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Politics is fundamentally a matter of how we live together with others. 
Posting about ­­­­­­­­navigating political differences from In All Things, an online hub that offers insight into maintaining and faithful and orthodox  Reformed Christian worldview while fearlessly engaging in  every aspect of contemporary life – until all is made new.
Politics: Asking for a Frien

Kearney, Michael

Dordt Digital Collections 
Faculty Work Comprehensive List 
11-5-2024 
Politics: Asking for a Friend 
Michael Kearney 
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 Part of the Christianity Commons 
Politics: Asking for a Friend 
Abstract 
"Politics is fundamentally a matter of how we live together with others." 
Posting about navigating political differences from In All Things, an online hub that offers insight into 
maintaining and faithful and orthodox Reformed Christian worldview while fearlessly engaging in every 
aspect of contemporary life – until all is made new. 
Politics: Asking for a Friend 
Keywords 
In All Things, politics, disillution, faith, neighbors 
Disciplines 
Christianity 
Comments 
In All Things is a publication of the Andreas Center for Reformed Scholarship and Service at Dordt 
University. 
Politics: Asking for a Friend 
By Michael Kearney 
My mother’s neighbor of 30-plus years called her recently. My mother was expecting an 
invitation to come over and get some fresh eggs from the chickens, but her neighbor had 
other things on her mind: “I need to ask you about politics. What are you going to do in 
November? I’ve voted Democrat for years, but my son is a conservative. I’m looking at our 
options, and I have never felt so confused and powerless to make a choice. What do you 
think?” 
Aren’t religion and politics the two topics you don’t bring up in polite conversation? At the 
moment, no two topics seem to divide America more. Yet I can’t help but wonder if 
conversations like this one mark a new era in our civil discourse—an era that, against all 
expectations, holds forth hope and opportunity. 
I am currently planning a new communication course on civility. Dialogic civility begins with 
the moral philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre’s observation that the Western world now exists 
“after virtue,” beyond agreement about what is true, right, or desirable. He diagnosed the 
condition of our civic arena as “emotivism,” with people acting solely upon their individual 
desires and preferences. In recent years we’ve witnessed the fallout of emotivism in 
political campaigns, leadership failures, church conflicts, and major corporate blunders. 
With individualistic decision-making at the helm, it is no wonder our outlook on politics, 
like our outlook on many other communal endeavors, often lies shrouded in cynicism. 
But how do we get from cynicism to hope? In their book Dialogic Civility in a Cynical Age: 
Community, Hope, and Interpersonal Relationships, Ronald C. Arnett and Pat Arneson 
make the case that cynicism springs not from pessimism, but actually from optimism. 
Routine cynicism indicates the frustration of unduly high expectations. To paraphrase, it’s 
becoming disillusioned—abandoning hope in the clarity of an optimistic vision. One of the 
positive sides of disillusionment is an invitation to change our focus of attention. In 
theological terms, perhaps disillusionment can awaken us to idolatry—a demand that a 
particular aspect of God’s creation be something it never could or should have been. And 
in that sense, I wonder if the political disillusionment we currently experience may actually 
offer a gift. 
It is all too easy to operate on abstract and polarizing notions of “politics,” forgetting that 
politics is fundamentally a matter of how we live together with others. As David Koyzis 
notes, politics harbors multiple ideals of what we think the perfect image of America or 
Canada or some other country can be. As those visions congeal into idols, they lead us 
subtly away from the real, ordinary, perversely difficult task of dealing with other people. If 
heaven is an America run on a particular party line, then Jean-Paul Sartre was right: “Hell is 
other people,” people who interrupt “my” vision of what a country should be. 
That applies to communities of faith too. Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote in Life Together that 
obsession over forming a genuine Christian community is one of the biggest obstacles to 
the actual formation of that community. Our visions of what the church should be routinely 
get in the way of our ability to handle the church as it is. So, paradoxically, the church 
needs frustrations, setbacks, and sin and repentance in order to stay healthy. Cracks in the 
veneer of manmade perfection offer gifts of disillusionment that keep a community of faith 
alive. 
This is not a cry against visions of healthy communities or a noble political order—hopes 
we desperately need to keep alive. I merely want to pose a question: What personal vices 
might we glimpse when we allow this frustrating election season to plunge us momentarily 
into political disillusionment? Idolatrous faith in the persona of a particular candidate? 
Idolatrous longing for a pristine vision of what our country once was or should be? 
Idolatrous fear of the quasi-omnipotence of a vaguely nefarious “them” who control 
everything from the news to the weather? 
And what does it mean to pray “Your kingdom come” in such a moment—a moment in 
which God has not promised either to appoint my ideal of a political leader (perhaps not 
even the lesser of two evils!) or to provide me a private escape ramp up to the new heavens 
and the new earth? 
MacIntyre said his goal was not to help people agree more but to help them disagree more 
productively. Living in this moment offers us a profound chance to talk frankly with our 
neighbors and friends about our inability to agree on a candidate, a political platform, or 
even a coherent vision for a country. Such a conversation moves from attentiveness to 
questioning to the possibility of temporal answers: (1) What are the concerns of this 
historical moment? (2) What ground does my neighbor stand on? (3) What ground do I 
stand on? and (4) What options for action, belief, and understanding emerge from this 
difficult moment? 
What do the politically disillusioned often say? They no longer feel at home in their own 
country. If we could only sit in the bitter dregs of that truth long enough to encounter its 
revelatory balm—“for here we have no lasting city, but we seek the city that is to come” 
(Hebrews 13:14). Oh, that we who are so at ease would learn again what it means to walk 
as strangers and exiles, that we would apply Geerhardus Vos’s admonition to “carry a 
heaven-fed and heaven-centered spirit into our walk and work below.” That upside-down, 
topsy-turvy Christian walk will most certainly draw questions from our neighbors. 
References 
Arnett, Ronald C., and Pat Arneson. 1999. Dialogic Civility in a Cynical Age: Community, 
Hope, and Interpersonal Relationships. State University of New York Press. 
Bonhoeffer, Dietrich. 1954. Life Together. Translated by John W. Doberstein. HarperCollins. 
Koyzis, David. 2019. Political Visions and Illusions: A Survey and Christian Critique of 
Contemporary Ideologies. 2nd ed. IVP Academic. 
MacIntyre, Alasdair. 1990. Three Rival Versions of Moral Enquiry: Encyclopaedia, 
Genealogy, and Tradition. University of Notre Dame Press. 
MacIntyre, Alasdair. (1981) 2007. After Virtue: A Study in Moral Theory. 3rd ed. University of 
Notre Dame Press. 
Sartre, Jean-Paul. 1989. No Exit: And Three Other Plays. Vintage. 
Vos, Geerhardus. (1922) 2020. Grace and Glory: Sermons Preached at Princeton Seminary. 
Banner of Truth Trust. 
 


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Politics: Asking for a Friend