Political Homelessness as Faithfulness
This is the most politically contentious cultural moment that I've experienced. Even those much older than I seem to agree. It's fascinating (and depressing) to see how many Christians respond in such moments. Our posture leading into the 2020 election isn't manifested out of thin air. The words, actions and attitudes that our current political context reveals have been formed in the mundane moments of the years and decades past.
Many Christians are formed more by American political partisanship than by Jesus. We must relentlessly transcend these dualistic categories and the ideologies they espouse towards a Jesus-centered understanding of cultural engagement that's about being salt (make the world better through justice and compassion) and light (introduce spiritually curious people to Jesus) in society.
Michael Wear (Christian political consultant and strategist, co-host of the Church Politics podcast) articulated the the crux of the matter so succinctly: "The tragedy is not that we are unable to find a political home. It's that we thought we could fine one in the first place"
Partisanship within the church is being exposed for what it is...idolatry. This idolatry occurs on both sides of the political isle. Conservative and liberal Christians have progressively become more dogmatic and demonizing. There is an ugly fundamentalism emerging from both extremes that is anti-curious, stubborn and insulated in narrow ideological echo-chambers.
I've spent much of my life within Christian spaces where the elephant, not a donkey, has been the partisan idolatry of choice. Political conservatism has often been the unquestioned Christian way. Legitimate bible believing Christians voted republican. Everyone else was a baby killer and/or a flaming liberal who opposed "biblical values" in society. Such people were met with skepticism and were likely on the slippery slope away from Jesus. Unwavering partisanship on behalf of white evangelicals seemed to reach its pinnacle in 2016 as 81% of white evangelicals voted for Donald Trump despite massive character and competency concerns. It's easy to assume that most white evangelicals overlooked character deficiencies due to a relentless commitment to protecting the unborn but research shows that the economy, national security and immigration were all issues more influential in voting in the 2016 election for evangelicals. As Lifeway researchers put it, "for churchgoers and those with evangelical beliefs, their pocketbook and personal safety are paramount...moral issues aren't a priority for many of them".
The point is, the republican party has been a cozy home for most white protestants in America. They have set up residence with a leather recliner, weighted blanked and a hot cup of tea. With this level of comfort it's hard to leave and it's easy to justify the immobility. As Michael Wear articulated, this kind of faithful partisanship is a tragedy for the Kingdom of God.
Many Christians, especially younger generations, have been so disturbed by this unholy alliance that they have done one or more of the following:
Left church
Left the faith
Allowed the pendulum to swing so far the other way that they now do the same thing on the left. The legalistic impulses and constant shaming of anyone who is not "woke" on the issues most important to them resembles the very posture they are reacting against: dogmatic, arrogant, and self-righteous.
I'll be honest. I've been disturbed and discouraged by what the last decade has revealed about the breadth and depth of political idolatry in the church. As Beth Moore articulated in a recent interview, "we've lost our prophetic voice for a seat at the table (with the powerful)". I've had to carefully remove toxic aspects of my own tradition, while holding on to the beautiful aspects, in order to excavate a more Jesus-centered faith.
In my estimation, white Christianity in America needs nothing short of a revival to root out idols of individualism, nationalism and partisanship. As Lee Camp argues proactively and compellingly in his new book Scandalous Witness: A Little Political Manifesto for Christians, Jesus followers must engage the political sphere in a distinct way: "neither right nor left nor religious"
Large swaths of the church have exchanged their witness and moral credibility for political power. This is what Camp means by "neither right nor left". Today's partisanship comes with "package deal ethics". For acceptance in a political tribe thoughtful critiques are completely out of bounds. Instead, we must swallow everything whole. Nuance or well-balanced positions gets you thrown out. Christians must travel a third path because we understand that each party provides a woefully inadequate vision of societal flourishing. God's intention for all of creation, and His work to restore all things back to that intention, is our inspiration and destination.
Tim Keller illustrates the problem of Christians succumbing to the "package deal ethics" of partisanship by identifying five principles that early church communities were based on:
Multi-ethnic (racial justice)
Oriented to poor (economic justice)
Conciliatory (If you kill us we won't kill you, love of enemies)
Pro-life (against infanticide and throwing away babies)
Sexual counter-culture (marriage between man and woman)
These five themes defy our political categories. Republicans often ignore the first two. Democrats often ignore the last two. And both are terrible at the third!
