the Lord trusts God, not circumstances. We must remember that everything we have is God’s grace. We should not become sour toward our employers, friends, family members, and government when they oppose us. Like Paul, we can sing even in prison, knowing that our sins are forgiven and that our vindication awaits. Christ’s victory is certain, and the gates of hell will not prevail against the church.
There should be no anxiety or desperation among the saints as we engage in public life. Love your church. Love your nation. Even love your party. But remember that whether your church or even your nation rises or falls, Jesus wins. Confessing Church member Dietrich Bonhoeffer knew precisely that, even as Hitler shot him.
3. Obey and honor the government.
Again, Peter said, “Fear God. Honor the emperor” (1 Peter 2:17).
And Jesus said, “Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s” (Matt. 22:21).
And Paul said, “You also pay taxes, for the authorities are ministers of God, attending to this very thing. Pay to all what is owed to them: taxes to whom taxes are owed, revenue to whom revenue is owed, respect to whom respect is owed, honor to whom honor is owed” (Rom. 13:6–7).
The Bible illustrates the posture of honor and obedience in the way Joseph served Pharaoh and how Daniel and the three Hebrew boys served Nebuchadnezzar. Except when the king called them into idolatry, they served vigorously. Paul, too, showed respect for the rule of Rome in Acts.
I also think of my fellow church member who works in the enforcement office of a federal government agency. Over dinner he explained how some employees in the agency were frustrated by the recent change in administration. “Why are they frustrated?” I asked.
“Because they are being asked to follow the rule of law,” he replied.
Excuse me?
He went on to explain. “Congress enacts laws, and then it’s up to the various government agencies to determine how to apply them. Sometimes my agency has taken such an expansive view of its authority that they’ve gone well beyond the law that Congress enacted. As a consequence, the courts have struck down many of my agency’s rules as going beyond what the law provides.” The new leadership in my friend’s agency meant to apply the law as well as they could according to the terms specified by Congress.
What a wonderful illustration my friend, as a fairly high-ranking government official, is of obeying the government by honoring Congress’s law as specified. How all of us, too, should obey and honor the government, maintaining the rule of law.
Christians make the best princes and citizens, said Martin Luther. Indeed, they should.
4. Make use of whatever political stewardship you have.
Part of obeying the government, however, is to use whatever share you have in government, whether or not you’re an agency head.
As I said in chapter 5, Genesis 9:5–6 applies to you. It applies to everyone. Like this: “Listen John, Sally, Omar, Zhang Wei, whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed. Got it? With whatever political stewardship you possess, work to this end.”
So we don’t just obey government because we’re under it. We help and serve the cause of government insofar as we are in it. There is something vaguely democratic about government in the Bible because we’re all commissioned by Genesis 9:5–6 to pursue justice.
To be sure, Paul never would have thought of joining hands with Caesar to make law. But he did use the stewardship he had. He appealed to Caesar, knowing that his status as a Roman citizen afforded him protections and a say in his own trial.
Whatever stewardship you personally have in the cause of government, you as a Christian, like Paul, should use it. If you have been born as a prince, you should use that stewardship. If an American citizen, vote as an American citizen. For some, the stewardship might be small indeed. But even the subject of a monarch can be a good neighbor and honor the king. By honoring the king, you uphold the system of justice that seeks to reward the good and punish the bad.
Different opportunities and resources will require different levels of engagement from individual to individual. In a democratic nation like ours, rendering to Caesar means rendering to democracy what belongs to democracy. A failure to vote, if one is capable, is arguably a failure to love one’s neighbor and, therefore, God.
This means there’s no room for apathy in a Christian’s posture toward the state. As the general public becomes more apathetic, Christians should remain civically informed and engaged. So vote. And do so in an informed way.
