How would Jesus Vote?

Would Jesus Be a Democrat or a Republican?

I encountered this question recently in a film for Church small groups, produced, written and directed by Lake Oswego's own Dan Merchant, called Lord, Save Us From Your Followers. The question was posed to passersby, street interviews being a large part of the film. Some of the respondents said, "Democrat," and some said, "Republican," but by far the most popular answer--at least as shown by Merchant--was, "He wouldn't care." A few who gave this answer seemed to breath it with a hint of sadness, brows knit with feeling, as though the question itself betrayed an uncharitable intent by the interrogator.

Biblically speaking the question is not so much uncharitable as incoherent, because of course if Jesus were once again here on this earth in physical form, Democrats and Republicans, Socialists and Libertarians, Communists and Anarchists, and adherents of every other political party, ideology or system of thought would either fall at His feet in worship or otherwise be forced to acknowledge that He is the final and complete ruler of the Earth. The time for voting will have ended forever.

His eyes are like a flame of fire, and on his head are many diadems, and he has a name written that no one knows but himself. He is clothed in a robe dipped in blood, and the name by which he is called is The Word of God. And the armies of heaven, arrayed in fine linen, white and pure, were following him on white horses. From his mouth comes a sharp sword with which to strike down the nations, and he will rule them with a rod of iron. He will tread the winepress of the fury of the wrath of God the Almighty. On his robe and on his thigh he has a name written, King of kings and Lord of lords. (Revelation 19:12-16 ESV)

A perfectly reasonable question, however, is, "what candidate or legislative policies can we vote for that will most closely align with God's mandates?" This question is not only reasonable, it's indispensable. But whether from Biblical illiteracy, or ignorance of issues and policies, many Christians are not asking this question of themselves. Even for those who are both Biblically and politically informed, it can be challenging to answer and almost always a matter of trade-offs. But then most of life's problems are. This is where Scriptural understanding of degrees of both sin and righteousness play a crucial role: without it we are helpless in weighing competing goods against each other, or discerning the lesser of two evils.

For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart. (Hebrews 4:12 ESV)

All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness... (2 Timothy 3:16 ESV)

These choices may not be as difficult as they may seem at first blush, however. What can appear as an overwhelming task if one were to have to examine the minutia of each and every policy of a given candidate and submit those many details to Scriptural scrutiny, can be simplified greatly by looking at the underlying philosophy of government itself that competing candidates hold. Christian apologist Greg Koukl has a good article on this which you can access here. This reduces the argument to one of questioning what is the Biblical role of government. Koukl makes the argument--convincingly I would say--that the New Testament role of government is quite limited to that of justice (the punishment of criminals) and equity (that it should treat its citizens equally and fairly) quoting Romans 13:3,4

For rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad. Would you have no fear of the one who is in authority? Then do what is good, and you will receive his approval, for he is God’s servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword in vain. For he is the servant of God, an avenger who carries out God’s wrath on the wrongdoer.

That this sounds remarkably similar to the opening paragraph of the U.S. Constitution--establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare-- is, I think, no accident but was rather by careful intent by the founders of our country.

So if the Biblical view of government is one of limited influence, what is the non-Biblical alternative with which we are most commonly presented? Allow me the conceit of quoting myself from a post on my political blog which I wrote at the beginning of this year:

Implicit in their speeches is the idea that government is a force for good, and if government, through the exercise of "progressive" ideals, is good, then more government is better. Implicit, too, is the idea that human problems can be--not ameliorated, but solved--through the wise and progressive application of government. Disease, poverty, ignorance, bigotry--perhaps even loneliness--are all human problems that can be eradicated by this redefinition of humanity and the politics of meaning. (You can access the entire post here).

To be sure there are definite single issues that are defining as coinciding with the Biblical and Christian worldview--the sanctity and dignity of human life in all its stages and conditions; the sanctity and uniqueness of monogamous marriage; the preeminence of moral obligation to God over obligation to the state--and those should certainly be taken into account. But in the ambiguous issues we can use this understanding to more easily determine the Biblical way to vote: is the underlying political philosophy of the candidate one of limited government, constrained in its sphere of authority, or is it a philosophy of government as panacea in which almost every part of human life it can play a constructive, benevolent, even parental role?

