The Church, the Powers and Politics

Part 6, Emotional Recalibration Needed

I started this series to collect some thoughts about my friend and colleague Brad East's reflections and questions in response to a post of mine regarding Christian involvement in politics.

In my original post, I made the argument that Christians were focusing too much emotional energy on politics. Here's some of what I said in that original post:

[M]y worry concerns the cathexis of politics within the Christian psyche.

Coined by Freud, the word "cathexis" comes from the psychodynamic tradition in psychology. A cathexis is an unhealthy concentration of mental energy on a person, idea or object. The word "fixation" is a related concept, as we become "fixated," to an unhealthy degree, where there is a concentration of mental energy and investment. Along with "fixation," "obsession" is another word that points to a cathexis.

You can think of a cathexis as a "hot spot" in the psyche, a "gravity well" that creates a mental orbit, even a kind of "black hole" that sucks up available energy. And that's a key notion in psychodynamic thinking, how our mental energy is a finite resource. Our various cathexes, fixations and obsessions hurt us because they suck up mental energy, leaving us less energy to allocate, devote and invest in other areas of our lives. Like the pull of a large gravitational mass in space, a strong cathexis warps and distorts the psyche causing it to become twisted and imbalanced.

Given that, let me restate my concern. Politics has become a cathexis in the Christian psyche. Like a psychic black hole, the power of this cathexis is warping and distorting the Christian mind, heart and soul. Worse, the cathexis of politics is sucking up all the available mental and emotional energy, energy that needs to be directed toward other pressing endeavors and concerns...The Christian psyche is currently orbiting the nation state with an unhealthy, distorting, and morbid fixation.

To be clear, I think it's perfectly appropriate for Christians to be involved in democratic politics. Feel free to vote and be politically engaged. The issue involves the cathexis of politics in the Christian psyche, the unhealthy concentration of psychic energy being devoted to the state and electoral politics. Psychic energy is a precious and limited resource, and every bit of energy sucked up by the cathexis of politics is energy that could be devoted to your family, your friendships, your church, your creativity, your spiritual formation, and your works of mercy in the local community.

As I noted in Part 1, Brad's response to this argument was to question if such emotional detachment is possible. If you believe that some political outcome makes a real difference in the lives of others, for good or ill, your political engagement related to that issue is going to come with some feelings. You care, and in that caring you're emotionally invested. 

This series was a slow burn to return to this issue and the question Brad raised about our emotional relationship to politics. 

To start, I agree with Brad that if a person is invested in effecting some political change, a change they think profoundly affects the lives of others (the American Civil Rights movement is an example here), there will be emotional engagement and strong passions. That said, as I described in the last post, there is a form of Christian political disengagement, following Yoder and Hauerwas, where a correlated emotional disengagement is expected and possible. Brad admits this possibility, but felt that I was unclear on this point. Brad's observation was that what I was describing, political engagement with emotional disengagement, might not be possible. And I see that point. If you're engaged, you'll likely care.

But that said, I hope this series makes more clear my views regarding the shape of this emotional engagement. We should care, but our caring is of a distinctive sort. 

First, as I've argued, the primary political witness of the church is prophetic criticism of the state, no matter who is in office. States are not evil, but they are fallen. Christians are called to draw attention to that fallenness, toward those locations where the kingdom of God has not been realized. 

Relatedly, Christian political and emotional engagement should be characterized by a profound sense of pessimism. Political engagement participates in "a long defeat." In my estimation, this recognition would cool many of our political passions. I'm calling for a lowering of our expectations, the Biblical refrain that we do not put our trust in princes. I think this would be good medicine for many Christians. 

There should be no nostalgia for Christendom, nor any hope of establishing (or re-establishing) a "Christian nation." That isn't to say we shouldn't get our hands dirty with the messiness of political engagement, but we do so with eyes wide open and with a ready confession that Christian political engagement within history will eclipse the witness of the church. Which is why the church has to maintain all the while its steady drumbeat of prophetic critique. In the midst of our political engagement the church has to keep drawing and redrawing the line between the Kingdom of God and the state. A faithful Christian witness will not allow that line to blur.

Now it might be argued that this vision remains emotionally impossible. Perhaps. As I've described in this series, we're in an unprecedented situation, trying to bridge the gap between the political context of the New Testament and the modern realities and opportunities of liberal democracy. Can we be politically engaged in effecting political change while at the same time possessing deep pessimism with that project and its eventual outcome? Maybe not. And is not a better government to be preferred over a worse? And if so, should we not fight for that better tomorrow? Yes, of course. But I feel convicted that Christians should, in light of our pessimism, approach this work with a healthy degree of realism, skepticism, and cynicism. 

Having said all that, I can still see the emotional difficulties. If I'm trying to say anything, it is this. Christians have become "over-politicized." Our hearts--our passions and emotional attachments--have become disordered and malformed, tipping away from the church and toward the outcomes of elections. If Christian affectivity is any indication, our hope is pined upon Election Day. In view of that, I'm calling for some emotional recalibration. Given the political hysteria now observed among Christians, among both conservatives and progressives, I think this emotional recalibration is both necessary and urgent. 

Is such a recalibration possible? 

I don't know. But I hope so.