Politics Without Fear

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Thanks for joining us for Family Policy Matters. Be not afraid. A common admonition in the New Testament, and yet too many Christians let fear govern their engagement with the political arena.

Well, how can we engage without fear in the important work of our society's political discourse and governance? Dr. Brad Littlejohn joins us today to help answer that question. He is President of the Davenant Institute, a fellow in the Ethics and Public Policy Center's Evangelicals in Civic Life program, and recently wrote a piece entitled Resisting the Politics of Fear, which we look forward to discussing today.

Dr. Brad Littlejohn, welcome to Family Policy Matters. Thanks for having me. Happy to be here. So start, if you would, by giving us some examples of the ways you've noticed fear dominating our political discourse in recent times.

Sure. Well, I think you don't have to look very far here in the age of the COVID-19 pandemic to see examples of fear taking hold. Obviously, you can see that in terms of the way people have responded to the virus itself. There's, of course, a very prudent response of seeking to be wise and reduce the risk to yourself and family and friends. But, you know, there's obviously, I think, some people, particularly on the left end of the political spectrum, who have let a kind of irrational fear begin to dominate their response and to the exclusion of all other considerations.

But the interesting thing is that the those on the right side of the political spectrum have often been quick to point this out. And, you know, even using slogans like, you know, we refuse to be dominated by fear, very quickly adopt kind of fear based rhetoric of their own. And it's a, you know, fear of government overreach fear that the virus is being used as a excuse to, you know, curtail our freedoms and so on.

And these are, you know, the interesting thing is, these are all legitimate concerns, the virus is legitimate concern, the response to the virus is legitimate concern. But when we let those concerns morph into fears that sort of dominate our perception and our reactions, we become less and less capable to engage as wise Christian citizens. I think it's important not to be too quick to judge others motives. I think it's easy to look at someone else's response and say, oh, they're obviously dominated by fear.

But you know, you don't necessarily know that you don't know their their situation. But I think it is important to examine our own motives and ask ourselves whether our Christian political engagement is being governed primarily by love or by fear. So you talk about motivation. Why is fear such a powerful motivator, do you think, especially in the political arena? Fear is a very natural kind of basic, instinctual human response. God rightly wired us to be alert to danger, and to react in the face of danger. And there's, you know, there's actual biological impulses of how the body responds in the face of danger.

You know, there's nothing wrong with if you see a car speeding towards you to have a fear impulse and jump out of the way. I think the problem is when we move from fear as a kind of emotional response in the moment to fear as a state of mind. And I think, you know, that really happens from seeking too much to be in control of our surroundings and control of our own lives and control of our reality, such that we are constantly afraid of losing something that we feel like we have a right to. And I think that's a natural human impulse to fear.

But there's also a very fallen human impulse to selfishness and to grasping and to seeking to hold things close instead of resting on God. And when we do that, it's very easy to be fearful of losing them. How do we navigate the difference between appropriate and disproportionate fear?

Any practical suggestions for us on that? I've made the distinction here between love and fear. First John says, I quote this in my piece, perfect love casts out fear. I think it's something interesting to reflect on because as we think about what kinds of things cause us to fear, we might say, well, fear comes out of love.

You know, I give the example of a car speeding towards me in the essay, I give the example, you know, see a car speeding towards your daughter, you're going to fear for her life and you're going to react and try to get her out of the way. So because you love something, you are fearful of harm to it. And extending that because we love our country, we are fearful of harm befalling our country. And so we might say it's appropriate for our politics to be guided by fear.

But I think we need to think about that passage. Perfect love casts out fear. How is it that love is opposed to fear there?

And I think, you know, maybe the answer is in the adjective, right? Perfect love. What is perfect love? Well, perfect love is a rightly ordered love. The Christian tradition, particularly from St. Augustine, has a lot to say about the ordering of our loves, that we should love all good things, we should love our family, our country, our possessions, even so, but we should love everything in relation to God, we should love it in the proper ordering instead of as an end in itself. And therefore, because we love things in relation to God, we recognize that those goods are given to us by God for his purposes, and for his glory. And therefore, that while we should seek to protect those goods, we protect the goods that God's given us in confidence, that he himself is working out his purposes. And so if we feel like some good that we desire to protect is at risk of loss, there's an appropriate concern there.

But that concern should be mitigated by a calm confidence that God is working his purposes out. You're listening to Family Policy Matters, a weekly radio show and podcast of the North Carolina Family Policy Council. This is just one of the many ways NC Family works to educate and inform citizens across North Carolina about policy issues that impact North Carolina families. Our vision is to create a state and nation where God is honored, religious freedom flourishes, families thrive, and life is cherished. For more information about NC Family and how you can help us to achieve this incredible vision for our state and nation, visit our website at ncfamily.org. Again, that's ncfamily.org. And be sure to sign up to receive our email updates, action alerts, and of course, our flagship publication, Family North Carolina Magazine.

We'd also love for you to follow us on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. I think a lot of people would listen to you talking about engaging in politics and you're talking about love, and they would think that's impossible. So how is that not impossible? Part of the problem there is so much of our politics now is consumed with such wide horizons. When we think about politics, we generally think about national politics.

