How Jesus Disrupts Politics as Usual and Redeems Our Partisan Divide
November 27, 2023
“Partisan politics is crashing Jesus’s kingdom party,” warns pastor Butler (Beautiful Union) in his vigorous call for Christians to take stock of the political allegiances fracturing the American church. In recent years, Butler contends, “untold numbers of Christians” have adopted so-called “political religions,” each with its own set of ideals, mantras, and expectations: on the left, the religions of progress (“We can change the world”) and identity (“Live your truth”); on the right, the religions of responsibility (“Pull yourself up by your bootstraps”) and security (“Good fences make good neighbors”). But Jesus’s kingdom is “not to be contained by these quadrants,” Butler writes. Instead, it’s a “common table in a conflicted world” that bears “the weight of transcendence, pressure of meaning, and assurance of hope” in a way that politics—with its inherent transience and lack of moral depth—can’t. Wading into issues where identity, culture, and biases intermingle, Butler offers suggestions for self-reflection as well as building bridges. For example, he advises readers to avoid becoming political “armchair quarterbacks” who evaluate “the shortcomings of other camps while blind to our own camp’s weaknesses” and to engage in conversations with those on the other side of the aisle from a place of “humble learning.” For believers willing to do the difficult work of lining up their personal and political ideologies against the tenets of their faith, this is a valuable resource.