Politics is a Moral Pestilence
by Gary Weedman
Dealing with division in the church continues to be a major work of elders. Squabbles have always existed in the church. A casual perusal of Paul’s letters proves the point. But I have never seen the kind of division that so many congregations face today. The division is not about the kind of music, the order of the worship service, or the proper view of the millennium. No, the division that disrupts today is politics! What political party do you support? What political solutions do you favor? The supposition is that no Christian could support the Democrats because they advocate policies contrary to Biblical principles. Or, no thinking Christian could support the Republicans because of the immoral lives of many of their leaders. How sad to see sisters and brothers demonize one another because of different political affiliations!
I have been reminded of an observation of Alexander Campbell: “Politics is a moral pestilence.” He wrote that after attending the Virginia Constitutional Convention of 1829 as a delegate. He lost every one of the three issues he favored against the elite Tidewater Virginians, including former presidents James Madison, James Monroe, and former Chief Justice John Marshall. Returning home, he had to admit that the church and politics don’t mix. The next year he started publishing the Millennial Harbinger and continued to do so until his death in 1866, avoiding politics the rest of his life.
Politics need not be such a source of bitter division. My grandfather was a life-long proud Republican. My grandmother was a confirmed Roosevelt Democrat. They took great delight knowing that their votes would “cancel” each other’s. In many ways, they were people of their age. But they could disagree about politics because they agreed on what was of primary importance—the Gospel of Christ for the world. Neither saw politics as an ultimate solution but rather as different means to a common goal.
Imagine such a salutary approach to politics in today’s church. The division is bitter, aggravated by social media. Those with differing political views find their motives questioned, their faith discounted, and their fellowship dismissed. And such views come from all sides of the political divide.
A search of the New Testament for the importance of politics in the early church reveals almost no information. The Gospels and the epistles are mostly silent about the Roman government, which was certainly not friendly to the emerging church.
Perhaps that absence is due to the one time that Jesus’ disciples wanted to make politics central. After spending more than three years with him, hearing his teaching, seeing his miracles, witnessing his resurrection, they still thought the solution was political. After the resurrection, they asked him, “Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel?” (Acts 1:6). “Make Israel Great Again.” They still believed that they were the chosen nation, the only hope for the world. I can imagine Jesus wanting to bang his head against the wall in frustration! How could they have missed it? But he ignores their question and instead sends them as his witnesses “in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth” (Acts 1:8): witnesses in their homes, to their region, to a race of people they had traditionally despised, to all the earth.
Somehow, elders must help church members to refocus from politics to being witnesses “to the ends of the earth” and to affirming that the ultimate solution to the world’s problem is not this or that political policy but rather praying that “Your kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven.”
What will this work look like? A few suggestions:
Admit the problem exists.
Follow Jesus’ example—ignore political discussion; focus on mission.
Study, within the eldership and then the congregation, the Sermon on the Mount and the Great Commission.
Avoid all social media!
Embrace an early slogan of the Restoration Movement:
In essentials [witnesses to the ends of the earth] unity;
In opinions [earthly politics] liberty;
In all things, love.”
Monitor the amount of time the congregation spends on each of those three tasks as a measure of a healthy church.
