This is the last in a 4-part series. (And here’s Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3)

My exploration of motives for Christian involvement in politics began to shift when I realized that the same Paul and Peter that preached a political worldview of simply obeying the laws (in Romans 13 and 1 Peter 2, respectively) were the same Paul and Peter that when told by authorities not to preach, they refused to obey.

What’s going on? Apparently there’s some other principle at work that creates a depth, complexity, and dynamism within this issue: God and His Nature, Christ and His Glory.  More on this in the next post.

I then started looking not just for Paul’s statements about politics but also how he politically viewed himself in a political world.  Paul was a Roman citizen, the ancient equivalent of being an American citizen.  It came with the same privileges, rights, and disdain we as Americans experience today.  So when did Paul pull the “Roman Citizen” card?  In short, when it furthered his preaching of the Gospel.  He pulled the card a few times in the latter part of Acts, each time to talk to a successively higher authority in the Roman government.  Acts ends with Paul waiting in prison to talk to Caesar himself after using his citizenship to appeal his charges to the emperor.

So, as for conclusions, here’s where I’ve landed (at least for the time being).  God’s concern for the political actions of His People does not ultimately rest upon what is done.  Rather, He is concerned that His Bride act from transformed hearts that effect why they are doing, voting, advocating as they are.  Paul used the rights and privileges offered him by his nation to further enable his continuing work and service of the Gospel.  Not to create external structures that do this work for him.  So, I’m all for advocating and seeking legislation that furthers our freedom to do the work of the Church.  I think there’s an absolute Biblical precedent for seeking the support and freedom for the individual to do the work of a Christian.  Our defiance to the laws of this land begin where this freedom ends.  Where the laws and statutes in place hinder us from doing the work that Christ has called us to, that is when our defiance starts.

Jesus said that his Kingdom was not of this world, and that if it was, then his followers would fight to free Him from Pilate.  His Kingdom is a spiritual, not temporal reality, hence our weapons to usher this Kingdom are spiritual and not temporal.  Laws, states, and politics don’t do it; rather love, service, and preaching do.  This being the case, all our political maneuverings should be to free us to do those things.  We will do them regardless, mind you, but it is (or is meant to be) in the interest of the prosperity and stability of a country to support and free Christians to act like Christians – not push them or even create incentives for them to, but create the welcoming environment in which they can serve, love, preach, and suffer for the benefit of those around them with no hindrances.

So what frees us to do the service of the Gospel?  I think this is where personal leadings, preferences, discussion, and discourse come in.  Perhaps making gay marriage unconstitutional will actually ultimately hinder our work as Christians rather than facilitate it.  So what if it “made a statement”?  At what cost?  Perhaps being in favor of the war would hinder your evangelism to Muslims.  Perhaps being against the war would not free you to take advantage of the new open environment there now is for missions work in Iraq.  Perhaps (and I really stress the “perhaps” on this one) making abortion illegal would hinder our freedom to act like Christians.  I will unpack all this in my last post.  Don’t freak out over that statement.  I just want the conversation opened up and founded upon the biblical basis for our activism: putting the weight on ourselves to be the Church rather than on the country to reflect the ideals of the Church, because Christ’s Kingdom is not of this world.

I know I have overstated my case.  I have repeated myself and rephrased myself in more ways than perhaps necessary.  Some of that stems from all this being fairly fresh in my mind, and it probably comes out in my writing.  The rest of it though comes from my conviction that this worldview is essential for so many reasons.  The American Church is impotent today and has little impact on the culture it finds itself in.  Much of this comes from the recent fanaticism of Fundamentalism in light of post-modernity becoming the reigning philosophy of the day.  Fundamentalism just doesn’t work anymore.  The rest of the watching world has already filed Evangelicals away as completely out of touch and irrelevant in today’s modern world.  Historically, the Church has been a small movement that has toppled nations.  Now it is a massive creature with absolutely no impact whatsoever on the people, communities, and cultures around it.  Remove the Church in America and very little would change.

