Questions
Aren’t Christians really just conservatives that speak with a religious accent?
Summary: The more fruitful distinction is not between conservatives and liberals but between those who default to cultural values and those who scrutinize them by privileging God’s word. Being conservative—or liberal—is not the same as being Christian; each can suppress theological reasoning just as readily as the other. Christians must hold whatever political tradition they inhabit under the authority of Scripture and the doctrines of the church.
In Thinking Christian, I suggest,
“While ‘conservative’ and ‘liberal’ are labels that are often used to categorize specific, opposing groups within Christian circles, a more fruitful categorization might be between those who default to specific cultural values (whether conservative or liberal) and those who scrutinize those values by privileging God’s word and the doctrines of the church. It is just as easy to think less-than theologically while elevating conservative values to a place of prominence as it is while elevating liberal ones.”
My point is that being a conservative (or liberal) is not the same thing as being a Christian. Christians may affirm conservative or liberal positions, but we don’t root our identity in being conservative or liberal. We are Christian first. We are not guided by conservative or liberal logic but subject such logic to God’s word, our final authority for life and faith.
This distinction is important because, as Christians, we are the only group of people capable of proclaiming the gospel and pointing to Jesus Christ. If we choose to set aside Jesus as we advocate for conservative or liberal positions, we deny a world that needs to hear the gospel of that message. In other words, we are not “just” conservatives. We are Christians and we have a message that a fallen world needs to hear. As Dwight Moody once said,
“I have seen many Christian men on the plain of Ono, men who were doing a splendid work but had been switched off…How many times the Young Men’s Christian Association has been switched off by discussing some other subject instead of holding up Christ before a lost world! If the church would only keep right on and build the walls of Jerusalem they would soon be built. Oh, it is a wily devil that we have to contend with! Do you know it? If he can only get the church to stop to discuss these questions, he has accomplished his desire.”
Christians aren’t just conservatives that speak with a religious assent. As theologian Robert Jenson notes, “The church, we may say, is the community that speaks Christianese” (Jenson, Systematic Theology). Our political positions emerge from our commitment to Christ. We need to make every effort to ensure that people can see the distinction between being conservative and being Christian.
About the Author — James Spencer, PhD, is a theologian, author, and host of the Thinking Christian podcast, where he writes and speaks on Christian formation, political theology, and technology. He holds a PhD in Theological Studies from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School and an MA in Biblical Exegesis from Wheaton College. He serves as president of the D. L. Moody Center in Northfield, Massachusetts, as an Associate Research Fellow at the Kirby Laing Centre for Public Theology, and as adjunct faculty in Wheaton College’s MA in Leadership program. His forthcoming book is Digital Discernment (InterVarsity Press). Learn more at thinkingchristian.org.