Politics isn’t just politics anymore.
For a growing number of Americans, it’s identity, entertainment and community. And for Christians, that shift has brought new tensions to the surface. How do you engage faithfully in civic life without confusing politics with salvation?
Michael Wear has spent much of his career helping Christians wrestle with this question. A former White House staffer and founder of Public Square Strategies, Wear now advises organizations on navigating the intersection of faith and public life. And while he’s hopeful about what Christians can bring to the table, he’s also deeply concerned about how politics is being misused—especially by those who claim to follow Jesus.
“What I argue is that there really is a limited amount of attention and purpose that you can direct towards politics,” Wear said. “If folks are going to politics to meet spiritual or emotional needs, what that means is that they’re not going to politics to advance justice and affirm human dignity. They’re not going to politics for the aims of politics rightly defined.”
That misalignment, he said, is at the heart of what’s wrong with our current moment.
“Politics has become an even more prominent cultural force,” he said. “When politics becomes a cultural force, it provides a venue for self-expression, self-affirmation and a source of community that can ultimately divert politics from its right and just aims.”
It’s not just about taking politics too seriously.
“The problem is not that we take politics too seriously, but that we take it seriously in all the wrong ways,” he said.
That includes what he calls “political hobbyism,” where people consume endless clips, debate online and confuse performance with engagement.
“It’s politics as entertainment,” he said. “It’s politics as a forum for presentation.”
So what is politics, rightly understood?
“Politics is about the art and form of governance,” he said. “It’s how we govern ourselves as a people. It’s about the distribution of goods as a community.”
But that vision, he said, has been eclipsed by identity-driven, brand-oriented culture.
“There is an increasing temptation to view politics as something more akin to a team sport,” he said. “You have your team you root for, and you really don’t care about whether the team deserves to win … You just care about your team winning.”
That shift has consequences—not just for elected officials, but for all of us.
“Our politicians are responding to the incentives and disincentives that we, the people, place into the system,” he said. “We can’t constantly demand statesmen and stateswomen to act as statesmen and stateswomen consistently if we’re consistently undermining those who act in that way as voters and as citizens ourselves.”
Wear believes Christians already have the tools they need to respond well.
“The good thing is that Christians have every resource at hand to ensure that politics is kept in its proper place,” he said. “I think those resources have been largely untapped. Those resources have been distorted for political purposes. Too often, politics shapes our faith much more than our faith shapes our politics.”
One of those untapped resources, he said, is the Christian obligation to care for the vulnerable.
“Some of these resources include what the Catholics call the preferential option for the poor, which can be found in other Christian traditions,” he said. “We have a special ear, special attention for how policies and how political debates affect those who are most vulnerable.”
He explains that “special attention” comes from our faith and that’s resourced not just by the example of Jesus or by the justice admonitions of Scripture, but it’s also a resource by the fact that we find our security in Jesus.
However, too many people are running to politics, he said, to find that security instead.
“There’s a distortion that takes place if you view politics primarily as the place in which you secure your own personal rights,” he said. “That is not a Christian way of thinking about things.”
Instead, Christians are called to think beyond self-interest.
“We are part of a body, which ought to give us an attentiveness to those in different stations than we are and a built-in sensitivity and community that breaks outside of tribe and socioeconomic status and whatever other interest group politics tries to put us into,” he said.
That perspective stands in contrast to the performative culture of modern politics.
“Paul’s admonitions in Galatians, when he’s writing to what is essentially a polarized community—he doesn’t tell them, ‘Here’s a great power-sharing agreement,’” he said. “He tells them, ‘Jesus is calling you to carry one another’s burdens, and in this way, people will know that you have the love of Christ.’”
Wear also agrees with those who say Christian politics will never neatly align with earthly systems. Therefore, he argues, we should adopt theologian James K.A. Smith’s idea that Christian political life should be “tinged with a level of ambivalence.”
That ambivalence, Wear said, is essential.
“We may be going into politics with the idea that this is what’s for the common good. This is what’s for the best of my neighbors. But we know from history that the history of public policy … is a history of unintended consequences of good motives leading to bad outcomes.”
And the Bible doesn’t provide a party platform.
“Scripture does not offer a particular political program,” he said, citing C.S. Lewis. “Scripture offers principles, lessons, values and ideas that should be applied … with the moment and with the context and with history.”
That doesn’t mean Christians disengage. It means they engage differently.
“There are some tools in the political toolbox that we don’t use,” he said. “Denigrating the humanity of our political opponents or willfully misleading people in order to get our way. These are tools we don’t use. Because, for Christians, faithfulness is not just the means. It’s the end. You can’t reach the end of faithfulness through unfaithful means.”
That’s not always popular. But it is faithful.
“We can’t be afraid to be Christian in public,” he said. “We really need to ask ourselves if we trust Jesus in public things or if instead we say, ‘Gosh, I know what I ought to do … but, in politics, how Jesus would have me act is not really advisable.’”
For those feeling burned out or disillusioned, Wear said he understands. But he also offers a challenge: “I say this tenderly and with great sympathy for that feeling, because I feel it too, but in a society like ours, in a democratic system of government like ours, withdrawal does not reduce culpability.”
“You literally do not have the choice,” he said. “In the United States of America, you don’t have a choice but to have a certain level of political influence.”
And that influence must be stewarded well—whether in a voting booth, on social media or in conversations with your community.
“What are you trying to accomplish?” he asked. “Who are you trying to help?”
“We’re all striving to be more faithful,” he said. “But this is the way Christians ought to be thinking about political life. This is the way Christians, frankly, ought to be thinking about all of life. How do we steward the influence and the places in which God has placed us so that we can follow Jesus and act as Jesus would act if he were us, in the position that we’re in?”
