The Calling of the Christian as Citizen: Exploring Three Perspectives

Has something gone awry in Christian political engagement? Are Christians deficient in how they think and act in the political world, especially in the United States? The three books under review in this essay—Daniel Williams’s The Politics of the Cross: A Christian Alternative to Partisanship, Daniel Bennett’s Uneasy Citizenship: Embracing the Tension in Faith and Politics, and Ephraim Radner’s Mortal Goods: Reimagining Christian Political Duty—certainly think so, as they are all motivated by the sense that something is deeply wrong with how Christians consider their duties as citizens in this world.

But while each author recognizes a problem, they all describe it in different ways, and thus provide different solutions and visions for the future. While the three books have much in common, their differences challenge readers to consider which book is the most persuasive, as they consider their callings as citizens before God. In this essay, I will explain the basic arguments of the three books on offer, followed by some critical reflections and synthesis.

The first book, written by Ashland University historian Daniel Williams, sees at least two problems at work, as can be seen in the title, The Politics of the Cross: A Christian Alternative to Partisanship. One problem is partisanship—or, more specifically, a blind loyalty to the two political parties we have in the United States. In this reading, Christians must reject a mindless commitment to partisanship and think more critically about their political choices. But the problem is more than this; it is also that Christians have too often and for too long been committed to a “power-centered politics,” one concerned mostly with securing the privileges and rights of Christians, at the expense of the needs of their neighbors. The solution is to adopt a “cross-centered politics,” a posture committed to following Jesus in pursuit of policies that serve the needs of the entire community, especially those on the margins.

Williams launches his book by referencing a 2018 New York Times op-ed written by Timothy Keller, entitled “How Do Christians Fit Into The Two-Party System? They Don’t” (1–2). The book wants to provide an extended defense of this point, namely, that although both major political parties in the United States have Christian roots, neither of them fully embodies a Christian point of view. But Williams does not argue that both parties are equally good or bad or that they offer the same kinds of incomplete options for Christians. Instead, he provocatively contends that a Christian approach will likely be one that supports the policies of the Democratic Party while embracing the values of the Republican Party. This is because his concern is with the practical effects of the policies defended by each party, not just the principles behind them. And, when the effects are examined, he finds that the Democratic Party’s policies are probably more in line with a politics of the cross than those of the Republican Party (87).

He first provides a history of both parties and how they relate to American Christianity, and it is in these accounts that Williams is at his best. The Republican Party has its roots in the evangelicalism of slavery abolitionism, but it quickly morphed into something quite different: a party committed to a religion of self-help (24). According to Williams, this devotion to self-help is heretical because it denied the need for salvific hope in Christ, and it ignored the needs of the poor and the vulnerable. His language is quite strong; indeed, he argues that the Republican Party has supported policies for the last century that have made the lives of the poor and vulnerable demonstrably worse. And, given God’s overwhelming desire to defend the cause of the poor and vulnerable, the party’s record has a lot of explaining to do, especially since so many white evangelicals have been and continue to be an essential voting bloc for the party.

But there’s another problem with the party of Lincoln, and at this point matters become a bit more complicated. Williams argues that the Republican Party has always been tied to “Protestant moralism,” the view that a central purpose of government is to restrain vice (24). Whether it’s slavery, alcohol, or abortion, the Grand Old Party has always been in the business of limiting and prohibiting wickedness. For Williams, history does not favor such an approach, since the law is weak and sometimes powerless to induce people to behave in the right way. Prohibition led to non-prohibition, no-fault divorce was the outcome of cultural change not the cause of it, and restrictions on abortion will likely require cultural and economic changes if the desired reduction in abortion is to be realized.

It’s on this last point that Williams’s argument seems to land. For all its faults, the Democratic Party has the distinct advantage of advancing policies that support the economic standing of the poor and vulnerable, such that the best way to make progress on abortion and marriage, issues over which white evangelicals have long had an obsession, is not through legal regulation but through economic policy.