5. Know your political culture’s supreme values (or idols) and look for common ground.
Every culture has some values that it prizes above all others. Os Guinness wisely observed that “freedom is unquestionably what Americans love supremely, and love of freedom is what makes Americans the people they are.” He continued, “From its very beginning, the United States was blessed with a sturdy birthright of freedom. It was born in freedom, it has expanded in freedom, it has resolved its great conflicts in a ‘new birth of freedom.’”7
Both the political Left and Right win arguments by appealing to freedom. One appeals to the freedom to define marriage; the other appeals to freedom of the marketplace. The pro-choice argument has always possessed this tactical advantage over the pro-life argument: it is grounded in the language of freedom. After all, we are a nation that values freedom over life itself. Didn’t Patrick Henry once say, “Give me liberty or give me death”?
Now, a Christian’s supreme political value should always be justice. We thought about that in chapter 5 and will consider it further in the next chapter. It’s not enough to say that such-and-such law will produce freedom. Christians should be interested in knowing whether something is a just freedom. When a culture treats certain things as primary that the Bible would treat as secondary, that culture has created a dangerous idol. Eventually, that idol will imprison and destroy, as idols always do.
Here we find one of the greatest challenges for making political arguments in the public square. On the one hand, every good politician and pastor knows how to make arguments based on finding common ground with his opponents. “You believe in freedom. I, too, believe in freedom. And I agree that laws against pornography will curtail one kind of freedom. But let’s think about the freedom of the countless women who have been enslaved by sex-traffickers, and how pornography contributes to this problem.”
On the other hand, you always risk affirming a people in their idolatry by doing so. “Why not let people remain free to marry someone of any gender they please?”
The bottom line here is that Christians need good judgment and wisdom. Do I lean into this argument or into that argument? Which brings me to the next lesson . . .
6. Be a “principled pragmatist” in your public-square arguments.
Throughout this book, I have been having an in-house conversation with you. I have relied on biblical arguments and treated you as someone who believes the Bible is God’s Word. And this is where Christians must begin all their thinking about politics and policies. We must start by asking God what he intends for us and for the world, lest we let some other god set the terms.
Yet, once we have our in-house conversations, we need to think about how to have conversations with outsiders. Along these lines, a friend recently asked me if I was a “classical liberal” or a “principled pluralist” or something else. In case a label might help, let me call myself a principled pragmatist. By that I mean, for the purposes of biblical justice and within the bounds of biblical morality (principled), make whatever arguments work (pragmatist).
No, I’m not referring to philosophical pragmatism. I’m talking about being wise. Wisdom, after all, is pragmatic. It’s concerned with what works. Remember the verse that I said gives us the political philosophy of the Bible in a nutshell: “They stood in awe of the king, because they perceived that the wisdom of God was in him to do justice” (1 Kings 3:28). That should be our outward public posture as Christians. That’s principled pragmatism: wisdom to do justice.
Does invoking statistics about human flourishing win the argument? Use them. Does invoking points of consensus with your opponents’ supreme values help you win? Then do it. Does showing the contradictions in their positions help you win? Then expose the contradictions.
But be leery of being too captivated by any political worldview. Your tight-gripped principles should come from Scripture, not ideology. That said, cull what’s good from liberalism, what’s good from conservatism, even what’s good from nationalism. Learn to find the good and leave the bad.
For instance, those who self-identify as feminists can sometimes make an idol out of personal identity and female empowerment. And this idol might lead to a biblically unjust policy recommendation, like abortion. Still, God created women in his image as fully equal to men. And a worker is worth her wages (Lev. 19:13; 1 Tim. 5:18). Indeed, the Lord opposes those who unjustly withhold wages (Mal. 3:5; James 5:4). Therefore, I would encourage pro-lifers to join forces with pro-choicers in arguing that women should receive equal pay for equal work.
Now, whether or not you agree with me on this particular recommendation, you can see the larger point: wisdom (being pragmatic) commends co-belligerence across party and tribal lines. I think Tim Keller was right when he said that “Christians’ work for justice should be characterized by both humble cooperation and respectful provocation.”8
So are we quick to listen and slow to speak? Can we show respect in debates? One sign that you identify more with your ideological tribe than you do with Jesus is that you cannot hear what’s good when it comes from another tribe. You assume that everything that people on the other side of the aisle say must be wrong.
