Thoughts on the Corrosive Qualities of Power, as Well as Tacit Assumptions in Culture.

The other day (I am writing this in September 2025) an apparently well-known political and religious spokesperson was shot and killed in the US. It seems like everyone has expressed their opinion about this person. I won’t because it seems like I was one of only a small number of American Evangelical Christians who never heard of him. There is not much of a point to talk about someone I don’t know… and I really don’t take the time to learn much about him. I am not expressing shade, just a lack of interest.

However, I have come to know that he was one of those people in the US who tended to really mix politics and religion. I don’t really like to mix those. As an old joke goes, “What do you get when you mix religion and politics? Politics.” The joke points out a corrosive quality to politics. I think it is because politics is one of perhaps three institutions that most directly wield power. The other two are Military and Business. Both Politics/Governance and the Military wield power through coercion, while Business wields power a bit more directly, through money/wealth— the fuel of Government and the Military.

Not long after the shooting I read an odd bit of advice on social media. This person was trying to calm people who were all riled up. He said that Evangelical Christians should focus less on trying to get people to become political Conservatives. (Note to non-Americans— I am using the term “Conservative” in a way that has become popular in the US but has limited connection to the way it is used elsewhere.) He said rather we should preach the Gospel to all people so that they become Christians. I had no real problem with that… but the next thing he said I found, ummm, interesting. He said that once they become Christians and read the Bible, they will become Conservatives (again, in the idiosyncratic sense it is used in the US) naturally.

I was pretty surprised to see that. Years ago I would call myself a Conservative (though the term was used a lot different then), but even then I never really saw that my political stance was a necessary consequence of being a Christian and reading the Bible. Today, I would not call myself a Conservative, or a Liberal, or a Moderate. Being Antipartisan, I think that any political power bloc is societally corrosive (using that term, “corrosive’ yet again) and so I am, in practice, in opposition to whatever group is wielding the greatest amount of power.

But it did make me wonder… does being a “Bible-believing Christian” make one conservative in any sense? I think, perhaps, it does in one sense. Since the Bible is understood as God’s message for us, and it is a key source of truth (even primary source of truth), being a “Bible-believing Christian” would tend to have the conservative trait of seeing much of our answers in life as found in the past (canonical Scripture). However, I am not sure that I see other characteristics of Conservativism as being more “Biblical” or “Christian” than many other political philosophies. I certainly think that my “Antipartisan” view (a philosophy of which I MIGHT be the only member… if there is a group who shares this philosophy, I will make a point of not joining them) is more Biblical, frankly, than the Conservative, Liberal, Moderate, Green, Red, or any other color group.

Why would this guy think that if people become Christian, they will become Conservative? I don’t think that the one characteristic that Christianity shares with Conservatism is enough. I might guess two things:

#1. American Evangelical Christianity is a very walled-in sub-culture. Many really lack the experience (really awesome experience) of meeting Christians from other traditions and other parts of the world. When everyone seems to believe the same thing, it is hard to imagine anyone thinking differently.

#2. Many churches in the US nurture a certain perspective. Once a person becomes a Christian, there is a good chance he or she will start being discipled in such a church and acculturated in a political flavor.

And I suppose that is fine, although I hope these new Christians find the opportunity to see the bigger world. . I was brought up in a political worldview that began to change around 2005. I was by then living in a different country. An outside perspective does help.

I think I will stop here. However, one article I wrote before I would like to share. It is not quite on the same topic… but somehow is related: https://munsonmissions.org/2016/12/22/why-evangelicals-struggle-with-social-justice/