Ideologies are beliefs that shape how we see, interpret, and engage the world. Ideologies are interpretive lenses that often explain how and why we understand the world in the ways we do, including the assumptions we make, the meaning we assign to things, and the stereotypes we hold about individuals, groups, cultures, and regions of the country and world. Ideologies are more powerful than we think, and they inform—at times dictate—how we read and interpret Scripture, love our neighbors, and engage civically and politically.
Below are reflection questions for Christian Faith and Politics: Recommended Resources for this Season.
Reflection Questions for the 15 Short Videos
- Where have you witnessed ideological constraint?
- How does ideological constraint limit the Church’s ability to function as an interconnected body?
- If ideological constraint keeps us from affirming truth that comes from another viewpoint, how can it also inhibit us from affirming biblical truths that challenge our own political ideology?
- How have you experienced the seductive power of politics, tempting you to recast Jesus in your own image or preferred ideology?
- The video says, “We vote to advantage our communities, even if it disadvantages ourselves.” How does Scripture support this concept?
- Have you spent time praying about who to vote for, or have you historically voted based on your instincts or in uncritical allegiance to a party line?
“The Bible and Politics—How to Spot the Misuse of Scripture by Politicians and Activists”
- Have you noticed Scripture being used in a way that frames it as only for America and never against the United States?
- The Bible points out Israel’s present and historic sins. Why is it controversial when modern Christians do the same thing regarding the United States?
- Have you noticed the very particular idea of what “Christian” means in the Christian nationalism movement?
- How does the Word of the Lord critique your personal standard of what is good and right?
- When have you experienced the tendency to read Scripture in a way that condemns others’ sins but not your own?
- Recognizing the foundational beliefs some of our country’s founding fathers held, what do we miss when America is declared to be a Christian nation, built on Christian principles?
- The video talks about God’s justice being violated when the divine image inherent within people is not affirmed when all people are not treated with dignity and fairness. How does this feel as a baseline for conversations about biblical justice?
- How have you seen good and evil redefined for our (however you want to define “our”) own advantage at the expense of others?
- Where in the biblical story do you see that happen—on a personal level, in families, communities, and whole civilizations that create injustice, especially toward the vulnerable?
- How are righteousness and justice distinguishing characteristics for the people of God?
- The video explains that most often biblical justice is restorative justice, and “involves us going a step further, actually seeking out vulnerable people who are being taken advantage of and helping them. It also involves taking steps to advocate for the vulnerable and changing social structures to prevent injustice.” How does Scripture support this two-pronged definition?
- How have you experienced righteousness from God, not just as a new status but as a power that changed your life, compelling you to act in surprising new ways, and leading you to go and seek righteousness and justice for others?
“Was America Founded as a Christian Nation?”
- What benefits could come from presenting God as being in covenant with the US in order to bless the US as a special people—a new Israel—as a group covenanted under Christianity?
- Why does it matter whether the US was founded as a Christian nation?
- Why does Russell Moore caution us to guard against assigning the US a providential place that Scripture never assigns us?
- Where have you seen biblical passages, such as 2 Chronicles 7:14, misassigned to the United States?
- How does applying promises to the United States that were made to Israel cause missional misalignment?
- What does it look like for us to give a faithful gospel witness today?
“Does Romans 13 Say We Have to Obey the Government?”
- How have you seen Romans 13 applied selectively?
- How should the history of how this passage has been used and abused inform our reading of this passage today?
- How does the reality that rulers do not always do what is right inform how we interpret this passage?
- Why is it important to understand the context of a Bible verse, or collection of verses, when interpreting their meaning?
- How does the broader biblical narrative—and the numerous people who were led to break earthly laws to faithfully follow Jesus—inform how Romans 13 should be interpreted?
- How can we discern when our very real obligation to human authorities contrasts with our higher obligation to God, or when what is considered patriotic opposes our truest allegiance to the kingdom of God?
“Do Politics Belong in the Pulpit?”
- How does Scripture speak to the moral dimensions of political realities?
