I had the honor of talking to Dr. Daniel Williams about the state of the American church and political landscape. The author of The Politics of the Cross: a Christian Alternative to Partisanship, my questions are in bold.

The Church of America is pretty divided when it comes to sin, with some wanting to emphasize personal sin/holiness while others want to talk about societal justice/injustice, and never the twain shall meet. Can you unpack a theology of sin, as well as how we got to this crossroads in the first place?

A biblical theology of sin is both individual and corporate. The Bible’s description of sin begins with a cosmic fall – the original sin of Adam and Eve, which alienated humans from God and from each other. As Genesis 3 describes, Adam and Eve’s sin prompted them to hide from God, blame each other, and even feel ashamed of their own bodies. In subsequent chapters of Genesis, we learn how this original sin soon led to a world filled with evil, with humans killing each other and oppressing those whom they could oppress. Sin manifested itself in empires that enslaved other people and in polygamous marriages where women were treated as merely political pawns in a harem. Both the Mosaic law and the prophets therefore emphasized the inseparable connection between reconciliation with God and reconciliation of human relationships, because a right relationship with God leads to a right relationship with other people, as Micah 6:8 describes.

The New Testament continues this dual emphasis on reconciliation with God and reconciliation with others. Jesus said that the two greatest commands of the law were to love God and to love our neighbor as ourselves (Matthew 22:36-40). Most of the letters of the New Testament therefore give strong emphasis to both of themes, since they’re inseparable. Paul, for example, concluded his theological treatise of salvation in Romans with five chapters (Romans 12-16) on right relationships in the church and in society. He did something very similar in Ephesians.

It’s unfortunate that some Christians have forgotten this holistic theology of sin and redemption. In the late nineteenth century, some liberal Christians began deemphasizing the atonement in favor of an emphasis on the social dimension of Jesus’s ethical teachings – a movement that is often known as the “Social Gospel.” In response, some more conservative Christians began deemphasizing the social dimension altogether and focusing only on individual reconciliation with God. But because sin has both an individual and social component, God’s work of reconciliation and redemption in our lives should affect both our vertical relationship with God and our horizontal relationships with others.

Politically-conservative Christians are generally keen on stressing self-sufficiency, appearing to sing a different tune than what Scripture says about the poor. The expectation is that the impoverished will pick themselves up by their bootstraps. How much biblical merit does this notion have?

There are a few biblical passages that discuss the responsibility that the poor have to take responsibility for themselves and even command churches to take a “tough love” approach to hold people accountable for their own laziness or other sins that might lead to poverty. 2 Thessalonians 3:10, for example, says, “The one who is unwilling to work shall not eat” (NIV).

But these verses are the exception rather than the rule in the Bible’s teachings about poverty. There are certainly occasions when church leaders have to apply these verses to their own congregations in practicing church discipline against those who refuse to take responsibility for their own actions. But the vast majority of the approximately 2,000 biblical verses on the poor focus on the poor as potential victims of injustice and command God’s followers to care for the poor. Concern for the less fortunate is such an integral part of the Christian faith that it is sometimes described in the Bible as the essence of the Christian religion (James 1:27; compare also Matthew 25:31-46). If we have a biblical attitude toward the poor, we will make care for the needy one of our highest priorities.

Of course, how a Christian can best care for the poor requires wisdom and can be a legitimate subject of debate among Jesus’s followers. But the imperative to care for the poor cannot be questioned; it is a central biblical teaching and a defining characteristic of all people who are in Christ.

Let’s talk about race. The Democratic party is accused of obsessing over race, rewriting history, & wanting to indoctrinate our children to hate America. The GOP party seems more content with a color-blind mentality that appears to ignore race and color. As someone who studies and teaches American history, just how important is this conversation?

The United States was created in the midst of a transatlantic slave economy, and its own practice of race-based chattel slavery was central to its own economic growth. Even after slavery, a racial caste system continued to shape the organization of labor, social relationships, and legal privileges in the United States. It should not surprise us therefore that conversations about the tensions between racial inequality and America’s promise of equal rights under the law have been a central theme in American history – or that the struggle for racial justice continued for so long. It was not until 1964 that the system of legal segregation in the United States was finally dismantled, and it was not until 1965 that a majority of African Americans in the South could vote. There are still plenty of people alive today who can remember the Jim Crow signs or who personally attended segregated schools. Even the lynchings of the civil rights era occurred within living memory for some of the older members of our population.

Both sides in the debate over race today generally agree on the reality of racial discrimination in the past, but they disagree on how it functions in the present. Progressives generally argue that racial injustice still exists and that we will not be able to move toward a more equal society unless we confront the reality of continued racial disparities in the criminal justice system, education, housing, and wealth. On the other hand, many advocates of a color-blind society argue that progressive discussions of race are divisive and that the best way to prevent racial injustice is to eliminate race from consideration in education and employment. This debate results from disagreements not only about history and the nature of contemporary racial injustice but also about the character of America itself. It’s understandable why emotions are high on both sides, but I think the best way forward is to honestly look at racial injustice in the past and present and to become as knowledgeable as possible about the reasons for racial inequities.  

When it comes to learning about race in America, where should one begin?

I think that learning about race in America should begin with history – the long history of slavery, as well as the many forms of racial discrimination that existed for more than a century after the end of slavery in the United States. There are many books that cover this history well, so I hesitate to recommend any particular one – and it’s probably good to read more than one anyway. But for a general survey, John Hope Franklin and Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham’s From Slavery to Freedom: A History of African Americans, which is a classic in the field, might be a good place to begin.

Evangelical Christians might also benefit from reading Jemar Tisby’s The Color of Compromise, which surveys the history of racism in the white evangelical church in the United States. It’s a provocative critique, and it will likely make many white Christians uncomfortable, but it offers an informative perspective on why white evangelical endorsements of color-blind conservatism seem tone-deaf to many African American Christians.  

