What is a Christian politics? Michael Wear's new book argues it's mostly about who we are

Feb 5, 2024

Break the system.

 

That's what one New Hampshire voter, a 58-year old retired Army officer, said he wants the president to do, in an interview with Politico Magazine.

 

It's only the most obvious example of many of us tend to do from time to time. We pretend, or actually believe, that politics is a form of magic.

 

In other words, we think we can elect a person, or pass a law — as if we were waving a wand — and this will fix our problems.

 

But Michael Wear argues in The Spirit of Our Politics that a politics of magic is like trying to take a shortcut, and it won't work.

 

"Our society, politics, and churches are hampered by a technological conceit — that we can attain the kind of society we seek without coming to terms with the kind of people we are and without becoming a different kind of people," (147) he writes.

 

"Our society produces mass shootings at an unparalleled rate and scale, for instance, not in spite of the kind of people we are, but because of the kind of people we are."

 

What is needed, Michael argues, is a resurrection of spiritual formation.

 

"Spiritual formation is not a question for Christians alone," (137) he says.