Concerned about the future of the Christian right, James Dobson recently addressed the National Religious Broadcasters with the same question he'd asked at the funeral of D. James Kennedy, a founding member of the Moral Majority: “Who will be left to carry the banner when this generation of leaders is gone?”

 

With the Christian Coalition losing power, it seems like a legitimate concern. However, as a conservative of Christian faith who has a great deal of respect for Dobson and who has been published inFocus on the Family magazines, I worry because I hear in Dobson's question the unspoken assumption that American evangelicals must be collectively involved in politics. And cannot be effective without leaders.

 

I worry because Jerry Falwell, one of those high-profile leaders whose recent passing has led in part to Dobson's question, has been credited as saying, "Christians, like slaves and soldiers, ask no questions." (Regardless of the context, or whether it's an Internet myth, the fact that it exists and is widely quoted is a good indication of the perception of Falwell, and by extension, evangelical America.)

 

Are evangelical Americans, then, expected to be a faceless army, led by generals like Falwell? Am I a bad Christian to question this assumption before we recruit the next generation?

 

In answer, I would suggest that the gospel accounts predominately show Jesus as a teacher, not a leader. He questioned religious ideas. He accepted questions about His ideas. We see Him engaged in frequent and often good-humored debate, not frequently giving orders.

 

As for politics, He insisted that He was concerned about the kingdom of heaven, not earth, and pointedly refused to lead His people against their overlords. Yet in rejecting the leadership mantle offered to Him, Jesus showed a great understanding of politics. Especially when it comes to faith.

 

Living in a land where cross-shaped shadows of history's most infamous torture instrument were a constant reminder of Roman rule, Jesus well knew that on the kingdom of earth, power is gained by the sword. He knew, too, the pitfalls of grasping that sword, used so literally in His name during the Crusades, and metaphorically in recent presidential elections through the leverage of votes.

 

Unlike the Moral Majority, Jesus, who knew God best, did not invoke his Father's name to impose moral imperatives on the secular society around Him—Greeks and Romans who lived far more hedonistically and with far less regard for human life than today's Hollywood crowd. Unlike Christian boycotters, Jesus did not expect a secular world to live by biblical standards. The irony is that the institution Jesus did criticize and hold to those standards was the religious establishment that eventually slaughtered Him. Why? For asserting that it had failed God miserably in pursuit of politics and power.

 

Few who argue the divinity of Jesus will dispute that because of Jesus, Western civilization was changed. He transformed society by transforming individuals, not by transforming legislation. He offered hope and inner peace, leaving His followers a simple directive to feed the hungry and clothe the poor, asking them to give love and to accept suffering and sacrifice.

 

In this sense, yes, Jesus was a leader. By example. He rejected the power of the sword for the powerlessness and suffering and sacrifice of the cross. But Jesus and His teachings continue to transform individuals, while Rome is an ancient fallen empire, and the leaders of His day are dust, forgotten except as history lessons.

 

This is not to imply that Christians, as individuals, should remove themselves from the democratic process, in voting or running for office or even in leading groups with a common political cause. But marching beneath a Christian banner begins to set up an exclusionary group—“either you're Christian and you're on our side, or you oppose us, thus you can't be a Christian”—with results readily seen in the polarization of American politics. There are liberal Christians who want to help the poor and fight for justice.

 

The Christian banner hurts effectiveness too. Leaders of Christian coalitions who claim the moral high ground in the name of God are often viewed with the suspicion accorded to an invading crusader, and are correspondingly hampered by this suspicion, no matter how positive or well-intentioned their efforts.

 

The greatest danger in the politicalization of faith would come in the day it might have total success, a danger that America's Founding Fathers foresaw by establishing the separation of church and state. Horrible and godless as a democracy might appear at times to the religious right in America, it is still far more inviting than the reign of the Christian Inquisition or the current Muslim theocracy in Iran.

 

I hope, if leaders are not visible on the horizon as Dobson fears, it's because the best young men and women of the next generation don't want to reduce to a political philosophy something as wonderful and powerful and as mysterious as their faith.

Most of all, I hope that they understand we all need great teachers far more than we need great leaders.

 

Sigmund Brouwer's latest novel is Broken Angel (May 2008, WaterBrook Press). For more information, visit brokenangelsong.com.