Editor’s Note: One of the most pressing issues for the Calvin community this year has been navigating the increasingly complex interplay between Christianity and American politics. As our nation heads toward the 2026 elections, debates surrounding Christian nationalism, secularization and the separation of church and state have sparked continual conversations on campus about how to faithfully integrate our convictions within our pluralistic democracy. As these discussions continue, Chimes has partnered with the Political Dialogue and Action Club (PDAC) to coordinate a series of opinion pieces from professors addressing these themes. We plan to run these perspectives in each of the remaining editions this year, and it is our hope that they foster thoughtful, nuanced dialogue across the student body.

Let’s set aside, for a few moments, the usual dichotomies. For just a few minutes, forget the binaries of liberal/conservative, left/right, Democrat/Republican. Try to imagine political participation without immediately falling into the habit of partisan polarization that is amplified by the two-party system in the U.S. Thoughtful Christian participation in political life doesn’t boil down to a voting guide. We need to ask more foundational, more fundamental questions.

First: what is “politics?” What defines “the political?” On this score, let’s not immediately rush to identify politics with “the state” (we’ll get there). In a way, wherever we have organizations of social life that transcend the family, we have “politics.” “Politics” is the endeavor to organize social life beyond the networks of kin. Politics creates a “we” instead of just “me.” So wherever you have institutions of social organization, you have “politics” in some sense. The university community has a political aspect, for example. 

We talk about being a “citizen” of the university. There are norms and rules, even a constitution of sorts (we call it the Faculty Handbook). If you’ve ever served in a church, you will know it has its “political” aspects. Reformed folks are pretty persnickety about church politics (we call it “polity”). And, of course, the realms and functions of government (“the state”) are “political.” But again, that includes much more than electoral politics. And there are all sorts of non-governmental organizations and actions that contribute to the common good (the “commonwealth,” the weal or welfare of the community).

In this sense, politics is not optional. You’re “political” when you hold a passport, when you obey traffic lights, when you post a letter, when you live by the rules in the residence hall. You are acting as a citizen of some polis. So the question isn’t whether to be “political,” but how. Someone who imagines they are “not political,” or that they are “above politics,” is just a non-intentional participant in political life. This usually means they support the status quo by their passivity. You are (already) political. So be intentional about it. Politics is one of the concrete ways to love your neighbor — by being part of building a better world for all.

A second basic principle: every polis is a contingent form of human organization. In other words, all political systems are the products of our making. No political system falls from the sky or is built by the hand of God. Political systems and institutions are contingent products of human culture-making. We make them, which also means that we can change them. Sometimes the most important political work to undertake is the reform of our political institutions — even, sometimes, revolutionary change. In his book, The Revolution of the Saints, political philosopher Michael Walzer says this was one of the most important cultural consequences of Calvinism.

With these two basic principles in place, how might we think Christianly about intentional participation in political life? How might a Christian think about their role as a citizen in a particular state?

I have found St. Augustine to be a resource in thinking about this question. In his classic work, The City of God, Augustine distinguishes two different sorts of polis, two different “cities” (his Latin word is civitas, “republic”): one he calls “the heavenly city” or the City of God; the other he calls “the earthly city” or the City of Man. However, he is not talking about republics here on earth versus some ethereal, angelic city of pearly white in the sky! Rather, the heavenly city and the earthly city are two very different ways of imagining human society.

The distinction between the heavenly and the earthly city originates with the Fall. What distinguishes them is their loves. The “earthly” city (civitas or “republic”) describes fallen forms of human social organization driven by love of self (pride). In contrast, the “heavenly” city is organized around love of God. (You might be tempted to think that “the church” is the embodiment of the “heavenly city;” but I think that probably means you haven’t had enough experience with “the church.”) The earthly city is characterized by what Augustine calls the libido dominandi, the lust for domination; the heavenly city, motivated by love of God, is defined by sacrifice.

Now, Augustine does not just “write off” secular government as doomed to play out pride, selfishness and domination over and over again. If God is in Christ reconciling all things to himself (2 Cor. 5:19; Col. 1:20), then not even “the state” is impervious to the Gospel. The impact of grace can make a dent on our common political life. So it’s possible to imagine how politics, government and the state could be characterized by sacrifice, mercy and grace. No political regime in human history can be identified with the kingdom of God. As Augustine once cautioned Boniface, a Roman governor in north Africa, we ought not try to “live ahead of time,” imposing our version of the kingdom. But we can participate in shaping political life such that our institutions might echo aspects of the city of God. We can hope for political change that reflects a “foretaste” of the flourishing pictured in the kingdom of God.

We need to be careful that alarmist screeds about “Christian nationalism” (which are responding to a genuine phenomenon) don’t end up writing off any and all endeavors to bring Christian faith into our public life. The civil rights movement led by Martin Luther King, Jr. was an unapologetically Christian endeavor to transform this nation. King’s theology, of course, was radically different from, say, Doug Wilson’s. King had no illusions about a “Christian nation.” But that doesn’t mean he didn’t hope this nation’s policies with respect to poverty, race and justice might not look more Christian.

The question, then, is what sort of political work would reflect such foretastes of the coming kingdom of God? What sorts of policies would be channels of shalom for our common life?

Again, I don’t want to rush to pick some political party’s platform as the answer to such questions. Eventually, when it comes to electoral politics and legislation, Christians will have to make prudential judgments about candidates, platforms and policies. And Christians can disagree. There is an element of prudence about such decisions. We make judgment calls. We make compromises. We’re hoping for improvement; we should have no illusions of purity or perfection.

But if Augustine is right, I hope we might at least agree that political programs, candidates and policies that seem to be animated by domination, exclusion and violence could hardly be expressions of the love that characterizes the heavenly City.

In conclusion, let me suggest another framework for thinking about this question. It seems to me that, in our current climate, political programs and policies could be characterized along two axes. On one axis, there are political programs and platforms organized around fear and others that are animated fundamentally by hope. On the other axis, there are political programs that seem fixated on the past in contrast to political programs focused on the future. (In theological terms, we could say some political programs tend to look back to “creation” as the source and norm for political wisdom, whereas others look ahead to the “eschaton” for the norms that govern political activity.) I picture the options something like this:

                             HOPE

                                 |

                                 |

PAST––––––––––––––––––FUTURE

                                 |

                                 |

                             FEAR

You can imagine different options in each “quadrant” here. Briefly, I would just say that there are some dominant political programs today that seem to connect a nostalgic fixation on the past (“Make American Great Again”) with fear-mongering propaganda. Such political programs tend to be fixated on “preservation,” and usually protecting and preserving something for particular groups. (There can also be a “liberal” politics of fear, by the way. Whole industries of pundits on the left seem to have little political vision beyond being anti-Trump. Progressives can be alarmists, too.)

If you were to ask me about my own political commitments (socialist, if you want to know), I would say I want to be part of political projects that are focused on the future in the mode of hope. I think what politics needs today is imagination — daring to imagine how the world could be otherwise. That’s what I hear in the prophets. That’s what I see in the book of Revelation: a world where no one is hungry, no one is excluded, no one is in pain. I have no utopian illusions. I just think the way things are is not the way it has to be.

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James K.A. Smith is professor of philosophy at Calvin University. His research on political theology includes Awaiting the King: Reforming Public Theology (Baker Academic, 2017). His latest book is Make Your Home in This Luminous Dark: Mysticism, Art, and the Path of Unknowing (Yale University Press, 2026).