While Christians may not like the alternatives, voting for a party that celebrates murder in the womb, transgenderism, and a host of other sexual deviancies is at best exceedingly unwise and at worst sinful. Christians live as dual citizens of an earthly nation and the heavenly kingdom.
To paraphrase Aristotle, politics is the science and art of governing men. We normally use the word politics to refer to governing people at the level of the government or the governing authorities or the state.[1]
Today many evangelical churches in America feel tension about how to approach politics. All Christians care about justice, but we don’t always agree about how to identify injustice and how to right those wrongs.
I plan to address politics, conscience, and the church by recommending a way forward. I’ll do that by answering three questions:
- Why do Christians sometimes disagree with one another over politics?
- Why should Christians distinguish between straight-line and jagged-line political issues? For a clear biblical command, there is a straight line from a biblical or theological principle to a political position (e.g., the Bible forbids murder, so we oppose abortion). For an issue that requires wisdom, there is a multistep process (or a jagged line) from a biblical or theological principle to a political position (e.g., immigration policy).
- How should Christians disagree over jagged-line political issues?
I have opinions about politics, and I think my political judgments about issues such as immigration, tax policy, healthcare, welfare, global warming, and gun control are right. (And you think your opinions about politics are right, too.) But as much as I would enjoy arguing for my personal convictions, my goal in this article is to help you understand why, when, and how you should agree to disagree in political matters.
1. Why Do Christians Sometimes Disagree with One Another over Politics?
Christians disagree with one another over politics for at least two reasons.
Reason 1. Because Christians Care about Justice and Believe That Their Political Convictions Promote Justice
Let’s break this first reason down into four components:
1. Justice according to the Bible is (1) getting what you deserve and (2) giving others what they deserve.[2]
Justice is doing what is right according to the standard of God’s will and character as he has revealed it in his word.
It’s important to carefully define our terms because some people have recently redefined justice and fairness and equity to refer to equal outcomes. They think that God is unfair if unequal outcomes exist. An example of an unequal outcome is that some people have more wealth than others.
But we must distinguish between (1) equal outcomes and (2) justice or fairness or equity or impartiality. God is just and fair and equitable and impartial, but that does not mean everyone experiences equal outcomes because God has the freedom to show undeserved kindness to whomever he wants.
Case in point is Jesus’s parable of the laborers in the vineyard in Matthew 20:1–16. The master gives each laborer what he deserves, and he gives some laborers more than they deserve. To get justice is to get what you deserve. It is not unfair to give extra to some, even when they are less deserving than others. As long as God gives each person what he deserves, God is not unfair when he sovereignly chooses to be undeservedly kind to some and not others. And not one of us deserves God’s kindness. God is always fair: “all his ways are justice” (Deut. 32:4).
2. Christians care about justice.
Why? Because justice characterizes God: “he has established his throne for justice” (Ps. 9:7), and he “is exalted in justice” (Isa. 5:16). And the just God has justified Christians. Justification is to justice what faith is to good works. Faith results in good works; doing good deeds gives evidence of faith (Matt. 7:15–20; James 2:14–26). Similarly, being justified results in a desire to do justice; doing justice gives evidence of being justified.
3. Governments exist for the purpose of justice.
Remember, justice according to the Bible is (1) getting what you deserve and (2) giving others what they deserve. God instituted governments to do justice for everyone created in his image (Gen. 9:5–6; Rom. 13:1–7; cf. 2 Sam. 8:15; 1 Kgs. 10:9; Prov. 29:4). So when Christians talk about abortion, immigration, poverty, or so-called same-sex marriage, they are fundamentally talking about doing justice and opposing injustice.
What are some examples of public injustice that Christians should be concerned about today? In a WORLD Opinions article in March 2022, Thaddeus Williams wisely presents four issues that our pursuit of justice should include even if it’s unpopular in our culture (I’ll quote and paraphrase him):
- Abortion: Our pursuit of justice should include “these tiny humans exterminated because larger humans consider them inconvenient, genetically inferior, or too female.”
- Pornography and its connection to child porn, human trafficking, rape, domestic violence, impaired brain function, broken relationships, and depression: Our pursuit of justice should include “the victims of the exploitative pornography industry.”
