As the crisis in our country deepens, we must recognize the culpable role of the Church in bringing this crisis about. Not only has it been a culpable role, it has been a central culpable role. Because we have not been people of the Word, the result has been virtually no prophetic ministry to the world. And as things get worse, the confusion in the Christian world only appears to be deepening, and many Christians have consequently gravitated to a support for people who have a similar position to ours, on some issues. Any port in a storm. But there is a fundamental problem with this.
Consider the following:
In order to understand this complicated subject, we must keep a fundamental distinction in the forefront of our minds. There is a difference between separating the Church from partisan politics, which must be done, and separating the world of politics from God’s standards (as declared and preached by the Church) which must never be done. All of us need to be faithful citizens, family-members, and church-members, and each under the law of God. And our involvement in civic affairs must be explicitly Christian.
There is the additional complication of the distinction between allies and co-belligerents? In the Second World War, the United States and Great Britain were allies. They were fighting the same enemy, and for the same basic reason. The United States and the Soviet Union were co-belligerents. They were fighting the same enemy, for completely different reasons. Christians often have trouble fighting in political battles as co-belligerents with other groups, and then turning around and opposing the errors of these other groups. But non-believers are never our allies in the spiritual war, and the spiritual war should be the central one we are fighting in the cultural war at all. So it makes no sense to abandon a front in the spiritual war for the sake of not queering something in the cultural war. Our cultural engagement must proceed naturally from our understanding of, and participation in, the spiritual war. That means that if we find ourselves co-belligerents in the cultural war with adversaries in the spiritual war, we should say something like, “Huh. That’s funny.” What we must not do is assume that they are somehow “coming around” spiritually simply because they voted for the same policy proposal you did.
And this brings us to the question of right or left, up or down. The terms right and left wing originally came from the seating of the National Assembly in France during the time of the French Revolution. It has since come to mean far more. Those seated on the right were slow revolutionaries, the moderates. Those seated on the left were the fire-eaters, the ardent revolutionaries.
The thing which distinguishes Christian political thinking, as opposed to some kind of “me-too-ing” of the sentiments of the secular right and left wing is its relationship to Scripture. As Christians think through what should be considered a crime, and what a sin, the only issue that matters is our court of appeal. Is that court Scripture, and do we honor that court through careful exegesis?
But a few examples ought to show us that glibness is not possible. Only a superficial thinker would say that proposal x on the following issues, whatever that proposal might be, “is the only position possible for Christians.” We have a lot of work to do before we (collectively) could say anything as confident as that. If an exegetical appeal is made to defend a position, the intial results will often be surprising to traditionalists and revolutionaries both. What about the legalization of drugs? What about national health care? What about the war in Iraq? What about protecting the environment? What about anti-tobacco prohibitionism?
Now then, with all these complications, here is the attempt to answer the question posed in the title. Is the Christian faith right wing? Within secularist categories, no, obviously not. We are not part of the seating arrangements in the post-revolutionary Assembly. We are not delegates to the Revolution.
But this means we are proclaimers and agents of the cosmological revolution that Christ accomplished when He overthrew the principalities and powers two thousand years ago. Christ is Lord, and the implications of His lordship did work it way (incompletely) into the heritage of Western civilization, and has been having its leavening effect for over two thousand years. The French Revolution (that established the categories of secular left and secular right) was a fundamental revolt against this Christendom. Consistent Christians want a return to Christendom, or perhaps a better way of saying it is that we want the establishment of a second Christendom, and, if necessary, a third. We want the lordship of Christ to be recognized and honored in every realm of life. We want every knee to bow and every tongue to confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father.
But because the children of the Enlightenment think of the Revolution as so complete, so accomplished, where do they put us? Besides the Bastille, I mean. How do they describe and categorize us? They will use various terms like reactionary, but ultimately, because they cannot think outside the Assembly (outside of which is no salvation), they will think of us as “ultra-right.” This is a category mistake on their part, but it is easy to see how the mistake is made. If a policy proposal is being debated before the Assembly, and you say, in the course of debate that the entire Assembly is illegitimate, and long live the king, how shall they categorize you? Those on the left will certainly say that this is where all forms of moderation eventually lead, straight into reactionary-ville. And those on the right will be embarrassed by your presence.
One other thing. The recognition of the crown rights of Jesus Christ is, given the history of our civilization, a conservative position. It is characteristic of the Old Right, understood as a pre-revolutionary reality. But this does not mean that we believe that Christendom had reached its high water mark just before the Revolution. It does not mean that all we want is a return to the status quo ante. It simply means that we want to have our policy debates (and we will have them) with the givenness of that as a foundation.
It also means that political secularists who happen to be Christians have all made the same compromise whether or not they want national health care or oppose it, whether or not they oppose casino gambling, whether or not they support the war in Iraq, whether or not they want to feed the hungry, whether or not they are against abortion. Jim Wallis and Ralph Reed both have a seat in the Assembly, and that is their fundamental problem. Now if Christians are going to be revolutionaries at all, I prefer that they go slow for the same reason that I prefer all revolutionaries to go slow. If they are going to get their place at the table, and they get a vote, I prefer it when they use their vote against chopping off the king’s head. They voted the right way, seated in the wrong chair. But this preference of mine is not approval. If I am going to be mugged, I prefer being robbed to being robbed and shot. This does not mean I am “in favor of” the former option, even if, given the options, I would prefer it. And if the guy robbing me is a fellow Christian, I really don’t want to be shot.