First, supplications, prayers, intercessions and thanksgivings should be made on behalf of all men: for kings and rulers in positions of responsibility, so that our common life may be lived in peace and quiet, with a proper sense of God and of our responsibility to him for what we do with our lives. (1 Timothy 2:1,2 Phillips translation)

Unconditional

In all things I have shown you that by working hard in this way we must help the weak and remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how he himself said, 'It is more blessed to give than to receive.'" (Acts 20:35 ESV)

I can no longer remember when I first heard the phrase, "unconditional love." It seems like it might have been some time in the 60s or 70s -- I know it was nothing I heard as a child. I do know that for quite a while it seemed a perfectly acceptable usage to me, and filled me with the same sense of warm fuzzies that others appeared to get from the phrase. I still affirm the idea that God's love for us is separate from any merit or deservedness on our part.

Of late, however, I have grown increasingly uncomfortable with the phrase, and more so upon my reading of Marvin Olasky's book, The Tragedy of American Compassion. (Olasky holds a PhD in American culture, is a professor at the University of Texas at Austin, and is editor-in-chief of World magazine.) In 1989 and 1990 Olasky, funded by a grant from the Heritage Foundation, researched the history of American charity to the poor, from colonial times to present, at the Library of Congress, research upon which he based his book. He outlines the early American model of compassion, and describes the surprisingly successful programs of the time, run almost exclusively by religious organizations. He identifies seven "marks of compassion" which characterized this early American model and were essential elements of its achievement: affiliation, bonding, categorization, discernment, employment, freedom, and God.

To quickly define these terms, affiliation focused on restoring the broken relationships with family, church and community of the needy. Bonding was required by volunteers with those whom they helped, in the true spirit of the word "compassion": to suffer with. Charities of the day carefully categorized their applicants between those "worthy of relief" (children, widows, those able and willing to work, and those unable to work due to disease or handicap), and the "unworthy, not entitled to relief" (the "shiftless and intemperate" who were unwilling to work). Discernment was then thoughtfully exercised in the type, degree and duration of aid given with the goal, for all for whom it was possible, to secure employment, and thereby restore (or perhaps for the first time secure) self-sufficiency, dignity, and freedom. And all was done in the name and to the glory of God.

All of this occurred during a time when American society endorsed the classic Judeo/Christian view of fallen man and sovereign God. But with the advent of, first, liberal Protestant theology, and later, secular/humanist worldview that denied the fallen nature of man and rather affirmed a natural goodness in human nature that would assert itself once social and physical necessities were met, a new template of compassion assumed American charity. Almost all of the marks of compassion that had once governed American charity were abandoned, and with them the role of government aid eclipsed that of the faith-based organizations--and with it the success they had experienced. In effect, "bad charity" drove out "good charity". The zenith of this movement was seen in the 1960s with the passing of unprecedented welfare entitlements and the professionalization of social work. The decades of the 1970s and 1980s saw the devaluation of marriage, a horrifying rise in unwed childbirth, and the formation of a multi-generational underclass dependent on government largess. True, no one was starving anymore, a basic level of physical need was met, but the social and moral aspects of poverty, and the sheer numbers of the dependent class grew exponentially.

Perhaps the worst tragedy is that this model of compassion, stripped of affiliation, bonding, categorization, discernment, and employment, has infected many faith-based efforts of charity, with results that early American charity pioneers warned of when first establishing their model of compassion. Consider this excerpt from the book:

Shortly before Christmas 1989, a Washington Post reporter, Stephen Buckley, interviewed eight men who were living in Northwest Washington in a tent made by tying a bright blue tarpaulin over a grate that spewed hot air. Buckley noted that the men had sleeping bags, gloves, scarves, and boots, and lots of food: "Party trays with chicken and turnkey. Fruit. Boxes of crackers. Bags of popcorn. Canned goods. All donated by passersby." Some of the recipients probably were fathers, but they were not spending Christmas with their children.

