That title, the famous expression of Jacob Spener, the so-called father of pietism, came to mind when I read Richard Doster’s article at ByFaith, “Politics: Why Christians Must Be Involved.” (Thanks to Neoz for the link.) The reminder owes not so much to the contents of Spener’s book (though the connections between pietism and neo-Calvinism are striking — Christianity must make a visible difference on daily life). Instead, title itself, which has something to do with pious desires (or wishful thinking), is indicative of the tone of Doster’s article:
Christians, when rightly informed and motivated, change the character of political debate. They bring the moral standards of God’s kingdom into the civic realm and thereby become agents of His common grace — of His provision for those who believe as well as those who don’t.
“Forgiveness of sins is the central message of the gospel,” says theologian Wayne Grudem. “That’s the only way people’s hearts are truly transformed.” But that’s the opening of a fuller gospel story. The whole gospel, Grudem believes, includes a transformation. God’s grace changes people, and as a result they change everything around them. Families are renewed. Schools are rejuvenated. Businesses reorient their mission and purpose. What’s more, the gospel of Christ, because it changes hearts, changes the course of civil government.
When and where has this ever happened?
I don’t like to pull the expertise card, but I do know a little bit about the history of Protestantism and the record is never as stellar as the whoopers claim. Some good things happened here and there. But some good things happen in my home from time to time. Does that mean that Christianity has the wonder-working powers that Doster claims? And what about the times after the good times? What about America after Witherspoon, England after Wilberforce, Scotland after Chalmers, the Netherlands after Kuyper (not to mention Ephesus after Paul)?
At some point, dreamy accounts like this are going to need to show their homework. Until then, critics of the transformationalists will counter with articles like, “Knowledge: Why Christians Must be Informed.”
Old Life 
Personally I’ll just settle for Christians getting along with each other in church and keeping churches focused on law & gospel and word & sacrament. Who are these people kidding? Do they have 36 hours in their days to my mere 24? You hit the nail on the head.
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“Such good deeds, says Grudem, include commending and criticizing policies that affect the poor and powerless. We teach church members to do “good works” in hospitals, schools, and inner-city neighborhoods, so why would we exclude government? Our good works there, as in other spheres, give glory to our Father.”
Uh-oh.
So exactly what is the “Christian” position on the teachers’ strike in Chicago? On one hand you have governments that are spending too much money. On the other hand you have unionized teachers who want their pay, benefits, and job security. On the other hand you have dismally performing schools. On the other hand you have the kids. I’m running out of hands here.
What exactly does Scripture have to say about the issue? You have public school teachers sympathetic to the strikers and conservative, tax-hating, Christian/homeschoolers in your church. What do you tell the congregation, pastor?
Political issues are by their very nature complex. Simplistic, cheerleading articles like this do very little to address the real issues that Christian citizens face.
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The article mostly seemed like an appeal to various authorities. There wasn’t a lot of argumentation that I could find.
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“God’s grace changes people, and as a result they change everything around them. Families are renewed. Schools are rejuvenated. Businesses reorient their mission and purpose.”
Bah. Where do people come up with this stuff? Over the years I have worked in or with many Christian organizations, i.e. organized for some or other purpose having a Christian angle. Some are stellar, some are lousy, most are just average – not “changing everything around them,” but not necessarily ruining it either.
EC said, “Personally I’ll just settle for Christians getting along with each other in church and keeping churches focused on law & gospel and word & sacrament.” I’ll second that. And by the way, definitely no sympathy for the Chicago school teachers! is the correct answer.
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“Christians…ARE changeD BY the character of political debate.”
Fixed that.
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DGH,
The question of historiography is an important one, and I am not so sure that those in the modern day that are transformationally inclined have a balanced outlook on Christian political and social activism in the past, and what impact this might have for social and political change in the future. For instance, if we look to one of the examples that transformationalists like to tout as a model of how Christianity wields a good influence on the culture at large in the abolition of slavery in both Brittan and the US, I think it is fair to say that to a certain measure, abolitionists motivated by their convictions attained some important accomplishments in their societies. However, even in the absence of slavery, Great Brittan did not cease to be brutal in its colonial exploits – all one needs to do is examine the histories of areas such as India, China, and Africa in the 18th and19th centuries to see that while society may have improved to a degree when Wilberforce finally saw slavery put to an end in Brittan to see that the savage impulse of imperialism coursed through the empire.
