It is significant to think through how we got to a situation where many Christians can easily make their political allegiances more necessary than their Christian one. One of the explanations is the rise in populism.
Christian you aren’t neutral. Neither am I. No one is. Your life up thus far has left an indelible imprint upon you. It has moulded your understanding of your faith and the way in which that you just use it as a lens through which you engage with the world.
Realising this has forced me to look at myself. To think in regards to the ways wherein my culture and the events of my life have shaped me without me even realising. “Experience inescapably shapes theology.” So said David French on the Good Faith podcast. A failure to recognise this fact severely hinders our Christian witness. Nowhere has this been demonstrated more in recent times than within the political sphere. In the West an increasingly hostile world has stirred up feelings of fear and social separation for a lot of Christians and we’ve got not all the time responded well to this experience.
My lifetime has seen a resurgence in populism everywhere in the world, on each the political right and left. Populism is less defined by a consistent ideological system, more by a rhetorical framing of the world into two camps. The political, economic, and social elites, and the people. Populism presents government systems as being controlled by those they designate because the elites and dealing for his or her profit while disadvantaging the masses. The populists claim that they are going to represent the people, dismantle the systems that oppress them, and defeat the elites.
All politicians, no matter political leanings, discover with the needs of the populace and challenge the groups and institutions they disagree with. The distinction between standard political rhetoric and populist rhetoric lies within the inherent urgency and desperation embedded within the populist narrative. Populism depends upon cultivating a way of group anger and fear. It takes real and bonafide problems, presents an enemy that have to be defeated in any respect costs, and guarantees great reward when victory comes.
If you aren’t drawn to a specific populist narrative, then it might be hard to grasp its appeal. One example that demonstrates that is the Brexit debate. I might argue that almost all of the advantages from remaining within the EU were within the hands of the center and upper classes and that as someone who supported Remain, it is totally comprehensible that enormous numbers of working-class individuals who felt forgotten by their very own government, let alone the one in Brussels, bought right into a populist Brexit narrative. Yet many Remainers didn’t understand these frustrations and so couldn’t understand the appeal of the way in which that some points of the Brexit campaign were framed. They then sowed more division as they patronised their opponents.
Christians aren’t proof against tales of existential threat and seeing ourselves in conflict with a strong elite. Faced with a secularising society and a culture moving away from Christian ethics and values, it is straightforward to see those whom we feel are causing the issue because the enemy and justify attempting to stop them at any cost. Donald Trump is the clearest example of this in recent times. Many American evangelicals are loyal to him because they’ve fallen right into a populist narrative of an apocalyptic culture war that have to be won regardless of what. They see electing Trump because the approach to win. Tim Alberta, an evangelical critic of Trump, described this position as, “The barbarians are on the gates and we want a barbarian to maintain them at bay.”
In the biblical narrative the powers that be are each ‘earthly’ and ‘supernatural’. Spiritual evil sits behind human evil. But this mustn’t be mapped onto the populist ‘us and them’ narrative. No one political side has a monopoly on good or evil. This doesn’t mean that policies can’t be legitimately challenged for going against Christian beliefs, but one political movement and the dominion of God aren’t synonymous. To treat them as such will result in Christians abandoning lots of the principles we claim to uphold. In the words of NT Wright, “If we take up the beast’s weapons to be able to oppose the beast, we just turn out to be bestial ourselves.”
In Revelation the beast is defeated by the one described as “King of Kings and Lord of Lords” (Revelation 19:16). He is the Lamb who was slain, who is actually worthy (Revelation 5:6-14). The just one who can truly defeat evil is Jesus. Which signifies that no election is the nice battle that can determine the longer term of the world. Neither Donald Trump nor Kamala Harris is the whole embodiment of excellent or evil. There are Christian reasons for voting for either candidate. But Christians must not be swept up within the narrative that one in every of them will save us or solve all of society’s problems.
As Christians we’re called to talk truth to power; to carry leaders to account to the one who gives them their authority. We cannot try this if we treat our chosen candidate as in the event that they are God’s chosen. My university dissertation was on a Jewish text from across the time of Jesus. In it a small subset of God’s people recounted the trials, war, and violence which they’d suffered. It led to them calling out to God for a strongman who would destroy their enemies and restore them to their rightful place. But in response to their prayers God sent a king who died on a cross for his enemies and prayed for many who persecuted him. Trump isn’t God’s king, and I pray we do not treat him like he’s. No matter who wins the following US Presidential election, Christ’s kingdom will proceed to make headway, so look to him.
“In this world you’ll have trouble. But take heart! I actually have overcome the world.” John 16:33
