Why Christians need to reach across today’s bitter political divisions to follow their Lord

Truth Over Tribe: Pledging allegiance to the lamb, not the donkey or the elephant (David C Cook) is the name of the new book by pastors Patrick Miller and Keith Simon. They started the Truth Over Tribe podcast which is designed to combat polarisation in politics, culture, and Christianity. Justin Brierley talked to them about the issues that divide the church - and culture - such as Trump, abortion, LGBT, Christian nationalism, progressives, and conservatives, and asks how the church can be part of the solution rather than the problem.

Miller and Simon say they were inspired to write their book because they had noted a change in the reasons people were researching their church. What had typically been queries into theology and doctrine became questions about the church’s stance on political and cultural issues. It got them thinking about the impact of this trend, not only on the composition of their congregation, but on the church and culture in general.

Body Politic

Politics is an integral part of life. However, what began as a process designed to organise diverse groups of people under a single governmental institution has become a smoking battlefield populated with warring tribes, all determined to win the ‘culture war’. Miller and Simon recognize that like democracy, socialism, and communism, the Gospel puts forth a politic, but it is a politic that shouldn’t result in partisanship.

Miller says: “Our concern is not so much that the church is political because I think fundamentally the Gospel is a political message…the problem is that the church has become partisan. Jesus is political, he has a politic, but he’s not partisan.”

A politic is a way of living together and we should have healthy debates about the best way to achieve that goal. Christians basically fall into two categories when it comes to politics. One group doesn’t want to even bring up the subject in order to avoid conflict, while the other eagerly enters the battle in hopes of getting awarded with a medal for ‘fighting the good fight’. To the first group, can they enter the fray, not as a combatant but rather as an interlocutor? And can the other group holster their rhetorical pistol, be willing to entertain a truce, and take a seat at the negotiation table? 

Simon says: “We’re talking about bringing Jesus’ politic, the Kingdom of God, the Sermon on the Mount to bear on the things everybody is talking about.” 

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We Have No King but Caesar!

Sadly, instead of offering a Jesus politic, we retreat into our Democratic or Republican enclaves (or Tory and Labour) and plan our strategy. When it comes to politics, despite being Jesus followers, we tend to cry with the crowd in front of Pontius Pilate that “We have no king but Caesar” (John 19:15) and try to seize the reigns of worldly power. We pray that Jesus would mount his white stallion and do our political bidding, but then look on embarrassingly as he humbly rides in on a donkey. 

One of the major sticking points with the early Christians was their refusal to acknowledge Caesar as the true king, yet today, we eagerly elevate a party or candidate to the right hand of God. We seem more concerned with the latest Caesar and not the reigning King which creates a significant problem because you can’t “Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s” (Matthew 22:21) if they are joined at the political hip. 

Calling Down Fire

Tribalism seems to be the natural predilection of a fallen people, yet Jesus will have none of it. In a very telling exchange with his disciples, he made it clear that partisanship wasn’t an option: 

“And he sent messengers ahead of him, who went and entered a village of the Samaritans, to make preparations for him.  But the people did not receive him, because his face was set toward Jerusalem. And when his disciples James and John saw it, they said, “Lord, do you want us to tell fire to come down from heaven and consume them?” But he turned and rebuked them.” (Luke 9:52-55)

We can easily insert Democrat or Republican, Liberal or Conservative, into this story and make it very contemporary. Unfortunately, since Jesus is no longer physically in the room, we take His silence as assent, and rain down digital fire by trolling, cancelling, or gaslighting those outside our tribe. 

Truth over Tribe says: “Hopefully you see why tribalism is so attractive. You’re wired for belonging, but this good desire goes bad when belonging to an “us” requires despising a “them.” 

We need to remember that ‘clickbait’ may appeal to our tribal inclinations, but should not attract those who are called to be fishers of men.

Miller and Simon pointed out that part of the problem for James and John was that they probably didn’t even know any Samaritans, and without a meet and greet, their relationship was nothing but avoid and antagonise.

Truth Over Tribe says: “How many Samaritans did James and John know? It’s safe to say not many. Maybe none… For Jews, Samaritans were the worst kind of “them” because, unlike the pagan Gentiles who were ignorant of Jewish laws, Samaritans should have known better. They corrupted what was true and good about Judaism.” 

The guests noted that like James and John, we probably don’t know our opponents either. “I think a lot of the reasons that we are tribal is because we don’t know people on the other side and so we deem them bad people,” says Simon. It’s sad that our natural tribal instinct is to call down fire, when Jesus insists we use disagreements as opportunities to spark a conversation.

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Funding the Feud

Unfortunately, our tribal inclinations are mined for profit by others. Miller and Simon, in their book, offer this sobering thought about the financial incentive for social media companies to divide us:

“This should raise a question too few people ask: How did corporations, offering extraordinary services to their customers for free, become some of the wealthiest corporations in the world? The answer is simple: You aren’t the customer. You’re the product.” (author emphasis)

While you may think you are the captain of your soul, in reality you are at risk of being cargo for internet swashbucklers and the social media pirates, who see no value in harmony because it doesn’t sell enough T-shirt booty. As we do battle with those with whom we disagree, we need to ask ourselves, who is funding the feud?  

