We run our website the way we wished the whole internet worked: we provide high quality original content with no ads. We are funded solely by your direct support. Please consider supporting this project.

In a democracy, don’t Christians have a responsibility to participate in politics?

Question: You’ve argued that Christians shouldn’t try to gain power in government on the grounds that Jesus didn’t try to gain power in the political system of his day. But his government didn’t allow for such power. Caesar and Pilate weren’t elected by anyone. Our government allows for this. So don’t we have a responsibility to participate in politics to try to change society?

Answer: It’s true that the political system under which Jesus lived was very different from any democracy. But as Christ’s ambassadors from a different “country” (for “our citizenship is in heaven” [Phil. 3:20]), and as “foreigners” and “exiles” in our own country (2 Cor 5:20; I Pet 2:11), I don’t see that our basic stance toward government should be affected by the kind of government we happen to be under. We’re never to get too involved in the affairs of this foreign land but are always to keep our focus on pleasing our commanding officer (1 Tim. 2:4). All of our trust is to be placed in the power we have to change the world by imitating Christ’s self-sacrificial lifestyle, not in the power of laws that control behavior.

As followers of Jesus, therefore, it shouldn’t make any substantial difference whether the country we live in is democratic, socialistic, totalitarian, or communistic. We are missionaries in a foreign land wherever we are. We are guerilla warriors stationed behind enemy lines, called to topple the existing regime which is controlled by our captain’s arch enemy (1 John 5:19).

It may be easier to do our ministry in a democratic country and we thank God for this. But there are drawbacks as well, such as succumbing to the apathy that too often comes as we live with relative comfort and ease in a wealthy economy, being co-opted by non-Christian values, mistakenly placing our hope for redemption in political systems rather than the gospel, and so on.

The Kingdom we represent, and the Kingdom that will ultimately take over the world, is different from any of the other kingdoms of this world. We are called to change the world, but not by the means the world uses. Our power to change the world is rooted is prayer and sacrificial love. Our hope should be placed in nothing other than our Lord using us as we follow Jesus’ example to transform the world in a way the political systems of this present world cannot. Whatever distracts us from this one task must be avoided.

This doesn’t mean it’s wrong to participate in politics. It just means we have to be careful to keep this participation distinct from the Kingdom of God and careful not to place our ultimate trust in it.

Related Reading

How do you respond to Acts 2:23 and 4:28?

Question: Acts 2:23 and 4:28 tell us that wicked people crucified Jesus just as God predestined them to do. If this wicked act could be predestined, why couldn’t every other wicked act be predestined? Doesn’t this refute your theory that human acts can’t be free if they are either predestined or foreknown? Answer: In Acts…

Topics:

Taking the Lord’s Name in Vain

These things need to stop as it relates to our faith and our politics. Image by Katie Tegtmeyer. Sourced via Flickr.

Doesn’t Psalms 139:16 refute the Open View of the future?

One of the passages most frequently cited in attempts to refute the open view of the future is Psalm 139:16. Here David says that God viewed him while he was being formed in the womb (vs. 15) and then adds: “[Y]our eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in…

What is the significance of Numbers 16:20–35?

After Israel’s sin under the leadership of Korah, the Lord said to Moses and Aaron, “Separate yourselves from this congregation, so that I may consume them in a moment” (vs. 21). Moses and Aaron pleaded with the Lord to only judge those who were most guilty. In response, the Lord modifies his judgment and gives…

Topics:

The Politics of Jesus

Many are so conditioned by the mindset of the world that they can’t even envision an alternative way of affecting society and politics other than by playing the political game as it is done by the established governmental system. Some thus conclude that, since Jesus didn’t try to overhaul the political systems of his day…

What is the significance of Jeremiah 38:17–18, 20–21, 23?

The Lord prophesies to Zedekiah, “If you will only surrender to the officials of the king of Babylon” the city and his family would be spared, but “if you do not surrender” the city and his family would be destroyed. He then reiterates, “But if you are determined not to surrender” even Zedekiah himself would…

Topics: