Why Christians Should be Leftists
By Phil Christman
Eerdmans, 229 pages
Published September 16, 2025
Why Christians Should Be Leftists is not an exercise of exegesis — it is a personal note on how we can and should be shaped by Scripture. For cultural critic Phil Christman, the cornerstone is Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount. While reading it in a group setting, he experienced a spiritual awakening that altered his worldview and launched him on a path into a new political imagination. This experience resonated with my own: in high school, when I worked through the New Testament a chapter each day, it was the Gospel of Matthew that confronted my political imagination. While I cannot claim the same spiritual experience as Christman, I can say that the first gospel pushed me leftward in my political inclinations.
There is something visceral about Jesus of Nazareth’s moral imagination that other attempts at wedding the Christian religion to leftist politics just cannot pull off. Certainly, invoking the central figure of a religion will always be compelling to its adherents; however, the beauty of Christman’s case is that invoking Christ’s moral teachings frees us from overcommitting ourselves to any ideology. While he does not shy away from adopting labels, Christman’s grounding in the Christian notion of love for neighbor leaves no room for ideologies that demand cruelty. This is vital, as any attempt to wed the Christian faith to a particular political ideology or party is a treacherous project.
While he does not shy away from adopting labels, Christman’s grounding in the Christian notion of love for neighbor leaves no room for ideologies that demand cruelty.
Christman’s leftist views have been cultivated by online culture. Not only is he informed, quite beautifully, I might add, by the insights of fellow left-leaning Christians through online forums and social media sites, but his presentation betrays a certain online sensibility that I am still unsure of. In many ways, his book reads as a series of intelligent blog posts with all the internet colloquialisms in tow. At times, you get a sense that some of what he is writing is a response to “the discourse” that I remember from my days on Twitter. This lends a certain sincerity to his writing, but it also requires readers to progress through the arguments at what feels like breakneck speed — and at times, the writing suffers. For example, it is not uncommon to find a lengthy footnote where Christman delves into the thickets of other arguments and counterarguments. At times, these digressions read like distractions; at other times, readers will wish Christman had expanded the book to weave the footnote material into the text.
Christman set out to persuade exvangelicals and others who are deconstructing their faith (but still drawn to some form of Jesus and Christianity) to take up leftist commitments. As someone raised in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) and in possession of left-leaning commitments, I am perhaps too sympathetic to the argument to be a fair reviewer. I wonder how persuasive Christman’s book is to Christians trying to find a new political and religious home outside of right-wing evangelicalism? But to a certain degree, I don’t care! Christman’s testimony is essential to our current cultural and political landscape. His voice is a moving and accessible dissent to a broader religious culture that is all too willing to bind itself to right-wing extremism. We should welcome Christman’s voice in the fray. As long as Jesus of Nazareth’s moral imagination is working on the hearts of Christians, we must be open to the possibility that our political imaginations will be transformed.
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