All people are created in the image of God. Some people are granted the grace to believe. Most of our connection to and interaction with one another is because of our basic humanity –  defined and formed by the image of God. Most of Christian’s relationships with people who are not believers is grounded in the reality of everyone being created in God’s image. Most Christian’s participation in politics and relationship to other people in the political arena comes from our citizenship in the nation. We share this citizenship with others not on the basis of our Christianity, but rather on the basis our humanity.

In addition to our commonality simply as humans, believers have special and unique relationships to one another. When Christians voluntarily group together (in churches) we organize around theological beliefs, behaviors, and socio-economic factors. We tend to flock among similars. Churches are composed of individuals that have similar beliefs and behaviors. We voluntarily group together in our local churches. If you do not believe that Jesus Christ was the son of God and that he died on the cross to pay the penalty for sin, you are probably not a member of an evangelical church. Christians treat one another a particular way and have specific expectations for other believers. These are expectations that we do not have for people who do not believe. People who are not members of our local congregations are treated differently from and Christians have different expectations of them than people with whom we attend church and regularly fellowship.

Christian’s political lives are formed with connections to and relationships with people who are not believers. Our behavior toward and expectations of people in the political arena is based on our humanity and their humanity. Most of our political action is in an arena where we should be salt and light, but should not expect non-Christians in the United states in general to believe or behave exactly the way we would expect fellow Christians to believe and behave.

The Religious Right in the United States is composed of socially conservative Christians, largely white evangelicals, who have organized politically to fight for and against issues deemed important. The coalition came together in the late 1970s as a response to the perceived moral decline in the United States in the 1960s and because of the large numbers of Christians who voted for the left-leaning Democrat Jimmy Carter in 1976. I firmly believe that every Christian in the United States should be politically active because our representative democracy allows its citizens the privilege and responsibility. The minimum responsibility is voting; many believers should be much more active. However, fulfilling your obligation as a Christian citizen and organizing as a Christian political group are not the same thing.

I think that part of the tension in the evangelical community that has been exposed during this presidential election is because the “moral majority” confused political relationship with Christian relationship and tried to use political methods to bring about Christian result. Rather than relating to the political arena as being populated by people created in the image of God, the Religious Right treated the political arena like it was a local church. We attempted to use political means to create behaviors that ideally come from believers being conformed to the image of Christ. The nation is not our church. Human behavior is influenced by laws and regulations created by the government. However, Christianity changes human behavior when the individual created in God’s image repents and exercises faith in the finished work of Christ and begins the process of being conformed to the image of Christ. Christian behavioral change happens when transformation leads to the fruit of the Spirit. Governments change people’s behavior through exerting authority and power.

Part of the reason for the recent turmoil between Evangelicals over the support of Donald J. Trump as the Republican nominee is because a significant segment of the evangelical church is incorrectly aligned to the Republican Party. The Religious Right tried to work through the Republican Party to create a culture that more closely matched with some issues identified as Christian. In short, the Religious Right attempted to use the political process to create results that most meaningfully come from conversion and transformation of people into the image of Christ. The Trump candidacy has pulled back the sheets to reveal very odd bedfellows indeed.

Donald Trump is the poster child for the failure of the Religious Right. I believe one of the reasons for the failure is the manner in which people on the Religious Right understood other people in our society. Instead of realizing that everyone in the United States is a person created in the image of God to be treated with respect and dignity; people on the religious right acted as though everyone in the country was not only someone created in the image of God, but also as if everyone had a unique relationship to God through Christ and was actively being conformed into Christ image.

The Religious Right acted as though though our entire nation was a local church. The problem is how the Religious Right went about trying to meet their goals. I believe that individual Christians working to have laws passed that they believe best to their country is a moral responsibility. However, trying to legislate issues through the Republican Party was wrong. To attempt control of the Republican Party was wrong. Working in our political system is right and a moral obligation of all people in our country. But the church in America is much more than a special interest group. We must understand that people who are not Christians are created in God’s image and deserve respect. We should not expect them to believe nor behave exactly as we expect ourselves and other Christians to believe and behave. Fruit of the Spirit comes after conversion not through government fiat.

Please hear me carefully, followers of Jesus Christ need to be involved in the politics of the United States. My own conversion to Christianity radically changed the way I understand everything in the world –  and my political position is a very important part of how I influence the place where God has placed me to serve. As an individual citizen of United States, as a person created in the image of God, I must work for the betterment of my nation. Much of being effective to change our world for better can be enhanced through being active in our political process. What I don’t think we should have done was attempted to align the church with a particular political party. If the number evangelical Christians did constitute the majority, our political system would bring the nation’s laws to be more closely in-line with what most Christians would want to see.