- How is the proclamation “Jesus is Lord” a political statement?
- How does faithfully preaching through the Bible naturally lead us to address political issues?
- How can we prevent the news cycle from dictating what is preached, while still making room to address national issues that are at the forefront of people’s minds and need to be addressed?
- As a multiethnic mosaic who strive to rejoice with those who rejoice and mourn with those who mourn, how can we learn from one another and faithfully lean into issues that our brothers and sisters tell us warrant our attention, even when those issues don’t impact us in the same way?
- What role does corporate prayer play in the life of a congregation as it seeks to address political issues in worship in a nonpartisan way?
“The REAL Problem with Christian Nationalism”
- How does this video highlight the importance of a life with God for a genuine Christian faith?
- What makes Christian nationalism seem attractive, or at least benign, on the surface?
- If Jesus is the means to an end such as power or God’s blessing, then Christian nationalism is idolatry. Why does it seem harder to denounce Christian nationalism as heretical than it is to recognize the idolatry of the prosperity gospel or other heresies?
- How have you seen Christianity used by Christian nationalists or the Christian nationalism movement as a tool to gain cultural and political power?
- What makes Christian nationalism dangerous?
- How can we demonstrate healthy patriotism while also rejecting Christian nationalism for the idolatry it is?
“What Does It Mean to Be Holistically Pro-Life?”
- How is being pro-life more than just being anti-abortion?
- What does it look like to be pro-life from womb to tomb and all in between?
- In a pro-life posture, how can the Church pursue pro-life policies and outcomes for the biblical quartet of the vulnerable (widows, orphans, immigrants, and the poor) alongside advocacy for the unborn?
- How does being holistically pro-life inform our perspective toward war and the death penalty? How does it nuance our advocacy for gun rights?
- How does a lack of support and assistance for the poor, the mentally and physically disabled, refugees, and immigrants—who are all more prone to find themselves in vulnerable or even coercive situations—contribute to people choosing to have abortions?
- Amid recent legislation passed in some states to make abortions illegal even when pregnancies are the consequence of rape or incest, how can the Church’s pro-life advocacy be expressed in ways that categorically denounce sexual violence?
“Why Is Immigration an Issue the Church Is Called to Care About?”
- Who else in the Bible were immigrants besides those named in the video?
- What unique vulnerabilities do immigrants and refugees face? How do we see Scripture attest to these unique challenges?
- Have you personally viewed immigration as a political issue rather than understanding it as a theological or spiritual issue?
- How does God’s commission to care for the vulnerable, particularly the immigrant, apply to us today?
- As a denomination whose founding members were all first- and second-generation immigrants, how are we uniquely equipped to welcome the stranger and ensure that we do not withhold justice from the foreigner?
- How does immigration provide us with a unique opportunity to fulfill the great commission and carry out the greatest commandment simultaneously?
- What range of emotions did you feel as you watched this video?
- How does this video demonstrate that a constant migration thrust for immigrants and refugees is a lack of justice?
- Where political accountability is lacking and vulnerable people are targeted, migration becomes about survival—both in biblical times and today. How does this reality inform our immigration discourse?
- How does the fact that immigrants are less likely to drive up crimes rates challenge much of our current political discourse?
- Given the persecution that many immigrants and refugees are fleeing, and the harm and trauma that most endure on their journey from their homeland, how is the Church situated to demonstrate the love of God in powerful and transformative ways?
- Has Scripture been the basis for your civic and political engagement around immigration?
- What is one lie that has served you?
- Why is it sometimes difficult to recognize the lies that serve us?
- What role does humility play in recognizing and denouncing the lies that serve us?
- What lies can you identify in the American Church’s ongoing debate around racial justice?
- Where have you witnessed people urging the Church to choose fraudulent unity over true justice today?
- Where have you seen Christians evading the merits of the best arguments by centering the worst arguments when it comes to racial and biblical justice?
- What gaps exist in your community?
- What would it look like to stand in them?
- How is the sin gap connected to the material gaps in our world and community?
