In the United States, surveys tend to show that the percentage of Americans who identify as Christians or consider themselves religious has been decreasing substantially over the past decades.  Some surveys have suggested that many people, disillusioned by the religious establishment, have been finding alternative ways of meeting their spiritual needs.  In other words, the need to experience the divine has not necessary been dying away, but the dominant religious institutions have been losing their monopoly on spiritual leadership.

However, there is another trend currently at play, and discussions are beginning to appear about it: the divisions between various religious affiliations are being replaced by political divisions, and political beliefs have acquired dogmatic strength equal to that of religious beliefs.  A recent opinion published in the New York Times by Molly Worthen, a historian at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, makes that point while expressing hope that younger generations may be instrumental in bringing about positive change.  In this post, I will review her article, along with a previous opinion written by Timothy Keller, the founder of the Redeemer Presbyterian churches in New York City, on the place of Christians in a two-party political system.  I will also give my own views on such matters.

In her article, Molly Worthen refers to President Biden’s efforts to lower tensions between political opponents:

“Over the past six months Mr. Biden has been warning us, in his frank and ecumenical way, that Americans have become a bunch of idol worshipers. He’s right. We have transformed political hatreds into a form of idolatry.”

Pointing to research that indicates that “out-party hate” now has more impact on elections than race or religion, she adds: “Political hatred has become Americans’ animating faith, a chief source of existential meaning.”

She makes it clear that she does not mean to imply the false notion of moral equivalency between the competing claims.  For example, voter suppression and the Capitol riot can only be blamed on one party.  But in general, “pseudoreligious ideologies and purity cults have multiplied on both ends of the political spectrum,” and this is a sign of “the persistence of humans’ metaphysical needs, even in a secular age.”  In other words, the need to cling to some divinely inspired ideology is simply being replaced by the need to cling to a political group.  This is seen in the fact that religious boundaries are, today, more permeable than political ones.   For example, resistance to interpolitical marriages (between Democrats and Republicans) is stronger today than resistance to interfaith marriages.  The opposite was true in the 1950’s.

Worthen sees hope in the fact that some interfaith organizations are turning their attention toward the issue of political polarization.  Experimentation by those organizations at universities suggests that young people may lead the way out of the apparent impasse.  The programs these young people participate in help them appreciate different points of view without the need to always win a debate.  As one student puts it, “It wasn’t about trying to change someone’s views but realizing that the truth you have might not be the whole truth.”

Worthen herself is convinced that the divisions are driven by forceful minorities, and that most people would prefer to be somewhere in the middle, in the “exhaustive majority”:

“The consistent theme in my conversations with young religious believers on the left and the right is their yearning for the freedom to escape political tribes. Their refusal to be bound by the habits and fears of their parents’ generation echoes the special role that young Americans played in the détente between Catholics and Protestants two generations ago — and maybe the history of interfaith conflict has something to teach us about rebuilding working relationships between Republicans and Democrats.”

Worthen reminds her readers of the progress achieved in relationships between Protestants and Catholics between 1960, when John F. Kennedy became president, and 2020, when Biden became the second Catholic president.  She gives much credit to the youth for the improvement:

“It’s crucial to see that young Catholics and Protestants were not merely emissaries of inevitable generational change. In the interfaith friendships they made, the spouses they chose despite their ‘ethnic’ last names — in the innumerable small, compassionate interactions that distinguish a thriving civilization from a crumbling one — they made deliberate decisions to reject the prejudices and assumptions of older generations.”

One student summarizes the attitude of her peers as follows:

“I think a lot has changed with my peers.  There’s this rise in wanting to be engaged politically but also a rising awareness of the dangers of tribalism.  A lot of my friends are trying to get back to something that defines their values other than politics.”

The student offers an example to illustrate how her peers are challenging positions their parents consider orthodox:

“Pro-life issues are a big deal for me, but people my age are starting to see that it’s a lot more than abortion. There are so many other areas of life we need to be concerned about: immigration, end-of-life issues, how we’re treating refugees and the socioeconomic factors that lead to people considering abortion. What are we doing to alleviate those? We see there’s a broader range of ways to help than the legal approach of the Republican Party, what the older generation sees.”

