Email: jerry.kelley428@gmail.com
It is most unfortunate that many in the Church view political involvement as a means to dominate others with a particular social policy or favorite leader. And no doubt the unfortunate acceptance of Kingdom-Dominion theology with some Christians adds to this confusion. The Temperance or Prohibition Movement, led by the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union, which was politically successful in the short term, was not the real means to dry a nation from its alcoholic consumption. In contrast, most Christians today rightly believe that human efforts alone will never establish God’s kingdom on earth, nor is it the means to reform persons or save souls. Many also believe that God is in absolute full control. Now with these popular beliefs, why should Christians be involved in politics at all?
The once governor of Arkansas and minister, Michael Huckabee, gave evidence that these popular Christian beliefs renders most Christians ineffective in politics. His evidence is that, “Half of all American evangelical Christians are registered to vote and of those who are registered, half actually do vote.” If this is the case for voting, you can be sure even less volunteer or contribute toward a favorable proposition or candidate. Don’t be surprised. Everyone lives their personal truly held beliefs.
The short answer to why Christians should be involved in politics today is….
Christians should be involved in politics now for two main reasons, 1) To build safeguards for their own religious freedoms that are crumbling due to decades of their past political apathies. And 2) To counter the atheistic/agnostic/humanistic evangelism that is forced on all children, which is the majority of America’s children, without educational choice. It was Thomas Jefferson that connected these two reasons. “Can the liberties of a nation be secure, if we have removed a conviction that these liberties are a gift from God?” While God’s kingdom can never be established by human efforts, God’s people are mandated to establish godly principles on earth, not only in their private lives, but public communities as well. You will see in this paper that striving toward this godly goal yields God’s blessings. Apathy in these matters solicits His judgment. Holy Scriptures and history confirms all this.
The process of removing such godly convictions has been evident in our so-called “public” schools for decades. If our schools were truly public, then parents should have significant influence on what their children are taught. That once was, but no longer is. For details on how our government schools are indoctrinating in atheism and agnosticism see the free downloadable book: Sacred Rebellion, chapter 2 – The Class of the Secret Agenda, available from www.OurFault.org. Please understand that while some Christians have struggled in this contest at various levels, unfortunately, they have been ineffective for a variety of reasons, but this is another subject.
Now America’s children are the recipients of Solomon’s proverb, “The first to present his case seems right, till another comes forward and questions him.” (Proverbs 18:17 NIV) because the public policy for this second voice (problems with macroevolution for example) has been removed via politics. And as a result of this, Paul’s description of souls caught in Satan’s traps (2 Timothy 2:26) is fulfilled for most of America’s children. Thus the socio-demographics shows the community of atheistic and agnostic faith is growing in each succeeding generation. This already has had significant detrimental ramifications for public policies and Christian evangelism. And it will get worse until the Church repents.
But let’s back up and carefully review the “God’s in control” belief as well.
Some support their flavor of God’s sovereignty with Daniel’s quote: “The Most High is sovereign over the kingdoms of men and gives them to anyone he wishes.” (Daniel 4:25b NIV) One minister giving his “comforting” reasons to today’s political turmoil also gave his congregation reasons to simply overlook it all without even a prayer. There really wasn’t a need to even vote, since God decides it all anyway.
However, the Daniel reference needs to be balanced with Hosea’s Holy Spirit inspired message too. “They set up kings without my consent, they choose princes without my approval.” (Hosea 8:4 NIV) And a careful review shows rampant decadence in that northern Israel kingdom at that time. You can be sure God’s purposes were not implemented in public or private lives either.
How can these two verses go together without contradicting each other? Well, if people decide to go their own way in electing their leaders, God can easily give them a leader they will later regret. And that did happen in northern Israel. God’s still in control, but note something very carefully. The leader in this case is not God’s first choice. God does change His mind per people’s response. See Ezekiel 33:12-20 and Jonah 3:10. The other possibility is that Daniel 4:25 may not be so universal after all, but describes periods of time that God sometimes gets involved in choosing leaders to fulfill a particular purpose. In Daniel’s time God picked King Nebuchadnezzar to punish His disobedient people.
Jeremiah’s godly instructions were… “Also seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you into exile. Pray to the Lord for it, because if it prospers, you too will prosper.” (Jeremiah 29:7 NIV) With these instructions, could it be possible that Jeremiah would prompt Christians today to take an active roll in their God-given gifts of liberty and be involved politically for good public policies in their city too?