By encouraging you to be pragmatic, I’m encouraging you to do what you can to win. Win the debate. Win the election. Win the court case. Not for your own sake, but for love and justice’s sake. So be wise. Be shrewd. Study. Learn from the masters of persuasion. Mimic them. Make better arguments. Win!
7. Be willing to invoke God in your arguments.
This point overlaps with the last one, and it’s long enough and possibly important enough to be its own chapter. Still, I’m stuffing it in here as one more point on how to engage a public square that is a battleground of gods, even if it takes a bit more explaining.
The idea of a social contract, which is the justifying ethic that often underpins Western constitutional republics like ours, fashions citizens who feel obligated to only make common-ground arguments. Christians in particular make three kinds of common-ground arguments: what I call the Luther approach (which appeals to conscience), the MLK approach (which appeals to natural law), and the sociologist’s approach (which appeals to statistics).
Let’s start with the Luther approach, which appeals to conscience.9 Think of Luther all the way back at the Diet of Worms: “To go against conscience is neither safe nor right.”
For instance, several years ago President Obama’s Affordable Care Act sought to require employers to insure employees for abortion. Churches and Christian organizations immediately objected, arguing on the grounds of religious freedom that it unjustly burdened the conscience to insure an employee’s abortion. Now, I agree with that, but notice what’s going on. Religious freedom isn’t the real issue. It’s a backup issue. The real issue, for a Christian, is murder. We don’t want the state to require us to fund something we believe is murder. Yet Christians also realize that not everyone believes abortion is murder. So we make a backup argument that appeals to the common ground—our societal agreement not to burden one another’s consciences. I won’t burden your conscience if you won’t burden mine. Deal?
The second approach popular with Christians is the natural law approach. The founders sometimes used this approach. Martin Luther King Jr., too, famously took this approach in his Letter from the Birmingham Jail. He wrote, “A just law is a man-made code that squares with the moral law or the law of God. An unjust law is a code that is out of harmony with the moral law. To put it in the terms of St. Thomas Aquinas: An unjust law is a human law that is not rooted in eternal law and natural law.”10 King assumed his readers would recognize, at some level, that certain eternal moral laws are bound up in creation itself. Therefore, he could persuade them by appealing to the eternal laws. So, yes, natural law appeals to an outside, transcendent law, but it presumes that every human being can apprehend and agree to it on terms they recognize. A recent example of a brilliant natural law argument can be found in the book What Is Marriage? Man and Woman: A Defense by Sherif Girgis, Ryan Anderson, and Robert George. All three authors are Roman Catholics who believe what the Bible teaches about marriage. But the book’s argument aims at persuading people who don’t believe in the Bible.
The third approach is the sociologist’s approach. Suppose I want to argue that marriage matters, particularly for the good of children. I could point to the various studies that show that children raised by a single parent are three times more likely to be physically abused than children raised by two married parents, four times more likely to be abused if raised by cohabitating parents, and ten times more likely to be abused if raised by one parent and a live-in boyfriend or girlfriend.11 Shouldn’t we therefore support public policies that promote married two-parent homes?
All three approaches aspire to be broadly accessible to people from different worldviews and religions. All three are geared to a pluralistic public square. And despite whatever weaknesses each might have, all three can be useful for different occasions. Remember, we should be principled pragmatists.
Yet all three also share the same weakness, and this is a subtle but crucial point. All three lack the force of conviction because the very thing they are good at—finding common ground—affirms our modern intuitions that all authority and moral legitimacy rests in every individual’s consent. Unless I can be convinced something is true on my terms, it must not be true. And so you owe it to me to convince me on my terms. Ironically, the very attempt to persuade risks hardening people in the deeper certainty that they are right.
