The Gospel According to Cowards: Why Political Neutrality is a Fraud

I ran across an ad for a so-called “Christian” news source this morning that claims political neutrality is the answer to the so-called anger and bias in modern news. It promises a 'Christ-first' approach, as if Christianity somehow exists in a vacuum, untouched by the cultural and political battles of our time.

This is the growing lie within evangelical circles—the idea that politics is something separate from our faith, something we can observe from a safe, detached distance without getting our hands dirty. But here’s the problem, political neutrality is not only impossible, it is a coward’s refuge. Every moral, cultural, or political view is ultimately theological. There is no opting out.

The only question is whether your politics reflect what you claim to believe about God, or is it capitulation to a godless worldview.

Political neutrality is a myth. It doesn’t exist, it never has, and it never will. Every policy, every law, every vote is a declaration of allegiance to some kind of moral framework. And moral frameworks don’t spring up out of nowhere. They are always, always, rooted in one’s theology—whatever that may be.

Strip away the slogans, the talking points, and the carefully curated PR campaigns, and what you’ll find underneath every political ideology is a religious conviction—an unspoken creed about what is good, what is evil, what is worth defending, and what is worth destroying.

And the sad reality is that the left understands this better than anyone, which is why they evangelize their worldview with the zeal of a second-rate cult leader.

The only people foolish enough to believe in neutrality are the milquetoast evangelicals—the Kevin DeYoungs, the JD Greears, the David Platts, et al—who still think they can balance on the fence while the world burns around them.

But there’s a biblical principle that refutes this new idol of neutrality:

The good person out of the good treasure of his heart produces good, and the evil person out of his evil treasure produces evil, for out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks.. (Luke 6:45)

That’s not just a quaint proverb, it’s a brutal reality, spoken directly from the mouth of Jesus. And in today’s world, that reality extends far beyond personal conversation. Voting is how we speak in our political system here in America.

From out of the heart, the vote is cast.

From out of the heart, the law is passed.

From out of the heart, entire nations are shaped.

Politics is not some detached intellectual exercise—it is the direct result of what people believe about God, humanity, justice, and authority. A person who votes to uphold abortion isn’t just making a “political choice,” they are making a theological statement, that they do not an unborn life, made in the image of God, is worth defending.

A person who champions gender anarchy and the mutilation of children isn’t simply advocating “rights,” they are declaring their own gospel—a gospel of self-worship and nihilism. Politics is theology externalized, and to pretend otherwise is to ignore the very nature of human belief.

Yet, there’s always a chorus of so-called Christians wringing their hands, mumbling something about how Jesus “wasn’t political.”

Please. What exactly do you think got Him nailed to a cross? A lukewarm TED Talk? A milquetoast plea for unity?

No, it was His unapologetic confrontation with both religious and political powers of the day. He rebuked the Pharisees for their corruption, exposed Herod as a fox, and told Pilate to his face that his authority was on loan from above.

He didn’t navigate the political landscape with the careful neutrality of a modern Evangelical megachurch pastor. He waged war against lies with the truth. And now, in a world where lies run rampant, where every moral foundation is being dynamited to make way for some dystopian fever dream, we have a wave of Christian leaders who think their job is to be polite spectators.

But here’s a news flash for you, the world isn’t asking for your neutrality. It’s demanding your submission.

But what about “our citizenship in heaven”? Yes, and Paul’s was too, but that didn’t stop him from engaging the Roman legal system, appealing to Caesar, and leveraging his earthly citizenship to advance the truth.

Being a citizen of heaven doesn’t mean you stick your head in the clouds while your nation crumbles beneath you. It means you think rightly, biblically, about political, cultural, and moral issues so that your engagement reflects your faith.

To be clear, we’re not advocating for some kind of full-on theocratic takeover. No one is calling for a Christian Taliban to storm the Capitol and enforce Mosaic law on the masses. That’s the fever-dream propaganda of the left, the same left that screeches about “Christian nationalism” while eagerly erecting a godless state religion of its own.

No, we are calling for Christians to think biblically about political issues, to engage in a way that reflects their convictions rather than outsourcing their discernment to the nearest “neutral” news source that promises to do all the thinking for them.

Let’s take a moment to expose the naked absurdity of this whole neutrality charade. Where are all these so-called neutral Christians when it comes to abortion? Are they trying to find the “middle ground” between murder and life?

Where are they when the radical left pushes gender lunacy onto children? Are they thoughtfully weighing both sides of the castration debate?

The truth is, there is no middle ground between truth and lies. The idea that Christians can sit comfortably in some theological Switzerland while culture descends into madness is a lie, and a damnable one at that.

Of course, the neutrality crowd will object. They’ll say, “But Jesus didn’t come to start a political movement!”

And to that, I say: thank you, Captain Obvious.

No one is claiming that politics is salvific. A right vote won’t save your soul any more than a left vote will irredeemably damn it. But here’s the reality—politics is one of many ways that a person’s theology is revealed. It’s not about salvation, it’s about reflection.

If you claim to love Christ, but your politics reflect the values of the enemies of God, what does that say about your heart? If your instincts lead you to defend institutions that promote sin rather than those that stand against it, what does that reveal about your priorities?

A tree is known by its fruit. And if your political fruit consistently aligns with Satan and his demons, then it might be time to ask what kind of tree you really are.

Some will still protest. “We need to be peacemakers!” they cry, as if that’s an argument for disengagement. But peacemakers aren’t cowards. Peacemakers aren’t spineless appeasers who refuse to speak against evil. Peacemakers bring reconciliation through truth, not through silence.

And if you think Jesus was some kind of conflict-avoidant pacifist, you clearly haven’t read the gospels. He made a whip and flipped tables. He called religious leaders snakes and whitewashed tombs. He told His disciples that following Him would turn brother against brother and son against father.

This wasn’t a man who prided Himself on never ruffling feathers. The “peacemaking” of modern neutered Christian pastors is nothing more than spinelessness dressed up as virtue.

The reality is simple. There is no neutrality in war, and make no mistake—this is war. War over truth. War over morality. War over whether Christ’s law will shape society or whether the enemies of God will do it for us.

Let me leave you with a final question: when the battle lines are drawn, and every institution, every government, every cultural force is moving in one of two directions—toward truth or toward destruction—where will you be standing?

Because there’s no middle ground. There never was. And there never will be.