In America, understood by some to be the “City Set on a Hill”, this semi-eschatological self understanding of the US as the ushering in a new, and brighter epoch in world history, worked well for the WASP majority. However, during the time after abolition and the Civil War, the US western expansion displayed similar impulses to empire as Brittan as they crushed the Native American populations, exposing the Indians to all sorts of inhumane treatment. Heck, the brutal mistreatment and exploitation of the Native Americans (who weren’t always innocent themselves) continued during and after the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd Great Awakening – which makes one wonder if societal transformation for good (in the US at least) couldn’t at least be translated into the good of WASP’s, who suddenly got religion; because I am not sure if the Huron tribes were as affected by the 1GA as New Englanders were. Hitler himself conceded that the American model of the Reservation was highly influential upon the Nazi conception of the concentration camp. So it is not as if, even if abolition was the pinnacle of Christian activism in society, that society was somehow transformed into something more Christian.
Some of the aims of Christian transformationalists aren’t bad things. However, a little sobriety in evaluating the accomplishments of past Christian social activism might do some good. Heck, I would love to see a Christian activist just come out and say, “You know, the world’s always going to be a mixed bag of changes for good and the persistence of evil – but I feel like I can make a positive contribution in this cause, even if the whole world isn’t changed as a result.” Something like that would be easier to take than the triumphal reading of history and rosy vision of the future.
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Regarding Christians bringing an end to slavery: Didn’t we fight a war and kill each other for four years to bring that about? Christians brought an end to (legal) drinking for awhile but that didn’t work out so well. Tell me again what great civil accomplishments Christians have had in American society?
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I guess there was Civil Rights, but that was mostly done by theological liberals.
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And the entire first half of Hunter’s “To Change the World” came to my mind when reading it, particularly the naive assessments assumed in how the world really works and the overestimation of the power of believers (sorry for the length, but it’s worth it):
If there is an exemplar whose life mission touches all of these themes and strategies—and who is celebrated as such—it is William Wilberforce (1757-1833). Wilberforce was a member of the British House of Commons and spent over forty years seeking to end slavery and “reform the manners” of his society. He was a devout Christian who believed that true personal change came through salvation by faith in Jesus Christ, and his ideals were fed by his deep faith. As an activist, he led a social movement committed to the moral reform of British society and against much opposition eventually prevailed in abolishing the legalized slave trade. Wilberforce was indeed, a great man and a model of what one courageous person willing to step into the fray can do.
At the end of the day, the message is clear: even if not in the lofty realms of political life that he was called to, you too can be a Wilberforce. In your own sphere of influence, you too can be an Edwards, a Dwight, a Booth, a Lincoln, a Churchill, a Dorothy Day, a Martin Luther King, a Mandela, a Mother Teresa, a Vaclav Havel, a John Paul II, and so on. If you have the courage and hold to the right values and if you think Christianly with an adequate Christian worldview, you too can change the world.
This account is almost entirely mistaken.
It is a Hegelian idea of leadership and history, popularized by the nineteenth-century Scottish historian, Thomas Carlyle…For Carlyle, heroes shaped history through the vision of their leadership, the power of their intellect, the beauty and delight of their aesthetic, and animating it all a certain inspiration from above…[from Moses to Jesus to Buddha to Aristotle to Julius Caesar to Napoleon to Aquinas to Luther to Darwin to Freud to Monet and Degas] All form an aristocracy of knowledge, talent, ability, ambition, and virtue, and so endowed have stood like switchmen on the train tracks of history; it is their genius and the genius of other heroic individuals that have guided the evolution of civilization this way or that; for better or for worse.
The only problem with this perspective is that it is mostly wrong. Against this great-man view of history and culture, I would argue (along with many others) that the key actor in history is not individual genius but rather the network and the new institutions that are created out of those networks. And the more “dense” the network—that is, the more active and interactive the network—the more influential it could be. This is where the stuff of culture and cultural change is produced…My point is simply that charisma and genius and their cultural consequences do not exist outside of networks of similarly oriented people and similarly aligned institutions.
Affirmation is based on the recognition that culture and culture-making have their own validity before God that is not nullified by the fall. It isn’t just that the social order is preserved because the rule of sin is restrained, in the old Calvinist formulation, but that goodness, beauty, and truth remain in this fallen creation. Even in the context of late modernity, suffused as it is by failed ideologies, false idolatries, and distorted ideas of community, joy, and love, one can still find much good. Life still has significance and worth.
