Faith and Politics in 2025: What’s Yours to Do?
- Steve Luxa
- Mar 20
- 6 min read
Dear Church Family,
For many who might have been hoping that the turbulent political waters of 2024 would calm down after the election, 2025 has been even more unsettling. If anything, our news feeds have reached new levels of fervor. The issues that were heated last year remain so, and new conversations (for example about USAID, constitutional law, and cutbacks on federal spending) seem to flood headlines daily.
Last year, in our Faith and Politics series, we hoped to equip our church for these conversations through our sermons, small group questions, and discussion groups. Our goal was to help one another grow in faithful civic engagement. By faithful, we mean consistent with the priorities and principles of living as a Christian in the Kingdom of God. And yet as citizens of God’s Kingdom, we also live as citizens in this world - so our faith shapes the way we participate in politics (that’s the civic engagement part). Here are links to two sermons from that series if it is helpful to review:
Political Practice: Follow Your Conscience (2 Corinthians 1:12-14) - Steve YouTube / Spotify
As Christians, we need to ask “what does faithful civic engagement look like?” In November 2024, faithful civic engagement may have included prayer, diligent education, humble listening, and then voting according to your conscience if you were eligible to do so.
But faithful civic engagement is something we’re called to do all the time, not just at elections. The question of what is ours to do is one we hopefully wrestle with regularly. There is much that needs to be done in the world: some of that is God’s job, some of that is other people’s calling and work, and yet some of it is ours and mine to say and do.
There has been so much change and conflict in the last two months, it’s overwhelming to even think about, much less try to discern how to respond (and then think about how to help our church to respond!). So as I’ve (Bronwyn) been thinking and praying about what faithful civic engagement looks like, I (Bronwyn) have found this diagnostic helpful:
The Diagnostic Tool
Imagine politics and governance as a person pushing a cart filled with stuff. There are three distinct parts:
WHO: the person pushing the cart matters. Their qualities and qualifications affect how they “drive”. The debates we had about the character and competency of political candidates are the “who” part: we voted for the people whom we felt would drive best.
WHAT: what’s in the cart matters. These are the many and varied political “deliverables” and policies, like immigration, education, and abortion. These policies seek to enact different values.
HOW: the cart itself matters. The cart describes the political system governing how decisions are made, power is shared, and the mechanics of governance happen.
It’s helpful to consider how the Bible invites faithful civic engagement with these different parts:
WHO: The bible has much to say about leadership qualities, so our faith informs our evaluation of candidates. Scripture doesn’t assume that everyone who claims faith is doing a good job of governing (consider King Saul), or that everyone who rejects God is a bad leader (consider King Cyrus of Persia). Proverbs has much wisdom on how to weigh leaders: rewarding wisdom and counsel, and warning against pride and corruption. And the New Testament is clear that no matter who the leader is, we’re still to pray for them (e.g. 1 Timothy 2:1-2).
WHAT: Political policies represent different visions of “the good”, and are undergirded by certain value commitments. One of the main things we discussed in our Faith and Politics small group discussions was learning to appreciate that we might share Christian values with someone even if we radically disagree with how those are implemented. The “what” is the area I think Christians most see our faith shaping our civic engagement as we vote and act according to our understanding of Biblical values. Scripture teaches us to be radically pro-life in the sense of caring for people in every stage of life and in every stratum of society because every person is made in God’s image. We should care what’s “in the cart”.
HOW: The Bible actually has very little to say about “the cart”—or system of governance—itself. It could just as easily be a tractor or a pickup. Israel’s political system was first a theocracy, then a monarchy, and then the people of God lived under a hostile foreign ruler. The New Testament describes (without comment) life under the Roman Empire. We, on the other hand, live in the 21st century in a democracy where citizens get to vote. Technically, our “cart” is a constitutional republic with three distinct branches of government and a host of provisions about how each of those are to work together. Democracy is not required or even preferred by Scripture (it isn’t mentioned!), but democracy in the US was shaped by Christian values and that it has been a system which allows us to keep the “peaceful and quiet life” that 1 Timothy 2 tells us to pray for as political outcomes.
The reason it is helpful for us to name these different areas is that it helps us to think through different areas of conflict and confusion. We might be in support of WHO but not be in support of WHAT they’re saying about a particular thing. Or we can have concerns about WHO and yet really believe in WHAT’s in the political cart. Or, maybe the time for evaluating WHO is past (because it’s not an election year), and we like some of WHAT’s in the cart, but we’re worried about HOW things are getting done. Or, we could be concerned about WHO, WHAT and HOW - and it’s helpful to think through what’s ours to do in each of those departments without getting overwhelmed by the complexity. In the end, this diagnostic serves to untangle our emotions and reactions to the political waters we’re in so that we can more accurately identify our emotions, thoughts, and action steps.
The Power of Clarity
This kind of clarity is powerful for helping us to talk with God in prayer, talk with others, and do the good God calls on us to do to advance his Kingdom in the midst of our worldly kingdom.
Talking with God in prayer, then, might involve new prayers. We can certainly pray for God to give his wisdom to the who with the what and the how. But, our prayers can also involve gathering our emotions and responses before God with celebration for God’s values advanced, as well as deep grief over the particular loss we feel in the who, what, or how.
Talking with others might involve our curiosity and questions around the particular place they find themselves in, instead of launching into our well-worn arguments. By asking questions identifying the who, what and how they might be struggling with, we can help one another untangle our emotions and thoughts.
Doing the good God calls us to do in line with his kingdom might change over time. Voting for certain what outcomes was one way to put our values into action. Six months later, doing good according to those same values might call for giving our money to help programs that depended on USAID to serve the poor and vulnerable, or the persecuted church in a changing international landscape. Also, as we become aware of new vulnerable people and groups (such as those in our very own church family affected by immigration complications and cuts to federal funding), we can see these as new opportunities to care and advocate.
Moving Forward
Every week, we talk about how we want to be a church who help people discover faith in Jesus, grow in love for God and others, and live as ambassadors of hope in the power of the Holy Spirit. God is calling us to do that consistently and faithfully, right here and right now. For us, thinking through the who, what, and how of political governance helps us to figure out what’s ours to do and to take a next faithful step.
We want to help you continue to take steps towards faithful civic engagement as we seek to live together as ambassadors of hope. Please reach out if you’d like to process, or pray, or figure out what faithful step God is inviting you to take. We are praying Psalm 37:1-6 and invite you to do the same:
“Fret not yourself because of evildoers; be not envious of wrongdoers!
For they will soon fade like the grass and wither like the green herb.
Trust in the Lord, and do good; dwell in the land and befriend faithfulness.
Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart.
Commit your way to the Lord; trust in him, and he will act.
He will bring forth your righteousness as the light, and your justice as the noonday.” (Psalm 37:1-6, ESV)
In praying this, Tim Keller reminds us that we’re gathering up our fretting (v. 1) before God so that we can: (1) look forward (v . 2) to the day God will right all wrongs in the fullness of his kingdom come, (2) look up (v. 3a, 4a, 5) to God with our emotions/reactions, leaving our burdens with him, and (3) looking to do good (v. 3b, 6) in demonstration and incarnation of his kingdom come to the kingdom of this world.
Seeking faithfulness with you,
Steve and Bronwyn