Not in It to Win It: Why Choosing Sides Sidelines The Church

by Andy Stanley

And what does the evangelical church in America value most? Winning. What do we fear? Losing.

We allowed ourselves to be divided over masks and vaccines.

In some instances, worse. In their attempt to save America from the other political party, they lost their opportunity to save half the American population from their sin. Consequently, we all lost influence. We all lost credibility. Then the candidate backed by the majority of evangelicals lost the election.

The problem I’m referring to—the Achilles’ heel in modern evangelicalism—is our obsession with winning.

And, of course, Anthony Fauci. Republicans loved him.

People should know better. Christians in particular. Unfortunately, and to the point of this book, churches, church leaders, and prominent pastors (along with high-profile leaders of faith-based organizations) took their cues from culture and vacated the middle. To our shame they added their voices to those of their secular counterparts. Not wanting to be left out—and certainly not left behind—we entered the partisan fray. We did what everyone else was doing, pretty much the way they were doing it. We sided publicly with a party and a candidate—and defended both regardless.

As a result, many, perhaps most, Christians feel more comfortable with and feel they have more in common with people who share their political views than people who share their Christian faith. This is almost always the case when Christianity is reduced to faith. But a Christian faith reduced to belief is a faith neither Jesus nor the apostle Paul would have recognized. When Christianity is reduced to belief, we lose our voice. We lose our distinction. We’re easily reduced to a constituency, a voting bloc that can be wined, dined, lied to, and bribed. By reducing Christianity to a pagan bifurcation of sacred and secular, we’ve abandoned our opportunity—our responsibility—to serve as the conscience of the nation.

No politician anywhere is frustrated with the stubborn Christians in their district who refuse to align themselves publicly with their party and insist instead on behaving like their Lord. Refusing to submit our lives to the Jesus of the Gospels sets us up to be seduced to believe that by leveraging, perfecting, and baptizing the tools and tactics used by the kingdoms of this world, we can further the cause of Christ. Boycotts, voter guides, protests, suing state and local governments, calling out politicians by name from the pulpit—these are the new spiritual disciplines. And if implemented consistently, with God’s help, we can take our country back! We can win!

It’s important to remember that Paul wasn’t asking gentiles to recognize the next step in God’s unfolding story of redemption. He was asking them to abandon their entire worldview! He wasn’t asking folks to add another idol to the mantle. Following Jesus would require them to empty the mantle and destroy their images. Including . . . including household deities linked to the centuries-old tradition of ancestor worship. “Sorry, Granddad. I’m a Christian now. Into the fire you go!”

Pastors, like me, who refused to politicize our churches despite intense pressure and criticism. Our refusal to take a side was interpreted as refusal to take a stand—though, in fact, we had taken a stand. We were correctly and courageously refusing to politicize the ekklesia of Jesus. We were demonstrating our commitment to the Great Commission. We refused to alienate half our community by siding with one political party over the other. We chose to stand with Jesus in the messy middle, where problems are solved, rather than capitulate to divisive, broad-brush political talking points.

Translated: I’m a spy! I do whatever is necessary to blend in with my surroundings. I work hard not to blow my cover. I’ve learned to build and navigate relationships with people I have virtually nothing in common with.

Paul was brilliant and instructive in his ability to find and leverage common ground with both Jews and pagans. But he never—as in never, ever—leveraged the gospel or the teaching of Jesus to further their agendas. His was a message for people on both sides of all aisles.

When a local church becomes preoccupied with saving America at the expense of saving Americans, it has forsaken its mission. When church leaders embrace and grow comfortable with save-America rhetoric that alienates some Americans, they are derelict in their duty. When pastors and churches intentionally or unintentionally subjugate winning people to winning elections, they’ve already lost.

Saving America is not the mission of the church. The moment our love or concern for country takes precedence over our love for the people in our country, we are off mission. When saving America diverts energy, focus, and reputation away from saving Americans, we no longer qualify as the ekklesia of Jesus. We’re merely political tools. A manipulated voting demographic. A photo op. Again, we lose our elevated position as the conscience of the nation.

In the months leading up to the 2020 election, politicized congregations and church leaders overplayed their hands. It was painfully obvious they wanted to “get their way in the world.” Yes, they had Bible verses to support their desire to “get their way in the world.” But one thing they did not have was the support of their Savior.

The issue is priority. As a reminder, every time you place your hand over your heart and recite the Pledge of Allegiance, you declare the priority I’m advocating for: “One Nation under God” God first. Nation second. Our ultimate allegiance is to a King who came to reverse the order of things—the King who rather than requiring his subjects to die for him, died for them instead. That’s a better King.

