The Industry of Politics

Every time there is a presidential election, I find myself wondering about all the accusations that the candidates make about one another, and especially about those directed at the incumbent President. If these things were all true, then standing Presidents would be regularly impeached, and competing candidates would be either imprisoned or hanged.

The ironic thing about the process is that, after vilifying one another in the debates, the candidates smile, shake hands, and maybe even go out for beers. After the election, the loser calls up the winner and offers congratulations. The police are not sent out to make arrests and public executions do not follow each election.

And yet, we of the general populous take all this stuff very seriously. We believe what we hear, especially when it props up what we already believe. We call that legitimate Patriotism. In the religious world, we have a corollary term: Heresy, which generally means telling someone something about their faith that they don't already know.

So elections become more about image, combativeness, and marketing rather than about leadership, integrity, and vision. James Davison Hunter, in his fine book To Change the World: The Irony, Tragedy, and Possibility of Christianity in the Late Modern World, describes it this way:

"[Electoral politics] has become an industry oriented far more toward the management of images and the marketing of a candidate than to the propagation of political ideals and policies." (p. 39)

What do you think? Is this true?

Election Time Sorrow

Elections do not make me sorrowful--irritable and outraged, yes--but not sorrowful. I've come to expect that campaigns make a great deal of noise and then someone ultimately has to go to work and do something. 

What does bring me sorrow is watching how too many people in the Christian community use the Internet to pass on questionable and even slanderous information about particular candidates. I've seen doctored videos, scandalous urban legends and contextless photographs suggesting abominable behaviors, many sent by people claiming to follow Jesus.

I do believe that these people love Jesus. But I fear that some have equated faithfulness to the gospel with embracing the agendas of one political party over another. If one sees the political process as kind of war, then perhaps the thinking might be that any explosive device is permissible.

But I claim that it is not. 

Passing on via email some of the things I've seen looks like bearing false witness to me. I wonder how we square these activities with Jesus' call to love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us (although few of us in the US know anything about persecution, and many of our enemies are those of our own making). 

Scott McKnight (jesuscreed.org) offers some fine ruminations about the election. I appreciate that he affirms our role as Christians to be as ones seeking the kingdom of God first, and not expecting candidates, parties or governments to be what only God and his kingdom can be.

I believe that participation by Christians in the political process is important in the same way that our overall engagement with the world is important. Remember that Israel preferred the politics and military mechanisms of the surrounding nations to leadership under the hand of God, and paid dearly for that choice. We must remind ourselves that our role is to be God's people, not for our own sake or for the sake of a particular national agenda, but rather for the sake of the world.