Yesterday I wrote that the church is a political structure. Today I'd like to dwell on that idea a bit more in conversation with another writer, William Stringfellow, a lawyer and theologian working in America in the mid 20th C.

In an essay titled, The Orthodoxy of Radical Involvement, he writes,

"There is no such thing as neutrality about any public issue... Every citizen and every institution is involved in one way or another, either by intention or default. Those who suppose they can withdraw only deceive themselves, because deliberate abstinence or asserted neutrality are themselves forms of involvement in politics."

The Church, as a part of society, has a responsibility to confront the social issues of its day. Attempts to stay out of them are still, as Stringfellow notes, a form of involvement. This why there is no such thing as being apolitical.

In another essay, Poverty, Property, and People, he writes,

“The beginning of conscience, in a Christian sense, is realizing that every action or omission, even those which seem routine and trivial, is consequentially related to the lives of all other human beings on the face of the earth.”

Politics gets at this interconnection of all things and what it means to try and form a shared life together. As an institution, the church is gathering people and forming them with values and purpose that will play a role in forging their relationship to the world around them. These things have political consequences—whether we recognize it or not.