Christians are often unsure about involvement in politics. I remember hearing one preacher declare that ‘God works from the ground up, not from the top down’, insinuating that politics is a waste of time. He does have a point perhaps. Throughout history, church and politics have never mixed particularly well. Once again mutant forms of Christian nationalism are on the rise. So you might think we can be excused if we’re a little standoffish.

I want to introduce you to two Christians with different negative visions of politics: Mr Cynic and Mrs Spiritual. They are generalised caricatures (which I may have had a bit too much fun with in places!), but I think they represent something of how we as Christians often approach politics and fail to engage meaningfully in a Christ-like manner with the world around us. 

Mr Cynic

Meet Mr Cynic. He represents the disillusioned majority. He’s a short, fat fellow who always looks at people with his eyes slightly narrowed like they’re trying to sell him an insurance policy for his wheelie bin. He’s president of the miserable old cynics’ club, where he likes to pontificate about the state of the country to any who will listen—and plenty do: people’s politics may differ, but all nod their heads sagely with Mr Cynic and agree that this current lot are all in it for themselves. Money and power, that’s what it’s all about. He believes that the last decent prime minister was Pitt the Younger.

Mr Cynic’s a keen observer of politics. He’s seen it all before. Fourteen years of sleazy Tories, now a Labour party that campaigned against sleaze, who are sleazier still; you couldn’t make it up! They’ve brought in a succession of inane policies not in their manifesto (winter fuel payment cuts, digital ID cards, farm inheritance taxes, the Chagos deal) and then changed their minds when they’ve realised that no-one wants them. It’s like attempting U-turns with an articulated lorry down a single-track road. 

Yet Mr Cynic reserves his harshest criticisms for the man at the top: Sir Keir Starmer. For all the impressiveness of his CV, Starmer has the charisma and competence of a blobfish on land. Despite a stonking majority in the Commons, Sir Keir and his circus act represent the weakest government since Lord North who lost the American colonies. ‘There’s nothing new under the sun’ (Ecclesiastes 1:9), Mr Cynic likes to say, but there are definitely degrees of blobfishness. 

A blobfish (Flickr / kinskarije, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

Mr Cynic is entirely pessimistic about the future of the country and especially negative towards ‘so-called’ Christians in politics. Whoever comes in, nothing’s going to improve for the average man on the street. ‘Farage and Reform are all failed ex-Tories who’ve met in the boozer,’ he declares (though I suspect he might vote for them anyway). ‘Davey and the Lib Dems are neither liberal nor democratic; the Greens are left-wing tree-huggers who couldn’t run a hippy commune let alone the country; and as for that chap Corbyn with his personality cult, the less said the better!’ 

But, whilst it may be difficult to disagree with his central arguments, I think Mr Cynic goes too far. You see, it’s easy to bash everyone when you don’t have to defend anyone. It’s simple enough to set the world to rights from the comfort of your proverbial arm-chair; it’s far harder to slave away at the coalface trying to do something about it. Unlike the original Cynics of the ancient Greek world, our modern Mr Cynic doesn’t put his money where his mouth is. He doesn’t seek to be the change. Instead he criticises, sniggers and assumes the worst. People like him generally do little to make the world a better place for their presence in it. His analysis isn’t far off the mark—we should hear him out—but he does little that is constructive. His witty rants may seem like harmless fun, but ‘to do no harm is the praise of a stone’ not a man.1

And this is my real problem with Mr Cynic. He calls himself a Christian but his faith is basically passive, it’s not lived out politically or spiritually. Instead it seems to consist entirely of moaning. Rather than turning in prayer to God, seeking mercy for the state of the nation and pleading for revival, Mr Cynic contents himself with trying to be a Christian version of Ian Hislop. I suspect Mr Cynic satiates his social conscience by helping to stack the chairs on a Sunday and slinging a few quid in a charity box every now and then, but ‘religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world’ (James 1:27). Where is his Christ-like compassion?

You can blend into any crowd with a general air of cynicism—whether middle- or working-class, liberal or conservative—it’s infectious. Perhaps it is cognisant of this that the Bible calls us to honour and submit to those in authority (e.g., Romans 13:1-7; 1 Peter 2:13-17). This is where we ought to be different from the world. We believe in a God who has the power to save the world. We ought not to be deceived by the machinations of the political elite, but at the same time we mustn’t just share silly memes about the prime minister and join in the pile-on like the world does. As a general rule, we ought to respect politicians, even though they are fallen human beings—in this regard, if we’re honest, our elected representatives actually represent us rather well! 

Mr Cynic, in all his negativity, has lost sight of the hope that we have in Jesus Christ, ‘the light of the world’ (John 8:12). We mustn’t hide our light, instead we need to share it with all (Matthew 5:14-16).

Mrs Spiritual

Mrs Spiritual is Mr Cynic’s better half. She started her own society last year; so far she’s the only one to meet the stringent membership requirements, but one or two others show promise. When she gets tired of Mr Cynic’s prattle, she stands up on her soap-box and gives everyone the real answer.

‘Our kingdom is not of this world; Christians are citizens of heaven,’ she repeats like a mantra (rolling her R’s as she does so). ‘We must not sully ourselves with delusions to the contrary. Why aim for a perfect world here when God is going to make a new one anyway?’’

She points to the socialist utopias of Stalin, Mao Zedong and Pol Pot: ‘They tried to abolish private property, but couldn’t abolish total depravity,’ she mutters. Mrs Spiritual firmly believes nothing good comes out of politics—it’s a ‘mucky business’.2

That being said, she’s actually more into politics than she likes to pretend; she likes having a grumble at the headlines and tut-tut at the latest misdemeanour. All that awful mudslinging and ungentlemanly, unladylike behaviour!