We all know from experience how this works. How well have your arguments over politics and religion with friends or family members worked? Are they typically persuaded or hardened? I remember sitting in a coffee shop with Jacob discussing same-sex marriage. He wanted to persuade me. I wanted to persuade him. Throughout the whole conversation, I sensed he was simply using my arguments to get better at making arguments for his own position.
Don’t misunderstand. I’m not saying we give up the Luther approach, the MLK approach, or the sociologist’s approach. There is a role for each. Yet to compensate for their shared weakness I think we should add one more weapon to our arsenal: the Polycarp approach. The Polycarp approach doesn’t look for common ground. It recognizes that every once in a while it’s good to show up and simply announce, “Behold your God,” like the Old Testament prophets did.
Polycarp was a pastor in second-century Smyrna (modern-day Turkey). In 155 he was arrested and asked by a Roman proconsul to worship the emperor and curse Christ. Polycarp replied, “For eighty and six years have I been his servant, and he has done me no wrong; how can I curse my King, who saved me?” The proconsul threatened him with being burned at the stake. Polycarp replied that the proconsul could only light a fire that lasted for a moment. God threatened both of them with an eternal fire that would never go out. The proconsul ordered his death, and Polycarp burned at the stake.12
The philosopher Nicholas Wolterstorff has observed that Christians in the West don’t resist governmental incursions like Polycarp did. We “will not declare that Christ is our king.” Instead we appeal to religious freedom. We are more Luther than Polycarp, said Wolterstorff. “No Polycarps among us.” To a non-Christian, furthermore, our approach might sound like self-interest. Appealing to conscience is exactly what they do. Yet might biblical faithfulness require something else? Wolterstorff thought so: “Fidelity to Christian scripture requires that Christians join Polycarp in declaring that Christ is our sovereign.”13
No, Polycarp’s strategy didn’t work in the short-term for Polycarp. Yet his martyrdom, together with a host of others, eventually lent credibility to the claims of Christians. More and more conversions to Christianity followed. When Christians invoke the name of God or Christ in public argument, we communicate that not only is Jesus our King and Lord, but he is theirs, even if they deny it.
Hear Psalm 2 again: “Now therefore, O kings, be wise; be warned, O rulers of the earth. Serve the LORD with fear, and rejoice with trembling” (vv. 10–11). The psalmist was not searching for common ground. He was saying, “God is, and you should take heed. This is reality.” It is the word of an ambassador sent by a king whose chariots are about to round the last mountain bend.
Are Polycarp’s and the psalmist’s words antidemocratic? Is there an inevitable tension between the democratic “We the People” and the prophet’s “Thus says the Lord”? Arguably the most famous political philosopher of the twentieth century, John Rawls, thought so. He said we are morally obligated to only bring arguments that everyone can understand on his or her own terms. We must make arguments where there is an “overlapping consensus,” Rawls said.14
I, however, am calling Rawls’s requirement a Trojan horse for small-g god idolatry. Sometimes a government will have to make decisions where there is no consensus. For example: what is marriage? Do I need to convince Jacob on Jacob’s terms, or does Jacob need to convince me on my terms? Whose gods make a decision in the public square on this question? Someone’s must.
Taking the Polycarp approach does not mean carving out a space for religious speech in the public square. It means admitting that the public square contains only religious speech. Jacob comes with his religious speech; I come with mine. And we both should admit it.
No, I don’t think we should try to force anyone to worship anything. I don’t think we can. Instead, I am saying that everyone should enter the public square admitting who his or her gods are. Then everyone should employ his or her best arguments—common ground or not—for why his or her version of justice will make for the best laws.
What might the Polycarp approach look like practically speaking?
Here is an e-mail that illustrates. A pastor friend of mine sent it to the principal of his children’s school. It leverages both the Polycarp and the Luther approaches. He explicitly named Jesus Christ as the foundation of his beliefs, yet he also searched out common ground by appealing to free speech. The principal had written an e-mail to the parents of the school expressing her grief over a racist incident that had occurred earlier at a bus stop. She also expressed how glad she was that certain flyers at the bus stop had been taken down. My friend replied as follows:
Dear Hailey,
Thank you for alerting us parents to the vile incident that happened today and encouraging us toward good resources and conversation with our children and fellow parents about how to respond . . .
