I've been saying for a long time that we have to get away from the false dichotomy of the 2-party political system, and this goes hand-in-hand with that.
As Christians, we have got to stop the loyalty to party and prioritize loyalty to Christ. No matter who's in office and no matter what their policy decisions are, we need to get back to upholding our beliefs and being in the world without being of it.
"Fusing Church and State doesn't redeem the state. It hollows the Church. ..The order matters. Win souls to win the nation. Don't win the nation to win souls." THANK YOU!!
One addition to the last point: when you believe God is on your side and nobody else's, every political act is a sanctioned act. You are no longer participating in political discourse except in name only.
For me, pro-life is more holistic than abortion. I look at the overall approach/mindset toward life in general and aim to support a candidate whose policies for the most part are life-giving/enabling people to flourish. This has resulted in me at times voting red, other times blue, but mostly third party. Once I could not come to peace over any of the given choices and abstained from voting. These are not easy choices to make. But in the end, as you pointed out, I think our focus is all wrong if we're looking to government to fix things. We have to do the slow, harder work of caring for people locally. That is what changes hearts (and then actions), not laws and policies.
Thank you! In this society as a newer Christian… people who operate in this mode of thinking are very rare!! In my personal life I don’t know any! It has truly made me question my convictions time and again, but I couldn’t ever Biblical justify the things you talk about here!
What I really appreciate about this piece is that “Third Way” here isn’t framed as moderation or compromise, but as refusal—a refusal to let the Gospel be flattened into modern binaries that make the world (and Christ) very small.
Your use of Reinhold Niebuhr is especially strong. His warning about the tendency to externalize evil cuts through both progressive and conservative moral posturing and grounds the argument theologically rather than politically. That move alone keeps this from becoming just another opinion piece.
I was also struck by how you frame the “narrow way” not as selective morality, but as prophetic tension—holding all power to account rather than granting moral exemptions to one side. The reference to John the Baptist captures that well: faithfulness that refuses capture will always offend systems built on loyalty and control.
And the closing critique of Christian Nationalism lands with clarity and restraint. The line “Things are not Christian. People are.” paired with James Madison makes a compelling historical and theological case that fusing church and state doesn’t sanctify the nation—it hollows the Church.
Overall, this feels less like a call to pick a better side and more like a call to recover allegiance—to Christ over causes, formation over influence, and witness over power. That’s a costly vision, but a deeply faithful one.
When Roe vs. Wade was finally overturned, there was an awkward silence from many evangelical leaders. This occurred despite the fact that evangelicals had advocated for this change since the 1970s. The problem isn’t with politicians, it’s with evangelicals who crave mainstream acceptance and surrender their evangelical voice accordingly.
One of my favourite quotes is by Abraham Lincoln, when he said his concern is not whether God is our own side, but to be on God's side, because God is always right. I have been feeling quite discouraged at the way Christianity seems to be suffering from the left/right divide we see elsewhere. And where this is concerning is when Christians align themselves to specific policies, because that's the side their "brand" of Christianity follows, without actually seeing whether it aligns with what God wants. And I see this on both the left and the right!
I respect "Third Way Christianity" and welcome anyone who seeks to follow Jesus, but I worry that it keeps Augustine's grave error of Original Sin, which is an idea foreign to Scripture, Judaism, and the Early Church. The Scripture teaches that we world was creation good, ki tov, and that we should look to nature to learn how to live and praise God. Jesus knew nothing about Original SIn or Substitutionary Atonement. There is another lineage of faith that lived alongside this fall/redemption path which Father Chenu and Matthew Fox called Creation Spirituality, that reminds us that everything was created in Original Blessing and that Grace is available to everyone and is not restricted to a chosen few. It honors that Jesus has sheep not of the fold his disciples were a part of and that he ministers to them as well.
We, as Christians should center on the teachings of Jesus, and remember that he told us he would send us the Spirit to teach us the many things his disciples at the time could not bear to hear. As long as we can do that, we walk the way of Jesus together.
There was a brief time where I wondered if some military satellite laser knives could kill unborn babies. This could havé been run by the deep state and stopped when Trump took office. I did not trust pregnancy tests.
What made me wonder was hearing about Laser knives, ànd à bumper sticker, which went something like this: “Babies are wonderful. Eat them.”
I hope we have given this up, if so.
One reason women in the military can be unhealthy, undesirable.
What happens to consciences òf people doing these too? Unless they pray, repent, ànd get out of it when they can?
I get the sense you and I would probably disagree on a lot theologically, but on this, yes, you're dead on. I view politics as what we engage in only after we've decided we don't want to end up hanging on a cross out of love for our enemies. Utterly human, completely understandable, but it's got nothing to do with what Jesus would do. It is fundamentally the opposite of turning the other cheek.
