Faith as Politics
For the five minutes it takes to read this article, we’re going to ask you to forget everything you think you know about politics and start from a clean slate with us. Nearly every single facet of American life has been coded as either blue or red, and it’s been that way for long enough that we don’t have any reference point for what politics-done-well ACTUALLY looks like. So let us offer a couple thoughts as building blocks for a new model of political understanding.
Starting from scratch, what is a politic? The word “politic” derives from the Greek word polis, meaning “city.” Politics, then, are simply the practices and procedures—the systems and ideas—used to order a city and its citizens. This includes everything from how members of the community communicate with one another (e.g. mail service) to how they travel (e.g. public transit) to how they gain access to basic necessities (e.g. water, food, healthcare, etc.) to who’s allowed entry into the community (e.g. citizenship criteria). Every community, then, operates according to some politic… some structure that sets the standard for not only what is allowed (legal) and disallowed (illegal), but also what is acceptable behavior (moral) and unacceptable behavior (immoral). You get the idea.
Very simply, a politic is the way a community organizes the common life of the people. Done right, then, politics seek to bring people together in ways that allow ALL life to flourish. Somewhere along the line, though, we stopped asking the question, “How can we make sure all the members of our community flourish?” and started asking, “How can I make sure I come out on top? What can I do to make sure MY way of living is protected?”
“A politic is the way a community organizes the common life of the people. Done right, then, politics seek to bring people together in ways that allow ALL life to flourish.”
Despite there being countless ways to imagine what flourishing looks like and how we should live together, only two politics (i.e. plans for common life) prevail in the American political landscape: the Republican politic and the Democratic politic, each valued more for the social issues they support and the ideologies they espouse than for the justice and flourishing they make possible. We’ve turned politics into an us-versus-them team sport and, in the process, we’ve lost our way. But for those of us who find ourselves exhausted and disillusioned with all the political back-and-forth, there is Good News: Christianity, founded on the life and teachings of Jesus, is its own politic with its own things to say about what human flourishing and a just common life require (see Micah 6:8).
Parishioners in churches across the nation frequently tell their pastors, “We shouldn’t be talking about politics in church. Faith and politics are meant to be kept separate.” But citizens lose when the Church’s voice is left out of political decision-making… when the will of God and the way of Jesus aren’t considered when building and maintaining civic life. If politics are the practices and procedures that order our common life, why would we leave the institution best equipped to make decisions for the common good out of the conversation? The Church, at its best, is the institution best equipped to weigh in on the makings of a just and generous common life.
Countless scriptures show God deeply invested in the political life of Israel. The predominant overarching question in the Old Testament is, “How should the people of Israel live?” Which laws should order their collective living? Just because the specific events of 2020 don’t appear in the Bible doesn’t mean God has stopped caring about how we live together. So, we need to start allowing our faith to inform how we think about civic life (i.e. our politics).
For Christians, this means seeking what is beautiful and congruent with God’s will and the way of Christ. It means condemning as “heretical” all that is not of God. What’s challenging, though, is that not all Christians will agree on what serves the common good and what counts as heretical. That said, there are several non-negotiables all Christians should agree on… deal-breakers, such that we cannot support a candidate if that candidate has a particular policy or conviction not consistent with who Christ is.
[*Alright, let’s pause real quick. All this talk about politics is likely stirring up some anxiety. So, before moving on, let’s take a breath and reset our thinking again. Remember, the sort of politics we’re talking about doesn’t know or care about blue vs. red; it starts and builds off the question, “Who is Jesus and what does he require of me as one of his followers?”]
“...stop thinking about donkeys and elephants and start thinking about the Lamb of God.”
As Christians, we are people ordered around the life and teachings of Jesus. In every circumstance, then, we MUST be asking the question, “Who is Jesus and what does he require of me as one of his followers?” We need to stop thinking about donkeys and elephants and start thinking about the Lamb of God. Would the Jesus you confess faith in turn a blind eye to suffering people? Would the Jesus you confess faith in support systems that perpetuate the suppression of rights for black and brown and female and poor people? Would the Jesus you confess faith in condone lying or violence or hateful speech? None of these things are supportable by Christian doctrine. Suddenly, you can start to see how our faith can—and must—inform our politics.
The final thing to say is that while voting is a right—one we should all respect and take seriously—it is appropriate to lament our responsibility to participate in a broken system. Despite what we’re led to believe, no political candidate or party is our savior; Jesus is. So, in whom do you place your hope for a better common life where all creation will flourish? Certainly not in either the Democratic candidate or the Republican incumbent, but in Jesus Christ. You know what is true and noble and right and pure and lovely and admirable; you know what is excellent and praiseworthy (see Philippians 4:8). When you vote in the coming weeks, “think on these things.”
