American Politics and Christian Faith: The Confession of Evangelical Conviction (Part Four)

I’m intrigued by “Our Confession of Evangelical Conviction,” a document signed by well-known evangelical leaders that aims to address the current social conflict and political confusion by making seven affirmations:

1. We give our allegiance to Jesus Christ alone.
2. We will lead with love not fear.
3. We submit to the truth of Scripture.
4. We believe the Gospel heals every worldly division.
5. We are committed to the prophetic mission of the Church.
6. We value every person as created in God’s image.
7. We recognize godly leaders by their character.

I’d like to look at each of the statements and evaluate them in light of current polarizing politics in America.

FOUR: We believe the Gospel heals every worldly division.

We affirm the unity of all believers in Jesus Christ (Galatians 3:28), and that through his sacrificial death on the cross, he has removed the barriers that divide us (Ephesians 2:14-18), making people from every nation, tribe, people, and language into one new family (Revelation 7:9). We are called to be peacemakers (Matthew 5:9), and the counter-cultural unity of the Church is to be a sign to the world of God’s love and power (John 13:35; 17:20-21).

 We reject any attempt to divide the Church, which is the Body of Christ, along partisan, ethnic, or national boundaries, and any message that says it is God’s desire for the human family to be perpetually segregated by race, culture, or ethnicity is a rejection of the Gospel.

Here are the Scriptures referred to (in the NIV):

• ¹⁴ For he himself is our peace, who has made the two groups one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility, ¹⁵ by setting aside in his flesh the law with its commands and regulations. His purpose was to create in himself one new humanity out of the two, thus making peace, ¹⁶ and in one body to reconcile both of them to God through the cross, by which he put to death their hostility. ¹⁷ He came and preached peace to you who were far away and peace to those who were near. ¹⁸ For through him we both have access to the Father by one Spirit. (Ephesians 2:14-18)
• After this I looked, and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and before the Lamb. They were wearing white robes and were holding palm branches in their hands. (Revelation 7:9)
• Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God. (Matthew 5:9)
• ^13:35 By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another. ^17:20 My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, ²¹ that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. (John 13:35; 17:20-21)

Few people would fail to acknowledge that this has been the most divisive political climate we have known in America for a long time. And it is not simple division. It is cruel, bitter, hateful, and relationship-shattering division.

In July of this year the President of the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Church, Brent Leatherwood, nearly lost his job when the commission’s former board chair acted unilaterally to remove him because he had shortly before commended President Joe Biden for dropping out of the U.S. presidential race (full story here). Families have divided over who they’re going to vote for in the presidential election.

Rachel Kleinfeld, Senior Fellow in the Democracy, Conflict, and Governance Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace testified in 2020 before the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol, saying that “acceptance of political violence has been rising sharply over the past five years.” As an example, after using a Trump supporter convoy to threaten and stall a Biden campaign bus in 2020,

New Braunfels pastor Steve Ceh and his wife, Randi, separately took the stand Monday as part of a lawsuit accusing the couple and four other defendants of illegally conspiring to stop the bus and its passengers from campaigning on Oct. 30, 2020. The bus occupants brought the case against the defendants under the 1871 Ku Klux Klan Act, which prohibits conspiracy to inhibit political activity.

Similarly, U. S. Representative Maxine Waters called for her supporters to harass Trump administration officials in public during a rally in 2018:

“Let’s make sure we show up wherever we have to show up. And if you see anybody from that Cabinet in a restaurant, in a department store, at a gasoline station, you get out, and you create a crowd. And you push back on them. And you tell them they’re not welcome anymore, anywhere.” (see video)

As for racism, it could certainly be argued that racial prejudice has been used as a chip on the campaign table with the immigration issue. The characterizing of incoming immigrants as made up of many, maybe even millions of, murderers, rapists and thieves is certainly an appeal to the prejudices of Americans against Hispanics, just as the false claim that Haitian immigrants are “eating the dogs.”

Culturalism was certainly in evidence in the Hillary Clinton campaign when she characterized half of Trump supporters as a “basket of deplorables,” suggesting that the rural, redneck, southerner culture was racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, and Islamaphobic.

All of this is contrary to the gospel which is “making people from every nation, tribe, people, and language into one new family.” We too should “reject any attempt to divide the Church, which is the Body of Christ, along partisan, ethnic, or national boundaries, and any message that says it is God’s desire for the human family to be perpetually segregated by race, culture, or ethnicity.”