Political Science

Cale Horne

• Publisher: P Publishing
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN: 9781596389014
• eBook ISBN: 9781596389021
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Religion

With their biblically grounded understanding of human nature, Christians are well prepared to engage political science. Horne presents a Christian framework, showing how this academic discipline can be studied faithfully.

INTRODUCTION: WHAT POLITICAL SCIENCE IS . . . AND ISN’T

Casual conversations among strangers inevitably turn to work. When I find myself in such conversations with fellow Christians, once they discover that I am a political scientist I usually receive follow-up questions. I’m asked about the latest “breaking news” story coming out of the 24-hour news cycle, queried about whether I’ve read so- and-so’s latest book or blog post on politics according to the Bible, or—most awkwardly—carefully probed to see whether my own political leanings are of the “right sort.” I don’t mind these kinds of discussions, and often enough they can be quite fun, but I do get the sense that the askers usually think that these things constitute what I do as a political scientist. But oftentimes my answers are a little disappointing: I don’t follow the 24-hour news cycle all that closely, nor do I follow blogs, and only very rarely do I read popular books on the Bible and politics. At the end of the day, I’m not all that political in the everyday sense of the word.

I firmly believe that Christians can be concerned with political affairs from the local to the global. I say “can” rather than “should” or “must” because it seems presumptuous to think that our poorer brothers and sisters around the world, concerned with the full-time work of subsistence, are somehow less faithful as followers of Christ because of their ignorance of and disengagement from political affairs and their inability to articulate how political and other spheres of life pertain to their Christian faith. I mention this explicitly because the fact that the vast majority of Christians past and present have been unable to concern themselves with politics often seems lost on the champions of Christian political engagement. This should give us pause before we make any sort of cultural engagement a matter of basic duty. Rather, Christians who are in a position to be engaged in politics should feel the liberty to do so, for insights from political science can direct us toward productive avenues for faithful engagement as well as help us to avoid the all too frequent conflation of faithful engagement with faith-distorting entanglement. As Jay Green, the editor of this series on faithful learning, suggests, I argue that serious engagement with the academic study of politics may indeed “cultivate and nourish our faith in Christ” when we choose to enter the arena of government and politics.

Despite American Christianity’s enduring interest in the political world—including perennial debates over whether, how, and why believers should engage in the contemporary political discourse—very few among us have a sense of how the academic study of politics may contribute to or even clarify these debates. In fact, I would argue that very few Christians have even a general grasp of what the academic study of politics (most often termed “political science”) is, though many may presume to know. In keeping with the theme of the Faithful Learning series, I outline in this booklet the broad contours of the discipline, present a Christian framework for approaching political science rooted in antithesis and common grace, and illustrate the potential for faithful learning in and through the study of politics as an academic discipline.

Simply defined, political science is an empirically based, theoretically driven social science addressing human endeavors of a political nature. Broadly speaking, the discipline seeks to understand the patterns of cooperation and conflict among people and groups—the conditions under which individuals or groups of individuals with divergent interests will (or will fail to) cooperate in order to achieve common goals.¹ In the words of famed political scientist Harold Lasswell, “The study of politics is the study of influence and the influential,” or, as the title of the now-classic book from which this quotation is drawn suggests, political science is the study of “who gets what, when, how.”² The answers to these core disciplinary questions, and the policy efforts designed to reinforce or alter the answers to these questions, have profound implications for the world we inhabit.

Three of the discipline’s four subfields address areas of substantive concern: in the United States (American government), within states generally (comparative politics), and between states (international relations). The fourth subfield, political theory, takes up conceptual (and sometimes normative) concerns and undergirds the other three.³ Like other social sciences, political science is motivated by empirical puzzles—things we observe in the political world that don’t make sense in an easy or obvious way. For example, a comparativist (that is, a specialist in comparative politics who compares the inputs and outputs of different political systems) might seek to explain why democracy succeeds in one country but flounders in a similar country. Or an international-relations scholar may wonder why democratic states rarely, if ever, seem to go to war with one another, though they tend to be more war prone than their nondemocratic neighbors. The explanations to these puzzles adopted by political elites and the public at large can seriously impact government policies, economies, and societies—and, ultimately, communities, families and individuals. Getting it right matters.

As I mentioned above, political science as a discipline is theoretically driven and empirically based. Theories in the social sciences are stories we tell about the world to explain the often puzzling things we observe in the world. From a given theory we derive hypotheses—empirically testable propositions of the theory that allow us to know whether this explanation is wrong.⁴ We test hypotheses empirically—that is, using information we observe about the world (data) and specific tools to gather and manipulate data for hypothesis testing (research methods). Data and the methods used to draw inferences from these data may be qualitative (e.g., single case studies, comparative case studies, historical process-tracing, counterfactual analysis) or quantitative (statistical analysis, computational network analysis, simulation), and frequently research is comprised of some combination of the two—the line between qualitative and quantitative research is often blurry. Significantly, both qualitative and quantitative methods apply the same logic of empirical inquiry as summarized above.⁵ Choices about methods, then, depend on what is appropriate given the research question in view.

