Roger Mitchell, a regular and valued commenter at both of my blogs, has written a blog post, Should Christians be Involved in Politics? It is a thought-provoking read, as is much of what he writes. His answer is “no.” I offer here his conclusion:
What, then, shall be done? How, then, shall we live? Well, there is nothing to do except to change myself into and in conformance with His likeness, to become holy as He is holy, to accept that there is no other name except His by which I am saved. This alone brings freedom. It is the only path to life. Nothing else will work. Everything else will fail.
You can rationalize all you want. You can make all the excuses you want. You can delude yourselves until the chickens come home to roost. In the end, you are only deceiving yourself.
I offered a comment, as follows:
Roger, I offer a story, taken from an excellent novel on the Spanish Civil War. As you know, fascists vs. communists – although even within each label there were other groups, etc.
Barcelona was more favorable to the communist side. Being a Catholic in this region was almost certain to bring persecution, if not death. Now, I could take a shortcut here – bypassing the more sobering point to the story…well, I will offer the shortcut, then get to the more sobering point.
A Catholic in Barcelona would much prefer the fascists led by Franco. It doesn’t mean they thought godly everything that Franco touched. It just meant relative safety for them and their families.
The more sobering story: before the war broke out, one of the sons of this Catholic family donated blood to a man, saving the man’s life. Turns out this man was a fanatical communist.
He would go on to protect the family during the fighting – with firearms and whatever else – from his fellow communists. He said, to the mother: “not even God can get through me to you.” She would smile, understanding his point even though it was a very poor way to phrase it.
So, I am not sure what I am saying – and, for sure you know how I feel about the lot of them (all the likely winners are supporters of genocide; it doesn’t get more evil than this). Maybe instead of considering it as the lesser of two evils, we consider all as fallen, but some less fallen than others.
Even with this said, I still don’t know how I feel about any of it. The way politics is practiced in a relativist, atheist society, is ugly – even in its least-fallen form.
I have written one post on the novel from which I based my comment, and I offer a couple of excerpts from my post as they are relevant to the point I am offering for consideration:
Gironella [the author] paints a picture of the chaos, turmoil, and terror when one is faced with a situation from which there is no escape – when no avenue offers safety, when no side can be chosen because all sides are violent and repressive, and choosing the wrong (losing) side is just as likely as choosing the right (winning) side; and the “right” and “wrong” sides can change claim to the seat of power, at times even day-to-day.
Throughout the novel, I am struck by the paralyzing nature of the situation – what choices can one make when all choices are bad? Gironella paints this picture with great nuance and clarity – the lives of everyday people in a boat floating off as it will – with no one able to control it.
We are not yet at the point of civil war. But in every way, it seems inevitable that we are headed in this direction. At that point, will we, as Christians be satisfied if we stayed out of politics? Before we come to that point, will we rather choose a strongman – say, a Napoleon – to bring order no matter the consequences to libertarian political theory?
Angelo Codevilla was a prescient writer, seeing the divide in America many years ago and where this divide would lead. I wrote several pieces referencing his work (just search “Codevilla” in the search bar on the right column). However, I offer his comment most relevant to this topic, written in the run-up to Donald Trump’s election victory in 2016: