During the Nazi party’s rise in the 1930s, a document was adopted by the Confessing Church in Germany known as the Barmen Declaration. The statement affirmed the church’s allegiance to Jesus Christ as its one true head and rejected the idea that other powers, ideologies, or leaders could claim ultimate authority over Christian faith and practice. It also emphasized the church’s autonomy in spiritual matters and Scripture’s primacy in guiding Christian life and thought.
Recently, a new statement was released by some center and center-left evangelical Christians in America. Titled “Our Confession of Evangelical Conviction,” the statement is a conspicuous effort at replicating the Barmen Declaration, both in format and theme.
It’s a good thing that they see the need for Christians to engage in political theology and warn against political excess. But the statement falls short because the signatories misunderstand (1) what politics fundamentally is in this age and (2) the necessity of political action.
It’s hard to read this new confession and disagree with any word in it. The statement is correct in virtually all its seven assertions about Jesus Christ’s supremacy over worldly political regimes and about the dehumanizing attitudes that can corrupt Christian political witness. Yet something essential is missing. It demonstrates continued gaps in how Christians approach questions of applying their faith to politics.
Confusing Nature and Grace
The new statement is confused over the relationship between nature and grace. It ends up telling us almost nothing about how to properly relate Christianity to politics. It becomes a vacuous declaration that one gets the impression is a way to tsk-tsk rightward-facing evangelicals.
We first must consider some background on the relationship between nature and grace. This is shorthand theological phrasing for the relationship between God’s plan for creation and God’s plan for redemption and how these spheres overlap. We might phrase it this way: What does my redeemed life in Christ mean for my creaturely existence in the world and the world’s institutions right now? Do worldly affairs really matter, or should I spend my time preparing for heaven?
In my view, the spheres overlap. God’s kingdom has begun but is not consummated in full. Given that the kingdom is not consummated, the integrity of creation order persists and must be responsibly stewarded. Life in Christ should deepen our commitment to creation order since we are awakened to God’s original plan for it.
As for how that relates to Christianity and politics, various questions come to mind: Is political power the antithesis of Christian meekness? What responsibility does Christianity have to uphold creation-order goods: the value of life, human embodiment, marriage, family, and vocation? How does my Christian life relate to my American life? Does redemption evacuate us of political responsibilities?
Nature-grace paradigms are underneath various approaches to political theology. Theonomists and Christian Nationalists tend to over-emphasize nature and heavy-handed political engagement. Anabaptists tend to over-emphasize grace and view politics as futile, worldly, and corrupting. These tensions explain how confusing, blurring, or negating the roles of nature and grace in evangelical political engagement create conflicting visions as to what evangelical political witness ought to look like.
A proper relationship between nature and grace shapes the purpose of the state and civil society, too. Jesus’s kingship does not suspend creational realities like politics. Creation order remains in full force today, giving temporal and common grace to all—obligating obedience by all.
The statement’s confusion on the nature-grace question is found in article 5: “We are committed to the prophetic mission of the Church.” It goes on to say,
We affirm that Christ’s kingdom is not of this world (John 18:36), therefore the Church necessarily stands apart from earthly political powers so that it may speak prophetically to all people, the society, and governing authorities. The Church has been given a divine mission of reconciliation (2 Corinthians 5:18-21). First, we call everyone to be reconciled to God through the proclamation of the Gospel as we teach people everywhere to copy the way of Jesus (Matthew 28:19-20). Second, we seek to reconcile people to one another by addressing issues of justice, righteousness, and peace (Amos 5:24). We accomplish this by loving our neighbors (Mark 12:31), and by engaging our public life with humility, integrity, and a commitment to the common good as defined by our faith in Christ (Romans 12:18).
We reject both the call for the Church to withdraw from societal issues out of fear of political contamination, as well as any attempt to distort the Church into a mere vehicle of political or social power.
This statement tells us affirmatively nothing about what means are appropriate to steward society in the furtherance of the “common good” they commit themselves to promoting.
The statement’s posture seems condemnatory of what they perceive as worldliness in the church when it comes to politics. But then article 5 also says withdrawal from society is problematic. So which is it? Should we embrace piety on the margins of society or public engagement toward the common good? And what about those who are obstacles to the common good? By what means are impediments to the common good disempowered?
