Faithfulness Amid The Culture War

Faithfulness to Jesus’s mission isn’t less than boldness in the culture war; it’s much more.

Many wonder if the days of a nonpartisan approach to Christian cultural engagement are over. In recent years, they say, the lines have been more clearly drawn, and thus Christians—especially pastors—need to be less hesitant to align the cause of Christ with the right side of the political aisle. We should be willing to connect the dots, name names, and formalize our identification with the Republican Party, even lead with that in our church’s messaging to our communities. They say the response to Charlie Kirk shows us it works evangelistically, at least for a lot of young men. Words like “nonpartisan,” “nuance,” and “winsomeness” are code words for compromise and likely indicate a leader has fallen under the spell of the progressive gaze, even though these compromises sanctimoniously masquerade under the cloak of “for the sake of evangelism.”

One pastor friend even told me, rather cheekily, regarding his political views, “People need to know where their pastor stands. I’ve decided if I’d say it around the firepit, I’ll say it from the pulpit. Anything less is inauthentic.” Faithfulness, it’s believed, means making clear where we line up politically.

Let me (briefly?) explain here why I think this is not only a mistake but a lack of faithfulness to the mission of Jesus.

And before you dismiss this as simply a representation of the “same old third way,” it’s not. Parts of that approach need to be jettisoned, but parts need to be maintained. Let me explain.

Our Central Assignment

Let’s start with the specific commission Jesus gave us before he left. As Jesus prepared to ascend back to heaven, his disciples asked him, “Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?” (Acts 1:6). The disciples were asking about when and how Jesus would establish his political kingdom on earth and what they might do to help bring it about.

Jesus replied, “It is not for you to know times or seasons that the Father has fixed by his own authority. But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth” (vv. 6–8).

Think of all the things Jesus could have said to them there: “And you will be my . . . Bible study-ers.” Or “You will be my pray-ers.” Or “my advocates for justice and mercy.” Or “my nation-preservers.” To be sure, he expects his followers to do all these things. But the single word he chose in this moment was “witnesses.”

Similarly, in Matthew’s version of the Great Commission (Matt. 28:18–20), the only verb Jesus uses is mathēteúsate, “make disciples.” Everything else that looks like a verb in those verses is a participle. In Greek, participles gather their force from the verb. Thus, “make disciples” is the central thing Jesus commanded the church to be about, the verb around which all our other activities are organized.

Gospel proclamation holds a privileged and primary place in the Christian’s commission.

Societal Transformation: Important Part of Our Witness

Of course, learning to implement Jesus’s teaching in all spheres of society is an important dimension of discipleship. Jesus commanded us to teach his disciples all things he has commanded and, as Dutch Reformed theologian Abraham Kuyper famously said, “There is not a square inch in the whole domain of our human life of which Christ, Who is Sovereign of all, does not cry: ‘Mine!’”

That means we must teach followers of Jesus to let their Christian worldview permeate every “square inch” of their lives, which includes, of course, their politics.

‘Make disciples’ is the central thing Jesus commanded the church to be about, the verb around which all our other activities are organized.

Furthermore, social transformation is an important part of our gospel witness. Everywhere the gospel has been preached, life-giving societal reformation has followed. As British historian Tom Holland points out, many values and freedoms now cherished in modern Western society came from Christians who brought their worldview into politics. Most were virtually unknown before Christians introduced them. Historical theologians from Glen Scrivener to N. T. Wright and Michael Bird point this out. Wright and Bird say,

Most people in today’s world recognize as noble the ideas that we should love our enemies, that the strong should protect the weak, and that it is better to suffer evil than to do evil. People in the West treat such things as self-evident moral facts. Yet such values were certainly not self-evident to the Greeks, Romans, Arabs, Vikings, Ottomans, Mongols or Aztecs.

We live in a much better world because Christians got involved in politics. In fact, we might argue that what has most tarnished our witness in society is when we’ve failed to apply that worldview thoroughly enough. For instance, the persistence of institutionalized discrimination and Jim Crow laws in the Baptist South undermined gospel testimony here for generations. Popular media outlets today still depict strong evangelical convictions and racial discrimination as synonymous. You might think that’s unfair, but the inconsistency of many evangelical Christians on this issue makes that smear all too easy.

