In the past, I’ve argued that the proper position for Christians regarding politics is not to throw themselves into the fray, but to speak to it from outside. The analogy that I’ve used is that a referee can’t also be a player for one of the teams. Once we align ourselves with one candidate or another, we lose our right to speak out on individual issues.
This was illustrated for me a few years ago when I referred to an article by Brian Mclaren, only to have someone say, “I’m not interested in what he has to say; he supported Obama.” While I don’t agree with that reaction, I don’t think it’s uncommon. James McCarty wrote about reasons why young people are leaving churches of Christ; one main reason cited was the way the church has chosen to align itself with the political right. We gain nothing from politicizing the church and lose much by doing so.
That being said, I’ve realized that my stance toward political issues has been too passive. I’ve spoken out on some things, yet don’t feel that I’m doing my part in “speaking from outside the system.” As an ambassador of the Kingdom of God, I have the responsibility to speak out on behalf of things that interest my Kingdom. As political parties wrangle for votes and power, it’s my (our) responsibility to speak up on behalf of larger issues.
I’m trying to figure out exactly what that would look like. I’m well aware that the things I write here aren’t going to resonate much beyond a small circle of friends. Yet I feel that I need to speak out, if only for my own sake. I need to think through some of these things and voice my opinion.
I’ve got some travel coming up over the next few weeks, so the writing may be a bit hit and miss. But I want to address some of the core values that I think need to be addressed, values that Christians should stand up for, values that governments and politicians should be held accountable to.
Tim,
i feel ya big time. Part of the trouble is that even in “speaking from the outside,” it’s terrible hard to discern what exactly can be said, no? All sorts of Christianized rationales have been fabricated to justify everything about America–its democratic system, its wars, its civic virtues, etc. And i don’t mean “fabricated” to sound trite; many of those rationales have been deeply inculcated into many well-meaning people’s deepest beliefs and senses of identity. There are features of American patriotism that are so insidiously inculcated into us that i think it would be difficult to discern traces of it even in my own attempts at “speaking from the outside.” How do we speak from the outside as Christians in such a way that doesn’t implicitly or suggestively “baptize” democracy, voting, free speech, gun rights, or any general sense of American superiority? It seems to me it would take great caution to say things that, in principle, could be said by Swiss Christians or Jordanian Christians or Belarusian Christians or Chinese Christians relatively-similarly-situated. (i don’t know about you, but when i hear Christians speak about politics, their comments often bear a flavor that they more or less expect even Christians in foreign nations to venerate America as much as they do.)
–guy
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