The Christian man is a practically minded man. He will deal with the world as it exists not as he wish it existed.
Althusius understood this in the realm of politics when he said a wise civil magistrate will “accommodate his sails to the wind as a skilled sailor does, and permit for a time what he cannot prevent.”
We must not let the perfect become the death of the possible. Indeed, politics is often “the art of the possible” – choosing not a perfect option (which is not actually on the table) but the best of available options.
This is how voting works. We want to get the best candidates we can on the ballot. But it usually comes down to choosing the least bad option among the actual alternatives.
But this is not to say Christians should ever content themselves with the cultural and political status quo. We want to see the culture transformed. We want the nations discipled. We want to change the world.
Thus, Christians are very interested in shifting the Overton Window. But Overton Window shifts are almost always incremental. Proposing wild, outlandish solutions to present day problems that have zero chance of happening is not helpful. At the same time, proposing something outside the current Overton Widow, close enough to edges to get traction but not so far away that it is only of theoretical use, is good and necessary. The Overton Widow cannot ever shift the direction we want it to if we never propose anything outside its parameters.
There’s an old saying “The reasonable man adapts himself to the world. The unreasonable man adapts the world to himself. Therefore all change depends on the unreasonable man.” Or as JFK put it, “Any danger spot is tenable if men, brave men, will make it so.” (I do not usually quotes JFK favorably, but assuming he really said this, he was right). These proverbial sayings are true – to a point, and in certain contexts.
If politics is the art of the possible, not the demand for the ideal, what should we do when massive change is needed? In online discussions, I often see people suggest completely unworkable and unrealistic solutions to real world problems. “If only we could go back to a monarchy…” “If only we could deport 100 million people this year….” “If only we could get back to land owning heads of households as the only voters…” These kinds of things don’t help because they are so far from the Overton Widow, they don’t even register in the real world. Wisdom is figuring the right thing to do here and now. Wisdom is doing what you can, where you are, with what you have, to actually make a dint on the world. Wisdom traffics in reality, not fantasy. Wisdom deals with the world as it is, not as we’d like it to be. Sure, sometimes, wisdom means stretching in a direction that goes beyond the bounds of what seems likely – but none of us has a magic wand we can wave to instantly change the situation in which we find ourselves. It is not wisdom to say “If only everyone would do exactly what I think…” That’s like saying, “If I was God….” You are not God. So now what?
Christians today have precious little wisdom about these matters. It’s one reason we are in the situation we are in. We need a realpolitik that can both deal with the world as it is and take it where it needs to go. We need to be hopeful realists. We need to be grounded in reality while reaching for heavens. We need to deal with the present while moving it towards our vision for the future – even if one baby step at a time. We need to be “smashmouth incrementalists,” as it has been put. We need to both traction, to get things moving, and direction, so we can move towards the right goals.
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