- The persecution of believers around the world: Christians are “being targeted, imprisoned, beaten, raped, hanged, crucified, and bombed for claiming Jesus as Lord.” Our pursuit of justice should include “the millions of Christians imprisoned or executed around the globe.”
- Socialism: “The quest to achieve economic equality between the rich and poor through communist and socialist policies has resulted in more than 100 million casualties in the 20th century alone.” Our pursuit of justice should include “the desperately oppressed victims of far-left economic systems.”[3]
Each of those four issues is a matter of systemic injustice. Those are just four examples of public justice issues.
4. The world has redefined justice by attaching certain adjectives before it.
Here are five examples:
- LGBT justice: Everyone must affirm and celebrate the ideology of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people—and any sexual orientations or gender identities that do not correspond to heterosexual norms. That’s LGBT justice. (I think that justice would look more like Genesis 19:24: “The LORD rained on Sodom and Gomorrah sulfur and fire from the LORD out of heaven.”)
- Reproductive justice: Pregnant people (not women but pregnant people since now “men” can get pregnant, too) have a human right to have personal bodily autonomy—to choose to keep or to kill the unborn baby in one’s womb. That’s reproductive justice. (I think that justice would look more like what God commanded the Israelites in Leviticus 20:2: “Any one . . . who gives any of his children to Molech shall surely be put to death.”)
- Distributive justice: Society must distribute (or allocate) power and resources so that there are equal outcomes. That’s distributive justice. (I think that justice is that God-ordained authorities impartially punish lawbreaking and right wrongs.)
- Racial justice: Society must remove systemic racial disparities in areas such as wealth, income, education, and employment. Justice is equal outcomes, and a failure to have equal outcomes is racism. That’s racial justice. (I think that justice is that society treats all ethnicities impartially.)
- Social justice: In order to understand what social justice typically means in our culture today, you have to understand what Critical Theory is. In a nutshell Critical Theory affirms four beliefs:[4]
- (1) Society is divided into two groups: oppressors and oppressed. The oppressors have power, and they are evil bullies; the oppressed do not have power, and they are innocent victims.(2) Oppressors (the dominant group) maintain their power by imposing their ideology on everyone.(3) Lived experience gives oppressed people special access to truths about their oppression.(4) Society needs social justice—that is, society needs to pursue equal outcomes by deconstructing and eliminating all forms of social oppression. Social oppression includes not just disparities regarding race and ethnicity but also gender, sexual orientation, religion, physical ability, mental ability, and economic class. The term wokeness refers to the state of being consciously aware of and “awake” to this social injustice. The term woke is “a shorthand to describe someone who, whether consciously or unconsciously, has adopted grievances and activism rooted in Cultural Marxism and Critical Theory, especially related to the intersectional oppression matrix of race, gender, and sexuality.”[5] That’s social justice. (Is that justice? I think that justice is that God-ordained authorities oppose partiality in civic life by impartially punishing unjust perpetrators and righting wrongs.)[6]
So the first reason Christians sometimes disagree over politics is that Christians care about justice and believe that their political convictions promote what they perceive as justice. The second reason is like the first.
Reason 2. Because Christians Have Different Degrees of Wisdom for Making Political Judgments and Tend to Believe That They Have More Wisdom Than Those Who Differ
Most political judgments depend on wisdom, and only God is all-wise. Some political judgments are difficult because we lack wisdom. Even if we agree on biblical principles, we may disagree over methods and tactics and timing and more.
The goal of politics is justice; the means is wisdom. Two examples may help illustrate that most controversial political issues depend on wisdom: abortion and immigration.
Example 1: Abortion
The Bible forbids abortion since deliberately killing an unborn person is a form of murder. Therefore, churches should take a stand against abortion—both in their preaching and in their membership decisions. We should not affirm that a person is a Christian—a church member in good standing—if he or she is unrepentantly promoting abortion, whether by personally encouraging women to seek abortions or by politically advocating for abortion.
But Christians do not agree on all the political tactics for opposing the injustice of abortion. For example, should a church promote a pro-life march? Maybe. Maybe not. A particular march may or may not be wise, and a pastor should use his pastoral authority wisely.