Bringing the salt and light of Jesus’s kingdom into every sphere of society is both an important component of discipleship and an important dimension of our witness.

When the Preaching of the Gospel Trumps Politics

Still, we can’t ignore that in the ministry of Jesus, preaching the gospel often trumped engagement with political questions, even important ones. Let me use an example from the great Martyn Lloyd Jones: In Luke 12, he points out, Jesus is asked by the younger of two brothers to adjudicate on his behalf, speaking into a particularly relevant issue in first-century Palestine. The older brother is using his position and existing laws to cheat the younger brother out of his rightful inheritance (v. 13). This younger brother has a legitimate social justice complaint!

And yet, instead of giving a specific—you might even say political—answer to this problem, Jesus withholds his opinion. Instead, he says, “Man, who made me a judge or arbitrator over you?” (v. 14). He then preaches a sermon on greed, warning both brothers (and the listening crowd) about the idolatry of money. We ask, Why not give his opinion on this case? Did he not care? Was he not up to the task?

Lloyd-Jones says it wasn’t because Jesus didn’t care about justice (far from it!), or even that he felt unqualified to answer. Had Jesus weighed in on this one, two things likely would have happened. First, he would have cut off from his influence anyone in Israel who agreed with the older brother. Second, the next day he likely would have had a line a mile long of people wanting him to weigh in on their justice issues, which would have kept him from his primary mission—preaching the gospel and making disciples. So he sat this one out so he could stay on mission, giving a warning about idolatry that applied to all.

The apostle Paul follows suit. First-century Rome had legions of social and political problems, and while Paul offers a passing rebuke to some of them in his epistles (e.g., 1 Tim. 1:8–11), none of his epistles takes moral or political reformation in Rome as its subject matter. I would have loved to have read Paul’s prescription for a new and better Rome. But his focus is on witnessing to Jesus, church-building, and making disciples.

I would have loved to have read Paul’s prescription for a new and better Rome. But his focus was on witness to Jesus, church-building, and making disciples.

I’m not trying to equate the responsibilities of Christians today with those of first-century Rome. After all, we have opportunities they didn’t have. As Os Guinness says, in a Western democracy, not to contend for God’s laws in the political sphere would be a “failure of citizenship,” because in our system of government, “every American citizen is responsible for every American and the American Republic.” Good politics is an important part of loving our neighbor.

Rather, I’m saying that at every point in the New Testament, Jesus and the apostles consistently steer the movement away from nation-building (or even nation-preserving) and toward evangelism and disciple-making, at least in terms of what they regard as their priority, what comes first.

Perhaps this sounds like I’m speaking out of both sides of my mouth. I’m saying on the one hand that the gospel transforms all levels of society, and on the other that we’re to follow Jesus’s example by not encumbering the church’s mission in public policy questions, since our primary commission is to be a witness and make disciples. Is it a contradiction?

Church as Organism and Organization

Kuyper puts forward a distinction that helps resolve this dilemma. He talks about the distinction between the church as organism and the church as organization:

• As an organism, Kuyper says, church members are to infiltrate every dimension of society, bringing God’s wisdom and shalom into all of it.
• As an organization, however, the institutional church has a limited platform as an extension of the earthly ministry of Jesus. As such, the church—and its leaders—must focus on proclaiming the gospel message and teaching what Jesus commanded, those direct-line principles explicitly stated in Scripture.

Church members, as part of the Christian organism in society, can and should bring their perceptions of God’s wisdom, like salt and light, into every sphere of society. Church leaders, by contrast, as representatives of the organization, should (in general) limit their advocacy to which the Bible directly teaches. Because people tend to equate what institutional church leaders say with what God says, we church leaders shouldn’t tie God’s name or the church’s authority to something he hasn’t directly said, especially regarding things about which sincere, Bible-believing Christians might in good conscience disagree.