Division is the very thing Jesus was most concerned about14—the thing we seem completely unconcerned about. Truth is, we’ve fostered and fueled division by allowing recent political and cultural mayhem to distract us from what our Savior commanded us to do. Consequently, our primary concerns often mirror the concerns of our political party of choice rather than our Savior of choice. And what concerns your political party most? The same thing the other party is most concerned about: winning.

When winning replaces following, we’re able to sanctify all manner of un-Jesus-like means to justify that end. We become quick to speak and slow to think. We criticize unbelievers for behaving like unbelievers. We criticize other believers without talking to them first. We rebrand slander as truth-telling. We claim, defend, and sue to ensure that our rights take priority over defending the rights of others. We believe the worst. We rejoice when our enemies stumble. Saving America takes

precedence over loving the American next door. And, given enough time, we can produce chapter and verse to support all of it. Actually, given enough time, you can produce ch...

A September 2020 study by Harvard’s Carr Center for Human Rights shows that eight in ten Americans believe that “without our freedoms America is nothing.”1 Of those studied, 93 percent say the right to privacy is important, and 92 percent agree that the right to a quality education matters and that racial equality matters. Seven in ten Americans believe they have more in common with one another than not.2 So what’s the problem? What’s fueling the tension and division? In a word: fear.

The problem with the culture war is that there aren’t just winners and losers. There are casualties. When the church takes a leading role in the fray, the casualty is always the faith of the next generation. Their faith is sacrificed on the altar of temporary power and political gain.

In a culture war, a dispute takes place “between groups who hold fundamentally different views of the world,” writes Hunter. “On all sides the contenders are generally sincere, thoughtful, and well-meaning, but they operate with fundamentally opposing visions of the meaning of America: what it has been, what it is, and what it should be.”

As author and commentator David French notes, the culture war approach “often confuses Christian power with biblical justice, and it creates incentives for Christians to not just seek power but to feel a sense of failure and emergency when they are not in positions of cultural or political control.”

Jesus did not come to win as we define winning. That’s why we’re still talking about him, and most Americans couldn’t name their senators if their lives depended on it.

They need an enemy to exist. This is why Christians and the church in particular should refuse to participate. There is no win because the goal isn’t winning—the goal is warring. You can’t love your enemy in that scenario because you aren’t supposed to love your enemy. Conflict is the win. There is no middle ground, and there is no room for compromise. This is one of several reasons Jesus refused to take sides in the culture wars of his era.

Jesus’s refusal to take sides in the culture wars of his day was not because he lacked opinions or conviction. He wasn’t afraid to take a stand. Jesus knew what we can’t seem to get our heads around: that when the church chooses a side, as defined by any political party, we’ve sided against people on the other side.

A disciple is a follower. Jesus followers in Antioch were following so well that they were accused of being little Christs. Christians. When Jesus gave what we appropriately refer to as his Great Commission, he did not leave the content of their disciple-making venture up to them. He said (and you can probably quote this by heart),

You can’t make disciples of people you demonize publicly and label as enemies of the faith or the state. As Ed Stetzer asserts, “You can’t hate people and engage them with the gospel at the same time. You can’t war with people and show the love of Jesus. You can’t be both outraged and on mission.”

Politically active pastors and churches, by nature of their public affiliation, eliminate common ground with anyone associated with or sympathetic to the other party. It’s politics first, faith second . . . or perhaps third. It’s One God under Nation . . . There’s no getting around it. Politically associated churches attempt to leverage Jesus for an agenda other than the agenda of Jesus.

Peter and Paul were executed for refusing to prioritize the state over their faith. Christians in the first, second, and third centuries were arrested, beheaded, fed to wild animals, and burned alive because they refused to prioritize allegiance to the state over allegiance to the commands of Christ.

Heroes of the faith, men who penned the Scripture, men and women responsible for collecting and protecting the documents of our faith—they were often violently executed for refusing to do the very thing politically aligned pastors and church leaders have done unapologetically in their churches, on national television, and on social media. Publicly aligning a local church behind a political party or candidate is betrayal, pure and simple. Jesus didn’t come to upgrade or fix something. He came to rule in our hearts and reign over our behavior. He claimed the role of master and commander-in-chief of those who would acknowledge his right to rule. He was not and is not a religious figure. He is a king.

When Christianity is reduced to belief, we leave the door open for someone else to rule. When Christianity is reduced to belief, it’s easy to decorate our politics with the symbols, sayings, and relics of the Christian faith. Christianity reduced to sacred, religious belief is a version of Christianity that first-century Jesus followers would not have recognized.

