The Christian Life Is Not a Policy Platform
Why how we do politics may matter more than what we win
A while back, a political clip started bouncing around my social feeds.
You’ve probably seen the type. A pundit “destroying” someone from the other party in under three minutes. The title on the video promised humiliation. The comments under it were full of “OWNED” and “This is how you deal with these people.”
I watched the clip. The pundit was sharp, clever, and merciless. The audience laughed as the other person fumbled for words.
Then I glanced up at the names of the people sharing it.
These weren’t anonymous internet accounts. These were people I’d worshiped with. People I’d prayed with. Parents from church. Folks who regularly post Bible verses and worship songs.
And they weren’t just sharing it. They were celebrating it.
No part of me wanted to pile on. I didn’t comment or repost or add a laughing emoji. If anything, I felt a knot in my stomach—a quiet grief I couldn’t quite name at first.
I found myself wondering, Why are my people cheering this?
Why are followers of Jesus so thrilled to watch another image-bearer get publicly humiliated?
That moment has stayed with me, especially as another election cycle ramps up and the volume is turned to eleven—the mailers, the not-quite-sermons about “what’s at stake,” the social media posts that sound more like cable news than the Sermon on the Mount.
Because I’m a Christian. And I have to ask:
If I hold all the “right” positions but I have to become less like Jesus in order to defend them… what exactly am I winning?
That question feels especially urgent now, when so many of us feel like every election is the “most important of our lifetime,” and the temptation is strong to justify almost any method as long as it helps our side.
This piece is my attempt to name what’s happening—and to sketch a better “how.”
When faith becomes a voting checklist
In a lot of church and Christian-adjacent spaces I’ve been part of, a subtle distortion has taken root.
Faith gets reduced to a list of “non-negotiable” issues. The Christian life becomes a voting checklist. The key question quietly shifts from, “Am I becoming more like Christ?” to “Did I vote the way a good Christian is supposed to?”
Once that shift happens, the what of politics (which policies, which candidates, which judges) becomes everything. The how of politics—the tone we use, the way we treat people, the emotional world we live in—becomes negotiable.
If your positions are “biblical,” then almost any rhetorical style starts to feel fair game:
Mocking opponents
Sharing half-true or misleading headlines because they help your side
Calling people “evil” or “demonic” simply because they disagree with you
I’ve done versions of all three.
And if I’m honest, I’ve often comforted myself with, “Well, at least I’m on the right side.” As if the substance of my views somehow cancelled out the formation of my heart.
But that way of thinking is deeply out of step with the way Jesus and the New Testament talk about the life of faith.
Yes, God cares about justice, righteousness, and how societies treat the vulnerable. The prophets are clear about that. But Jesus spends a remarkable amount of time talking about something else:
The kind of people we’re becoming
The posture of our hearts toward our enemies
The “fruit of the Spirit” our lives produce—love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control (Galatians 5:22–23)
I don’t see any honest version of Christian faithfulness where we get to say, “I’m cruel, dishonest, and consumed by anxiety—but I’m correct on the issues, so it’s fine.”
The “how” is already a “what”
Here’s the core claim I want to make:
The way we engage politically is itself a moral issue.
It’s not just “style points” or personality. It’s part of our discipleship.
Every time we post, argue, forward an article, or talk about politics at the dinner table, two things are happening at once:
We’re arguing about what’s true and just out there in the world.
We’re being formed into a certain kind of person.
Those two things are inseparable.
If my pattern is to dunk on people online, to dismiss whole groups of human beings as idiots, to laugh at their misfortune, I’m not just “fighting hard.” I’m training my heart to respond to image-bearers with contempt.
If my pattern is to consume fear-based news all day, I’m training my heart to be governed by anxiety, not by trust.
If my pattern is to treat politics as war, I shouldn’t be surprised if I start seeing neighbors, coworkers, or even family members as enemies to be defeated instead of people to be loved.
We are always doing political theology and spiritual formation at the same time.
Where our “how” goes wrong
Let’s name a few of the most common distortions. I see all of these in our culture. I also see them in myself.
1. Fear-driven politics
A lot of Christian political speech is built on a constant stream of alarm bells:
“If we lose this election, it’s over.”
“They’re coming for your children.”
“This is our last chance.”
Fear is powerful. It moves people. It also directly contradicts one of the most repeated commands in Scripture: “Do not be afraid.” (You can trace that refrain throughout the Old and New Testaments.)
I’ve hit “share” on panicked articles before I checked the facts. I’ve felt the adrenaline rush of “this changes everything” posts.
But when we marinate in fear-mongering, we don’t just become politically energized. We become spiritually malformed. We stop sounding like people who believe that Jesus is Lord of history. We start sounding like people who believe that everything ultimately depends on winning this cycle.
2. Contempt as default setting
Contempt is that mix of anger and superiority. It’s the eye-roll. The meme that reduces your opponent to a caricature. The way we talk about “those people” on the other side.
In politics, contempt is everywhere. It’s cheap, it’s easy, and it gets engagement.
And I’m not above it. I’ve laughed at clips designed to humiliate “them.” I’ve told stories that make “my side” look principled and the other side look ridiculous.
But contempt is fundamentally incompatible with loving our neighbors, loving our enemies, or taking seriously that every person we interact with bears the image of God.
If my “bold stand for truth” requires me to treat other image-bearers with thinly veiled disgust, I’m not standing for truth in a Christian way. I’m just baptizing contempt.
3. Dehumanization in slow motion
Dehumanization rarely starts with explicit hatred. It starts with language.
“The libs.”
“The MAGA cult.”
“These people are insane.”
“They all hate America/the church/freedom.”
Soon, we’re not talking about specific human beings with stories and fears and families. We’re talking about faceless blobs. We can justify almost anything when we’ve turned people into abstractions.
