I’m sucker for free books. In this case Eerdmans, the publisher, offered me a free copy of Phil Christman’s Why Christians Should Be Leftists to read on condition that I’d share my opinions.

My initial thoughts were that this book was not for me. First, I’ve never been confident that I understand the whole “right”/”left” way of sorting things. Sure, it might have worked when it was first introduced during the French Revolution, but that was a culture distant from us in time and space. Just when I would begin to think I understood what the distinction meant, I’d run across something that put me back at my starting point. The recent book, The Myth of Left and Right by Verlan and Hyrum Lewis fit better with my inclinations. The Lewis brothers argue that the packages of beliefs and positions that have been called “left” and “right” have shifted too much for the terms to be very useful.

Second, since at least my late teens I’ve thought of myself as a “conservative,” and I’ve been told that “conservatism” is a thing of the “right.” Why would I want to consider an argument that I should consider becoming a “leftist?”

On the other side, I also had reasons to read this book.

First, I am a Christian, and want to be a Christian first. My allegiance to Jesus and his kingdom is higher than and takes priority over every other allegiance in my life. Being faithful to Jesus and his ways counts for more than be a “conservative” or having any other political or ideological banner flying over me. To the degree that I take some other ideology or its exponents as more important in my life or more definitive of my identity than Jesus, I am giving in to idolatry. I recognize, with Christman, things we value like “law and order” and “national security” have often become idols we serve in ways that have crushed other people in our acts of worship. If I take Christman’s account of leftism as accurate, however, I can also see destructive idols on the left, such as the full acceptance of sexualities & their performance multiplying in the past few years (and yes, Aphrodite and her brood are idolized in other forms on the right as well).

Christman writes as a Christian for Christians. Telling his own story he says of an occasion he was confronted with Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount in college:

That afternoon sealed my fate…Once I had, even for a moment, imagined the possibility of living in that kind of feeling permanently, I was doomed to be some kind of leftist. For me, the fate of being a Christian and being on the left politically are, if not one and the same fate, at least closely linked. In other words, ideas of Jesus’s divinity and incarnation – the central claims of Christianity, along with the resurrection – are linked with the idea that human beings should try to live together in a radically unselfish way, that we can and must try to do so. Ultimately, my Christianity has led me out of conservatism [the environment of his upbringing], past liberalism, to the left.

Second, I want to be right. Being right, isn’t the same as feeling right. I know both from my own experience and from observation of others that feeling right is very pleasant. As long as I feel right, I can look smugly down on the others around me who are WRONG! Again, from my own experience and from observing others (in my own time and others in history), feeling right is entirely compatible with being wrong. If I want to be right, I need to continually submit my beliefs and knowledge claims to scrutiny. This isn’t pleasant – well, learning that I’ve been wrong isn’t pleasant – but basic epistemic standards require it. Connecting my first reason with this second one, repentance is a normal part of the Christian life. If I’ve been wrong, I need to repent.

As one who wants to be right, I must read and consider people I anticipate disagreement with. If all I read are people who I am confident will affirm what I already believe, I’ve surrendered to confirmation bias and am living in an echo chamber.

I do realize that “right” and “left” are commonly used as terms of insult. For those on the “right,” being a “leftist” is evil at worst, stupid at best. After all, Stalin, Mao, and Pol Pot were leftists! Likewise, for those on the “left,” being on the “right” is also evil at word, stupid at best. After all, Hitler was a man of the right!

If you are a Christian and open minded, regardless of what you take your political inclination to be, I encourage you to consider Christman’s book. It’s an easy read. As a defender of leftism, Christman manages to write with both confidence and a measure of humility. (Just one example of the humility: “Holding left convictions, like holding Christian convictions, doesn’t automatically make you a good person. It should help you see, rather, why you need grace.”)

Christman’s Aristotelian definition of politics as seeking good ways for people to live together is essentially the same as mine. If ethics is the inquiry into the nature of the good life and how to achieve it, politics can be taken as the modification of ethics as the inquiry into the nature of the good life for us and how we can achieve it together.

Much of the discussion around “left” and “right” has to do with power and its role in society. With those on the left (like Christman), I’m disinclined to trust the rich and their allies with the power they have held throughout history and hold in our society today. I also recognize that the power of policing has not been and is not now always benign. Also with those on the “left,” I recognize the number of people whose lives seem built around a sense of powerlessness. They lack the power to make it economically or to chose and achieve the good life for themselves. With those on the “right,” I’m disinclined to trust government and self-appointed experts with the power they want to control my life. Christman recognizes the problems on both these sides, though as a “leftist” he comes down wanting to entrust more power to government than I’m willing to grant. In his bilateral critique he lifts of “anarchism” as one of the “tendencies” on the “left” (alongside “socialism” and “communism”). I’d not be so quick to make this move. In my experience, people on both the “right” and the “left” want to resist the power that says, “Sit down, shut up, do what you’re told,” whether that voice of command is the rich, capitalists, experts, police, or the government. We all want the freedom to “do our own thing.”

Christman sees value in “the market,” but as a leftist sees it falling well short of the esteem with which those on the “right” hold it. He sees Hayek as leading the “right” toward an absolutizing of the market in way that leads to destruction. I’m far from a Hayek expert, but the main thing I’ve gotten from him is the critique of the “knowledge problem” that’s expressed in attempts to bring markets under government control. For Hayek it’s not just that governments do not know what they take themselves to know when it comes to managing the market; they cannot.

As a Christian, I take it as my responsibility to bless and encourage people, to lift them up and help them advance. Some of the people who look to need this are in their current position due to something particular to them: lack of intelligence, poor decisions, bad health, mistakes, family suffering; others might be in such a position because of their position relative to others in society. There have been times in our history (I speak here as an American) that being Black, a Woman, an Immigrant, etc., have put a person in a position of deprivation, powerlessness, and hopelessness, apart from anything action or character quality of the person in question. To the extent that I have power, whether political, economic, or personal, I am called as a follower of Jesus, to help people improve their lives and advance.

Being a Christian means that my vision of the good life, the “better life” and the “advance” that I am trying to help people achieve, is connected with Jesus and not just a maximization of profit or utility. Does the leftist vision put us in a place where no such truth can be admitted? In its radical egalitarianism, is all hierarchy to be abolished? Christman’s commitment to Christ as expressed in this book doesn’t seem to allow for such an abolition, but his commitment to leftism pushes that direction.

As a Christian, I find myself in alignment with most of Christman’s account of Christian ethics. If I were a Christian nationalist of a certain sort I’d want to push my government to enact these Christian ethics, making them law and policy. If I were – but I’m not.

Finishing the book I’m left wondering how to describe myself. I trust government more than those currently on the “right,” but less than those on the “left.” I trust the market more than those on the “left,” but less than those on the “right.” I’d love to see our country become more welcoming not just to immigrants but to more immigrants (I think that would be good for us, good for them, and a way for us to honor what the scripture says about how we treat the foreigner in our midst). I’d prefer to see billionaires (whether of the “right” or the “left”) with less power. I’d like to see policies in place that recognize that “success in life” is not just a matter of hard work and determination, meaning that many will need help along the way.

If you’re a leftist and wonder how you could be a Christian too, read the book. If you’re Christian and assume that requires you to be on the “right,” read the book. Either way, you’ll find value in it.