Should Christians Belong to Political Parties?

In our increasingly polarized nation, is it right for Christians to align themselves with a particular political party? And how do we continue to do the slow work of civic discipleship when the heat of the moment calls us to respond to every crisis?

(From Holy Post Podcast 662: Why Nazi Comparisons Don't Help & Hosting Cultural Conversations and Lee C. Camp)

Kaitlyn: I think we need a better account of what it means to participate in a political party or belong to a political party than we've often been given. I don't think we need to get to the point where we refuse to identify with a party, especially in a local context. It's obviously influenced by the national level, but Republican/Democratic politics can be quite different at a local level, which is why you've seen some wins in places that are surprising. There are states where Democrats or Republicans, depending on the sway of the state, can win at the local level because they trust the local party, but they can't win at the national level because they know that the national party is going to get them involved in things they don't want to get involved in.

So, I would be hesitant to say fully, ‘We don't associate or identify with political parties,’ but I take his point that the options given to us most of the time is that associating with a political party is to give complete loyalty, and to give over your sense of identity and community to it.

Phil: So, you’ve got a class of 18 year-olds sitting in front of you asking about a Christian and politics and they say, ‘Should we associate with a political party today?’ And you would say, ‘No! You're Bonhoeffer in 1923, no parties?"

Kaitlyn: I would say, are we talking about you getting involved in local politics? That might make sense. You're gonna have to get some wisdom from your local community and from the people who are involved in politics locally. If what we're talking about is, ‘Should I associate as a part of my identity on social media with a particular party?’, as someone who's not really involved in actual politics, I don't think that's necessary, but that's a lot of the model we've been given.

I think the question is very different for people who are going to be robustly involved in politics - actually involved in local politics, not just consuming political media - than people who are just going to use this as a label to filter things like the news they receive and the way they identify online. Those are two very different questions.

Phil: How do you know though? Because right now, particularly on the Republican side, moderates are just being spat out over and over. Go back 20, 30 years and it was moderates being spat out of the Democratic party over issues like abortion. Today it's moderates being spat out of the Republican party simply because of a lack of fealty to Donald Trump - personality driven expulsion. So, when you see that happening, at least at the national level, doesn't that tell you you're gonna have a hard time moderating a party that is rejecting all attempts at moderation?

Kaitlyn: That's why, if it's a group of Christian 18 year olds, if they are thinking about getting involved in politics, if some of them are going to run for local office, that's a very different question than, 'How are you gonna do this at the national level?' I think sometimes we have some hopelessness about the parties because of the information we're getting at the national level, which I totally understand, but there doesn't seem to be a great alternative currently to saying, ‘I want really faithful, energetic Christian college students to go out and after they graduate be involved in local politics, whether they're Democrats or Republicans.’ I think that's a good thing for their communities.

Skye: I think there’s also the reality that our political parties are getting weaker and weaker. I just heard Ezra Klein talking about the race in Nebraska this past year where, in a very red state, an independent ran who was probably more aligned with the Democratic party in policies, but did not run as a democrat, and almost won. And speculating that we might see more and more candidates running in very blue or very red states as independents because the other political party's brand is so toxic in that place that you can't get far if you're associated with them. So, whereas party affiliation used to be a huge asset because you had all the resources of the party behind you, now it's a liability and you're better off being independent, which may open the door for more independently-minded Christians of conviction to run for office in different parts of the country based on a platform that is not beholden to one party or another, which I think would be a really good thing.

Phil: So, Miller and Renu say, ‘A confessing church today in America needs a robust theology of civic engagement that teaches the moral good of republican government, the rule of law, and constitutionalism. It would teach respect for pluralism, anti-utopianism, and the wisdom that comes from learning from the history of totalizing political religions. It would teach critical detachment from parties coupled with selective and narrow cooperation with them.’

Kaitlyn: Well, here's what's exciting to me about this, and this is the part of the piece that I really agree with. Critical detachment is fine, I just don't want to say, ‘let's not be involved in parties at all.’ But to Skye's point a moment ago of like, who knows what's gonna happen with the parties in the United States? I have said this on the show before and I will say it again - it is just crucial, I think, for us to move beyond not only kind of band-aid responses to whatever the newest political crisis is, but, to the point of this piece, move beyond the drama of the kind of moral clarity of the moment.

And I love the Barmen Declaration; I have it literally on the wall next to me. I think it's a beautiful theological statement, but I think they're correct to say there's a kind of high we can get from being in this political moment that is very heightened, where we feel like we have not only moral clarity, but moral authority to say, ‘Here's what's true, and it's counter to everything you believe.’ And for some of us, there's a reason we constantly are going back to the Nazis and comparing everything to Hitler and comparing everything to the Nazis, because the drama of being ‘the Bonhoeffer against the Nazis’ is intoxicating.

And what we need, instead of the constant band-aid or the constant clarion call, ‘Here's the Christian statement against everything that's going wrong,’ is the much smaller, slower, less  dramatic, less exciting work of a political theology that not only gives us a sense of what it means to be a Christian in the world, what it means to honor government without giving it undue authority - the kind of spiritual formation that people need to do this well.

But the one thing I would say is missing from this piece is a really robust sense of particular, not just policies, but ideas about how communities should function that Christians have received over the decades. We aren't without resources for not just thinking about the values that we should hold generally or the character that we should have, but also really good ideas about what matters in a community and how they should function well, and we should return to that kind of approach of saying we need that basic theological foundation. There might be crises that pop up that give us an opportunity to return to those basics and say, ‘This is what's being threatened: this is our response,’ but constantly responding with ‘Jesus is Lord, so that means you shouldn't be a dictator; Jesus is Lord, that means tyranny is wrong,’ isn't gonna give us the robust foundation of, ‘We actually have something to say about how human communities best function and the spiritual formation we need to be good citizens and neighbors.’ We're not gonna do that if we're constantly swept up in the drama of responding with this clarion call to this moral moment that makes us feel more important than actually gives us something to do.

Skye: So, we need civic discipleship?  

Kaitlyn: Yes!

Article referenced: A Confessing Church for America's Weimar Moment