Should Christians Get Involved in Politics?

Many of you will have seen the episode of the classic BBC comedy, The Vicar of Dibley where Revd Geraldine Granger stands as a local councillor in the Council elections in opposition to Councillor David Houghton, Chair of the Parish Council.  At one point in the episode David Houghton is quoted as saying, “the clergy should keep their Communist conks out of politics!”

Is that actually true?  Should disciples of Jesus Christ stand aside from what is sometimes seen as the dirty business of politics?  Or should we get involved?  Should Christian believers be at the heart of politics; joining campaigning groups to oppose immoral, if not evil, government policies: joining political parties and being active at all levels of those parties to influence policy and leadership.

I would suggest that the answer is that all Christians should be politically active, including ‘clergy’.  The degree to which we are able to be active and the extent of our involvement will vary from Christian to Christian, but involved we should certainly be: involved to oppose the unfairness and injustice in not only our own nation but also the wider world.

Those who say that Christians should keep out of politics have, I would suggest, not fully understood what it means to be a committed and active disciple of Jesus.  Jesus was political and so were many of the Old Testament prophets.

Of course in Jewish society, both in the first century AD and in previous centuries, politics and religion we inextricably interlinked since the religious leaders of Israel were also the political leaders.  Still, the OT prophets were outspoken in opposing social injustice.  One of the best known champions of social justice was the prophet Amos who prophesied these words of God:

“I hate, I despise your religious feasts; I cannot stand your assemblies.   Even though you bring me burnt offerings and grain offerings, I will not accept them. Though you bring choice fellowship offerings, I will have no regard for them.  Away with the noise of your songs! I will not listen to the music of your harps.

But let justice roll on like a river, righteousness like a never-failing stream!” (NIV)

Jesus, too, was heavily involved in the politics of his day.  By proclaiming the arrival of the Kingdom of God he was, effectively, declaring that the rule of the Roman Empire would come to an end.  By declaring to the Samaritan woman in chapter 4 of John’s gospel that “The hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father seeks such as these to worship him.  God is spirit and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth” (NRSV) Jesus was declaring that the Temple in Jerusalem and the Priests who controlled it, the Jewish political leaders, were irrelevant.  By giving Jesus the title “Lord” the early Christians were saying that Jesus was Lord and Caesar was not.

But it goes deeper than that, to the very heart of what it means to be a disciple of Christ.  Consider the Parable of the Sheep and Goats: 

“When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his throne in heavenly glory.  All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats.  He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left.

Then the King will say to those on his right, 'Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world.  For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.'

Then the righteous will answer him, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink?  When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you?   When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?'

The King will reply, 'I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.'

Then he will say to those on his left, 'Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.  For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.'

They also will answer, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?'

He will reply, 'I tell you the truth, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.'

Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life." – Matthew 25: 31-46, NIV

There are people in our own country, probably in the community we live in, who are hungry and thirsty, who need clothes, who are sick or who are in prison.  On one level we can help them by direct helping them, or by giving to local and/or national charities, but becoming involved in politics means that we can also help them on another level, by helping to alleviate and even stamp out the vast inequalities and injustices in our society that put them into that position in the first place.

Of course, if we are to become truly politically active that means joining with others to achieve our aims.  The least we can do is to vote in General and Local Elections and I believe that every Christian should do this.

Some Christians may choose to join political campaigning organisations like Amnesty International, but my own conviction is that to be truly effective we need to become involved in one of the political parties, for only by doing so can we influence the choice of the leaders of those parties who influence the direction that they will take; only by doing so can we hope to influence policy at local, national and international levels.

I am not going to suggest which political party is most suitable for Christian disciples.  There are committed Christians in the Conservative Party, the Labour Party, the Liberal Democrat Party, the SNP etc; although I would find it very difficult to understand a correlation between Christian faith and membership of parties like UKIP and the BNP.

What each of us needs to decide, in our own minds and according to our own understanding of the Bible, is which party has principles and policies that most closely align with our Christian faith: policies that will ensure that the hungry have food, the thirsty have water, those who need clothing receive it and that the all the sick are properly cared for and receive the very best treatment, regardless of the size of their bank accounts.  We need to decide which party will bring justice rolling like a river across our land.

I must confess that, at the moment of writing, I am not a member of any political party; but I am now trying to decide whether to join the Labour Party or the Liberal Democrat Party, and will make my choice in the next few days.

How can you become more politically involved as part of your Christian discipleship?