Why Politics Overwhelms the Church

I found this article- Why Politics Overwhelms the Church - fascinating. I really appreciate Russell Moore's insights and his willingness to say some hard things.

Here are some extracts:

A wise friend once told me that a surefire way to see where one’s deepest affections are is to see what most easily inflames one’s emotions. It’s here that we see a massive gap between our own cultural and subcultural foment and the emotional life of Jesus.

Jesus cared about Caesar’s coin questions (Matt. 22:21). They didn’t dominate his emotional energy. Jesus feels more than free to denounce Herod as a “fox” (in context, a withering repudiation; Lk. 13:32), but he keeps right on walking toward Golgotha. Jesus is tranquil before the possibility of Pilate’s judgment (Jn. 19), but anguished before the prospect of God’s. Jesus is so unconcerned about being offended that he overlooks a dismissal of his Nazareth background (Jn. 1:46–51), but is angered to the point of overturning tables when the temple—the dwelling place of God—is turned into a marketplace preventing all peoples from entering to pray (Jn. 2:13–32).

Caesar never prompted Jesus to rejoice (Lk. 10:21). Pilate never prompted him to sweat blood. Why? Because he trusted a sovereign Father and saw a kingdom that would triumph over all rivals. He was tranquil before the state, and passionate about the church.

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Political ideologies are often then posed in terms of exuberant triumph (“We’re winning! We have influence!”) or in terms of apocalyptic despair (“We are about to lose our entire culture!”). Both that exuberance and that despair are then used to justify all sorts of things we never imagined we would affirm, or things we never thought we would deny.

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The Apostle Paul tells us, right in line with Jesus’ parable of the wheat and the tares, that we do not exercise judgment over the outside world but over the boundaries of those who are called brother or sister (1 Cor. 5:9–13).

In our era, it’s easier to do the reverse. We often rail against the perceived sins of our cultural enemies, while minimizing those within the church. Even worse, we sometimes even confer Christian identity on people apart from repentance and faith, simply because they are “with us” on the issues. That’s a scandal.

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A church freed to seek the kingdom first wouldn’t dismiss political or social ethics. While the Bible doesn’t give us a detailed public policy outline, it does define justice. The Bible tells us what matters, and who matters. But a church that follows the Bible will not adjust what we speak to and what we keep silent about on the basis of what’s counted important or useful by some ideology or movement.

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We will seek to shape people’s consciences on the basis of what we’ve learned at the Lord’s Table, not on the basis of what will keep us at the table of some principality or power of this age.

And perhaps most importantly, the church of the next generation will be a church with emotions that are often out of sync with the news cycle. We will speak for the vulnerable, including those whom the world would rather keep invisible. We will define righteousness and justice in biblical terms, not partisan ones. But we will do neither with the triumphalism of those who think they are “winners,” nor with the outrage of those who think they are “losers.” We will bear witness to a just social and civil order, but we will do so with the affections of those who seek a City not made with human hands.