Granite City, IL (photo from builtstlouis.net)

As far as internet memes go, one of my favorites is: “In democracy, it’s your vote that counts. In feudalism, it’s your count that votes.” It’s easy to forget that the vast majority of the human race throughout history lived under some form of the latter. The average individual did not have a say in how his (and definitely not her) society was run, short of participating in a torch-and-pitchfork peasant revolt.

It’s a relatively rare thing, historically speaking, to have some degree of influence over the organization and direction of your society. It’s also not a phenomenon the New Testament directly addresses, the NT documents being written at a time when Christians were a tiny, politically voiceless minority living in the distinctly non-democratic Roman Empire.

Nevertheless, as we acknowledge that Christ is Lord of all aspects of our lives, it’s incumbent upon us as American Christians to think carefully about engaging in political action (voting, campaigning, lobbying, etc.) in a way that’s honoring to Him. How to do this in practice, however, is often enough a pretty complicated question.

Bear with me through one longish example. I happen to believe rather strongly that it is almost always bad economic policy to impose protectionist measures (e.g., tariffs) against imports from foreign countries.

This issue was on the national radar earlier this year and will likely be so again. In April, President Trump ordered the Department of Commerce to investigate whether imports of foreign steel are endangering national security. It being fairly difficult to make an aircraft carrier out of plastic, you don’t want to be dependent on international rivals for steel. Pending on the results of the investigation, the administration could impose tariffs.  

But that would be a mistake, from both defense and economic perspectives. To begin with, the military currently needs less than one percent of annual US steel production. Moreover, the United States has more steel making capacity today than during the Second World War, the greatest conflict in history (check out this report for the details). Should, God forbid, another major war break out, the real potential problem would be a deficit not of steel but of skilled shipbuilders.

From an economic perspective: cheap steel, regardless of its source, is a boon to other sectors of the economy. As Foreign Policy reported in May, “For every U.S. steelworker, there are about 60 workers in steel-using industries.” When President George W. Bush ordered steel tariffs back in 2002, an estimated 200,000 Americans lost their jobs as a result of higher steel prices, more than the total number of steelworkers in the United States at that time.

I think the case against imposing steel tariffs is about as open-and-shut as it gets. In general, protectionist measures like tariffs should be considered guilty until proven innocent, and the bar for proving innocence should be set very high. Therefore, all other things being equal, I support candidates who advocate free trade with other nations, believing that when government tampers with intricately interconnected global markets, it usually makes things worse.

I brought up the issue of steel tariffs for a specific reason. A couple of weeks before Christmas last year I was working in the church office when a man in his early thirties stopped by. He carried with him two or three Walmart bags filled with dolls, princess coloring books and teddy bears. He explained that he had received these things from a toy drive in Granite City, Illinois, where he lived. Since he didn’t have daughters at the right age to enjoy them, however, he had made the thirty minute trip to donate them to our church’s own toy drive.

After I thanked the man, he went on to explain that he had been employed for years at the US Steel plant in Granite City, but had been laid off eleven months prior. Things had become very difficult, he said, but “God gives you a way to get through it.”

US Steel idled its Granite City operations shortly after Christmas 2015, “temporarily” laying off about 1,500 workers. As of this past summer, around 1,200 workers had yet to resume their old jobs.

The layoffs were due to decreased demand for steel piping by the oil industry, which was itself struggling from the low price of oil. Since then the oil industry has regained some economic momentum, but has turned to foreign suppliers for cheap steel.  

There’s every reason to think that a tariff against foreign steel would help this man, and thousands like him, get back on their feet. Like I argued above, however, such a tariff would be a clear policy mistake. In saying this, I realize that I’m effectively advocating that we as a society allow this devout, kind-hearted man – and for that matter his family and community – to suffer poverty for the sake of up to sixty other people (and their families and communities) whose livelihoods are dependent on a relatively low price of steel.  

(That was a difficult sentence for me to write. I will be a father myself any day now; I find the prospect of being unable to buy Christmas presents for my own child too painful to think about for long).

Is there a distinctively Christian approach to this problem? That’s hard to say. According to Jesus, the Second Greatest Commandment states that “you shall love your neighbor as yourself,” but just like the lawyer in Luke 10 we feel prompted to ask some follow up questions (although with better motives, hopefully): When it comes time to vote, or lobby, or campaign, is it possible to love all my neighbors? How do I love those who get run over by free trade and the many more who benefit from it? What about the Chinese and South Korean steelworkers who would doubtless suffer from American tariffs? Do they count?

And what if I actually lived in Granite City and had to watch the steel mill close down, the restaurants shutter their windows, and the payday loan sharks pop up? Is it alright for my political activity to aim at benefiting my community (i.e., my literal neighbors) at the expense of distant communities?

Some Christian groups have avoided political involvement altogether, which is certainly an elegant solution to the problem. But it’s just a little off-putting to leave non-Christians to soil their hands in the difficult work of constructing a decent society while we believers serenely sit in judgment over them (and enjoy the benefits of said decent society).

Here are a few ideas that may be helpful in the task of engaging in politics as a Christian:

(1) If you’re invested in some policy proposal, do your best to track down its unintended consequences. In other words, ask yourself, “Who will this hurt? How can we as a society mitigate the pain this will cause to our fellow Americans and, for that matter, our fellow human beings who live in other countries?”

(2) On a related note, it’s always a good thing to practice a little humility in your politics. Those who disagree with you are likely not idiots or fascists or snowflakes, but rather people who can see more clearly than you the unintended consequences of the policies you want implemented.

(3) Jesus told the parable of the Good Samaritan centuries before the average Christian could even dream of having political clout of any sort. The point of the parable then, as now, is to show kindness to the people you actually encounter in daily life. Political action necessarily abstracts (we need to sacrifice a thousand jobs to create ten thousand, etc). Even at this level of abstraction, we’re obligated to promote the good of our neighbors (but which ones?) the best we can. The main focus of Scripture, however, is on finding creative ways to love the individual who has lost his job to globalization, or who is asking you for money at a red light, or who is complaining that you’re ruining the image of the neighborhood by parking your junker car on the street. Love happens in the concrete.