(Warning: I hadn’t realized until I put this up just how long a post this is, and while it doesn’t exactly ramble, it’s something of an exploratory post. Call it variations on a theme . . . or maybe “Rhapsody in Red and Blue.”)
Anyone who’s spent any significant amount of time around this blog is no doubt aware that I have a definite political point of view; I come by it honestly. I’m the son of a decorated Navy pilot and a Navy nurse, and the nephew of a Navy doctor. I grew up around the military, in a church that was half Navy (the other half was Dutch; it was an interesting mix), in a family and community from which I absorbed the firm belief that patriotism is a virtue. I’ve been raised to be proud of this country and of all she has done for the world, her inevitable failures notwithstanding. I took my shape from an environment that was and is profoundly conservative, politically, theologically, culturally, and personally, though fortunately evangelical in form rather than fundamentalist. I was for a while a card-carrying member of the Republican National Committee, and I thought that was a good thing. I’m not the same person I was then, certainly, but I’m still conservative, politically and theologically, and a lot of people would reflexively brand my forehead with the scarlet “R” (for “religious right”) and figure they had me labeled.
Those folks would be wrong, though. Not because I’m not conservative, or because I don’t usually vote Republican; it’s not a matter of policy differences, or differing views on moral issues. I do, however, have a major problem with the whole approach to politics taken by many conservative Christians. I’ve argued before that American politics is idolatrous, in that it leads people to find their identity in a political party rather than in Christ; in that same post, I noted that patriotism can be an idol, and for many people, I think it is. Yes, our country is a wonderful gift to us, and yes, we’re richly blessed to live here—but it’s God’s blessing to us, and when we start to value the gift as much as we value the giver, that’s idolatry.
We need to understand that as Christians, our political loyalties can never properly be primary loyalties—not even our loyalty to our country is properly a primary loyalty—because our primary loyalty needs to be to God. Arguably the primary theme in Scripture, and certainly the primary political theme, is that God is the one true king over all creation; all human authorities are secondary. We as the church acknowledge him not merely as Lord over our nation, but as Lord over the church; we are directly under his rule.
When Paul says in Colossians 1:13 that we have been “transferred . . . into the kingdom of his beloved Son,” we tend to understand that in purely spiritual terms, that we have been saved and set free from death and sin, and that is certainly his main point; but it isn’t the only point. Paul has in mind here a complete transfer of allegiance, as verses 15 and following make clear, for we are now under the rule of the one who created every power and every authority, whether in heaven or on earth; thus we are no longer to understand ourselves primarily in relation to human governments, nor are we to define ourselves in human political terms. Instead, we are to understand ourselves as citizens of heaven, serving here as ambassadors to the people and nations of this world—and note the message we’ve been given to proclaim: not a message of war or hatred, but the message of reconciliation, that Jesus came to make peace between us and God through his sacrifice on the cross.
The founding principle of any truly Christian politics must be the absolute sovereignty of God. God is king over all the earth and the source of all true political authority; we owe our allegiance to him first and our country second. Yes, this is our country, but only for a little while. That’s why Scripture describes us repeatedly as strangers and foreigners, wanderers and exiles on this earth. The paradigmatic verse for us in this respect is Jeremiah 29:7: “Seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare.” We’re here because this is where God has planted us, which means we need to take this as our home for as long as we’re here, and to do what we can to promote the welfare of the community and country to which we belong—as God defines that, not as any earthly political group does. We must never forget that when we say “my country,” we do so not with a sense of ownership, nor indeed with a sense of true belonging, but simply because this is the country in which God has placed us to serve him. Our primary place to belong is the kingdom of God, and our primary allegiance is to him; all other allegiances must be understood in that context. We’re called to serve Christ as our one and only Lord, in every aspect of our lives, including those which our culture labels “public,” “political,” and “secular.”
This is not to say, however, that we’re free to ignore our government at will; God has established governments for a purpose, and we have to bear that in mind. Paul makes this clear in Romans 13:1-7. Note, however, that he phrases his argument very carefully. “Every person,” he declares, is to “be subject to the governing authorities.” On the one hand, this is a very strong statement—there are no ifs, ands, buts, or exceptions. This means everybody, period. On the other hand, he doesn’t say, “Every person is to obey the governing authorities.” This means everybody, but it doesn’t mean that everybody has to do everything the government orders, period. Rather, the point here is that we all must acknowledge as a general rule that the government and its officials have authority over us, for God is the source of all authority and is the one who has instituted all human authorities. This will usually require that we obey whatever our governments tell us to do, but there are exceptions; Paul’s choice of the verb “be subject” reminds us that we are called, ultimately, to be completely subject to God in every aspect of life, and that human authorities are contingent, not absolute.
