Biden’s decision to end his re-election campaign has been called “overdue” by some and “selfless” by others. For the former, the decision has already prompted calls for Biden to resign from office altogether. For the latter, the celebration of Biden’s selfless act will soon become little more than a political tagline used to support the Democrat’s new delegate. Speculation about who will replace Biden in the running against Trump has become fodder for analysts and commentators who may or may not “get it right” in the end.
After hearing about Biden’s decision not to run for reelection and the early speculation that Vice President Kamala Harris would be the party’s new candidate, I found myself asking a simple question: does it really matter who the candidates are? Some may have reasons to think that who the candidates are really matters. There are some who may want a political candidate to win based on his or her position on a given issue or set of issues. Fair enough. But there are surely a number of other Republicans or Democrats who hold similar views and would be similarly effective in office, so, on some level, isn’t one candidate just as good as another?
Others may want a particular candidate to run because they are rooting for a particular political party (or against a particular candidate). If you want a particular party to win, the candidate chosen to run needs to have a better-than-average chance of winning the election. The trouble is that winning an election often requires more than a strong record of service or the demonstration of competencies needed by a particular position. It isn’t simply a matter of skill but of learning to play the political game.
Some may perceive in my question (does it really matter who the candidates are?) a note of cynicism. Perhaps that is a fair criticism. Whatever cynicism may be present, it isn’t the driving force behind the question. The question is primarily driven by my conviction that to think theologically, we will often need to reconsider the “givens” that tend to drive our understanding of the world and behavior within it. When Christians think about politics, we need to question our basic assumptions and the assumptions of the political game being played. The rules of the political game don’t define us because we answer to God. Our assumptions, preferences, and agendas cannot be allowed to control our approach to politics because we have committed to living under Christ’s authority. As such, asking whether the candidate running for office matters isn’t driven by pessimism about our political system but by the conviction that God is not subject to the rules of our political game. If we are to respond to him, we need to ensure that we aren’t captive to those rules either.
As I think about the candidates, whoever they end up being, it is hard not to think about a game like Monopoly. Whether you choose the thimble, top hat, or car, the rules of the game don’t change. Monopoly’s “system” is still in force, so the player using the handbag has no greater chance of winning the game than those using some other piece.
In Monopoly, the individual players can make certain choices (e.g., do I purchase New York Ave or save my money in hopes of landing on Boardwalk before another player). There is an element of strategy, but that strategy is dependent on the rolls of the dice (one’s own and those of other players). The gameplay creates limitations on what actions a given player can take, with no player or piece being given an advantage over others. All the pieces are subject to the rules of the game. Similar to Monopoly, political figures play according to an established set of rules. It isn’t that those holding political office can’t have an effect, but that they can only have an effect within certain tolerances.
While Monopoly highlights the constraints a system places on the players within it, the analogy breaks down because Monopoly’s gameplay minimizes the skill of individual players. Politicians certainly need to have skills. One would hope they are highly competent. It would seem that we would, at the very least, want clear and critical thinkers capable of analyzing and understanding vast amounts of information. Still, those holding political office will tend to develop and/or use the skills necessary to be effective within their political roles. Again, we need to recognize the role the political system and its customs play in shaping those who end up being chosen to run for office, particularly the office of the president.
In this respect, poker may offer some insight into the “political game.” Commenting on chess in her book titled Thinking in Bets, professional poker player Annie Duke notes, “For all its strategic complexity, [chess] isn’t a great model for decision-making in life, where most of our decisions involve hidden information and a much greater influence of luck.” She goes on to say that poker “is a game of decision-making under conditions of uncertainty over time…valuable information remains hidden. There is also an element of luck in any outcome.”
“Luck” is not a word or a concept that fits with a Christian understanding of the world. It is inherently non-theological. The language of luck, however, seems more fitting for the world of politics, where the consequences of even the best decisions simply can’t be explained or, if they can be explained, tend to be viewed as unavoidable or as the result of a predecessor’s bad policies. “Bad luck,” “unforeseeable challenges,” “unprecedented circumstances,” and the like are irregularities that strong leaders push through with the hope that once a given oddity is resolved, the system will then be able to do its work of producing a just and peaceful society. Yet, as Jacques Ellul highlights in Presence in the Modern World, “the worldwide catastrophes of the present time are not the result of chance or misfortune, they are not setbacks in the happy outworking of progress. They are the inevitable result of the very structure of our civilization.”
When we think about those who serve as president, we need, at the very least, to temper our expectations. It is not that we should view the political realm as trivial. Instead, we should view it as a partial measure incapable of fixing the world, even though it often claims this capacity. Such claims are not new. In Politics and the Earthly City in Augustine’s City of God, Veronica Ogle suggests that one of Augustine’s problems with the Roman Empire involves Rome’s willingness to claim victory despite its evident failure. She notes, “It does not take long for Augustine to begin pointing out the many ways in which Rome fails to live up to its self-endowed reputation. Yet, what troubles Augustine is not just that Rome falls short of its self-image, but that it pretends not to—and, to a large degree, succeeds in this ruse.” She goes on to suggest that Augustine believes this “ruse” establishes “in the proud mind a qualification for leadership: peace, the proud say, cannot exist without me at the helm.”