Yes, but the very occurrence of that happening reveals that merely legally obstructing abortion is not likely going to be enough to meaningfully reduce abortions. We need to get to the root causes.
It seems to me that, as you note, Trump used the abortion issue to identify with his base. In return he nominated constitutionalist Justices who made the compromise decision to send the issue to the states. I fail to see this as a beef against Trump. The larger point is that the only cure for wickedness is a changed heart.
The problem is, that applies to his first term. That was not the case in the leadup to the 2024 election, but a very significant number of people still voted for Trump based on the topic of abortion in that election. Many were even told they weren't Christians (or were bad ones, at least) if they voted against him due to the topic of abortion.
I argued exactly what you've said, that he accomplished all he intended to on the topic with his Supreme Court nominations. He never had any intention of making efforts beyond that to actually reduce abortions, sadly. But it's consistently been a topic manipulated in his favor nonetheless.
That's possible. I think an interesting part is that abortion was an issue the administration leveraged to manipulate a certain group of people into voting for them, and then dropped completely once they were in power, so they could pursue their true aims.
Yes! Absolutely this!
I've been saying for a long time that we have to get away from the false dichotomy of the 2-party political system, and this goes hand-in-hand with that.
As Christians, we have got to stop the loyalty to party and prioritize loyalty to Christ. No matter who's in office and no matter what their policy decisions are, we need to get back to upholding our beliefs and being in the world without being of it.
"Fusing Church and State doesn't redeem the state. It hollows the Church. ..The order matters. Win souls to win the nation. Don't win the nation to win souls." THANK YOU!!
Yes, exactly!
You'd think the "christianization" of the Roman Empire by Theodosius would have taught us that...
One addition to the last point: when you believe God is on your side and nobody else's, every political act is a sanctioned act. You are no longer participating in political discourse except in name only.
For me, pro-life is more holistic than abortion. I look at the overall approach/mindset toward life in general and aim to support a candidate whose policies for the most part are life-giving/enabling people to flourish. This has resulted in me at times voting red, other times blue, but mostly third party. Once I could not come to peace over any of the given choices and abstained from voting. These are not easy choices to make. But in the end, as you pointed out, I think our focus is all wrong if we're looking to government to fix things. We have to do the slow, harder work of caring for people locally. That is what changes hearts (and then actions), not laws and policies.
Thank you! In this society as a newer Christian… people who operate in this mode of thinking are very rare!! In my personal life I don’t know any! It has truly made me question my convictions time and again, but I couldn’t ever Biblical justify the things you talk about here!
Such a great read, thank you!
What I really appreciate about this piece is that “Third Way” here isn’t framed as moderation or compromise, but as refusal—a refusal to let the Gospel be flattened into modern binaries that make the world (and Christ) very small.
Your use of Reinhold Niebuhr is especially strong. His warning about the tendency to externalize evil cuts through both progressive and conservative moral posturing and grounds the argument theologically rather than politically. That move alone keeps this from becoming just another opinion piece.
I was also struck by how you frame the “narrow way” not as selective morality, but as prophetic tension—holding all power to account rather than granting moral exemptions to one side. The reference to John the Baptist captures that well: faithfulness that refuses capture will always offend systems built on loyalty and control.
And the closing critique of Christian Nationalism lands with clarity and restraint. The line “Things are not Christian. People are.” paired with James Madison makes a compelling historical and theological case that fusing church and state doesn’t sanctify the nation—it hollows the Church.
Overall, this feels less like a call to pick a better side and more like a call to recover allegiance—to Christ over causes, formation over influence, and witness over power. That’s a costly vision, but a deeply faithful one.
Thank you for the thorough and thoughtful engagement, Kevin! Yes, you put my aim precisely: a call to recover allegiance! 😁
Great stuff brother! Thanks for dropping some truthbombs that a lot of American Christians don't want to hear!
Thanks for giving it a read and dropping a comment! 😁
When Roe vs. Wade was finally overturned, there was an awkward silence from many evangelical leaders. This occurred despite the fact that evangelicals had advocated for this change since the 1970s. The problem isn’t with politicians, it’s with evangelicals who crave mainstream acceptance and surrender their evangelical voice accordingly.
One of my favourite quotes is by Abraham Lincoln, when he said his concern is not whether God is our own side, but to be on God's side, because God is always right. I have been feeling quite discouraged at the way Christianity seems to be suffering from the left/right divide we see elsewhere. And where this is concerning is when Christians align themselves to specific policies, because that's the side their "brand" of Christianity follows, without actually seeing whether it aligns with what God wants. And I see this on both the left and the right!
