Summing Up our Faith and Politics Discussion

Based on requests and my own desire to recap our discussion...I'm recapping our discussion and adding some additional thoughts. Please feel free to add on comments as you want.

**disclaimer** - opinions expressed below are not necessarily the opinions of Hyde Park Baptist Church...nor do I claim to always be right. :)

First off...thanks to everyone for a GREAT discussion last week. It's great to see some passionate opinions being shared in the class, yet done in a way that is respectful of others who might not share the same opinion. I hope nobody felt intimidated or that they couldn't add in their two cents. In my summary below, I don't mean to say that everyone in the class walked away fully in agreement on every point...but I will try to show other sides of the discussion as I remember it. Actually, I've typed quite a novel, so you may want to grab a coffee real quick.

Let's run through some of the questions we asked...and I'll add a few from my own additional thoughts:

1. What is the purpose of earthly government?

The conclusion was that God instituted earthly government to provide order, by that we mean restraining our sinful natures for the good of society, and to provide some level of earthly justice. Heavenly or true justice will only be served at the final judgement...but government administers some level of temporary justice today for crimes against society. This is true regardless of how evil or holy any certain government might be...whether Adolf Hitler's Nazi regime or our founding fathers' nascent USA. See Romans 13 for reference.

2. Is the kingdom of God achieved through earthly government? Or, are the things we Christians are charged by God with responsibility to do supposed to be done through or even possible to achieve though earthly government?

The consensus was that, spreading the word of God, going into all the world and making disciples, loving our neighbors and our enemies, etc. are not things that are best served by human governments and laws. We, the church are charged with these things to accomplish them, completely irrespective of government.

Jesus' apparent refusal to be involved in politics is striking, given that he 1) was the Jewish Messiah, many prophecies of which are somewhat political in nature, and 2) the region of Judea in the early first century was a very politically charged environment. It was difficult being a public figure and not having a strong political stance. Jesus was taken in trial before the local Jewish court, the 'Jewish' king (Herod), and the Roman governor, all three and did not bother with political answers. Would Christ have had a more political bent in a democratic republic like our today where he could have voted?

It is kind of a moot point, in my opinion, because all things were the way they were for a reason. I would still suspect, though, that the spiritual nature of Jesus' first coming would still leave no time for earthly politics.

We did agree, however, that government policies could hamper or encourage the kingdom of God to some degree however. Obviously, laws restricting the free practice of Christianity, logically, could hamper its spread. However we also noted that, counter-intuitively, there are instances of history of where the government is decidedly anti-Christian and the church most flourishes (modern day China, the first few centuries of the church in Rome), whereas, governments that have been very favorable to Christianity have sometimes resulted in a watered-down, lazy or corrupt church (Constantine's Roman church, the "church" in America today).

3. What then, is our responsibility as Christians and as US citizens in our political environment?

Should we vote for the most "evil" candidate in hopes of a repressive policy so the church will be made pure and flourish again? (I'm kind of joking, here...)

Should we completely abstain from the political process?

Should we seek to legislate our Christian morality into the law of the land?

Voting for overtly evil and repressive policies that force people to do active wrong can't seem to be justified at all. We won't really entertain that thought any longer.

Should we then take up the mantra to seek to legalize our Christian morals...our sense of right and wrong? Surely, the saying that you shouldn't legislate morality is incorrect. All legislation is rooted in morality. But is that the open door for people to seek to legislate every aspect of what they consider right and wrong? To preserve justice, as governments are supposed to do, they typically outlaw most forms of murder...which is definitely a "wrong" in my book. How could I not support such a law? However, also a "wrong" in my book, is worshipping any God but the one true God of the Bible...or even being an atheist. Do I also want to legislate that moral for others?

Someone said, "no", because the Constitution protects the right of religious belief and practice. But certainly we have the power to amend the Constitution when we believe it is incorrect (remember the Constitution once said African-Americans were counted as 3/5th's a person). So surely, if we find fault or limitations with the Constitution, we have the ability and possibly the responsibility to change it. So if we believe that it is truly wrong for someone to not worship our God, why do we not seek to put that into law?

I think the answer is because we also believe that it is not right to force all of our beliefs and practices on other people. To some degree, we respect the rights of people to choose the right or wrong thing to do for themselves. Purely dictating one's behavior, anyway, does nothing eternally for them because it is the heart that is corrupt and damning, regardless of how they act on the outside. Again, God's kingdom is not furthered through earthly law.

4. So...if we believe that we should not force good morals on others...why have laws at all?

Remember question one above...the purpose of government is to preserve order and provide some degree of earthly justice, though it is temporal and imperfect. To preserve order some basic level of morality must be put into law...otherwise the potential end of human nature left alone is self destruction.

5. How do we decide then, which morals of ours ought to be legalized, and which ones should not?

In my opinion, this depends on the system of government. Since we are US citizens, I'll limit the answer to our form of government, a democratic republic. Our government is set up so that each citizen has the ability vote for a few key people to represent our opinion in the federal government: our Congressman, Senators, and president/vice president. The voting power on individual issues and legislation actually rests with these people who are supposed to represent us, or at least act in our best interest (key phrase "supposed to"). These Senators and Congressmen and women join with hundreds of others, ultimately representing every other citizen in the country and they fight and argue and compromise until most reach an agreement on what the law should or shouldn't be.

In other words, ultimately our laws in this country ideally reflect the common will (or morality) of the citizenry of the country...or as close to it as it can get. Basically...what ends up winning should ideally be the point where most American citizens can agree on something. Most people agree murder is wrong and should be discouraged...hence it is illegal. Most people seem to no longer agree that homosexuality is in itself a threat to society's order and so, while no law compels people to engage in homosexual behavior, people are largely no longer prohibited from practicing it either.

So, again, where does the Christian draw the line in voting on moral issues?

Given that we are not given specific instructions on how to interact with our political systems, I would label political opinion to mostly be considered a gray area from a scriptural point of view...or better put, a matter of conscience. There is no scriptural guide for us to compel non-believers to any behavior via government or otherwise. I know very good and well that I should give to the poor...should I be in favor of a law that requires all people to do so( via taxes!)? I don't think there is anything wrong with it...it might do some good (social security). But ultimately I am only held responsible for what I do as a believer to help people...not what my government forced others to do based on the input of a vote from someone who represents me.

So where to draw the line, as far as which issues to be concerned about and try to get legislated (or "un-legislated"), to me seems to be a matter of conscience. Ultimately, our priority as believers is the work of the church, of the kingdom of God. Earthly government plays only a small or incidental role in this, if any at all. But even though we are first citizens of God's kingdom, we are also, secondarily, citizens of the US of A. In that we have the right, or privilege, to participate in our government to some degree. I would not despise those who pay little attention to our political system in favor of the kingdom of God, but I cannot fault those feeling a strong conviction to represent God's kingdom in our political system as best as possible, to improve the degree of justice that our government protects. Certainly there is good in providing justice to the oppressed, even if it through government? But the specifics are fuzzy...could providing justice to the oppressed in America be defined as guaranteeing health care to all...how about protecting fetuses from abortion? If you had to choose between voting for someone who supported one and not the other, or someone else who held the opposite view? What if a candidate held his position only to acquire votes?

What I do feel strongly about, though, is that this secondary, temporal, and earthly subject of politics be not used to divide the body of Christ. We have freedom in how we approach our political system, if we approach it at all, and on which issues we give priority, all according to our conscience. Let us not judge one another in this respect, then, or devalue some one's faith based on their political opinions. May not the kingdom of Christ be torn based on our convictions about how earthly kingdoms are run.