- How does encountering the living Jesus inform how we see others and the stereotypes we have held (in some cases, continue to hold) about certain people and communities?
- How do we begin to mind the gaps?
- What role does proximity to people who suffer in ways that you do not contribute to your understanding of and response to gaps in your community?
“Covenanter Politically Mobilizing Her Community”
- Niki Wong mobilized her church to serve as the hands and feet of Christ in her context. What would this look like in your community?
- What, if any, links are there between the breaches identified in Isaiah 58 and the ones in your community?
- How can we as a congregation tangibly commit ourselves to the work of repairing these breaches?
- What role did listening to the community play in how the church pursued loving their neighbors?
- Which neighbors in your community have gone unheard for too long?
- How does this video illustrate how civic engagement and political action can help us love our vulnerable neighbors and demonstrate God’s concern for all people?
- How does this video challenge your presuppositions of the conflict in this region?
- After 55 years of this conflict, how can we reimagine peace and new approaches to pursue peace in this region in the US church?
- Why is it important to understand the conflict not just as a war of the good against the bad?
- What role do human, civil, and political rights—as well as the right to self-determination—play in pursuing peace in the Holy Land?
- Why is it important to break down the false dichotomy between being pro-Israel and being pro-Palestinian in order to understand what flourishing for the whole Holy Land should entail?
- How is being pro-Israel different from uncritically supporting the current Israeli government and its policies?
“Caring for Creation One Church at a Time”
- Why are Christians called to be concerned about the environment?
- How do we see creation presently groaning (Romans 8)?
- What role does human extraction, overconsumption, and ecological neglect play in creation’s groanings?
- How can our neglect of creation create room for human suffering to take place (mark specific spaces)? How does our care for creation bear witness to God’s care for creation?
- How is our care for creation connected to the collective flourishing of all created things?
- What practical steps can your church take to care for creation and pursue the peace and prosperity of your community?
Reflection Questions for the 10 Longer Videos
- How does this sermon help us define politics?
- Which of the three groups that Rev. Cho describes do you feel most represents how you have engaged in politics?
- Why do politics matter?
- How is engaging in politics connected to loving our neighbors well?
- How are the Beatitudes a helpful framework of political engagement?
“God, Politics, and the Church”
- How can we see our politics through Jesus, versus seeing Jesus through our politics?
- Have you ever felt paralyzed by fear?
- How does fear influence your civic and political engagement?
- How can seeking to understand before seeking to be understood create new relational room for pursuing life together in Christian fellowship?
- How can perfect love cast out fear?
“Making Room: Playing Host to Ideological Strangers”
- How can we keep a focus on Jesus Christ as the only Savior while also having a healthy dialogue with other faiths and ideological points of view?
- When have you focused on your best-case argument while focusing on the worst-case argument of others?
- How can engaging with other ideas create an opportunity for self-critique?
- What role does Christlike humility play in adopting a posture of self-critique and engaging in sober self-examination?
- How can we learn from people who are angry with us and create room for suffering to speak?
- Edwards explains that biblical love is about how we commit to being with each other as God’s people. How does Scripture support this concept?
- Why is it difficult to love others across lines of difference?
- How does love entail preserving community across lines of difference today?
- What is the connection between love, evangelism, and justice?
- Why is love one of the most powerful and compelling aspects of our witness?
“True Justice: Bryan Stevenson’s Fight for Equality”
- What are three things you learned from this documentary?
- What inspired you in this documentary?
- What horrid parts of US history have you been ignorant of or reluctant to fully acknowledge?
- How can you intentionally speak truth about racial injustice and biblical justice in love?
- How is speaking the truth connected to pursuing reconciliation?
“The God Who Sees: Immigrants, the Bible, and the Journey to Belong”
- What role does remembrance play in our Christian faith?
- What did you find meaningful about how Karen Gonzalez reframed the story of Ruth?
- What does it look like to love our undocumented neighbors or those seeking asylum?
