Election season is frustrating in a
number of ways—mostly because everyone suddenly becomes a political science
expert and posts their opinions on Facebook. It’s even more frustrating when we
call ourselves politically responsible because we have an opinion or by simply
showing up and casting a vote. But, I wonder if involvement in politics runs
deeper than a vote. Are we only supposed to be cheerleaders for political
parties? Election season also has a
curious and frustrating role within the church.
Sometimes it enhances the number of complaints about what the government
must do to change the world and the church. Other times, the election never makes
it through the front doors; ‘politics have nothing to do with God.’ There is a
dichotomy—political institutions are either the end-all, be-all or
have no significance at all. Surely politics must have a place in the church,
but that conversation cannot be restricted to complaining about current
administrations.
Wesleyan theology has never helped
us much in our conversations about politics. We have never been recognized for
having any distinctive theological language to deal with politics. Theodore Weber’s
book, Politics in the Order of Salvation,
starts to change that deficiency by recovering an important Wesleyan
theological category—the political image of God. In short, our creation in the
political image of God endows us with a rich theological language to talk about
our calling to be political in all realms of our lives. Weber notes that God
has endowed humanity with his own governing image and we have been given the
responsibility to govern the world, just as God governs us. In this light, the
political image is a vocation for humanity to live into—a necessary facet of
the order of salvation—and constituent part of recovering our creation in the
image of God. In order to fully understand the political image, it is important
to expound upon our creation in the image of God because governance is part of
God’s nature and our political image is a derivative of such.
For Wesley, there are three facets
of being created in the image of God: the natural, the moral, and the
political. More specifically, Wesley
draws from Genesis 1:26 “Let us make man in our image, in our likeness.” The natural image refers to the reason of
humanity; that is, humanity’s essence and structure. Wesley writes, “[the natural image is] a
picture of his own immortality, a spiritual being endued with understanding,
free will, and various affections.” The
political image refers to the responsibility and stewardship in which
humanity is God’s representative government on earth. Genesis says, “let them
rule over the flesh of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock,
over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.”
Wesley maintains that all of humanity is the governor of this lower world as
the mediator and representative between God and the ‘inferior creatures.’ Finally, and most importantly, Wesley
maintains that humanity was created in the moral
image of God. The moral image simply refers to humanity’s ability to love
and obey the Father. Wesley writes, “in this image of God was man made. ‘God is
love’: accordingly man at his creation was full of love, which was the sole
principle of all his tempers, thoughts, words, and actions.”
Chiefly, Wesley differentiated
between the natural and moral image of God and left the political image by the
way side. This means that humanity is capable of participating in God (natural
image) and when humanity does, then humanity reaches its proper end (moral
image). Here, we highlight the political
image of God—something that Wesley never thought through. Weber argues that government is an essential
characteristic of nature of the triune God. He writes, “Government as discloses
in human nature as political image is what God does in ordering, preserving,
and developing creation…It is the government at once of Creation, Sustainer,
Redeemer.” Weber never explicitly draws
out how God’s role as governor might subvert our own understanding of what it
means to govern. We can imagine the
consequences: power becomes cruciform; there is care instead of exploitation and
justice instead of injustice. For our
purposes, it is important to highlight that government is not simply an order
of preservation (to keep us all from killing ourselves), but we engage in
government because it is in our calling to do so.
In turn, our political image must mirror the governance of God, if we are created in God's image. Weber continues, “Government is also what
humankind does through its being as agent and steward of God in the ordering,
preserving, and developing of the parts of creation to which human beings have
access.” More simply, the political image endows humanity with
responsibility. It is a vocation that
human beings must live into in order to become more fully like God. If you want to be like God, then through God’s
grace, you must become political. Politics
is not simply about preserving the created order, but it’s about the vocation
of being sanctified. Here, politics become distinctively Wesleyan as it is
drawn into the via salutis, or way of
salvation. Still, the question remains:
how are we to go about being political beings? What does this look like in our
lives and in the church?
If the political image is a
vocation for humanity, then there are some obvious consequences to the way we
live our lives. We must create institutions that enable us to grow into our
vocation of looking more like Jesus Christ. Political institutions should also be
instruments of care that enable the development of humankind, just as God
governs us by caring for us and enabling us to grow into sanctification. Weber
writes, “Political institutions fashioned in the image of God must concern
themselves—in good conscience and with adequate resources—with education, the
needs of the poor, public and private health, the arts, and other matters that
enable the members of the community to fulfill their political vocation of
imaging God.” One obvious, lethargic reaction is to merely elect individuals into
governmental positions to achieve these ends. But involvement in politics is
not simply about having the right to elect the right person—if we are created
in a political image then we cannot simply hand over all of the responsibility
to national governmental institutions through a vote. The political image is a constituent part of
all institutions and individuals. This
means that politics are the responsibility of the family, community, church and
any other group that can influence our political character.
The pragmatic consequences are
endless if politics are the responsibility of all the people.
It’s not just about electing someone with the right healthcare plan;
it’s also about being an individual and communal representative of God’s
concern for the health of God’s children, creatures, and creation. It’s not
just about legitimating legislation to preserve the environment, but it’s also
about preserving creation in our own lives, churches, and communities. It’s not only about changing legislation that
disallows prayer in schools, but it’s about making sure we are actually praying
within our families, too. The point is that politics are the government’s task,
but are also our task. When the vocation
of the political image of God is incorporated into the via salutis, salvation becomes much more than an individual
enterprise. Here we begin to recover holistic salvation—salvation that is not
just for the individual, but re-creation for the entire world.
It is important to emphasize that I
am not trying to downsize the importance of institutional governance. Instead,
I argue that we are called to do so much more than vote and complain. In Wesleyan fashion, we have been given a
huge responsibility. We are each called
to govern the earth by virtue of being human, not because of a political
office. Weber writes, “human beings are
inherently political by reason of their creation and authorization as agents of
God in the governing of the world. They realize their full humanity in part
through the exercise of that agency. They are denied it to the extent that they
are excluded from political participation. They surrender it when they decline
to accept political responsibility.” May we take our vocation seriously and seek
to administer God’s care for the entire earth in all realms of our lives, at
all times, and in all places.