The reader sees this most clearly in his chapter on abortion (88). Here he defends a traditional Christian ethic on the issue, applauding Republicans’ historic support of the unborn while being critical of the Democrats’ increasing abortion liberalization. Consistent with his overall argument, however, legal protection of the unborn and legal restriction of abortion is likely not enough if the goal is to reduce the number of abortions in America. Instead, what is needed is economic and healthcare support for women and families such that it is more likely for expectant mothers to carry their babies to term, especially single mothers who want to have a second child. This is most poignantly expressed in his description of two different women as statistical profiles (111–115). The first woman (Ashley) is white, pro-choice, upper-middle-class, and has an unplanned pregnancy. While she defends the legal right to have an abortion, she decides to keep the child, and can do so because she is in a stable, financially strong marriage. The second woman (Jess) is a poor or lower-middle-class African American, and she is generally opposed to the practice of abortion. She has one child with her first boyfriend, and after splitting up with him and meeting a new man, she becomes pregnant again. Tragically, this new man leaves her, and as a woman with limited means and who is already responsible for one child, she chooses to end her pregnancy. Williams concludes that the “Democratic Party’s rhetoric on abortion increasingly comes from people like Ashley (who will never have an abortion) but is directed toward people like Jess” (114). To put it another way, a more comprehensive pro-life approach will probably entail supporting the policies of the Democratic Party so that the values of someone like Jess can actually be realized and lived out.

Williams’s arguments that the policies of the Democratic Party are likely the ones that Christians should embrace are strong and clear, but they are not without caveat and nuance. For example, in his chapter on the history of the Democratic Party, much as he did in his chapter on the GOP, he argues that although the Democratic Party has its roots in liberal Protestantism, Christians should think critically as they consider the defects of both liberal Protestantism and the increasing secularization within the party. First, liberal Protestantism’s emphasis on reform of social structures comes at the expense of downplaying human depravity (84). According to Williams, it has an outsized faith in social reform to solve the problems of humanity, when the most basic problem of sin can only be solved by the transforming power of the Holy Spirit in the Gospel. This is why the Democratic Party has always had within it a heresy, since it distorts the essence of Christianity’s good news. Second, Williams is not blind to the increasing secularization at work within the Democratic Party, both in terms of its basic philosophy and how it works itself out through policy (71). While there are a significant number of progressive Christians that find a home within the party, Williams contends that the growth of “nones” (those who have no religion at all) leaves little reason for the party to listen to the concerns of the religious. And, in terms of policy, while a pro-life Democrat may have found some comfort in the “safe, legal, and rare” regime of Bill Clinton, that comfort has increasingly faded, as the party at the state and national levels seem to grow more permissive of the abortion license, not less—thus working at cross-purposes with its economic policies as Christians within the party seek to reduce the number of abortions.

Overall, Williams provides a useful guide to those who wonder if either party provides a political home to American Christians. It will be especially provocative to those open-minded Christians who still find a home within the Republican Party, and it will challenge those who think the Democratic vote is a safe alternative. The book will be less useful to American Christians who are closed-minded partisans, those who have already made up their minds about which party to support, and those who will not open themselves to the kinds of historical and policy arguments that Williams skillfully provides. And, unfortunately, it’s on this point that the book will likely fail. If Williams is providing a “Christian alternative to partisanship,” how exactly are these arguments supposed to break through in a world where Christian voters don’t use reason to guide them, where Christians are given over to conspiracy, where Christians are the most reliable voting bloc in the Republican Party, and where Americans in general are driven less by considerations of policy and more by tribalism and hatred of the other side? In fairness to Williams, answering these questions was not the purpose of his book, but they must be answered if the problem of partisanship as he describes it is ever to be solved.

It’s on this score that John Brown University political scientist Daniel Bennett’s Uneasy Citizenship: Embracing the Tension in Faith and Politics has such promise. When we step back and survey the world of American politics, what if we realize that the political system itself has gone wrong, and that social, political, and religious trends present both challenges and opportunities for American Christians as they consider their political vocations? What if, given the temptations that American politics presents, we need to embrace “uneasy citizenship”? Bennett answers “yes” to these questions, and his book is a defense of that answer.

The term “uneasy citizenship” is never explicitly defined, but it first emerges in the context of a discussion of the dual citizenship Christians have (xvi). Christians are citizens of both the earthly and heavenly kingdoms. The former is a place where we must make decisions in the political arena, the latter a place where our foundational commitments are held. The uneasiness comes, it seems, when these two citizenship identities come into conflict, or at least are uncomfortably held together.

