The Politics of Right and Wrong

In a recent essay, Time's Andrew Sullivan had the following to say:

So let me suggest that we take back the word Christian while giving the religious right a new adjective: Christianist. Christianity, in this view, is simply a faith. Christianism is an ideology, politics, an ism. The distinction between Christian and Christianist echoes the distinction we make between Muslim and Islamist. Muslims are those who follow Islam. Islamists are those who want to wield Islam as a political force and conflate state and mosque. Not all Islamists are violent. Only a tiny few are terrorists. And I should underline that the term Christianist is in no way designed to label people on the religious right as favoring any violence at all. I mean merely by the term Christianist the view that religious faith is so important that it must also have a precise political agenda. It is the belief that religion dictates politics and that politics should dictate the laws for everyone, Christian and non-Christian alike.

That's what I dissent from, and I dissent from it as a Christian. I dissent from the political pollution of sincere, personal faith. I dissent most strongly from the attempt to argue that one party represents God and that the other doesn't. I dissent from having my faith co-opted and wielded by people whose politics I do not share and whose intolerance I abhor. The word Christian belongs to no political party. It's time the quiet majority of believers took it back.

I agree with Mr. Sullivan that the word Christian belongs to no political party (as if a word could belong to anyone). But I couldn't disagree more with his underlying thesis, namely that one should keep his religion seperated from his politics. It's not surprising, then, that I can't agree more with my brother-in-law's response to Sullivan's essay:

I am appalled at Andrew Sullivan’s subtle attempt to compare the Christian Right with Islamic extremists in his article “My Problem with Christianism.” Christianity and Islam are two separate religions with a separate set of beliefs and ways to respond to the world. It was a lowball and unfair move by Sullivan to make that comparison. With that said, Sullivan falls into the same trap he preaches against with his incorrect categorization of the majority of Christians. He describes Christians based on his own views of religion and politics. It is obvious Sullivan is no student of church history and the Bible, which is our objective standard for how we interact in this world.

The Bible tells us as Christians we are Christ’s ambassadors. This means there should be no separation between our religious life and our public life. Jesus and our early church founders (Peter, James, John, Paul etc.) are perfect examples. Their public life was a living mirror of their inner religious life, so much so that the governments of their time persecuted and killed them out of fear of what they were doing to public opinion. Church history is filled with examples of Christians whose religion “dictated their politics.” And what were those counter cultural issues they took a stand on in their public lives? The same moral issues that many in the Christian Right represent today. I believe Sullivan’s assessment of today’s evangelicals is wrong. As one of the thousands of evangelical Christians in America I am glad to carry on the tradition of our fathers in having my faith dictate my political views.

Joel M. Borkert

Well said. I recently had a conversation with a 1L in lawschool. The subject eventually turned to politics and this individual said, "I just can't believe how President Bush tries to impose his morality on everybody. Don't you find that wrong?" My response went something like this: I don't think the issue is George Bush imposing his morality. I don't see how any politician (or anyone for that matter) can come to any political conclusion without moral considerations guiding him. Republicans AND Democrats base all their decisions to some degree or another on their moral framework. It's just that different moral paradigms are at play. Our politics reflect our values, and our values are formed by our moral considerations. Those moral considerations are ultimately going to be consistent with and dependent upon our religious faith, whatever it may be.

This student I talked with and Mr. Sullivan both suffer from the same self-righteous illusion that they are the objective, enlightend ones, capable of divorcing their personal, private faith from their public political positions. The fact of the matter, though, is that if we're to be spiritually and intellectually honest, we can't simultaneously believe in the virtue of our faith if we advocate political positions that run counter to it. Such a truth respects no party line.