What Does Proactive Political Discipleship Look Like in the Local Church?

MarsCast - Political Exhaustion and the Church, Episode 3

Jared: Welcome back to MarsCast. I'm Jared Luttjeboer, and this is episode three of our series on political exhaustion and the church.

Last time we explored the theological roots of political exhaustion and examined how misplaced hope creates political anxiety, how the Reformed tradition offers resources for healthier engagement, and the range of responses Christians are adopting in our current moment.

We're going to get a little more practical in this episode and address the question: What does proactive political discipleship look like in the local church?

Back with me is Dr. Alan Strange, president of Mid-America Reformed Seminary. Dr. Strange, welcome back.

Dr. Strange: Thanks so much, Jared. Again, a pleasure to be with you and our wonderful listeners. We do appreciate all of you very much — your support, your prayers, your gifts, your interest in and use of these podcasts. Because we want to minister — we truly want to minister — to be salt and light in this very dark and needy world.

Proactive Formation Before the Crisis Arrives

Jared: I'd like to start this particular episode with talking about proactive formation. You had mentioned in the first episode in this series that you're teaching an evening class right now on "The Christian and Politics" while these episodes are airing, which suggests you believe churches should be doing this work during ordinary times — not just during election seasons.

Now, I understand we are in an election year here in 2026. Midterms are coming up. But I do want to pick your brain on what proactive political discipleship looks like before things get heated, even in election years. How can churches form people's political imaginations — if we can call it that — during non-election years, so that they're not starting from scratch every four years when tensions are already high, and everyone's already entrenched? What would you have to say about that?

Dr. Strange: Well, let's recall what we said in the previous episode: that the church as the church — and this is what I was addressing under the rubric of something like the spiritual mission of the church, or the spirituality of the church — the church is not called to be political in the sense that it sets forth detailed views or policies on that which would divide good men and women of the same creeds and confessions. Good men and women of the same creeds and confessions may differ on gun control policy and immigration policy.

And you may say, well, you've said that before — but it can't be said enough, because there's this assumption out there that there is a distinctly Christian, biblical position about every political issue. And that's simply not the case. That's not to say faith doesn't apply to all of life. That's not to say the Bible doesn't give us principles that we're always wrestling with and saying, how does this properly instantiate politically? But the notion that the details of what I think gun policy should be, what I think immigration policy should be, other good Christians, other good Reformed Christians, may differ.

We have really got to get this in mind. We've got to get Romans 14 in mind — that we can differ about things. There is a body of difference that we can have.

Don't Smash Politics and the Gospel Together

Dr. Strange: And this also, I think, is really important: we don't need an approach that smashes particular political views together with the gospel, as if they all make up one big package called "the Christian faith" — on the right or on the left. Many do this. The left certainly does it. I mean, a prominent Chicago minister has just died who was a renowned minister and civil rights movement leader. And that minister never made any sort of distinction between what he did as a preacher — preaching the gospel — and all of his political views. They were one and the same.

And we must not do that in our churches. We must not make these things one and the same on the right. Many do this with MAGA and the gospel. They'll take a MAGA position on gun control, on immigration, and say, "This is what Christians believe." No. You can hold different MAGA views of various sorts. We have to look at everything separately and in detail — but don't think that the gospel dictates all the details of the policies of MAGA or anything else. This is to idolize particular political programs. We should not do that.

Citizens of Heaven First

Dr. Strange: We need not identify, even as Christians — though we may, beyond the fact that we're Reformed or Presbyterian or whatever it is we are — we should remember: even if we work as Christians in the political profession, if we're politicians, that's our job. We're first and foremost Christians.

So no matter what job we have — if we're a doctor, a lawyer, a mechanic, a baker — if we're a believer, we're a believer first of all. Our first loyalty is as citizens of heaven. We are citizens of the United States, citizens of Canada, citizens of so many places. We have supporters who are citizens throughout the world of Mid-America, and we're very happy for that. But what we have in common is greater than what divides us.

I, as an American Christian, have more in common — in an ultimate sense — with a Chinese Christian, a Russian Christian, a Korean Christian than I do with other Americans who are not believers.

Now, Stephen Wolfe and Christian nationalism take great issue with this. I understand all the kind of commonalities — I understand there's a lot of commonality I have as an American with other Americans, whether they're Christians or not. And it would be true for Chinese Christians, and so there would be. But what's ultimate is that we belong to God in Christ. What's ultimate is that we can say that first question of the Heidelberg Catechism — that gives us the deepest relationship.

And one of the problems with a lot of Christian nationalism is that it misses that. It makes the natural relationships more important. But Jesus says even about natural relationships — I was just reading this morning in Mark, and they're saying, "Jesus, here's your father, mother, here's your brothers." And he says, "Who is my mother? He who believes, he who follows after me." He puts discipleship above just that. And that's very key for the Christian faith, and it always has to be kept in mind.

So even if we work in the political profession, we're first and foremost Christians, and we should always seek to bring that ethos to every situation. Only we can bring that.

God gives common grace into the common ventures of all mankind. But the truth is, so often it's suppressed. Unbelievers suppress the truth. And we bring to our jobs, to our neighborhoods, to our political party what only we can bring — what only, as I mentioned earlier, John Cruse's book, Paradox People, describes. We're paradox people, and only we can bring this into the situation. We need that witness brought to every situation all the time. And it's a sweet aroma — though it's an aroma of death to those who reject the light and want not salt, but instability. We bring this, and that's really what we should be focusing on. What do we bring to an equation? We bring a distinctly Christian witness.

Resources Pastors Need — But Often Don't Have

Jared: I'd like to talk about some of the resources that pastors need, but often don't have. I think most seminary training doesn't prepare pastors to help their people think through ballot measures, workplace political tensions, or how to engage on social media without destroying their Christian witness. These are the everyday political decisions our people face. But many pastors feel ill-equipped to offer guidance beyond, "Just pray about it" or "Vote your conscience."

