The last several years have seen a plethora of books published concerning the church and political involvement. While I haven’t done a detailed study of the number of books published annually in the field of political theology, it seems to this casual observer that the quantity each year is increasing. Some people have long held that politics have no place in the church. Others point out that Christianity itself is a politic, in that it addresses how human beings should best organize their shared lives and communities.

Dr. Michael L. Brown is no stranger to addressing politics from a biblical standpoint. In 2022, he entered the political realm once again with the book The Political Seduction of the Church. In fourteen chapters spanning 265 pages, he discusses Christian involvement in the January 6 storming of the Capitol in Washington, D.C., false prophecies concerning the 2020 election, and Christian nationalism, among other pertinent topics.

In the second chapter of the book, Brown makes it clear that the church of Jesus is transcendent; it goes beyond boundaries human beings tend to use to dive people, such as ethnicity, language, nationality, or political affiliation. He takes the Apostle Paul’s instructions in 1 Corinthians 6 concerning not joining the members of Christ’s body to a prostitute, and makes a point concerning not joining ourselves to anything that is unclean and defiling, which could include political activity when engaged in according to the world’s standards instead of God’s. When it comes to political activism, Brown writes:

Unfortunately, we often lose our way here, joining ourselves to the spirit of the age, becoming as partisan as the political system and as nasty (and childish) as the worst attack ads. We gleefully repost all kinds of mocking memes and loudly castigate those who differ with us—even our fellow Christians—insulting them in the basest of ways. And we do this, we claim, because God has emboldened us, because we are full of the Spirit, because we will not back down. What a deception. What a severe degrading of our holy calling. What a pathetic compromise. In reality, when we, God’s people, fight primarily with political or worldly weapons, we forfeit our supernatural strength. (pp. 25-26, italics mine)

In chapter four, Brown discusses the subtlety of seduction. Just as an extramarital affair rarely happens overnight, but comes about as a result of small compromises here and there, so too spiritual seduction is an incremental process. Brown writes, “We have lost our will to resist, or, perhaps worse still, we don’t even realize that we need to resist.” The promises of political protection of our interests, along with the offer to have a seat at the table of power, slowly convince us to overlook the faults and foibles of those making the offer to us, until we are firmly entangled in the sticky web and find it difficult, if not impossible, to extricate ourselves. Christians got behind Trump because he “was willing to put himself in harm’s way for their sake. He was willing to challenge the lying media….He was willing to confront the radical leftists who wanted to disfigure our nation….So what if he lied. So what if he was nasty in the process. So what if he created deeper divisions along the way” (p. 49). Notice the irony: Christians embraced someone they knew was a liar to confront the lying media. Yet Christians should know that one cannot fight the devil using the devil’s tactics. Brown goes on to call out the idolatrous nature of the dedication to Trump exhibited by many:

In the end, we even began to mirror Trump in our own attitudes and words, acting in ways that we would have deplored just years or even months before, ways that were in violation of our faith and morals. We, too, engaged in mockery and name-calling. We, too, savaged those who rejected Trump’s leadership. We even questioned the spirituality of those who could not vote for Trump, as if they were being disloyal to God. And ultimately we took on some of Trump’s most unchristian characteristics, just as Psalm 115 declares that those who worship idols become like the idols they worship. (p. 52)

But more liberal-minded Christians don’t escape scrutiny. Brown points out that, just as many conservative believers justified their hateful words and actions because their opponents were “the godless Left,” many professing Christians on the Left likewise justified their own words and actions toward fellow Christians on the Right by reasoning that Trump—and anyone who voted for him—were so bad they didn’t deserve the basic respect due to all those made in God’s image.

Dr. Brown goes on in chapter five to point out that idolatry, just like seduction, is very subtle. While many Christians bristle at the suggestion that their political activism has become idolatrous, their sense of despair and impending doom when their preferred candidate loses—or, in some cases, their unwillingness to admit he or she lost—reveals that things have actually arrived at the point of idolatry. Brown reminds his readers that idolatry does not always involve a complete denial of the God of Israel, but “attributing to others what should only be attributed to Him” (75). Looking to anything or anyone other than God to provide what only God can rightfully provide is the essence of idolatry.