The book is divided into seven chapters, and the first three provide the social and political context necessary for the positive vision he reveals in the latter half of the book. After opening with some discussion of the larger historical context of Christian political engagement, Bennett then lays out some of the social and political trends that will make life challenging (indeed, uneasy) for Christians in the public square. The first trend is social and political polarization (23). It is clear that American elites are politically polarized, that those who run our country and dictate its terms have very distinct points of view. Whether that’s also true of the masses is an issue of debate, but rank-and-file voters nevertheless are co-opted into the already-polarized worlds that the elites have created. Social polarization also defines us, as we live, worship, and eat in worlds that neither side can understand. Both divisions would be benign if they did not coincide with negative partisanship (28), the phenomenon in which the two sides in our culture desire nothing but the worst for their fellow citizens on the other side. Taken all together, Bennett does not see this state of being as healthy, and it is of particular concern for Christians who are called to love their neighbors as much as they love themselves.

The third chapter explains other changes that present both opportunities and challenges for American Christians, especially when they are understood in the context of polarization. The first set of trends are demographic, but most significant for Christians is that fewer Americans identify as religious (37). The ideological changes are even more concerning, as we see the rise in “expressive individualism,” the “idea that one’s ultimate identity and value is found in the expression of their truest, deepest self” (45). It doesn’t take an academic theologian to see this view’s basic opposition to the notion that Christ calls his disciples out of their self-focused worlds and into a life of self-denial and cross-bearing.

While these are real challenges, none of them is cause for despair. Bennett reminds us that the King of the Universe is still on his throne, and the Son who came to save the world has already overcome it. More than that, all these challenges can also be seen as opportunities, as the second half of the book attempts to demonstrate.

Bennett contends that his book is one of Christian discipleship and not theology per se, but in chapters four through six he becomes more theological. The heart of the book is chapter four, “A Better Political Engagement.” Unlike Williams, Bennett does not argue for a particular set of policies that Christians should support, since he believes Christians of good faith can and will disagree on policy debates. Instead, his focus is on the motivations behind political engagement and the modes of behavior that constitute it. As Christians who know that Christ has already overcome the world, the primary motivation should be justice and never political victory for its own sake. This drive will lead to a better and more Christian mode of engagement, one that is both consistent and prophetic (55). A consistent engagement means that one’s policy views will not change in order to facilitate victory for a particular political party. If a Christian’s chosen party moves away from his core beliefs, consistency means the Christian should abandon the party and not the beliefs. If Christians are consistent, it likely means that they are also prophetic. To be prophetic is to be counter-cultural, to go against the grain of society even when it is difficult or uncomfortable. While Bennett does not believe Christians in America face imminent existential threats, the increasing marginalization of Christians will mean that the calls for both consistency and prophecy will be more difficult and necessary in the years to come.

Bennett’s advice is not limited to how individual Christians should behave in the public square, since in the next two chapters his focus moves to issues of systems and institutions. In chapter five, he provides a Christian defense of both liberalism and pluralism. The case against liberalism comes from those who find fatal weaknesses within the system that liberalism produces. If liberalism gives rise to drag queen story hour and the valorization of gender identity as seen in the recent Bostock decision, then critics wonder why Christians should defend it in the first place (79). Liberalism may sound good in theory, they contend, but in practice it has only proven to reward humanity’s “worst impulses,” at least in recent years and decades. The alternatives vary, but they include support for Viktor Orban’s soft totalitarianism, Christian nationalism, and common good originalism. In each case, the state is necessary to uphold and defend and perhaps even privilege Christian morality, even if it means silencing or marginalizing dissenting viewpoints.

While Bennett understands the concerns of liberalism’s critics, he believes neither that liberalism should be abandoned nor that any of the proposed alternatives should be embraced. What liberalism needs instead is improvement from within, a shoring up and strengthening, not a dismantling (83). Liberalism is worth preserving first because it positively defends and secures individual freedoms, a testament to the inherent value all have as image bearers of God. It’s this recognition of the imago Dei that leads to liberalism’s other strength: its encouragement of pluralism. While postliberals and anti-liberals may seek to squelch non-Christian dissent, the Christian view leads us to embrace pluralism, since it requires that we recognize and even honor those with whom we have the deepest disagreements. Those who have non-Christian views on gender, sexuality, and life are also human beings created in God’s image, and liberalism-pluralism is the best political arrangement that upholds their honored status in the created order.