I’m not talking, of course, of backing down from declaring anything in God’s Word. We’re to preach the whole counsel of God, in every situation, regardless of its unpopularity or its political ramifications. John the Baptist lost his head for preaching against the socially accepted sexual sin of King Herod in his courtroom, and Jesus doesn’t say, “Oh zealous John, you squandered your platform! Should have stuck with the gospel!” No, he calls him the greatest prophet ever to live (Matt. 11:11). Following his example, we must proclaim, to the highest levels of government, that transgenderism and infanticide are high moral rebellion. Full stop.

I’m saying, however, that where God’s Word doesn’t speak directly, or the political application is only implied, we need to exercise self-control. For example, I don’t know of anywhere God spells out for us the ideal marginal tax rate, the proper number of refugees a compassionate country should take in, the godly posture toward gun control, whether health care should be nationalized, or exactly what our safety social net should include.

I have my opinions on all those—and not only do I think they’re right, but I think they’re informed by my Christian worldview. But they’re applications of Christian wisdom—applications that I could be wrong about and applications that others who believe the Bible as much as I do might see differently. While I always vote my conscience, where I can’t draw a direct line between a verse and a particular policy, I leave the authority of God and the reputation of the church out of it.

Is that because I’m cowardly? Or because I don’t think the Christian worldview has anything to say to those questions? No, it’s because “witness” is my primary responsibility, and that responsibility shapes my agenda.

Tale of Two Ditches

Growing up, I was always warned about the ditch on the left side of the gospel road: the ditch of cowardly silence in the face of social wickedness. That ditch is real and an ever-present temptation for the church. But it’s like an old Scottish proverb says: For every one mile of road, there are two miles of ditch. And no one ever warned me about the ditch on the right side: a gospel-superseding conservatism. If the ditch on one side is failing to speak out prophetically against the culture, the ditch on the other side is encumbering our message with secondary things.

Jesus exemplifies this balance in his calling of the disciples. When Matthew lists out the names of the disciples, he describes himself as a “tax collector” and labels Simon as a Zealot (Matt. 10:3–4). This indicates they were divided on the most pressing political issue of the day. One thought Rome should be cooperated with; the other thought cooperation with Rome was a compromise of God’s covenant and that guerilla warfare was the faithful response.

Ultimately, Jesus’s kingdom teaching would undermine and transform the approaches of both—one might argue, Simon’s even more than Matthew’s—but it’s clear that a priori conformity on this issue wasn’t a prerequisite for following Jesus. It was an important question with significant societal implications, yet Jesus didn’t lead with it. He brought Matthew and Simon in as disciples and then taught them kingdom principles that transformed them both.

I want to be clear in these examples that I’m not saying the errors of the political right and left in our country are morally equivalent. Sometimes in my preaching I’ve implied that, and that’s wrong. Nor am I saying there aren’t clearly wiser choices in certain elections. I wish that the only differences in our country’s two primary political parties were prudential questions like the wisdom of tariffs or the ideal marginal tax rate. But unfortunately, the Democratic Party has officially enshrined into its platform an unqualified affirmation of the murder of infants in the womb and a wholehearted embrace of gender and sexual rebellion.

In calling out these errors with prophetic boldness, some will say we sound partisan. But call them out we must, and often by naming the people and parties who promote them. So, in those cases, we’ll just have to sound partisan.

I’m saying, however, that (like Jesus) political engagement isn’t what pastors should lead with. Social transformation is downstream from Christian witness, not the tip of its spear. Furthermore, there are times when the responsibilities of Christian witness supersede what we’ll regard to be politically expedient.

For example, for three years I served as president of the Southern Baptist Convention. Southern Baptists are known to vote overwhelmingly Republican. So, while I try to speak clearly and prophetically against all societal wickedness, I feel especially compelled to be clear about weaknesses, moral inconsistencies, and corruptions associated with the political right, since people associate me with the political right and Jesus with me.

It’s not that I think shortcomings on the political right are worse than those on the political left—far from it. Rather, my primary concern in all things is that people think rightly about Jesus, and I want to make sure they don’t associate the right’s evils or shortcomings with him.

