Summing up the Journey & Concluding

Part 1

We began by looking at how politics and religion can both make us crazy. It is no accident that these two frenemies are on the perennial don’t-talk-about-topics list at reunions and holidays. Both of them have the potential to impact virtually every area of our lives. Both can (but don’t necessarily) make commands and moral claims telling us what to do, who is right or wrong, what is good or bad. The stakes are high for both.

Part 2

The question then becomes, how do we know what these two authorities want? Finding the government’s wishes is (in theory) pretty obvious—read the laws and listen the to the office holders. For religion, in our case we’re looking at Christianity, the answer might seem similarly obvious. Read the Bible (laws) and listen to office holders (clergyish people). However, things aren’t quite so simple. God could have all sorts of plans for us that aren’t included in the Bible or sermons. How do we find what God wants us to do?

We took a look at how this was done in the Old Testament—and the results might be a bit surprising.  There weren’t a whole lot of options. If you wanted to know what God wanted you to do, say relocate to a new place, what could you do? Well, obviously you try and make a wise decision, but what about hearing God’s voice? In rare circumstances, you might be able to get a priest to throw dice to tell you the answer (we find this dice throwing in Acts 1). The other option is to bring a gift to prophet and hope God tells the prophet who’ll tell you (what we affectionately called “vending machine prophecy”).

Part 3

In the New Testament we still have prophets who bring messages from God, but the vending machine pattern is nowhere to be found. And after Acts 1, we never find people throwing dice to discover what God wants them to do. The reason? The Holy Spirit comes and indwells all believers and now we all have direct access to God. He talks to every Christian, not just the prophets or priests.

Part 4.1

So this is all very nice, but as any Christian who hasn’t spent his whole life comatose under a rock has discovered—the Holy Spirit doesn’t just go around giving directions all the time. Ask God what trousers to wear tomorrow and odds are, you’re not going to get an answer. This leaves us with a question, does God care about everything we do? Does he have a desire, a will about what pair of socks we should wear? Or does he leave these mundane things up to us, and only give us moral boundaries to live by.

We called these two options the Railroad Model and the Boundary model. We ultimately concluded that the truth is somewhere in between. There are a lot of things that God leaves up to us, but there are other things, even very small things, that He calls on us to do. In some cases God’s still small voice is directing. However, in many other cases we don’t hear His voice—not because we’re not listening, but because He’s not speaking.

Part 4.2

This silence of God opens up the possibility of disagreement. And this ambiguity is found in both crazy-making categories, both politics and religion. Dedicated, Spirit-filled Christians can disagree about policy and theology not because they ignore they Spirit, but because the Spirit just hasn’t come out and clearly laid out the answers. This might seem scary, but remember—this is not a design flaw—it’s not a bug, it’s a feature. God could download perfect theology & policy into everyone’s head, but he chooses not to. Why? My guess is because he values earnest searching and goodwill across difference more than he does perfect knowledge.

Part 5

However, none of this entails that there are no boundaries in how we live or vote. Just because the Holy Spirit doesn’t whisper in my ear not to murder someone doesn’t make it a live option. There are principles and rules—boundaries—that everyone has to live within. The Bible is chock full these boundaries. Not only that, moral boundaries imply very concrete actions! Don’t murder directly entails not taking this knife and stabbing that guy in the back. However, the Bible is less full of political boundaries. Even worse, the obvious boundaries—such as pursue justice—often are completely lacking in obvious concrete actions. Does pursue justice mean longer sentences or shorter ones for convicted criminals?

Part 6

This lack of obvious ways of implementing principles means there’s going to be lots of disagreements about what is best. But what does this entail about voting? Are there hard boundaries as to who you can vote for? I argued that the answer is no. The reason is simple, a vote does not count as endorsement of a politician, nor of all his policies. It is merely an endorsement that voting for that person is better for society than not. All votes are the choice between two imperfects, between a better and a worse—not necessarily between a simple good and evil. Since there are no hard boundaries in voting each vote must be justified by balancing the goods.

Part 7

Perhaps the most poignant policy that puts this to the test in modern America is abortion. It can be the ‘single issue’ for voters that makes all the difference—on both sides of the debate. We looked at how this issue can appear from both sides. Then, we examined the evidence from scripture and conclude that while it doesn’t definitively prove one side or the other, it leans heavily towards the pro-life side (even when considering issues of ensoulment or quickening). We check this conclusion against ancient Jewish and early Christian beliefs about the topic and discover that they were strongly opposed to abortion. One can always come to a different conclusion, but the weight of the Christian witness and tradition is clearly on the pro-life side.

Part 8

This led to the question, how do we put all these things together? How are we supposed to weigh out what is the best decision? To answer this, we looked at decision matrixes and the way one can use them to help organize thoughts. They also prove a useful tool for trying to understand others who look at things from a different perspective.

Part 9

And finally, we came to discuss different view of Christianity and politics. Is there a dividing wall between the church and state because Christ’s kingdom is not of this world (2 Kingdoms theology)? Should the state be Christianized because everything has been placed under the lordship of Jesus and his instructions are what is most beneficial anyway (Theonomy)? Or is there some mediating position? Ultimately, we concluded there is a lot we can agree on without knowing exactly where to stand on this issue.

Conclusion: Virtue in the Midst of Disagreement

How now are we to live? There are various positions that we must balance. The life of the unborn vs the probability of war. The cost of healthcare vs the expanse of health problems. The helping of the underprivileged vs the damage our help could cause. Regardless of what we decide is most important (a topic we had to skip over thanks to a building fire 😉 we ought to live virtuously.

Intellectually we should be open-minded and honest, even where we believe we’re right. Morally we should not be slothful in our research, but exemplify charity, kindness, patience and humility. We are almost certainly going to make errors in our thinking and have our beliefs develop over time as we learn. Ultimately, while our conclusions are important, our character is more important. Are we exemplifying the type of person a Christian should be? Jesus didn’t say people would know us by our piercing intellect, but by our love. In pursuit of the good (e.g. the best policy), we should not neglect the greater. Ultimately, how we disagree is often of greater importance, and a greater witness, than the content of our disagreements themselves.

As St Paul pointed out long ago, the acts of flesh are hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, divisions and the like. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Regardless of political positions, since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit. Let us not become conceited, provoking and envying each other (Galatians 5).