As the pastor of one of our community’s local churches, I’ve tried to create opportunities for our congregation to talk about the evil and the prevalence of racism and interact with perspectives outside the majority culture. This past year we held an on-going series on “Racism and the Church,” considering the topic from a variety of perspectives: the Asian American experience, racism and law enforcement, immigration, and the African American experience. We had clergy of color, multi-ethnic and inter-racial couples, as well as majority culture representatives speak to us on the challenges they’ve faced. We intend to continue and build on those conversations in the coming year.
I offer this so that you will understand that as a faith community, we stand with the community as a whole in both rejecting racism for the evil that it is, and working to combat racism wherever we find it, but especially within ourselves. Dialogue, conversation, and careful listening across racial lines is a crucial step in that work. As Christians, we also believe that it is fundamental to the message of Jesus Christ, who came to heal our divisions both with God and each other.
However, I am concerned by something that I read in your e-mail, and that is the apparent approval of the suppression of free speech. In our country, even vile and hateful speech is protected speech, unless it rises to the level of harassment or threat. Clearly the two men yelling at the innocent student constituted harassment and should not be tolerated.
But the flyers, vile as they are, were posted in a common area used by the community at large to advertise all manner of events, associations, and ideas. To encourage or approve the tearing down of lawfully posted speech in a public area just because we find it offensive is not the message we want to send to our children, nor is it the way we want to teach them to respond to speech they disagree with. . . .
Our response to vile speech, and the response we teach our children, must not be suppression of speech, but the education of better speakers, with a more compelling message than that of hate and bigotry. Our response must be to create communities in which such vile speech gains no traction and finds fewer and fewer who are willing to listen to, much less entertain, such ideas.
I know that is your goal within our community, and I stand alongside you in that effort . . .
Sincerely . . .
The letter affirmed free speech, but it did not come across as self-interested. It found common ground, but it also affirmed a higher and transcendent demand: the message of Jesus Christ. It took a strong stand against wrongs “out there,” but also acknowledged the planks in his own eyes: “working to combat racism wherever we find it, but especially within ourselves.”
All in all, my friend’s e-mail struck me as politically astute and pastorally wise. It was ambassadorial.
Incidentally, the principal called my friend after he sent this e-mail. She said how much she appreciated it. She acknowledged she hadn’t given such careful thought to the issue of free speech. And she invited my friend to join the Parent Equity group that meets at the school to think through matters related to race and ethnicity in the community.
If the public square is a battleground of gods, we fool ourselves to pretend otherwise. Pretending that everyone enters in a non-sectarian fashion is to participate in a mass delusion. I’m trying to sell you my Trojan horse, and you’re trying to sell me yours. I don’t think we should give up the search for common ground. That’s democracy and living amid pluralism. But perhaps it is time to begin honestly acknowledging our perspectives. “Look, my God does in fact make a demand on us, but I think you’ll find that his demands lead to our peace, good, and flourishing. As for your gods, how are they doing? Which category of statistics would you point to in order to argue that America is improving and that people are happier?”
Without a doubt, the Polycarp approach, too, has its costs. Just ask the martyred Polycarp! It will immediately close ears, especially in our present public square. Nearly everyone today suffers the mass delusion of “neutrality.” I am simply pointing to the direction I would like to see Christians push public conversations, little by little, with prudence and discretion. Start by exposing everyone’s gods or at least helping people to see the worldview backdrop of their policy positions. Then name our God as the real God and appeal to the conscience, the unchanging laws of human nature, and statistics to argue that his ways are better and most just.
And how much better it would be if healthy and hospitable churches were sitting in the background testifying to the same truths.
8. Practice convictional kindness.
Here’s one more word about these public conversations. I like the phrase “convictional kindness” from Russell Moore’s book Onward: Engaging the Culture Without Losing the Gospel.15 We should act according to our convictions, but we must do so kindly.