So, when it comes to the recent Republican capitulation on killing the unborn, President Trump’s public repudiation of the way of Jesus, the moral hypocrisy of certain Republican leaders, any affirmation of lawlessness or use of language that doesn’t convey the dignity and respect others are worthy of, I can’t let my appreciation of Republicans’ moral clarity on certain issues keep me from speaking out clearly about the wickedness of the others for fear that it may hurt their chances at reelection. My primary assignment isn’t to build a nation but to be a faithful witness to Jesus.

My primary assignment isn’t to build a nation but to be a faithful witness to Jesus.

In the third commandment, one of the Big 10, God instructs his people never to take his name in vain, which means not, so far as it’s in our power, allowing his name to be associated with things unworthy of him. When we make Jesus’s gospel synonymous with a political party, we tie his reputation to that party. The name of Jesus is the most precious thing on earth—the only name by which people can be saved. My ultimate concern in every interaction, every decision, is what this communicates about Jesus to the people in my community.

Of course, often in politics we must choose between the lesser of two evils—that’s the nature of politics. But the lesser of two evils is still evil, and Jesus’s name must be kept free of all of it. Otherwise, we take it in vain.

‘We Should Not Make It Difficult for the Gentiles Who Are Turning to God’

There’s a phrase in Acts 15 from James, Jesus’s half-brother, that I wish I could plaster over the desk of every pastor’s study in the Western world: “We should not make it difficult for the Gentiles who are turning to God” (Acts 15:19, NIV).

Here’s the context for James’s statement: Jewish and Gentile believers had become so divided over a few cultural issues that they could no longer worship together, and church leaders came together to try to work something out. Some Jews wanted to make conformity on secondary, cultural applications of the law a prerequisite for membership, while some Gentiles wanted to disregard some of God’s timeless laws. Churches led by Gentiles were experiencing a Jewish flight, and vice versa.

The council’s conclusion was that while we must never tolerate the breaking of God’s moral laws, we shouldn’t let secondary convictions, preferences, or applications of wisdom get in the way of others hearing the gospel. The council even asked Gentiles not to eat meat from something that had been strangled (Acts 15:29), even though technically they were free in Christ to do so. This would place such a barrier between Gentile believers and Jews that it would make Gentiles worshiping and evangelizing alongside believing Jews nearly impossible. The mission of evangelizing the world, James said, had to take priority.

The lesser of two evils is still evil, and Jesus’s name must be kept free of all of it. Otherwise, we take it in vain.

And so, early church leaders asked both Jews and Gentiles to hold their secondary convictions, preferences, and applications of Christian living in ways that wouldn’t make it hard for unsaved members of the other group to find their way to God.

I want to say this to church leaders in America: Don’t make it hard for Republicans or Democrats to find God. Don’t make it hard for black or white seekers, or for brown or Asian seekers. Don’t make it hard for police officers or for public-school teachers. Preach the whole counsel of God, but don’t make it hard for anyone turning to God by encumbering the message with things not essential to the message.

Firepit vs. the Pulpit

So, let me go back to what my pastor friend at the beginning said: “If I’d say it around the firepit, I’ll say it from the pulpit.”

I imagine James, in the spirit of Acts 15, might reply, “There should be all kinds of things you would say around the firepit that you wouldn’t say from the pulpit.” The pulpit is a place reserved for “thus saith the Lord” not “thus thinketh the pastor.”

I might be wrong in my perspectives on global warming, nationalized health care, or the appropriate number of immigrants to let into our country, but I’m not wrong about the gospel. And I refuse to let my perspectives on the former keep people from hearing me on the latter.

Gospel witness, not cultural transformation, is the tip of our missional spear.

A few years ago, I got a letter from a young lady in her 20s that included a picture of her being baptized at our church. I hadn’t been there on the day she got baptized, and she wanted to tell me her story.

