Since 2008, Cherie Harder has served as president of The Trinity Forum, a nonprofit that seeks to curate, cultivate and disseminate the best in Christian thinking for the common good. Prior to holding this role, Harder served in the White House as special assistant to the president and director of policy and projects for First Lady Laura Bush.
Should Christians be involved in political parties? Why or why not?
I want to acknowledge that there are traditions and streams of thought within Christianity that actively eschew partisan involvement, and that it would be hard to claim that there is a theological imperative to be involved with political parties. That said, political involvement broadly understood can reflect the biblical mandate to love your neighbor, to seek justice and human flourishing. In America, one way to pursue those aims — not the only one — is through a party system.
How should a Christian navigate involvement in a party that supports some biblical principles while violating others?
Wise navigation starts with recognizing the purpose of politics and political parties. Theologian Reinhold Niebuhr once described democratic politics as “finding proximate solutions to insoluble problems.” Parties function to mobilize disparate individuals and interests around shared collective goals and ideas, and promote candidates and initiatives that advance those goals. The idea that a political party will perfectly support biblical principles is a fantasy due to the unlikelihood that biblical principles would be widely agreed upon by a large and diverse group of party members. There are also our own human (and hermeneutical) limits and failures as followers of Jesus to consider — such as the fact that for the first hundred years or so after our country’s founding, many Christians believed that party support for slavery aligned with biblical principles. Few, if any, would assert that today. So, this is tricky territory.
But having acknowledged that political parties won’t perfectly align with one’s biblical convictions doesn’t mean they can’t imperfectly advance biblical justice. One of the great merits of liberal democracy is its capacity for reformation through persuasion, to create and renew institutions, and to build coalitions to bring about needed change. The work of persuasion and consensus building is much slower and more difficult than top-down change, but it’s also far more sustainable. It is also more relational.
Not surprisingly, many of the great political reformers — such as William Wilberforce, Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King, Jr. and Vaclav Havel — focused on changing the public imagination rather than legislative change alone. They engaged in campaigns of public persuasion and formed partnerships across differences in pursuit of the common good. They were also realistic about the difficulties of such change and were committed for the long haul. And they recognized that the way one affects change — whether in a party or a nation — is vitally important. They shared a view rooted in Scripture and articulated by the founders that human nature is bent towards selfishness. Anger and the desire for domination are easily fanned, while prudence and grace require careful cultivation. The work of changing one’s political party, culture or country to more closely resemble the ways of biblical shalom is demanding and never-ending. But it’s worth it.
What are the spiritual hazards of involvement in political parties?
Partisan politics can be deforming and distorting — even idolatrous. In our time in particular, partisan politics has become a primary source of identity for a growing number of Americans — and as it has grown, the significance of religion as a source of identity has declined. It used to be quite normal to marry someone from a different party and unusual to marry someone of a different faith. That has flipped; the average American is now twice as likely to marry outside of their faith as outside of their party. Partisanship has steadily come to define people’s priorities and even their sense of self.
Worse, partisan identities are increasingly formed not by shared loves but by shared hatreds. Anyone involved in politics knows that it is often easier to get people energized and united over something they fear or detest. This is a phenomenon called “affective polarization.” Political tribes are bound together not by shared agreement as much as they are by a shared hostility to a party, idea or person. We are social creatures and grow more like those we spend time with. And when those we spend time with (whether in person or online) are connected by shared hostilities, it becomes increasingly likely that our sensibilities and characters become deformed in the process. In addition, because partisanship aims primarily towards the pursuit of power, there’s an inherent temptation to use people, ideas and even faith towards its own ends.
What spiritual practices can sustain and nurture faith in this challenging environment?
Corporate worship is an embodied reminder that God loves and calls his own those who see and experience the world differently than we do, and that the Body of Christ includes those with whom we may have strong political and cultural differences. Immersion in the Gospels reminds us of the distinction Jesus drew between God and Caesar, by which he meant the state. It reminds us of the stark difference between the ways of Jesus and the ways of worldly power, and that our calling is to the kingdom of heaven rather than the city of man. And in these confusing and embattled times, prayer enables us to hear from the author of love who is “full of grace and truth.”
What are the opportunities for Christian witness and policy impact?
Much of what ails us is our loss of connection — to truth, to purpose and meaning, to God and to each other. The anger, alienation and aggrievement of our times are serious. But in these times, Christians can model another way of living. We have the opportunity to reflect the way of Jesus, break down dividing walls and show the love of God in action. Our current crisis is a call to creatively live into the biblical command to love our neighbor and seek justice and shalom for all.
Listen to Kaitlyn Schiess discuss Spiritual Formation for Public Life ![Arrow]()
Cherie Harder serves as president of The Trinity Forum, a nonprofit that seeks to curate, cultivate and disseminate the best in Christian thinking for the common good. Harder previously served in the White House as special assistant to the president and director of policy and projects for First Lady Laura Bush and as policy advisor to Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist. She is a senior fellow at Cardus and sits on the boards of Comment magazine, Convergence Center for Policy Resolution and Faith and Law, and the National Museum of American Religion. Harder is also a past board member of Gordon College and the C.S. Lewis Institute. She holds a B.A. in government from Harvard University and a post-graduate diploma in literature from the University of Queensland in Brisbane, Australia.
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