Exposing the Political Spirit - Part 1
Exposing the Political Spirit
Lyn Packer
In this two-part series I want to look at the political spirit that is at work in the world, how to recognise it, what it does and how to recognise its work in society. In part two I want to look at the spirit of wisdom - God’s answer and alternative to the political spirit.
There is a spirit that seeks to influence or work within any system of government or anywhere that power bases and rule by law can be established – in people, families, organisations, churches, regional and national government. That spirit is a politically motivated controlling spirit that is a false, or counterfeit, governmental spirit that seeks to gain power over people and ultimately to control or dictate the boundaries within which people function.
While often seen strongly at work within society - in politics and government as well as other institutional systems, it can also be found working within church systems. When found working within Christians and churches the political spirit often works closely with the religious spirit, causing strong manifestations of both.
A political spirit will try and disguise its schemes to appear as though the people it works through want the best for people and society, all the while having hidden agendas. When a political spirit is at work you often cannot recognize its hidden agendas with your natural senses; those agendas, and the spirit itself, have to be spiritually discerned.
The political spirit is Machiavellian – it is cunning, sneaky and unscrupulous in seeking to establish its own agenda. It seeks to corrupt, manipulate, and dominate individuals, leaders and groups of people.
Some attributes of a Political Spirit
It seeks power, often by any means, and makes people ultimately more concerned with winning a seat of power than with providing solutions and caring for people. When it is at work through someone’s life it may present as being caring, and as one that seeks solutions, but its ultimate agenda is power and control.
It wants to build through laws and bind people to those laws. Some laws are necessary for the safety and wellbeing of society but this spirit will seek to add law upon law in the name of protecting, but its underlying intention is to bind people to law. In Scripture we see this spirit at work in the Pharisees and other religious leaders who added law after law of their own to what God originally gave mankind, until the people were brought into a place of bondage to law. Some Scriptures that show this are Matt 23:4; Acts 15:10; 2 Pet 2:19; Luke 14:1-35.
One of its goals is to replace diversity with uniformity through the pressures of fear, shame, control and law. It lays down principles as being undeniably true and seeks to squash questions and dissenting opinions. It seeks to displace true governance based on serving and representing the people and replace it with loyalty to a party philosophy, a society in which people are expected to support a party rather than support truth and legitimate answers.
In an environment where a political spirit has gained control success is measured in terms of reach of influence, visibility, and popularity. In the case of political positions or parties it is also measured in polls and media coverage rather than facing issues and presenting real solutions.
It seeks to create a culture where we don’t have permission to think for ourselves but rather our decisions become based on our affiliation. It seeks to make people strongly question, and become afraid of, any truth which conflicts with what they believe.
The political spirit is a prejudicial spirit with strong biases that are based in a strong root of pride. It seeks to prejudice us strongly towards a particular opinion and cause us to take up a very definite bias and set of beliefs, to the point where we are not open to anything that questions that bias. It causes bias to replace objectivity and practical wisdom. It sets us against those who do not believe the same as we do, polarising us and causing us to take sides and form factions, causing an “us vs them” mentality. Some Scriptures that show this are 1 Cor 1:10-31, 1 Cor 3:3-10
The political spirit always needs an enemy, someone to stand against, and it demonizes anyone who doesn’t agree with it. In other words, someone influenced by a political spirit will not see another person as simply being wrong on an issue, they will view them as evil and an enemy of their cause. This spirit separates people into two categories – winners and losers, those who are right and those who are wrong, those who are in and those who are out, slaves and free etc. The political spirit convinces people to assign the blame for all the problems of society to certain people groups, promoting “isms” – racism, ageism, sexism, etc. When factions are formed the thinking is often along the lines of… “If something agrees with my party’s stance, it’s right; if not, it’s wrong.” “You must align with me or I will distance myself from you and may even despise and vilify you.” In extreme cases a person under the influence of a political spirit will even call into question other Christians’ allegiance and loyalty to Jesus because they have differing beliefs from them on certain subjects. E.g “A real Christian could never vote for….” “That person is evil; if you were a real Christian you would know that”, or statements like, “I thought you were a real Christian.” The word heretic may be bandied about and used to describe anyone who believes differently from us. Some Scriptures that show this are James 1:26; Rom 14:10-12
The political spirit makes us not care about asking what people actually believe; instead, we assign beliefs and motivations to them that may, or may not, be true, and we do so based on random things like personality, race, comments taken out of context, social media memes, other people’s assessments etc.