Example 2: Immigration
Consider the controversy surrounding migrants crossing the southern United States border. One group of Christians believes the present laws that limit immigration are just fine. If anything, they believe we need to tighten the restrictions in order to protect our nation and our children. Another group of Christians argues that humanitarian considerations mean allowing as many migrants in as the present law allows, or even changing the laws to accommodate more.
So how many migrants should a nation permit a year? How many asylum seekers? How will that affect the lives and livelihoods of its citizens? How should we combat lawlessness and terrorism? What is the best way to prevent and combat drug and human trafficking? Is a nation obligated to undertake all the costs of processing the hundreds of thousands of migrants who might show up at the borders?
Answering those questions requires wisdom. Political judgments require a person to rightly understand biblical principles and then to apply those principles based on social dynamics, legal precedent, political feasibility, historical factors, economic projections, criminal justice considerations, and more.
So those are two reasons that Christians sometimes disagree over politics. Now let’s consider Question 2:
2. Why Should Christians Distinguish between Straight-Line and Jagged-Line Political Issues?
Before I answer that question, I need to define what I mean by straight-line and jagged-line political issues.[7]
- For a straight-line issue, there is a straight line from a biblical or theological principle to a political position. For instance, the Bible teaches that murder is sinful; abortion is a form of murder; therefore, we should oppose abortion. That’s a straight line. That is why a church should initiate the church-discipline process with a member who is advocating for abortion—such as encouraging a single pregnant woman to get an abortion or supporting Planned Parenthood.
- But for a jagged-line issue, there is a multistep process from a biblical or theological principle to a political position. Fellow church members should agree on straight-line political issues, and they should recognize Christian freedom on jagged-line political issues.
Many political issues are not straight-line issues. Probably most are jagged-line issues—issues like immigration caps and tax rates and trade policy and healthcare and carbon dioxide emission caps. For such issues, I’m not sure we can say there is “the” Christian position—though some positions are better than others.
It’s right for churches to take a stand on straight-line issues through preaching and membership decisions. But church leaders need to be careful about whether to take institutional stands on jagged-line issues. Straight-line issues are about what we might call “the Christian position,” and jagged-line issues belong to the domain of Christian freedom (which doesn’t mean the issues are unimportant or that some views are not incorrect).
Now that we’ve explained jagged-line vs. straight-line political issues, we are ready to answer the question Why should Christians agree to disagree over jagged-line political issues? For at least two reasons:
Reason 1. Because Christians Should Respect Fellow Christians Who Have Differently Calibrated Consciences on Jagged-Line Issues[8]
Jagged-line issues correspond to what Paul in Romans 14:1 calls “disputable matters” (NIV) or “opinions” (ESV) or matters of conscience. Your conscience is your consciousness of what you believe is right and wrong. That implies that your conscience is not necessarily correct on every issue. What you believe is right and wrong is not necessarily the same thing as what God believes is right and wrong. You might believe with deep conviction in your conscience that a ten-year-old boy has the right to choose to become a female. If so, your conscience is not functioning correctly for that issue because it is based on immoral standards. You should calibrate your conscience.
The idea of calibrating your conscience pictures your conscience as an instrument. Instruments can be incorrect: your bathroom scale may say you weigh 142 pounds when you actually weigh 139. When an instrument is incorrect, it needs to be calibrated. To calibrate an instrument is to align it with a standard to ensure that it’s functioning accurately.
The standard for what’s right and wrong is God, who has revealed himself to us particularly through the Bible. So when your conscience is not functioning accurately, you should endeavor to align it with God’s words. The classic example of this in the Bible is the Apostle Peter. He was convinced in his conscience that it was sinful to eat certain foods—like pork. God told Peter three times to “kill and eat” animals that Peter considered to be unclean. Peter had the gall to reply to God, “By no means, Lord; for I have never eaten anything that is common or unclean.” But because the Lord was commanding Peter to eat those foods, Peter had to calibrate his conscience so that he would have the confidence to accept food and people that he previously could not accept (see Acts 10:9–16).