The role of religion, especially Christianity, in America’s political process is a highly sensitive topic. Because Christianity is associated with hot button issues, like abortion and gay marriage, people shy away from talking about the social implications of Christianity. But I want to take a step back and a step away from these issues, and talk in this post about Christianity and social transformation generally.
I heard a story once from the Apologia’s past editor-in-chief Andrew Schuman about when he met a Marxist turned Christian. When the convert was asked why he had turned away from Marxism towards Christianity, his answer was that, “Marxism can’t change the human heart.”
I think there is tremendous insight in that comment. The twentieth century saw the rise and eventually the implosion of several political ideologies that were essentially utopian. These utopians thought that through some mechanism- usually political coercion- they could literally bring about Heaven on earth. They usually ended up bringing Hell instead- in the form of gulags and gas chambers.
Alexander Solzhenitsyn, famous writer and former prisoner of the Russian Gulags. He argued in a speech to Harvard that Christianity was the only thing that could save the world.
There were many problems with these utopian regimes, but principal among them was that they forgot God and they forgot human nature. The endless drive to improve things through the political process is a valuable effort, but it can easily go wrong if one forgets about God and man. The reason is this: politics has limits which cannot be transgressed without terrible consequence. Politics can only do so much to improve society. It the end, it is the ordinary, everyday actions of human beings that will most determine the kind of society they live in.
If we are ever to succeed in radically improving our society, we need something more than a good president. We need something that can reach into the depths of the human heart, with all its passions, both evil and good, and change it. We need somebody that can replace our heart of stone with a heart of flesh, a heart of love. That somebody is Christ. If we are ever to establish a kingdom of love and peace on this earth- that is, the Kingdom of God-we need more than politics; we need God Himself.
There are many who would laugh at the idea that we need Christ to improve our society. Many would actually find such an idea dangerous, considering the checkered history of Christianity. But, as G.K. Chesterton writes in What’s Wrong With the World, “The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult; and left untried…Men have not got tired of Christianity; they have never found enough Christianity to get tired of.”
If people want to understand what the Christian ideal really is and how much Christ really can change people’s hearts, there is one obvious place they can look. They can look to the Saints and the Blesseds. They can look to St. Francis instead of the Crusaders. They can look to Pier Giorgio Frassati instead of Franco. They can look to St. Francis Borgia instead of Rodrigo Borgia. The Saints show us that Christ can and does change hearts in marvelous ways. It is only through that transformation of heart that society will ever be transformed.
For those who think that the Saints are too few to ever make a significant difference, I answer that, if that is so, they should set about swelling the saintly ranks this very day. Every single Christian by virtue of his or her baptism is called to sainthood. If we open ourselves up to God, we will eventually attain that goal, no matter how lofty it may seem to us now. When that happens- when all Christians begin the difficult business of becoming saints- then and only then will we truly see the Kingdom of God built up on this earth.