Christians cannot retreat from the public square

By Michael Hancock | Commentary, Undercurrent Substack

Many American Christians have mistaken political exhaustion for spiritual wisdom.

They look at the public square and see corruption, division, ambition, deceit, and the machinery of worldly power. Then, with a kind of pious resignation, they conclude that politics is simply too dirty for the faithful. Better, they say, to remain above it all. Better to pray, worship, and wait. Better to remember that God is sovereign and that what will happen will happen.

Their desire to remain unstained by worldly corruption is understandable. But their conclusion is mistaken.

The Christian’s first allegiance is not to party, nation, candidate, or ideology. It is to Christ. But allegiance to Christ does not excuse retreat from public life. It requires engagement in it — not as idolaters of politics, but as stewards of truth, justice, liberty, and neighborly love.

Scripture does not present righteousness as a private sentiment detached from public consequence. The Bible is not a passive book. It does not call believers to hide from the world, nor does it sanctify apathy as holiness. On the contrary, it calls them to be salt and light — not merely in their homes, churches, and private devotions, but wherever truth is contested, justice is threatened, and human dignity is at stake.

To retreat entirely from public responsibility, including politics, is not spiritual maturity. It is abdication.

The Biblical Precedent for Public Engagement

The Old Testament is filled with examples of godly figures shaping the governance of their time.

Joseph, through wisdom and integrity, ascended to power in Egypt and helped save a nation from famine. Daniel, unwavering in his faith, served as an adviser to pagan kings and spoke truth inside the courts of empire. Esther risked her life to intervene in the politics of Persia, saving her people from annihilation.

None of these figures lived apart from government. They engaged with it. They influenced it. They used their positions, however dangerous or compromised the surrounding culture, to serve righteousness and preserve life.

And what of the New Testament?

Some argue that Christ was apolitical, but this is a misreading of the text. Jesus was not partisan, but neither was He indifferent to power, justice, law, authority, truth, or public righteousness. He confronted the religious and political leaders of His time with moral clarity. He exposed hypocrisy. He challenged false authority. He defied Pilate’s understanding of power, declaring, “You would have no authority over me at all unless it had been given you from above” (John 19:11).

Jesus recognized the legitimacy of civil authority, instructing His followers to “render to Caesar what is Caesar’s” (Matthew 22:21). But He never surrendered moral judgment to Caesar. Government had a place. It did not have ultimate authority.

Paul understood this balance as well. In Romans 13, he teaches that governing authority is not meaningless. It exists under God’s sovereignty for the preservation of order and justice. But Paul never suggests blind obedience to the state. In Acts, he repeatedly invokes his rights as a Roman citizen to advance the gospel and protect himself from unlawful treatment. He understood the political and legal structures in which he operated, and he used them.

That matters even more in a constitutional republic.

In a monarchy, the average citizen may have little direct influence over law. In a republic, citizens are part of the governing order. They help choose leaders. They shape laws. They influence public standards. They determine, by participation or neglect, who governs and by what principles.

If government exists under God’s authority, and if citizens in a republic help shape that government, then Christian citizens cannot treat political responsibility as spiritually irrelevant.

The Heavenly Citizenship Argument

Some Christians argue that politics is a distraction. They insist that earthly governance has little to do with believers because Scripture teaches that Christians are “not of this world.”

Indeed, Philippians 3:20 reminds us, “But our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ.” First Peter 2:11 calls Christians “sojourners and exiles,” warning them not to be ruled by worldly passions. These passages are often used to justify political disengagement.

But that interpretation is incomplete, and dangerously so.

Jesus Himself said in John 17:15–18: “I do not ask that you take them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one… As you sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world.”

This is not the language of withdrawal. It is the language of mission.

Christ does not ask that His followers be removed from the world. He sends them into it. They are not to be conformed to the world, but neither are they to abandon it. They are to bear witness within it.

Paul makes the same point in 2 Corinthians 5:20 when he calls believers “ambassadors for Christ.” An ambassador represents the interests of his true homeland while living in a foreign land. That means Christians should enter public life not as those trying to build heaven on earth, but as those who represent the principles of God’s kingdom: justice, mercy, truth, righteousness, and the defense of the vulnerable.