People under the influence of a political spirit feel, and exhibit, a strong stubborn stance over what they believe. Key words trigger a dig-the-heels-in-the-ground stance so that a person cannot see any middle territory, or cannot hear a different viewpoint, or see an in-between perspective. They will become contentious and argumentative and will argue with anyone of a different perspective until they win their point, or until their opponent quits responding. It promotes finger-pointing and mud-slinging. It causes us to operate in a critical and sometimes vindictive spirit, to attack others, to slander them, spread gossip and belittle them to others and ultimately makes us distance ourselves from those we can't control or bring around to our way of thinking. Some Scriptures that show this are 1 Cor 1:11; Gal 5:19-21)
It causes us to redefine dishonouring attitudes as being virtuous attributes. Gossip is reframed as sharing necessary facts. Self-righteous anger, and anger because my beliefs are not seen as being the only right ones, gets reframed and called righteous anger. What many Christians call righteous is, in reality, often an anger that springs out of the fear that arises when their beliefs are questioned, or a fear that their perceived rights will be taken away.
The political spirit wants to lead us into idolizing a particular leader, governmental figure, or party. In the case of Christians it deceives us into replacing Jesus with human saviours. Once we have entered into this idolatry, anytime someone voices a concern that the one we idolize may be wrong in a specific area we get defensive and perhaps abusive in our rebuttal. This idolisation of leaders and parties can happen in relation to both secular and Christian parties running for government. Some Scriptures that show this are 1 Cor 10:14; Acts 14:11-15
The political spirit blinds our eyes to our favoured leader’s failings. If the person I support is in office then everything they do is seen as being right, whether it actually is or not. Under the influence of a political spirit a person will seek to justify or minimise any wrongs their favoured leader or party does, and their idolisation of a figure will not allow them to admit when they are wrong.
Conversely, the political spirit can also lead us into hating a particular governmental figure or leader, or those that support that person or party. We spend our time criticizing his or her every move. When anyone suggests that we pray for that person instead of criticizing him/her, we make excuses, get defensive or go on the attack. If a leader in office is someone other than my favoured person then they are open game. I dig into “my rights to free speech” and believe that gives me the right to say anything I want about them – forget about love, kindness, mercy, forgiveness etc, they don’t apply to me or this situation; my rights to free speech take pre-eminence above those.One of the political spirit’s main goals when it comes to Christians is to divert us from Christ and the gospel, to side-track us onto tangents, to get us to take sides over things, even things that have no eternal consequence. It seeks to use us by taking hold of principles that we deeply subscribe to and twisting them for its own purposes. We bring those twisted beliefs into how we pray and act, firmly convinced that we are on God’s side, when in actuality our understanding may be deeply flawed. Some Scriptures that show this are Rom 12:2; 1 John 2:15
It causes us to become hard-hearted. Eph 4:32 tells us, “Be kind to one another, tender-hearted….” The political spirit causes us to put our “convictions” ahead of kindness and tenderness. Mercy and compassion take a lesser place because ‘being right’ becomes paramount.
In his book, The Discerner, James Goll comments,
“Particularly in these days of instant social messaging, we need to be alert to the influence of the political spirit around us. We have to work hard to keep our focus on God and not on the troubling and divisive contemporary issues unfolding around us, lest we react to them by joining the toxic fray, rather than being part of the solution. While we should fulfil our civic responsibilities and keep a level head while participating in our representative government, the best thing we can do is to pray and intercede in order to break the power of the demonic political spirit that causes divisions, animosity, and strife.”
Our response to the Political Spirit
What should be our response as Christians, our best and first course of action?
We need to realise that ultimately our war is not against flesh and blood. It is against the forces of darkness, the demonic powers behind the scenes. “For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms” (Eph 6:12).