In chapters seven and eight, the book gets into perhaps the issue most closely related to the Pentecostal/Charismatic movement: the prophets who missed it in regard to the 2000 election. Brown here includes extended quotes from the political prophets’ YouTube videos, newsletters, and web sites. When their predictions of a second consecutive term for President Trump went bust, many of those who had claimed direct revelation from God doubled down, rather than admit they had mistaken their own thoughts and desires for the voice of the Lord. This insistent denial struck me as analogous to proponents of the health and wealth gospel who refuse to admit they are ill, for fear of making a “negative confession.” Brown gives an extensive analysis of possible causes for so many missed prophecies, some of which basically amount to spiritual peer pressure: if someone you believe genuinely hears from God says that Trump will be re-elected (or reinstated, as the case may be), and you know your followers like Trump and expect you to hear from God, it’s a short walk to allow your own desires (and ministry standing) to push you to make a similar proclamation. “They assumed that, as prophets, they should know the future. And that assumption led to presumption since the Lord had clearly not revealed these things to them” (125).

Chapter eleven deals with healthy and unhealthy mixtures of politics and religion. It is healthy for believers to become politically involved by attending local council and school board meetings, advocating for biblical views on issues, and even running for office at the local, state, and national levels. The mixture of religion and politics becomes unhealthy, however, when political expediency, and compromising principles for the sake of gaining or maintaining power, cause politics to become the dominating influence, dimming the light of truth. The American church needs to remember that Jesus does not need the political system to advance His kingdom; the church is growing by leaps and bounds in places like China and Iran, where the governmental systems are overtly opposed to and oppressing Christians.

In the thirteenth chapter, Brown discusses Christian nationalism and some of the violent tendencies that have arisen in some sectors of the church. He advises against embracing the term “Christian nationalism,” in part because God has not called political nation states to do the work of the church. Chapter fourteen provides a summary of how Christians failed the test when it comes to the seduction of political power, and how we can learn from our past mistakes in this area. We must focus more on the unity we have around King Jesus than we do on the differences of opinion regarding policies and partisanship. We must seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, instead of seeking the power of worldly kingdoms. And even when we do get involved in politics, we must do everything in a Christian spirit of love and respect, even when we differ.

Perhaps the problems we are seeing with partisan politics dividing the church of Christ today stem from the church’s past failure to disciple believers in how to address political issues faithfully in accordance with the Scriptures, leaving the sheep to get their political formation from talk radio and cable news. Human beings are political creatures; if the church doesn’t teach them how to deal with political issues with compassion while maintaining biblical convictions, they will find instruction elsewhere, and that instruction will likely follow the ways of the world rather than the way of King Jesus.

Reviewed by Brain Roden

Editor’s note: Much has happened since Professor King wrote this article in March 2000. The principles he outlines, however, are as applicable today as when it was first published on the Pneuma Foundation website.

Public leadership has greatly diminished in societal value, primarily because it is based less upon moral and religious foundations of civil society, and more upon political expediency of policy issues. Institutionalized civil leadership has suffered because many public leaders, even within the highest elected offices of the nation, have all but abdicated social responsibility and moral rectitude in favor of political advantage and personal gain. When this occurs—and it has happened many times over the course of human events—political crises inevitably result, and the consequences generally rock the foundations of civil society. Today more than ever moral leadership is captured within the tantalizing grip of political seduction.

Political crises are not new. Starting at the infancy of the United States there was the XYZ Affair of 1798 (which eventually led to an undeclared naval war between France and the United States), Ben Franklin’s bastard children, whom he sired while serving as ambassador to France, the alleged sex scandal involving Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings, one of Jefferson’s slaves, who gave birth to a son, Easton Hemings, the Whiskey Ring, a national internal revenue scandal revealed in 1875, the infamous Teapot Dome scandal of the 1920s, the graft and corruption of New York’s Tammany Hall, John F. Kennedy’s many sexual affairs, Richard Nixon’s Watergate, Reagan’s Irangate, and the various and diverse escapades of Bill Clinton—all should serve notice that political life is full of the sordid and dastardly deeds of historical politicos. Indeed, it seems a perpetual truism that persons of political power and influence have always engaged in actions speaking less of moral character and more of political expediency, even leaders as diverse as Louis XIV, Henry VIII, or Julius Caesar. Bearing all this in mind, let us examine what the Bible has to say about political scandal or crisis, public or private revelation of the scandal, the eventual political fallout, and the hard lessons to be learned.

