You form your politics from your faith on purpose by deciding, before any campaign asks, what your faith requires you to care about. Then you hold every party and candidate to that standard and refuse to let any of them rewrite it. Jude 3 teaches that our ultimate allegiance belongs to Christ and his kingdom, not to any party or politician, and it calls believers to thoughtful, justice-minded engagement without being captured by partisan loyalty. This guide turns that conviction into a practice you can actually carry out.
It draws on a panel of Christians who work in public life: Justin Giboney, president of the AND Campaign; Treneé McGee, a Connecticut state representative; Bishop Leah Daughtry, presiding prelate of the House of the Lord Churches; and Pastor Michael McBride of Berkeley, California. Stephen Harris of Georgetown University moderated. You can work through the guide alone over a week, or with a group in one long session or two shorter ones. You will need paper and a pen, and the willingness to look at your own views before anyone else’s.
Start with an inventory, not a verdict
Most people never chose their political convictions. They absorbed them. Before you read any Scripture or hear from the panel, take ten minutes and make two columns.
In the first column, write four or five political positions you hold with real confidence. Write them as positions, not party names. For example, you might write that the minimum wage should rise, or that the state should not fund a certain program.
In the second column, write honestly where each position came from. Did you learn it from a parent, from a pastor, from a news outlet you trust, from your own neighborhood, from a passage of Scripture, or from watching what happened to someone you love? Some positions will have more than one source. Some will have a source you would rather not admit.
Do not judge the list yet. The point is to see it. Keep the paper. You will come back to it at the end.
If you are leading a group, give people this time in silence and make clear that no one will be asked to read their lists aloud. The exercise only works if it is honest, and honesty is easier in private. People can choose later what, if anything, to share.
Read three texts about allegiance
Each of these passages addresses a different part of the question. Read them slowly, in order, and answer the short observation prompts before moving on.
Matthew 22:15-22
Read the whole scene, not just the famous line. Notice who comes to Jesus and why. The Pharisees send their disciples together with the Herodians, two groups with different political loyalties, and the text says they want to entangle him in his talk. The question about tribute is a trap built to make him side with one camp against the other.
Jesus answers: “Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s; and unto God the things that are God’s” (Matthew 22:21). Look at what prompts the answer. He asks whose image is on the coin. Many Christian interpreters hear an echo of Genesis 1:27 here, where humanity is made in God’s image. On that reading, the coin belongs to Caesar, and the person holding it belongs to God. That connection is an interpretation rather than something the passage states outright. Even so, the passage plainly gives the state a real but limited claim and gives God the claim that has no limit.
Observation prompt: Jesus refused to be captured by either faction in the room. What did he refuse to do, and what did he still say clearly?
Philippians 3:20
Paul writes, “For our conversation is in heaven; from whence also we look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ” (Philippians 3:20). In the KJV, the word conversation is older English for one’s manner of life as a member of a community. Many modern translations render the word as citizenship. Paul wrote to believers in Philippi, a Roman colony whose people prized their Roman status. He is not telling them to ignore the city they live in. He is telling them where their deepest membership lies.
Observation prompt: If your citizenship is in heaven, what does that make your membership in a party? A home, a tool, a temporary coalition, or something else?
Matthew 6:10
Jesus teaches his disciples to pray, “Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven” (Matthew 6:10). Pastor McBride reads this petition as a call to stewardship over what God has placed in human hands, and he concludes: “Politics is one act of stewardship among many that definitely should not be divorced from our faith.”
Notice what the prayer does and does not say. It asks God to bring his kingdom. It does not name a nation, a program or an election as the place where that kingdom arrives. Read together, the three passages pull against both of the usual mistakes. Matthew 6 rules out walking away from the world. Matthew 22 and Philippians 3 rule out handing your ultimate loyalty to any earthly power. Jude 3 draws the same line when it distinguishes faithful Christian engagement in public life from the fusion of the gospel with national or ethnic power.
Build a conviction ledger
This is the core practice of the guide. It takes the panel’s counsel and turns it into four tests you run on your own convictions. Use a fresh sheet of paper.
Step one: write values before positions. At the top of the page, list three to five things your faith tells you to care about in public life. Ground each one in Scripture you can name. Bishop Daughtry describes faith as an expression of our values, and she puts the next question this way: “where do my values best align?” You cannot answer that until you know what the values are. Write them before you think about any party.
Step two: give up the purity test, not the standard. Daughtry is blunt: “There is no perfect party. There is no perfect candidate. Jesus is not on the ballot. You’re choosing somebody.” Under each value, note honestly which candidates or parties come closest, and where each falls short. The goal is not a perfect match. It is a clear view of the gaps, so you know what you will have to push for after you choose.