Mrs Spiritual loathes the cesspit that is partisan politics where party allegiance comes before individual conscience. She’s nostalgic for the days when politicians and public figures were those of stature and moral principle, like the Dutch Calvinist leader Abraham Kuyper or the social campaigner Mary Whitehouse.3

Abraham Kuyper and Mary Whitehouse

But unlike her two political heroes, Mrs Spiritual doesn’t live in the real world. Her biggest political engagement of the year was to sign a petition calling for the prohibition of television broadcasts on the Sabbath. The fact is she’s so far removed from actual life that she has no idea how to relate to others, let alone how to tell them the Gospel. Suffice to say, Mrs Spiritual isn’t particularly fun at parties; she comes across as ‘holier than thou’ to all she meets. She’s the epitome of the ‘frozen chosen’ and a misplaced attempt at a pharisaical, respectable Christianity. 

Whilst she’s rightly critical of those who follow ‘Paul’ or ‘Cephas’, in claiming that she follows Christ, that probably makes her the most sanctimonious of the lot! (1 Corinthians 1:12). She’s bought into a form of two-kingdom theology where the earthly and spiritual realms are considered entirely separate to one another. In what little societal involvement she has, she’s apt to moralise rather than win people’s hearts for Christ. She harkens back to a version of the past that never existed. This also means, whether she likes it or not, she tends towards a form of conservatism that defends the status quo and avoids tackling the difficult questions in political debate. 

Is Mrs Spiritual fulfilling the creation mandate (Genesis 1:28-30; 2:15) or Jesus’ great commission of Matthew 28:18-20, to ‘make disciples of all nations’? I would argue no, not really. Her faith may be sincere, even if it’s largely obscured by self-righteousness. She’ll be ‘in that number when the saints go marching in’, but she won’t shine the brightest like ‘those who turn many to righteousness’ (Daniel 12:3).

Put simply, Mrs Spiritual needs to repent of her pride and ‘in humility count others more significant than [herself]’ (Philippians 2:3), reflecting on Mark 7:14-15, 20-23. Then she needs to live in the world (but not of it—although she’s already got that last bit down!) and seek to truly, honestly share the love of Christ with all she meets. And yes, sometimes that may mean encroaching into the grimy world of politics.

What about you?

As Christians, our great calling is to love God and our neighbour (Matthew 22:36-40). We ought to leave the world a better place for our involvement in it. Given that (unlike the New Testament church) we live in a democracy in the United Kingdom with universal suffrage, it’s our civic duty to be at least informed of—if not involved in—the political scene. Too much politicking and the Gospel is lost (as eventually happened with the early church); too little and we fail to keep the two great commandments.

Our priority must always be preaching the pure Gospel of Jesus Christ. For this reason, there are definitely times when it is wise to keep out of politics and political debate (especially if you’re easily riled up by it!), and focus our efforts instead on the local church family. We can’t legislate our way to revival. Winning a political argument is not the same as winning a soul to Christ. But we should engage thoughtfully and respectfully in politics where we can.

Much depends on our circumstances and context, but the first order of the day should be prayer: how can the Lord help me to love my neighbours in the political sphere? Most Christians won’t stand for parliament or a local council, but there’s a desperate need for Christians in both places. If we don’t have the opportunity to affect positive change on the macro-scale then we ought to affect it on the micro-scale, primarily through our churches but also not being shy of engaging in community groups, sport clubs and so on. When we contact our elected representatives it’s usually to complain about something or forward an email from a campaign group; how about mixing it up and writing an encouraging email to an MP or councillor (whether Christian or not) assuring him or her of your prayers? (1 Timothy 2:1-4).

We mustn’t mix Christianity and politics together in a way that dilutes down the essentially spiritual aspects of our faith. We ought to hold our political allegiances loosely as we ‘seek the peace and prosperity’ (Jeremiah 29:7 NIV) of the place where we ‘nightly pitch [our] moving tent a day’s march nearer home’.

In the person of the Lord Jesus Christ, we have the answer. In such a mess as this we need Christians and Christianity more than ever. Though their approaches to politics leave much to be desired, I actually think we need something of both the cold, hard analysis of Mr Cynic and the heavenly mindedness that Mrs Spiritual aspires to. We mustn’t put our ‘trust in princes, in human beings, who cannot save’ (Psalm 146:3). Our ultimate hope must only ever be in Christ, the one who can save and the one who’s coming back again.

  1. A good stone is one that doesn’t fall on your head or cause you to stub your toe, which is hardly a compliment for a human being! Attributed to Richard Baxter in J.C. Ryle, Expository Thoughts on Matthew (Banner of Truth, 2012), 272. ↩︎
  2. Which is also the name of Tim Farron’s Christianity and politics podcast by the way! ↩︎
  3. Kuyper founded the Anti-Revolutionary Party in the Netherlands (so named against the spirit of the French revolution and the burgeoning Marxist revolution) and ended up as prime minister, 1901-1905. Mrs Whitehouse was a notorious campaigner against liberalism; fighting against the display of profanity, sex and violence in the mainstream media. ↩︎

Next time: their children

In a future blog post, if you’ll continue to humour me, I hope to consider Mr Cynic and Mrs Spiritual’s problem children: young Master Revolutionary and little Miss Indifferent. The children that Mr Cynic and Mrs Spiritual’s views of politics breed follow the worst aspects of their parents, coupled with a dangerous frustration on the one hand and a near-fatal apathy on the other.