Here on the day of the 2008 election voters are faced with what is meant to seem a choice of epic proportions. Both tickets claim commitment to reform. According to the rhetoric, whatever vote we cast is a vote for change. Whichever maverick we elect, the results of November 4 are supposed to determine the future of political culture in the United States and, to some extent, abroad. Both candidates are courting evangelical voters and, according to some reports, evangelical ballots may be more heterogeneous than in the past several elections.

Image - © Jean Simmons, 2008. All rights reserved.

The political identity of evangelicals seems somewhat destabilized, for better and/or for worse. Perhaps a wedge has been driven between the Republican platform and politically active evangelicals, even despite continued commitment to particular planks, such as a pro-life stance. Consistent with the broader call for “change,” many are calling for reform of evangelical political engagement, for more subtle and nuanced policy analysis and less rigid party identification.

But pathologies of evangelical political engagement run much deeper than party identification or policy analysis. Evangelical political engagement is governed primarily by a pragmatist approach otherwise known as ‘realpolitik.’ Whether in high profile intramural squabbles or when weighing in on broader public debates, evangelicals have largely embraced what French theologian and social theorist, Jacques Ellul, described as “political realism.” In this view, “there is no longer good and evil, just and unjust, legal and illegal, right and wrong.” The moral infrastructure associated with this politics can be called “the morality of the fact:” whatever succeeds is good. Practiced by evangelicals of various political persuasions, this ‘realpolitik’ is an equal opportunity inverter of the gospel message, relativizing the good news that God will make all things right and absolutizing deceptive myths of Christian power concerning our own capacities to do the same.

Few public disputes have so clearly evidenced this tendency as spring 2007’s fracas between some self-identified conservative evangelicals, the National Association of Evangelicals (NAE) and progressive evangelicals. For weeks, the evangelical blogosphere lit up with heated exchanges over climate change. High profile public evangelicals took the opportunity to posture, with James Dobson and Jim Wallis suggesting a public debate. All of this was provoked by a letter from 25 “conservative” evangelical leaders, including Dobson, Gary Bauer, and Tony Perkins, among others, calling for the resignation of Richard Cizik, Vice-President for Governmental Relations of the NAE. Cizik had become personally activist regarding climate change. The authors of the letter calling for his resignation suggested that Cizik’s concern for climate change was problematic on three counts:

• Cizik’s concern was divisive: the authors suggested that concern for climate change divides evangelicals.
• Cizik’s concern was deceitful: the authors suggested that Cizik’s concern made evangelicals appear monolithically concerned for climate change and, as this was not and is not true, his concern was misleading.
• Finally, Cizik’s concern was distracting from the “important moral issues” of our times: the authors listed three such issues—abortion, sex education, and homosexuality—which deserved our political attention and from which Cizik’s activism distracted.

The first two concerns were disingenuous:

• It takes at least two positions to be divisive. Therefore, concern for climate change needs either indifference or hostility toward it in order for the issue to be divisive. Unless evangelicals were previously monolithic in adopting one or the other of the latter two postures (and the authors of the letter are clear that evangelicals were not), concern for climate change cannot be any more divisive than lack of concern about it.
• Readers have been left to wonder why this group has not called for the resignation of other high profile evangelicals (themselves included) whose lack of concern for climate change might mislead the world into believing that evangelicals are monolithically indifferent toward climate change or hostile toward climate concern. If Cizik’s concern is deceitful, is their indifference or hostility not also?

The third concern was debatable:

• Clearly, there are more than three moral issues. Whether there are only three—or more than three—important moral issues of our time is obviously moot. Yet this concern motivates intentions to disengage from climate politics. Engagement with climate change threatens to increase the scope of the moral agenda, increase the number and type of agenda-setting “public evangelicals,” and introduce new fault lines for the distribution of sub-group power. Thoroughgoing evangelical engagement with environmental policy issues might compromise the credibility, authority, and effectiveness of a narrower platform. All of this is problematic for the authors of this letter—problematic enough to write whatever it takes, disingenuous or not, to motivate the desired response.

As can be seen in this situation, this ethic of realpolitik witnesses to hope in ourselves, in what can be humanly accomplished. It trumps what Ellul would call an “ethic of freedom,” which warrants obedience unto failure, witnessing to hope that God will one day put things right, because God knows we can’t. Such realpolitik can justify disingenuous rhetoric and more.

But an evangelical commitment to scripture should have taught us otherwise. The bible is littered with bad examples of the people of God and others exercising this kind of realism. This is the story of 2 Samuel 6 and 1 Chronicles 13. In these chapters, King David was returning the Ark of the Covenant to Jerusalem. Leaving the house of Abinadab, David, his men, and Abinadab’s sons put the ark on an ox-cart to transport it. In his forbearance, God did not strike them immediately for transporting the ark in an unauthorized manner. But later, one of the oxen stumbled. Uzzah put his hand out to steady the ark and was struck dead.

Upon first reading this story, God may seem cruel. After all, Uzzah was just trying to prevent bad things from happening. The ark most certainly was not meant to spill onto the ground. And so he reached out to steady it. Uzzah must have been successful. We have no account of the ark falling to the ground. But Uzzah’s job was not to keep the ark from touching the ground. Uzzah’s job was not to touch the ark. He ought to have obeyed, despite possible failure, and left the results to God.

By reaching out and taking things into his own hands—quite literally—Uzzah refused the finitude to which his obedience would have pointed, spurning hope in God despite apparent failure, and trusted in himself, instead. By trusting in himself, Uzzah was playing God.

Uzzah’s example is not the only one in Scripture. Peter embraced “political realism,” when he denied Christ in order to save himself, fearing that his obedience could result in negative consequences (Mark 14; Luke 22). And again, while being visited in Antioch by Jewish believers who rejected freedom from ceremonial laws, Peter refused to continue eating with the Gentiles, for fear that things would go badly (Galatians 2). In these two instances, Peter did whatever it took to avoid negative consequences.

And these are the typological behaviors for much of evangelical engagement with contemporary politics. Many U.S. evangelicals and evangelical institutions have cultivated political realism, among other pragmatic virtues, accommodating themselves to a broader cultural norm regardless of its biblical value (or lack thereof). We reach out to steady the ark, hoping to prevent negative things from occurring.

This temptation is strong for evangelicals of most political bents. After all, if we don’t save the world, who will? But to the extent that we are tempted to do whatever it takes, we are tempted to testify that our hope is in ourselves. We are tempted to relativize and undermine the gospel at every turn. We echo a hopeless character from Cormac McCarthy’s latest novel, The Road, who testifies: “There is no God, and we are his prophets.” Such unwitting public testimony is not uniquely evangelical, but only typically sinful.

So, let us join Obama and McCain in embracing reform. Let us look carefully not only at the substance of our political commitments, but also at the style of our public engagement because in it, the medium is the message. The form communicates where we’ve placed our hope. We should affirm and practice a willingness to obey even when it won’t work, to obey even to the point of failure. Perhaps then we might redeem public evangelicalism as a witness to the gospel, to the good news that, in his time, God will put things right though we could not. And in the meantime, such distinctively principled engagement is profoundly significant, even when it is not effective, because it testifies that indeed, there is a God.

Noah J. Toly is Director of Urban Studies and Assistant Professor of Politics and International Relations at Wheaton College in Wheaton, Illinois.