Great article. You hit on some points I have been writing about as well. https://totef.org/2024/06/25/balancing-love-for-country-and-devotion-to-god-a-critical-look-at-christian-nationalism/
I respect "Third Way Christianity" and welcome anyone who seeks to follow Jesus, but I worry that it keeps Augustine's grave error of Original Sin, which is an idea foreign to Scripture, Judaism, and the Early Church. The Scripture teaches that we world was creation good, ki tov, and that we should look to nature to learn how to live and praise God. Jesus knew nothing about Original SIn or Substitutionary Atonement. There is another lineage of faith that lived alongside this fall/redemption path which Father Chenu and Matthew Fox called Creation Spirituality, that reminds us that everything was created in Original Blessing and that Grace is available to everyone and is not restricted to a chosen few. It honors that Jesus has sheep not of the fold his disciples were a part of and that he ministers to them as well.
We, as Christians should center on the teachings of Jesus, and remember that he told us he would send us the Spirit to teach us the many things his disciples at the time could not bear to hear. As long as we can do that, we walk the way of Jesus together.
There was a brief time where I wondered if some military satellite laser knives could kill unborn babies. This could havé been run by the deep state and stopped when Trump took office. I did not trust pregnancy tests.
What made me wonder was hearing about Laser knives, ànd à bumper sticker, which went something like this: “Babies are wonderful. Eat them.”
I hope we have given this up, if so.
One reason women in the military can be unhealthy, undesirable.
What happens to consciences òf people doing these too? Unless they pray, repent, ànd get out of it when they can?
Alright: let's talk overseas policies.
1. Taiwan?
2. Israel/palestine?
3. russia?
I get the sense you and I would probably disagree on a lot theologically, but on this, yes, you're dead on. I view politics as what we engage in only after we've decided we don't want to end up hanging on a cross out of love for our enemies. Utterly human, completely understandable, but it's got nothing to do with what Jesus would do. It is fundamentally the opposite of turning the other cheek.
Saw where abortions were going up because of a "pill" that was being sold across state lines, and they are trying to stop that now.
Yes, but the very occurrence of that happening reveals that merely legally obstructing abortion is not likely going to be enough to meaningfully reduce abortions. We need to get to the root causes.
It seems to me that, as you note, Trump used the abortion issue to identify with his base. In return he nominated constitutionalist Justices who made the compromise decision to send the issue to the states. I fail to see this as a beef against Trump. The larger point is that the only cure for wickedness is a changed heart.
The problem is, that applies to his first term. That was not the case in the leadup to the 2024 election, but a very significant number of people still voted for Trump based on the topic of abortion in that election. Many were even told they weren't Christians (or were bad ones, at least) if they voted against him due to the topic of abortion.
I argued exactly what you've said, that he accomplished all he intended to on the topic with his Supreme Court nominations. He never had any intention of making efforts beyond that to actually reduce abortions, sadly. But it's consistently been a topic manipulated in his favor nonetheless.
2/5/2026
https://www.lifenews.com/2026/02/05/five-pro-life-actions-president-trump-has-taken-that-will-save-babies/?cmid=fe3602c3-fc80-4ce5-8841-8959fc5eca6d
https://www.lifenews.com/2026/01/22/president-trump-ends-all-tax-funded-research-with-aborted-baby-parts/?cmid=71d178a1-5f6a-42f1-b992-8279afd85985
https://www.lifenews.com/2026/01/22/president-trump-ends-all-taxpayer-funding-for-international-abortions/?cmid=71d178a1-5f6a-42f1-b992-8279afd85985
https://www.lifenews.com/2026/01/22/trump-admin-will-investigate-planned-parenthood-for-covid-grant-fraud/?cmid=71d178a1-5f6a-42f1-b992-8279afd85985
The biggest thing in his favor was he wasn't Harris, or a Democrat.
That's possible. I think an interesting part is that abortion was an issue the administration leveraged to manipulate a certain group of people into voting for them, and then dropped completely once they were in power, so they could pursue their true aims.
2/5/2026
https://www.lifenews.com/2026/02/05/five-pro-life-actions-president-trump-has-taken-that-will-save-babies/?cmid=fe3602c3-fc80-4ce5-8841-8959fc5eca6d
https://www.lifenews.com/2026/01/22/president-trump-ends-all-tax-funded-research-with-aborted-baby-parts/?cmid=71d178a1-5f6a-42f1-b992-8279afd85985
https://www.lifenews.com/2026/01/22/president-trump-ends-all-taxpayer-funding-for-international-abortions/?cmid=71d178a1-5f6a-42f1-b992-8279afd85985
https://www.lifenews.com/2026/01/22/trump-admin-will-investigate-planned-parenthood-for-covid-grant-fraud/?cmid=71d178a1-5f6a-42f1-b992-8279afd85985