Faith column: Navigating faith in a divisive political climate

In his 1946 essay, “Politics and the English Language,” George Orwell wrote, “In our age there is no such thing as ‘keeping out of politics.’ All issues are political issues…”

Orwell was writing in the aftermath of World War II amid the rise of totalitarian regimes and the wake of propaganda-laden mass communication. His concern was, as is evidenced by the essay’s title, the corruption of language in such times and the way it can be used to manipulate public opinion and conceal or advance political agendas.

Eighty years removed from Orwell’s statement we’re once again living in a time when it seems as if “all issues are political issues.”

Equally it seems as if all such issues are divisive. Gallup Polls in the last year have shown 80 percent of Americans believe the country is “greatly divided” and that both Republican and Democratic political ideology is becoming increasingly “extreme.”

One wonders if it’s time to update Godwin’s Law to reflect the likelihood of any current American discourse, in-person or online, converging to a divisive and vitriolic reductio ad politico.

How do people of faith navigate such times?

Is even faith now political?

No.

Or at least it shouldn’t be.

Ancient Israel lived under a theocracy, but Judaism has not done so since the days of Zedekiah, the last King in Judah.

The Qur’an teaches that “there is no compulsion in religion…” (2:256).

Jesus said, “My Kingdom is not of this world…” (John 18:36).

Naturally, adherents to three of the world’s major religions disagree on other things, but it would appear their sacred texts agree that faith and politics are separate spheres. Certainly overlapping, but not synonymous or monolithic.

In the Christian faith there may be no better example of this than among Jesus’ own inner circle of 12 disciples (later Apostles).

Listed among the 12 were both Simon the Zealot and Matthew the tax collector (Matthew 10:3-4).

By the time Matthew was writing his Gospel account of Jesus’ life, ministry, death and resurrection, the Zealots were a well-known group of Jewish insurrectionists. Their goal was to foment revolution, to incite civil rebellion, in the hopes of ending Roman occupation.

Matthew’s own status as a tax collector meant he was employed by Rome. He was Jewish and had purchased the taxation rights of a geographic area from Rome and made a profit by collecting more than Rome demanded… from his own people.

It’s hard to imagine two men more politically opposite one another.

The current Us vs. Them of American politics was JV compared to Simon and Matthew.

And yet, there they were, two of the 12 foundation stones of Jesus’ mission to seek and save the lost, to share the good news with them and plead with them to be reconciled to God by grace through faith in Jesus.

There they were, two men who, apart from their common faith in Jesus, would have been absolute political and ideological enemies.

It’s almost as if they took Jesus at his word when he said his followers should love and pray for their enemies (Matthew 5:44).

It’s as if loving their neighbor as themselves (Matthew 22:38) was more than just something they said, but something they lived.

It’s almost as if they found something greater than politics; someone greater.

Perhaps they looked back over the history of their people and the world and realized that kings and kingdoms come and go, that the world is passing away, and that there had to be something greater than politics.

And so, they were able to put aside their ideological differences for the sake of a greater mission, a greater calling, a greater Savior.

Jesus didn’t call his followers to withdraw from the world but to transform it.

He didn’t call his people to rage against the world but to be part of redeeming it.

He didn’t call people of faith to disengage from politics but to shape it.

And he calls them to do so with the gospel; the good news that this broken world isn’t all there is and that evil doesn’t have the last word.

Surely what our cultural moment needs is not louder, angrier, increasingly divisive political voices, but rather people of faith who think and respond to the political moment with gospel clarity.

Pastor Chip Robinson is originally from Kentucky, graduated from CofC and serves as the Lead Pastor at King’s Cross Church on Clements Ferry Road in Charleston. He and his wife, Kristen, have three beautiful daughters and one mercurial Boykin Spaniel.