The first and best thing we can do is to pray and intercede in order to discern the powers at work and to break the power of the demonic political spirit that causes divisions, animosity, and strife. If we don’t stay aware of the real source of the problem we end up in futile contention with people who have sadly become tools of the enemy.
Being able to identify elusive demonic influences is only the beginning. What will you do with what you discern? Discerning the work of this spirit is just the beginning; as Christians we must go from discerning the spirit at work to discerning God’s heart, wisdom and solution, and releasing that into the world.
When it comes to civic matters, and ungodly laws being introduced etc., while prayer is our best and first course of action, that does not mean it will be all we are called to. We can, and should, stand against that sort of thing, but that is a matter to be discussed in another article. This article’s focus is on exposing the work of the political spirit in society and the church, and the way that it affects our lives.
I pray that the Holy Spirit will grant light to each of us. May we not point the finger in judgment, but rather let the Holy Spirit clean house in our own lives, so that we can exercise clear discernment. And may we come to know the Lord Himself as our refuge from all such demonic influences (see Psa 91:9–10, 14–15).
I pray, too, that Holy Spirit will bring you into such a thorough understanding of your identity in Christ, the work He has done on the cross for you, and the ways of God, that as you become more like Jesus the demonic spirits of this world will have less in common with you, and eventually you, too, will be able to say, as Jesus did of the prince of this world, “He has no hold over me” (John 14:30).
If in reading this article you realise that you have been influenced by the political spirit, and caught in its web, the Lord will free you from it if you ask Him to do so. He will then give you the wisdom you need to stay free, and will help you know where to put your focus and energy in the future.
Breaking free
How do we break the power and influence that the political spirit has off of our minds and lives?
1. The first step is recognizing it has gained influence and power over us.
2. We repent. Repent means to have a change in our thinking, to see from God’s perspective; it means to come out of agreement and alignment with the ungodly and into agreement and alignment with God and His perspective, having our minds renewed on that subject (Rom 12:2). And then it means to walk in the light of that changed perspective and renewed mind, causing us to have changed actions and lifestyle.
3. We renounce the attachment and influence of that spirit over our lives, breaking our soul’s ties to it. We take our God given authority as children of God over it, breaking the spirit’s power and influence over our life, and asking the Lord to deliver us fully from it. We cooperate with the Lord, asking Him how to pray, letting Him lead us as we do so.
4. We determine once again to heed God’s word and wisdom, as found in verses like these ones – “Seek those things which are above, where Christ sits on the right hand of God. Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth” (Col 3:1, 2). “And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable--if anything is excellent or praiseworthy--think about such things” (Phil 4:8).
5. We ask God for His peace and His wisdom in how to walk forward from this point, where to put our focus and energy in doing His will and releasing His Kingdom. We work on reframing how we see people, how we love them etc. so that we do so from a godly, righteous perspective.
If you’d like to you can pray something along these lines.
Lord, I repent of being in agreement with a political spirit and allowing it to influence my life. I see the truth and come into agreement with Your perspective on this, and I come out of agreement with that spirit. I ask you to renew my mind. I separate myself from that spirit now, breaking its power over my life in Jesus’ name.
Lord help me to give no place in my heart to this spirit in the future. Give me Your love for people, even those that I strongly disagree with. Teach me how to hear their concerns and listen from the heart to their cries. Show me how to be a father or mother, a sister or brother, one who loves all of the people in my nation. Give me insights on how to be honouring and righteous, holding to righteous convictions while being patient with those who are living by a different standard. Give me a love for them, help me to see them through Your eyes and to pray for them, that they may have a revelation of Your love and Your plans for them.
Tomorrow I’m going to post the second part in this 2-part series. In it we’ll look at how to move in the opposite spirit from the political spirit – the spirit of wisdom. This spirit is the one that holds the key to righteous government of any sort, along with the kingdom attributes of love, mercy, kindness (the fruit of the spirit). I hope you’ll join me for that.
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Click here to read part 2 - Operating in the Spirit of Wisdom