When it comes to voting, we all want to make the right decisions…for the right reasons. But as we focus on our political choices, are American Christians forgetting something even more important?
John C. Nugent says Christians might be getting wrapped up in fixing the world by the method of politics, to the point where we forget our main mission—to witness for the kingdom of God.
“We want this world to be the best possible world. The question is how has God called us to do it? what is the church’s responsibility?”
“Do we try, through making converts, through planting and establishing churches, to influence the culture by filling it with Christ followers who are going to be Christ followers at work, whether they work in the government or at the local coffee shop? They are going to influence the wider culture.”
To try to accomplish this from the top-down is to use a means that stands in tension in some ways with the means God has given us to change people’s hearts.”
Nugent points out that a Christian’s motivation to vote is really the same as our motivations in all things: to represent God’s kingdom in the world.
“God wants His kingdom to be offered to people as a gift, one they can accept or reject. His Kingdom, when it comes in its fullness, will be populated with people that weren’t coerced into the new life but only people who saw it as good news and received it as a gift.”
“I think one of the challenges in the western world is for people to receive the way of life God has made possible for them as a gift to be embraced, not necessarily as a law from the government to be followed.”
Many of America’s most influential social reformers have been motivated by their faith. But Nugent says we need to flip the focus to see social change as the by-product of a culture alive in Christ. One example of this grassroots approach is the early church:
“We are called to be salt and light in the world, and for the early church, that meant filling every city in every state, among every ethnic group, with communities whose life together is a witness to God’s Kingdom. Communities where, regardless of whether there is justice in the capital city, the state, or the government, you will see these Christians loving each other, caring for one another, meeting their needs. That people can see, all over the world, scattered like salt that their is a new way of life in world history that is on offer to them.”
We can imitate the early church in how we influence our communities and eventually change the world.
“What we are seeking first is to expand communities like that and to expand their witness in their communities. To witness through the people of God exposing others to God’s Kingdom, which is a bottom-up movement, rather than to change or influence the powers so that they legislate Kingdom like things from the top-down.”
“It’s two different kinds of witness. Both can be called salt and light; one looks a lot more like what Jesus was doing.”
John C. Nugent is Professor of Old Testament at Great Lakes Christian College in Lansing, Michigan. He is the author of several books, including The Politics of Yahweh, and his most recent book, .
Voting like a Christian
