SUNDAY DEVOTION: Don’t Lose Your Soul

How to maintain virtue in a dirty business

Politics seems easy when you have no scruples. As I watch big lobby groups and PACs send out mailers making up the wildest lies about good people, or partisans on social media simply make things up out of whole cloth, I think about how simple it must be to operate without having to worry about truth or honor.

Alas, you and I have a higher standard. I recently rewatched the 2005 Ridley Scott epic Kingdom of Heaven and a scene jumped out at me. The leprous King of Jerusalem Baldwin IV (Edward Norton) urges newcomer Balian of Ibelin (Orlando Bloom) never to let politics destroy his soul:

A king may move a man, a father may claim a son, but that man can also move himself, and only then does that man truly begin his own game. Remember that howsoever you are played or by whom, your soul is in your keeping alone, even though those who presume to play you be kings or men of power. When you stand before God, you cannot say, ‘But I was told by others to do thus,’ or that virtue was not convenient at the time. This will not suffice. Remember that.

We must all be careful not to lose our souls in the pursuit of political ends. In Mark 8:36 our Lord asks, “For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul?” We will all stand in judgment someday and account for our actions. “I was just following orders” won’t cut it, neither will foisting responsibility on a political party, or PAC, or fellow legislators and activists. Each one of us has moral agency, the awesome responsibility of choosing our own words and actions.

I don’t believe this rules out tactical voting. Sometimes when choosing which candidate to support we face a Hobson’s choice — the Boise mayoral race is a great example. Mike Masterson is far from perfect, and he supports several policies that I find distasteful. However, the alternative is an outright socialist who would make Boise into the next Portland or San Francisco. If casting a vote for the lesser of two evils sticks in your conscience, then by all means, abstain, but for me I think it’s perfectly fine to make a strategic choice in such a situation.

It would be wonderful if all of our elected officials were angels, or even just moral examplars, but that is not so. It’s better to see them as tools to accomplish political goals than to place them on pedestals they were never meant to occupy. James Madison examined this in Federalist 51:

If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself.

However, there are other situations that do imperil your soul and your conscience. Should you knowingly lie in support of your preferred candidate, or in opposition to another? Should you break campaign finance law if you think you can get away with it? Should you fill out that absentee ballot that arrived in your mailbox addressed to a previous owner or tenant?

No, there are lines that we should not cross, even if powerful and influential people urge us to do it for the greater good. Precisely where those lines are are between you and God.

I would not encourage false piety, though. Defending immoral decisions by proclaiming your church membership is only doubling down on dishonesty. Let your principles guide your choices, quietly and consistently, and then let the chips fall where they may. Remember that in the long run, after all is said and done, you will stand before your Creator where all will be laid bare.

He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the LORD require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?

Micah 6:8 (ESV)