God’s Politics and American Politics

A Christian Nation?

As American Christians consider the relationship of Christianity to American politics, one popular approach has been to identify the United States of America as a “Christian nation.”  According to this idea, America is founded on Christian principles, has a Christian heritage, and should continue to have Christianity be dominant in shaping its laws and actions, as it always has.  Whatever the legal or Constitutional merits of such an idea might be, it is highly problematic theologically.

While it is true that a majority of Americans have always identified as Christian, it is highly doubtful whether a majority of Americans have ever been genuine disciples of Jesus Christ; given the actions of the American people throughout American history, it seems more likely that a majority of these have always been nominal Christians.  And the actions of America as a nation have certainly never been “Christian.”  America was founded by destroying the native inhabitants of this land and taking their land.  It gained its political independence by an armed rebellion.  For centuries, it systematically enslaved and oppressed African Americans.  During World War II, it murdered hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians with bombs.  And this is not to mention many other aggressive, clearly unjust wars America has engaged in during its history. America’s actions have never been “Christian.”  

Christian ideas certainly had a significant influence on the founding of the American political system.  But it is false to identify the American political system as “Christian” in any direct sense.  A variety of ideologies, not all of them consistent with Christianity, had an influence on the founding of the American political system as well.  The U.S. Constitution makes no reference, directly or indirectly, to the Lordship of Christ or the reality of God’s Kingdom; the political system it establishes is thus not genuinely Christian.  In fact, it is theologically incorrect to identify any nation state, of any sort, as “Christian.”  This is because all nation states operate on the basis of coercive violence, which is antithetical to the nature of God’s Kingdom.   Jesus’s Kingdom operates based on the methods of love, truth, and self-sacrifice, and any political entity that claims the name of “Christian” must operate based on those same methods.  The only political entity that can rightly claim to be Christian is the holy nation, the people of God, the body of Christ (Eph 2:19; 1 Pet 2:9-12).  If there is any entity that can rightly claim to be a “Christian nation,” it is the church alone.  

“Building God’s Kingdom”

Another popular approach of American Christians as they consider the relationship of Christianity to American politics is to get involved in the world’s political reform movements, and then to label this as “building God’s Kingdom.”  After all, the establishment of God’s Kingdom means justice, freedom for the oppressed, and relief for the needy; therefore, if we participate in secular political reform movements that promote these goals, then that is establishing God’s Kingdom.  This approach is also highly problematic theologically.

First, the goals of worldly political reform movements, even when they use the same language as Christian ideas, are not really the same.  The world’s “social justice” is not the same thing as genuine Divine justice, established through the cross of Jesus Christ.  The world’s idea of “freedom” is not the same as the genuine Christian freedom which God has given us in Christ.  The world’s provision for the material needs of the poor is not the same as genuine Christian love, which provides holistic care for people’s needs, spiritual, physical, or otherwise.  

Second, there is the issue of means.  Even if the goals of worldly political reform movements were the same as those of God’s Kingdom (they are not), the fact that these movements use non-Christian means to attain these ends would undermine any claim that could be made that they are “building God’s Kingdom.”  When human beings harm and destroy the wicked in order to establish justice, this is not God’s Kingdom.  When human beings use threats and violence in order to establish freedom, this is not God’s Kingdom.  When human beings use coercion to force people to reluctantly give their wealth to an impersonal bureaucracy, which then redistributes this wealth to the poor, this is not God’s Kingdom.  God’s Kingdom was established through the cross of Jesus Christ, and it can be advanced only through Jesus’s methods: love, truth, and self-sacrifice.  The ends do not Christianize the means.

No nation state, no worldly political power, can build God’s Kingdom through its actions.  Only in and through the church does God build His Kingdom.  God’s Kingdom cannot be identified with some kind of abstract “social justice,” “freedom,” and caring for the poor.  Only where people know and worship the one true God, only where people are reconciled to God through faith in Jesus Christ, only where people truly love God and their neighbor as God loves them, is God’s Kingdom present.  Justice, freedom, and love for the poor are aspects of what God’s Kingdom looks like, but in and of themselves they do not constitute God’s Kingdom.  

Christians may participate in worldly political reform movements.  However, as they do so, they should not delude themselves into thinking they are thereby “building God’s Kingdom.”  At best, what they are doing is helping to nudge the world to move in a direction which, relatively speaking, bears some similarity to what God’s Kingdom looks like.  Their political actions in this regard can thus function as signs of God’s Kingdom to the world.  But God’s Kingdom is truly advanced only where people’s lives are transformed through a relationship with Jesus Christ in the church.

Christian Political Action

The upshot of all this is that Christian political action should be primarily focused in the church.  Christians should find their primary political identity and loyalty in the political entity of the body of Christ.  Their primary political action is to be involved in the mission of the church as it works to transform society through its action at the community level.  The church may sometimes have a responsibility to engage with the secular political realm, but Christians should not overemphasize the importance of this task, nor allow it to distract the church from its political task of proclaiming the gospel and making disciples.

When Christians think of their political identity and action as centered in the American government, they all too easily lose focus and act in ways that are detrimental to the cause of Christ.  All too often, Christians assume that the Christian answer to societal problems is to get the U.S. government to enact laws that will fix those problems.  In reality, true social transformation cannot happen through governmental coercion, but only by individuals and communities being transformed in how they live their daily lives at the personal level.  As Jacques Ellul put it, “There can indeed be a social transformation.  It will not come about, however, by a collective movement or a politico-juridical decision.  It will come from below by the accumulation of a vast number of individual decisions.  For it is at this level alone that one sees “Christ in us” at work.  A genuine transformation of the human condition is not to be expected from government action.  What we have always to remember is that according to the gospel movement among men is from below upward and never from above downward. . . Social transformation comes from the bottom, not the top.”^[1]Jacques Ellul, The Ethics of Freedom, translated by Geoffrey W. Bromiley (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1976), 478.  Even if Christians are able to get the government to outlaw certain sinful behaviors, they must recognize that this will not truly solve the fundamental problem, which is sin.  In order to bring about genuine social transformation, individuals and communities must choose to change their way of life and to live righteously. 

When Christians fail to find their political identity and loyalty in the church, they all too easily end up giving their political loyalty to whatever American political movement, party, or candidate they have decided is more “Christian” than the other.  When this happens, they all too frequently give their approval to, or at least mute their criticisms of, aspects of that platform which are unChristian or even positively demonic.  For the sake of political expediency, Christians will give unqualified endorsement of the candidate they have decided is better, without criticizing the things that candidate advocates that are positively contrary to the gospel.  When this occurs, Christians fail in their responsibility of speaking truth to power and being witnesses of God’s Word to the world.  But if Christians recognize that whatever happens in the secular political sphere is a secondary political matter at best, they can be freed to be faithful witnesses to God’s truth, even at the cost of political effectiveness in the short term.  Only then can Christians see God’s Kingdom truly advance in a society that is losing faith in the credibility of the church’s message.