Recovering Our Political Image

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.