Render to God What is God's: Reflecting Christ in Politics
One of the greatest dangers Christians face today is our tendency to make God look more like us when we ought to focus on looking more like Him. While preparing to teach a course on secular ideologies, I came across an op-ed arguing that the religious right's response to the election of Joe Biden contributed to the events of January 6th, 2021. The lead image for the piece showed three people holding up a large banner that read, "Trump is President. Christ is King."
As I considered the op-ed, I wondered how the piece might have presented God's people had the sign read, "Biden is President. Christ is King." I wondered how the legitimate concerns of many Christians about increasing antagonism toward Christianity in the United States, moral issues, and governmental corruption might be pressing us to rally behind a political rather than a theological vision. I found myself less concerned with what Biden's administration might do to Christians than with what Christians might be doing to themselves.
The politics of the world are not trivial, nor are they treated as such in scripture. Government plays an important role in the administration of justice. Notably, the Old Testament portrays the various ways God uses the nations of the world. God granted victories to nations for reasons that were difficult for Israel to foresee or understand (Esther 4:14; Isa 44:28; Jer 25:11-14; Ezekiel 21:1-32; Hab 1:1-11). As such, I am not suggesting that Christians abandon the political realm or set aside patriotic concerns. We are to "render to Caesar what is Caesar's," but more importantly, "to God what is God's" (Matt 22:21).
As we pursue our agendas and passions or address the legitimate issues of the day, we must not forget that our primary vocation is not fixing a broken world, but pointing to Christ. As Dwight Moody noted, "Think how much work has been neglected by temperance advocates in this country because they have gone into politics and into discussing women's rights and women's suffrage. How many times the Young Men's Christian Association has been switched off by discussing some subject instead of holding up Christ before a lost world ... Oh, it is a wily devil that we have to contend with ... if he can only get the church to stop to discuss these questions, he has accomplished his desire."
Moody was not insensitive to the material needs of those around him. He was exceptionally generous, ministered to children in the slums of Chicago, and started schools for underprivileged girls and boys in Northfield, Massachusetts. Yet, Moody was not interested in fixing the world through social action if such social action was disconnected from bringing people to Christ and challenging them to be useful to God. His efforts to care for the material needs of those around him were bound up with his desire to build the body of Christ.
We would do well to take a lesson from Moody on this point because the problem of sin is not overcome by human effort. Even when we are successful in restraining evil, our solutions won't result in resurrection. While we should seek justice and correct oppression (Isa 1:17), we must do so while proclaiming that Christ is the way, truth, and life (Jn 14:6).
When God's people take up causes, we run the risk of those causes distorting our vision of God. We run the risk of justifying our pursuit of the cause by making the cause an idol and tying God to it. When this happens, we no longer act as if we believe that God's ways are beyond our ways, or that His thoughts are beyond our thoughts (Isa 55:8). God conforms to us. We determine how the problems we face must be solved. God no longer directs. He becomes a resource rather than a ruler.
Whatever causes we address as we seek to practice "pure and undefiled" religion (James 1:27), we must remember that we may find ourselves enduring suffering rather than alleviating it, lamenting the world's brokenness rather than celebrating repentance, and being a faithful presence rather than an agent of change. Christians cannot isolate themselves from the world. Part of what it means to proclaim Christ is to care for people others would leave bleeding in the streets (Lk 10:25-37). Yet we are not to fix our eyes on the issues plaguing the world, but on Jesus Christ (Heb 12:1-2). We do not reflect Christ in the world by fixing the world. Rather, we reflect Christ by observing His commands even when doing so leaves the world broken.
How we address the world's brokenness matters because "we do not wrestle against flesh and blood" (Eph 6:12). As we confront and resist those who diminish or deny God, we do so knowing that we cannot win the battle we are fighting by distorting Christ. We can only do so by reflecting Him faithfully as we proclaim the gospel in deed and in truth to a world that needs to hear it.
Dr. James Spencer currently serves as President of the D. L. Moody Center, an independent non-profit organization inspired by the life and ministry of Dwight Moody and dedicated to proclaiming the Gospel and challenging God's children to follow Jesus. His book titled "Useful to God: Eight Lessons from the Life of D. L. Moody" was released in March 2022. He previously published "Thinking Christian: Essays on Testimony, Accountability, and the Christian Mind" and co-authored "Trajectories: A Gospel-Centered Introduction to Old Testament Theology."
