If, then, people are the most valuable of all of God’s creations, the defense of human dignity should be the core governmental occupation, and protecting it from those policies that endanger human dignity most immediately and profoundly should be the primary occupation of Christians in political life.  In practical terms, this means that the indisputably biblical duty to defend the right to life, defend the God-ordained social institution most at risk (marriage), and defend the religious liberty that is foundational to all other freedoms rank at the top of the believer’s civic duties.

When I first came to Washington in 1991 and began working for Sen. Dan Coats, one of the more noteworthy aspects of my professional skill-set was inexperience. Although I had some modest political experience, I was unprepared for the maelstrom of Capitol Hill. The conflicting priorities, personality clashes, turf battles, and draining expenditures of time and energy were more than a bit of a shock.

Adding to this was the exhilaration of “being in the mix,” of being “on the inside” and attending the kinds of meetings reporters discuss in knowing terms on public radio. I also got to do a lot of fun things, and work with some people who remain friends to this day.

Yet apart from the stress and the rush, several things emerged pretty quickly as important lessons.

The Mr. Smith Goes to Washington Myth

First, I came to see I was not God’s unique gift to the American body politic. The government had been running for some time before I arrived, and I was not the first person to come to D.C. with ideas, convictions, or energy.

I quickly realized there were a lot of bright, talented, well-read people on Capitol Hill, some of whom actually had the audacity to disagree with me. Experiencing the reality that intelligent people could evaluate the same set of data and come to fundamentally different conclusions because of a moral and intellectual framework different than my own was something I knew, of course, but with which I had limited experience. That changed pretty quickly.

Second, the vision of “Mr. Smith Going to Washington” was just that—a parable, not a representation of daily reality. While James Stewart fought valiantly against corruption and, in one dramatic scene, triumphed, I came to see that at any given time there were a number of critical battles being fought . . . and those on opposing sides were unlikely to run into the Senate foyer and, like his cinematic nemesis, try to commit suicide.

The blur and intensity of legislative activity shook me. It wasn’t neat or systematic. On any given day, there could be a rider on funding for African drought relief attached to a major agriculture bill—an agriculture bill loaded with special deals for grain-state Members . . . a proposal to advance a major weapons system that would mean jobs for thousands but which, in tests, just didn’t work very well . . . and a federal grant to study train crossing signals in Indiana, which was far more important to the state media with whom I worked than issues of national or international moment. And all of that might be before noon.

There are rare moments of high drama in politics, to be sure, times and places when decisions are made that affect millions, born and unborn. We witnessed one earlier this year when the Supreme Court ruled on the President’s health care plan. But even in those infrequent moments, usually the decisions are made in the quiet of a small office by a few men and women around a table, not in epic speeches from the well of the Senate.

Disillusionment and Discouragement

Third, there was a pervasive sense of disillusionment among many of my colleagues, one that I began to share acutely. The discouragement and sense of moral compromise we felt was due to a startling and ongoing realization: philosophical and ideological purity and the formation of public policy often don’t mix.

Many of my colleagues had come to the nation’s capital to affect genuine, comprehensive, beneficial change. Instead, they were working late at night to insert highly technical legal language into a public housing bill or, worse, finding that they had to support legislation or policies with which they disagreed in order to advance the agenda of the Member for whom they worked or achieve a larger political or substantive purpose.

The Cost of Compromise

Principled compromise often is the coin of the Christian’s political realm. Of course, there are times when to compromise is to violate the Bible’s demands. This is never justified. Better to lose in time than in eternity, whatever the temporal cost.

Yet frequently, finding a course where principle can wed with effective if incomplete action is the holy grail of evangelical political engagement.

And this naturally leads to the question: for what purposes should evangelicals be engaged in the political marketplace?

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