Unity in Christ

Pastors and priests fill our sanctuaries with happy Jesus talk, but once the service is over the congregation steps into the foyer and harshly criticises the latest politician or legislation. What can our religious leaders do to rectify the situation? Justin noted the difficulties inherent in this problem by framing the question in the context of our current cultural moment:

“How does one hour on a Sunday compete with that 24/7 news cycle because that is what is actually pastoring most of our congregations most of the time?”

The guests pointed out that tribalism isn’t new to the church. The Jews had twelve tribes, Jesus dealt with Samaritans, Romans, and Greeks. The growing church had issues with cults of personality dividing themselves into followers of Apollos, Paul, and Cephas. It has been an ongoing problem than can only be remedied by getting back to basics.

We don’t begin our lives as liberals or conservatives, republicans or democrats, capitalists or socialists, we begin as image bearers. If our identity doesn’t begin at that point, then partisanship gets a big head start. We are image bearers, Jesus is the perfect Image, therefore we find our unity in Christ. The problem is that rather than viewing scripture from a Jesus perspective, Christians “are seeing the scriptures through the lens of their tribal politics”

Truth Talk: life issues

While breaking down tribal barriers is a lovely sentiment, it is much more difficult to implement in real life, because both sides have non-negotiables. One of the most prominent non-negotiables is abortion. Abortion isn’t like forgiving college debt or dealing with illegal immigration but is a matter of life and death. If abortion is the taking of innocent human life, then it seems there is nothing to discuss and we need to act now. A candidate that supports abortion, while he or she may be a wonderful person, has revealed a serious blind spot in their thinking which may disqualify them from holding public office. The problem, at least in America, is that abortion has become synonymous with one party, making it very difficult not to be tribal. 

I’m personally glad that Roe v Wade was overturned, but that now means it becomes a state issue, which will be left in the hands of the voters. The best way to influence voters is with education. I think the ultimate answer to the abortion problem is not a law written in stone but a renewing of the mind, and that can only occur through pedagogy. Proper education, however, will require a commitment from both sides to dialogue without derision, name calling, or interruption. Premier Unbelievable serves as a wonderful model for this kind of civil dialogue because neither side is demonised and both are asked to bring their best case to the table. I believe that honest public discourse is the best way to reveal truth.

Nomadic Witness

Certain issues have appropriately become lines in the sand, but those demarcations have largely been drawn emotionally and not intellectually. If crossing the line makes one a baby killer or a woman hater, then we have made our tribal divisions more rhetorically concrete. If we force our mind to be the press secretary for our emotions, then our answers will be nothing more than scripted talking points. It’s okay to draw lines in the sand but they need to be clearly demarcated so that people are fully informed about the consequences of crossing that line  

The early Christians made their stance on the sanctity of life clear by their individual actions and not by pushing legislation in the Roman senate. They lived countercultural to a culture of death, and it was their efforts to rescue and raise discarded babies, and not fiery rhetoric, that transformed the hearts and minds of those around them. Tribes may be helpful for organizing a movement but maybe we should consider being nomads who, instead of carrying a Jesus banner, actually walk in His footsteps.

Jesus is the Way

Jesus is our role model for navigating tribal conflicts. Love enemies, pray for those who hurt you, and turn the other cheek. Jesus didn’t stand out because of the way he catered to his tribe but rather by the way he served his enemies. History is full of failed messiahs who pitted one side against another, but Jesus found friends in the Roman, Samaritan, and Gentile tribes and changed the world. Maybe if we extended ourselves to serve those outside our clan, they might rethink their place within their own. 

The reason we get so zealous about these issues is because we build them upon universal core principles such as kindness, compassion, and justice. We are all inspired by the fruits of the spirit but we all too often let that fruit ferment in our respective tribal silos and end up drunk and disorderly. As the guests of this show pointed out in their book, we humans have much more in common than what divides us, therefore, we need to let those core principles bring us together so that we can have civil discussions as to how best enact them. We need to avoid cherry picking the fruits of the spirit to bolster our tribal standing and instead focus on the Vine that makes a good crop possible.

“Jesus’s tribe is the only tribe that is literally open to everyone. Of course, our allegiance to Jesus will relativise our allegiance to all the other tribes in the world. Of course, it will change us. But this is the only club that has no prerequisites or prequalifications. King Jesus simply calls you to turn from your old allegiances and give your ultimate allegiance to him.” (Truth over Tribe) 

Erik Strandness is a physician and Christian apologist who practised neonatal medicine for more than 20 years and has written three apologetic books, The Director’s Cut: Finding God’s Screenplay on the Cutting Room Floor, Cry of the Elephant Man: Listening for Man’s Voice Above the Herd and God Spoke: Bridging the Sacred Secular Divide with Divine Discourse. Information about his books can be found at godsscreenplay.com.