#greatcommision

I’ll be the first to admit that I am not that well versed or studied in politics. As a matter of fact, the 2012 Presidential election was the first election I voted in.  I believe it’s important to be an informed voter, and that didn’t describe me up and to that point.  But there is something that fascinates me about the intersection of Christianity and politics.  It, to this day, still seems daunting to me.  Like, I am intrigued about how the two coincide.  

I don’t think I’m alone in the feeling of lostness in politics.  I think many people struggle with apathy towards politics in general, or how politics and politicians work.  But, for the Christian, I think there is even another layer on top of that.  As a Christian, we understand that our identity is bound up in our resurrected Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. A lot of the time though, you wouldn’t know that when it comes around to campaign and election time.  It seems at these moments our national identity trumps (no pun intented) our Kingdom identity.  Fortunately, I’ve never had to deal with this, but local churches sometimes contribute to this confusion of identities.  Whether they explicitly provide support from the pulpit for a candidate or party, or they lose track of their main goal, which is proclaiming the Gospel to their congregation.  The end goal for every Christian is found in Rev. 7:9 “After this I looked, and behold a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne, and before the lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands.”  We are to long for people to come and know Christ and the way that we get to that point is the building up of the saints (the Church Eph. 4:11-12).  So what exactly are the dangers of a local church spending time supporting candidates or political parties?

There are 2 main dangers that I see: 1) Division (obvious), 2) It breeds laziness in the congregation (not so obvious).  Take some time the next time you are in a group to bring up the topic of politics and watch how quickly a group can divide, that is, if they don’t all just walk away from the conversation all together.  So that’s an obvious problem, the end goal being unity in Christ, you shouldn’t attempt to cause division (not that there isn’t time and place for standing up for the Gospel which may cause division).  The second reason though, I feel is a more serious one.  When a congregation hears a pastor supporting a candidate or certain political ideology they have a tendency to follow him.  And if the pastor is looking to a politician for leadership, and not pointing to Christ, then it can and probably will throw the congregation off the track of their main charge which is to go and make disciples.  The congregation gets lazy and says “Vote for _________” instead of “repent, and turn to Christ.”