Preston Sprinkle’s Exiles is a bracing call to return to Scripture, but some of his specific political applications are dubious.
It’s not news that modern American Christians are deeply divided over politics—to the point that it may seem we have more in common with people who share our political beliefs than with our siblings in the faith. That division raises the question: If we’re all reading the same Bible, how do we end up with such conflicting and conflict-prone politics? Is our political engagement actually shaped by Scripture?
Preston Sprinkle’s new book, Exiles: The Church in the Shadow of Empire, challenges American Christians to recenter our politics on the Bible rather than on American culture and to found our political identities on our faith rather than on our partisanship. Some of his applications of Scripture are questionable, but his altar call is welcome and necessary for the American church.
A longtime Christian writer and public intellectual, Sprinkle has made a name for himself as an orthodox evangelical with some uncommon positions, including his commitment to Christian nonviolence, his annihilationist view of Hell, and his approach to issues of sexuality and gender identity. In Exiles, Sprinkle first uses his training as a biblical scholar to take readers through what Scripture says about how God’s people should live politically, then considers how Christians should apply these lessons in modern-day America.
The strongest feature of Exiles is its call for Christians to challenge our own political views with a careful reading of the Bible. Sprinkle is exactly right on this: It’s far too easy to assume our politics are an outgrowth of our faith without ever giving them serious scrutiny. Sprinkle challenges Christians on the left and right alike to see how Scripture both affirms and runs against …
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