Dual Citizenship
I am a Christian and an
American. As a Christian I pray for the
Kingdom of God to come and I owe allegiance to Jesus, the King. At the same time, as a citizen of the United
States I desire good things for my country and I am obligated to fulfill certain
duties to the state (obeying laws, paying taxes, etc.). As Augustine wrote long ago, a Christian
lives simultaneously in two “cities”: the City of God and the City of Man.
Election season in America compels
me to think about my dual citizenship.
Clearly, the allegiance I owe to Jesus is more basic and overrides the
claims placed on me by the state. If my
country demanded that I deny my faith or act in ways contrary to conscience, I
would have to disobey. Civil
disobedience must be part of the Christian’s public repertoire when duties
conflict. In this essay, though, I want
to focus on another aspect of dual citizenship.
I’ve been discouraged by the 2018
election. I don’t mean the outcome of
the election. I’m typing these words on
November 5, before election day, so I don’t know which candidates won or lost,
nor whether any of the ballot measures were approved. My discouragement arises from the way we
Americans have conducted the campaign.
Campaign spending is way up, but the quality of the campaign is way
down. Over and over I see attack ads,
telling me how wrongheaded, deceptive, self-interested, foolish or just plain
evil some candidate or measure is. There
is very little attempt to persuade undecided voters by recounting the virtues
of a candidate or policy. Instead, we
are pushed to vote our fears. The
pundits describe this as “appealing to the base”—that is, the campaign seeks to
increase turnout among voters who already agree with the campaign.
Such campaigning is also “base” in
another sense. Rather than appeal to
reason, or hope, or compassion—the “better angels” of our nature invoked by
Abraham Lincoln—campaigns of fear and resentment try to win votes by demonizing
the opposition. Such campaigning demoralizes us—literally; it moves us
from virtue toward vice.
I’m also discouraged by the extent
to which Christians join in the fray. I
understand how it happens. You think, as
a Christian, that you ought to side with righteousness. You decide that righteousness requires that
you favor some public policy (to restrict abortions, or reform immigration
laws, reduce mass incarceration, fight poverty, protect property, and so on—the
list can be extended indefinitely). You
let yourself forget there are Christian brothers and sisters who, precisely
because they want to side with righteousness, oppose the very policy you think
is necessary. Having forgotten the
brothers and sisters on the other side, you then neglect the humanity of the
other side. The political opponent
becomes the enemy, an enemy who must be defeated at all costs. And so—in order to win lower taxes or more
just immigration laws or whatever—you say and do whatever it takes to win.
Listen: your political opponent is a human being beloved by Jesus. It is always more important that we love
people than that we win.
Followers of Jesus must treat their
political opponents well. This is a
requirement of discipleship. You may
think the other side is wrong. You are
convinced that their policies will lead to disaster. You suspect they are campaigning in bad
faith, that they actually intend to replace free government with some kind of
religious or secular empire. Even if you
are right, even if your opponents are as misguided or evil, that does not free
you from your duty to follow Jesus.
Jesus commands us, no mere
suggestion, that we love our enemies.
This is not fantasy talk or advice for saintly hermits; it is his
straightforward requirement for disciples.
Notice I am not defending pacifism,
at least not now. I’m talking about the
way we conduct political campaigns, the way we treat our fellow citizens. Even Christians who believe in just wars must
agree that Jesus calls us to civility in politics.
In The Virtue of Civility in the Practice of Politics (2002) I
predicted that our increasingly post-modern age would move away from civility. Sadly, my prediction seems to be coming true. As our culture discovers that the god of the
modern age (rational autonomy) is an empty idol, people discover they have no
reason to treasure political opponents.
More and more, the political opponent is seen purely as impediment,
something to be defeated.
Christians
should not think like that. No matter
how benighted or selfish “they” seem to be, we know that Jesus loves them. Further, they know things we don’t know. We can learn from them. We ought to see political opponents as God’s
gift, a resource for better government.
