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Part 3 of our “Pulpit and the Podium” series looks at what the distinctions set forth in Part 2 mean for Christian public policy efforts. Begin with Part 1 here or continue reading…

What does this mean?

1.) The task of the Church is not the task of the government:

In a democracy, the Church’s public effort and a Christian’s policy effort can differ methodologically. The differences between Christian standards of conduct and biblical social ethics should aid in exemplifying the reality that the task of the Church is not the task of the government. Failure to make this distinction is counterproductive to both faith and politics. Confusing Christian faith and political ethics can only lead to one interfering with the goals of the other. The mission of the Church is not one of developing social strategies to make America function, to supply theories of governmental legitimacy, or even to suggest strategies for social betterment. Rather, the Church is to become a polity that has the character to survive as a truthful society. The Church does not exist to provide an ethos for democracy or any other form of social organization, but stands as an alternative to every nation, witnessing to the kind of social life possible for those that have been formed by their new life in Christ.

Imposing the Christian faith at the political level profits nothing. In fact, goals such as protecting the weak and needy are actually hindered by Christians demanding that the public believe as they do – when the only reason Christians take the positions they do is a result of their regenerate nature.[1] If in fact Christian faith adds a supernatural level of content and ability to morality, then public policy in accordance with this fact would be impossibly complex. Given that Christians have unique insight into an ethical issue precisely because they are Christians then discussion of this insight in the public square of a pluralistic society has inherent complications. This means that Christians called to engaging the culture on a political level may stand in the public square free never to bring their faith to bear on the issues at hand. To keep Christianity out of the public policy of a liberal democracy is not a betrayal of the faith because Christians were never instructed to impose their faith as a political system. Something is deeply wrong with the idea of “enforcing Christianity” and that is precisely what legally binding someone to a Christian standard does.[2] Christians are missionaries in America as much as in any other country and Christians must detach their faith from their nation.

Certainly, Christians were never meant to attempt to create a separate Christian utopia (or try to impose one on the masses) simply because Christians cannot truly separate from this fallen creation. No matter where Christians retreat, or no matter how successfully they create a culture that adheres to biblical principles, they are nonetheless still within the bounds of a fallen and sinful world. But that is not to say that they don’t have a responsibility to affect positive change in any way available to them. Because liberal democracy allows the individual citizen to impact society, for better or worse, the Christian has a duty to utilize the tools of democracy in order to facilitate the ministry of the Church and protect the poor and the opressed; this is done by defending the ethics that are essential to American civil society. Christians involved in public policy should advocate a social ethic sufficient to guide and perhaps even produce those fit to rule society; and that has to be an ethic acceptable to non-Christians. The biblical source of these ethics need not be hidden because of the historical support for them. Both history and reason uphold the Bible as a valid social, ethical, cultural, and political text. Yet, biblical social ethics may be championed under a name without religious pretext. The culture does not need to recognize the source of ethical truth in order to benefit from the civil society it creates. Call them what you will, they are still a piece of God’s truth that even in the hands of sinful men can change a culture into a powerful nation.

At the same time, the Church must be careful that in utilizing the tools of democracy it does not substitute the necessity of making clear that its standards can never be identical with what appear to be the progressive programs of a particular society. This is especially important for the Church in American democracy because regardless of its Christian heritage American culture is not reflective of Christianity. This means that the vibrancy of the Church does not live and die with its level of acceptance by American political and cultural trends. The Church’s identification with “the American way of life” has at times been so complete that Christians have tended to forget that the Church’s future is not the future of western democracy. Instead, the Church’s vitality can be measured by the individual Christian’s willingness to get involved with the world according to the tasks to which they have been called in every way possible.

The danger in identifying Christianity with the American way of life should be obvious as this leads to an unnecessarily strong attention to the American legal system as rules of life for a Christian. To be a law abiding citizen is not to be good Christian. Instead, the Christian community should be what challenges the moral presupposition of society and expand what it means to be just. The Church is to be the conscience and servant of the human community, a role that is possible only if Christians resist the temptation to live according to values other than those directly exemplified by Christ (values always sub par with Christian virtue). The life and practice demonstrated by individual Christians and of the Church as a whole should be the impossible ideal for the rest of society to achieve.[3] Often Christian enthusiasm for democratic political involvement in the interest of securing more equitable forms of justice has seduced the Church away from its more profound cultural tasks. Nowhere is the effect of this seen more powerfully than in the Christian acceptance of the liberal assumption that a just society is possible without the people being just. Christians have often failed to give due attention to the reality that law will always be the last thing to change. Change the people and they will change the laws.