What sort of resources from church history, confessional documents, or even the broader theological tradition should pastors be drawing on to equip their people for these everyday political decisions?

Dr. Strange: Well, many of us who are church historians, of course, have written about these things. Let me cite Carl Trueman.

Trueman, in his excellent book, The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self — or the shorter version, Strange New World — takes a hard look, as a historian, at the world of today. He looks at our LGBTQ+ culture: How did we get this? How did we get what he calls expressive individualism? How have we come into this? Carl looks at the roots of that, and he's mostly diagnosing it. He raises the questions of what we're to do in the face of all this — what Douglas Wilson likes to call "clown world." And the world in which we live has much of that. Carl looks at it unflinchingly. He doesn't say things are not really bad. No, he sees the badness of it.

I do raise these questions in my review of his book — from the Mid-America Journal of Theology, 2021. Carl Trueman is talking about how far things have gone. And I say: only time will tell how widespread our current mania is, and how truly deep. You might guess that many are parroting certain things they don't believe, and that the house of cards may come down. And it's interesting that a lot of what was really being strongly expressed in 2019 and 2020 has come to be even things like biological males in women's sports. There's a high percentage of people across the board who understand the problem and the absurdity of that. So there's that reality.

What Trueman Recommends — And What the Church Can Offer

Dr. Strange: And Trueman makes some suggestions at the end of his book. He urges, when asking what do we do about this terrible situation, the church to note the connection between aesthetics and core beliefs and practice, and to be a real, embodied community. I think that's right. Particularly, one of the things that really afflicts us as a society is loneliness. People are terribly lonely. And if the church can't be a proper antidote to that — the faithful community that it is — then we need to look at that.

Our conference coming up in October is going to be addressing that: how do our churches not only bring people in, but really enfold them into the life of the church? This is important stuff, and we want to address it.

And he says Protestants need to recover natural law in a proper way and to have a high view of the physical body. And he concludes by saying that a lot of what may be sought as precedent for these times is maybe looking back to the second century church, which was, I quote him, "a marginal sect within a dominant pluralist society."

Walking by Faith, Not by Fear

Dr. Strange: So he looks back to that, and I would say — again, I want to bring that note of hope. I think of what Jeremiah 29 says: "I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil." This was Israel in exile, and certainly it refers to us as we labor in this world and wait for Christ to return. "My plans for you are not for evil, but to give you a future and a hope."

We have, as Christians, a future and a hope. And this is what we ought to be telling a hopeless world: you want hope? You want to understand that the future is certain in him? It certainly doesn't look that way by sight now. But we walk by faith, and we know that he will complete in us, his church, the good work that he has earlier begun. He will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ — Philippians 1:6. The church is always called to this and not to give way to fear.

And that's a lot of what we're talking about in this series — perhaps more than anything else. The call of the hour for those of us in Christ is to walk not in fear as dangers accumulate, but in faith, as we look to our faithful Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

Competing with the Algorithm

Jared: I think a group of people who really need to hear what you're talking about are a lot of young Christians — and increasingly older ones too, of course. But young Christians today are forming their political identities through social media, podcasts, YouTube channels, and political influencers. And they're absorbing, often, theological frameworks their pastors would find deeply problematic. But these sources are immediate and emotionally satisfying in ways that a 30-minute sermon on civic virtue simply isn't.

So how can the church offer a more compelling political formation than the algorithm of X, for example, could ever provide?

Dr. Strange: Well, back to Trueman. Carl, to my rescue.

Here's a question, as we consider what Carl illumines from recent centuries that show how bad things have gotten societally. Does the Christian faith need the world to prop it up, or to help it propagate the truth? Well, it didn't when it was a persecuted minority sect, as Carl was talking about. It never needs the world to help it.

The solution for the church, in fact, is to not seek to ape the world. Israel famously did this. Israel would look at the nations and complain to the Lord: "Why can't we be like the nations? Why can't we have a king like the nations?" — when we know that God intended to give them a king in his time and in his way, a king after his own heart. But they wanted a king after their own heart, and he gave them Saul. And how did that work out? We could say: no, it doesn't work well.

And that's what we see a lot in these political desires. We want to play the world's game on the world's terms. We want to beat them on their own terms. They're nasty and throw down, and all that — and we as Christians want to be nasty and throw down. However, we are never called in any sphere or in any place we go not to be Christians. We're always called very distinctly to be Christians, and to turn the other cheek and to give away our cloak. This is what the Sermon on the Mount was about. This is how we're to live — as Ferguson said, kingdom life in a fallen world.

More consistent Christian living is the only hope for the church in the world. That's what we're to do. We're not to be like Israel, wanting to ape the nations, but to realize what we have in Christ and to live in light of that. The church needs revival and renewal. And as Martyn Lloyd-Jones said — I love to quote this — the church does the world the least good when it seeks to be most like it.

Looking Ahead

Jared: It becomes obvious that political discipleship can't be reactive. Churches that wait until election season to address politics will always be playing catch-up and exhausted. Christians need proactive formation that happens long before the crisis moments arrive.

In our final episode in this series, we're going to zoom out to the long view. We're going to explore how Christians can sustain faithful presence across decades rather than just news cycles — what historical perspective can offer in moments that feel uniquely catastrophic, and what sustainable rhythms of political engagement actually look like for ordinary believers who are genuinely exhausted.

If you found this episode helpful, share it with your consistory, your congregation, or anyone interested in faithful political discipleship. This has been MarsCast, the official podcast of Mid-America Reformed Seminary. I'm Jared Luttjeboer. Thank you for listening. I'll catch you next time.