How Should Christians Be Involved in Politics?

In the last three posts I have argued:
1. The Church qua Church should not be involved in politics.
2. The Church qua Church has an evangelical responsibility to be involved in moral issues.

Now, I want to go on to discuss the role of individual Christians in the political process. I want to make a distinction between the role of the Church itself and the clergy and other leaders as its official representatives, on the one hand, and the individual Christian church member on the other. The individual church member is trying to work out his salvation with fear and trembling and is called by God to a variety of vocations and for some their vocation will be politics. All Christians, in modern liberal democracies, are citizens with certain rights and responsibilites. So how should Christians be involved in politics as citizens and, for some, as politicans?

The Problem
In the current situation, many Evangelicals are confused by the choice between the two political parties, neither of which seems to offer a consistently Christian platform. What to do? I have been arguing that part of our problem is that we fail to distinguish between moral issues, on which the Church can speak clearly and which require no debate, and political strategies, on which the Church should not speak and which require much debate and may even be impossible to resolve. My point is that we should be guided primarily by moral issues, rather than political strategies. Now, this leads to the problem posed by Sam in the comments thread of the last post that it seens that one party is better than the other on abortion but both have serious shortcomings. So should we just refrain from voting? Some, especially in the Anabaptist camp, are urging this approach this election year. How should we respond?

Stepping Back From the Immediate
Part of our problem is that many of us (most?) are somewhat naive about how politics works and we only get interested in the process once every few years when there is a media blitz of publicity concerning a presidential race or something comparable. So our participation is sporadic. In this situation, I think it is not surprising that we would be tempted not to vote and as we all know, voting rates in most western countries are falling overall. If we expect to be able to ignore the whole democratic process between elections and then be presented with black and white options in which choice is easy - then we are bound to be disappointed most of the time.

Let us assume a hypothetical situation in which we have a two-party system (as in the US) and both parties advocate positions incompatible with Christian moral positions. Let us say that one party advocates an unjust war and the other abortion. (Does this sound familiar?) Now, does that mean that individual Christians can just do whatever they want, i.e. vote for either or vote for neither? I think not.

First of all, Evangelicals should be involved in politics in multiple ways. The possibilities are local, state and national levels, working within one of the parties, running for office for one of the parties, running as an independent, working for a political action committee, working for a public policy advocacy group, working in a social justice ministry that educates the Church as part of its ministry, etc. I suggest that the long-term goal of Christians should be to be a swing vote that is educated on Christian moral issues and helps to bring those issues to the public consciousness.

Second, Evangelicals should try to form a Christian caucus in each party that tries to influence party policy with Christian morality from within. For example, I doubt that we will ever see abortion made illegal until the Democratic Party is at least divided on the issue. Even if one party is completely sold on making it illegal, the degree of determination with which the other party opposes it will be crucial. This may mean that some Christians are called to work within the Democratic party structures knowing that the Christian vote will not go their way until there is serious change to the party policy on abortion. I can thus imagine a Tony Campolo working within the Democratic party to try to moderate its position on abortion but not asking Evangelicals to vote Democratic until there is change. My problem with him at the moment is that he wants Evangelicals to vote Democratic when there has been no movement on abortion at all and that is highly problematic from a conscience perspective. This is compromise with evil, rather than transforming culture.

Third, Evangelicals should work outside the traditional partisan structures to make a compelling case for Christian moral positions in ways that do not depend on revelation and Scripture alone. This work can be done by appealing to the stated convictions of the non-Christians in power and showing how their own rhetoric of human rights and freedom should lead them to support Christian moral positions.

Fourth, some Evangelicals should run for office in order to be a witness to Christ in the government. Evangelicals who do so must be guided by the moral teachings of the Christian Church and not deny those teachings in order to get ahead politically. The John F. Kennedy strategy of promising to refuse to be governed by the teaching of his Church is not acceptable. After all, do we ask Secularists not to be governed by their highest philosophical ideals and committments? This may severely limit their acceptability to the major parties and, if so, the time may come when Christians run as independents. But at the moment, it is possible for Christians to run for the Republicans and maybe for the Democratic party as well. We should not give up on the Democratic party as far as trying to change it is concerned; all I have argued is that we must not allow ourselves to be changed by it.

Specific Problems With the Religious Right
1. It was led to an unacceptable degree by pastors as its public spokesmen. This, more than anything, created the "theocracy scare." It also placed the Church in politics up to its neck and thus undermined the Church's moral credibility.
2. It over-identified with the Republican Party to the extent that it seemed that the Christians vote has no where else to go and therefore could be taken for granted. If Evangelicals want to sit out this election in order to make the point that the Republicans need the Evangelical and Catholic vote and had better not take it for granted (say by appointing another disaster like Anthony Kennedy to the Supreme Court for example) then that is a reasonable position to take as a one-off strategy. I would not say that there is a moral obligation to vote Republican necessarily.
3. It could not keep specific moral issues (marriage, abortion, assisted suicide) separate from general neoconservative ideology (especially US exceptionalism and empire building and unregulated capitalism as the ideal). This also brings shame and reproach on the Church.

The Religious Right would have been much more effective (and still could be) if if was lay-led, organized outside a party and more focussed on certain issues and not neoconservatism in general. (A caution: Coalition building will always be necessary and should not automatically be identified with compromise.)

Specific Problems with the Religious Left
1. It is also too often led by clergy (who often stand to the left of their congregations) and this tends to identify the Church with as left-wing ideology. This is a similar problems as on the right.
2. It is over-identified with socialism and big government as the answer to all problems.
3. It promotes a secular solution for the problems of the world and thereby renders itself irrelevant except as a cheering section for government action.
4. By endorsing the economic left, it also tends toward approving the cultural left, which brings it into conflict with many Christian moral teachings. So far (in the past 100 years) Christians who endorse the economic left have not been able to do so without endorsing the cultural left, which raises the question of whether or not this is even possible.

Last Point
I think that the way the Catholics approach politics has a lot to teach us as Evangelicals. The role of the bishops, the substance of Catholic social doctrine, and the way Catholics function as a swing vote all are models to us, I think. I will explore this point in future posts.