It’s no secret that each of us has a public face. We present a version of ourselves to the world every day. When our public and private selves match, we come across as authentic. When there is a noticeable gap – well, it’s difficult to hide.
The gap exists in all of us. You might tell the world you have it all together: intelligent, kind, service-oriented. You might let your actions speak for you: what you do, how you show up, what your calendar reflects. But it’s rare for our thoughts and actions to line up consistently. And this gap becomes especially visible when our spiritual lives enter the political arena.
Few would deny the link between faith and politics. What we believe about the world shapes how we act in the public square. But time and again, we make choices, adopt positions, and rationalize behaviors that don’t align with what we claim to believe. We hear people invoke the name of Jesus – and what flows from their mouths and actions often looks like something else entirely.
This isn’t a partisan problem. It’s a human one. So what’s actually gone wrong?
Two (or Three) Ways We Can Be Right
Deep inside all of us is a desire to be right. And deep inside most of us is a desire to do right. For those who identify as Christians, following Jesus helps us address both.
Orthodoxy – right belief – offers a practice of discovering what is true about God, ourselves, each other, and the world. We learn, refine, debate, and defend these beliefs.
Orthopraxy – right practice – offers us a pathway to put our beliefs into action. Again, the things we do should flow from the things we believe.
Both are visible and measurable. Every Christian has an incomplete orthodoxy and an inconsistent orthopraxy. We’re imperfect, and none of us gets either fully right. But there is a more important problem: we have overlooked a third metric on which the other two entirely depend.
Orthocardia – right heart – is the most hidden, most neglected, and most essential quality in a man’s life. It is the posture of our true selves, which feeds our desires, our motives, and our choices. Unlike the other two, it cannot be directly observed from the outside, only by its fruit.
Jesus returned to this again and again. “A good man brings good things out of the good stored up in his heart, and an evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in his heart. For the mouth speaks what the heart is full of.” – Luke 6:45
A man can have (seemingly) correct thinking and correct behavior and still miss the mark entirely if his heart is closed, proud, or self-serving. Something will seem off. It might look – to God, and eventually to everyone else – like he’s putting on an act.
Where Faith and Politics Flourish or Die
Okay, so our hearts are important, but what does that have to do with faith and politics? Perhaps politics is the clearest arena for noticing the actual condition of our hearts. Not because it’s the most important thing, but because it’s the place where the pressure to win, to belong, and to be right reaches its highest intensity. And under that pressure, what is actually inside a man tends to come out.
For some of us, our politics have become so enmeshed with our faith that we can no longer distinguish one from the other. For many, we may be missing meaningful truths from across the political aisle. For all of us, our certainty about being right has a way of blinding us to our own inconsistency and pride.
A few questions worth asking yourself:
- What does my political speech (online and in person) reveal about my heart?
- Is there someone across the political aisle whose faith genuinely challenges or impresses me ?
- What am I compromising to get my way?
“Search me, God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.” – Psalm 139:23-24
What if we were eager for God’s truth, eager to love the world around us, and eager for leaders whose words and actions flowed from something genuinely good? We might still disagree and debate, but we might get a lot closer to the heart of things.
BEFORE YOU GO (aka: the short version)
What do orthodoxy, orthopraxy, and orthocardia mean? Three Greek-rooted words that describe three dimensions of Christian faith. Orthodoxy is right belief – what you hold to be true about God and the world. Orthopraxy is right practice – how those beliefs show up in your actions. Orthocardia is right heart – the inner posture from which both belief and behavior either genuinely flow or are merely performed. Of the three, orthocardia is the most essential and the least visible.
Why is orthocardia the hardest one to get right? Because it cannot be observed from the outside. A man can say the right things and do the right things while his heart remains closed, proud, or self-serving. Orthocardia is only visible to God and, with enough honesty, to the man himself. That is what makes it both the most important and the most easily neglected.
What does faith have to do with politics? What we believe about God, people, and the world shapes how we engage in public life. But politics also has a way of revealing what is actually in a man’s heart rather than what he claims is there. The pressure to win, to belong, and to be right tends to surface the truth about our inner life more quickly than almost anything else.
How do I know if my political engagement is flowing from a right heart? Start with the questions in the post. What does your political speech reveal about your posture, not just your positions? Is there someone who thinks or votes differently whose faith genuinely impresses you? And honestly, what are you compromising in the name of being right? These questions are the beginning of orthocardia in your public life.