Bottom line:
Our goal in our legislation should be this: that we would so free ourselves to be and act like Christians that in doing so we serve the people, communities, cities, and nations around us to such an extent that they would suffer without us.  And it is in this that the watching world will see a Gospel that proclaims that there is a God through Whom all things were made and find their sustaining life so that this God has a just and rightful claim on the lives of His creatures.  They will then see that this God has moved upon individuals on the basis of this claim to change them radically to love those around them in a way no one else does.  And it is by seeing this that they will behold our Beautiful Christ and Savior who loves His Bride to love His world so that His world might love Him as was intended and will surely be.

I hope this helps.

This is Part 3 of a series. (And here’s Part 1, Part 2, and, Part 4)

“Damn it . . .”

That’s what I said the other night upon seeing the movie “Amazing Grace” for the first time.  As most of you probably know, the movie is about William Wilberforce’s life-long fight to end the British slave-trade, which he eventually did.

The reason curses fell from my lips after this display of passion, dedication, and commitment to what is right is because something resonated within me saying this was right; this was good; this is how Christ’s intentions were to be displayed in this world.

The only problem was that it went against every trajectory the past couple of posts of mine have set.  I realized that the direction I was going in these posts was close to some sort of moral-anarchistic libertarianism where politics were ultimately not a moral issue and political affiliations were a matter of personal preference and opinion, not moral and ethical worldview.

I now see that this view is equally as narrow-minded and incomplete as the opposing view that it attempts to counter, namely that politics is the chief means by which we assert and change the moral state and opinions of individuals and nations.  I am reminded that I am a fallen man with a fallen mind who is as prone to wander to the extremes of opinion as anyone else.  So, coming from this place of repentance and humility (hopefully), I’d like to briefly explore the heart of this issue as I now see it.

A few things got me shifting my thinking a bit on this whole politics/Christianity thing.  First, Amazing Grace.  Second, a sermon by A.W. Tozer called “The Christian’s Relation to Government,” on a passage in 1 Peter.  Third, a brief, but influential discussion on this topic with my pastor in Richmond.  And lastly, a book I’m currently reading The Victory of Reason by Rodney Stark, that shows “how Christianity led to freedom, capitalism,  and Western success”.

If you look at the world as Evangelical Fundamentalists would like to have it, it suspiciously looks like a world that lives your Christian life for you.

A world where the poor pulled themselves up by their own bootstraps so the Church wouldn’t have to deal with them; where your t-shirt, tracts, and bumper stickers did your preaching so you didn’t have to engage people where they were; where your music was all so blatantly Christian, you didn’t have to look for God’s work in and through everything else in this world; where abortion was illegal and homosexual relationships were unconstitutional so we didn’t have to actually engage so-called “sluts” and “gays”.

In this hypothetical world, we could keep us godly people close together and keep those “sinners” far away from us so we didn’t “catch it”; it’s be a world where our laws would do the preaching and our lips would do the condemning.

I’m not saying this ease of spirituality is the motive in the front of every fundamentalists’ mind.  I think people are doing exactly what they think they are supposed to do as Christians in America, because of this Gospel of comfort and self-determination preached from nearly every pulpit in America that gets significant exposure.  This births a worldview that has two primary flawed presuppositions:

(1) that conversion is fundamentally an act of the human will, so every non-Christian is just flat out refusing to do what they must know is true – love Jesus.  I mean, if it’s so obvious to us, how could they possibly not know?

(2) that the Gospel makes life “easier” in some sort of way, be it financially, cognitively, circumstantially, and/or emotionally.  This leads to the assumption that those who don’t ascribe to it must be absolutely miserable with completely dysfunctional relationships, families, and lives.

These two ideas firmly in place lead to the general idea that if we can create an environment that caters to Christians and encumbers non-Christians, then they’ll see how much better it is on our side and convert.  Then everyone will be happy.

Now, once again, I don’t think this is consciously the idea, just the functional ethos underlying much of what is done. However (to put it gently) this is all unbiblical, destructive, unloving, and tantamount to blasphemy against the nature and intention of God.

I mean every word of that, but (here’s where my recent research and thinking has changed my tone), what is so bad about that prevailing worldview unpacked is the heart behind what is done, not necessarily how that’s actually worked out.

