Serpents and Doves: Struggling with Theology, Vocation, and Politics in a Transformed America
Paul Esau
Do Christians have an obligation to reconcile their theology, vocation, and politics?
That was the question that catalyzed a talk I gave at Dordt University in Iowa earlier this year. It’s not a new question—many Christians before me have sought to answer it—but it’s one I’ve struggled with since I became a Scoville Fellow in Washington, D.C. in early 2023. Since Donald Trump’s inauguration on January 20, 2025, the question has felt existential. Trump may have been elected by a coalition of evangelical Christians as a defender of both faith and state, but many of his policies seem to directly contradict the teachings of Jesus. In response, I wanted to speak to a new generation of students about the inherent tension of serving a God who asks for holistic obedience while living adjacent to a political machine that demands unflinching subservience.
I didn’t intend to give this talk when I began drafting it in December 2024. I’d been invited to speak by a Dordt professor and friend, and, while I wanted to speak at a Christian school so I could be authentic about my faith-based perspective, Trump was not top of mind. My original title was “Preserving the Rules-Based Order: Nuclear Weapons, the U.S. Dollar, and Political Hypocrisy.” Yet by early February, that title felt like a relic from a previous era. The “rules-based order” was being fundamentally reshaped. The White House was redefining its relationships with U.S. allies and partners. President Trump had just imposed sanctions on the International Criminal Court’s chief prosecutor. My concern about “hypocrisy” also felt outdated. Charges of foreign policy hypocrisy only matter within a stable multilateral system grounded in liberal values—a system shaped by norms and precedents rooted in respect for international law and national sovereignty. In 2025, such accusations feel sort of like scrolling through Elon Musk’s X: a nostalgic (but traumatizing) waste of time.
Am I being overdramatic? I no longer know. I moved to D.C. in early 2023 to work on arms control, and arms control is currently a flaming cloud of SpaceX-style shrapnel approaching terminal velocity. The ABM Treaty is dead, the INF Treaty is dead, the NPT is on life support, and New START seems unsalvageable. The White House has signaled an end to human rights restrictions and congressional oversight on arms sales, and alliance instability is pushing U.S. partners and allies toward nuclear proliferation. Even in Canada, tenured university professors are proposing a national nuclear deterrent to prevent the country’s forceful annexation as the “51st state.”
In short, I wrote a title for a different president, a different kind of liberal democracy—maybe even an American era that no longer exists. Like many academics, I reflexively used the idealistic foreign policy jargon of the post–Cold War 1990s instead of the realist language required by today’s reversion to great power competition. In retrospect, it made me sound fossilized.
A Christian Nation
My concerns for American Christians, including many of the students I spoke to, remain painfully relevant. As a Christian raised in Canada, I see the U.S.—and to a certain extent, American Christianity—as an outsider. I regularly meet Christians in D.C. who work in political, governmental, or military roles where they’re forced to make or enforce difficult decisions. Sometimes I ask them: How do you reconcile your faith with your work?
In many cases, I get strange, contradictory, or dismissive answers. A contractor working for a military prime told me theology had little to do with it; he just wanted America to win rather than the Russians or Chinese. A political staffer for a Republican congressperson admitted his boss was crazy but assured me the radical leftists were worse. A political appointee turned the question back on me, asking whether I was “Christian” or “American” first (a decision he acknowledged might be complicated by my Canadian upbringing).
I challenge the premise of these responses. In America, Christianity is sometimes treated as a national hobby—a sacred side hustle. There’s an unspoken assumption that what’s good for America is good for Christianity, and vice versa—that Jesus was a sort of proto-American, and that America operates as a divine agent in a deeply troubled world. This kind of Christian nationalism stands in binary opposition to the theological perspective of my Mennonite ancestors, who, emerging from the Reformation in the 16th century, were persecuted and driven across Europe because they refused this exact kind of theological compromise. Mennonites withdrew from the world of politics and economic prosperity into relatively autonomous agrarian communities, preached nonviolent peacemaking, and argued that the state and its various branches were inherently fallen. They were among the first Christian denominations to advocate for the separation of church and state, believing that the state’s use of coercion—including violence—as a tool of policy was incompatible with Christianity.
I don’t advocate for the traditional Mennonite position. Withdrawing into agrarian communities while blissfully ignoring geopolitics is not a rational solution in 2025. Instead, as I told the students in Iowa, I think Christians should consider the words of N.T. Wright and Michael F. Bird in their book Jesus and the Powers (2024): “The Christian vocation is neither pious longing for heaven nor scheming to make Jesus king by exerting force over unwilling subjects. Instead, Christians should be ready to speak truth to power, being concerned with the righteous exercise of government, seeing it bend toward the arc of justice and fulfilling the service that God expects of governing authorities.”
