Complete separation between morality and politics is one of the prevalent errors of the present age. From the Christian point of view and within Christendom, those two realms – the moral and the political – ought to be most intimately connected, though they cannot coincide.
Just as Christian morality has in view the realization of the Kingdom of God within the individual, so Christian politics should be preparing the coming of God’s Kingdom for humanity as a whole consisting of large parts – nations, races, and states.
Past and present politics of historical nations have very little in common with such a purpose and for the most part are in direct contradiction to it – this is an indisputable fact. The politics of Christian people are still ruled by godless hostility and strife, and the Kingdom of God is left out altogether. Most people are content to leave it at that: so it is, and so it must be. But such an attitude of bowing down to facts cannot be consistently kept up, for then we should have to bow down to plague and cholera which are also facts. Man’s whole dignity consists in consciously struggling against a bad reality for the sake of a better one. Prevalence of disease is a fact, but health is the end to be aimed at; the means of transition from the bad fact to a better end is the science of medicine. In the general life of humanity the predominance of evil and strife is fact, but the end to be sought is the Kingdom of God, and the means of transition from the bad reality to that final end is called Christian politics.
— Vladimir Solovyov, “Morality, Politics and the Meaning of Nationality,” pp. 191 – 197 in A Solovyov Anthology. Trans. Natalie Duddington (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1950), 191.
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