Political Conservatism: You sure learn some things from the experiences of this life. Without belaboring my past history, I should say that I’ve only known about my father since 2018. Before that, he was simply an American soldier my mom met in Germany and hooked up with one night. I didn’t even know until 2018 that he was still alive, or that he lived only about 300 miles from me in Iowa. So what did I discover? My father is a devoted Catholic, but more than anything else, he is a Republican. That is what defines him. That is what drives him. He believes he is on the good side, on the right team, and because of that, better than others. Almost every conversation I try to have with him eventually circles back to morality and Republicanism. And for reasons I’m still trying to sort out, I think I’m beginning to hate it. The only reason I called him this time, as I try to do every couple of weeks, was to tell him that I was not quitting my job.
Oddly enough, I had sort of a mental breakdown a couple of weeks ago. I don’t think there was one single cause, but rather several things piling up at once, and that, together with very little sleep and a mind that was already running in circles, was enough to send me into a bit of a tailspin. For about 72 hours, I had convinced myself that I was quitting my job, despite never really stopping to think through any of the practical realities of doing so. I only told a handful of people, just a few close friends, but for some reason he was one of them. So when I went back through my messages to see who I had actually told, I saw his name there and thought I should call him and explain what had happened. And for the first time in my life, because obviously I’m not close to him, and he has his own children and his own life, I actually started opening up a little. I told him I had nearly fallen apart. I told him I felt stupid and embarrassed for telling people I was quitting, and that thankfully there were people around me who cared enough to show me how foolish I was being.
He’s in his eighties now, though still pretty sharp, but I’m sure age and medication have their own way of affecting things, so I didn’t know exactly what kind of response I’d get. And I should probably add that I’m not hurt by any of this. I know enough about his own struggles to understand that listening to somebody else’s unraveling may not have been the easiest thing for him at that moment. So I’m not telling this story out of bitterness or hurt. I’m only using it because it helps make the point I’m trying to make. Even with all of that in mind, what happened next was not what I expected. What did he say? Not a word.
It was as if he hadn’t heard a single thing I had just said. He immediately launched into a rant about his 27-year-old granddaughter, who had gone to some music festival here in Michigan, and how appalling it was that she had a girlfriend, whom she called her partner, and how abominable the whole scene was. On and on he went about how horrible these people are, while I sat there thinking, what just happened? I was confused before. Now I was even more confused.
And I suppose that is what stayed with me after I hung up the phone. It wasn’t simply that he changed the subject, nor even that he launched into one more rant about morality, politics, and cultural decline. It was how quickly and how instinctively his mind went there. Even in a moment that had nothing to do with Republicanism, morality, or the sins of the modern world, he seemed unable to think in any other categories. It all came rushing back through the same familiar grid: the good people, the bad people, the decent ones, the corrupt ones, the ones ruining the country, and the ones still trying to save it. And the older I get, the sadder that feels to me.
He’s in his eighties now, which means, humanly speaking, he’s much nearer the end of his life than the beginning. But then again, so am I. So are all of us. And maybe that is part of what made the whole thing feel so heavy to me. What do we want to be occupied with in the final stretch of life? What do we want our minds to keep circling back to, if the Lord gives us old age, weakness, doctors, medication, and all the rest of it? I cannot think of many things sadder than to spend those years consumed with politics, moral agitation, patriotic identity, and the reassuring thought that at least you were one of the good guys.
If I am going to say this plainly, I should probably say it now: I believe a great deal of what is known as American Christianity has been politically hijacked. My concern is not with conservative theology, but with political conservatism, and the way it has become so intertwined with Republicanism, patriotism, and a broader moral framework that it now functions for many as a rival lens through which the world is interpreted. In many cases it is no longer merely a set of political opinions, but a way of sorting people, identifying enemies, assigning virtue, and deciding who is worth defending and who is worth condemning. And when that happens, it becomes very difficult to tell where Christianity ends and Republicanism begins.
None of this means that believers must stop caring about sin, stop caring about public evil, or stop having convictions about what is right and wrong. My point is something else. Political conservatism can become a rival framework that slowly takes over the work that ought to belong to Scripture. It tells people who the enemies are, what should alarm them, what should disgust them, and what ought to reassure them that they are still standing on the side of decency. It becomes a complete moral script, and because it often borrows the language of “righteousness”- (not righteousness as it is found in Christ, but a moral vocabulary that conservatism can mimic and weaponize) – and overlaps with genuine moral concerns, it can feel so close to Christianity that many people never notice how much of their thinking has been shaped by politics rather than by Christ.