Other comments could be made about this book, including a discussion of Bennett’s call to shore up Christian churches and colleges as necessary conditions for the political engagement he desires. But overall, Bennett provides a helpful word of caution to those American Christians who do not feel uneasy enough in their citizenship, whose goal is political victory at all costs, and whose desire is not to pursue justice but instead lord political power over their non-Christian neighbors. This call to uneasiness as citizens of two kingdoms is perhaps the corrective we need right now, as too many Christians tend to absolutize their political identities and forget their more fundamental identity as citizens of the kingdom of Christ. And while I would have appreciated a more robust defense of liberalism from a Christian perspective, his argument is certainly worth considering and is consistent with his call to an uneasy citizenship.

This then leaves us with our final book, Mortal Goods: Reimagining Christian Political Duty. Written by Anglican theologian and University of Toronto professor emeritus Ephraim Radner, Mortal Goods presents a deeply theological and rich volume that serves as a useful companion to the two books already discussed. While Williams and Bennett both challenge Christians to reconsider their standard operations in the political world, Radner calls for a radical recalibration of the entire project.

What does Radner identify as the problem, and what is his solution? The problem is at root a theological one, a misunderstanding of what God has called Christians to do in our mortal frames, on this earth, during this time. The error is the politics of “betterment,” the view that God has called us to improve the world, to push the wheel of progress forward, to make life better through politics (xvii). While the politics of betterment comes from the Enlightenment, Christians have adopted it as their own. Christians on the left and the right now just assume that this is what politics must entail.

If the problem is the politics of betterment, the solution is rooted in a theological re-imagination of the Christian political vocation. Radner claims first to embrace “political indifferentism,” the view that the Bible and especially the New Testament are indifferent to and agnostic about political programs (xiv). Jesus and Paul do not provide us with a political playbook or agenda, so while a Christian can be persuaded by any political program on offer, it’s not because it is distinctively Christian in nature. So, Christians should be politically indifferent.

Despite his embrace of indifferentism, Radner provides a positive vision for how Christians should consider their political duties. This vision can be summed up in the Hebrew phrase, “avodat hashem,” or service of God (xi). God has given us “mortal goods,” the goods (and graces) of birth, generation, labor, and death, and it’s the task of a Christian to serve God in thanksgiving for those goods (xiii). The goal of a Christian politics is then quite modest, as it is to “permit the birth and death of human beings in a way that expresses the generative love of parents and children, who together are such birth and death given as a gift” (16). To permit and secure these mortal goods is thus the result of Radner’s reimagination of Christian political duty—nothing more, nothing less.

The second half of the book is devoted to describing the “parameters of our ordered life,” incomplete as it might be in our mortal frame (102). Since politics is very limited in scope, it is perhaps not surprising that Radner takes some of his cues from Thomas Hobbes, whose purpose of politics is nothing more than the securing of the self. But Radner provides something more specific in his outline of what securing the self entails, and that begins with the guarantee of the freedom to worship. Religious freedom is paramount, for without it human beings cannot freely live in thanksgiving for the mortal goods God has generously given us.

But perhaps the most fascinating, provocative, and important part of his argument in the second half of the book concerns his treatment of catastrophe. For Radner, catastrophe is an essential component of a Christian politics and even serves as the frame of our engagement. The politics of betterment, both in its secular and Christian forms, seeks to control catastrophe. Every progressive movement in the modern period, whether liberal, communist, or fascist, has sought to use human ingenuity to master “suffering, loss, and [even] death,” with the hope that these parts of the human experience could be overcome (128). If suffering bedevils us, surely we can develop medicines and health care systems that will reduce and even completely eliminate it. This is the hope and aspiration of the politics of betterment.

For Radner, the problems with this view of catastrophe are both theological and historical. The theological issue primarily comes down to how one interprets the so-called “catastrophe” passages in Matthew 24 and Mark 13. Most interpreters of these passages through history have fallen into one of three camps (133). The first believes that Jesus is speaking directly to his Jewish audience and is referencing the catastrophic events that would befall the apostolic church at the hands of the Romans and Jews in the years and decades to come. The second is more eschatological, interpreting Jesus’ words to refer to events that would precede his second coming. The third sees the words as referring to the inner life of the Christian and the church.

