'Tis the season, and everyone else is blogging about politics, so it strikes me as a fine time to work through some of my thinking on church and state. Let me say, first, that I am not stating my position in order to convince anyone that they shouldn't vote--if you were going to be defensive on that point, don't bother. Also, I would clearly state that this is my position at present, Election Day 2008, and I reserve the right to be utterly wrong. Lastly, let me mention that if you are a member of the Churches of Christ and don't know about your heritage of political non-participation a la David Lipscomb, you need to do your homework. Know thyself.

I freely admit that my views on church and state are a right messy hodgepodge of ideas, moreso than any other facet of my theology, I think. I began thinking seriously about the church-state relationship in highschool, when I did a research paper on the well-known "separation of church and state" from the state side of things. That is a somewhat different issue, though one about which there is a great deal of ignorance (I'll save that soapbox for another day). My concern here is not the state side of things but rather the church side of things. How does the democratic process look from the perspective of my religious commitments, which I hope to be, generally, the church's commitments. I fear this could get long and tedious, so I'll aim for the summary version.

The theological foundation of my position is the truth that Jesus' message--and thus his church--is fundamentally a political one. It is not that there is some kind of separation between the political and the spiritual, as though they were distinct realms. There is no part of God's world that is not spiritual, no part that is not the province of the redemtive, restorative, recreative mission of God. Jesus' message what about a king and a kingom, spoken in political language that his hearers could not mistake, about which his undiscipled hearers were deeply confused because of their expectations about the Messiah's politics, by virtue of which the political powers were deeply threatened and because of which they killed him (N.B., Jesus was killed on a Roman cross, accused and convicted of a political crime against the Roman government). This causes me to ponder the political realities of our world deeply rather than dismiss them easily as though Christianity were a social anesthesia injected to create a comfortable apathy.

Based upon the political nature of the gospel and the political claims it lays upon me, I must affirm in a very substantial, very real way my citizenship in and my allegiance to the Kingdom of God. Here my point is not yet about how we deal with the existential realities of being a citizen of an "earthly" kingdom as well. I'll get there, but for now the point is that we must begin with the Kingdom loyalty rather than with anything else. It seems that, practically, most American Christians begin the other way around, and the statements read or affirmed about Kingdom identity and loyalty are relegated to a less realistic, more spiritual (read Dualism) realm that goes little farther than Sunday rhetoric in terms of actualization.

Now, I must affirm loudly that "Kingdom loyalty" placed in confrontation with Americanism, as it must be with any competing loyalty, does not pan out to be the, frankly, disgusting issue-driven American politics of what has been labeled the Religious Right. That is, Kingdom loyalty does not translate into voting one way or the other because my loyalties are "Christian." That is hardly confrontation, and it strikingly similar to what missiologists understand as syncretism. Given the political nature of the Christian religion and the religious nature of American civil religion, I think syncretism an apt description of what has been happening among American Christians. The church must come to terms, early or late, with the radically alternative nature of the Kingdom vis-a-vis the world's way of dealing with fundamentally spiritual problems. Or do we not truly believe that the world's state of affairs has everything to do with humanity's relationship to God? And do we not truly believe that the Kingdom of God is breaking into this world, that the salt and light of the church is a reality to be reckoned with, that God is in the process of making all things new? Is it not true that every failure of secular politics is rooted in human sin and human inability to be God, that every success of secular politics is rooted absolutely in the image of God and humanity's God-given ability to be agents (God-dependent agents) of his justice and righteousness?

Thus, I am unconvinced by those who argue pragmatically that this is "the best we've got." It is not, in either of the two senses that it is said to be. There are those who, in their religio-political zeal, truly believe that American democracy is the God-given best we've got. There is profound confusion here, if not a total lack of Christian theology. Particular moral or ethical decisions aside, there is no more or less Christian form of government. Political theory is a facet of culture, and culture, it should hardly need saying, is a highly relative thing. Mission work can be carried out in any culture, the goal of the mission work is never to impliment particular cultural norms (political ones included), and the mission work does not need any particular cultural norms to reach its ends. From a missional perspective, a benevolent dictatorship is on equal footing with a representative democracy--political theory and stucture just isn't the point. Then there are those who simply believe that you might as well work within the system, reform it if need be, use it to your benefit if possible, becuase it's the best we've got. That is, it's the reality and you're not going to change it. It functions on some level, and if it's neither intrensically good or bad, then why not try to bring some Christian influence to bear and be a little pragmatic about things. I'm a pragmatic person, and this is a pretty convincing approach, particularly when you bring an attitude like John Piper's to the table (click the link to hear his idea of "doing politics as though not doing them"). My hangup is that I believe the best we've got is the really real reality of the Kingdom breaking into this age. Christian faith assumes a power to affect the world that makes the option for secular solutions seem silly, or perhaps deranged. Whatever the case, the best we've got is the most efficacious solution in the world--the Kingdom of God.

The sticky problem is how this works out in terms of the church's participation, but I do not believe it can be done through secular politics--not on the church's (Jesus') terms and in the church's (Jesus') way, which are requisites for the realization of the Kingdom. There is an insurmountable conflict of interest even in the best case scenario. When it comes to what really matters--and deciding that is the real problem--only the Kingdom offers a lasting and holistic solution. Take one of our hotbutton issues: abortion. Legislating morality is not only a very partial way of dealing with the issue, it is also the easy way out. When Christians get really serious about abortion, they will be proactive about being in the lives of women who feel that abortion is the best option, will minister to them in their needs (before and after abortion), will help women work through their God-given freedom of choice (N.B., not State-given freedom of choice), will offer to adopt children carried to term as an alternative to abortion, will address the other social factors that contribute to situations leading to abortion. These are only a few ideas, the implimentation of which on a church-wide scale would erradicate abortion. But they are costly and difficult solutions, and they are not solutions that the government can enact. So I ask, where is the church of God? Outside abortion clinics, toting loveless slogans? I don't think so. Legislating away the headache of dealing with people, sin, and hellish situations? I don't think so. But that is just one example, though hopefully a good enough one to demonstrate the difference between Christian politics as usual and the impact of the Kingdom.

So, why don't I vote? Not out of apathy about the imporant issues (please don't read aboration as my big "important issue"). Not out of irresponsibility--the church is very much about response. Not out of ignorance--though I don't claim to be a political expert. Not because I think it is wrong. I just don't find the political scene to be that big a deal. My confidence is in other means to the ends we seek. I suppose, theoretically, I could be very preoccupied with economic issues and the like, but even there I wonder if the church doesn't offer a better solution--not that the church could write economic policy on par with Greenspan's ilk or anything, but just imagine if a Christian ethic of stewarship had been governing our use of credit rather than secular consumerisim. Anyway, like I said, the issues that really matter (my 401k not being one of them) cry out for the Kingdom. On the negative side, what could the government possibly do that the church cannot overcome (and should I be devoted to preventing possible difficulties with a contrary government)? On the positive side, what could the government possibly do that would not need redemption? My time, my energy, my emotional investment, my all, is devoted to what matters--the Kingdom of God. That is where my loyalties lie.