I recently received a good set of questions about Christian political activism from a gentlemen I met at the Desiring God conference, a man engaged in the noble work of Christian activism. Since the questions have broad relevance for many others, I thought it would be good to attempt to set forth my answers here, with many thanks to my unnamed correspondent.
The questions are set up by pointing to different things about Christians and their relationship to the realm of politics that I have said on this blog.
First:
“As Christians look at their options, we need to fix this in our minds: there is no political solution to any of this. Politics is no savior — politics must get saved… So what should Christians who love their country do? Pray that God would raise up an army of preachers, preachers of the gospel. Pray that they would have a high view of God, a high view of His grace and His law, a modest view of themselves, a backbone, and an open Bible (1/23/09).
To which the question arises, that’s good, but is that all? No, there is more.
“And this leads to the final observation. The world is a messy place. Christians who want the lordship of Christ to be openly acknowledged have two options — they can detach or engage. If they detach, they are following the anabaptist option — in order to build the pure city out in the open spaces somewhere. But if they engage, then they are signing up to try to steer something, as opposed to building it from scratch. This means that those who want to engage have two choices again — do you want to latch on to the liberals and try to steer them, or latch on to the conservatives and try to steer them? Given those options, you could look at both helplessly, and decide to go back to the Hutterites. If you try to steer the liberals, or the conservatives, the chances are better than even that you will be the one steered (and used). That has certainly the pattern over the last century or two. But a large part of this is explained by the practice of the Christians (who showed up to steer) agreeing to leave all their divinely inspired maps at home. That might account for the problems. But what if we brought our maps this time? (4/20/09)
So my correspondent was correct to surmise that I believe there is something Christians could do in the meantime. I believe Christians “who want the lordship of Christ to be openly acknowledged” should
engage. I do want Christians to be at the center of the solution as a “salt-and-light” transforming influence, with their “divinely inspired maps” in hand.
But then I said this:
“In short, Horton is up against a paradox, and there is where the last difference comes in. The most effective way for the church to transform the culture outside her walls, discipling the nations, is to quit being a lobbying agency. The fastest way to change the nations is to quit trying to” (9/20/09).
It is at this point that my correspondent confessed himself confused, and I don’t blame him. He said:
“So now I’m confused: There is no political solution, so we should just pray; but we should engage biblically (which at times might look a lot like, well, lobbying — if in our engaging we try to persuade the magistrate to understand and do what’s right); however we should do so without actually lobbying and without really trying to… ?”
He then went to assume charitably that I had all this straight in my head (which I think I do), but then went on to ask some specific question to help get that harmonization out into public view. So here goes:
1. Based on Scripture, how do you think Christians should participate in civil government in this constitutional republic that God has ordained for this nation? What does obedient, Christ-exalting, biblical Christian citizenship look like?
I believe that individual Christians should be engaged as God has gifted, called and led them. I believe that the Church should concentrate on being the Church — Word and sacrament — with the proviso that preaching and teaching the Word includes equipping the saints for works of service (Eph. 4:12) in whatever lawful occuptation they might happen to be in — in the military, in some grotesque corportation, as a aide to the governor, as a lobbyist, as a retail merchant, as the director of a pro-life counseling center, and so on. In short, I make a distinction between the mission of a vibrant and reformed Church, and the mission of the countless Christian who are members of that Church. The Church does the work of the Church, part of which is equipping individual Christians to labor for the extension of the Kingdom.
2. What should be the motivation for such participation?
The motivation should be the spread of the gospel and excellence in every lawful vocation, and all in the name of Christ.
3. What should be the objective?
The objective of the Church is to occupy until the Lord comes, discipling the nations, baptizing them and teaching them obedience. The center of this is worship. Individual Christians who are living faithful lives out in the world are those who extend the influence of any church that is doing what it ought to be doing.
4. How can [an activist] para-church ministry appropriately assist and encourage the Church to obey its calling in this area?
I would say through publication of what you have learned through hard study and even harder experience. Provide training for those individual Christians who are called to do what you are doing, which should be (hopefully) a supplement to what they are learning on the Lord’s Day, instead of being a replacement for it.
With all this in mind, I would therefore offer three bits of advice, encouragement and counsel to those Christians who are in the trenches of political activism.
First, be avowedly and openly Christian and evangelical. This falls under the heading of “bring the maps this time.” Don’t fight for “traditional values” or for the sentiments of your “faith community.” Don’t be a lobbyist for any kind of vanilla bleh. Go through a process that the secularists will attempt to describe as “radicalization.” Connect everything to the Lord Jesus Christ. The secularists will see this as bloodythirsty fanaticism, and the only way to get them to shut up on that point would be to change your name to Abdullah and start shooting actual people. Then they would pipe right down and would stop rushing to judgment. But since you can’t do that, just settle down and wait for the slanders.
Second, if it is pro-life activism or opposition to the ongoing normalization of sexual perversions, then keep on keeping on. Do this because it is the right testimony to offer a lost and decaying world. God has called you to be faithful, which may or may not be successful. As these things go, earthly success will only come if God grants a great reformation to the church, such that you get reinforcements. But whether He does that in our era or not, it is still the right thing to do. Faithfulness looks successful sometimes (Heb. 11: 33-34) and sometimes the first appearances don’t make it look that way (Heb. 11:34-38). But the important thing is to be approved by God. He is the one who issues the only well done that ultimately matters (Matt. 25: 21, 23).
Third, if it is Christian activism outside those sorts of big E on the eye chart issues, then we need to study and learn. There are many areas where well-meaning Christians have gotten involved in politics in ways that are inconsistent with a Christian world and life view. Here are some areas where (in my view) we have almost as much to learn as the secularists do. We are still hunters and gatherers on these grasslands, and so we have no business telling anybody else how to build a city. We don’t know. To be specific, I believe that evangelical Christians have a lot of growing up to do when it comes to the issues of economics (free grace means free markets), the difference between defensive and aggressive war (the latter of which is a great engine of avarice), the distinction between sins and crimes, and the illegitimacy of pillaging taxpayers to fund our versions of compassion. Many Christian activists sold their souls during the Bush years, and now that the wickedness of Obama is upon us, they are having trouble getting them back again. And it is hard to fight with any vigor when your soul is gone.