One hallmark of the Bible is that it paints its heroes with brutally honest strokes. Nothing is held back. In a style that is most often painfully abrupt, it neither minces words nor waxes eloquent about its protagonists, but presents them with all the faults and foibles inherent in the human condition. Take, for example, the Biblical character David, the archetypal king and Messianic prototype. Scripture makes no apology for depicting not only his triumphs but also his dark side. Yet the Bible goes on to call him “a man after God’s own heart.” To be sure, the Biblical David was a fundamentally flawed, occasionally pathetic individual who vacillated between lust, megalomania, mental instability, and eventually personal misery. David is a case study in the socio-religious and political consequences of serious weakness of character and faulty judgment, as well as an example of a truly repentant leader, who suffered through the severe personal, social, and political problems resulting from his commission of sin.

King David—as do most, if not all, political leaders—exhibited a roller coaster range of emotions, particularly during difficult times of political decision making including, sharp and zealous anger at the Philistines for laughing at the sacredness of God in the form of the Ark, and at his fellow Israelites for wallowing in fear at the sight of Goliath; humility while being anointed by Samuel as king; and lust in his adulterous relationship with Bathsheba. He later shed tears over the death of Absalom, a deceitful son who nearly succeeded in seizing the kingship from him, but did nothing to avenge the rape of his daughter, Tamar. Too often, historians portray a one-sided David: either exceptionally spiritual, God-fearing, and humble—which he was—or a power hungry Machiavellian antagonist who used any measure, draconian or otherwise, to achieve his military and political successes, and was a man given to deceit, lying, and fulfilling his sexual passion—which he did as well. Neither extreme is entirely accurate, but both describe the human aspects of David, and of many other modern public officials. And both aid us in extracting from David’s character those traits that best depict the genuine composite of his person.

This essay will illustrate a leader who was both a man and a king; the honor and prestige of the latter was susceptible to the avarices of the former, including the events leading up to and going beyond the adulterous affair with Bathsheba (henceforth known as ‘Bathshebagate’). Bathshebagate represents a direct and telling crisis both in his “personal” as well as his “public” life, in which the inability or unwillingness to control his actions in the “personal” realm ultimately unleashed a torrent of problems upon David in the “public” environment. The same story—that of the pompous elected “king” abusing and misusing his political authority—has been retold many times, in various and sometimes differing degrees, such as with Richard Nixon and Watergate and more recently with Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky. Only because of David’s humility, ultimately his willingness to listen to his trusted confidant and courageous prophet, Nathan, and his personal love for God did David survive the onslaught of negative repercussions, including decreased public support and internal political conspiracies by trusted advisors to strip him of his kingship. How have our modern leaders fared? Do the lessons of King David and Bathshebagate tell us anything about the political seduction of power, and how to avoid its tentacles of deception? If so, have we heeded the warning? If we have not, are we prepared for the consequences?

David’s early successes as king may first be attributable to the contention that he served not only as king or ruler, but also as judge. According to Jewish standards, a judge is one who dispenses justice based upon absolute principles of right and wrong, principles indelibly marked in the heart of man and codified in the Mosaic law. In I Samuel 8, the people demanded a king, one who rightly performs the principal function of the king: to judge righteously. With Saul, the people endured a ruthless despot, one who consistently and malevolently used the army for military retribution. David, however, was both a “victorious redeemer,” aided by God, and a dispenser of justice and righteousness to all the people, including such actions as the restoration of Mephibosheth, Saul’s crippled grandson, to the king’s house, and the use of capital punishment against two siblings for wrongly taking the life of Ish-Bosheth. So, David’s propensity for distributing justice included performing ethical and moral-based deeds for particular individuals, to meting out international justice through his military successes, and generally dispensing judicial, social, and even economic righteousness.