Radner adopts a different interpretation; one he heavily borrows from Martin Luther. Instead of seeing catastrophe as something that will happen in the “beginning” or “end” of history, Radner believes it decisively constitutes our “middle” (129). Christians should expect to suffer and die. There will be famines, earthquakes, and wars—but, more basically we must understand that the hand of God that permits such events to occur is not something human beings can control. The prophets of a politics of betterment fundamentally misunderstand this, and in doing so fight against reality and even God himself in their delusional attempts to move the wheel of progress forward. While we live, work, eat, and teach, suffering and catastrophe come like thieves in the night. Until we realize this, we will never understand what it means to have a Christian politics. For, as Radner poignantly concludes, a politics that recognizes catastrophe as ever-present can only be a politics of endurance (137). It’s a politics that attempts to make our fragile lives more secure, all the while realizing that our security will dissolve in a moment, leaving us no option but to persevere in the face of life’s pain, suffering, and death. We still strive to achieve that basic security of our mortal goods, but it’s in the mortality of those goods that we recognize their temporary nature. When we do that, we can finally rest in the knowledge that we have descended from the heights of the promise of progress that has confounded our Christian politics for far too long.

Much more could be said about this profound book, and I cannot do justice to it with these brief comments. Overall, Radner will provoke Christians who have become far too comfortable embracing a politics of progress. For those who desire theological language to describe the catastrophes that seem to define human history, Radner provides that as well. But, as I will discuss shortly, those wondering what impact the resurrection of Jesus Christ has on our world and our politics may leave the book disappointed.

What can Christians learn from these three books, as different as they are? What do they say to each other, and what do they say to us? I’d like to begin by highlighting a few areas of overlap between the three books, and in doing so I hope to emphasize our need to hear what they are saying, if only because their agreement is a clue that we should pay attention. I’ll then turn to some questions that remain after considering all that these authors have to say.

First, while the specific nature of the problem of Christian political engagement is a matter of dispute among these authors, that there is a problem at all is a clue that Christians should pay attention to what they are doing in politics. Christians cannot acquiesce to the status quo, pretending that nothing is wrong with their participation in the public square. Christians must ask soul-searching questions, like whether they are part of the problem that these authors describe. Our complicity will not be easy to see or solve, since our lives are mired in irony. As Reinhold Niebuhr taught us, we are often blind to the evil we commit even as we pursue the good we desire. Still, it is not an option to live political lives completely divorced from self-reflection, if indeed there are serious problems with the way Christians politically engage.

Second, each of the books embraces a politics of limits, a theme that is probably the most important for us all to consider. Whether it’s “power-centered politics” (Williams), a politics of winning at all costs (Bennett), or the politics of betterment (Radner), each author reminds Christians that politics has an important but limited role to play in our lives. The chase of power, victory, and betterment may not all be the same pursuit, but the cautions against them should push us all to ask the same question: how are we expecting too much from our politics? In a world where every election is the most important of our lifetimes, and when Christian institutions feel increasingly anxious about the future, the call to remember what is possible (and not possible) within our created frames is well taken. While only Bennett and Williams discuss Christian nationalism, all three authors would have the same response to such a movement: using the power of the state to privilege Christianity in any way is not the way of Jesus and it is not the way of the cross.

Given this common ground, though, what questions remain for us to sort out? The first issue is how confident we should be in our pronouncements about what counts as a distinctively Christian understanding of politics and citizenship. It is here where our authors may be the most at odds. Williams is the most epistemologically confident of the three, with both Bennett and Radner more guarded about whether a single Christian view on any particular policy issue exists. Williams contends that a “cross-centered politics” demands that Christians pursue policies that defend the poor and the marginalized, Bennett argues that Christians of good faith can disagree about policy matters, and while Radner offers some concrete positions that Christians probably should embrace, he is finally agnostic about support of any political program.

This issue is perhaps most apparent in Bennett’s discussion of what it means to be prophetic in the public square. While he rightly contends that faithful Christians ought to be both consistent and prophetic as they bear witness to Christ in politics, it’s not clear from his account how one would know when someone is prophetic and when one is not speaking for God at all. His examples of Democrat Bart Stupak and Republican Peter Meijer demonstrate the confusion (240). What makes these (former) members of Congress prophetic, according to Bennett? It’s that the former resisted President Obama’s desire to publicly fund abortions, and the latter bucked his party in his vote to impeach President Trump. Apparently, then, someone is prophetic when he speaks and acts in ways that are consistent with his convictions but run against his political self-interest. But this just begs the question. Why were Stupak’s and Meijer’s convictions the right ones in the first place? Why were their views the ones oriented toward justice and truth, rather than those held by the members of their respective parties? It may very well be that Stupak and Meijer are prophets in our time, but that needs to be more adequately demonstrated.