When it happens that a government is bent on rewarding evil rather than good, then we must follow God rather than government. That’s part of seeking the welfare of the country to which he has sent us: any authority which is in direct conflict with the expressed will of God must be resisted in whatever manner is appropriate. Any such action must be taken with humility, not giving ourselves too much credit; and again, it must bear in mind the fact that the ends don’t justify the means, and that unjust actions corrupt just goals; but if, like Martin Luther King, Dietrich Bonhöffer, Ralph Abernathy, Martin Niemöller, and others, we find ourselves in the path of injustice, we are obligated to resist it to the best of our ability. “I was just following orders” wasn’t an acceptable defense at Nuremberg, and it isn’t anywhere else, either.
In general, however, we are to submit ourselves to the governing authorities, because God has established them to carry out his work in the world, whether that be the town council or President Bush—or, for that matter, whether the next president be Sen. McCain or Sen. Obama. (After all, neither one could possibly be as bad as Nebuchadnezzar was, and Jeremiah made it clear to the exiles that they were to submit themselves to his rule.) Certainly, while our government is imperfect, it generally strives to reward those who do good and punish those who do wrong, and thus is generally in line with God’s purpose for it; for in that way, we are encouraged to turn away from evil and do what is right. As such, we’re called, for instance, to obey the speed limit to avoid punishment—a ticket, in that case—but also, Paul says, “because of conscience”—in other words, because our laws and police are part of the structure by which God brings order to the world for our good. And of course, this means that we’re called to pay the taxes the law requires, for that is the most basic way in which we submit ourselves to the authorities over us; the power to tax is the fundamental power for any government.
Is it enough, however, to obey the laws and pay taxes? Perhaps it was in Paul’s time, or in Jeremiah’s time; but not in our time, and especially not for those of us who live in democratically-based societies. The underlying point in this passage from Romans is, I think, that we are called to be good citizens, and good citizens who remember that our government’s authority rests on the God who created it to serve his purposes, whether our government remembers that or not; and in democratic nations, being a good citizen carries a few more responsibilities than it did in the days of the Roman Empire. Similarly, if we truly believe that the command to “seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you” applies to us, that means we need to take those responsibilities seriously.
You’ll notice that nowhere in this is any command to seek the welfare of one’s own political party, nor is there any defense of a spirit of polarization. Polarization as a fact appears to have its advantages, but the spirit of polarization, which brands those who disagree with us as enemies and exalts winning for one’s side ahead of the good of the whole, is another matter altogether. Our differences are real—I’m not making light of them, nor am I saying we should play them down or pretend they’re unimportant—but I am saying that we need to stop treating our opponents as our enemies. Or at least, if we’re going to see them as enemies, we need to remember that Jesus told us to love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us. Either way, we need to love those with whom we disagree, not treat them with automatic hostility; we need to respect them enough to believe that in most cases, they’re trying to do the right thing as best they see it, rather than assuming that if they disagree with us, it can only be from ignoble motives. We also need to recognize that we aren’t perfect either, and that our own motives are never as pure as we’d like to think.
That means that we need to learn a hard lesson: winning isn’t the most important thing (let alone everything). You’ll notice in his prayer for the Colossians, Paul’s requests aren’t for anything we’d identify as worldly success; rather, he prays that they would know God deeply, that they would live holy lives, that they would be patient, that they would be joyful. Yes, if we’re concerned about a cause, we’re going to be concerned whether it succeeds or fails—but we need to remember that ultimately, that isn’t our responsibility, it’s God’s, because he’s the one in charge. We also need to remember that it might not be in his plan for our cause to succeed, for one reason or another; making that determination isn’t our responsibility either. Our responsibility is to “lead lives worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him,” in every aspect of life; it’s to remember that integrity and character are more important than political success, and that the ends don’t justify the means; and, dare I say, it’s to remember that integrity and character are more important in our leaders than whether or not they advance our political agendas. (If you don’t believe in the importance of character in leadership, by the way, just talk to any church that’s ever called a pastor who was high on gifts and low on integrity, and you’ll see what I mean.)
Finally, it needs to be said that if our founding political principle is the sovereignty of God, then his word must have final authority for us—which means we must seek as faithful and unfiltered an interpretation of his word as we can. Too often we seek to conform the word of God to our pre-existing biases, causes and agendas, rather than simply letting the Spirit speak; if we want it, God must want it for us, and if somebody objects, well, “God is doing a new thing.” I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard that, or in defense of how many different agendas. That’s not the biblical model. The biblical model is that God is the judge of all the earth, he is the one who determines what is just and right, and our job is to conform, whether it suits our preferences or not. Our political efforts should be guided by what he desires and commands, whether we like it or not, whether it’s comfortable or not, whether it’s convenient or not, whether it’s easy or not. We need to resist the temptation to hear what we want to hear, and seek as best we can to hear honestly what he’s saying.