Donald Trump likes to compare himself to Abraham Lincoln, stating he has done more for black people than anyone. Does the comparison fit in your mind? Or is there another particular American politician you would compare Trump to?

Donald Trump increased the Republican Party’s share of the African American vote primarily by building a multiracial working-class coalition that believed in his promise of economic uplift through an “America First” policy of protectionism. Unlike Lincoln, he hasn’t passed any initiatives designed to specifically target racial injustice, nor has he suggested that he intends to do so.

While Trump’s approach is not identical to that of any previous president, his antipathy to educated “elites” and his success in building a working-class coalition through populist appeals to white men remind me a lot of Andrew Jackson.

What do you make of how often Scripture is used in political discourse and by our politicians?

The Bible has functioned as American scripture from the beginning of the nation, as Mark Noll has demonstrated in his recent books on the Bible in American life and as Robert Bellah noted in his landmark article on civil religion in 1967. Abraham Lincoln’s greatest speeches not only quoted from scripture, but echoed the cadences of the King James Bible. For many years, inaugural addresses and other major presidential speeches have been punctuated with scripture.

The use of scripture in American political discourse is a reflection of the civil religion of a nation that G. K. Chesterton described as having “the soul of a church.” I appreciate the role that Christianity has played in the United States, but I also think that the pervasiveness of Christian language and biblical quotations in political discourse might blind Christians to the distinctions between the kingdom of God and the goals of the American state. The United States is not a church, despite what Chesterton said about its soul. We should not confuse it with the kingdom of God.

Should Christians be invested in learning American history? If so, where should they begin? Where should they not begin?

If God’s redemptive relationship with humanity is worked out in human history (as the Bible describes), a knowledge of history teaches us something important about both God and ourselves – the two areas of knowledge that John Calvin said comprise almost all of human “wisdom.” So,  yes, Christians should be very interested in learning about history, since without a knowledge of history, we will miss most of the human story and most of the story of God’s relationship with people.

For American Christians, a knowledge of American history is also very important, because without a knowledge of the past, we will not be able to make sense of contemporary conversations about race, politics, and religion. Most contemporary political debates build on arguments and experiences from the past, so without a knowledge of those earlier conversations and events, we won’t be able to fully understand what is happening in the present. We also won’t be able to fully understand ourselves and our own church communities without an awareness of the particular stories that have shaped our families, our churches, and our region. All of us are shaped by a larger context – and it’s only through a study of the past that we can fully understand that context.

Christians who want to learn more about American history can find a lot of good resources, and I think that it’s important to ready widely from multiple perspectives. I think that good biographies often bring history to life in a way that makes history accessible to non-specialists. I’m also a fan of primary source materials. There’s no substitute for reading the original writings of significant Americans from the past – and many of those primary source documents are quite short and easily accessible. I would also recommend the works of thoughtful Christian historians who are writing for the public. George Marsden and Tracy McKenzie, for instance, have both written several books on American political and religious history that I think would be of interest to church book clubs or to individual Christians who want to get a better sense of how to interpret our contemporary political and religious moment in a larger historical context. But Marsden and McKenzie are certainly not the only ones writing important books in this field; many other historians have written highly useful works as well.

How surprised are you, if at all, at our current political and cultural moment? Is this something your younger self would have predicted?

The high degree of partisan polarization doesn’t surprise me, but the willingness of so many Americans to acquiesce to the erosion of constitutional checks and balances is somewhat surprising and unnerving. By the time that I wrote The Politics of the Cross, I realized that our democracy was more fragile than I had once believed, but a few years before that, I would probably never have expected so many Americans to welcome the end of a liberal democratic international order or embrace quasi-authoritarian policies at home. I think that this is a reflection of the erosion of Christian-based democratic values that I discuss in the final chapter of my book. Unfortunately, some of this erosion has come because of the actions of professing Christians, which is why it’s vitally important for us as followers of Jesus to reflect on the theological principles that sustain a healthy democracy.

How have you personally been able to maintain peace in the midst of unsurety?

I recognize that my hope is not in political parties. God is in control of the nations – including the United States. God sometimes calls his people to go through very difficult experiences, and our contemporary political situation may be one of those difficult moments. It’s often in those moments of difficulty that God’s people have an opportunity to be a witness for God’s kingdom.

I encourage all American Christians to get a copy of The Politics of the Cross mainly for its hopeful, clear, & biblical message, as well as it rootedness in American history. If you could condense your book in a few sentences, what might that look like? What’s the heart of The Politics of the Cross?

The Politics of the Cross argues that Christians need to move beyond partisanship by recognizing that both of our major political parties distort Christian principles. Neither party fully represents a Christian platform, yet both parties have also been deeply influenced by Christianity. The Politics of the Cross suggests ways that Christians can work toward kingdom principles within both parties, while also holding the parties accountable for their shortcomings and avoiding finding our identity in either party. It suggests that when casting our vote, we need to focus on policy outcomes more than rhetorical slogans. Above all, it suggests that we need to replace a quest for political power with a principle of self-sacrifice modeled on the cross – and that if we do so, we’ll find that politics, rightly practiced, can be a way to love our neighbor. In addition to presenting a history of the two political parties from a Christian perspective, The Politics of the Cross offers case studies of the way that Christians can apply a cross-centered, nonpartisan political perspective to the issues of abortion, marriage, race, and poverty.

Dr. Daniel Williams teaches American history at Ashland University. His other books include God’s Own Party: The Making of the Christian Right, as well as Defenders of the Unborn: The Pro-Life Movement before Roe v. Wade. His published work has appeared in the New York Times, the Washington Post, Christianity Today, First Things, and The Gospel Coalition.