Kyle Berg

In the fall of 2003, I set out to write my required senior paper. At first I lacked enthusiasm for the project and saw it as an obligation. But after finally deciding on a topic, my attitude changed and I found the subject both fascinating and challenging. A cursory examination of the subject, “Religion & Government: Wisdom from the Founding Fathers and a Look at the Religious Right,” ended up being senior paper of the year for my section of the department. Looking back on the paper and the experience, it was a very basic work and nothing scholarly. However, it helped me begin examining a topic which I believe we as Christians are beginning to struggle with and to which we must find an answer. That question is, “Should Christians be involved in politics and if so, how and to what extent?”

I do not wish to rehash what I have already written. (The pertaining excerpt from the paper can be downloaded here if so desired). But as we start an election year, I believe we must wrestle with this question. This is a broad topic ad I only wish to give brief critiques of the Religious Right as well as Christians who disagree with them. These are merely the musings of a young 26 year old who is continually maturing and learning. Four years after writing my paper, I firmly hold to the same conclusion I reached in 2003. The answer is not “either-or” but is rather “both-and.”

While they may not say it in so many words, some Christian leaders wish the Religious Right would either tone it down or go away. They assert the United States was never a “Christian Nation” and we ought to focus on the Kingdom of God rather than on political zealotry. Rallies to “win back America” miss the mark by focusing more on politics than on the work of the Church and the restoration of the soul. We ought to focus on our eternal work and not place our hopes in the temporal institution of government. Man made governments will always let us down and cannot bring restoration. In their estimation, we must first fix our own shortcomings as the Body of Christ before we have the right to criticize and fight in the public square. And until we do so, our message comes across as hypocritical and judgmental. This is a rather simplified synopsis of the discussion at hand, but it should serve as a framework for this debate.

As to this business of whether or not we are a “Christian nation,” I believe it is a semantics game played by both sides. The religious right can use the phrase to bestow a favored status upon the United States–as if we are nearer to God’s heart than other nations. This is a subtlety and quite dangerous, but I don’t think this is as common as their critics would have us believe. Also, those Christian leaders opposing the religious right are very quick to list all of our faults as a nation but very slow to highlight the positives. I see in them a jadedness to which they are oblivious. While I agree with them that we were not founded as a “Christian nation” per se, our founding is unique in the liberty it provided for Christianity to flourish and the Christianity it took for liberty to flourish. To downplay the fundamental role of Christians and their faith in the history of our country is to rewrite history.

The argument to move away from the current practices of the Religious Right is a strong one. I see the Church bending over backwards to make our message more “relevant”, “seeker friendly”, or whatever one wishes to call it. This is what my dad and I (and I’m sure we got it from someone else) refer to as the “Wal-Martization” of the Church. We expect pastors and our local church to offer a litany of services and cater to our needs or make us feel a certain way. In many ways it has become a gospel of convenience and a message of what God can do for me. In this environment the focus is on a Jesus who gives me things, helps me, or is my friend rather than the one who saved my soul from hell and eternal damnation. This attitude has carried over to politics in the sense that it is less demanding to rally around a political candidate or movement than it is to purify ourselves, preach repentance, and speak the truth. True redemption of nation comes from the collective effect of individuals repenting, not our politicians. Our restoration moves from the bottom up and not the top down.

Secondly, Christians (and Americans in general) can overestimate the importance of an elected individual. Jesus was the perfect son of God and politicians are fallible human beings and we should never forget that. The President, my congressman, and my two senators have little influence over my daily life in comparison to my faith and personal decisions. True, their power continues to grow as government oversteps its bounds and plays a more activist role. And in the big decisions, their policies can make life better or worse. But despite this, we as individuals possess the lion’s share of the responsibility for our lives. Here I believe Evangelical Christians can really miss the boat and find themselves disappointed when their chosen leader fails to reform the moral climate of the country.

Now let me speak in support of the Religious Right. There is one characteristic of Christian leaders opposing the Religious Right that really, really rubs me the wrong way. It is the aura of neutrality with which they try to carry themselves. When they communicate, they assume they are neutral because of a refusal to take sides and the emphasis they place on our heavenly kingdom. But running through their message is not just a love for the Kingdom, but also a current of cynicism, anti Americanism, and a desire to be different. It’s fine that they have a different opinion, but sometimes the pursuit of shock value becomes an end unto itself because they desperately want to stand out and apart from the Religious Right. People who refer to U.S. Air Force planes as “killing machines” or support abortion are entitled to their opinions, but they are not entitled to neutral status.

It is this quest for neutrality that I believe is so dangerous. By their very nature, two opposing viewpoints cannot both be correct. But when we pretend all political candidates and views are valid and tell people to just “focus on the Kingdom” we miss an opportunity to work for the Kingdom. Not all views are equal or correct and part of the Kingdom calling for some Christians is working to defeat false ideas and indoctrination. While most Christians would love to keep to themselves and avoid government and policy, some are called by God to stand against the tide they see washing away the fabric of our society. To its credit, the Religious Right has fought against pernicious trends of thought and worked to promote traditional morality and liberty. Their work has not been activist but rather a reaction to the onslaught of modern liberalism and a desire to protect what we have or recover some of what has been lost.

What some fail to see is that when Christians work in the public square to influence policy and elect solid leaders, they are doing work on the front end. They are fighting behind the scenes to promote an environment where people and faith can flourish. Perhaps a teenage boy never has to go to the pastor for counseling because someone cut taxes which in turn allowed his mother to stay at home and provide him with a solid upbringing. Or perhaps someone developed into an opera singer rather than a drug user because the policies of their area minimized dependency and encouraged hard work and self sufficiency. Or maybe a young mother in South Dakota never had premarital sex because her state prohibited abortion, thus saving her from a scarring decision that would have haunted her for the rest of her life. This work will forever go unnoticed and unappreciated, but since the battle was won beforehand, the church never has to fight it.

We need people working in churches to aid and love our community. But we also need what some would refer to as watchmen on the walls or guardians of the faith in the public square. These people not only promote solid ideas in society, but they also protect the rights of the Church. Without them, someone may have hamstrung the Church’s ability to participate in the lives of the community. Think of the fear caused by the IRS threatening to remove an organization’s tax exemption and you have a clear example how the heavy hand of government and the thinking that caused that policy can influence our work.

The Religious Right has provided a valuable service to the Kingdom by working to protect Christians and stop some of the moral decay beforehand instead of treating it afterwards. While others bemoan the status of the country, they have had the courage to contest problems at the source and call ideas what they are, evil. At the same time, Christian leaders in opposition to the Religious Right correctly call us back to proclaiming the true Gospel and not selling it out for temporary political power. This is why I believe the answer is not either Christians should be involved in politics or Kingdom work, but they ought to participate in both.