That matters because the kingdom of Christ is not a conservation project, as though Christianity existed to preserve America, family values, or some moral ecosystem from extinction. It is not about preserving a nation, winning a culture war, or forcing biblical morality onto people who have no love for Christ. And yet conservatism can subtly persuade Christians that the great task before them is not the proclamation of the gospel, but the defense of social order, the defeat of the right enemies, and the preservation of a moral society. In other words, it can slowly shift the center of gravity from Christ crucified to cultural survival. But Christ did not come to make men politically useful or culturally respectable. He came to save sinners, to redeem a people for Himself, and to bring life where there was only death.
That is also why my criticism falls more heavily on this side than on the liberal side. It is not because I think the liberal branch of what is called Christianity is harmless, or because I have suddenly grown soft on liberalism, feminism, sexual confusion, and the rest of the moral insanities of the age. In many cases, the liberal side has already committed a kind of doctrinal suicide, drifting so far from biblical Christianity that its politics are really just one more symptom of a much deeper theological collapse. But the conservative side is more difficult, precisely because it can still sound serious, still quote Scripture, still speak of sin, truth, family, order, and morality, and yet still be slowly hijacked by a political spirit that wears biblical language, talks about truth and morality, and all the while pulls the center of gravity away from Christ.
And that is where the whole thing begins to take on the flavor of law rather than gospel. The focus shifts toward managing behavior, restraining vice, defending social norms, and trying to produce a more respectable world through political force and moral pressure. But the church was never commissioned to create a nation of outwardly decent unbelievers. It was commissioned to preach Christ crucified, to call sinners to repentance and faith, and to bear witness to a kingdom that neither rises with political victories nor sinks beneath cultural collapse, because its life has never depended on either one. Outward order is not the same thing as spiritual life, and a society with better manners is still dead without Christ.
None of this means that questions of marriage, sexuality, abortion, or public morality suddenly cease to matter. They do matter. Sin is still sin, false religion is still false religion, and rebellion against God does not become harmless simply because the culture has learned to celebrate it. But these things must be addressed as matters of truth, sin, repentance, and the gospel—not as though the believer’s great calling were to spend his life in a state of political agitation over the moral collapse of the world. He is not here merely to shout at darkness. He is here to bear witness to Christ.
The world does not need to agree with us about marriage for marriage to remain what God says it is. It does not need to affirm biblical morality for biblical morality to remain true. And we do not need political power in order to bear witness to those things. What we need is the courage to speak the truth plainly, and the wisdom to remember that the deepest problem with the world is not that it has the wrong social policies, but that it is alienated from God. That problem will not be solved by forcing unbelievers to mimic Christian morality. It will only be solved in Christ.
And if I may say it plainly, I think that is part of what I heard in my father’s voice that day. Not merely old age, not merely irritation, not merely a man venting about the world around him, but something more settled than that – a whole way of seeing, reacting, and judging that had been shaped by moral panic, political identity, and the steady habit of locating evil chiefly outside oneself. It is a kind of moral captivity. Not captivity to obvious vice, but captivity to a spirit of constant agitation over the vice of others. And that is what frightens me about all of this. It can leave a man fluent in outrage, fluent in moral disgust, fluent in everything that is wrong with the world, while strangely silent about Christ, about grace, and about the evil that still clings so closely to himself.
And lest this sound too much like a criticism of other people, I should say plainly that I feel the danger of it in myself. I know how easy it is to become preoccupied with corruption, falsehood, and the madness of the age, while speaking far less of Christ than I ought. I know how quickly “contending for truth” can become a respectable cover for pride, irritation, and the steady pleasure of having the right enemies. That is not spiritual maturity. It is just another form of flesh.
At the end of the day, I do not want my life to be organized around political panic, cultural resentment, and the sins of other people. I have no interest in spending my remaining years as one more agitated conservative with a Bible in one hand and a running list of grievances in the other. I want to be occupied with Christ. I want to speak honestly about sin without turning outrage into a religion. I want to oppose what is false without losing sight of mercy. And I want, by the grace of God, to finish this life with my eyes fixed less on the corruption of the world and more on the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of it. MPJ