It's Not That It's Not Important, But…

We’re in the Christmas season. Scripture tells us that a census came required men and their families to return to the towns of their families. Joseph, though he lived in Nazareth, had to travel to Bethlehem with his pregnant wife.

The distance from Nazareth to Bethlehem is ninety miles, with a 1493-foot ascent from almost sea level into the foothills. Then, it would have been on foot or animal through terrain with wild animals and criminals. It was no easy trip.

The Romans made people return to the towns of their tribes for census purposes during this particular census.

I think of all that because of all my friends worked up on social media about Washington. I’m not saying it is not important. Still, I often think more and more, particularly young political activists, spend way more time worrying about things they cannot fix in Washington than about things they can fix in their own backyards.

People get so focused on Washington that they lose their relatability locally. In fact, paying attention to these midterms, the candidates on both sides who did best were the ones who focused on local issues.

There’s a conversation happening at the periphery of politics within the evangelical community. It’s about a book by a man named Stephen Wolfe called The Case for Christian Nationalism.

If you are at all interested in the book, I hope you’ll read this by my friend Andrew Walker or this from Rev. Kevin DeYoung. Basically, Wolfe does not advocate for Christians in politics but a takeover of the state by Christians. Except Wolfe doesn’t really advocate that. Confused? It is, in part, because Wolfe wants that but doesn’t want to admit that explicitly. He justifies violent revolution to advance his vision of Christian Nationalism. The book is tinged with overtones of race among other things. Some of his regular associations are questionable too.

Wolfe has some strident defenders. I think there’s a misguided conversation that happens in certain circles. Wolfe’s book seems like a product of one of those conversations spilling out into the open where most of the participants had a few drinks and weren’t all that serious. The one guy who was went all Leeroy Jenkins and decided to write a 488 page book on the subject. His tribal circle of friends are all defending him. I suspect many of them have not actually read the book. He’s just in that crowd, and we lie in an age where you defend your tribe, damn the arguments.

The defenses strike me as very 21st century, highly online America, but not very Christian.

I have more than one friend embracing the phrase “Christian nationalism.” Most of them don’t actually mean what Wolfe means. They mean Christian engagement in civic politics and, I think, like that it riles up a certain set of people.

That gets me back to Joseph and Mary.

They traveled to Bethlehem. It fulfilled a prophecy, and it recognized a level of localism in their tribe and family.

It sure would be good if many people involved in politics today remembered that and focused on that.

We can try and sometimes succeed at winning nationally. But locally, there’s a whole lot that can happen if we just spend some time.

Years ago, I ran for and got elected to my city council. The only reason I ran was because I happened to notice the proliferation of Asian-themed massage parlors in my town. When I started writing about it, I started getting threats. As I researched more, I found ties to human trafficking and several local police raids suggested that was happening in my town. That emboldened me to run for office and shut them down. I was successful in the election and mostly successful in getting them shut down.

I’m always amazed now at young activists on the left and right who go straight to either Washington or an obsession about Washington and have planted only nominal roots somewhere else — just a convenient zip code and often for tribal symbolism. The rich wokes are moving to Brooklyn. The rich conservatives are moving to Palm Beach.

All I’m saying is that when we spend so much time focusing on Washington, we forget we have a ministry field in our backyard. Time and time again, scripture exhorts us to take care of our local community, not our nation.

Look, if we believe scripture, we should expect things will get worse in this country for people of faith. I feel like the Christian Nationalist people are fighting the previous fight. The present fight is local. Seek the welfare of your city and pray for it because you’ll find your welfare there. When the persecution heats up, it won’t be Washington saving you unless you live there. It’ll be your local community wherein you planted roots, know your neighbors, and help them as a good neighbor.

I’m not saying we shouldn’t focus on Washington. I’m not saying it is not important. But I am saying scripture is pretty clear we’re to seek the welfare of our local community. And so many of us want to impose our view of things on everyone else nationally we’ve ignored our local community.

I have this theory that if we all started investing ourselves in our local communities that we’d improve them. And by improving them, we’d improve our state overall. And if people in other states are doing the same, those states would be improved. And by improving each state, we’d improve the nation. The roots of the nation matter.

Caesar Augustus sent people back to their roots, and in the roots of David’s village, the roots of our church were planted. That planter tells us He’s got us. He tells us everything works for the good of those called according to His purpose. And He tells us:

Build houses and live in them; plant gardens and eat their produce. 6 Take wives and have sons and daughters; take wives for your sons, and give your daughters in marriage, that they may bear sons and daughters; multiply there, and do not decrease. 7 But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare.

The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Je 29:5–7). (2016). Crossway Bibles.