Being a citizen of heaven is not a call to political apathy. It is a reminder that believers are to operate with a higher moral compass.

Their ultimate allegiance is to God. Precisely for that reason, they cannot be indifferent when earthly authorities reward evil, punish good, confuse truth, degrade human dignity, or restrict the freedom to live according to conscience.

The Christian does not engage politics because politics is ultimate. He engages because obedience is.

Engagement Without Idolatry

Of course, the danger runs in both directions.

Christians can sin by withdrawing from politics, but they can also sin by making politics ultimate. No party is the kingdom of God. No platform is Scripture. No candidate is a savior. Political victory is not the arrival of the New Jerusalem.

When Christians allow party loyalty to replace biblical conviction, they have not engaged politics faithfully. They have been captured by it. When they turn prudential judgments into articles of faith, or treat political opponents as enemies beyond redemption, they have traded Christian witness for tribal warfare.

Christian political engagement must therefore be principled but not idolatrous, courageous but not cruel, active but not captive.

The question is not whether Christians should baptize politics. They should not. The question is whether they may abandon the public square while claiming biblical justification.

They may not.

The abuse of politics is not an argument for abandoning politics. It is an argument for entering it with rightly ordered allegiance.

The Responsibility of Engagement

Some may argue that politics is inherently corrupt and that participation requires moral compromise. But this is a dangerous half-truth.

Politics is often corrupt because fallen people are involved in it. But that is true of every human institution: business, education, media, entertainment, law, and even the church. The existence of sin in an arena does not release Christians from responsibility. It clarifies the need for faithful presence.

If the righteous withdraw, what remains?

It is not engagement itself that corrupts. It is engagement without principle. It is ambition without restraint. It is power without truth. And when those who claim to care about righteousness abandon the field, they should not be surprised when the field is governed by those who do not.

The Bible speaks often of justice.

“Learn to do good; seek justice, correct oppression” (Isaiah 1:17). That is not a passive command. It requires action, intervention, courage, and, in many cases, political involvement. Justice is not an abstract theological concept. It is a societal necessity. It concerns laws, courts, policing, schools, families, property, speech, conscience, and the protection of the weak from the strong.

To walk away from the mechanisms of governance is often to walk away from one of the primary means by which justice is either secured or denied.

There is another reason Christians must remain engaged: the preservation of religious liberty itself.

The right to worship, to speak freely, to raise children according to conviction, to live according to biblical principles — these liberties are not self-sustaining. They do not preserve themselves through good intentions. History shows that when believers ignore the political landscape, others will shape it, often in ways hostile to faith.

Politics writes laws. Laws teach norms. Norms shape culture. And culture forms the habits of the next generation.

To abandon politics is to relinquish influence over the very society in which believers are commanded to love their neighbors, defend truth, seek justice, and be salt and light.

This does not mean every Christian must run for office. It does not mean every sermon should become a campaign speech. It does not mean every disagreement is a holy war. But it does mean that Christians may not pretend that voting, advocacy, public service, lawmaking, education policy, religious liberty, parental rights, human dignity, and the defense of the vulnerable are somehow beneath spiritual concern.

They are not beneath it. They are part of it.

Faithfulness in the Public Square

Christian political engagement is not about seizing power for its own sake. It is not about confusing America with the church or mistaking the Constitution for Scripture. It is not about forcing conversion through law, nor pretending that government can redeem the human heart.

Government cannot save. Politics cannot regenerate. No election can do what only God can do.

But government can restrain evil. Law can protect the innocent. Policy can either defend or endanger liberty. Public institutions can either honor truth or erode it. And citizens, especially in a republic, bear responsibility for the direction of those institutions.

The Christian who enters politics need not pretend politics can save the world. It cannot. But neither may he pretend politics has nothing to do with justice, liberty, truth, or the neighbor he is commanded to love.

The Bible does not call believers to rule the world. It calls them to be faithful in it.

And faithfulness, in a republic, requires more than private belief. It requires public courage.

Hancock also publishes on Substack. You can check out more of his work here.

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