Step three: find your pressure point. Justin Giboney warns that “your strongest beliefs can be used to manipulate you.” He tied that warning to Christians who excused nearly anything from a candidate in exchange for a promise on one issue, and to identity politics, where someone who looks like you can represent other interests. His verdict: “the ends justify the means is not part of the gospel.” Circle the value on your list that you care about most. Then write one sentence answering this: what would someone have to offer me on this issue to win my silence on everything else?
Step four: put a person in the room. Pastor McBride describes a principle from his organizing work: “The people most directly impacted by an issue deserve to be kept at the center of that issue.” Next to each position from your first inventory, write the name or description of someone who would live with the result. Then mark whether you have actually listened to such a person, or only read about them.
Now compare this ledger with the inventory you made at the start. Look for positions that came from a source you trust less than Scripture. Look for positions that no longer fit your stated values. Look for a value that no party represents well. That last discovery is not a failure. Treneé McGee holds a consistent life ethic that opposes both abortion and the death penalty, and she says “it’s not only about protecting life, but sustaining life.” She notes that this leaves her not quite fitting in, because “sometimes one party is right and sometimes the other party is right.”
Argue a hard case fairly
The panel did not agree on everything, and that disagreement is useful practice. The question was whether a Christian may write convictions drawn from faith into law.
Three distinct postures emerged. McBride warned against trying to legislate a Christian worldview to non-Christians in a pluralistic society, and he said, “I don’t think God is asking you to fight for God.” Giboney agreed that it is wrong to impose a belief simply because the Bible says so. Yet he argued that every law comes from a value system, and that Christians must explain their convictions in terms whose practical value others can see. McGee argued that every legislator brings what inspires them, whether faith, a film or a disdain for faith, and she described votes in which she believed the Holy Spirit called her to stand for or against a bill.
Working alone or in groups of three, do the following. First, have each person restate one of these postures in their own words. The restatement should be good enough that someone who holds the view would accept it. Next, pick one issue from your own ledger where you hold a conviction rooted in your faith. Ask how each posture would handle it. Last, ask what argument you could give a neighbor who does not share your faith.
If you are leading, resist settling the matter. The panel left it open, and faithful Christians differ on it. Your job is to make sure each posture is represented accurately before anyone criticizes it.
Practice the five things
Giboney credits Lisa Fields with the idea that listening is a form of love. He then gives a test for whether you have actually listened: can you explain the good the other person is trying to reach? “I can’t really critique you unless I know that good,” he said. Then he gives an assignment: “Then be able to list at least five of the things that your side gets wrong.”
Do both parts on paper. Choose one fellow believer who votes differently than you do. Write two or three sentences describing the good you think they are pursuing, in terms they would recognize. Then write your five things. If you stall at two, keep going. The stall is information about how much your side has shaped you.
Daughtry adds the posture that makes this possible: “I’m not always called to understand. I’m first called to love.” McGee adds a warning. She once told church elders preparing to meet young adults, “you cannot go in there and say you have to vote this way.” Trust comes before persuasion. In a group, invite volunteers to share one item from their five, but do not go around the circle. Admitting a fault in your own camp is costly, and it should be offered, not extracted.
Carry it past election day
Giboney insists that “your public witness is more than your vote.” It includes what you push for beforehand and how you hold leaders accountable afterward. Daughtry agrees that “voting has to be a lifestyle and not an event,” and she sets a pointed bar: “if your elected official doesn’t know your name, you not doing your job.”
Choose one action for the next month that connects a value on your ledger to someone with power over it. You might find out who represents you locally, attend one public meeting, or write to an official about a specific issue. McBride observes that many local races are not partisan at all, which makes them a good place to practice judging by values rather than by labels. Write down the action and a date.
Questions for discussion
- Looking at your first inventory, which source has shaped your politics most? How much of it is Scripture, and how much is something else?
- In Matthew 22, Jesus refused to be captured by either faction. Where do you feel pressure from your own community to say only what your side wants said?
- Which value on your ledger does no party represent well? What does it cost you to keep holding it?
- Of the three postures on writing faith into law, which do you find most persuasive, and what is the strongest objection to it?
- What happened when you tried to explain the good that someone on the other side is pursuing? Did it change how you would speak to them?
- McBride says “fundamentalism in any form kills” and describes ethics as “contextual and situational application of your values.” Where might that be wise counsel, and where might someone misuse it to avoid firm convictions?
- What would it look like for a party to cross the line from earning your vote to shaping your faith? How would you notice?
Return to the first page
Take out the inventory you wrote at the start. Choose one position on it and write a single sentence beside it. The sentence should say whether that position now rests more firmly on your faith, needs more testing, or came from somewhere you no longer trust. You do not need to change your vote by the end of this guide. You do need to know which of your convictions belong to Christ and which were simply lent to you by a party. Giboney gave the standard plainly: “As Christians, we have to form our positions based on the love and truth of God.” Keep the page where you will see it again before the next election.