Third-wayism in politics is a form of political Gnosticism as it assumes that there is a platonic ideal to politics that does not require engaging the kingdoms of the world as what they fundamentally are: worldly, temporal, & creational ordinances designed for proximate justice.

This does not mean Christians have a license to get into the mud-slinging of politics and act the part of charlatans, bullies, or hacks. It does mean that political orders, as such, do not care about or recognize our primary heavenly citizenship. So what do we do then?

Our heavenly citizenship, of course, is the truest reality that reconfigures our orientation to the political, but it does not evacuate us from the responsibilities of statecraft. A Christian politics is one of subordinating the powers, not repudiating their temporal rule.

A Christian politics refuses to ascribe to the political orders a power that is not theirs to begin with. Even still, the City of God acts amid the City of Man where ultimate divergence still allows for a temporal and penultimate convergence of justice.