This approach to understanding politics is far removed from the experience of most Christians. Many of us think of politics in terms of daily headlines, newsfeeds, sound bites, and talking heads. The issues are ever changing and are rarely explained in terms of underlying institutional processes, the psychological dynamics of decision making, or long-term historical trends. We may also regard politics as an ideological battleground—a sphere to be reclaimed (or avoided) and rebuilt (or abandoned) according to a (usually vague) biblical template. Regardless of one’s theology or place on the ideological spectrum, there is a baptized political movement to match, ranging from the theonomic reconstructionist and Christian America movements on the political right to the various strains of transformationalism and liberation theology on the left.

Despite their radical differences, all such movements have at least two features in common. First, adherents tend to value the political interpretations of their anointed leaders over the careful study of professional academics, which is deemed irrelevant at best. Second, and more fundamentally, these movements reflect a common discomfort with just how little the Bible really says about politics.⁶ Rather than revealing the larger story of the redemption of God’s people, the Scriptures become a blueprint for political (in) action—something for which they were never intended. Indeed, to reinterpret the Scriptures to reinforce one’s political agenda is not merely exegetically unsound, it is sacrilegious. How dare we “spin” the Word of God to advance our political agendas!

As an alternative, I propose that we employ the historic Christian framework of antithesis and common grace to the academic disciplines, including the study of politics. By taking seriously both antithesis and common grace, Christians have a framework not only for critiquing the discipline but also for conscientiously embracing many of its premises, methods, theories, and findings. To the extent that the discipline operates within the bounds of common grace, it has a role in the unfolding of God’s providential order and should be embraced by Christians interested in faithful learning. The result, I believe, is an enriched understanding of both the academic study of politics and the relationship of this study to our faith.

In the final analysis, the academic disciplines (though fallen and flawed) are expressions of human learning graciously granted by God to sustain his appointed order until that final day. If we understand the essence of history as the unfolding revelation of the redemption of God’s people, the disciplines—even when wielded by the pagan—are instruments for the sustenance of creation, and thus for our own sustenance, as we move through creation to consummation. Like the rain that falls on the just and the unjust alike, the disciplines are good gifts from God. When the disciplines are properly understood through the framework of antithesis and common grace, believers individually and the church corporately do not need to be shielded from them, but can be blessed by them.

A CHRISTIAN FRAMEWORK FOR APPROACHING POLITICAL SCIENCE

I do not wish to restate the argument for faithful learning that has been so eloquently outlined by Jay Green in the opening volume of this series. However, it seems appropriate to build on Green’s thesis in a way specific to my own discipline and to reiterate one or two of his own points along the way. I share Green’s frustration with the project of Christian scholarship, in which the tendency to think philosophically and theologically about academic disciplines often gives short shrift to disciplinary content and contributions. The admonitions and formulae coming from many corners—ranging from “transformation/redemption” of creation/culture to “faithful presence” in it—tend to be vague and unconcerned with the nuts and bolts of scholarship, Christian or otherwise. Others have brought the very project of Christian scholarship into question, opting for a “two kingdoms” dualism, whereby natural law guides believer and unbeliever alike in the neutral realm of the academy.⁷ I reach back to what I believe is a position inherent in and flowing out of historic, Reformed orthodoxy—the paradigm of antithesis and common grace—and argue that faithful learning is a direct and necessary consequence of this understanding of the world and the believer’s place in it.

Antithesis and Common Grace

What do I mean by antithesis and common grace?⁸ Antithesis refers to the innate and fundamental difference and separateness of God and his redeemed people (whom we call the church, in both its Old and New Testament manifestations) from all who have rebelled against God and are committed to destruction, represented by Satan. This state of affairs dates to Satan’s fall and the subsequent fall of man depicted in Genesis 3. Antithesis suggests that there is no middle ground or neutral territory between a state of covenant fellowship with God and a state of rebellion against him, which is fellowship with Satan. From the fall onward, all humanity is divided into these two mutually exclusive lines—the line of Seth and the line of Cain—and the unfolding history of redemption is characterized by enmity between them, building toward the climactic end when Christ “shall bruise [Satan’s] head” (Gen. 3:15). Antithesis, then, is the defining characteristic of all reality and the appropriate lens through which the believer begins to interpret the world.

But, because the graciousness of God extends even to our earthly existence, antithesis is not where our interpretation of the world needs to end! Despite his state of enmity with those who belong to Satan, God “makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust” (Matt. 5:45). That is, a tangible expression of God’s grace to all people is restraining the outward, creational effects of the fall upon humanity. And this is just the beginning. God also restrains the ontological effects of the fall within human beings. In his classic formulation, Abraham Kuyper describes how common grace dispensed to the pagan is manifested in two ways. In the negative sense, common grace restrains the unbeliever’s depravity, so that no one is as evil as they might be. Yet in the positive sense, it allows the unbeliever—even apart from regeneration through special grace—the capability of doing good in a limited way as a (corrupted) image-bearer of God.⁹ Kuyper also speaks of these two sides of common grace as constant (the negative sense) and progressive (the positive sense). By “progressive” he seems to have in mind all humanity (regenerate and unregenerate) as “colaborers” with God in history.¹⁰ In other words, common grace empowers the unbeliever to ...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Introduction: What Political Science is . . . and Isn't
• More on Faithful Learning in Academic Studies
• More from P&R on Political Studies
• More from P&R on Politics