The Outstater
Politics From the Pews
POLITICS IS SOMETHING we don’t talk about in my church — “verboten” my Lutheran grandmother would say. That has never made sense to me. I understand why a pastor may not want to politicize from the pulpit, but Christianity is so entwined with Western Civilization that it would seem a good idea to keep tabs on how things are going.
A friend declares this political silence in the pews to be unnatural. He has come up with a plan for correcting it without sacrificing discipleship for partisanship. He would plant “Good Government Clubs” in churches and synagogues to fill what he argues is a vacuum in Judeo-Christian civil life.
Congregations are already involved in politics, of course, but of the single-issue stripe. The anti-abortionists and other morality activists, not to mention the Zionists, have never expanded effectively into economic strategies, public safety, fiscal management, individual liberty, DEI and so forth.
I will leave the pertinent Scriptural citations to do so to the more biblically literate, but rest assured there is plenty to mull over there under a pastor’s guidance.
My friend’s Good Government Clubs, though, would operate independent of the particular church (except to meet in the cafeteria). They would limit themselves to raising the level of civic knowledge of just those congregants curious about such things. The clubs could parse hard questions on such topics as corruption, economics, fiscal responsibility, religious liberty and the rule of law. You can expect the groups to be small.
More tactically, the clubs might keep their members informed about upcoming elections and the deadlines and requirements for filing as a candidate. The nonprofit, nonpartisan Indiana Policy Review is one group that provides an excellent step-by-step pamphlet on how to run a local election. Its “Indiana Mandate” includes monographs on 75 public-policy issues in the headlines.
Yes, I can see how this could get out of hand. There will be clubs comprised of Christians and Jews who oppose my political views. But Game Theory predicts that my position will be relatively improved. Please know that the modern secular movement, made up of those who recognize no power higher than themselves, is a religion in itself, already organized and busy fueling calamity wherever and however it can.
“Once abolish the God, and the government becomes the God,” famously wrote G.K Chesterton in his work, “Very Christian Democracy.” He argues therein that the secularization of public life hasn’t liberate society, it has simply idolized the state.
Most generally, a nonpartisan Good Government Club grounded in biblical principles of justice, truth and human dignity, would help us resist ceding moral authority to partisan or governmental power.
A few more of us entering the discussion from the pews, thus informed, Republican or Democrat, couldn’t hurt. — tcl
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