Political by Nature
This is where the confusion over the nature-grace relationship comes to the forefront.
Once Christians are serious about enacting God’s prophetic mission—which necessarily includes testifying of God’s authority over creation—that will mean playing politics. But politics is what we’re told in this statement is prone to corruption, worldliness, and partisan rancor.
This confusion stems from an improper understanding of what politics is in this age in relation to God’s coming kingdom. Politics and government are creation-order institutions meant for the common good of all. There’s no redemptive narrative wrapped up in politics. It’s about the stewarding of power for the benefit of all. The government’s authority is derivative of God’s authority. Government—and therefore, power—aren’t intrinsically wrong things. It means, among many possible pursuits pertaining to the common good, securing the rights of individuals to live (so “no” to abortion), upholding the truth about our embodiment as males and females (so “no” to transgenderism), promoting the natural family as society’s cornerstone (so “no” to same-sex marriage), and securing liberty to live in accordance with the truth (so “yes” to religious liberty).
All those key pillars of the common good are under siege, formally, by the Democrats—the party supported and embraced by many of the confession’s signatories.
Are the signatories calling for gross violations against the unborn to stop? Or for a return to God’s plan for marriage? If they are, then why do so many identify with a political party that opposes the common good? Questions like healthcare are prudential applications of the common good. Whether a human being is killed in their mother’s womb is not.
We need a better understanding of political power than what this statement calls for—which means we need continued work on the relationship between nature and grace.
How we understand the connection between our natural world and God’s grace is crucial in Christian ethics. It helps us balance our earthly lives with our hope for heaven. We must learn to appreciate nature without it eclipsing grace (or making grace extraneous). We must appreciate grace without it consuming nature in this age.
Grace leavens (fallen) nature but isn’t an enemy of nature. Grace restores nature. Grace sets nature free from sin’s bondage. The eternal doesn’t obliterate the temporal; the eternal broadens the peripheral of the temporal. There’s nothing wrong with making political claims, even partisan claims, if those are truly in the furtherance of the common good. Why? Because that’s what politics simply is: the organizing of power for the sake of mutual benefit.
Ends of Political Power
For too long, evangelical political discourse has assumed politics is inherently worldly and compromising. It can be. Trusting in political power can lead to idolatry and misplaced hope.
But politics is chiefly about ordering our life together within the city of man. It’s a matter of stewardship. How that ordering is brought about occurs through the exercise of power within the government apparatus. The government is a God-ordained institution established to execute justice. It does so through the preponderance of justly exercised power.
Wielding political power is the difference between millions of dead unborn children and power that prevents such atrocities. Virtuous power is when power is pursued for the sake of justice.
Power is teleological: To what end is power being used?
This statement seems to assume that the gospel is the solution to political fracture. It is and isn’t. That sounds controversial, but stay with me. The gospel saves sinners and awakens them to the things of God. It allows for a deep and eternal unity. Political unity refers to a unity of common ends, not eternal ends. Yes, I need my political foe to ultimately understand that Christ is Lord. But I also need my political foe defeated if they’re wrong with regard to the substance of what politics is and political morality requires: political justice done to procure and advance the institutions of creation order necessary for the common good.
The gospel can unite political foes if and only if the one who has the wrong political morality has his error rectified in light of Christ. Until a political foe stops opposing God’s authority over creation order, he is indeed a political foe, and power should be wielded against him so he can stop doing harm.
But this new statement erases these realities and creates moral equivocations that end up doing little else than justifying votes for platforms that continue their assault on the common good. Believing one side is acting against the common good doesn’t necessarily justify supporting the other side. The solution isn’t to undermine the common good by choosing the lesser of two evils. The solution is to use political power to promote the common good using the available means within a political community.
Navigating the complexities of modern politics is difficult. But Christians must recognize that political power, when wielded justly, can be a tool for promoting the common good and upholding God’s created order. This requires discernment, wisdom, and a willingness to engage in the political process without compromising core biblical principles. The need of the hour is to develop a robust political theology that balances heavenly citizenship with earthly responsibility, allowing us all to be both faithful witnesses to Christ’s kingdom and effective stewards of our temporal societies.
This article originally appeared at The Gospel Coalition on September 12, 2024.