From my perspective, too many American Christians believe they are in a war with secular liberalism for the soul of the nation—and that war must be won at any cost. This is not true of all evangelicals, obviously, but this perspective has led parts of the church into very dark places.
A Kingdom Calling
During the rest of my talk, I used my work at the Wisconsin Project on Nuclear Arms Control to help students consider three questions:
- Who are you working for?
- How does your work serve God’s kingdom?
- Does your work harm God’s kingdom?
I knew many of the students were pursuing engineering degrees that could lead to internships or careers with companies producing military equipment, so I asked them to carefully consider the impact of their work when evaluating employers. I urged them to answer all three questions—and in doing so, acknowledge the intersectional nature of their identities as Christians and employees.
Of course, not all Christian denominations value a holistic commitment to nonviolence, but I argued that all Christians should seek a clear kingdom focus in their work. Kingdom focus is a phrase my father, an Old Testament professor, often used to describe alignment between theology and vocation—an orientation that serves Jesus, pursues righteousness, and helps people and creation flourish. My father wasn’t saying everyone needs to become a pastor or join the Peace Corps, but he did believe that if a Christian can’t find a kingdom focus in their work, it’s time to find a new job.
As part of my own evaluation of kingdom focus in my vocation, I argued that there is some overlap between the objectives of arms control and Jesus’ words in the Beatitudes: “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.” I also noted that much of my work on sanctions and export controls constituted what the State Department might call “cooperative threat reduction,” as it reduced the risk of nuclear and conventional proliferation. But I admitted I struggle with the indiscriminate nature of sanctions, as well as their use by the United States to pursue national rather than multilateral goals. Washington is increasingly using sanctions and export controls to compete geopolitically with China and to drive industry and manufacturing capacity back to the U.S. I admitted that my theological rationale begins to crumble if my work is simply enabling companies to build more data centers or semiconductor fabs in Texas, rather than reducing the risk of nuclear war.
Later, students asked questions about the moral complexity of working for military contractors and the impact of the Trump transition on D.C.-based peace and security NGOs. One student spoke to me afterwards about his own journey as an engineering intern at an aerospace company. I noted that in the United States far more industries and employers are tied to the military than in Canada, making it more difficult for U.S. students in certain vocations to avoid entering the military-industrial complex.
A Warning and an Opportunity
I ended my talk by reiterating that I wasn’t suggesting Christians avoid complicated vocations—whether in government, think tanks, or other areas of foreign policy. The world (and the United States) needs wise, thoughtful people—including Christians—to pursue these vocations and wrestle with the compromises and paradoxes they pose. I specifically encouraged the students to consider the Scoville Fellowship and similar opportunities, especially those passionate about peace and security studies.
I explained that the Scoville Fellowship, which is designed for university graduates outside the D.C. ecosystem, changed the course of my life. I highlighted the work of other Scoville Fellows to show the breadth of organizations and experiences available, and described how many of them are fighting to resurrect arms control despite the overwhelming challenges. I admitted that despite all my cynicism, I believe those advocating for foreign policy restraint, multilateral negotiation, and arms control still have an important role to play in U.S. politics.
In short, I encouraged students to pursue experiences like the Scoville Fellowship in Washington, D.C., even as political polarization continues to corrode American Christianity. At the same time, I urged them to beware of the moral hazards that come with prioritizing politics over theology—especially in their primary vocations. That might sound like a contradiction, yet many Christian teachings are built on similar contradictions. Christians believe they are both inherently sinful and saved by grace. They worship Jesus, a being both fully God and fully human, who died to bring them eternal life. Attempting to live faithfully in a fallen world is all about navigating the knife’s edge.
That’s why the purpose of my talk wasn’t to give students easy answers, but to ask them to struggle. I’m tired of hearing Christians in D.C. and elsewhere justify the compromise of their theology through simple, ugly binaries—or argue that America, not Jesus, should be their primary allegiance. I’m tired of hearing that politics is just about choosing a team, proving one’s loyalty, and navigating Washington’s infinite shades of grey. I want Christians to struggle with contradiction—and to pursue authentic, thoughtful answers. Just as the Kingdom cannot be confined to one nation, the gospel cannot be wrapped in a flag.
Paul Esau was a Spring 2023 Scoville Fellow with the Wisconsin Project on Nuclear Arms Control.