- How was gleaning an act of neighbor love, and what could modern-day gleaning look like in our community?
- What new understanding or connections did this presentation evoke in you?
- How does Rev. Dr. Salvatierra define abundant life?
- Why is it important to distinguish between Jesus coming to save us from the world and Jesus coming to save the world?
- Salvatierra quotes Dr. John Perkins who says, “God wants to work through the whole Church, to bring the whole gospel, to the whole world.” How does this statement align with your understanding of God’s desire?
- How can we prioritize the proclamation and demonstration of God’s love?
- What does abundant life look like, not just for individuals but for communities?
“Questions Christians Should Ask About Social Justice”
- Given Scripture’s consistent call to do justice, why is justice sometimes treated as optional in the church?
- How is apathy toward poverty and indifference amid injustice unfaithful to the gospel?
- When have you experienced the church pursuing ways of trying to make the world a better place that are not in sync with reality as God defines it?
- While God commands us to do justice, not everything that is proclaimed as “justice” is biblical. How can we discern what biblical justice is and what this means for our witness?
- Has peer pressure or the pressure of social acceptance ever swayed you away from biblical fidelity?
“God’s Kingdom and Our Politics”
- How is politics connected to the responsibility God gives us as God’s image bearers?
- What standard does the Bible call elected leaders to?
- What vocation has God called you to?
- What is our civic vocation as Christians?
- Could politics be defined as a shared vocation of pursuing life together as God intends?
- What can we learn from our Indigenous siblings about living in harmony with the land and animals?
- Why was it so meaningful for the tribe to regain access to its reservation land?
- How does this video illustrate a new model of what land repatriation could look like?
- How has Indigenous stewardship of the land demonstrated how land stewardship can contribute to communal flourishing for all people, as well as all of creation?
- How can the partnership between the tribe and the government move their relationship toward healing and reconciliation?
Reflection Questions for Podcasts
- How did this podcast help you understand Christian nationalism?
- How would you define Christian nationalism after listening to this?
- In what ways is Christian nationalism unaligned with the gospel of Jesus Christ?
- What tools did this podcast offer for walking with people who believe in Christian nationalism?
- How can you help people understand the difference between patriotism and Christian nationalism?
“What Joseph, Pharaoh, and the Apostles Teach Us about Privilege”
- Why is the image of God the starting place for conversations about loving our neighbors well?
- How does Philippians 2 offer an alternative vision for faithfully stewarding power and influence?
- What missional opportunities do we miss when we avoid addressing privilege?
- How does Acts 6:1-7 help us to understand the biblical connection between evangelism and justice?
- How does Exodus 1:6–2:10 help us understand privilege?
“Response to the Death of George Floyd”
- How were you discipled to think about anger?
- When have you experienced your anger properly connected to the righteous indignation of God?
- Where have you experienced Jesus preventing your anger from becoming hatred?
- How does Dr. Jennings’s explanation of our anger—disconnected from hatred—meeting God’s righteous indignation create space for a more authentic faith?
- Jennings says that our anger and the righteous indignation of God are meant to be shared. How does the sharable nature of these two things invite us into the “P” of practicing solidarity (in the Six-Fold Test)?
- What faulty assumptions did Neil Volz and Desmond Meade make in their relationship?
- How does this podcast illustrate the power of proximity, of being relationally connected to people who are different from us and who experience the world in different ways than we do?
- While Neil was proximate to others when he volunteered at the homeless shelter, what had to change within him in order for true transformation to transpire?
- How does Neil’s story demonstrate how difficult it is for people with a criminal record to truly get a second chance?
- How does this story remind us that no person should forever be defined by the worst thing they have ever done?
“Critical Race Theory: What IS It?”
- What are three new things you learned? (Make a list and bring it to your group to share.)
- What is CRT proper?
- How can we help people move beyond sound bites, fear mongering, and partisan politics to soberly address our nation’s history?
- How has organized forgetting (36:25) distorted your discipleship and worldview?
- How does this information align with or depart from your previous understanding of critical race theory?
