By Ephraim Radner
“THERE ARE TIMES THAT NEED THEOLOGY
SO URGENTLY THAT ONE MIGHT SAY
THAT…IT IS THE HUMAN AFFAIR.”
– KARL BARTH, WORLD WAR II–ERA THEOLOGIAN
Any Canadian with a social media account and a handful of opinionated friends may remember 2016 as the year when political discourse sank to a whole new low. Yet 2017 was only days old when our country’s public broadcaster offered a not-so-subtle reminder that this reality is not just an American one.
A national morning radio program presented a discussion about the upcoming Conservative Party leadership election, featuring a team of political strategists. A few minutes in, one of the strategists disclosed, “The two most important emotions in politics are hate and fear. And if you can harness those emotions . . . it can take you a long way.” Hate and fear are powerful, and recognizing that party strategists may deliberately try to manipulate them explains a great deal about contemporary politics. But feelings shaped by politicians, feelings that come and go, should not be the primary guide to any thinking Christian’s political engagement. The New Testament clearly teaches the only thing we are to hate is evil, and the only thing we need fear is God Himself. It also teaches us that we should allow God to transform us by renewing our minds. So how do we co-operate to allow God to direct our political choices and activities? One of the best resources is theology – the critical study of ideas that have to do with God, and with what God has to do with our world. Faith Today senior writer Patricia Paddey spoke with four theologians and learned sound theology isn’t just important for pastors and professors. It’s important for every Christian’s every concern – including political ones. Following are highlights from those conversations.
How can theology inform our political thinking and engagement?
As Christians we are called, wherever we are – whether the public or private sphere – to be informed and to live according to what we know to be God’s purposes for human creation. Theology helps us understand – through its articulation of what Scripture tells us and how it applies to our lives – what God’s purposes are for us as human beings. That’s fundamental. Theology can inform anything we do.
How do we decide which goals and values should shape our political decisions?
We live in a society in which [Christians] are a minority. The question is, What kind of a society is going to allow us to hold our values, privately and publicly, with the least amount of pushback? Are Christians going to be permitted to order their lives according to their faith? Who is going to let us do that? The primary power Christians have in the political sphere is that of witness. The way we live and order our lives witnesses to the transcendent God revealed in Jesus Christ. Our ability to do this will make a difference in the larger public sphere, so our capacity to witness is important. The early Church changed the political order of the world that way. How Christians treated one another, the whole reorganizing of life together among rich and poor, widows, slaves – these were social realities, driven by deep gospel commitments and understandings, and people noticed it. That’s where conversion came. So our freedom is for the sake of our witness, not for the sake of our safety.
Christians should have no interest in their safety.
One of the key political acts of the Christian should be aimed at the integrity of the Church’s life, not at the larger society. We really should be concerned about whether the Church itself has a coherent life, so that over time and across geography there is such a thing as a Christian point of view. We obviously can’t have any effect on larger society if we ourselves as Christians can’t agree with one another, teach one another, are not consistent in our actions, and so on. To me, that is the greatest political challenge of Christians today – an integrated, healthy, unified Christian Church. We don’t have that, so it’s not surprising that we have little purchase in larger society.