From these examples, Worthen urges both self-scrutiny and willingness to listen to others as necessary tools to go beyond the political hatred.

I think Worthen’s analysis has a great deal of merit.  But obviously, the shift from religion to politics is not a clean one, and the two are clearly interwoven.  This can be seen, for example, in the abortion issue which is known to be the single major item linking the Republican party to the Christian religion.  Furthermore, the Capitol riot was both political and religious, as seen from the public prayer addressed to God by the insurrectionists.  In fact, Bible readers know that religion and politics are not separable in the biblical narrative.  Timothy Keller expresses that view quite clearly, as the next section will show.

In an opinion published on September 29, 2018 in the New York Times, Timothy Keller discusses the role on Christianity in politics.  To those who suggest that Christians should stay away from politics and focus on spiritual matters, he has a rather blunt answer:

“Christians cannot pretend they can transcend politics and simply ‘preach the Gospel.’ Those who avoid all political discussions and engagement are essentially casting a vote for the social status quo. American churches in the early 19th century that did not speak out against slavery because that was what we would now call ‘getting political’ were actually supporting slavery by doing so. To not be political is to be political.”

It is a fact that the teaching of Christ and his apostles is political in many respects, even though many Christians have, throughout history, tried to reduce it to mere considerations about the afterlife and “going to heaven.”  Keller implicitly recognizes this fact when he says:

“Christians should be involved politically as a way of loving our neighbors, whether they believe as we do or not. To work for better public schools or for a justice system not weighted against the poor or to end racial segregation requires political engagement. Christians have done these things in the past and should continue to do so.”

In fact, he sees political involvement as a mandate from New Testament teaching rather than an option that can be disregarded by Christians:

“Racism is a sin, violating the second of the two great commandments of Jesus, to “love your neighbor.” The biblical commands to lift up the poor and to defend the rights of the oppressed are moral imperatives for believers. For individual Christians to speak out against egregious violations of these moral requirements is not optional.”

However, he rejects the notion that Christians should identify with one political party.  From this perspective, he distances himself from the belief among the majority of white evangelicals that the Republican party is their natural political home, a belief that is, to a great extent, driven by their stance on abortion.  This is because he believes there may be differences in the approaches pursued by various Christians to achieve the goal of loving one’s neighbor:

“However, there are many possible ways to help the poor. Should we shrink government and let private capital markets allocate resources, or should we expand the government and give the state more of the power to redistribute wealth? Or is the right path one of the many possibilities in between? The Bible does not give exact answers to these questions for every time, place and culture.”

In the previous section, we saw that some young people were reviewing their parents’ approach on abortion, and considering a more comprehensive understanding of pro-life issues.  Keller also tells a story to show how certain political assumptions commonly made by American Christians are not necessarily the last word for Christianity.  I am reproducing the entire story below because I do not want to add or take anything away from it:

“I know of a man from Mississippi who was a conservative Republican and a traditional Presbyterian. He visited the Scottish Highlands and found the churches there as strict and as orthodox as he had hoped. No one so much as turned on a television on a Sunday. Everyone memorized catechisms and Scripture. But one day he discovered that the Scottish Christian friends he admired were (in his view) socialists. Their understanding of government economic policy and the state’s responsibilities was by his lights very left-wing, yet also grounded in their Christian convictions. He returned to the United States not more politically liberal but, in his words, “humbled and chastened.” He realized that thoughtful Christians, all trying to obey God’s call, could reasonably appear at different places on the political spectrum, with loyalties to different political strategies.”

Keller also lists another reason against identifying Christianity with a political party: the “package deal ethics” that characterizes political parties today.  He explains:

“Increasingly, political parties insist that you cannot work on one issue with them if you don’t embrace all of their approved positions.

This emphasis on package deals puts pressure on Christians in politics. For example, following both the Bible and the early church, Christians should be committed to racial justice and the poor, but also to the understanding that sex is only for marriage and for nurturing family. One of those views seems liberal and the other looks oppressively conservative. The historical Christian positions on social issues do not fit into contemporary political alignments.”

