Engaging the Battleground of Contemporary Politics

From LICC website (October 2912)

After watching the recent Presidential debate between Mitt Romney and Barack Obama, I was reminded of Alasdair MacIntyre’s provocative definition of modern politics: ‘civil war by other means’.

MacIntrye’s argument is simple and insightful. Modern society no longer has a shared moral framework on which political debate can take place. Beyond us all agreeing that some things (increasingly few) are bad, we can no longer agree on what is good. Instead, there are many competing understandings of what good looks like.

The problem is this – if there is no shared understanding of the ‘good’, then you cannot win an argument by logically showing that your perspective is better than another. It’s impossible to ‘prove’ that you’re right.

So how, in contemporary politics, do you win?

MacIntyre suggests that the two hallmarks of modern politics are protest and indignation. As you can no longer give a full account of why you believe you’re right, you simply turn the volume up and get angry. In our media-saturated age, ‘turning the volume up’ takes place through out-advertising the opposition. And advertising is not cheap. It’s no coincidence that in the last decade in US congressional elections, the candidate with the most money won over 80% of the time.

If MacIntyre’s analysis is right – and it is a big ‘if’ – how might a Christian engage in politics? Is it just a case of having to ‘play the game’ because the benefits gained by political power outweigh the cost of obtaining it? Should we more effectively mobilise the church to raise funds to lobby for Christian ‘values’ – increasing the volume of our voice in public debate?

James Davison Hunter has recently called for Christian witness in the public square to be one of ‘faithful presence’ – in line with Jeremiah’s call to the exiled people of God in Babylon to ‘seek the peace and prosperity of the city’ (29:7). The goal is not to obtain political power in order to bring a Christian influence. The goal is not ‘winning’, nor even the transformation of culture. It is faithfulness. Hunter recognises that cultural change may, on occasion, be a byproduct of faithfulness – but it is just that, a byproduct. If faithfulness is the goal, then perhaps we don’t have to resort to ‘playing the game’. As a friend once told me, ‘You don’t have to play by their rules if you don’t require their rewards.’



Mark Sampson

Further reading:

Alasdair MacIntyre’s After Virtue: A Study in Moral Theory is a profound account of the crisis of ethics in modernity. It is intriguing that not too long after publishing this, MacIntyre converted to Christianity. See here for an overview of MacIntyre’s political philosophy.

The statistic that over 80% of winning candidates in US congressional elections are those with the most money comes from this article. The most dramatic statistic is that in 2004, when 98% of House seats went to the candidate with the most money.

James Davison Hunter’s To Change the World: The Irony, Tragedy, and Possibility of Christianity in the Late Modern World has changed the dynamics of the conversation about the relationship between Christianity and culture. Though his focus is on the US context, much of it is applicable to the UK.

Nathan Johnson is responsible for the phrase: ‘You don’t have to play by their rules if you don’t require their rewards’. His life – a blend of music, production, art, film-scores, and more – is a vivid example of the innovation and creativity permissioned by this perspective.