When she first came to our church, she wasn’t a Christian. She didn’t exactly fit the profile of “likely future Baptist.” She’d graduated from an elite West Coast university and moved to the Triangle to do grad work at one of our universities. She’d visited our church a few times with her friends, but she told me that the first personal interaction we’d had was over X. Her handle was something like @LeftLinda, and she’d said something snarky in response to a pro-life post I’d shared. Normally, I don’t respond to snipes on X, but I did to this one, and I’m not even sure why. I did my best to respond as Jesus might, with grace and truth. I had no idea she went to our church. We went back and forth a couple of times, then we dropped it and I never thought about it again . . . until this letter showed up at my office.

“I was ‘LeftLinda,’” she told me, “and I didn’t like your pro-life stance. But I kept coming to the church, and eventually I was convinced by the truth of the gospel.” She’d been attending for several months and was growing by leaps and bounds.

She told me,

I knew you were pro-life; I knew you taught that homosexuality was sinful . . . but even though you were clear on things, you didn’t make the Summit the “Republican church.” If you had, I never would have been able to bring myself to come. Because you didn’t, I heard the gospel and I believed.

Now she’s in the process of reexamining everything. And yes, that includes her politics. But it started with a gospel encounter.

A change of politics is downstream from discipleship; it shouldn’t be the gateway to it.

One Important Caveat

One of the questions I often ask myself is what exceptions there might be—instances where we should connect biblical values to specific candidates or parties. If you lived in Charleston, South Carolina, in 1860, for example, it seems faithfulness would require us to do more than simply say slavery was wrong; it would mean refusing to support any pro-slavery candidates, even if we agreed with them on other things. Or, if you were a German Christian in 1940, you should do more than say anti-Semitism is wrong; you should say that faithful Christianity precludes membership in the Nazi Party.

Some would say that given the left’s wholehearted embrace of infanticide and the denial of the gender binary, we’re in a similar situation today, and therefore we must connect the dots for people. I certainly understand that reasoning and it resonates deeply with me. We should be clear what particular candidates say about these things and sometimes name names—I’ve done that with our people, and plan to do it again.

That said, I know that which issues people choose to prioritize in an election is multilayered, reflecting both their perception of their community’s immediate political needs (thus the phrase “all politics are local”), their community’s history with a particular party, their assessment of the candidates’ trustworthiness, perceptions of existential threat, and many other factors. For that reason, I contend that for pastors, leading with political identity or making our gospel synonymous with a political identity is unwise and unfaithful, because it places an unnecessary obstacle in the way of gospel proclamation. Knowing which issues to prioritize in an election is, after all, a matter of maturity, not a gateway to discipleship.

For pastors, leading with political identity or making our gospel synonymous with a political identity is unwise and unfaithful, because it places an unnecessary obstacle in the way of gospel proclamation.

There’s more to say on this. Recently, I published a book, Everyday Revolutionary: How to Transcend the Culture War and Transform the World, in which I delve more deeply into these questions. But for now, let me return to where I started: It’s possible to be faithful and true in everything we say on every public issue and still be unfaithful in the mission of Jesus.

Jesus’s mission, you see, was more than just the proclamation of truth; it was the ministry of reconciliation. Jesus spent his energy befriending sinners, bringing them back to God, not just establishing cultural beachheads. That meant he backed out of some important discussions to better focus on the essential one—he “solved” for reconciling sinners to God through the preaching of his gospel. In his day-to-day encounters, he seemed less concerned with saving a nation than he was with saving individuals.

If we’re his followers, that will be true of us too. Jesus warned about a “leaven of the Pharisees” that, he said, could spoil the whole loaf (Matt. 16:6). Beware those, Jesus warned, who love long, flowing displays of righteousness but are woefully short on gospel fruit (Matt. 23). We must beware those who are long on diatribes, X threads, and Substacks but can’t point to someone from across the political aisle whom they have befriended and sought to love with the love of Christ. Beware those who loudly condemn in the public square but show no zeal and no effectiveness in gathering the “poor and crippled and blind and lame” (Luke 14:21) of all varieties around God’s bountiful table.

They just might be leading us into the very ditch of unfaithfulness they claim to help us avoid.