Spiritual Formation in the Year of the Election

Tom Kendall
October 2024

With roughly 49% of the world heading to the polls this year, not least the UK and the US, 2024 will have major implications for politics across the globe. As citizens of these nations, Christians have the opportunity to vote and so shape their nations for good or for ill. As believers exhorted not to “conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind,” (Rom 12:2) many understandably want to know how it is they should vote.

The cultural context of which we are part, our own theological tradition and the political issues of the day will all inform the political conversation, making any definitive “Christian answer” dubious at best. Indeed, there are great dangers here, for faith can be a powerful political tool, and not all actors who seek to wield it have good intentions. Yet it is right to hope that our vote will reflect (however imperfectly) the creed we profess.

So, as we head to the polls, how does the gospel shape our engagement with the political landscape before us?

What is politics for?

There are of course a myriad of ways one could respond to such a question. Yet, what the church truly needs is to rediscover a distinctly Christian conception of politics. As David Koyzis says, “we cannot … be content to consign [politics] to a neutral, ‘secular’ realm or to the prince of this world. Rather we must acknowledge and live out Jesus Christ’s claim over it.”¹

A Christian conception of politics must begin with the origin of government itself, which we are told in Romans 13 comes from the ordinance of God and flows out of common grace for the benefit of all. Timothy Laurence contends that “public authority exists for the good of the people … Or, if you prefer Augustine’s term, the magistrate is there to ‘love’ his people.”² He argues that this love takes shape through the use of authority to commend good and punish evil, self-limit its scope to public order, and govern according to law.

This conception of government stands distinct from the modern secular paradigm which views government primarily as an extension of the self, a bureaucratic system that exists to reflect and manifest our desires and dreams. Oliver O’Donovan says this of contemporary democracy: “Now reinterpreted as a populism of the common will, democracy collapses in on itself, as laws, political parties, elections and executives no longer appear as collaborative instruments of just and wise government.”³

To understand government as a God-ordained and ordered institution presents a stark contrast to the prevailing view of politics as “not given to us but constructed by us.”⁴

How am I to relate to politics?

With highly detailed polling and increasingly identitarian undercurrents driving many contemporary political trends, the matter of identity becomes increasingly important. Yet, to be a Christian is to find your identity radically transformed in light of the gospel.

The gospel does not, however, remove believers from politics, for to be a Christian is to have a political identity. After all, Jesus’ message was inherently political: “The kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe the good news!” (Mark 1:15) Peter frames Christian identity in political language: “you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation” (1 Pet 2:9), and Paul describes believers as “citizens of heaven” (Phil 3:20). As a result, it is unsurprising that early Christians and their neighbours understood the gospel to pose a political threat to the status quo with much early persecution stemming from the fact that Christians purportedly went around “saying that there is another king called Jesus” (Acts 17:6-7).

For the Christian then, political identity is primarily ordered through and grounded in their salvation story. Consequently, the political divide that most concerns Christians is not between left and right, conservative and progressive, or liberal and populist, but between the city of God and the city of Man. Christopher Watkin references Ed Stetzer to argue we are witnessing “the ‘rebellion against the rebellion,’ the counterinsurgency of the city of God against the earthly city which, itself, is a rebellion against God’s original rule.”⁵

This relativises our political allegiances, for our king and kingdom are not of this world. Yet at the same time the gospel calls us to partake in the messy business of political life as a direct testament to the kingdom to come, and a challenge to the politics of the earthly city.

What am I to expect from politics?

All in politics have a vision of the good life, even if it’s half-baked or ill-conceived. Kaitlyn Schiess writes, “the orientation of all people, communities, and institutions is toward some end: we are living and working and creating toward a vision of where the world is headed.”⁶ The question then is not if you have an end, but what is your end?

For believers redeemed by the gospel, it is the biblical story which ought to animate our political imagination, our vision of what is good, and our political expectations, our end. The Bible speaks of just such an end, a kingdom in which all is made new. Perhaps harder is living in light of that end.
Nonetheless, Watkin argues, we must, for “[t]he church is a forward-living, eternity-anticipating, hopeful and prophetic community, a city on the hill in the overlap of the ‘now’ and the ‘not yet’ witnessing to the present world as the first fruits of the new world.”⁷

Our expectations of politics are therefore to be limited. Politics can do some good, but not ultimate good, for we are not yet in the city of God.

However, this is no reason for the believer to give up in their earthly work, after all Titus reminds us to “be subject to rulers and authorities, to be obedient, to be ready to do whatever is good, to slander no one, to be peaceable and considerate, and always gentle towards everyone” (Titus 3:1-2).

Christian, “do not put your trust in princes, in human beings who cannot save”. Do not lose heart because politics can be better, indeed, should be better. There is a hope that will never perish, spoil or fade (Ps 146:3).

Tom Kendall is Strategic Assistant to the CEO at CARE.

1. David T. Koyzis, Political Visions and Illusions: A Survey & Christian Critique of Contemporary Ideologies, 2nd ed. (InterVarsity Press, 2019), 195.

2. Timothy Laurence, ed., Good News for the Public Square: A Biblical Framework for Christian Engagement (Lawyers Christian Fellowship, 2014), 35.

3. Oliver O’Donovan, “Review of Awaiting the King: Reforming Public Theology by James K. A. Smith,” International Journal of Systematic Theology, 20.2 (2020), 280-1.

4. O’Donovan, “Review” 280-1.

5. Christopher Watkin, Biblical Critical Theory: How the Bible’s Unfolding Story Makes Sense of Modern Life and Culture (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2022), 481.

6. Kaitlyn Schiess, The Liturgy of Politics: Spiritual Formation for the Sake of Our Neighbour (Downers Grove, ILL: IVP, 2020), 170-1.

7. Watkin, Biblical Critical Theory, 478.