Christianity IS Political! - Part I

So many priests today are afraid to mention anything political for fear of politicizing the faith. They are also afraid of angering half of their congregation if they say anything. Common statements you hear in defense of this cowardice is “Jesus Christ isn’t a Democrat or Republican” and “The Church is not here to make Democrats and Republicans”. But these objections show a fundamental misunderstanding of what politics actually is and what the Christian faith is as well.

Politics in the broadest sense is how society is formed and functions. It deals with how we organize ourselves into a community and how we address problems we might have. Politics is how we set up our legal system, our tax system, the moral framework of our culture and so on and so on. It deals with vast amounts of our lives and touches virtually every aspect of it. So there is no real way to avoid politics. You can’t go five minutes without coming across an issue that is touched by politics. You may not realize a particular issue is “political” because that position holds vast agreement among the community and so it is not argued about, but it is still political.

Let’s now look at the Christian faith in all of this. Jesus Christ is truth itself. He is the rock and foundation for everything in our lives. He is King of all creation and so His Kingdom has no end. The doctrine of the social kingship of Christ is emphatic that all of humanity is subject to Him and there is no area of life where He is not sovereign. As such, any government that is set up and organized must submit to Him and obey His commands to be legitimate.

So as Christians we are not allowed to try and set up a secular government that does not recognize Christ as King. Doing so makes that government an atheistic government and an enemy of Christ. There is no aspect of Christian morality that can be ignored or rejected when Christians are forming a government or when they establish laws and society.

This also precludes any attempts to claim to privately believe in Christ but publicly enacting laws and policies that are contrary to the will of God and His Church. There is not such thing as a separation of Church and State in the Christian faith. This belief is a condemned heresy by the Church. Christ is King and any attempt to separate society or government from Him and the will of the Father is an attack against God and His Church.

There is no such thing as a value-neutral government, political policy or society

Another common rebuttal to these truths is the statement, “I don’t want to impose my morality on others.” This is such a silly statement that even the person stating it doesn’t believe it. They are quite happy to impose their morality on a multitude of areas of life, such as punishing criminal acts, taxation rates or things such as government run schools being funded by the community. They use this claim to defend their abandonment of some teaching of Christ that they either reject or are too fearful to uphold.

This is commonly used by many “Catholics” who claim to be personally prolife but want to still allow abortion to remain legal. The truth is that they either reject the teaching of Christ against abortion and won’t admit it, or they are too cowardly to defend this teaching and fight against abortion.

ALL laws are an imposition of a morality on people. Every single law. There is no law that does not impose a certain morality and viewpoint on society. Laws against murder, assault, theft and similar examples are clearly imposing a specific morality on society. But so are laws like the tax rate and laws against pollution. There is a very clear and obvious morality to these laws that claim government should be funded by certain people at a certain rate, or that it is immoral to pollute our world. These are moral assertions imbedded in these laws.

Christians must always fight to uphold and impose the morality of Christ on the world. It is a command and requirement from God. It’s not optional. It is required of justice to form our society and culture in conformity to the will of the Father.

Matthew 28:19 Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.

To any priests who might be reading this, I add this little nugget from Scripture to give you warning. You were given specific graces and special authority by God Himself, and with that authority comes incredible responsibility. You WILL be called to account at your particular judgment and you WILL have to answer to God for any truths of Christ that you failed to teach His faithful.

Hebrews 13:17 Obey your leaders and submit to them, for they are keeping watch over your souls and will give an account. Let them do this with joy and not with sighing—for that would be harmful to you.

Just wait until Part II where we discuss the doctrine of subsidiarity and the trans movement, among other things. Read Part II here.