Recently I’ve seen a number of posts on Christian blogs about how Christians need to get out of the “political business,” and into the “soul winning business.” That we need to stop being consumed, or obsessed, with politics, and start caring about those around us who are not saved; that we are not to control politics, which is a form of dominism, but rather we are to be concerned only with saving people. I’ve heard this from pulpits, as well.
Since I obviously write on a wide variety of subjects here, from shooting to Scripture to politics to culture, I’d like to counter this line of thinking with a few thoughts of my own. To start, I’ll say this: obsession with anything, or obsession of the wrong sort, is not good or healthy. Wanting to memorize the entire Bible just for the sake of having it memorized, rather than studying what God’s Word says, is no better than memorizing the statistics of the NY Yankees for the last 20 years.
But let me turn this around a bit. Applying God’s Word doesn’t just mean that you start being nicer to people. It doesn’t just mean that you run around witnessing to everyone you can. It doesn’t mean that you stand on the corner washing the windows of people stopped at stop lights in exchange for them accepting a tract, or giving out one cent stamps in front of the post office on the day the postage rate changes. Don’t get me wrong —serving others is a great idea. But Christianity is more than what you do. It’s also what you think.
And where can Christians impact the way people think? Well, let’s see… Politics and culture, right? Let’s look at “social justice” as one example of the way people think. When you say to someone, “God is just,” they will return with, “how can a just God send people to hell?” There are two different definitions of justice in play here. One says that justice is equality before the law. The other says that justice is equality of outcomes. Where do people’s ideas about justice come from? Politics and culture. If you don’t counter the false idea that justice is equality of outcomes in the public space, then how can you ever counter it in the private space?
Christians, in other words, don’t just act differently. Christians also think differently. Or at least they should. Thinking differently takes you directly into the political sphere of life —not as an obsession, but rather as just another place where the battle of ideas takes place.
Should Christians try to control the world through the political process? No, most definitely not. That truly would be dominism. Should Christians try to build a just society, and counter worldly thinking in the political sphere with Christian thinking? Yes. To do otherwise is to diminish your witness.
As a prisoner for the Lord, then, I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received. Ephesians 4:1
Does “living a life worthy of the calling you have received,” mean to restrict your witness to one or two areas of life, or to physical action? Does it mean to restrict your speaking to others to the “non political sphere,” because we’re going to lose at politics anyway? I can’t seem to find that idea anyplace in the Scriptures. In fact, while Jesus specifically and intentionally made Himself as non political as possible (I think this was necessary component to serving His mission), the primary reason for Christian persecution under the Romans was primarily political, not religious. The accusation that hung over Jesus’ head was still a political accusation, and Paul was executed as a political prisoner, not a religious one.
So there needs to be a balance here, as with all things. Christians should focus on the ideas, and not the people (though it’s hard not to mix the two up, quite honestly). But Christians shouldn’t bow out of the political fight or the cultural fight any more than they should bow out of the fight to win souls to Christ —because the political and social fights are, in the end, part of the fight to win souls.