Christians should be the last people on earth to go along with that, whether we lean right, left, or feel politically homeless.
A distinctly Christian “how”
If we actually believe that how we do politics matters to God, we need some concrete commitments.
Here are a few I’m working on (imperfectly) in my own life:
1. Truth without exaggeration
“I will not share lies, half-truths, or clickbait headlines just because they help my side.”
That means slowing down. Checking sources. Being willing to say, “I got that wrong” and correcting it publicly. Refusing to bear false witness—even when it’s convenient.
It also means resisting the urge to exaggerate every policy disagreement into the end of the republic. Some policies genuinely do harm vulnerable people more than others; that matters. But we don’t need to distort reality to make that case.
2. Conviction without cruelty
Christians don’t have to become mushy centrists with no opinions. We can and should name harmful ideas and destructive policies.
But we can do it without cruelty.
No demeaning nicknames. No mocking someone’s appearance, intelligence, or personal life. No thrill in public humiliation.
If my rhetorical style looks more like my favorite cable-news host than my Savior, something is off.
3. Courage without panic
Christians are allowed to see real threats and say so. Courage doesn’t mean pretending everything is fine.
But courage also doesn’t sound like permanent meltdown.
We of all people should be capable of saying, “This matters. I’m going to work and vote and speak—but my ultimate hope does not rise and fall with this outcome.”
If the tone of my political engagement is constant panic, it’s worth asking what story I actually believe I’m living in.
4. Listening before labeling
Before I label someone “woke,” “fundamentalist,” “authoritarian,” or “Marxist,” I can do something radical:
I can ask them a question.
“Can you help me understand why you see it that way?”
“What are you most afraid of in all this?”
“What feels at stake for you?”
Even if I still disagree at the end, I will have done something profoundly Christian: treated a person as a person, not a stereotype.
5. No fear-mongering
This one is simple, but not easy:
I will not use fear to motivate other Christians.
Not in my church. Not in my group texts. Not on my social media. Not in private conversations.
I won’t forward the email chain that exists to terrify grandparents. I won’t share the video whose entire point is to make people feel doomed. I won’t baptize anxiety as “discernment.”
If the Spirit of God produces love, joy, peace, and self-control, my political speech shouldn’t sound like the opposite.
“But the stakes are too high…”
At this point, someone usually objects:
“Will, this all sounds nice. But we don’t have the luxury of tone-policing right now. The stakes are too high. The other side is too extreme. We have to fight fire with fire.”
I understand the instinct. I’ve felt it myself.
And to be clear: the issues do matter. Policies shape lives. Some decisions really are more just and more aligned with protecting the vulnerable than others. I’m not saying, “Relax, it’s all the same.”
What I am saying is that this argument quietly assumes that the commands of Jesus are situational. That loving our enemies, refusing to bear false witness, and not being governed by fear are ideals for calm times—principles we can suspend when things get serious.
The truth is exactly the opposite.
It’s precisely when the stakes are high, when we feel threatened and cornered, that our “how” matters the most and reveals the most.
If the only way for Christians to “win” is to ignore the Sermon on the Mount, something has gone deeply wrong. At that point, we’re not defending the faith. We’re defending our tribe.
A better witness in a loud age
I have a friend—I’ll call him Tom—who has strong political opinions. We disagree on more than a few things.
He reads widely. He cares deeply about the direction of the country. But here’s what stands out:
He refuses to share articles he hasn’t read in full.
He never mocks people by name, even when he’s frustrated.
He’s quick to say, “I might be wrong on this,” and actually means it.
If you push back on him, you won’t get sarcasm; you’ll get questions.
I’ve watched people who radically disagree with him walk away from conversations feeling heard, not humiliated.
Tom is not perfect. Neither am I. But he’s one of the people who has convinced me that a different kind of Christian political presence is possible.
Imagine, just for a moment, what it would look like if Christians became known for this kind of politics at scale:
People who are stubbornly honest, even when it hurts their side
People who refuse to dehumanize their opponents, even when everyone else is doing it
People who can say, “I think you’re profoundly wrong on this issue, and I still refuse to despise you”
People whose political speech sounds less like a talk-radio monologue and more like a person who actually believes the fruit of the Spirit matters
That doesn’t mean we all land in the same place on every policy. It does mean that the watching world would see something strange and compelling—a community more animated by love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control than by outrage and fear.
That kind of political presence would be far more interesting than yet another bloc of reliable voters.
A Short Self-Check for Our Political Life
So here’s where I want to land—with a few uncomfortable questions I’m asking myself, and I’d invite you to ask them too:
Who am I becoming because of the way I engage with politics?
Would the people who disagree with me describe me as more like Jesus—or more like their least favorite pundit?
When I talk about politics, do I leave people more fearful, more angry, more numb… or more hopeful and clear-headed?
If someone only knew my faith from the way I post, argue, and vote, what would they conclude about Christianity?
If you want a concrete practice this week, try this:
Pick one political conversation—online or in person—and experiment with changing your “how.” Ask at least one honest, curious question before you make a point. Refuse contempt. Refuse exaggeration. Refuse fear-mongering.
We will disagree on policies. We will argue about candidates and courts and budgets and wars. That’s inevitable.
What isn’t inevitable is becoming harsh, dishonest, and afraid along the way.
The Christian life is not a policy platform. It’s a lifelong process of being formed into the likeness of Christ. If our political engagement is pulling us in the opposite direction, it doesn’t matter how “right” we are.
We’re winning the argument and losing our souls.
Excellently observed and articulated. Our christian community should use remigration back to Mount Sinai to reeducate on the true principals of faith, God, and what it means to show love, grace and live the true principles of Jesus. Thank you, Brother.