Peter admonished us, “Keep your conduct among the Gentiles honorable, so that when they speak against you as evildoers, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day of visitation” (1 Peter 2:12). The integrity of the messenger matters. Does your conduct before the world mark you as a credible spokesperson for Christ—doing good works and being humble and repentant about your shortcomings?
The quality and tone of our speech also matters. James offered advice for all our speech including in political engagement: “Let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger; for the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God” (1:19–20). Paul put an even finer point on it: “Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you ought to answer each person” (Col. 4:6).
If you participate in social media, does your tone edify or convey care? Or does it lambast and belittle? How will it affect your evangelism?
Our arguments should seek to persuade rather than to score points. One clear indication that you are simply seeking to score points is that you paint the other side in the worst light imaginable. You point to their worst-case-scenario stories. Your side will cheer when you do this, but the other side knows exactly what you’re doing: you’re shaming them. As a result, your tactic widens the divide. Instead, represent your opponents in the best possible light. In time, you will earn credibility and respect, and you might learn something as you work to represent them fairly.
By this token, we should remain genuinely open to persuasion, particularly in the jagged-line or wisdom territory. Non-Christians often have competencies we don’t. They may understand cause-and-effect relationships in economics better than we do. They may have a scientific background that informs our thinking about energy policy. They may understand the situation on the ground in Ukraine more fully than we do. In cases like these, humility demands that we engage in genuine inquiry. Not only is this the right thing to do, but it will have a marked effect on how we are perceived.16
9. Do not attribute your interpretation of historical events to Providence.
Christians sometimes try to win political arguments by claiming to “know” what God is or is not doing in history. But this can be a subtle form of idolatry. “The secret things belong to the LORD our God, but the things that are revealed belong to us,” says Deuteronomy 29:29. To presume to know what God is doing behind the scenes is to presume to be God.
Historian Mark Noll’s fascinating book The Civil War as a Theological Crisis gives multiple examples of Christians in the American North and South both interpreting the events of the Civil War in their favor. Both ascribed motives to God that fortified the rightness of their cause, whether in a battle lost or won.
The North believed that the South’s desire to perpetuate an evil system provoked God’s displeasure, and so God was bringing an end to that system. The South interpreted its defeats as an act of God’s discipline against the righteous.
I likewise recall church leaders in America interpreting Hurricane Sandy in 2012 as God’s judgment against the nation’s moral transgressions.
Was God doing any of these things? Perhaps. Or perhaps God was doing a million other things. Abraham Lincoln profoundly observed in his second inaugural address that both the North and the South “read the same Bible, and pray to the same God; and each invokes His aid against the other.” Yet the prayers “of neither has been answered fully. The Almighty has his own purposes.”
When we claim to know what God is doing in history, speaking where Scripture does not, we risk projecting our own ideological and partisan preferences onto God. In effect, we substitute our wisdom for God’s, and thus become idolaters.
10. Know your own party’s strengths, weaknesses, and idolatrous trajectories.
We must hold our party affiliations with a loose grip. Otherwise, we will domesticate our faith to our party. Therefore, it’s a good idea to know your party’s strengths, weaknesses, and idolatrous trajectories.
Let me give you my own evaluation of the two main American parties. You don’t need to agree. I just want to give you an example of the kind of evaluation I would encourage every Christian to do.
A biblical strength of the Republican Party is its emphasis on personal responsibility and not looking to government as a service provider. A biblical strength of the Democratic party is its interest in representing the disenfranchised and downcast.
An idolatrous trajectory of the Republican Party is its tendency toward an amoral libertarianism, which can function according to the utilitarian principle of sacrificing the few for the sake of the many. Its good emphasis on individual responsibility can overlook larger structural realities and deny implicit biases. And these blind spots or idolatries—and it can be one or the other—end up leaving behind the poor, the foreigner, or the minority. This is unjust.
