REVIEW: Politics Get Spiritual

Self-interest can only get us so far

The Spirit of our Politics by Michael Wear. Zondervan, 2024. 256 pp., $18.99 (paperback)

Early in The Spirit of Our Politics, Michael Wear shares a story about a political opponent who reached out to him. The reason? That opponent’s daughter was alienated from her parent, and the parent wanted Wear to talk to her so she could see a Christian whose politics she could more easily understand. As a Christian active in Democratic party politics, who served in the Obama White House and has been a public voice on traditionally “liberal” issues, Wear was exactly the right person to speak with her. Wear found the incident an incredibly hopeful sign that someone was “willing to set aside their politics out of love for their daughter.” 

This story sums up the book in a nutshell. Wear wants to make sure that our politics don’t get in the way of Jesus. He argues that in our political life we need to act like Jesus. Wear relies on his political expertise and the spiritual framework of Dallas Willard, a philosopher and theological writer, to talk in broad strokes about our American political situation. He also considers the spiritual problems we face when we confront that situation. Finally, he offers specific guidelines for us to grow in Christlikeness. 

Even though Wear’s schema seems to assume a misplaced distance between his audience and the political life, it is very helpful as we face another election year with all the opportunities for loving—and hating—our neighbor that this season provides. Although he doesn’t talk about prayer as much as I had hoped, he mentions the importance of praying for our political leaders. I would have also liked to see mention of how prayer for our enemies can soften our hearts, which is something I’ve noticed personally.

A common critique of Wear has been that he promotes a both-sides centrism that doesn’t adequately recognize the asymmetry of American politics. The Democratic and Republican parties aren’t two sides of the same coin—demographically, culturally or even legally. In The Spirit of Our Politics, though, it’s clear that Wear has taken these concerns to heart and is trying to address them, as he has been doing in the press around the book. He describes ways that political ideologies abuse Jesus and Christianity with two models: “fixer Jesus,” who is just trying to save us from hell, and “toolbox gospel,” which provides handy anecdotes to bless various social projects.

Wear recognizes that these “gospel[s] of sin management” (to use Willard’s phrase) have had a far more vicious impact on the right than on the left. But he isn’t willing to let people off the hook because they play for the right team. In fact, he urges the readers to first “apply the ideas of this book to yourself and your life, not to search for ammunition against your political enemies.”

Some of Wear’s advice about spiritual life is sound, and his analysis of the problem of our polarized politics is helpful. Negative polarization, especially when it arises from a lack of knowledge of other people, can be deadly to us and our democracy alike. Wear’s emphasis on gentleness, love, service, fellowship, and care is refreshing and vital. He briefly references Howard Thurman’s Jesus and the Disinherited, which gets at this well: Even in the context of a highly charged fight for justice, it’s important to preserve yourself from bitterness. Anger is ineffective and will only damage your own soul.

Unfortunately, Wear seems to be primarily writing this book to political dilettantes—people who choose to engage in politics, rather than people whose lives are always and already political. Although he notes, “You do not have a ‘political self’ that is separate and distinct from the ‘real you,’” the examples he gives of spiritual disciplines all seem to start with someone outside the realm of politics who is choosing to go into it.

Toward the end of the book, Wear gives an imaginary example of someone putting the spiritual disciplines he recommends into practice. She volunteers, shares an article that she disagrees with on social media, drives voters to the polls, and raises issues of political concern in her community. All of these are good activities—but they are marked by choice. People who can’t access the health care they need because of politics or people who have families split up by ICE don’t have the choice of not engaging in politics. Their health and safety are bound up in it.

Ultimately, the advice Wear gives is wise—even for people much more deeply engaged in “politics” than the examples he gives. People fighting for justice or facing oppression don’t get a pass on hatred or dishonesty. Still, the book seems distant from politics—which is strange, considering Wear’s insistence that politics is a part of life.

The Spirit of Our Politics has troubled me and I had some difficulty discerning why. Ultimately, I’m not sure Wear adequately understands politics as an expression of power and the common occurrence of using that power for self-centered means. Let me take an extremely local, relatively small-scale example: I bike and take public transportation around D.C. Installing new bike and bus lanes would be a dramatic help to me personally. The city will be putting new lanes in on Columbia Road, a major east-west artery, but some car owners on the road are complaining because this will take away parking spots from them. My advocacy for these lanes is driven by self-interest, and that’s OK. But it wouldn’t be if that self-interest drove me to lie about my neighbors or hate them for our opposed interests. Even this small example shows the omnipresent nature of self-interest in politics. It can get problematic—and fast.

I don’t know much about Dallas Willard, but it’s a compliment to this book that now I want to read him. It’s an even bigger compliment to the book that I want to think more deeply about how Jesus would want me to act politically. Wear is exactly right to be concerned about how our political engagement is deforming our spiritual life. His prescription to focus on Jesus and consider our politics through a spiritual lens is wise. I know that as I face another election year and a new advocacy job, I’ll be taking this prescription to heart.

Greg Williams works in digital politics for a more just world. You can yell at him on X, or Threads for that matter, @gwilliamsster but he’d prefer if you were kind.