Furthermore, not only is it important to understand not only that America is not a Christian nation, but also America is not a Christian person. This country’s global actions and policies cannot be treated or judged as if they were. We cannot expect or demand our liberal democracy to behave as a Christian would. Our global reality demands that our society must strive for justice and peace even if that means the use of self-assertion, resistance, coercion, and other tactics that cannot gain the moral sanction of Christian standards. A nation cannot approximate any uniquely Christian standard and perhaps in a fallen world can only hope to realize the principles of justice (much less love or self-sacrifice). The spiritual idealism that that leads to demands on the nation to subject to the laws of Christ is simply unrealistic, sentimental and illogical. Christian standards can never be achieved by social and political policies. [4]

2.) The desire for a civil society is not unique to Christianity

In warring against postmodern liberal tolerance for a civil society Christians can use all the help they can get. Christians are not the only ones who desire to a nation based on shared morality. Individuals of all backgrounds who support a civil society defend biblically based ethics.[5] In a political context, there is no reason why people of all beliefs and affiliations cannot put aside differences for the sake of a moral America. Those willing to unite behind a shared morality against the cultural decay of relativism can achieve massive sociopolitical change. Christians should be the first to support such a joint effort in relation to public policy. The good that can come through combined effort is too great for Christians to fail to participate.

Based on the premise that religion is the foundation of morality, this type of united front can gain the most momentum by joining people of different religious faith on the side of a theistic morality against the desacrilization of western culture. The purpose is to put aside religious differences to achieve through democratic means a nation desirable to all. Although the theological implications of a religious broad based united front are highly controversial, the Christian’s political efforts are certainly open to discerningly uniting on specific issues with morally reputable parties willing to fight for the Christian position in order to achieve positive change for society as a whole. Many Christians would be surprised to find that they have far more public policy allies than they ever imagined.

On the other hand, to support ecumenical unity for political gains is not to allow pluralism into Christianity. In warring against the principalities and the powers for the saving of souls, Christianity’s uniqueness must always be protected against being seen as just another religion. Here again the difference between advocating for a civil society and defending Christian ministry becomes a vital distinction. To confuse the Christian’s role at this point would be cataclysmic to the future of Christianity. In no way should the type of language used in interfaith public policy ecumenism be allowed to permeate into the theological distinctions of true faith in Christ. Civil ethics for the United States do not and cannot equal Christian faith. Though there may be many ways to public policy reform, there is only one way to salvation. The Church must make use of the public policy change that can come through ecumenism by being active in communities, in schools, in courtrooms, in hospitals, in galleries, and in every other aspect of culture to exhibit the integrity, uniqueness, and absolute truth that is the Christian faith.

3.) The distinctions between Church and Nation must be discussed

In order to empower the average Christian to cultural engagement, political issues should be discussed within the churches. Political and cultural issues must be addressed and understood by Christians so that those involved can have proper perspective and answers can be given to those with questions. Treating government and culture as evils to be avoided and in turn attempting to separate Christians from them, not only ultimately fails to isolate the Christian from the surrounding culture but also leaves the Christian fully unprepared for the world they inevitably interact with. Instead of being ignorant of American liberal democracy and the culture it creates, Christians should be masters of the political system that is over them so that can understand and operate effectively within it. What is more, Christians should be teaching and training their children to become democracy’s greatest citizens. Empowering and motivating them to participate in democracy, not to drop out of American political involvement leaving the fate of the nation in the hands of those who would deny the principles of truth and justice.

One of the main goals of making the distinctions between Christian standards of conduct and biblical social ethics is to free Christians from confusion and fear of cultural engagement and empower them to take ownership of American democracy as valuable citizens. So much good is held captive if the most virtuous part of a democracy’s population marginalizes itself into obscurity.

