Love as the Centre of Political Action
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What motivates you to be involved in political action? ARPA Canada has long provided Christians with tools and opportunities to get involved, but fundamentally, why participate in the public square?
There are all sorts of reasons why you may want to get involved. Maybe you are passionate about defending the lives of the pre-born. Maybe government policies impact your job. Maybe you think it is your democratic duty. Maybe you just don’t like the guys in power, so you want change.
But the best motivation for political action – as for most things – comes from the heart.
Two Incomplete Motivations
I recently read Visions of Vocation: Common Grace for the Common Good by Steven Garber. In one section of the book, Garber describes the history of the Western worldview, a worldview that has been shaped by Greek, Jewish, and Christian philosophy. Lots of authors, past and present, recognize the contributions of all three of these groups in shaping the dominant worldviews of our day.
But one quote stood out to me as Garber compared these different traditions:
“The object of the Greek way of thought is to know rightly; the object of the Hebrew is to do righty . . . The highest calling of the Greeks is to pass by appearances and ‘hit the mark’ of intellectual truth, whereas the supreme obligation of the Hebrews is to walk in the way of the Lord and on his law to meditate day and night.”
These two ways of thought – these worldviews – still operate today.
There are many today – secular and Christian – who get involved in public affairs because they think that knowledge and education will solve the world’s problems. They become experts in their field, reading and researching and writing extensively to come up with the perfect policy solution. In their mind, if we can just know enough, then we can solve the problems facing the world. We just need more data, more insight, and more knowledge. Their motivation in life, just like the Greeks of old, is to know rightly. If and when such people get into politics, they are often seen as technocrats. They believe that they are the experts, and their expertise is needed to solve society’s ills. Christians who are overly motivated by the pursuit of knowledge might easily think that if we only got certain facts into people’s minds, then the world would be a whole lot better.
On the other hand, others seek to do rightly. The Jews of old – and the Jews today – are people of the Torah, the law. They were entrusted with divine precepts and so their motivation for life and their motivation in politics is to follow the law and do the right thing. The Pharisees of Jesus’ day developed a whole code of man-made law that was designed to make men moral. Followers of these schools of thought are legalists who simply want to gain power to pass the laws that they think are best for all people. A Christian who follows such a do rightly philosophy thinks that the best prescription for society is simply righteous laws.
Love: A Better Motivation
Christians, though, shouldn’t be motivated first and foremost by knowledge (expertise) or action (law). Both are certainly important. Neither ignorance nor lawlessness are marks of the Christian life. But something else should be more central. Love should be the centre of our political action.
Love is the heart of the gospel and the heart of the Christian response. The ever-famous John 3:16 says that “God so loved the world that He sent His only begotten Son, so that whoever believes in Him may have eternal life.”
The summary of God’s law is love. “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets” (Matthew 22:37-40).
Jesus makes this command very direct: “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”
Lest we think that this love should only extend to our brothers and sisters in Christ, Jesus gives us the parable of the Good Samaritan. In its context, the parable is an illustration of just how far the summary of the law – the law of love – must go. We must even love our enemies (Matthew 5:43-44).
The letters of Paul are also replete with references to love – see for example Romans 12:10, Galatians 5:13, Ephesians 4:2, and 1 Thessalonians 4:9.
So, knowing God’s heart of love and command to love, we need to do regular heart checks: is love your motivation for political action? Anger, fear, and even hatred are popular motivations in politics right now. It is possible to channel these emotions righteously (Ephesians 4:26, Proverbs 1:7, Psalm 139:22), but they can also sway into unrighteousness. But against love (and the other fruit of the Spirit), there is no law (Galatians 5:22-23).
Love in Action
Just because our overarching call is to love doesn’t mean that knowledge and action have no place. A lot of us devote time to reading and research to be more knowledgeable about the worldviews, problems, and solutions that face us today. That’s a good thing! And we’re dedicated to political action. We wouldn’t need ARPA if we saw no need for action or calling our government to implement righteous laws. But we search for wisdom and advocate for laws because we love. ARPA Canada’s vision statement explicitly says that we do our work “out of love for God and neighbour.”
When we plant a flag display, we should be motivated by love for the pre-born and love for mothers experiencing an unintended pregnancy. Not because we think that people are stupid for not recognizing that life beings at conception. When we deliver Let Kids Be flyers, we should be doing so out of love for our neighbour who is confused about their gender, not because we fear the dominance of an LGBTQ worldview. And when we urge our MPs to stop expanding euthanasia, we should do so as we love the elderly, disabled, and ill people around us, not because we hate doctors who practice euthanasia.
Where this call to love is probably the hardest to live out in our political action is when we talk about our political leaders, and when we go to the ballot box. Anger, fear, and hatred are powerful motivators to get people to get out to vote, especially when our governments allow so many evils and restrict freedoms that we cherish. Talking about politics can bring up emotions, and these emotions can get personal. They get directed towards the Prime Minister, the Premier, or a local elected representative – all of whom we are called to honour and pray for. Again, we need to check our hearts and ask people around us to do the same.
The object of the Greek way of thought is to know rightly. The object of the Hebrew way is to do rightly. The object of the Christian way is to love rightly.
That should be our motivation for political action.
