gritandlove.org Sept 15 Steve Endress, Guest blogger
We enjoyed hosting a church potluck yesterday and one brother posited the difficulty of mixing Christianity and politics. I told him I tended to agree…but there are so many angles to this subject that we spent the next hour discussing just a few. Eventually, I’ll get to the point!
American Christianity is a unique thing. Unique in terms of history, and unique in terms of context. For six thousand years, the world has been ruled by monarchies. So much so, that, the exception (Israel) couldn’t imagine continuing with its non-monarchy and demanded a king. Along comes a democratic republic and the whole world is different today in a very fundamental way than has ever been. Living in America, we assume this is the norm and wonder how everyone else could have gotten it so wrong. We fight cold wars over the differences in ideology.
We say, Jesus never got involved with the politics of his day, he stayed out of it. True, but the context was quite different–it wasn’t a democratic republic and there really wasn’t any point. It was a monarchy. The only way to influence the ‘king’ was to rise through the ranks of bureaucracy and became his advisor. Or, be a valiant general and win a lot of battles. Jesus wasn’t going to fit either of those molds. Others, however, did rise through the ranks, and God used many of them for his purposes and to do his will. Daniel, Joseph, Hananiah, Mishael, Azariah, Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther, Mordecai. (Or as “outsiders,” such as Nebuchadnezzar were appointed by God) such as I don’t think the argument, Jesus didn’t get involved works as well as we might think at first. He called Herod a fox, he said ‘who made me a judge over you,’ he said render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, etc. Somewhat of a nuanced position.
I’m going to argue that this topic is better addressed by the legitimacy of the influence. I believe that the primary reason we should not be involved in politics is because it is not a legitimate form of influence for a Christian. I was a school superintendent (a bureaucrat–one who does the work of a political system) and a small-town mayor. I had some powers of the state to inflict pain on my subjects. My subjects were not free to choose to be under my rule. Sure, they could have moved to another jurisdiction, but to suggest, then, that they are totally free is not being upright on this subject. Yes, there is a spectrum of freedom and bondage, and certainly, a subject is more free to move to another school district or town than they would be to another state or nation. But, to cut this argument off at the knees by suggesting they are free to move and therefore by staying they are willingly under your authority is not a winning argument.
When one has the powers of the state to inflict pain and/or reward desired behaviors, subjects are no longer free to express their true regard for the politician/bureaucrat (p/b). Further, that p/b can no longer determine a subject’s true regard for them, their ideas, and their friendship. We’ve seen this play out so many times that it almost like the air we breathe–we don’t even think about it or notice it. Stop and notice this. Why do you give honor to a wise man? Because he is wise–an intrinsic value. Why do we not give honor to a fool? Because he is foolish–an intrinsic value. Why do we give honor to a politician? 1) Because we are supposed to, 2) Because we fear what he can do to us, or we desire what he will do for us, 3) Because he is worthy.
The Supreme Court recently struck down affirmative action for college admissions. I’ve felt sorry for the applicants who were admitted to prestigious colleges under affirmative action quotas. They were left to wonder upon what grounds they had been admitted. Was it because someone was supposed to admit them, because they feared what would happen if they didn’t? Was it because the applicant deserved to be? For a man especially, being given something instead of earning it is totally demoralizing. It makes us weaker…it messes with our head, our ego, our conscience, or self-worth. Check out When Helping Hurts (ThriftBooks used $5.99) – different subject but similar in a lot of ways!
Likewise, a p/b has the same questions….do I have legitimate influence (am I worthy of someone’s attention and respect because of the way I have lived my life?!) or just illegitimate influence? Jesus was solely legitimate, and Paul worked hard to distance himself from his old illegitimate influence. He counted that stuff as dung. So, college degrees, ‘expert status’, political authority, threat of physical harm (armies, police, courts), all of these seem to lean on illegitimate influence. We are going to have these things in the world. I’m not questioning the legitimacy of illegitimate influence. I’m questioning the wisdom of a Christian deciding to wade into that dirty pool, imagining that he can clean up the pool by wading into it. Jesus didn’t. Paul fled from such an idea.
Some people have risen to places of prominence though they are not worthy. I explore the concept of worthiness here and suggest that it must be tied only to self-sacrifice. If someone has risen to prominence without commensurate self-sacrifice, then I argue that their influence is illegitimate. Push back on this if you’d like.
BOTTOM LINE:
A Christian should pursue only legitimate influence–and he should pursue it for the sole purpose of pointing more and more people to the Kingship of Jesus. You will find legitimate influence always resulting from self-sacrifice, not self-discipline, as this is a humanistic concept. Why would we give influence over our lives to someone because they’ve scaled a mountain? What good did the scaling of that mountain do for anyone in the world? Fathers and mothers have influence in the lives of their children, as do employers, co-workers, churches, voluntary organizations, and person-to-person interactions. Legitimate influence comes from people observing you be true to the Gospel, serving, loving, growing in grace and truth. Illegitimate influence isn’t only counterfeit; it destroys the witness of a person, making it an enemy of the Gospel of the Kingdom.
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