If we are looking for a more robust guide for how Christians should think about public policy, perhaps Williams is a better guide. However, even here questions remain. Williams is clear that a “cross-centered politics” should push Christians to pursue policy that is consistent with love of neighbor, especially those neighbors who are on the margins. This is persuasive as a general point, but a more robust Christian political philosophy is required. What is needed is a greater sensitivity to what the Kuyperian tradition calls differentiation. How do we differentiate the task of government from the task of the church, the family, voluntary associations, and nongovernmental organizations? If we are called to love our neighbors, especially the least of these, how is that worked out in the great diversity of institutions, all of which have different callings and tasks within the created order? Williams gives a nod to this way of thinking when he discusses the Roman Catholic notion of subsidiarity, but the whole book would be better served if that frame of reference more explicitly guided his analysis.

Perhaps another solution here is to adopt something like what Christian ethicists refer to as “middle axioms.” A middle axiom is neither a theological generality nor a specific deliverance from a technical public policy expert. Instead, it acts as a bridge between the two. To take Williams’s framework, a theological generality might be that Christians should love their neighbors, especially the “least of these.” On the other end, a technical expert might recommend that Medicaid funding in a particular state increase by $50 million. A middle axiom, by contrast, might be something like this: God has called Christians to love their neighbors, especially the least of these, and while local churches and non-profit organizations bear the primary responsibility for poverty alleviation, government has an important responsibility to secure a social safety net for the poorest among us. With this framework, Christians would then be obliged to believe and obey theological generalities without being forced to follow every statement by technical experts. The middle axioms might also guide Christians, but more importantly, they act as a connective tissue that gives freedom on the more technical issues while giving some policy bite to vague theological generalities.

Besides the issue of distinctively Christian public policy, a question remains as to how Christians should think about political progress and human history. Radner is the clearest on this score, as he thinks progress is not an idea Christians can embrace. Both Bennett and Williams appear to suggest that Christians can make human life better through politics, although neither uses the language of progress to describe their approaches. This may be the stuff of high-minded theologians, but whether Christians (and human beings, for that matter) have made and can make politics demonstrably better is significant for calibrating what Christians can expect from politics in this life.

What seems to be necessary is to think again of what Christian citizenship means when considering all of human history, a history that includes creation, fall, redemption, and consummation. Radner’s account seems to leave us reeling on this side of creation and the fall, with the bonus that Christ’s statements about catastrophe will mean that suffering and death are just the historical norm. But can we call Radner’s account a truly Christian reimagination of political duty if it gives little treatment of the meaning of Christ’s resurrection for our politics? We do not live in a pre-resurrection age, as if the cosmos feels no effects from that massive event. Discerning the effects of both the fall and resurrection may be impossible, but that’s quite different from saying they have no effect at all. Perhaps we can do no better than the political vision we inherited from Augustine, where the city of the resurrected God is called to leaven the city of this world, with the knowledge that the libido dominandi can never be fully rooted out before Christ’s second coming. At the very least, I think we need a treatment of the meaning of Christian political duty that more fully takes both the resurrection of Christ and his second coming into account.

Finally, a question remains as to how any of the above proposals and solutions can be practically realized at all. Perhaps Bennett is closest to providing an answer here, when he discusses the need for Christian churches and colleges to renew themselves from within. Still, to move beyond partisanship, the lure of Christian domination in politics, and the temptation of a politics of betterment, something fundamental is required. As Dallas Willard taught us, perhaps what we need is a “renovation of the heart.” I am therefore left with the sense that we still need a book, if a book can help with this at all, that recovers and explains the intellectual and practical virtues necessary for Christian citizenship. If indeed we can recover those—the virtues of love, courage, and patience, to name a few—then perhaps we have a chance to accomplish the goals our authors have in mind.

Despite any criticisms I have about these books, I greatly benefited from each of them. I was moved by Williams’s passion for a Christian politics that ruthlessly centers a care for the poorest among us, and I was challenged to consider how my own political choices are calloused toward my neediest neighbors. Bennett helpfully reminded me of the inherent tension Christians should feel as members of two kingdoms, and he skillfully laid out a path forward in a time that will be increasingly difficult. Radner was the most provocative of the three, as he confronted me with the possibility that I have mistakenly subscribed to a politics of betterment. I am grateful for each of these voices, and for anyone who cares about the question of Christian political duty, I recommend them all for consideration.