Christianity and Politics

My interaction with American politics has certainly changed the last few years. A few years ago I had high hopes for becoming the first woman president. When Hillary was still in the running, that part of me was sadly disappointed I might lose my chance. I took a government class last year, and interacted with politics that way… but lately in my reading I have encountered a completely different way of thinking about politics. Authors such as Stanley Hauerwas, Willaim Cavanaugh, and most recently the authors of Colossians Remixed: Subverting the Empire, Walsh and Keesmaat, talk about America as an idolatrous version of Christianity. The nation-state demands our allegiance with our bodies in the public arena while Christianity has been privatized to the soul in unpublic places like home, or church. Unlike Jerry Falwell’s “moral majority,” this genre of thought focuses on changing people’s hearts by “being the church,” not forcing them to act in a more Christian manner by trying to change the empire’s laws.

So, as the political campaign is coming close to the climax, I find myself on a Christian college campus. I even happen to be taking a political science class, in which we will compose something similar to a wikipedia article that acts as a voter’s guide, informing the reader what each ticket’s position is on a certain topic. That article will even be published by the college newspaper. Politics is not limited to the classroom however; it is one of the top, if not the top, conversation topics.

From my association with the students, there seems to be a much larger republican population than democratic. In fact, the Republican students’ club is staging a voting drive, with forms and stickers and other political paraphenalia. Professors as well, say something similar to what Rick Warren recently said: the most important thing is to vote. This is a pivotal election, and, to give them credit, our Christian leaders feel that as educated Christian youth, we should try and renew this country by voting.

However, not once have I heard the option of not voting. Or at least, not as a deliberately subversive act; there are a good number of Canadian and international students who do not have the option of voting. Greatly indebted to Halden’s posts about this particular issue, specifically the ones discussing the book,  Electing Not to Vote, coupled with my personal dissociation from America as an alternative soteriology, it just seems almost ridiculous to me to concern myself with an empire that I don’t subscribe to and give validity to its myths.

Jim Wallis is scheduled to speak next week, and I am extremely excited about it. However, despite Wallis’ provocative title: God’s Politics: Why the Right Gets it Wrong and the Left Doesn’t Get it, it seems that his leanings have been distinctly on the democratic side of things… defending Obama’s character as a fellow Christian, even if he’s not officially supporting him, etc. My hope is that the option of not voting is at least brought up into conversation. This is a very grace-filled place in all spheres, including academic and political thought.  There is determined action for the cause of the marginalized. A non-voter certainly seems to be in the margins at this point in time. Just something to keep in mind.

Another influence in this discussion has been James K.A. Smith, who has had a series of a few blogs on politics the last few weeks, particularly August 26th reference to Stanley Hauerwas’ announcement that he will vote for Obama. However today I encountered a more precise interview with Hauerwas, that is amusingly mostly about education, not about politics. Yet in the last few paragraphs the interviewer asks him about his advice regarding voting, and here is what he says:

[Don't] overestimate the importance of elections!

People forget that elections are not democracy. Elections are only the means to try to occasion the debates necessary for the discovery of goods in common that are impossible to be discovered without the debates. Elections themselves can be very coercive practices in which the majority gets to tell the minority what to do. So I think that the overestimation of elections as the defining mark of democracy, and how you even begin to think about democracy, is one of the things I would want to warn Christians about in this time.

I will probably vote this time, but I don’t always do so. I always think of Mike Baxter’s claim, “Don’t vote, it only encourages them!” But because Obama is symbolically such an important development, I’ll probably do what my African American friends tell me to do and vote for Obama. But I do think that the expectations his election encourage may become a deep problem, because there’s no way he can meet them.

This resonates with the opinion of another good friend of mine, Seth Johnson, who said, “Getting caught up believing that we can solve problems, that some miraculous man or woman will just solve stuff…
I think that unhealthy.”

Two other aspects of those quotes: Seth’s comment brings up the aspect of the election due to what Smith calls the religion of Americanism, religion that calls for a messiah. This has especially been evident with Obama this election.

But Hauerwas’ comment that his African-American friends are the ones influencing him to vote is a very respectable one.

This issue is certainly not black and white (no pun intended), and it would be ungraceful of me to propose otherwise.

Also, I recognize there might be a certain amount of dishonor read into this post being written on September 11, the day that has been inscribed on every American’s heart. I have no rebuttal for that, all I will say is that I respect virtuous people, even if I think their virtue was directed toward the wrong telos, God’s “common grace” (a phrase new to me that I picked up from my CRC friends) was certainly present in them, and they definitely deserve to hold the role of hero.