How Churches Should Engage With the Political Sphere

With every election cycle, churches, their leaders, and congregants, face the same questions: Where do we fit into this debate? What positions should we take on the issues before us? What is our responsibility to our society? What are the limits of our engagement?

In light of changes in the way politics works in contemporary America, there is an even harder question: Does the church matter at all in the political sphere?

Professor Angelo Codevilla believes we have come again into an era when the "ruling class" sees itself as loftier than the common folk. The "power elites" believe they have the right to dominate, and when that assumed privilege is threatened, react swiftly.

Salena Zito, a journalist commenting on society and culture, says it has come down to this: "It's not about left vs. right, but about insider vs. outsider."

I would suggest that Codevilla's present "power elites" and Zito's "insiders" are the entertainment establishment (Hollywood), the information establishment (Silicon Valley), the academic establishment (the Ivy League and its clones), the political establishment (Washington and the tenaciously rooted deep state), and the corporate establishment.

The institutional church cannot be an "insider" because every time it has tried to achieve that status it has lost its identity as the ecclesia, the "called out," and the ministry that goes with it.

Codevilla writes: "In our time, the most widespread of differences between rulers and ruled is also the deepest: The ruled go to church and synagogue. The rulers are militantly irreligious and contemptuous of those who are not."

So where does the church fit? Should it try to be a "power elite"?

The answer is found in the prophetic literature of the Bible's Old Testament and in the life and ministry of Jesus Christ. A study of Scriptures show there are three roles the church—the body of Christ—is to play midst the tumultuous politics of our time.

The first is that of the prophetic community. The purview of the prophet is truth. The prophetic commodity is the reality of the Kingdom of God—righteousness-justice, peace, and Spirit-given joy (Romans 14:17).

In a sense Nathan, who confronted David after his sin with Bathsheba, was an "insider" within the palace, but who was able to remain an "outsider" who could speak hard truth to the chief executive. Nathan shows that, while the "church" is not to be an "insider" institutionally, its people might become "insiders" for the sake of ministry.

Read more about How Churches Should Engage With the Political Sphere on The Christian Post.