I’m not sure why I’m writing about faith and politics again. I’m not much of a political animal, and others write about it much better than I ever will, but nevertheless, I came across this article earlier this week - My Problem With Christianism - by Andrew Sullivan. In the article, Sullivan, who is a Christian, expresses his opinion that the Christian Right is not representative of many Christians, perhaps even a majority. He says that many Christians feel that their religion has been overtaken “by those who see Christianity as compatible with only one political party, the Republicans.” He defines the term “Christianism” as “the view that religious faith is so important that it must also have a precise political agenda.”  He continues: 

What to do about it? The worst response, I think, would be to construct something called the religious left. Many of us who are Christians and not supportive of the religious right are not on the left either. In fact, we are opposed to any politicization of the Gospels by any party, Democratic or Republican, by partisan black churches or partisan white ones. “My kingdom is not of this world,” Jesus insisted. What part of that do we not understand?

This article addresses some of what I’ve thought about recently regarding faith and politics. I certainly believe that our faith must inform our politics, as it must inform all areas of our lives. But, like Sullivan, I feel that sometimes many Christians expect all other Christians to vote Republican. All Republican, all the time. It seems there is a narrowly defined set of issues that have been deemed most important, and the Republicans vote the “right” way. Therefore, if you’re a Christian, your vote should already be decided.

A couple of years ago I encountered a girl who explained that she would simply not vote if there was no pro-life candidate for whom she could vote. If all candidates were pro-choice, it didn’t matter where they might stand on other issues. To her, only one issue was relevant.

So, are we allowing our faith to inform our politics, or are we allowing our politics and the society around us to define our faith? In other words, are we allowing a subset of issues to define how we vote as Christians while ignoring other issues, possibly opposed by “our candidate”, that should be (at least) of equal importance to us based on our faith and our desire to follow Jesus? Is it possible that if we ask “HWJV”, the answer might be that Jesus wouldn’t always vote Republican? I ponder these things because for a long time I assumed that the Republicans were the best candidates for which a Christian could cast their vote. I’m no longer willing to make such an assumption.

I am also not suggesting that Christians should vote for Democrats instead of Republicans. Like Sullivan, I do not believe that Christians should necessarily align themselves with any party. I think we must vote responsibly. And I would hope that, instead of considering only to which party a candidate belongs, we would look beyond that label to the person and where they stand on all of the issues - not just a few - to determine if he or she would do the best job for all people. It wouldn’t change everyone’s minds, but voting should not be as simple as choosing all the candidates from a given party, even if it’s supposed to be the “right” party.