The minor prophet Amos most certainly would agree. “Seek good, and not evil, that ye may live: and so the Lord, the God of hosts, shall be with you, as ye have spoken. Hate the evil, and love the good, and establish judgment in the gate: it may be that the Lord God of host will be gracious unto the remnant Joseph.” (Amos 5:14-15 KJV)
The gate was the public place for determining public and legal policies. Amos prophesied to the wicked Northern Kingdom too. It’s strange how God’s people, that had forsaken His way and mistakenly thought God was still with them, had to also be prompted to be involved for the good of their public policies.
Today, the gay lobby exercises so much political power and media influence that sexual freedoms are beginning to be valued over religious freedoms. Christian businesses are beginning to be put under civil and legal pressures to comply or spend valuable resources in their legal defense. This is evident from bakers and florists to the Supreme Court contest with Hobby Lobby. Political attacks on churches, seen as avoiding taxation, are coming. Other issues will be raised again, such as public bathroom policies. Different from the popular Christian response, these people do not give up or simply go way when they lose. They will be back after they have elected more that think like themselves. All this matches the prophets’ connection between public policy involvement and blessings. Since the majority of Christians have vacated the public square in seeking the best public polices for the good of their cities, why shouldn’t we begin to suffer and not prosper?
In May 22, 1787, twelve British Christian businessmen began what was called “the most ambitious and brilliantly organized citizens’ movement of all time.” (Reference: Adam Hochschild’s Bury the Chains, Prophets and Rebels in the Fight to Free an Empire’s Slaves) The political techniques they designed are still used by activists today. What did they achieve? The removal of slavery without a war approximately thirty years before we did.
God does warn before he brings judgment. Thomas Jefferson’s warning approximately one hundred years before the Civil War could be counted as one such warning. Please note carefully the part that still applies for us today.
“God who gave us life gave us liberty. Can the liberties of a nation be secure when we have removed a conviction that these liberties are the gift of God? Indeed I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just, that his justice cannot sleep forever. Commerce between master and slave is despotism. Nothing is more certainly written in the book of fate than that these people are to be free.”
Unfortunately, American Christians did not take seriously Jefferson’s referenced to “the book of fate” of God’s warnings referenced in Exodus 21:16, Amos 1:9-10, and 1 Timothy 1:9-10 on the slavery issue and do as our British Christians brothers did. And unfortunately, American Christianity for most Christians in the political arena, is still spiritually and godly-desired truncated.
It’s absolutely amazing how easily the “God’s in control” comes up when the subject pertains to opposing evil via political involvement. In contrast, these same individuals will sacrifice time and money to achieve any planned career, vacation, and retirement goals. But if asked to help oppose evil legislation or support favorable legislation, the “God’s in control” comes up again. Why don’t these same Christians simply trust God to make their career, vacation, and retirement dreams come true? Because they know at this level, there is a sowing and corresponding reaping. (Galatians 6:7) We are seriously inconsistent in the application of this law-like principle when it comes to political involvement.
Does Israel’s king David have something to say here? “Who will rise up for me against the wicked? Who will take a stand or me against evildoers?” (Psalms 94:16 NIV)
His son Solomon wrote: “Like a muddied spring or a polluted well is a righteous man who gives way to the wicked.” (Proverbs 25:36 NIV)
Does any of this give a hint how God views political apathy?
How much is God in control? Is God the designer of evil events too? Unfortunately, there are some Christians who mistakenly believe this too. But of course God is not the designer of evil. Since God doesn’t tempt with evil, He doesn’t design it either. (James 1:13) God can work His glory despite the evil planned or implemented. The disciple John taught, “The whole world is under the control of the evil one.” (1 John 5:19b NIV) Now who’s in control? We are all in a spiritual conflict. Yet we can still offer comfort to the hurting by knowing, no matter the evil implemented against another, God does deliver.
A righteous man may have many troubles, but the Lord delivers him from them all. (Psalms 34:19 NIV) This is how God ultimately is in control. He will make things right for the godly-obedient. (Matthew 7:21-23, 2 Peter 2:9, Hebrews 5:9) This includes being salt and light in the public square among other issues of Lordship.
And Christ taught us to pray for God’s kingdom to come and be established. (Matthew 6:9-10) Why should we pray at all if God’s will is an automatic implemented or God’s in absolutely total control anyway? The idea that God permits sin should never be understood that sin is of God’s design. This idea has been called the Divine Blueprint Plan and Christians should begin to see there are problems that can render us ineffective for Christ’s desire for us. The opposing theology is called the Spiritual Warfare View. It was said of Jesus that he came to destroy the works of the devil (1 John 3:8) and Paul gave instructions on spiritual weapons to be used (Ephesians 6:13-18). Are we really making Christ the Lord of all Life and are serious in opposing evil? People often ask, “How can God permit evil?” Well, the same question must be asked, “How can God’s people permit evil?” An excellent resource is Is God To Blame? by Gregory A. Boyd.