Ideally, a proper grasp of the concepts set forth here should avoid much of the political and cultural embarrassment Christians have brought upon themselves by not separating their faith from their nation.[6] No longer should politicians playing the “religious card” be able seduce Christians into rallying behind him or her in hopes of a Christian America because Christians will know better than to endorse specific individual or agendas. No longer should single-issue divisions that polarize public officials fool the powerful voting block of Christians because Christians will fixate less on trying to legally stamp out sin. No longer should Christians legally discriminate against people based on particular sins because Christians will support and appreciate diversity in a pluralistic society.[7] No longer should Christians rest their hopes on achieving a supposedly Christianized government, or try to take capitol hill by storm, but will instead focus first on their roles in the community as a community – changing the people first and then empowering them to change the government. No longer should Christians seek government approval to do good, but will embrace their freedom to do good within their communities. No longer should Christians be social pessimists but will realize that they can have a positive impact on sociopolitical trends, and spiritual revival can revisit American culture.[8]

Continue to Part 4

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[1] In a liberal democracy a religious body does not have the right, simply because it may be in the majority to be better organized that other groups, to bind its specifically religious doctrines on others or to require that others help pay for the propagation of those doctrines. The core of pluralism is not the dogma that all opinions are equally valid but the conviction that civility and the public peace are important, that respect for minorities and their opinions is a crucial element of a democratic society.
[2] All of this is not to say that Christ is not the authority to all mankind and not to say that they are not all accountable to God – they are whether they believe it or not, but in public policy the distinction holds. It is important not to read to much into this, no grand claims on the ethical abilities of man are being made, just what can be expected in the public policy of a liberal democracy. Does that imply that unregenerate man has no reason, or worse ability, to be moral? By no means. However, Christians are bound by God but men are bound by the law. While accountable to God whether they know it or not, fallen man is only bound by their conscience and the law and bound by agreed upon shared value system. The agreement is up to the democratic process, the values of the people. These are the values we must fight to define and protect.
[3] Reinhold Niebuhr is famed for his exposition of the “impossible ideal.” Only, he desired to apply it as unachievable for American society in viewing American society as Christian rather that more rightly limiting the Christian ideal to the Church where it belongs. To try to encompass all virtuous social activity as “Christian” is to attempt to draw too much under a Christian umbrella. The point of making these distinctions in Christian social ethics is to demonstrate how and why there is no need for such an attempt any why Christians should fight such impulses.
[4] It should be obvious that the ethical intent of the New Testament does not support imposing Christianity, expecting Christianity from society, or confusing the task of the Church with the task of the government. History reveals the results of such practice.
[5] The logic, goals, and motivations of these individuals are stated concisely in A Call to Civil Society: Why Democracy Need Moral Truths, from The Institute for American Values.
[6] For a revealing history of Christian political involvement William Martin’s With God on Our Side: The Rise of the Religious Right in America will provide valuable perspective.
[7] Christians may know that there is no degree of sin and they may know to hate the sin and not the sinner, nonetheless, certain Christian groups seem willing to publicly tolerate some sinners and not others. This is exhibited most frequently in refusing to back public policy that would protect certain groups from harmful discrimination because of a particular sin – homosexuality for example (thirty years ago it would have been divorce). Supporting policy that gives protection to a hated group is not to condone the sin that the Christian faith condemns. If Christians are called to protect the weak and the needy, then they are called to protect all of the weak and needy, not just those that aren’t “too sinful.”
[8] Christians too frequently have been bound to unwarranted pessimism toward the supposedly unceasing moral and spiritual decline of mankind, and this pessimism is reflected in their public policy efforts. Many Christians believe that due to original sin and mankind’s incessant evil that society and humanity will only get progressively worse; that whatever follows must be worse than whatever preceded. This invariably leads to hopelessness and apathy. When in fact God is not waiting on mankind to fall to a certain point on a downward spiral so that at long last Christ can return; nor is God waiting on man to concoct some specific wicked form of global government or society so that Christ can return. This line of thinking ignores the truth that the actions of man cannot have a supernatural effect. To exemplify: In the same way that man cannot save or un-save himself, man cannot create a perfect society in this fallen world through Christian social activism, nor can man remove God’s grace from this world through sinful treachery. Instead, all of the governments of the world are merely muddling around until God is finished calling out his church – then and only then will Christ return. In short, Christians are not so much aboard a sinking ship as they are aboard one lost at sea. The reality is that the world is just as fallen now as it has been and will be. God has not changed, mankind has not changed since the fall, and Christianity has not changed since its inception. Christians of all eras, from the apostolic age until the present day, have bewailed the state of mankind and man’s unceasing rebellion against God is in need of the same salvation through Christ it has always needed. To understand this is to know the Christian’s true place in the world and should provide an optimistic outlook towards cultural efforts.