What this means is that if you have two people doing the same sort of advocacy for the same political issue, one could be in sin and the other not.  Where the difference would be is in the motives of the heart.

My contention is that much – most, perhaps – of the motivations underlying the political involvement of American Evangelical Fundamentalists is unbiblical.  It is trying to make the nation we’re in reflect “Christian” ideals so as to ease the burden off Christians to act for those ideals in spite of the government.

“Christian” was never intended to become an adjective.  It was only ever supposed to be a noun to describe people – not music, shirts, bookstores, or nations.

These are the wrong motives underlying much of what is going on. In my next post, I’ll tell you what I think is the underlying Biblical principle for proper political involvement by Christians.  Leave comments freely.

This is Part 2 of a series. (And here’s Part 1, and Part3a, Part3b)

Today I want to give some filters (biblical ones hopefully) by which we look at the issues of our country and world. First, I want to offer two basic foundational principles.

Foundation 1: Worldviews and actions stem from beliefs, and non-Christians don’t believe the same things as Christians.  This seems obvious, but it’s very important. 

This means that we should not expect non-Christians to act like Christians.  I’ll take it further: we shouldn’t try and force them to act like Christians if they’re not. Christianity is a heart business, not a legalistic one. Forcing everybody in this nation to act, teach, speak, spend, and live like Christians does not make them Christians, nor this nation into a “Christian” nation. In fact, it makes us a nation of Pharisees trying to make a natural, temporal  kingdom out of a spiritual, eternal one.

Foundation 2: This nation is now post-Christian, and it’s the best thing to ever happen to the American church. 

For the first time in our history, the basic predominating culture in America is not a Christian one. And this is good news. In American Church history we see the degradation of theology and doctrine happen when politics and religion are fused.

Orthodoxy took a back seat to membership and “conversion” numbers after everyone started assuming we thought the same. And this was primarily expressed through the political rhetoric of the of the day. American Evangelicals became “arminian pre-millennial cecessionist dispensationalists”. If you don’t know what those words mean, don’t worry.  Just know these are all theological views that parallel American political and cultural views in the 18th and 19th centuries.

These ideas include self-rule and autonomy from a higher authority (arminianism), rational anti-supernaturalism (cessesionism), immediate gratification/escapism (rapture theology), encouragement of the creation of short-term earthly “self-kingdoms” (pre-millenialism), and the idea that higher authorities should change and respond to the actions of the people, not vice-versa (dispensationalism).

So what does all this mean? 

America is secular and secularists are not supposed to act like Christians. It means that our fight is not with flesh and blood, letter and law. So so many of the culture war touch-points (everything from abortion to prayer in schools to education) are entirely missing the point. Neither Culture nor politics can be “redeemed” or “Christainized”, and we’re not called to try.  The people within a culture are our goal.

No servant is greater than their master.  We are meant to live here as Christ did.  We are to serve and submit to them, putting aside our rightful authority as heirs to all things while sacrificing ourselves for God’s Glory and their good.

We are called to be ambassadors.  What ambassador goes into the nation he’s called to serve and demand it be changed to look like his?

No, beloved.  We are called to declare the inferiority of the world that is and proclaim the supremacy of a Kingdom to come, while pleading with its inhabitants to swear allegiance and affection for the coming King.  The King who came and willingly submitted and died under the godless laws of the people he was trying to save, more interested in the affections of their heart than the politics of their people.

I’ll end with this famous passage from Romans 13.  Remember, Paul is writing this about Rome, the country that was everything Evangelicals are terrified about this country becoming.  Try to grasp the feel of this as Paul writes it and see if it matches the vehemence and pride with which the Evangelical culture addresses these issues.  I hope you see it doesn’t.

“Let every person be subject to the governing authorities.  For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God.  Therefore whoever resists the authorities resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment.  For rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad. Would you have no fear of the one who is in authority?  Then do what is good, and you will receive his approval, for he is God’s servant for your good.  But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword in vain.  For he is the servant of God, an avenger who carries out God’s wrath on the wrongdoer.  Therefore one must be in subjection, not only to avoid God’s wrath but also for the sake of conscience.  For the same reason 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.  Owe no one anything, except to love each other, for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law.” (Rom. 13:1-8)

Next post: let’s really look at why some American Evangelicals care so much about this stuff.