An idolatrous trajectory of the Democratic party is toward a secular godlessness that literally boos God at its national convention while also treating government as the godlike savior for all of life’s ills. Many in the party have bought into the god of self-definition and self-expression, a religion that denounces and screens out biblical morality. The party’s platform and practices prize the “liberty” of sexuality and lifestyle decisions over the life and liberty of an unborn person.
Whether you identify with the Democrats or the Republicans, the gospel frees us from being over-identified with either. Instead, it equips you to enter either party as an ambassador. It enables you to be a better party member by affirming the good, denouncing the bad, and pushing your party toward justice.
As with the KKK, the Nazi Party, or the Communist Party, I do believe a time can come when Christians should no longer affiliate with a certain party. Yet keep in mind there is a distinction between your own personal judgment on that matter and a church’s judgment in its membership decisions. And until your church is ready to make that much more difficult decision, Christians should show respect, care, and love for one another across party lines.
11. Be prepared on occasion to disobey the state.
Think of Daniel and the three Hebrews who refused at separate times to bow down and pray to Nebuchadnezzar’s false gods at the threat of their lives. Or think of Peter doing the same when standing before the Sanhedrin: “We must obey God rather than men” (Acts 5:29).
There are rare times that Christians must disobey the state and perhaps even rarer times when we might overthrow it.
Earlier we said that every human being is commissioned by Genesis 9:5–6 and that there is something vaguely democratic about government in the Bible. One implication of this is that we should work to uphold Genesis 9:5–6 even when a government doesn’t.
Ask yourself, does Genesis 9:6 apply to Adolf Hitler? “Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed.” Or is a dictator like Hitler above the reach of that verse’s accountability? Christians sometimes debate whether the German pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer was right to participate in an assassination plot against Hitler. For my part, I think Bonhoeffer—since he had the opportunity—may have had a positive Genesis 9:6 duty to participate. Hitler had shut down every possible peaceable avenue of removing him, and Hitler was not above Genesis 9:6. Nor is any government.
It’s rare indeed when Christians and citizens generally might think of overthrowing a government. All sorts of other considerations come into play. If, in all likelihood, your attempts at overthrow are going to get your family and friends killed and nothing more, your insurrection may not be just. Just war theory applies here too. Your revolution is unjust unless you can put a better government in place. Otherwise, the anarchy you create will lead to all sorts of other injustices. But, in principle, a government that is not sustaining human life but positively hurting, abusing, and destroying its own people is a government that, we might argue, has earned the judgment of Genesis 9:5–6.
That is the biblical case for a revolution. It’s not the mere withdrawing of consent, as Thomas Jefferson said. Obviously, any action you take against a government will be judged by God’s final government on the Last Day. Make sure you’re ready to give that account.
Slightly more common are those instances when a Christian will have to decide whether to obey a law that requires him or her to disobey God’s law. Of course, it’s not always so easy to determine when that is. You’re a court judge who is asked to perform a same-sex wedding. Do you? Probably not. You’re a court clerk who is asked to type up the license for the same-sex marriage that just occurred. Do you? I’m honestly not sure.
The best advice I can give you if you find yourself in such a situation is, talk to your Christian friends and especially your pastors. Many such scenarios will have to be treated on a case-by-case basis.
There’s much more that needs to be said here. But hopefully you’re getting the broad outlines. God has given government a job to do, and its authority only falls inside the jurisdiction that God has established. When the government drives outside of its lanes, or requires sin inside its lanes, you have no moral obligation to obey. Further, when a government habitually and characteristically works against its God-given mandate, it may well be time to fire the government.
Incidentally, praise the Lord that we live in a country where there are so many peaceful ways to fire the government before you ever have to resort to civil disobedience or revolution. God does not promise his people a country as good as America has been.
12. Pray for the government.
Paul instructed us to pray “for kings and all who are in high positions, that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way” (1 Tim. 2:2). We should pray not only for the governments we like, but for the ones we don’t like.
