Are You a Republican Fundamentalist, or are you a Christian?

I recently visited a retired friend in another state. He served as a seminary professor, theologian, and pastor. As we talked, he shared about the last church he had served in the southwest. Church conflict tore at the soul of the pastor. Opinion, agendas, and politics sought to shred the fabric of the Body of Christ. My friend told me that his greatest burden for his church was that they had ceased being Christ-followers and had become a sect of Republican Fundamentalists.

I knew immediately what my friend meant by “Republican Fundamentalists.” Politics and religion. He meant that folks embraced a conservative leaning political platform aligned with more conservative elements within the Republican party in the United States of America. "Republican Fundamentalists" embrace the social conservatism, the fiscal conservatism, and the concepts of smaller government. Today, this loosely affiliated group has become a special interest group broadly mislabeled as “Evangelicals.”

Let me seek to define the term. I think that a "Republican Fundamentalist" is a person who aligns himself or herself with fundamental or foundational Protestant Christian teachings; then, aligns oneself with conservative leaning political principles that appear to fit their Christian teachings. In and of itself, this first step is harmless.

But it does not stop there. Before long, the "Republican Fundamentalist" finds one's faith placed in political influence, processes, systems, and people, rather than in their living Lord. Faith becomes so politically co-opted and compromised by a syncretism of religion and culture, that one loses the ability to speak with integrity into a corrupt system of which he or she is a part and holds a deeply vested interest. Biblical values of being "in the world but not of the world" become sacrificed. Serving Christ as His disciple becomes compromised with secular values, albeit conservative ones. Church becomes a sideshow to advocate for political causes. Church becomes a special interest group whose rights must be protected. Living faith is neutered into harmlessness.

Politics has become religious, and religion has become political. Political pollsters and pundits made a heyday out of analyzing the “Evangelical” vote in the 2016 US presidential election, reducing the church to pawns in a world system.

My pastor friend went on to describe a church that had lost true evangelistic fervor. Believers cared little about genuine conversions. They were disinterested in outreach that cost them anything. Feeding the hungry, giving water to the thirsty, visiting the sick, or caring for the imprisoned: none of these acts of compassion described by Jesus in Matthew 25 were high on their agenda. And when the outreach became really controversial with things like showing mercy to street people, hosting after school programs for illegal immigrant children, and promoting life in front of an abortion clinic, the volunteers disappear.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer observed the same trends in 1930s Germany. He wrote: “The church can only defend its own space by fighting, not for space, but for the salvation of the world. Otherwise the church becomes a ‘religious society’ that fights in its own interest and thus has ceased to be the church of God to the world. So the first task to those who belong to the church of God is not to be something for themselves, for example, by creating a religious organization or leading a pious life, but to be witnesses of Jesus Christ to the world” (Ethics, p. 64).

“And Jesus came and spoke to them, saying, ‘All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.’ Amen.” (Matthew 28:18-20 NKJV).

The question for us is this, will we be the church or will we simply be a special interest group? Will we be the Body of Christ or a pious club? The church is who it is, an agent of grace and salvation in the world, for Jesus’ sake. Special interest groups exist for themselves.

I am not advocating for less involvement in social and political action. In fact, I am actually advocating for more engagement. However, our engagement must not be "business as usual." I am advocating for bold and credible voices whose allegiance to Christ protects them from being compromised by a world that would seek to press us into its mold. Christ followers must be defined by the life, death, resurrection, and hope of our Lord Jesus Christ, not with partisan labels. We must speak boldly and courageously, even to the point of suffering, if Jesus calls us to that cross. But we must not be compromised by any of our world's systems. We must be true to the Christ of the cross.

It is not the political or moral views of conservative Republicans to which I object. I share many, if not most, of those views. I object to Republican Fundamentalism’s idolatry that has co-opted Christ’s Church away from being a place that seeks to save souls, show mercy and compassion, and stand against broad cultural sin. Too many "Evangelicals" have misconstrued their role in the world as political, rather than transformational. The world system has reduced too many of us into pawns in its game of power and control. I object. I object to Christ’s Church becoming a special interest group, a demographic category for pollsters and pundits. A religious special interest group is just a pious club. It is not the church of Jesus Christ.

John Wesley wrote twelve rules for Methodist preachers. Rule #11 gets to the point.

“You have nothing to do but to save souls. Therefore spend and be spent in this work. And go always, not only to those that want you, but to those that want you most.”

Let's be Christ's Church, the Body of Christ, in a broken, hurting, lost, and needy world.