Don't Become the Dragon

"Be careful, lest in fighting the dragon you become the dragon."
- Friedrich Nietzsche

This year, having been an election season, was a rather difficult time for those who have religious beliefs. Christians, especially, have always had a difficult time figuring out exactly what sort of balance to strike between isolating their religion from the public square or integrating it into politics.

Sometimes, as was the case for men like Charles Simeon and William Wilberforce, stepping into government roles with religious conviction has meant putting an end to evil and oppression. Simeon worked hard to put an end to the debtor's prisons and Wilberforce almost singularly shut down slave trade in England. In countless other instances, men and women around our planet have seen evil through the lens of their religious convictions and used their lives to petition their governments, engage in civil disobedience, and ultimately bring an end to tyranny and the mistreatment of other human beings. And when this happens, all the world cheers.

But integrating our beliefs into our politics does not always have such wonderful results. And unfortunately, when the Church becomes as powerful as the Government, it often becomes a force of evil, perpetuating oppression and bringing new tyranny instead of new freedom. The Crusades and the Inquisition come to mind immediately for those who have a good eye on history- and even more recently, we must admit that there were religious communities in the 20th Century who actually welcomed the Nazis (because of the initial moralism their regime brought to Europe), fought to maintain segregation in the South (I have no idea how this was rationalized), and even today fight hard through legislation to keep homosexuals from receiving the same rights and benefits that heterosexuals enjoy.

I think the problem is that Christians often forget that the Bible is a call to be different, rather than to force others to be different.

God called Abraham and Israel out from their lives amid the tribes and nations around them and gave them a new calling. He assigned them to be a light in the darkness- a people who would be an example for others.

Jesus told his disciples that they were salt- a seasoning to the world that made it better. But he didn't call them the full course. And he made it clear that if the salt loses it seasoning ability, it is thrown out and trampled by men.

Paul wrote a lot of instructions to the church body, about how they should act and what they should and should not do- but he didn't give instructions to those who were NOT part of the church. He didn't tell Rome what to do. He didn't try to force the New Way on those who weren't a part of it.

Philip Yancey says in his book What's so Amazing About Grace that one of the worst things Christians can do is confuse religion and politics. This is because religion is supposed to be an avenue of Grace while politics is almost always an avenue of Ungrace. Is it any wonder then, that when Christians use political muscle and authoritarian pressure that we end up looking foolish and hateful?

Politicalized Religion is almost always hypocricy for the Christian because politics usurps the very essence of our belief and replaces it with something terrible. Namely, that when we Christians force others into our paradigm through the use of ungraceful politics: We are anti-Christ.

Yikes.

Yes, I said it... the use of ungraceful politics is the opposite of Christ. It's contrary to the gospel. It's not helpful. It's anti-Christ and anti-Kingdom.

Now, don't get me wrong, this doesn't mean that we disengage completely from politics. We must participate in democracy! We must vote and pray and petition when it's appropriate. But we must always be careful that we don't become the dragon that we're trying to fight. We must watch for ungrace at every step of the way. And the moment it slips in, we need to change course, even if it means allowing things to go differently than we'd like.