The political game shapes the players. Our ordinary logic or, worse, our Christian “theo-logic” is made subject to the rules of the political realm. In other contexts, we might not suffer the sort of vague promises and bravado too common in political speeches, yet we often set aside our common (or Christian) sense when listening to the candidates we support. As Vervaeke writes in Zombies in Western Culture, we accept that often politicians are “not making propositions that we consider on the basis of their being true or false.” That isn’t the political game.
We don’t exactly want to be lied to, but we aren’t demanding the truth either. We want, as Vervaeke writes, “merely the catchiness of the idea, their person, or the prospect, and not the substance of its consequence or the reservoir of its competence.” We want to delude ourselves into thinking that this person will make our lives better while their opponent will make our lives worse. We don’t need to quantify “better” and “worse.” We just need to be convinced (or to convince ourselves) that a particular candidate will lead us ever closer to being as comfortable as possible in a fallen world.
The inertia of the political system we’ve created serves to reinforce the hope it offers for the future. Yet, as Christians, we must recognize that false hope is no hope at all. Instead, by claiming to be able to do more than it actually can, the political system, its leaders, and those who place their faith in the political realm will ultimately have their hands pierced by the “broken reed of a staff” on which they lean (Isa 36:6).
As I’ve noted elsewhere, none of this suggests that the political realm is unnecessary or trivial. The goal is not to diminish or delegitimize the governing authorities that God has established but to (a) situate those authorities under God and (b) attribute a proper scope of authority to them. As I note in Serpents and Doves, “Christians do not deny the legitimate authority of the state, but we refuse to give the state more authority than God has delegated to it.” This delegated authority would certainly extend to elected officials. They cannot fix the world, nor is it their job to do so. They are, as Oliver O’Donovan suggests, to make judgments as a “secondary theatre of witness to the appearing grace of God.” This function is important, but it is also “secondary.”
If the political realm and those who serve within it are not trivial, how should we think about the presidential election? First, while our particular political game encourages us to think that our representatives are chosen by the voice and vote of the people, we need to recognize that the mechanisms of government don’t operate apart from God. While we may be surprised by the results of a particular election, there is little reason to be dismayed about the outcome. We tend to believe that in a democracy, we get the government we deserve, yet, as Christians, we recognize that our democracy sits under the authority of God. In part, we “honor the emperor” (1 Pet 2:17) not because the emperor has earned our respect or represents our values but because we believe that the emperor serves at God’s pleasure and for God’s purposes.
Second, we need to acknowledge that the political game shapes the players involved in it. It will shape us if we are not careful. As such, once the candidates are official, we need to ensure that we don’t simply make a reasonable decision based on the important issues of the day because our issues transcend anything the political realm is equipped to address. Christians need to look past the issues.
I started this article with a simple question: does it really matter who the candidates are? Answering the question is difficult, in part, because we have the choices we have. It is hard to separate the specific candidate from the positions they hold or the vision of America’s future they claim to represent. Still, what I hope I’ve made clear is that the political game shapes those who play it. As such, the candidates we have to choose from have been shaped into expert players of the political game. Anyone running for president is a politician and carries with them certain characteristics that allow them to compete well in the political game.
That said, in so much as they are chosen by God to serve in a given political role, the specific candidates matter. God does not raise up faceless rulers but specific individuals who will serve as governing authorities. Yet, we must be careful not to turn our candidates into symbols signaling (a) our nation’s status before God or (b) representing a “win” for the church.
Our nation’s status before God is both clear and unclear. It is clear because all nations are subject to the authority of God. As Christopher J. H. Wright notes, “God may raise up nations and empires to accomplish his purposes, but when their arrogance, violence, and depravity reach an intolerable level, God acts in judgment, and they collapse or sink to levels of global insignificance or even depart from the stage of history altogether.” Our nation’s status is unclear because we simply can’t know when God’s judgment for our nation’s various sins is coming. God blesses and sustains our nation but will not do so forever. He has no eternal commitment to preserving the United States. The United States will, at some point, go the way of the rest of the nations. It isn’t clear that a given candidate could make reforms that would hold off God’s judgment (as is evident with Josiah’s reforms in 2 Kings 23).
Regarding our tendency to make candidates into symbols representing a “win” for the church, that position has already been taken by Christ. It is only in Christ that we have victory. No political candidate adds to Christ’s victory because Christ’s victory is already complete. If we continue to look for supplemental messiahs, we risk distorting the gospel message. Our great responsibility and pleasure is not to fix the world through political action but to faithfully proclaim Christ’s victory by learning to live under the authority of Christ. It is because of Christ’s victory that we live out the proclamation, “Jesus is Lord,” whoever the president happens to be.
Click here to read Part 1: 3 Meaningful Actions Christians Can Take for Our Nation
Click here to read Part 2: How Can We Distinguish between Church and State?
Click here to read Part 3: Thinking Like a Christian This Election Season
Click here to read Part 4: Is Christian Political Participation a Sacred Duty or a Civil Right?
Click here to read Part 5: What Role Should Law Play in Christian Political Participation?
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