Quentessintial Questions - Jonathan Voos

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Quintessential Questions

One-hit wonders, 12th Century writers, C.S. Lewis, & the imploding Texas Rangers

One-hit wonders, 12th Century writers, C.S. Lewis, & the imploding Texas Rangers

September 04, 2023

Dear reader,

Because the Texas Rangers insist on impersonating the Hindenburg, I’d rather talk about anything other than sports. Accordingly, I’d like to begin to answer a question that has been on my mind lately due to applications and lunch-hour conversations. That question is: How should Christians approach politics?

Broadly speaking, if we take Jesus’s Matthew 22:34-40 teaching on the Greatest Commandment seriously, our calling is to first love God and pursue eternal life and second love others and pursue their salvation through the proclamation of the gospel. Since both of these commands are rooted in the love of someone other than ourselves, we necessarily must—like Haddaway—ask ourselves “What is love?” if we are to employ it. Unfortunately for the Trinidadian-German singer, the answer is not “Baby don’t hurt me, don’t hurt me, no more.” Rather, 1 Corinthians 13: 4-8 says:

“Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. Love does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrong. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails.”

Christians in the political sphere should be mindful of the temptation to employ only the “truth” or the “kindness” aspect of Paul’s above definition. Truth without the other elements of love amounts only to brutality. Political and religious arguments carry significant emotional weight. When our priority is self-centered—i.e., looking smart, being right, or proving someone else wrong—the good and truthful points we make will end up ill-received. Humility, kindness, patience, and the other virtues Paul highlights all work to ensure that our priority lies in loving others and bringing glory to God rather than gratifying our prideful self-righteousness.

Similarly, kindness without the other elements of love leads to hypocrisy and callousness. Truth and accountability are crucial to the Christian walk. Setting aside truth for a warped version of kindness rooted in a “you do you, so long as you’re happy” mindset will only lead to pain in the long run. C.S. Lewis writes in The Problem of Pain that:

There is kindness in Love; but Love and kindness are not coterminous, and when kindness is separated from the other elements of Love, it involves a certain fundamental indifference to its object, and even something like contempt of it.

Christians should care when their brothers and sisters are straying down the wrong path. Nowhere in the passage does Paul say love is easy. Instead, love always protects, always perseveres, and rejoices with the truth—even in difficult or awkward situations.

Now that we have laid out our highest calling to love and attempted to define it, it’s time to answer the question of whether Christians should involve themselves with politics at all. In a political realm that incentivizes hatred, disgust, and tribalism, political involvement is challenging for Christians given the human propensity to idolize politics over our call to love God and love others.

Still, the presence of such pitfalls does not mean Christians should shy away from seeking positions of influence and power if called to do so. In the Summa Theologica, Thomas Aquinas argues that human law should focus on the practical rather than dealing with universals because statesmen must determine what the best course of action is in particular situations. This argument has some merit.

In his view, there are two separate ends—Earthly ends and the highest end, which is blessedness (eternal life). Laws necessarily focus on the Earthly ends since humans can only order Earthly ends. So, rather than ignoring Earthly problems, Aquinas believes Christians should stay involved in the political community and use our “imprint of divine rationality” to live among the Earthly.

If we accept the premise that Christians don’t have to be political hermits, we next should ask how Christians should approach statecraft. While I don’t have time to delve into subquestions related to natural law, moderation, pluralism, or separation of church and state in this post (law school is busy, after all), I will note that good statecraft must factor in the fall of man. Our fallen nature means laws must account for specific circumstances and situations—hence the framers’ emphasis on federalism. The political community will always be a combination of virtue and vice due to our natural imperfection. Determining how much of each a particular community should have requires practical wisdom, discernment, and love for our neighbors as we seek to live out the Great Commission and turn others toward Christ.