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The Political Order
335
t h e y
f e a r
c o m p r o m i s e
.
In a sense politics is an art of compro
mise. From the standpoint of a legalistic morality, all compromise
involves moral taint. Therefore, politics is best left to those whose
consciences are less strict—those who are willing to settle for the ex
pedient. It is argued that the morally sensitive person who is dedicated
to high goals and lofty ideals cannot maintain them in the practical
game of politics. One must compromise his principles in order to be
elected, and one must also compromise them if he is going to be
effective as a lawmaker or as an administrator of the law.
But such a view of politics stems out of an unbiblical understanding
of Christian ethics. It starts out with the self and the desire to main
tain one’s own personal purity rather than with God’s will and the
neighbor’s need. It rests upon the assumption that one’s salvation
depends upon the preservation of his personal purity rather than upon
the grace of God which accepts the service of those who in love seek
to minister to His children’s needs. Such a view overlooks the fact
that the effort to escape the necessity of compromise also involves sin
and a lack of faith in the goodness and love of God. Both those who
compromise out of love for the neighbor and those who out of self-love
seek to avoid compromise stand in need of the divine forgiveness.
As we have noted earlier, the use of the term
compromise
is mis
leading if it is made a primary category in Christian ethics, for it
suggests a legalistic, or moralistic, conception of morality. When
Christian ethics is understood, not in terms of abstract laws and abso
lute principles primarily but in terms of responsive love to God, it
becomes clear that it is misleading to speak of compromising one’s
Christian ethic in the political arena simply because one has to settle
for something less than the ideal. We are summoned to love the neigh
bor—i.e., to minister to his needs in the kind of world in which he
and we live. The will of God for us is related to the neighbor’s needs
in a particular, concrete situation; and Christian love implies a willing
ness to do the best that is possible for the neighbor now and a per
sistent effort to make it possible to take further steps in his behalf
at the earliest possible moment. Compromise of abstract moral laws
and principles of justice, which serve as guides but not as final norms
in Christian ethics, is not only permitted but demanded to the extent
—but only to the extent—that it is required by the neighbor’s needs.
THEY CONFUSE ISSUES BY GENERALIZING POLITICAL PROBLEMS.
Another serious obstacle to the exercise of political responsibility is