In the words of Paul Keating, “Here we go again”.

It’s federal election season and both sides of politics are off and racing; even though polling day is still six months away, the campaign has shifted up a gear.

Christianity and politics endure a rocky relationship.  Both inspire great passion, yet both can be quite divisive – little wonder both are taboo topics of discussion at most dinner parties.

Thousands of Christian writers, communication professionals, political analysts and theologians have strived to work out the most harmonious way for politics and the Christian faith to coexist.

The best they have come up with is ‘very carefully’.

In trying to harmoniously pair these two sensitive areas, it’s necessary to examine the core of each.

In Australia, politics is the ongoing football match between one team that is slightly left of centre socially and economically and another team that is slightly right of centre socially and economically.

Long term governance of a modern market economy is the football they use and the stadium they play in is the known as the ‘Public Arena’.  The game is watched by a range of spectators from rabid fanatics to those with a passing interest.

The games are played over a three to four year period with the winner earning the right to keep the ‘football’ in their ‘cabinet’ for another term.

Christianity is centred on one man; a historical figure who lived during the reign of the Roman Empire in the region known as Galilee.  According to scripture he was God the Son in human form, who allowed himself to be crucified, taking on the punishment ultimately owed by every human for our innate state of rebellious independence from the God who made us.  He was raised from death in a new resurrection body, perfect and whole and returned to the Father to intercede on our behalf and prepare a place for each of us.

As Jesus stands at the centre of our faith, it’s important to ask ‘what was Jesus attitude to politics?’.  While his ‘effect’ on the political landscape was vast, his actual deliberate interaction was fairly dismissive.

In Luke 20:20-26 Jesus was asked by the Pharisees whether or not he supported taxation without adequate representation; the very reason the American colonies went to war with Britain around 1,740 years later.

Instead of giving the Pharisees the political ‘gotcha’ they wanted, he advised them to pay Caesar what they owed him, and more importantly, make sure they were giving God what he was owed.

On the night Jesus was betrayed, one of his followers thought the time had come to exert the most basic political mechanism; challenging the ruling authority through violence – “Lord, should we strike with our swords?” Luke 22:49.

Jesus immediate reaction was to stop the violence and in the next sentence emphasise that he had not come to lead a rebellion.

Why was Jesus so seemingly dismissive of politics?  Jesus mission was not become involved in the political machinations and deliberations of the world.

Jesus mission was, expressed in his own words after seeing Zacchaeus excited reaction to salvation in Luke 19, “…to seek and save what was lost.”

Throughout the New Testament, Christians are admonished to emulate Jesus; Paul’s instructions to Christians in Corinth bear this out in 1 Corinthians 11:1.

So if we are to follow Jesus example, should not our central mission as Christians be to bring glory to God by telling the world about the free gift of salvation?  That Jesus death represented full payment for our wrong doing and his resurrection is a new hope for our future life with Him in eternity?

Yes.

Therefore, should Christians get involved in politics at all?  Of course they should.

Being sanctified by the Holy Spirit; being shown the better way to live by following Jesus, drives us to hold out the hope we have to those who really need it – hope for the oppressed; hope for the prisoner; hope for the poor; hope for the lonely; hope for the addict; and so on.

So often being prepared to speak about the hope we have in Jesus, directly intersects with the political issue of the day.

William Wilberforce found this when his love of Jesus and his understanding of Romans – that no one is righteous and that all men have fallen short of the glory of God – fuelled his fire to abolish the slave trade in England.

Rev Dr Martin Luther King had a similar understanding when he ignited the fire of equality for African Americans in the United States.

Workers for organisations like the Bible League, the International Bible Society, Voice of the Martyrs and others directly flout the political regimes of certain countries by smuggling Bibles across their borders and into the hands of underground churches.

Probably the best example of a Christian organisation whose members are inspired to get involved in a broad range of social issues is the Salvation Army.

There are many worthwhile issues, like combating poverty and caring for the elderly and children that certainly interlace Christianity and politics.

In all this, it’s the ‘why’ that is essential.  Why is it important to share our view as Christians on these issues within the political spectrum?  Because we follow Jesus example of new life and a new hope.

The problem when Christianity and politics entwine begins when we fall into the trap of using our faith as a political ‘trump card’; a ‘moral-high-ground-stamp’ used to win a secular political argument or strengthen a political view.

Using one’s faith in Jesus solely to score a political point can skirt very close to blasphemy and has never gone down well historically.

It’s especially spiritually risky for our Christian leaders to weigh into political debates using faith as the reason for claiming the ‘rightness’ of a particular political argument.

When faith is misused as a political trump card, it can be damaging to the broader Christian witness and also to vulnerable Christians who hear it.

Take the debate on the Federal Government’s carbon tax.

While I think Genesis 2:15 and similar verses give us a clear mandate that we are called to be good stewards of the world God has given us, am I somehow less of a Christian if I believe that the carbon tax is a bad tax?

No.

Conversely, am I a ‘better Christian’ if I think the carbon tax is a brilliant piece of public policy?

No.

It was therefore disturbing to see Anglican Bishop George Browning front the media in Canberra in June 2011, along with leaders from the Jewish, Hindu and Baha’i faiths, to tell Christians that the carbon tax was a ‘moral’ issue not a political one.

“Anglican representative George Browning said the group wanted to assist politicians to create good legislation and the message to Ms Gillard was that the issue was a moral one.

“He said caring for the environment was at the core of all faiths and agreed with former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd that the issue was the greatest moral challenge of our time.” (Sydney Morning Herald 2011)

When I look at Jesus’ mission; when I look at the core of Christianity, I see in Luke 19:9, a little guy leaping for joy because ‘…today salvation has come to this house…’

When I look at the core of Christianity, I certainly do not see a command to join with other gods and pagan faiths to protect our planet from carbon dioxide.

Using Christianity and our Saviour Jesus to prop up a political agenda in this way is wrong and those leaders indulging in it should stop.

Over past decades, Australia has been blessed to have some Godly men and women working for the care and growth of our nation from different political backgrounds; the Hon. Danna Vale; Kerry Bartlett; Alistair Webster; Bruce Baird; and former Deputy Prime Minister the Hon. John Anderson among them.

However in every way, Christians must be very careful to make sure their faith in Jesus inspires their passion on various issues, and is not used as an ‘infallible spiritual bulldozer’ to push others into agreeing with their particular political ideology.

Brad Emery is a writer and former Adviser in the Howard Government.

Inage: flickr_Sam Illic