What is more, people of every creed and no creed have talents and abilities, possess knowledge, wisdom, and inventiveness, and hold standards of goodness, truth, justice, morality, and beauty that are, in relative degree, in harmony with God’s will and purposes. These are gifts of grace that are lavished on people whether Christian or not. To be sure, there is a paradox here that perplexes many Christians. On the one hand, nonbelievers oftentimes possess more of these gifts than believers. On the other hand, because of the universality of the fall, believers often prove to be unwise, unloving, ungracious, ignorant, foolish, and craven. Indeed, more than any Christian would like to admit, believers themselves are often found indifferent to and even derisive of expressions of truth, demonstrations of justice, acts of nobility, and manifestations of beauty outside the church…The qualities nonbelievers possess as well as the accomplishments they achieve may not be righteous in an eschatological sense, but they should be celebrated all the same because they are gifts of God’s grace.
…In sum, there is a world that God created that is shared in common by believers and unbelievers alike. In the classical Christian view, the goodness of creation is fundamentally and ubiquitously marred by sin but it is not negated by sin. It may be fractured, incomplete, and corrupted, but his goodness remains in it. The gifts of God’s grace are spread abundantly among the just and the unjust in ways that support and enhance the lives of all. As it is the world that God has given, so it is in the world that his creatures fashion. This work is also typically pursued in common with those outside the community of faith. The task of world-making has validity of its own because it is work that God ordained to humankind at creation. Since all are created in his image, world-making is an expression of our divine nature.
…It is also important to underscore that while the activity of culture-making has validity before God, this work is not, strictly speaking, redemptive or salvific in character. Where Christians participate in the work of world-building they are not, in any precise sense of the phrase, “building the kingdom of God.” This side of heaven, the culture cannot become the kingdom of God, nor will all the work of Christians in the culture evolve into or bring about his kingdom. The establishment of his kingdom in eternity is an act of divine sovereignty alone and it will only be set in place at the final consummation at the end of time.
…For Christians to regard the work of culture in any literal sense as “kingdom-building” this side of heaven is to begin with an assumption that tends to lead to one version or another of the Constantinian project, in which the objective is for Christians to “take over” the culture, fashioning all of the world in the image of the church or at least in accord with its values. Typically, this assumption leads to the dualism in which the culture either declares Jesus as Lord or it doesn’t. Christians are either “winning” the culture or “losing” it, “advancing the kingdom” or “retreating,” which is why all versions of the Constantinian approach to culture tend to lean toward triumphalism or despair, depending on the relative success or failure of Christians in these spheres.
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TFan, really, no sympathy whatsoever? Sheesh, there’s plenty to criticize pro-life protesters for as well, but at least teachers and lifers have something with which to sympathize.
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Zrim – Nice quote. I want to read that book.
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What mystifies me so much about Doster’s article is that he seem to think that justification gives Christians inside knowledge on how to run the world. It’s almost…gnostic…?
My dad often said that becoming a Christian didn’t make you smart. Apparently this fellow didn’t get the memo.
All other things aside, what’s most scary about this sort of thinking is that it empowers Christians to do all sorts of things because they believe “this is what God wants.” Not only can this arrogance wreak havoc on the secular realm, but it most certainly works to undermine the sacred work of the church.
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I always wonder how transformationalists react when a non-christian, possibly even an atheist, proves to be an “agent of (God’s) common grace”. Isn’t that something that we should celebrate and embrace if it actually has a positive impact on society, government, business (or possibly even) the family?
EC: “I’ll just settle for Christians getting along with each other in church and keeping churches focused on law & gospel and word & sacrament.”
My sentiment exactly.
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Zrim,
What criticsm(s) do you have of the pro-life protesters?
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John, the same criticism for any other special interest activist group: that it essentially adopts the virtues of culture war which do more to polarize and divide than preserve and cohere social fabric, breeds and portrays moralism and self-righteousness, and ignores the rules of public decorum. Like I said, though, I share some of the concerns that drive, but the strategy and posture does more harm than good.
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Zrim, I get the moralism and self-righteousness that is bred as part of the pro-life movement having been there myself. How would one go about trying to effect change apart from protesting? My wife was a sidewalk counselor some years ago and was able to counsel a few mothers into keeping their children. So, I saw some merit in our presence. You have mentioned in the past (correct me if I am wrong) that you felt the abortion issue was too politicized. Surely you feel it is immoral, no? As far as the politicizing, that is one issue where I could not vote for a politician who supports abortion. I don’t think it’s the church’s function to tell it’s members how to vote, tha’s just me talking.