Public alignment with a candidate or party is a betrayal of the church’s imperative, our mandate, to make disciples. Anything that serves as an obstacle to that simple imperative should be eliminated from a local church. Whatever or whoever distracts us from our Lord’s final instructions should be set aside. As

Moore goes on to point out that this generation isn’t leaving the church because they disapprove of Jesus. They are leaving because they’re convinced that the church itself disapproves of Jesus! And they aren’t alone.

went on to talk about the innovative ways we were serving the underserved people most affected by the pandemic. I was glad CNN contacted me rather than Fox News. The CNN audience trends more progressive and less religious than FNN.

So imagine my surprise when the following afternoon a friend and longtime church attendee called to let me know how disappointed he was that I was “on CNN.” When I asked why, he insisted it undermined my credibility. And he was particularly offended that I said, “The church is not an essential service.” Which I did say. But I said it within the context of a specific question asked by my host. I was referencing the necessity or essentialness of meeting indoors, shoulder to shoulder during a pandemic. I was not referencing the importance or essentialness of the church in general.

The reality is that if you say one thing I disagree with or don’t like, I discount everything you’ve ever said, along with everything you’ve ever accomplished. You’re dead to me.

They would never admit it—because they can’t see it—but these folks left because we refused to be political. We refused to politicize the ekklesia of Jesus. We opted for under God.

Baffling because they didn’t leave over something I said or did. They left because I wouldn’t say or do what they were convinced I should say or do. And by their own admission, what they wanted me to say and do had nothing to do with the teaching of Jesus. It was based entirely on partisan spin.

suppose there are good reasons to cancel a church. But the decision to close buildings full of recirculated air during a pandemic is not one of them.

Before I disappear down this particular rabbit hole, I need to back up and state what most of us know to be true. Stereotyping and demonizing an entire political party is foolish. All statements that begin with “All Republicans . . .” are inaccurate. All statements that begin with “All Democrats . . .” are equally inaccurate.

Jesus is not a footnote in a political platform. He did not come to support or refine an existing political system or world order. He came to replace what was in place. He came to cancel sin and to restore men and women of all nations and all political persuasions to himself.

Currently, he serves as a professor of religious studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He has degrees from Moody Bible Institute, Wheaton College, and Princeton Theological Seminary.

Specifically, what will it take to bring about a revival of biblical values, virtues, and ethics of such magnitude that it would alter the culture of our country?

In the first century, the cross represented the cruelty of an empire. By the fifth century, it represented the love of God. In the eighteenth century, Pope Benedict XIV declared the Roman Colosseum a sacred monument dedicated to the suffering of Christ. Don’t rush by that fact.

As part of his declaration, Pope Benedict commissioned the construction of a cross that was to be hung over the emperor’s gate to commemorate Christian martyrs.

it happen again? That’s up to us. “Andy, don’t you mean it’s up to God?” No. It’s up to us. God did his part. Jesus was unambiguous. We’ve got everything we need. We’re already wearing the ruby slippers. History can repeat itself. And it should be easier this time around. There are a lot more of us, and we have indoor plumbing. But we have something else as well. Something working against us. We have an internalized, individualized, in-it-to-win-it version of Christianity that neither Jesus nor the apostle Paul would have recognized. Actually, it’s difficult for anybody to recognize.

Indeed, it did. Nobody denies that it did. Could something similar happen again? Fun fact: In the fourth century, Saint Augustine, the famous Christian bishop from Hippo, declared that slavery was not, in fact, a self-evident by-product of the natural order. He declared it a by-product of sin! Decades earlier, with a bit of prompting from another Christian bishop, Emperor Constantine declared infanticide a crime. Later, Emperor Valentinian made infanticide a capital offense.

Rescuing abandoned babies isn’t commanded or even commended by Jesus or New Testament authors. Food was scarce and homes were small. Babies died all the time. Why would anyone put their own family at risk on behalf of an abandoned child? Refusing to expose your own children is one thing, but rescuing someone else’s? The Christian Scriptures didn’t require it. The Hebrew Scriptures didn’t require it. Something else required it. Love. Love required it. Centuries before there were chapters and verses, Christians embraced real-world expressions of sacrificial love that eventually captured the attention of the empire and flipped multiple self-evident scripts. And the world began to change.

As citizens of the empire internalized and embraced the kingdom values Jesus introduced, the empire itself began to change. As a result, to quote Bart, the ekklesia of Jesus triggered “the most monumental cultural transformation our world has ever seen.”