French Evangelicals and the Polical Process

A post on Ben Witherington's blog entitled, "Evangelicals in a Post-Haggard, Post-Rumsfeld World" prompted me to take a subject I had referenced in passing in my own "Tony Campolo on Liberal Evangelicals" post and write the following,

Hi Ben!

Before becoming a pastor here in America, I served as a resident missionary to France for a number of years. It was a very interesting and eye-opening experience to pastor wonderful, Spirit-filled people who were highly committed members of the Socialist party, or who even voted for the Communist party during their elections...!

I came to discover a couple of important differences between what I perceive to be the mindset of a majority of French evangelicals as opposed to their American counterparts:

1. French believers have zero expectation that their civil government will ever be run by people who are actually born again Christians, so they do not examine the personal lives of their leaders from a biblical perspective before voting for them. It never enters a French believer’s mind that a politician’s personal life would be sufficient reason to withhold their vote from him or her.

2. French believers view the political process as inherently corrupt due to its built-in dynamic of compromise and deal-making, not to mention its potential for conflict of interest or illicit monetary gain through the trafficking of special interest lobbyists, etc. This causes them to conclude that it would be completely impossible for any believer to maintain his or her integrity and run for office with any of the major parties.

This is due, in part, to the fact that French politics are based on a parliamentary style system that renders it virtually impossible for anyone to run for office as an independent. In the mind of French Christians, no believer could ever attain the backing of any major party without having engaged in so much questionable prior activity in support of that party, or without having incurred so many "IOU's" to so many other political figures, that their integrity and freedom to act according to their conscience would have already been fatally damaged before even being put forth as a candidate.

3. Believing that the major power brokers of all major political parties have long ago compromised their personal integrity and conscience, French pastors and other spiritual leaders would view with deep suspicion any overtures from politicians trying to court the support of the church in the electoral process. Most French pastors have a very hard time understanding why their American colleagues get so excited when representatives from the White House or Congress come calling or send invitations to functions inside the Beltway. In their minds, Americans should understand that offers of political power and access are never altruistic, but always come at a price, namely, a requirement to stand by the party or candidate in question in other areas of public policy, even though those other issues may not be clearly biblical in nature or even of great importance to the church world.

4. As a result of these and other factors, French pastors tend to believe strongly that spiritual leaders, local congregations, and church movements should play the role of public conscience to the larger society and never try to forge any sort of alliance with one particular party.

In the beginning of my stay there, I questioned their perspective, given what seemed to be great gains made by the evangelical church in America regarding certain social issues in exchange for publicly supporting individual candidates and forming a de-facto alliance with one particular party. Now, I look back with dismay and think we were probably duped into believing that we could salvage our souls while selling our support.

Although I personally have strong political convictions regarding certain issues, and have voted for the same party’s candidates in every election for nearly thirty years, and though I believe there are individuals who are called by God to run for office, I have purposed in my own heart to only use my pulpit to proclaim biblical principles. I believe the best way I can shepherd all of my flock is to teach them spiritual truths, many of which do, in fact, have a direct bearing on one’s conscience and decisions when entering the voting booth, but that I should never use my position or platform to promote a particular party’s or candidate’s agenda.

In the end, the only real hope any of us have for making the world a better place, not to mention improving the state of our country, is the kind of profound spiritual renewal and transformation that comes through a deep encounter with the living God through His Son Jesus Christ. As a pastor, leading people closer to Him is the greatest contribution that I can possibly make to the political process in our nation, for the closer we are to Him, the more we will live and govern in a way that is in harmony with His character.