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John, I have a lot of respect for those who understand that there are two neighbors involved and seek to help both. I think here of things like PRCs which seem less concerned about the political climate and more about the human condition of those two neighbors. What I have said before is that the issue is inherently moral but has also become highly politicized in recent history, and I find it troubling that the moral dimension swallows up the political considerations (such that pastors can pray publicly and formally for the “outlawing of abortion” and be incognizant that they are spiritualizing politics and politicizing faith).
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Zrim: If abortion is murder (which I believe it is), and if murder is a violation of God’s universally-binding moral law (which clearly it is), then why would it be any more out of bounds for a minister of the Word to pray that abortion (one form of murder) be outlawed than it would be for him to pray for other forms of legalized murder (if there were any) to be outlawed? If it was legal in our society for a husband to murder his wife if he became displeased with her, would it not be legitimate for the church to pray that such an unjust law to be overturned? Certainly the primary focus of the prayers of the church should be the spread of the gospel, the salvation of souls, and the building up of the church universal. But the church may also pray for temporal concerns (such as for civil rulers and God’s blessing upon the common grace kingdom – as per 1 Tim. 2:1-3).
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Geoff, my point has to do with the distinction between the spiritual and political for the sake of the gospel. Maybe if we stayed a little more realistic instead of scenarios not likely to even happen it would help. I don’t want even my own politics to receive spiritual sanction. For example, my political view is that states should have their rights given back and allowed to decide for themselves how to legislate reproductive law. But I don’t want my pastor praying for the overturning of RvW. Another political view is an opposition to pre-emptive war, but I don’t want him praying for the enactment of policies that prohibit it. Part of the reason has to do with the fact that there may be those who have different political views and could be alienated from the gospel if they perceive it being aligned with politics they don’t share. And I’d rather he intercede for people who suffer in various ways, whether as a result of certain human policies or not, as well as for our civil authorities to rule wisely, etc. And I don’t think it’s too much to ask that he be as mindful of the potential to politicize faith as possible and avoid it.
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I was reading about the Covenanters today. They refused to have any involvement in American electoral politics (at least until 1980) until the Constitution acknowledged the kingship of Christ. If you disregard two kingdoms theology for a minute, I have to say that seems kind of logically consistent.
I think that’s a more honest approach than evangelicals who take references to “laws of nature and nature’s god” and try to substitute the Christian moral law in its place, as if it’s obvious that that’s what the founders meant. It’s pretty obvious to me that the founders didn’t mean that (there’s no way they had the votes).
One reason I am a bit ambivalent about opposing gay marriage very strongly is I think it is a bit unfair to impose a distinctly Christian sexual ethic on people in a country where the law of God was not made explicit in the founding documents. There is not a lot of reason to oppose gay marriage on other than explicitly Christian grounds. I think appeals to “natural law” are pretty weak. Either the God of the Bible gives explicit moral laws or there really is no such thing as law. Do whatever you want because we’ll all be dead soon.
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Geoff, as one can be against prohibition without being in favor of alcohol, one can be against speed limits without advocating reckless driving, or drug laws without advocating drug use, or the outlawing of abortion without advocating abortion. As Zrim mentioned, outlawing can mean many things — overturning RvW? a federal ban? something else? — each with its own ramifications, and sorting through those to decide which, if any, has a better outcome than not legislating the matter, is a question well outside the qualifications and charge of a minister.
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Zrim, Are you saying that because abortion has become too politicized that a pastor should not address it from the pulpit? I am not familiar with the PRC’s, what work are they doing? Are the two neighbors the baby and the mother about to kill her baby? Doesnt the baby need protection from the mother? If a pastor is to pray for the civil ruler to govern wisely, doesn’t that imply that the civil ruler should work to overturn Roe v. Wade? My fear is that because abortion has become “politicized” it has made inroads into the church as an undesirable but viable option to an unplanned pregnancy because it is legal.
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If I do oppose gay marriage it’s not because of the Constitution or the Declaration of Independence. It’s because if someone asks me I have to say that being male and female and marrying the opposite gender is part of the created order (i.e. it’s not a “Christian” issue — it precedes Christianity). I might also oppose it out of love for my neighbor. If I think something is wrong I may oppose it because I think it is bad for others to practice it whether they know it or not.
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D.G.
