A Moral Vision in Politics

Why "faith," "wealth," "democracy" and "freedom" are not virtues

I have been trying to write this letter to you for a couple of hours now, on Friday afternoon, but my phone is blowing up with concern for the ESL students our volunteer group serves. Most of our wonderful students have entered the country under legal asylum procedure, but according to recent executive orders (and internal administration memos), this may not be enough to keep them from expulsion from the country.

We are heartbroken, confused, and scared. Yes, we might be angry, too.

I am not afraid to talk politics, even if it’s not the primary thing that I want to be talking about. As I’ve already said, I refuse to be swept up in the breaking news cycle. To have something to say, I must cultivate the space for living in faithful response to God’s voice. I will not let my attention be co-opted by the political circus, the belligerent news media, and the Silicon Valley technocrats, so I’m resisting the impulse to read and listen to all the political analysis I can get my hands on. This doesn’t mean I’m sticking my nose in the sand. No, I’m working actively to learn the threats to our heretofore legal immigrant friends and understand what we can do to lawfully protect them, should ICE or local law enforcement show up at our classroom door.

I’m also writing you here, believing that God has given me responsibility to think aloud in this space and ask you to think with me. This month, I’ve been reflecting on Scripture, and today’s post, albeit political in theme, is no exception.

I want to challenge you as I challenged my son in a recent conversation on the drive home from school. In his sociology class, Andrew had listened to President Trump’s inauguration speech, and he wanted to talk about it. I’d remembered a particular part of the speech that seemed worth reflecting on together.

“My recent election,” our president said, “is a mandate to completely and totally reverse a horrible betrayal and all of these many betrayals that have taken place and to give the people back their faith, their wealth, their democracy, and indeed, their freedom.”

“Read Psalm 144,” I said to Andrew, as I looked at the road. “Start with the blessing on the sons and find the line that seems absent from Trump’s political vision, as you heard it in the inaugural address.”

Andrew found the psalm on his phone and started reading.

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May our sons in their youth

Be like plants full grown,

Our daughters like corner pillars

Cut for the structure of a palace;

May our granaries be full,

Providing all kinds of produce;

May our sheep bring forth thousands

And ten thousands in our fields;

May our cattle be heavy with young,

Suffering no mishap or failure in bearing;

May there be no cry of distress in our streets!

Blessed are the people to whom such blessings fall!

Blessed are the people whose God is the LORD!

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“Did you see what the president neglected to say?” I asked.

My son is a smart kid—but you don’t have to be an intellectual genius to see what was missing.

“May there be no cry of distress in our streets,” Andrew said.

Exactly.

When I hear words like “faith,” “wealth,” “democracy,” and “freedom,” I can distinguish no particular moral vision, no real virtue in these terms. (I don’t take “faith” all that seriously, to be honest, given that Trump is fine to order raids in houses of worship.) A moral vision is oriented to goods greater than oneself or one’s nation. A moral vision, at least according to the Bible, has to do with justice, mercy, and care for the least. A moral vision has to do with truth. I’ll even say this: a truly moral vision would admit the possible good of suffering on another’s behalf—because there is no greater love than this.

I’m not pleading the case that one party has a moral vision and the other party does not. The whole political landscape is beset with crass and petty self-interest. This is why it is Christians who must uphold a moral vision of politics, one that says: let’s work for heaven coming to earth. If we pray for this, let’s work for this.

Political pie-in-the-sky? Well, we’ve had political figures who had a moral vision. In recent months, I’ve read biographies of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Jimmy Carter. For as flawed as both of these men were, some greater ambition beyond personal and national self-interest goaded them on toward their tireless political efforts. Both, incidentally, were men of deep Christian faith, and that can be no accident.

Psalm 144 reminds us that it is not wrong to wish for our own flourishing. But this alone is an incomplete Christian vision—and it’s the partial truths that can often create the worst distortions. May our sons and daughters flourish.

And may the sons and daughters of our neighbors flourish, too.