Beginning with Matt Baker’s post from Friday we hope to provide some short encouragements to be thinking about politics through a gospel lens during the days leading up to the national election on November 3rd.
While Friday’s post warned about becoming cynical regarding politics and thinking that it doesn’t matter, today’s post will warn about expecting too much from politics.
First, a question:
If we believe the gospel is our only hope, then why do we get so worked up about an election?
As we look at our world and in particular our nation, we see that our culture is severely broken. The brokenness of our world is evidenced by racism and riots, abortion and gun violence, hunger and poverty, and by wars and greed. This brokenness is observable on both sides of the political divide, and every politician provides a set of policies that they assert will eradicate the brokenness. But we know that no politician will ever be the answer our broken world needs. No set of policies will ever address the root problem of our culture, because the brokenness that we see with our eyes is the fruit, not the root.
The root of all the brokenness in our country is sin. As Christians, this is a central doctrine of our faith called the depravity of man. While SARS-CoV-2 (the virus which causes the coronavirus) has only infected less than 1% of the world population to date, sin has a 100% infection rate. All of humanity, even all of creation, is infected with the deadliest “virus” ever known to man, sin. And the symptoms of this virus are what we see in our country and world; hatred, greed, abuse, sexual perversion and confusion, alcoholism and drug addiction, family disintegration, marital conflict and infidelity, and the list goes on. These are the effects (or results) of a universal infection of this virus called sin. And just as we are not satisfied to only treat the symptoms of the coronavirus, neither should we be satisfied with simply treating the symptoms of sin. Our government is pushing private sector pharmaceutical companies to develop a vaccine that will hopefully eradicate the coronavirus, and our only hope for a vaccination against the effects of sin is the gospel of Jesus Christ. Politics do matter, just as treatments and therapeutics matter in our battle against COVID-19. Politics can address the symptoms of man’s depravity and we should seek to vote for and support politicians who bring the best policies and plans to address those problems. But politics are not a vaccine. No politician has the ability to eradicate the root of sin, only the gospel of Jesus Christ can do that.
So, while we should engage in the political process and exercise our right to vote, may we not betray our confidence in the gospel of our crucified and risen Redeemer as our only hope in life and death. As Christians, when we react to the political landscape with fear and anxiety we are demonstrating a lack of faith in our sovereign God who has sent His Son to be the answer to all our brokenness. When we are more concerned about the integrity of election ballots than the propagation of the gospel, we reveal a chink in our spiritual armor, and I would suggest that we are flirting with idolatry.
On Tuesday, November 3rd we will hear the results of an election, and those results will be important and will have lasting implications for life in our country for years to come. But I hope my response to those results is neither overly optimistic or pessimistic, whether the candidate I choose wins or not. I’m sure I won’t be ambivalent about the election results, but I pray that my reaction serves to underscore my belief that the gospel (not politics) is our only hope. I pray the same for you.
Written by Ken Rucker