Good post. I am amazed at the naivete (the quote Zrim posted above is more of the same). I know some committed Christians who are involved in politics (local, state and national). They say that it is the “scummiest” occupation on earth. People will say and do whatever it takes to gain power and hold onto that power. My advice to any Christian who wants to get involved in this realm goes back to what Jesus said: “Be as wise as serpents but as innocent as doves.”
FWIW – This article is written by the editor of our denominational magazine. Last year there were four or five overtures calling for an end to denominational funding for this publication. Those overtures brushed aside because supposedly they didn’t address the mission of the magazine. The fact of the matter is that the magazine isn’t selling and cannot stand on its own. Articles like this are pretty much par for the course. Sadly this provides an insight into the thinking those who write and produce the magazine but also the denominational bureaucracy that protects it.
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John, no, I’m not saying that it shouldn’t be addressed from a pulpit—my point has to do with how it is handled, which is to say with care. By “PRCs” I mean “pregnancy resource centers.” I presumed you’d be familiar with those. I could be wrong about them, from but everything I understand they seem to be less a political and more a humanitarian work. Yes, the two neighbors are those who are specially linked, mother and child (though instead of plotting killers, I’d rather characterize most mothers in certain circumstances as needy neighbors). I have my own ideas about what it means to govern wisely, and those ideas may differ even from yours, which is why I’d prefer our pastor not to suggest either of us has heaven’s specific legislative favor.
As to your fear, I understand it. But think of it this way: if we have been nurturing our own in Christian ethics and morality then it should matter less what is legal and what isn’t. If I’ve been raising my children to abhor cheating and all of a sudden their school enacts a policy that gives cheating official approval, I would think my ordained parental powers would outpace the effects of political decisions. This isn’t to be Pollyanna about your point, but it is to suggest that your worry betrays an overestimation about the powers of politics and legislation on human beings and an underestimation of the powers of those institutions ordained by God for our creation (home) and redemption (church).
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Zrim, Thanks, I appreciate the dialogue. I am familiar with the PRC, just not the name. My wife worked for one here in Cleveland as a telephone counselor and you are correct that they try to remain apolitical even though Planned Parenthood is always trying to link the to the “Christian Right.”
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I’m a little late coming to this discussion, but it’s an interesting one and I hope you don’t mind my poking my nose across the Pond.
Full disclosure: I would probably call myself a (small t) transformationalist. In that my life’s goal is to transform the way the unemployed are treated (and how they see themselves) here in central Scotland, and as far afield as I can, using every and all means available to me as a Christian. Will I change the world? Hmm… I honestly don’t know. One step at a time, and frankly the step right in front of me at the moment is not a big one.
But the label “transformationalist” – like any such label – is a broad one. I fully agree with you all on the idea of one man in a pulpit defining, for all people, The Christian Response on a complex socio-political matter. But I think we can at least say something. The Chicago teachers’ strike, for instance; OK, I’m sure the thing is long dead and buried now and I wasn’t familiar with the detailed local issues even when it was live. But even I can say that the Christian response is love, and furthermore, I can say something of what that could look like in real life. The pastor who has both sides represented in his congregation has a golden opportunity, imho. He can get a group of members from each side together, perhaps in a main service or some other public setting. Then each group stands up and puts the case for the other side… but here’s the thing. Being believers, in whom the Holy Spirit dwells, they have no difficulty in doing this genuinely; we respect you personally, and we understand the pressures you face. If we can love our enemies, then we can love you. The pastor, who of course has long been leading by example in this sort of thing, can then say, that’s how it looks when we love one another, submit to one another and give preference to one another in honour.
Of course, there are a thousand other ways a church could approach the same thing, but you get the idea. I can’t predict what effect that would have on the wider dispute, since this is just a thought-experiment (I’m not actually in a position to implement it in real-life Chicago). It could be anything from none, to epoch-making.
I’m aware, of course, that church doesn’t always go that smoothly. The trouble with settling for getting on with one another in church is that it’s easy to assume that this is a lower target and that we can therefore do it through social skills and (small p) political adroitness. Respectfully, we can’t; it is not possible to love like Jesus does without being transformed by him.
Incidentally – and I can’t be alone here – in my experience, the deepest transformations often happen subtly in the “secret places” of a person’s life, and are not necessarily accompanied by spectacular religious experiences. Either way, they’re known by their fruit. But if the gospel really has the power to change me, it’s not unrealistic to expect it to be able to change at least some things around me, perhaps even through me.
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