Christians on Right and Left Agree; Church Must Push Back Against Trend of Government Cynicism
Despite a 16-day government shutdown, a bumpy roll-out of Obamacare and stagnancy on immigration reform, Christians must fight the urge to be cynical towards the American federal government, say Evangelical leaders from both the left and right.
A poll released earlier this week by the AP-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research reveals the depth of American frustration directed towards those governing their country.
While 42 percent of Americans said they believed that the country's system of democracy "works well but needs some changes," 41 percent said the U.S. "needs a lot of changes." Ten percent said the governance structure "needs to be completely changed."
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More tellingly, 70 percent of Americans said they had "not at all or not very" much confidence in the government's ability to "make progress on important problems facing the country in 2014."
Rob Schwarzwalder, the Senior Vice President at Christian political advocacy group, Family Research Council, said that declining confidence in government should make Christians nervous.
"Integrity, accountability, and transparency are essential to representative self-government," he said in an email statement to The Christian Post. "When they are lost, the people rightly lose confidence in their leaders and the government itself."
Schwarzwalder challenged lawmakers to reflect on the poll numbers and take them seriously.
"It's my hope that this crisis of confidence will inspire current and future office-holders to bring principled and honest leadership to the highest levels of government, and also foster a renewed commitment to the vision of limited government, budgetary restraint, and high personal character provided to us by our Founders," he added.
Jim Wallis, who is President of the progressive Evangelical political advocacy group Sojourners delineated between "healthy skepticism" and cynicism.
"I think that skepticism is a good and healthy thing and even theologically wise. Our theology would make us skeptical of principalities and powers," Wallis told The Christian Post.
"However, cynicism is a spiritually dangerous thing because it becomes a buffer against personal commitment," Wallis told The Christian Post, suggesting that social change movements ultimately die when people become overly contemptuous and distrustful towards them.
"If we think things will never change than that makes us pull back and be less inclined to commit ourselves to change or especially to take risks for change because we become cynical about things that we are changing. The only thing that ever changes the world is personal commitments," said Wallis.
Wallis specifically encouraged the Millenial generation, which he described as often being cynical about "political, religious and economic institutions," to nevertheless embrace politics as a means to change.
Pointing to human trafficking, an issue that has mobilized thousands of Evangelical Millennials, as an example, Wallis said it was insufficient to only address its symptoms, and that part of the systematic change needed required change to be made at the legislative and governance level.
"If you just rescue the victims of it from situations of oppression…but if you're not dealing with the causes…you will have a lot to do for a long time," said Wallis.
"I'm not who thinks everything is politics. I don't think that at all. It requires personal commitment to change the world, our lives, our families, our neighborhoods, our communities. But finally in the end it normally requires some change in what we call politics and that's why we have to be involved," he added.
The AP-NORC Center poll administered its poll online from Dec. 12-16 among a random national sample of 1,141 adults. Its margin of error was plus or minus 3.7 percentage points.
