Without a doubt, there is such a thing as battle. While some of my friends who follow tenets of other faiths than mine might contest this, I believe battles are real, that there are casualties and that it’s important to find our place in that context.

I hope to write more about this and already have a lot of thoughts floating around.

I recall when the Berlin Wall came crashing down nearly abruptly and the terrible Soviet empire imploded, almost as an afterthought. Some hailed the moment, which one could say ended the Cold War, as a dawn of a new age. A foretaste of a glorious future where democracy would flower everywhere and humanity would finally launch as redeemed.

Well, the battles continue to rage, some as physical wars, some as deep conflicts of will. And, as I briefly touched upon recently in a post entitled, “Sadness,” we are increasingly faced with the traumas of a world and nation divided, polarity increasing its stake in our lives.

I have the luxury today of spending some quiet time indoors as a steady rain pours down outside, to write and read and think.

Earlier this afternoon, I came across an article by someone named Trevin Wax, entitled, “Do We Really Have to Politicize Everything?”  It proved to be fairly short (unlike my ponderous essays!) as he quickly got to the point.

After a brief introduction, he suggest this: “These days, the political realm has begun to infringe upon every other aspect of our common life together: sports, religion, retail, and art. We should resist this development, because this infringement flattens our ability to love our neighbors.”

As readers of these pages know, I grew up in politics. Lived part of my early life as someone who could be called an activist. I envisioned myself having a life with political issues always at the center. I ended up studying and teaching political science and political and economic philosophy. Rewind my life’s tape 40 years and you’d see someone who could not envision a life outside of the political realm. In fact, I still find it difficult, although I no longer view the political as the ultimately essential.

This runs contra to some of the greatest thinkers of the modern age, among them Karl Marx and Friedrich Nietzsche. Interestingly, it also runs contra to many who have no use for causes and/or no real opinion on things beyond the immediate choices in life.

My point is that I am hardwired to pay attention to the political and all of the forces at work that become expressed in political language and behavior. But, at least in the west, in the traditional democracies, something interesting is increasingly at play. Whereas the political has always been the province of the few, while most others largely sat on the sidelines engaged in regular life, we’re seeing a distinct shift. More and more, we are resorting to political lenses through which we view all sorts of things and to political language to express what we believe is right and just. And, as we do this, we devolve into camps of like minded people, new tribes that are strengthened around causes requiring more and deeper commitments. On one level, this is not any kind of new phenomenon. On another level, though, I believe it is.

With that, we return to Mr. Wax’s piece

He says we are witnessing the convergence of two developments. The first, he say, is the lifting up of our consumer voices to the level of religion. He continues,

“In American society, we are more and more inclined to define ourselves by what and how we consume. We no longer buy things to meet our needs, but to become something, or to express who we are.

“Brands are the new religion,” says Douglas Atkin, writing about customer loyalty. People express their own identities through what they buy.

With an endless sea of choices, Skye Jethani says, “individuality is the new conformity.” Choice is a powerful factor in a consumer society, because more choices provide more ways for consumers to demonstrate their uniqueness.”

The second development, he says, is the lifting up of our political views to the level of religion. He continues,

“In American society, we are more likely to see political views as non-negotiable aspects of our true selves. This is why recent research shows families having a harder time with a son or daughter who wants to marry someone from an opposing political party than from a different religion!

In a secular age, people expect faith to stay at the margins of public life. It’s something private, something you can turn to for therapy but not for policy.

But something will take the place of religion as the ultimate loyalty. If not God, then government. If not religion, then politics. If not evangelism, then political activism.

I write about this development in This Is Our Time, because it is one of the most important things to note about our era. Columnist Peggy Noonan gets it right:

‘For more and more Americans, politics has become a religion. People find their meaning in it. They define themselves by their stands. . . . When politics becomes a religion, then simple disagreements become apostasies, heresies. And you know what we do with heretics.'”

Now, I have not taken the time to read his links so I cannot verify the data or explore the background to Mr. Wax’s points more deeply. However, I resonate with the basics.

He then goes on to observe what he terms a “Frightening Convergence.” He says,

“Put those two developments together: (1) the idea that your consumer choices express your identity and (2) the idea that your political views are the essence of who you are. What happens next?”

“Everything gets politicized.

More and more people invest their shopping or entertainment with political significance. Political evangelists believe they are helping their cause by sticking with this brand instead of that one, by boycotting this designer or that retailer because they associate with heretics.

People then look for ways to assert their political righteousness or press for their cause everywhere they can. You signal your virtue by your stances on social media. You show that you belong to the right church (ahem, party) by how you align with the celebrity, or the athlete, or the retailer who affirms your position. You signal your outrage by your boycott of the heretic.”

The author is a Christian and so entitles his summation, the “Gospel Effect.” In his words,

The gospel challenges this convergence. The announcement that a crucified Messiah is the king of the world must lift our eyes and our allegiance to something more ultimate than a policy proposal or a political party. The gospel, of course, has political implications, but it demotes “the political realm” to a lower place.

The gospel also demands that we see in others—even our political opponents—the image of God that dignifies all humanity. Understanding the sacrifice of Jesus for our sin and selfishness should engender a sense of humility in how we engage the world around us.

There’s no question that Christians have often been involved in helping create the two developments we now see converging. We recognize that our choices always have a moral dimension to them. Retail support or boycotts, protests and shows of support are appropriate from time to time.

But surely we must resist the tendency to flatten out the various spheres of life (retail, art, sports, and so on) by subjecting them all to political urgency. Politics is one sphere of life, not the ultimate.

“Not every wave of political enthusiasm deserves the attention of the church,” says British scholar Oliver O’Donovan:

‘The worship that the principalities and powers seek to exact from mankind is a kind of feverish excitement. The first business of the church is to refuse them that worship. There are many times . . . when the most pointed political criticism imaginable is to talk about something else.’

In a world that is increasingly polarized and politicized, we have an opportunity to show by our attitudes and actions a different way. If we, as Christians, don’t show the world that there is something bigger and more important than politics, who will?”(Emphasis mine)

These are his words, not mine. And, while I might quibble a little here and there, I cannot agree more with his statement that politics is one sphere of life, not the ultimate. And, with his concluding paragraph above. And, I return to his earlier statement that the infringement of consumerism/politics flattens our ability to love our neighbors. Surely.

In conclusion, I haven’t really dealt adequately here with how politics and the Gospel collide, nor to the nature of the battle(s) that rage. But, I felt Mr. Wax bit off a nice little chunk to get us started.