However, the major public policy mistake by us has been in the area of public education. For decades the godless have dominated public education with atheistic and agnostic philosophies. This has resulted in an increased challenging environment for Christian evangelism as well as other social issues Christians are becoming concerned with. American education once was so welcoming of Bible teachings that it had the format of a Sunday school class. As a result the general public held Christianity in respect. That day is now gone. That early American form of education also contributed to the seeds for evangelism. The Apologist Ravi Zacharias has stated that we are now at a time when Christians must give the evidence for God before they can present the Gospel.
The children of this world have been very successful with their evangelism of humanism on American children while most American Christians have been silent and absent in removing these children from this satanic domination in education. This takeover in education has caused the major shifts in public attitudes toward Christians. Because of this shift in public attitudes future public polices that will become increasingly unchristian.
For the Children of this world are in their generation wiser than the children of light. Jesus the Christ (Luke 16:8b KJV)
John W. Whitehead, president of the Rutherford Institute and author of The Stealing of America, also projects our future. “If the church fails to have a significant witness in public education, where most of the next generation will be trained, then the next generation will inevitably be more hostile to Christianity than this generation. That could spell disaster.”
Dr. Francis Schaeffer said, “Christians have mistakenly seen the evils of our society (abortion, euthanasia, pornography, breakdown of the family, drugs, gang violence, etc.) as isolated bits and pieces and have failed to see these social ills are in reality all connected as a natural outcome of a humanistic worldview.”
Schaeffer went on to explain our future: “We face a worldview which would have never given us our freedoms, forced upon us by the courts and the government by men holding this other worldview. … This other view is totally intolerant. I do not think we are going to get another opportunity if we do not take it now in this country. If the Christians specifically and others who love liberty, but specifically the Christians, do not do something about it now, I don’t believe your grandchildren are going to get a chance.”
In 1982 Dr. Schaeffer asked some important questions: “Where have the Bible believing Christians been in the last forty years?! …This country is close to being lost, not first of all because of a humanists’ conspiracy. I believe there are those who conspire, but that is not the reason this country is almost lost. …This country is almost lost … because the Bible believing Christians in the last forty years, who have said that they know that the final reality is this infinite personal God, who is the creator, … they said they have known it, and they have done nothing about it as the consensus has changed! There has been a vast silence.”
It was said of Paul that he argued persuasively (Acts 19:8) and of Apollos that he “vigorously refuted the Jews in public debate, proving from the Scriptures that Jesus was the Christ.” (Acts 18:28s NIV)
A school choice policy could free many children from humanistic indoctrination.
Rescue those being led away to death; hold back those staggering toward slaughter. If you say, “But we knew nothing about this,” does not he who weighs the heart perceive it? Does not he who guards our life know it? Will he not repay each person according to what he has done? (Proverbs 24:10-12 NIV)
Christians especially should be involved in politics because everyone should have the choice to elect their educational choices without unrestrained coercion in the atheistic / agnostic state education. With true educational choice, many un-churched families will elect a Christian education for their children if we provide an attractive alternative to government schools. In some places families want out now.
Why is there no missionary mindset among most Christians for this opportunity? We now have unreached groups living among us. If this is ever to become a spiritual burden in evangelicals’ hearts, minds, and souls, then there must be much greater emphasis and proper teaching to clear up many of our questions and misunderstandings by our ministers and Sunday school teachers.
My people are destroyed from lack of knowledge. Because you have rejected knowledge, I also reject you as my priests; because you have ignored the law of your God, I also will ignore your children. Hosea 4:6 (NIV) 715-710 B.C.
If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land. 2 Chronicles 7:14 (NIV)
“Cambridge historians would tell you, who aren’t Christians, that if it wasn’t for the Wesleyan revival and the social change that Wesley’s revival had brought, that England would have had its own form of the French Revolution.” Francis Schaeffer
What will future historians say of American Christian social/political involvement? That we continued to ignore the warnings, just as we did of Thomas Jefferson’s warning on slavery, and now we are losing our liberties?
If we are to pray for revival, do we even know what to repent from?
References: www.OurFault.org
- Education Myths, What Special-Interest Groups want you to believe about our schools and why it isn’t so by Jay Greene
- Inside America Education, The Decline, the Deception, the Dogmas by Thomas Sowell
- Mind Siege, The Battle for Truth in the New Millennium by Tim LaHaye & David Noebel
- Clergy in the Classroom, The Religion of Secular Humanism by David A Noebel
& J.F. Baldwin & Kevin Bywater - Get Out Now, Why You Should Pull Your Child from Public Schools Before It’s
Too Late, by Mary Rice Hasson & Theresa Farnan