Do We Really Believe God Is Non-Partisan?

If there is one single area that the religious right deserves criticism, it is for forming too tight of an alliance with the Republican Party. This staggering fact came to prominence after the 2004 Presidential Election, when exit polls showed that evangelicals voted for George W. Bush at a rate of three to one (surpassed only by the African American community’s nine to one turnout for the Democratic Party candidate John Kerry). But to a deeper extent, the concern comes not from the way evangelicals vote, but the mindset many seem to have. It has come to the point that a majority of the evangelical Church could be said to believe that voting Republican is the “Christian thing to do.”

Before we come across too harsh on the religious right, it is important to note that, for the most part, the evangelical-Republican alliance was birthed through the significance of one of the most singularly important issues of our day: abortion. The GOP’s tendency to be more pro-life than their opposition has forged a bond with evangelicals that has been central too much of the Church’s civic participation. The problem, however, arises when Christians start to see the whole of the party’s platform to be ordained by God, instead of just that one plank. A blind adherence to questionable facets of the Republican Party’s positions has raised the ire of many on the evangelical left and center.

In February of 2005 Christianity Today responded to close ties of many evangelicals to the Republican Party by stating, “George W. Bush is not Lord…The American flag is not the Cross. The Pledge of Allegiance is not the Creed. ‘God Bless America’ is not the Doxology. Sometimes one needs to state the obvious—especially at times when it’s less and less obvious.” CT rightly called evangelicals to remember that the Faith is not inextricably tied conservatism. While this is something that all Believers should be able to affirm, it is indeed helpful to be reminded of it when we stray dangerously close to the edge of allegiance to a party instead of our Savior.

Also after the 2004 election Jim Wallis’ organization Sojourners popularized the phrase, “God is not a Republican…Or a Democrat.” Once again, this is something that all Believers should be able to affirm, the question, however, is if Wallis himself believes that. Even a cursory reading of anything Wallis has written concerning President-elect Obama shows his undaunting bias towards the future Democrat president. For the past eight years Wallis has been relentless in his condemnation of evangelicals’ blind support for Bush, however, now that his man is headed to the White House he has suddenly taken a different tone. The most recent cover of Sojourners magazine shows Mr. Obama with his head bowed in prayer, an image that Wallis would have lambasted the right for using if Mr. Bush was shown in a similar position. All in all, we are left to wonder if those on the evangelical left, like Jim Wallis, actually believe that God is not a Democrat.

We all have biases. We are all a product of our background and experiences. Because of our biases and backgrounds many of us will have a natural tendency to incline towards one political party or another. The task of the Believer is to work towards a dependence on God for our political ideology, not a reliance on our political ideology for our understanding of God. Those on the Christian right need to remember that God is not a Republican, but at the same time, is it just as important that those on the Christian left acknowledge the fact that neither is God a Democrat: God is God.