Avoiding the political illusion

Congress gaveled back in session this week with the dynamics of Washington changed dramatically. John Stonestreet of the Chuck Colson Center for Christian Worldview noted the partisan shift in the U.S. Senate and asked, “What’s next?”

“It’s always a temptation for Christians in America in this time that we live in to fall for what a quirky French theologian Jacques Ellul called ‘the political illusion,’ and that is to basically see all problems as political, therefore all solutions as political,” Stonestreet said. He cautioned conservative Christians not to breathe a sigh of relief just because their party is in office, nor should they panic when it’s not.

“We know that policy can drive culture in some areas,” Stonestreet said. “Most of the time it’s the other way around. Most of the time, culture drives politics. And so it’s much more important what’s happening upstream … in the long run than who’s actually getting the elections.”

Stonestreet set out a list of four questions for Christians to consider how they can effect more change in their communities than Washington can:

Listen to Stonestreet’s answers to those questions and our discussion about them in the “Culture Friday” segment on today’s The World and Everything in It: