No One Speaks for God

On Prophets and Partisans

Christian political theology is a murky affair. I've always believed this was because Christianity inherited, in Mark Lilla's phrase, an "accidental empire." That is to say, both Judaism and Islam began as explicitly theocratic faiths. Both the Old Testament and the Koran set forth a political theology, the organization and government of a people. Christianity, by contrast, articulated its political vision from a location of political marginalization. The New Testament describes how Christians are to live within existing political arrangements, often hostile political arrangements. Christianity inherited its empire "accidentally," with the conversion of the Roman emperor Constantine. Because of this, the political material within the New Testament provides little guidance for how to run a Christian government, nation, or empire. The assumed powerlessness of the New Testament political vision provides little to no clear Biblical guidance for governing. The New Testament never seems to envision Christians being in charge.

And then, 1776 happened. Democracy was born. Christian political theology, accidental as it was, had to pivot away from describing the virtues of Christian emperors and kings to articulate a vision of how Christians should participate within a democracy. Suddenly, Christian political theology had to turn its reflections away from the Christian sovereign to the distributed electoral power of "We the People." In contrast to the New Testament assumption of powerlessness, now everyone had a bit of power with their voice and vote. And given the lack of New Testament material about how to use democratic power, to say nothing about how to be a Christian king, Christian political theology has raced off in all sorts of directions. The impoverishment of the Biblical material on this particular topic means political theology is pieced together in an ad hoc fashion that does little to persuade anyone outside of the already converted. A lot of political theology is driven by motivated reasoning, using Biblical material to achieve a conclusion you already hold. This is particularly the case with popular expressions of political theology, like what we observe on social media where people grab Biblical texts to support all sorts of political positions.

For my own part, my political theology was formed within the Anabaptist stream of the Churches of Christ, my denominational home. I was raised to be apolitical. We had no flags in our buildings, never spoke about elections, I never knew which political party my parents were associated with (if at all), and I was taught in Sunday School class that Christians didn't vote. To be sure, the non-voting stream within the Churches of Christ, which goes back to David Lipscomb, was a minority view. But it was the stream I was raised in and heavily influenced by. (My sons, for example, didn't know how Jana and I voted until they were in college and pieced some things together.) Because of this, to this day, my political vision has always focused more upon the local church than upon Washington, DC. In my view, if you want to change the world what you do on Sunday morning is more important than what you do every four years on Election Day.

And yet, there is a restlessness within myself. As a citizen in a democracy, I have a vote. Jesus and Paul didn't have it, but I possess electoral power. Should I not use that power to bless my neighbors? I feel like I should, and so, despite my upbringing, I vote. To be sure, because of my background, I don't put a lot of hope in my vote. And I don't feel a lot of emotion about electoral results. Having always considered governments to be symbolized as Babylon in the book of Revelation, I'm not all that alarmed when nations go sideways. That's what nations do, they go sideways. Still, I vote to lend whatever power I have to making America, in the words of Peter Maurin, a place where it is easier to be good.

All that said, a central aspect of my political theology, setting aside the exact shape of our political engagement, is that the church is always called to the prophetic task of criticizing the state. The church must continually remind the state that it is not God, and that its current politics fall short of the Kingdom of God. I take this cue from the Bible, where every king of Israel and Judah had his prophet. David had his Nathan. Ahab had his Elijah. Herod had his John the Baptist. Important to note for the Christian nationalists is how Israel was a theocracy, not a Christian nation but a Jewish nation along the lines of what Christian nationalists would like to achieve. And yet, this exact political arrangement, a theocratic state under the Lord God, is portrayed in the Bible as a massive failure and in need of harsh prophetic rebuke. Just look at how many pages of the Old Testament are devoted to the prophets. That's the moral and political portfolio of theocracy! Doom and disaster.

And that brings us, finally, to the point I want to make. Can prophetic witness co-exist with partisanship?

Let's set aside the exact shape of Christian political engagement. Maybe you vote for Republicans, or maybe you vote for Democrats. Regardless, in my view, Christians should engage in prophetic criticism of the state, no matter who is in charge. No matter who is the king, the church is the prophet. That's the political mandate of the church: Sustained moral criticism of the state and calling out its idolatry.

But here's the rub. If you're engaging in electoral politics you have some beliefs, I expect, about which party is a better approximation of Christian values. You'll have a partisan leaning. If so, this complicates the prophetic task. For at least two obvious reasons.

First, if you prophetically call out both Republicans and Democrats you'll be exposed to accusations of bothsiderism. To criticize "both sides" equally makes it seem that "both sides" are equally bad when, as a partisan, you think one side is worse than the other. Wanting to avoid that impression, our prophetic voice becomes asymmetrical. We call out the evils of the other side and go quiet about our side. When that happens the prophetic voice undergoes partisan capture.

Second, and relatedly, if you think, as a partisan, that one party is better than the other, then you have to win the elections. To win those elections in a democratic contest you have to point out the virtues of your team and the evils of the other team. To engage in prophetic criticism of your team during an election season, or during the term of its administration, is going to undermine its electoral prospects. So, to win elections your prophetic speech has to go silent, permanently silent as an election is always upcoming. Once again, partisanship undermines the prophetic vocation.

To conclude. I understand how visions of Christian political engagement are all over the map. But setting aside the actual content of your engagement--how you vote and participate in democracy--my deeper concerns are about the prophetic vocation of the church in relation to the state. It seems to me that partisanship and the prophetic vocation work at cross-purposes. And as I reflect upon my struggles in articulating a coherent political theology, this seems to be the place of greatest friction for me. My ambivalence with partisan politics isn't, at root, a rejection of using our political power to make the world better for our neighbors. My concern with partisan politics is how partisanship undermines the prophetic vocation of the church. And I think this is a great and tragic loss. All left-leaning Christians do is call out the right. And all right-leaning Christians do is call out the left. Consequently, the prophetic voice of the church, in speaking for the Kingdom of God, is eclipsed by the partisan shouting match. Which means that the Kingdom of God never has a voice. The church is never heard. And that is my biggest and deepest concern. Christians speak for the Republicans. And Christians speak for the Democrats. But no one speaks for God.