Christians and Politics

In a recent Adventist publication, the story is told of the conversion of a family in a European country, over a period of several years, to the Adventist faith. The first two members to come into the church were the mother and the elder daughter. Anush.1

After she decided to be baptized into membership, however, 17-year-old Anush, a student in the local university, began to skip her regular classes held on Saturdays, declaring that her absence was an assertion of her religious liberty. The university notified Anush’s father, himself at the time many years away from a decision for membership, of her statement. “‘If she doesn’t want to go to class, then she doesn’t have to go to class,’ a university administrator told Father, ‘But why does she have to make a big deal about it? She is hurting the university’s reputation.’”2

Her father, furious, forbade Anush from attending church and from begin baptized, which took several years to be resolved—finally at her father’s own baptism.

The issue of religious liberty and of Christians’ role in their culture, in fact, is one that is becoming more a focus of thought even in today’s free societies. It has long been explicitly recognized since the founding fathers of the United States of America, for example, that freedom of religion is a cardinal principle. When religious issues come to the focus of debate, to what extent, if any, should a Christian engage in such a political atmosphere?

The search for freedom of religion, in fact, could be considered one of the central reasons that at least some of the first peoples departed their European homeland to come to this vast continent. My own ninth great grandfather, William Brewster was the spiritual leader of the Puritan group who boarded the Mayflower in the early 17th century. Because of his difference of belief from that of the Church of England, he was declared an outlaw and first co-led a group for several years in Holland. But then, in 1620, they departed Europe for the freedom of North America.

And since that time, the descendants of this people have come to express—have pledged—their allegiance to their “one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.” Along the way, though, there have been times when there has been disagreement over what is meant by this liberty—or this freedom.

To Christians, who look to their reading of Scripture for the promise of “freedom,” there is most often recall of Jesus’ own heroic, echoing words: “‘You shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free’” (John 8:32, NKJV).3 But freedom to which Jesus’ promise was of another kind.

Too many of those to whom Jesus made this statement misunderstood His meaning. They were looking forward to what they considered the prophetic promise of freedom, under the heroic leadership of a messiah, from the empirical domination of Rome. Jesus, however, was offering, not a political liberty, but a freedom from slavery to evil itself.

Of those first 12 followers of Jesus—those whom He personally selected to represent His mission of freedom—they were hardly what may be called a unified body with a single vision of what was needed in the world. All of them were surely hopeful for political change, possibly even of revolution.

““The expectation was that the Messiah would liberate Israel from her enemies and would bring in righteousness and peace. A large number of men in a desert setting would carry with it military overtones of revolt.”4 And Ellen G. White, writing of Jesus’ miracle of the feeding of the 5,000, adds, “If Jesus could perform so many wondrous works as they had witnessed, could He not give health, strength, and riches to all His people, free them from their oppressors, and exalt them to power and honor? The fact that He claimed to be the Sent of God, and yet refused to be Israel’s king, was a mystery which they could not fathom. His refusal was misinterpreted.”5

One of these original 12, who was probably the most extreme, came under the name of Simon the Zealot. The zealots of Jesus’ time were members of a political party who were nothing less than terrorists. In Leonardo da Vinci’s depiction of the Last Supper, Simon the Zealot is believed to be seated only two seats away from Matthew, a quisling. It is surely not possible that they would have been sitting right next to one another. And, further, in da Vinci’s Last Supper, Simon the Zealot is at the very end of the table—to the viewer’s right, and to Jesus’ left. (Political pundits may make of that whatever they will!)

But Scripture offers very little detail in Simon the Zealot’s life. And, though the historical tradition of his mission after Jesus’ ascension reflects a vital and active effort internationally, it suggests not a single representation of what today would be considered political action.

Some have read the account of Jesus’ life in the four Gospels, and, trying to account for His dismaying betrayal by one of His inner circle, suggest that Judas’ leading the arresting body to Gethsemane that awful day, meant it as a desperate political act to force Jesus’ resistance and begin the revolution. The expectation of a coming messiah among the Jewish people certainly harbored such hopes.

But Jesus allowed Himself to be carried into the justice system of the time with other—Divine—intent. There in the court of Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor, asked Him directly: “‘Are You the King of the Jews?’” (Matt. 27:11).

And, though He had maintained His silence in the trial till this moment, Jesus returned, “‘It is as you say’” (vs. 11). But His response carried with it no political assertion. He meant that He was the monarch of a spiritual kingdom. His coming to earth as the prophesied Messiah was to bring spiritual freedom. Never once, in all the three-year ministry of Jesus on this earth, was there ever a suggestion that the Christian who followed Him was to take political action in favor of—or against—any human institution or ideology.

NOTES AND REFERENCES

1. General Conference Office of Adventist Mission, “Sparks Over the Sabbath,” in Thomas Shepard, The Book of Mark, Adult Teachers Sabbath School Bible Study Guide (July–September 2024), 51.

2. Ibid.

3. All Scripture references in this editorial are quoted from the New King James Version of the Bible.

4. Thomas Shepard, 62.

5. The Desire of Ages, 385.