“How would Jesus have Christians approach politics in America? Being honest about what we Fear, Trust, and Hope.

Fear, Trust, and Hope in politics for Christians?

The concepts of Fear, Trust, and Hope touch the deepest parts of the human experience and are deeply intertwined with our sense of identity and our allegiances. How we see ourselves and to whom we are committed shapes what we fear, who and what we trust, and provides our basis for hope. All these concepts bear heavily on the experience of walking with Jesus.

But, amidst the clamor of competing voices and relentless warnings of doom, it’s easy to lose sight of God’s perspective on the issues of Fear, Trust, and Hope and to allow political voices to answer critical questions like:

“What should I fear?”

“Who do I trust?”

 “Where do I find hope?”

And it would be naive to think that political parties and personalities don’t understand how deeply these feelings affect us. There’s a lot of mileage to be gained from Fear, many reasons given for why we should extend our Trust to them, and lots of assurances that “their” agenda is our path to Hope.

But as disciples who are asking the question, “How would Jesus have Christians approach politics in America?” it’s critical that we recognize the difference between viewing fear, trust, and hope in the context of eternal principles and viewing them through the lens of the temporal and earthbound.

The great danger for us in our media-saturated culture is that the barrage of issues we are told to fear, trust, or hope in can easily pull our minds, hearts, and emotions down into the temporal, where we lose sight of what’s ultimately and eternally true. In that mental and emotional space, we are strongly influenced to think, feel, and act as if the earthly is all that exists, and in all senses except what we say we believe, to functionally forget God in it all. Many of us who consider ourselves followers of Jesus are currently mired in that mindset when it comes to politics.

But political systems are imperfect, temporal, and earthbound. This is why we are repeatedly warned to be alert and not be drawn aside into distraction. Colossians 3 reminds us:

1Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. 2Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. 3For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God.

In I Corinthians 7:29-32, the apostle Paul addresses a very distracted and earthly-focused group of disciples and points out that there are many everyday things that can draw our attention away from Truth and what’s really important. And that, ultimately, they needed to approach “the things of this world as not being engrossed in them. For this world in its present form is passing away.”

The key is the phrase, “not engrossed in them.” It’s not that we shouldn’t care or be engaged with things that are earthly, temporary, or even political. The issue is their priority and preeminence in our lives.

The questions of what we fear, where we place trust, and what we hope in the temporal must be guided and informed by the ultimate reality of Christ’s care and governance in our lives and in the world around us. As followers of Jesus, His eternal perspective on Fear, Trust, and Hope provides the context for thoughtfully approaching those questions in the temporal realm.

The Bible has so much to say about fear.

Hebrews 13:5b-6 reminds us, “…For He has said, ‘I will never leave you nor forsake you.’ So we can confidently say, ’The Lord is my helper; I will not fear; what can man do to me?’”

2 Timothy 1:7 tells us that “…God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.”

And Psalm 27:1 says, “The LORD is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? The LORD is the stronghold of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?”

It’s this perspective that must actively hold as we engage with the political realm and the temptation to fear it so often creates. The reality is that Jesus is sovereign. He has the final word, and if I am in Him, there’s nothing that can befall me that resides outside of his attention or care for me, even things that are difficult or painful. As Dallas Willard was famous for saying, for the disciple of Jesus, “the universe is a perfectly safe place to be.”

This point of view does much to temper the effects of words and circumstances that might otherwise threaten to sweep us up into fear. Through this lens, fears are reduced to concerns, and concerns are something we can address objectively. It allows us to bring the truth of the scriptures and our allegiance to Jesus to bear on these temporal questions without looking through the distorting lens of fear and anxiety.

We can, for example, have concerns about an insecure border, while remembering that it’s human beings whom God loves and for whom Jesus died, not a faceless “invading mob”, who cross it. We can have concerns about a top-down economic system that rewards greed and contributes to the widening income gap in society without fearing that our own needs won’t be met or holding others in contempt who may benefit from the system more than we do.

The key to overcoming the temptation to fear is to remember that our ultimate care lies in Jesus’ hands. His care for us is a promise, so there is nothing to fear from the temporal, even if things do not go our way. His love and care for us, our Trust in His provision, and our Hope that, ultimately, all will be well and put to right should free us from temporal fear and release us to love and serve others, even those who stand on the other side of the political divide from us.

This eternal perspective helps dislodge misplaced trust in earthbound systems and flawed humanity to provide ultimate answers. It reminds us that these entities can never provide true and lasting hope because, in the end, they are temporal and imperfect. That’s not to say that we can’t all learn to humbly work within them with love, kindness, and grace toward others to make things better. We absolutely can.  As disciples of Jesus, we are commanded to do just that.

Knowing all that frees us to confidently live beyond Fear of the temporal, Trust that we are safe, even in things we deem to be negative, and have the eternal Hope that God is at work for our good in the midst of it all.