Riverwood Presbyterian Church

Politics

Christianity and Politics

by Clay Staggs

I write a lot about politics here on the Riverblog. In a reply comment to my last post on the subject, I acknowledged that it might be in order some time for me to explain my views on the intersection of faith and politics. Today, I had in mind to do my taxes and had expected the effort to take all day. Happily it only took a couple of hours, so with the extra time, I’m going actually attempt to address those two least polite of dinner conversation topics – religion and politics.

Before starting, I want to make two points. First, I’m limiting my comments to how this issue plays out in the US, with all our First Amendment baggage in tow. Second, and as always, these are nothing more than my views. That and $1 will buy you a coke. Obviously, I think they’re correct, or I wouldn’t hold them. However, being the believer in depravity that I am, I don’t believe that they’re infallible.

There seem to be two popular schools of thought on how religion and politics should mix, and I don’t subscribe to either. The first group could fairly be characterized as the religious right. They seem to believe that the problem with our government and our politics is that we’ve divorced them from Christianity. This group seems to hold to the theory that the US is an inherently Christian nation, and that Christian concepts should play a role in politics and government.

The second group could fairly be characterized as secularists – maybe call them the irreligious left. They want no recognition of religion in public life, and believe that there should be a strict separation of church and state (a concept, I might add, that is extra-constitutional – go read the first amendment and see if that’s what’s mandated.) The secularists, since they tend not to be people of any particular faith themselves, believe that religion tends to be a generator of discord, and that it is best banished from public life and restricted to private activities.

Now, if you go look at data from the last presidential election, the best predicter of voting behavior was the frequency of attendance at church. Given that fact, it should not be surprising that Democrats are considered the secularist party and the Republicans the party of the religious right. Thus, a casual observer, seeing my unabashed GOP cheerleading, might assume me to be religious righter; that, however, would be way off the mark.

I disagree with the notion that this nation is a “Christian nation” to the extent that that means that it has always been populated by faithful Christians and has thus been rewarded by God for that faithfulness with prosperity. I disagree with that view of history and with that view of God. Many of the founders were not Christians, but rather deists. Their writings refer frequently to a “creator” or “providence”, but rarely to a savior, and almost never to Christ by name. Even if I’m wrong on the history, I cannot accept the premise that this country’s prosperity has anything to do with the relative religiosity of its citizenry or government. If prosperity is an indicator of Christian faithfulness, then what about the ancient Romans, or the Babylonians? Prosperous beyond any measure for their day, but utterly pagan.

So I disagree with the premise of the religious right. I disagree more with the secularists, because I find their arguments to be illogical. To say that all religious influence must be expunged from public life is as ridiculous as it is impossible. Christianity influences the whole person, including his worldview, and I’m sure any other religion would make the same claim. How can that be expunged if a person of faith is to hold public office or participate in politics? I suspect that the advocates of this position truly prefer to be free from certain policies and positions that are opposed or supported by religion (abortion being a good example) and seek to win by banishing the religious adherent from the debate altogether. Furthermore, for better or worse, most people in this country subscribe to a religion, and the vast majority of those are Christian. Isn’t it unreasonable to say that the government or politics can’t reflect that?

So where does that leave me? As I said above, true Christianity informs one’s outlook on everything because it works a transformation in one’s heart and mind. It certainly influences my thinking on issues such as abortion. It informs my views on the rights of parents to control the upbringing of their children, which makes me disinclined to support sex ed in the schools, or the providing of birth control without the parents’ consent. Christianity causes me to believe that the government should use its military power to defend the country.

My Christian outlook even leads me to believe in free-market capitalism, because I believe in total depravity. Markets need predictability to function, and if folks are free to make choices, they will choose what is in their interests, which is pretty doggone predictable. The converse of this is why socialism doesn’t work – it relies on the assumption that people will act for the good of the group as a whole and not themselves individually. I think that some elements of the church – the Roman Catholic church in particular – gets confused about this and urges more socialistic policies because they believe that since Christians are to put others before themselves that capitalism is wrong. To me, this both ignores the abysmal results that socialism, when historically attempted, has always produced, and the totally depraved nature of man (even Christians), which explains those historical failures.

Now, differing views of Christianity can produce different politics. Certainly so can other religions. So, my view is to get aligned politically with the party that reflects who you are and is going to be most likely to work to enact policies in which you believe. For me, that’s the GOP. For other Christians, it may be the Democrats or the libertarians, or whatever. Because God gave us all the ability to reason, I only expect Christians to be able to intelligently explain why their Christian views lead to their affiliation. (I once had a Christian friend argue to me that her faith supported her pro-choice views. I heartily disagreed, but she argued logically, and I cannot question her Christianity.) Party affiliation is not, to me, a litmus test for faith. Rather, the views that faith informs should dictate the party affiliation.

As always, I look forward to anyone’s comments on these issues.