Rightfully rejecting partisanship leads to another danger: some Christians shrink from political engagement completely. Within this apolitical paradigm church should never disciple directly around the pressing justice issues of our day like race, a holistic vision of pro-life and immigration because it's too political. How ill our churches maintain unity amidst such contentious and complex conversations? We'd prefer to stick to the business of saving souls. I heard a recent interview between Scot Arbeiter (president of World Relief) and Skye Jethani that illustrates how apolitical stances actually cause us to dismiss our calling as Christians to comprehensively love our neighbor:
Scot: "The goal is to be pastoral and prophetic, not partisan....if you will allow me to define politics as the art of public policy our calling as followers of Jesus does not excuse us from that conversation, in fact it demands that we are in it because we should be working for the flourishing of all people. So our call is we should be policy oriented because our gospel is the richest way to form that policy. The church ought to be in the lead on that. Let's step up to our calling. Let's live out that grace and truth of Christ and it will challenge both political parties and it will challenge us and the nation will be richer for it."
Skye: "Amen. And there are so many issues that we as Christians and churches can engage in without having to deal with the government. But when it comes to refugees and immigration policy there is no way for us to engage those without engaging the federal government. So it is out of necessity of loving our neighbor that we have to engage in these policy issues so that means we have to get 'political' while remaining non-partisan"
So, we must reject the partisan binary while remaining engaged with the systems, structures and policies that shape communities and promote or diminish the flourishing of real people.
Going back to this "neither right nor left nor religious" concept, what does Lee Camp mean by not being religious in our political engagement? When referring to those who prefer to shrink into a private spirituality, Camp says
"the faith is not about politics, says this option. No, it's about proper religion; it's about spirituality and saving souls. Similarly, in our own day we continue to have those who are more interested in religion than politics. 'Politics is unimportant' they say. Then follows pietistic pablum: 'God's got this' they go on with a gleaming smile, insisting that 'temporal things do not matter, for only eternal things matter'. But such assertions are the stock-in-trade of the wealthy and the privileged"
Tim Keller, in a New York Times article puts it this way:
"Christians cannot pretend they can transcend politics and simply “preach the Gospel.” Those who avoid all political discussions and engagement are essentially casting a vote for the social status quo. American churches in the early 19th century that did not speak out against slavery because that was what we would now call “getting political” were actually supporting slavery by doing so. To not be political is to be political."
The early church rejected as heresy Christian theology that tried to separate the material and the spiritual. Some early Christians were influenced by streams of Greek thought that considered the soul as all that mattered and anything material was to be disregarded. These toxic ideas rejected a more holistic understanding of scripture that advocated for justice, compassion, care for creation and love of neighbor. The material does matter to God. In fact, God in His goodness and love created the material and is working to restore it all. Orthodoxy in the early church held both the spiritual and the physical together.
Camp rightly reminds us that "Jesus and other early Christians were not executed because the were spiritual. They were executed because their politic was a threat to the powers that be". The politic of Jesus was about salt (caring for physical needs through compassion and justice to make the world a better place) and light (caring for spiritual needs by introducing spiritually curious people to Jesus).
With an election around the corner I hope there is a deep sense of political homelessness in my soul as I listen to both sides of our political binary. Partisan homelessness is an indicator of faithfulness to Jesus and His Kingdom. If I'm warm and cozy within the confines of a political party, if a sense of joy and hope is dependent upon election results, then I have shifted my allegiance from Jesus to a political party. I'm imperfectly attempting to walk this third way that demands constant reflection to ensure my trust is not in political candidates or parties while remaining deeply concerned and engaged in promoting the flourishing of all people (and most especially the vulnerable).
May we be neither right, nor left, nor religious in our political imaginations. Instead, may we be animated by the Kingdom of God that was lived, taught and inaugurated by Jesus' life, death and resurrection. May we courageously engage the political sphere with a selfless commitment to the common good, unique compassion for the vulnerable and a contagious humility that recognizes the complexity of the the issues at hand. As we do, we will find we are not accepted by those capture Jesus within their political preferences. But we've taken a step closer to Jesus.
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