Human beings are political. A "polis" is what the ancient Greeks called a city-state. We use "politics" to help us figure out how to live with, work with, and get along with, other people, in communities large and small.
Everyone has "values", i.e. things that they value, or love. There's a whole array of these for each of us, and probably no two people have the same array. So, when we team up with like-minded people to accomplish some goal (that we love), we're probably not in lock-step, but there's enough commonality to support the teamwork. So, in the "polis", we look for people who love most of the same things we do.
There's another layer, too. Let's call it the "how" layer, or the wisdom layer. Say that there are two people, and they both love sports. They both love hockey. They both love winning. They're both coaching a hockey team. And... they choose different strategies.
Almost inevitably, one strategy's going to be better than the other. But we probably don't know for certain beforehand which it will be, and we sure may disagree! We can share a love, a goal, a "what" we're hoping for, and still disagree about how best to achieve it.
To sum up, then... we have different sets of loves, and different sets of wisdom. When we're trying to live and work together, if we can try to zoom out a little and recognize which is which, and then have constructive dialogue about it, that can help.
What does this have to do with the Bible? Well... the Bible has things to teach us about both the things we should love, and the things we should do to nurture and encourage those loves. When you're thinking from religion -- from what God has communicated to us, it forms a kind of stack: religion >> culture >> politics.
Dr. Steven Garber noted the culture>>politics relationship: "The culture is upstream from politics, always and everywhere," in November 2016.
Ray Blunt, responding to Dr. Garber's article, agreed, and added this: "Culture, healthy culture, can be upstream of politics; so, too, unhealthy and diseased culture."
Blunt continued with an interesting note about William Wilberforce's efforts to end slavery:
"One of the most remarkable things that William Wilberforce ever did was to write a book. His only book, 'Real Christianity', came at the nadir of his ten-year attempt to transform British culture — its manners and morals — and end the slave trade.... Out of the repeated failure of such change came his extended analysis of what ailed Britain—in a word, selfishness.... Only a return to the heart of true Christianity anchored in humility and servant leadership, he argued, would Britain remain a great nation."
Here, Blunt is really taking the next leap upstream. He hones in on religion, correctly, in our view. Religion is upstream of culture. It's what makes a culture healthy or unhealthy.
At his farewell address, George Washington noted the vital connection between religion and politics:
"Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, Religion and morality are indispensable supports." 1
In the Bible, in the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus teaches this,
"How can you speak good things when you are evil? ...out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks. A good man out of the good treasure of his heart brings forth good things, and an evil man out of the evil treasure brings forth evil things." (Matthew 12:34-35)
In the Gospel of Luke, in the "Sermon on the Plain", Jesus says,
"... a good tree does not bear bad fruit, nor does a bad tree bear good fruit.... every tree is known by its own fruit. For men do not gather figs from thorns, nor do they gather grapes from a bramble bush." (Luke 6:43-44)
In his analytical way, in "Doctrine of Life" (from 1763), Swedenborg says much the same thing:
"A person possessing spiritual goodness is a moral and civic person because spiritual goodness has in it the essence of goodness, and moral and civic goodness are derived from it." (Doctrine of Life 13, Rogers translation)
We all believe something! We might believe that there's no God or overarching purpose, and that we're all random collocations of molecules with self-invented purposes -- and if we believe that, we're going to create a different culture than if we believe that there's a God, and a purpose, and that we should love our neighbors. Maybe we should be saying "belief is upstream of culture". There's something to that.
Some people believe in... a merely scientific material world. No underlying purpose. No afterlife. No objective truth. No objective good or evil. "It's my truth." "It's just who I am." That worldview is a lot different than a religious one, and it's going to lead to a different culture, and different political goals.
Religion sometimes gets a bad rap. Some of it is deserved... but... wait. Think hard. It really seems to make more sense that there IS a purpose, that the physical universe seems to favor life and intelligence, and that, if we're awake, we get glimmers of insight into spiritual realities.
Religion, fundamentally, isn't about ritual or church buildings or priests -- it's about re-linking, re-joining with the God who created us. He's "the upstream" - the fountainhead, the "pure river of water of life" (Revelation 22:1) in the center of the city, New Jerusalem. He's the source of all love and wisdom.
If we seek earnestly, faithfully, humbly to try to understand and do God's will, if we "cease to do evil, and learn to do good" (Isaiah 1:16), we'll be helping to create a healthy culture. If we create a healthy culture, we'll be able to build healthy politics. We'll be able to beat our swords into ploughshares (Isaiah 2:4), and "dwell in peace". (Isaiah 32:18)
We can pollute the "river of the water of life", divert it, dam it up, ignore it. Or, we can let it wash us clean, and try paddling upstream, to explore its headwaters.
Fotnoter:
1. 1. George Washington, "Farewell Address, 19 September 1796," in The Writings of George Washington, ed. John C. Fitzpatrick, 37 vols. (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1931-1940), 35:229
