The Honorable Michael Ignatieff, Leader of the Liberal Party of Canada at a recent Community Townhall meeting in Bedford.
They say that in polite company, one should never discuss politics or religion. I often bring up both in the same conversation, to the chagrin of the etiquette police. The Salvation Army requires that its officers and soldiers be apolitical or neutral in their political dealings as it pretains to The Army. As an officer, I cannot endorse any one political faction over another. The challenge in this system is on the one hand to remain politically neutral, while on the other, to engage fully in the political process.
The church’s rocky relationship with politics is nothing new. Ever since the Edict of Milan in 313 (when Emperor Constantine legalized Christianity and made it the official religion of the Roman Empire), Christians have had the difficult task of living out the teachings of Christ, making him the Lord of their life, while submitting to the authority of an earthy king or emperor. Essentially, Christians have to live in and engage both the spiritual and temporal worlds. Obviously, Christ lays claim to our soul and body, yet this does not exempt us from living in a society and all the responsibilities that come with that (i.e. paying taxes, jury duty, military service, to name only a few). The potential for the realm of politics to exploit the Christian faith is a very real danger, and one that has happened time and time again. Think of the Crusades. Need I say more?
Because of this potential for conflict, Christians by and large take two approaches to politics. 1). They avoid getting involved in the political process, adopting the cynical viewpoint that nothing good can come out of human governance. In this approach, believers live good lives, perform good works, but essentially disengage themselves from the society, waiting instead for Jesus to make things right in his own time.
2). In the second approach, Christians desparage the political system such as it is, and vow to change it from the inside out. They invest heavilty in the political process, they create their own political factions. “If only our guys and gals were the ones sitting in the legislature, then things would change.” We often associate with this approach, Christians who identify themselves as the religious right or moral majority. This approach sounds appealing to Christians, but it assumes that any one political party has the right to speak for God. We see this played out in the U.S. don’t we, where Rupublicans denounce their Democratic opponents as atheists and secularists?
I propose instead an approach to politics that requires a full and lively engagement, yet is flexible enough to not be tied in with one political faction. On some issues, we walk hand in hand with the political left (promoting social justice, advocating the cause of the working man, liveable wages, etc), while on other issues we side with the right (building healthy families, economic development, creating just and moral laws). Is it playing both sides of the coin? Perhaps. But if our mission here on earth is to make earth more like heaven (“Thy will be done, on EARTH, as it is, in HEAVEN) then we need to work within the political process and not outside of it.
Abraham Lincoln once quipped that people shouldn’t be concerned with whether God is on their side (the often repeated claim of many political parties, that God favours their cause over the cause of their political enemies). Instead, he wisely reflected, “We should be concered with being on the side of God.” So what’s your relationship with politics? Do you have one? If not, perhaps you should go out there and get a “political” life.