Buckley also visited four men and two women who were camping on a heating grate on the eastern edge of the Ellipse, just south of the White House. The heat, along with "the generosity of private citizens who bring them food and clothes every night," meant that the campers "don't worry much about surviving the cold," Buckley reported. Indeed, visitors throughout the evening dropped off supplies; one woman brought fruit, nuts, and two dollars; three men brought a platter of cold cuts; and two other men hot chocolate, blankets, gloves, sweaters, and socks. One of the campers, a forty-one-year-old man who has been "largely homeless" for eleven years, noted that "the majority of clothes we have here now were dropped off by persons who were walking by and saw us here. They just thought they could bring something that would be helpful to us."

The unavoidable question presented by these stories is: do these indiscriminate gifts really help these people, or are they rather making things worse by enabling them to remain "homeless"?

Even evangelical programs of charity, done in the name of Christ, if devoid of the other marks of compassion in the early American model, are left only with freedom. But freedom to do what--roam the streets? Abuse drugs and alcohol? Continue to abandon one's children? Is this really demonstrating the "unconditional" love of God?

Consider another excerpt from the book which illustrates a different sort of contemporary faith-based charity organization that embraces the early American model of compassion:

Jim and Anne Pierson of Lancaster, Pennsylvania, for example, bought a large, old house named it House of His Creation, and over seven years provided shelter to two hundred pregnant women. The Piersons learned that the family structure of their home was crucial, because most the women who stayed with them had lacked a good family life. They had never seen a healthy mother-father or husband-wife relationship, and so had become cynics about marriage. Some of the residents at House of His Creation, freed from peer pressure to single-parent and able to see the importnace of dual-parenting, chose to place for adoption. Most also began thinking about marriage in a new healthy way.

The Pierson's next step was to act as catalysts for the development of family-base maternity homes. They formed the Christian Maternity Home/Single Parent Association (CMHA), which has thirty-two member homes, each with two house parents and six to eight pregnant women in residence. At one CMHA home, Sparrow House in Baltimore, houseparents draw each new resident into family life--for some, this is the only time in their lives that they have lived with a "mother" and a "father." The houseparents help each resident adjust to rules and responsibilities that may be new and hard to take at first. Since many of the young women have come from undisciplined lives, they are learning--maybe for the first time--to live with structure. They also learn to take their spiritual needs seriously. Sparrow House, like other CMHA homes, accepts needy women from any religious background, but the program's unapologetic base in Christian teaching is reminiscent of many in the late nineteenth century...The housemother spends many hours with the teenage mother but she does not assume babysitting responsibilities; if a teenage mother is desperate, the housemother takes over for a short time but only in exchange for doing laundry for the household or mowing the lawn. House-parents need to have inner strength and conviction that the child will be better off in the long run by maintaining a hands-off situation. They have to let the child cry longer than they would let him cry. The have to let his diaper be wetter than they would allow. The teenager has to learn that it is her responsibility. Christian Family Care Agency's tough love leads about half of the teenage mothers to realize that for both their good and their children's, they should choose adoption; the other half raise their children with a new appreciation of marriage and an awareness of their own limitations. Crucially, that knowledge has come in the safe environment of a family home, not it the dangerous terrain of a solitary apartment filled with the sounds of a crying child and a tired angry parent.

So perhaps this "tough love" is in reality a better expression of God's "unconditional" love than merely handing out food and clothing with no attendant personal responsibility required. And perhaps my own unease with the phrase "unconditional love" is in reality a disappointment with so many contemporary Christian charity programs that seem to have forsaken the classical view of compassion--that of suffering with--for the far easier, guilt-assuaging and self-congratulatory model of indiscriminate giving of food, clothing, or money.

For anyone considering faith-based giving or volunteer work, I urge you to read, and be challenged by The Tragedy of American Compassion.