As another election season wraps up in the United States, churches across the nation find themselves grappling with an increasingly familiar challenge: how to stay grounded in Christ and maintain unity across a deeply polarized political landscape. In a recent episode of the Pivot Podcast, Dr. Joel Lawrence, president of the Center for Pastor Theologians, offers a fresh perspective on this pressing issue, introducing the concept of “Sabbath politics” as a way to reimagine the church’s role in our divided world.
“Politics is the new religion,” Joel says. “In a culture in which religious engagement, at least institutionally, has declined and all kinds of energies for identity, belonging, purity and transcendence are being channeled into politics.” This reality sets the stage for a deep dive into how churches can navigate these turbulent waters faithfully.
Rediscovering Ecclesial Identity
Joel emphasizes the urgent need for churches to rediscover their ecclesial identity. He argues that many churches have borrowed their social identity from the culture around them, leading to a church that often mirrors the cultural and political divisions of society rather than offering a distinct, Christ-centered alternative.
“We just don’t know what it means to be the church in some real fundamental ways,” Joel explains. “It’s no wonder that the church is divided culturally and polarized politically in the way that the culture is because we’ve taken on the culture’s vision of society.”
The result of this borrowed identity is a loss of the church’s distinctive voice and witness. Instead of offering an alternative vision of community shaped by the gospel and the kingdom of God, churches find themselves reacting defensively to cultural changes and mirroring societal divisions.
To address this, Joel suggests that pastors need to turn much of their work into “an ecclesiology course.” This means consistently teaching and reinforcing what it means to be the church, distinct from the surrounding culture. It involves helping congregations reimagine their social and political engagement through a uniquely Christian lens, grounded in the values of God’s kingdom rather than state power structures.
“So much of what we need to be doing today is teaching the church what it means to be the church,” Joel says. “We have to deprogram what has come in that is shaping our identity in ways that have us captured to the political pattern of the age.”
Embracing Sabbath Politics
Central to Joel’s vision for the church’s engagement with politics is the concept of “Sabbath politics.” This idea emerged from his study of the creation narrative in Genesis, where he saw Sabbath as the primary political vision of the scriptures.
“Sabbath is a vision [of society] in which our life is ordered with God and with our neighbor,” Joel explains. “Sabbath was intended to be the reality for all of eternity. There would be political and economic structures, but they would be just. They would be structures that contribute to the flourishing of human life in our life with God and neighbor.”
This Sabbath vision, Joel argues, offers a radically different posture for political engagement. Instead of seeking to seize control or protect our own interests, it calls us to trust in God’s rule and to orient our political engagement around fostering just and peaceful relationships with our neighbors.
Shifting from Control to Trust
One of the most challenging aspects of embracing Sabbath politics is the shift from a posture of control to one of trust in God’s rule. Joel observes that many in the American church have been operating with a “desire to control” and “that instinct to try to seize power in order to protect ourselves, in order to provide power for ourselves, and in order to build up defenses to protect what we value.”
In contrast, the Sabbath posture calls us to follow in the way of Jesus, “laying down our lives for others, of truly loving our neighbors.” This shift requires a deep repentance and reorientation of our political imagination.
Learning from Bonhoeffer
Joel, a scholar of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, draws parallels between the challenges facing the American church today and those faced by the German church in the 1930s. He points out that Bonhoeffer’s primary concern was not with the ethical dilemmas of the 1940s, but with the church’s failure to resist the ideological capture of the 1930s.
“What Bonhoeffer locked into pretty early was his deep concern that the vast majority of the leaders in the church and the churches in Germany were taking this either pro-Nazi or resisting out of a defensive posture to protect their own power and the church’s place in society,” Joel says.
Joel suggests that today’s church must resist ideological capture and rediscover a distinctly Christian political imagination in which we lay down our lives for our neighbors rather than simply defending our own interests.
Practical Steps for Church Leaders
For church leaders seeking to foster unity and faithful discipleship in these divisive times, Joel offers several practical suggestions:
- Self-examination: Leaders should start by examining their own hearts, asking, “What am I really trusting in? Where are my fears and anxieties coming from?”
- Create spaces for dialogue: Foster conversations that go deeper than partisan politics, exploring core questions of ecclesiology and salvation.
- Patient, long-term discipleship: Recognize that there are no quick fixes or easy programs. Instead, commit to the long, challenging work of discipling congregations into a renewed ecclesial vision.
- Embrace new forms of engagement: Be open to new ways the Spirit might be leading the church to influence culture, even if it means losing traditional forms of political power.
Hope for the Future
Despite the challenges facing the church, Joel remains hopeful. His hope is not in an easy reset or quick solution to our cultural divisions, but in “the pattern of the Holy Spirit, who works in these kinds of times of disintegration to build new things and to bring new things to life.”
He sees signs of hope in conversations with pastors who are “deeply concerned for their congregations and they’re wanting to shepherd their congregations towards a new experience of the Spirit, a new living reality of the gospel.” These leaders recognize the need for repentance and are longing for God to do something beyond their own abilities.
As we navigate the turbulent waters of another election, Joel’s vision of Sabbath politics offers a compelling alternative to the polarization and anxiety that often characterize our political engagement. By rediscovering our ecclesial identity, embracing a posture of trust rather than control, and committing to the long work of discipleship, churches can become beacons of hope and reconciliation in our divided world.
The path ahead may not be easy, but as Joel reminds us, we can have confidence in the work of the Spirit, who has consistently led the church through times of disintegration to new and vibrant expressions of faith. As we seek to be faithful disciples in this challenging season, may we have the courage to embrace this Sabbath vision and trust in God’s ongoing work of renewal.