This is the first in a 4-part series. (And here’s Part 2, Part 3, Part 4)

I’m scared I’m going to make a lot of people mad with these.

Everyone who knows me knows I’ve been in this re-evaluative angst recently concerning the place of Christianity in the public sphere.  It happens every four years.  I go crazy for a bit going to various extremes only to get burnt out on politics in general and put it down for another 42 months or so.  I just recently moved to Philadelphia and of course, it being around the 4th of July, the place is going nuts with uber-patriotism.  Everyone and their dog (all joking aside) are decked out in their reds, whites, and blues.  Skyscrapers are graced with like-colored lights strobing across their faces and re-enactors fill the sidewalks dressed in felt imitations of 18th century garb.

Another strange thing happens every election year: the American Evangelical Religious Right machine awakens from its slumber and begins to mobilize, proselytize, and evangelize the world with God’s politics, scientific theorems, and social views as they see them.  They speak and perpetuate ideas as if they are God’s laws and create a stigma to all those that fall out of those bounds.  They have created a new Orthodoxy based and founded upon ignorance, pragmatics, extremity, and commercialism and are not afraid to brand as heretics (or worse yet, “liberals”) those thoughtful Christians that seek other possible views.

We have the Scots to thank for this by the way.  And the Second Great Awakening.  The ideals of the Scottish Enlightenment (pragmatism and the innate inalienable rights of all men but blacks) so influential on our founding fathers and the motivational power of emotionally-driven decision-based religiosity led to this whole “God-merica” thing, so you then found patriotic documents using religious language and religious documents using patriotic language.  It’s really very strange if you think about it.  Biblically speaking, when God had the chance to declare his own socio-political structure for Israel, He established the Church authority and Civic authority as SEPARATE spheres between which there was little overlap.  The religious leaders were not supposed to be the civic leaders and vice versa.  God was the real founder of the idea of separation of church and state.  Politics were never meant to be a religious issue!  Theological?  Yes.  Bit not religious.  I’ll explain in a later post.  Probably Part 3.

So what does it mean to be Christian in a political world?  Would Paul include “God Bless Rome,” and “My Empire ‘Tis of Thee” in the hymnal of his day?  Would Jesus put a yellow “Support Our Troops” ribbon-magnet-that-ruins-the-paint-job-of-your-car thing on his vehicle? (by the way: really, a ribbon magnet?  why don’t you either wear a ribbon or use a magnet?).

I want to invite people into my wrestlings right now so they can use these thoughts to form their own ideas.  The outline for these posts will be: (1) what Evangelicals want to change/keep the same; (2) why they want these things these ways; and (3) how they go about changing them.  I want to talk about how we see each of these these worked out in both modern America and the Bible.

First off, some introduction: first century Rome was everything that Evangelicals (both conservative and liberal) are so scared of America becoming.  (Starting with the conservative fears,) Entertainment was based on the ready availability of sex in the streets and the gratuitous violence of the coliseum.  Homosexuality was absolutely tolerated and actually encouraged in some philosophical circles as a higher or more beautiful form of sexuality.  The devalued human life to such a degree that various classes or types of people were seen as disposable based on convenience.  (Now to the liberals: ) Rome was a power hungry Empire seemingly unaware of the ramifications of its own actions, or just not caring.  Fear and power were their primary agents of political influence, both domestic and abroad.  The socioeconomic class disparities were large enough to fill the streets with poverty.

Though this was the case, you don’t see ANY New Testament writers bemoan the ills of society and tell Christians to try and change it NOR redeem it!  Really, think about it.  Can you remember any passage saying anything but pay your taxes (giving to Caesar), live peacefully with authorities that are around you, and obey the laws.  Think about what this means for religious political activism in the public sphere.  What does this really mean for us?

Next post: Going through the things that get Evangelicals so mad at politicians and explaining why they shouldn’t.  Things like homosexuality, entertainment, taxes, war, evolution, prayer in public schools, and even abortion.