CS Lewis On The Dilema Of A "Christian" Political Party

I meet regularly with a friend to talk through a chapter from CS Lewis' book "God in the Dock."  Hmmmm.  Lewis was a citizen of England, and an Oxford University Professor of Medieval literature who died November 22, 1963, the same day that President John Kennedy was assinated here in the United States.  When the reading was "Meditation on the Third Commandment," (The one about not "Taking the LORD's Name in Vain")  I was sure the chapter would be a snoozer.  Boy, was I surprised!

First paragraph:

We learn of the growing desire for a Christian ‘party’, a Christian ‘front’, or a Christian ‘platform’ in politics. Nothing is so earnestly to be wished as a real assault by Christianity on the politics of the world: nothing, at first sight, so fitted to deliver this assault as a Christian Party.  .  .  .

The Christian Party must either confine itself to stating what ends are desirable and what means are lawful, or else it must go further and select from among the lawful means those which it deems possible and efficacious and give to these its practical support. If it chooses the first alternative, it will not be a political party. Nearly all parties agree in professing ends which we admit to be desirable—security, a living wage, and the best adjustment between the claims of order and freedom. What distinguishes one party from another is the championship of means. We do not dispute whether the citizens are to be made happy, but whether an egalitarian or a hierarchical State, whether capitalism or socialism, whether despotism or democracy is most likely to make them so.

Lewis nexts illustrates with three hypothetical believers who all prefer different means - think policies - in pursuit of similar ends - public safety and equal opportunity for all citizens for example.  Division will follow, not based on the ends that all three would agree on, but based instead on the different means to achieving those ends.  One group might win the day based on their policies, but in doing that, they become only a part of the believing church, and not the whole. 

Lewis again:

It will be not simply a part of Christendom, but a part claiming to be the whole. By the mere act of calling itself the Christian Party it implicitly accuses all Christians who do not join it of apostasy and betrayal. It will be exposed, in an aggravated degree, to that temptation which the Devil spares none of us at any time—the temptation of claiming for our favourite opinions that kind and degree of certainty and authority which really belongs only to our Faith.

All this comes from pretending that God has spoken when He has not spoken. He will not settle the two brothers’ inheritance: ‘Who made Me a judge or a divider over you?’ (Luke 12:14) By the natural light He has shown us what means are lawful: to find out which one is efficacious He has given us brains. The rest He has left to us.

Lewis closes with sage advice that avoids the problem altogether:

There is a third way (to influence the country with Christian Faith) — by becoming a majority. He who converts his neighbour has performed the most practical Christian-political act of all.

Whoa?!?  He was writing this in 1941, right in the middle of the Nazi "Blitz Bombing" of London in World War II.  It's all of 4 pages, and worth digging in to.  You can purchase  the book from Amazon by CLICKING HERE.  It will include more than 45 MORE fascinating chapters.  Or listen to it read on YouTube by CLICKING HERE.  You will love the British accident for the 8 minutes it takes.