Spiritual formation for political engagement

It’s an election year in America. Oh, you knew that already? How could we forget it? It’s ubiquitous. As we get closer to November, things are obviously going to heat up—among the candidates and their surrogates on our screens, among friends and family members, perhaps even among church members, on group chats, and, of course, on the badlands of social media. So, what are Christians to think and do about our crucially important civic responsibilities and the passions they elicit?

This column isn’t going to be about political calculations, policy prescriptions, or commentary on the latest headline. As a theologian and minister, my chief concern is with my own soul and the souls of those over whom I have spiritual influence. So, instead, this is a column about the kind of spiritual formation that is prerequisite to virtuous political engagement. How do we become the kind of people who can engage in politics without losing our souls, without losing connection with our very selves?

I begin with an affirmation of the goodness and necessity of an active life. Christians must pray, but prayer does not excuse inaction. The private exercises of the soul are never for ourselves alone; they are always for the sake of others. A contemplative life must issue forth in an active life. This is as true in politics as it is in any other arena of human existence. Exercising our civic responsibilities is one of the important ends of moral formation. Quietism is a failure of Christian discipleship. It is fundamentally a failure to love, a failure to affirm the goodness and dignity of our fellow man.

But the contemplative life and the active life are mutually reinforcing. An inactive mystic becomes self-focused and eventually self-absorbed. A prayerless politician becomes self-sufficient and eventually self-aggrandizing. So, contemplation and action must go together. Someone once asked the biblical theologian, Brevard Childs, how to become a better interpreter of Scripture. His reply could just as easily be applied to the question of how to become a better citizen: become a deeper person. The key to engaging the political order in ways honoring to God is giving careful attention to the inner life.

The link between contemplation and action is what the Christian spiritual tradition has called “consideration.” Consideration has to do with self-examination. It invites the Christian to a life intentionally positioned under the benevolent rule of God, in which the demands of virtue are held in creative tension. According to Bernard of Clairvaux, the considered life involves a diligent investigation into one’s own soul, its relationships with others, and supremely its relationship with God. If contemplation involves rest and action involves labor, consideration involves study. This kind of self-study is crucial for right action in the world. As Bernard puts it, “If a man is bad to himself, to whom is he good?”

In short, how you care for your own soul in the presence of God will determine how faithfully you live out your political and civic responsibilities. An unconsidered soul will either be cowardly or rash; a considered soul will take the narrow path of fortitude, governed by prudence, oriented toward justice, and restrained by temperance. So, before you engage in that political debate or hit send on that text or social media post, let me invite you to a few time-honored spiritual disciplines to illuminate the path of virtue.

• Seek solitude for the sake of social engagement. Be alone with God before you engage (even virtually) with others. Flee to your own desert place and seek God in solitude (Mark 1:35, 45). Remember Pascal’s warning: “I have often said that the sole cause of our unhappiness is that we do not know how to stay quietly in our room.”
• Seek silence for the sake of prudent speech. To achieve external silence is difficult enough in our noise-making world, but to find internal silence is a pearl of great price. Bonaventure recommends a rule that is much needed in our own loquacious society: “To speak seldom, and then but briefly, prevents sin.” Show me a man who spends his days quarreling on Twitter, who cannot resist the urge to weigh in on every controversy, and I will show you a man who is spiritually unwell.
• Pray for the sake of spiritual power. Our campaigns, our votes, our volunteer hours, and our public witness are all important. But only when joined with the power and grace of God will they be lastingly effective. The principalities must be met with prayer. “This kind goeth not out but by prayer and fasting” (Matthew 17:21). If you want to see our society liberated from evil and injustice, pray.

So, as our political debates heat up over the coming months, consider consideration. Examine your life before God. Before you engage, be silent and pray. Mere outrage becomes white noise. Only carefully considered words and actions that stem from a carefully considered life will produce lasting change.