Is Christianity Political?

As we gallop into yet another conflicted election cycle, it is inevitable that people will ask the question of whether Christianity is political. Well, if by politics we mean a cohesive vision of Society which a group of people strive to implement, then yes. Christianity is deeply political. In the synoptic Gospels the core message of Jesus was the immanent arrival of the Kingdom of God. Kingdom is a politically charged word. It is a place ruled by a King. You don't get more political than that. And the phrase "Kingdom of God" occurs 66 times in the New Testament. "Kingdom of Heaven" occurs 31 times, mostly in Matthew. And other than that, Kingdom occurs over 50 more times. If that is not political, I do not know what is. Not only that, but Jesus came to call a community of people into communion with the Living God. And wherever there are people, there are politics. It is simply unavoidable.

That does not mean Christianity is ONLY or MERELY politics. It is NOT. Neither does it mean that the Politics of Jesus line up neatly with the political options in our culture. For instance, we are a capitalist democracy, and not a semi-feudal monarchy, nor a small semi-autonomous commune, which are the only forms of politics seen in the New Testament. Yet there are political and ethical values that transfer across the ages, notably values such as altruism and justice and social membership and egalitarianism found in the New Testament. But still, Christianity is not just about ethics and politics. It is also about spirituality and aesthetics, literature and myth, theology and even philosophy.

It's kinda like marriage. The last thing we usually associate with marriage is logistics. And yet, there are a ton of logistics in marriage. In fact, the majority of each day in a marriage if often devoted to logistics: Who will go here, or take the kid there, or pay this, or call about that, or fix this, etc. etc. If you are bad at logistics, your marriage will be difficult. But if your marriage turns into ONLY or MERELY logistics, you have a crappy marriage. There's a lot more to it. And the most important parts of a marriage may not be the parts you get to spend the most time on. I find that politics and Christianity are related in much the same way (Politics = logistics of how to order society, Christianity = marriage to God in Christ).

So, an apolitical Christianity is an oxymoron. Anyone who is trying to sell you an "apolitical" Christianity is not sharing the Way of Jesus with you, and they are probably trying to get you to ignore how the values of Jesus actually shape cultures and communities. Yet a Christianity that devolves into merely politics, or serves just to validate a certain political party, is idolatry. Following the Way of Christ is about living into a Kingdom that is always "already here", right at the door, and yet always "not yet", never fully fulfilled. The Kingdom is a kind of North Star that guides our pilgrimage as we walk in the direction it points. We will never get to that North Star in this life, but by following it, we will attain more than we ever thought possible. May we all follow the North Star of God's Kingdom of compassion and justice as we journey through the political landscape of our culture, and once again find ourselves in the ballot box.