We think in terms of kind of abstractions in terms of these parties and these issues and politicians thousands of miles away and talking heads on TV. We don't think of politics as a form of neighbor love. So I think, you know, one way to re-inject love into our politics is to start local, think local, and see political engagement, first of all, as a form of love of neighbor. And the nice thing about that is when you start doing that, when you're engaging in local politics, then the differences over issues have a face to them, a person that you might know, and you kind of like them, even though you disagree with them. And so from that, you can then extend that and say, you know, maybe if my neighbor who's on the other end of the political spectrum and disagrees with me at city council meetings, maybe if they're still a decent person, then maybe that person in another state who votes in a different way in a presidential election, still a decent person too. And as much as I might be concerned about the impact of the policies that they're advocating, right, I don't want to relativize things like there are serious issues at stake that merit serious concern on the part of Christians. But if that can't be framed within a context of love for our fellow citizens, if it just becomes a way of clinging protectively to our ideals and seeing everyone else as a potential enemy, then we're really going to move beyond politics. And that's, you know, that's we use that language of enemies constantly reference to politics. That's the language of war, really, that's not language of politics.

I think you're right. And your your suggestion to get involved in in local politics, too. What a great idea. Of course, here at the North Carolina Family Policy Council, we really try to explain that as often as possible that, you know, local and state politics is huge and it can even have an effect oftentimes does on national politics.

So it is a good way, good place to start for sure. Now, you you talk about the political fear, you said there like two ends of this. So one would be fear from political leaders, and the other would be clinging to political leaders for safety.

So explain how these are different and what you mean by that. It's fascinating how these two often coexist. It's the people who might be most irrationally consumed by fear of a certain political opposition. I know they're just they're constantly talking about how bad this politician is and how they're going to ruin the country. And then, you know, you turn around and you hear them just constantly extolling how this other political leader is going to be the solution to all this. And we all need to we all need to stand behind this leader and we all need to get on board. I mean, you know, vote this person no matter who doesn't. And then says, well, okay, hang on, you're rightly aware of the harm that can come from bad political leadership.

Okay. And this is a Psalm 20 says, put no confidence in princes. Okay, you've got that part right down, but no confidence princes, but then you, you are putting confidence in princes on the other side. So I think if we have a problem, if our fear is rightly ordered by fear of God, and we recognize that, you know, every four year election cycle is just one tiny blip. It's not even a tiny blip on the scale of eternity. But you know, it's a tiny blip on the scale of Christian history. And so whatever harm can befall us from bad political leadership has to be contextualized within the great story that God is working out and the triumph of his kingdom.

So what does that do? It means that we are neither going to be overly fearful of bad political leadership. And neither are we going to in our fear, turn and cling to other political leaders for protection. We're going to have a healthy skepticism of bad leadership, and a healthy skepticism of good leadership. We recognize there's a difference between good and bad political leadership. But we recognize it's not a difference of Satan versus Jesus. So you also talk in your article about how Christians should possess, quote, a curious calm that characterizes our political engagement. There's this mature calm that isn't unconcerned.

It isn't detached. It's not just, you know, let the world go to hell in a handbasket. But it is saying, in the grand scheme of things, I know, I know that God has worked his purposes out, I know that the kingdom of God will triumph whatever happens here. And so I'm not gonna let it consume me.

And I think, you know, practically one way to cultivate that is anchoring yourself in God's Word and in worship every week. But I would say the other thing is, you know, just don't spend much time don't watch the news. I mean, I, I don't watch news at all. I, I do probably check news on my smartphone more often than I should.

But even there, I use, I use BBC news as my source because I figure anything, anything in American politics that's actually really big news will show up in the British news. But if it's just kind of a tempest in a teapot, they won't bother covering it. And so it's not worth, not worth getting worked up about. So I think we just we are inundated with everything that's wrong with the world 24 seven. And it's so easy to get absorbed in that through TV, your smartphone, your social media feed, and you lose perspective.

And it's impossible to have that, that, that calm confidence, because, because nobody's trying to sell that to you. I mean, none of these media places are telling you, hey, things aren't actually that bad, because that's not the way to get people to tune in, right? The only thing they're telling you is crisis, breaking news. And so we're kept in this constant state of agitation. And so I think we just have to cultivate the discipline of, of unplugging.

We're just about out of time for this week. Before we go, Brad Littlejohn, where can our listeners go to read more about your work and your article, Resisting the Politics of Fear? Yeah, so that article is at the Gospel Coalition, gospelcoalition.com, and just search for that title Resisting the Politics of Fear. And my work more generally, you can find at eppc.org, my organization, the Davina Institute, which is really engaged in attempting to give Christians an appropriate, appropriate historical and theological perspective on their their task as citizens, you know, I'd encourage you to check out the resources from the Davina Institute, which is d-a-v-e-n-a-n-t institute.org.

Great. Dr. Brad Littlejohn, thanks so much for being with us today on Family Policy Matters. You've been listening to Family Policy Matters. We hope you enjoyed the program and plan to tune in again next week. To listen to the show online and to learn more about NC Families' work to inform, encourage and inspire families across North Carolina, go to our website at ncfamily.org. That's ncfamily.org. Thanks again for listening and may God bless you and your family.