If we’re to pray for the king so that we may live peaceful and quiet lives, another implication follows: we should also pray against unjust governments. I love Philip Ryken’s illustration about one praying church in Aberdeen, Scotland, named Gilcomston South Church. He served there as a pastoral intern. Here’s Phil telling the story:
Back in 1992 it was typical for a member of that church to thank God for the way he had brought down the Iron Curtain of communism in eastern Europe. From the way that they prayed, it was clear that they believed that their prayers had something to do with the collapse of the Soviet Empire. I was tempted to pull one of them aside and say, “You know, it was a little more complicated than that. The global economy had something to do with it, not to mention the arms race and the spiritual bankruptcy of communism. It took more than your prayers to pull down the Berlin Wall.”
I was tempted to say such a thing, but I knew better. Who is to say what part a praying church actually plays in world affairs? To go to Gilcomston on a Saturday night was to know what was going on in the world. The prayers of God’s people really are at the heart of what God is doing. When the true history of the world is finally written, we will discover that Christians like the ones in Aberdeen had a profound influence on world events.17
CONCLUSION
Let’s go back to where we began this chapter. Scripture calls us to politically engage for love’s sake, but don’t set your hopes too much in the politics of the world. Our political hopes must remain in Christ’s kingdom and in his church.
A pastor friend recently shared with me the story of a seventy-five-year-old woman in his church. When he asked her to shelter a young homeless woman for the night, she replied, “Oh, Pastor, James says faith without works is dead. She can not only come into my home; she can share my own bed.” The woman then spent several months in the older woman’s home. She went to drug rehab. She literally slept in her host’s bed.
This older saint understood Christian politics. It began with her own life decisions and then spilled outward. Faith gave way to deeds.
Yet there was no room for triumphalism either. Just last week—the pastor told me as I write—the younger woman died of a drug overdose.
Politics in this world, as we said, is Sisyphean. “Vanity of vanities! All is vanity,” said the author of Ecclesiastes (1:2).
Here are two questions for you: First, is it possible that God has good purposes even in the futility of drug overdoses and so many other political failures? Second, will you love and seek justice among your neighbors around you, even if you don’t see results, for the glory of God, the vindication of his people, and the good of your neighbors?
I love the series of tweets my fellow elder Isaac posted the day after a large group of white nationalists marched in Charlottesville, Virginia. Isaac is black. He tweeted:
Waking up to see what has occurred in Cville; that’s where I met Meg (my white wife) and proposed to her. We love that town.
Then,
Seeing what’s happening there causes me to groan in such a way that reminds me that I am made for a house not made by hands (2 Cor. 5:1).
Finally,
So I’ll work down here, push the battle line forward if only an inch, but my hope will not be that work. My hope is God, my exceeding joy.
Inside our church, Isaac works to help the majority culture better understand the concern of minorities. He gives special talks. He holds book discussion groups. He targets minority brothers to disciple as potential elders. He spends time with knuckleheads like me. Outside our church he writes on issues of race. He performs evangelistic spoken-word poetry at local bookstores for unbelievers. And more. Inch by inch. For the joy set before him.
Isaac is a politically engaged Christian, yes, but also a wise one. He’s not looking for access to the powerful. He’s discipling the ordinary, the normal, the underwhelming, just like his Savior Jesus did. He’s not trying to change the world. He’s living out a changed world. He’s starting small, knowing that the kingdom of God is like a mustard seed.
A Christian’s engagement in politics thus has both higher stakes and lower stakes than we might initially think.18 The stakes are higher in the sense that we are all duty-bound to represent Christ well in the public square. Both the words we use and the results we achieve are a part of the solemn work of glorifying God and enjoying him forever. But the stakes are also lower in the sense that no political result on this earth is final.
We make sincere efforts to persuade others to our points of view. But we do not fear losing, because we know that our God has already won. Every political result that plays out in this life is under God’s sovereign control and is being worked out for the good of those who love him and who are called according to his purpose (Rom. 8:28). This knowledge liberates us to be the kind of happy ambassadors who are always faithful, and sometimes (with God’s help) effective.