Keller concludes that Christians are called to participate in the political process, but must do so with the following understanding: “If we are only offensive or only attractive to the world and not both, we can be sure we are failing to live as we ought.”  In fact, when Christians are offensive to the world, any persecution that might come their way is to be expected.  His closing words are as follows:

“The Gospel gives us the resources to love people who reject both our beliefs and us personally. Christians should think of how God rescued them. He did it not by taking power but by coming to earth, losing glory and power, serving and dying on a cross. How did Jesus save? Not with a sword but with nails in his hands.”

Even though it may be true that the political debate is moving from religious considerations to secular ones, religion still plays an important role in the political behaviors we have been witnessing.  In particular, Christian nationalism has been identified as an important driver in the events of January 6.

Young people who may be leading the way to a change from the current political hatred will not necessarily do so by distancing themselves from religion, but by reevaluating the religious positions of previous generations.  Indeed, religion, and Christianity in particular, was designed for the common good rather than to introduce political hatred.  Christianity is about the kingdom of God, the idea that God’s rule is established on earth because God’s people, motivated by love of neighbor, are committed to the pursuit of justice, equality before God, and peace.  They imitate God’s compassion by alleviating pain around them and forgiving each other.  They value humility and reject self-promotion and self-interest.  They dedicate themselves to pleasing God (God as described in the New Testament) by loving others rather than acquiring wealth and power.

This kind of attitude is obviously not the way of the world.  But Christians are called to conquer the world by showing God’s glory to the world through their conduct.  In so doing, they put their lives in danger because, as Jesus warned them, the world will not accept them, and using violence in retaliation is against their own principles.  Therefore, they should expect persecution, and self-sacrifice is part of the deal.  They are to love their enemies who want to kill them.

Christianity changed when it was integrated into the Roman Empire: instead of changing the world, Christians partnered with it.  Nations such as the United States, which claim to be part of a so-called Judeo-Christian heritage, are merely the continuation of this partnership between Christianity and the world, which necessarily leads to the corruption of true Christianity.  Even democracies are not representative of the idea of the kingdom of God, which aims at transforming the hearts of the people so they can do good on their own.

Unlike the kingdom of God, democracies still rely on personal interest as motivation for action.  In Keller’s story about the Scottish Highlands, the fact that socialism may be preferred by some Christians comes as a surprise to American religious conservatives.  In reality, the story of the early Christian community in Acts 4:32-35 is one of people who reject notions of self-interest and personal wealth for the good of the community, in complete contrast to the idea of capitalism.  It is true that these early Christians helped each other voluntarily, in contrast to communist political systems.  But is there any reason to believe that capitalism, which relies on human greed, is a Christian answer?

When such questions are considered, then it is no longer surprising that many Christians prefer to get their answers from the Old Testament.  While the Old Testament presents wealth as a divine reward for righteousness, the New Testament presents it as a distraction from the pursuit of the kingdom of God.  While the Old Testament presents violence as an option approved by God for certain purposes, the New Testament rejects violence and any form of retaliation.  But the biblical narrative is designed to move believers from the Old Testament to the New Testament.  Historically, Christians have gone through great lengths to justify moving back from the New Testament to the Old Testament.  The Old Testament better meets their needs.

Since Christians are called to live in the world, they must make do with the choices presented to them and select the ones that diverge the least from kingdom of God ethics.  But that does not mean that valid choices come to them from the entire political spectrum.  I feel compelled to say that there is no equivalency between left and right in today’s political atmosphere.  Today, the dominant elements on the right are showing so much disdain for the concept of truth that they can no longer be seen as sources of Christian truth.  When congressmen refuse to acknowledge that January 6 was a bad day for America, a fact witnessed by the entire country, they make any reasonable debate impossible.  Christianity values truth.  Christ, in John 1:18, is associated with truth, while the devil, in John 8:44, is called the father of lies.  It is therefore important to make it clear that those who must rely on lies to advance their agenda have made a choice about which side they belong to.