Politics isn’t a gospel issue, so why should I be concerned about politics?
Question 1 in Faith Seeking Freedom: Updated & Expanded
This question is from Faith Seeking Freedom: Updated & Expanded, launching June 2026 in paperback, PDF, and Kindle. Subscribe to this Substack so you don’t miss updates, previews, and the launch announcement.
Most people think of politics as electoral politics: elections, politicians, and voting. A more robust understanding is that politics is more like a subset of the ways in which human beings choose to relate, specifically with regard to the appropriate use of physical force and power.
“Culture” is another means of how we relate to each other, and while part of that is political, much of it is not. In this sense, the saying “politics is life” is true. When we advocate anything that affects the lives of others, we are doing politics in this very broad sense. Most Christians believe that the gospel has implications for the real world, which makes the gospel relevant to politics. This also means that Christians are political, whether they realize it or not.
Libertarian Christians care about how people in the world relate to one another in ways that align with the ethic and message of the Kingdom of God. We do not say that all Christians should vote for a particular type of candidate, or even vote at all. Not only do we want Christians to be aware of the human relationships that are part of what it means to be human, but also at the forefront of pushing human relationships toward mutual benefit and interacting peacefully (see Chapters 4-5).
