5 Interesting Facts About Ted Cruz's Christian Faith

Presidential candidate Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, announced his presidential bid at Liberty University, a well-known conservative, Christian college founded by Jerry Falwell. It's a testament to his faith and Southern Baptist roots that have kept him grounded throughout his life. But here are five facts you may not know about Cruz's personal faith.

1. While Cruz says that government should protect the religious rights of people, leaders should avoid using their faith for political gain.

In a 2013 interview, he explained that faith is "a personal relationship with Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior. Life, liberty, and property, the fundamental natural rights of man are given to every one of us by God, and the role of government fundamentally is to protect those rights. I think anyone in politics — you've got a special obligation to avoid being a pharisee, to avoid ostentatiously wrapping yourself in your faith. Because I think in politics, it's too easy for that to become a crutch, for that to be politically useful," he said during his appearance on "The 700 Club."

2. If his father had not given his life to Christ, Cruz would have been raised by a single mom.

"You know, when I was a young child, my parents were living up in Calgary," he told a crowd of supporters. "And neither of my parents were people of faith at the time. Neither of them had a relationship with Christ. Both of my parents drank far too much. Both of them had serious problems with alcohol."

"And when I was three years old, my father decided he didn't want to be married anymore. And he didn't want a 3-year-old son. So he got on a plane and left Calgary and flew back to Texas to Houston. And he left us. Now, when he was in Houston, a colleague in the oil and gas business invited my father to come with him to Clay Road Baptist Church. And my father accepted that invitation; he went to Clay Road Baptist Church and he gave his life to Jesus, and he went and bought an airplane ticket and flew back to Calgary to rejoin my mother and to rejoin his son."

"So when anyone asks is faith real, is a relationship with Jesus real, I can tell you, if it were not for my father giving his life to Christ, I would have been raised by a single mother without having my dad in the home."

"We're seeing in the news right now a lot of noise because the state of Indiana bravely stood up and passed a law defending religious liberty. I'll say this: I will commend the state of Indiana for doing the right thing. Religious liberty is not some cockamamie new theory that the Indiana legislature just figured out yesterday. It was literally among the founding principles of our nation, and we have to be able to explain that cheerfully and with a smile," Cruz told a group gathered in Sioux City, Iowa, in April.

4. Cruz wants to mobilize born-again Christians and specifically addressed them in his announcement to run for president.

"Today, roughly half of born-again Christians aren't voting. They're staying home. Imagine instead millions of people of faith all across America coming out to the polls and voting our values. From the dawn of this country, at every stage, America has enjoyed God's providential blessing. Over and over again, the American people rose to the challenge. The power of the American people when we rise up and stand for liberty knows no bounds. God's blessing has been on America from the very beginning of this nation and I believe God isn't done with America yet," he said during his campaign announcement.

5. He was heckled for defending Israel at a conference for persecuted Christians.

"Tonight, we are all united in defense of Christians. Tonight, we are all united in defense of Jews. Tonight, we are all united in defense of people of good faith, who are standing together against those who would persecute and murder those who dare disagree with their religious teachings," Cruz said at the inaugural summit dinner of the group In Defense of Christians. "Christians have no greater ally than Israel," he said before being booed and heckled by some in the crowd.

I'm saying that I'm persuaded by the argument given at the link:

The State is empowered ONLY to punish those who violate the Second Table of the Law.
Thou shalt not kill.
Thou shalt not commit adultery.
Thou shalt not steal.
Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour.
Thou shalt not covet any thing that is thy neighbour's.
This exegesis is soundly supported by the mainstream of Reformation political theology (or “Theonomy”) which provided the philosophical basis for our own American Revolution, and which holds that Paul clearly defined the Evils which the State was to punish in Romans 13: 8-10.
Owe no man any thing, but to love one another: for he that loveth another hath fulfilled the law. For this, Thou shalt not commit adultery, Thou shalt not kill, Thou shalt not steal, Thou shalt not bear false witness, Thou shalt not covet; and if there be any other commandment, it is briefly comprehended in this saying, namely, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. Love worketh no ill to his neighbour: therefore love is the fulfilling of the law.
So long as Paul’s readers abided by these Commandments, they should have no Fear of the State. It follows, then ,that any re-definition of “Evil” by the State, other than that which Paul has specifically authorized, is illegitimate and UnScriptural; for if the State could define as “Evil” anything it wanted to define as evil, then Paul could not offer his readers his assurance that, by upholding the Second Table of the Law, they had “fulfilled the law” and should therefore “not be afraid of the power”. A few expository quotes will suffice to demonstrate this point:
Indeed, the admonitions concerning love for others (Romans 13: 8-10) are not a departure from the previous topic but are rather a climax of the entire discussion. -- “Hard Sayings of the Bible”, by Walter C. Kaiser Jr., Peter H. Davids, F. F. Bruce and Manfred T. Brauch
According to the Bible, the state is a legitimate institution, but its scope is severely limited. In Romans 13, St. Paul makes clear that it exists to punish external evildoers. By what standard? By the standard of God's written law. In large measure, this reduces to a defense of what the early Americans considered that great trio of "rights," life, liberty, and property. -- “War, the Bible and the State”, by P. Andrew Sandlin
Rutherford (Samuel Rutherford, author of Lex Rex, one of the principal foundations of American Founding thought) properly argued from passages such as Romans 13 that the king, as well as anyone else, was under God’s law and not above it. -- “Christian View of Government and Law”, Kerby Anderson
It was not until after the flood in the Noachic covenant that God first delegated such authority to civil magistrates acting as his ministers (Genesis 9, Romans 13). But he only delegated authority to suppress such second table offenses as murder (Genesis 9:6). Under the Noachic Covenant there is no authority given to the civil magistrate to enforce God's will in matters of religion. -- “The Scriptural Doctrine of the Civil Magistrate”, Louis F. DeBoer
The so-called "authority from God" is neither a manifestation of bald power to act nor an automatic blessing from God because that power to act exists, but is based on obeying the revealed will of God, obeying the Decalogue, the Ten Commandments. The authority of any government rests on its establishing laws based on and in conformity with the Decalogue, specifically the Second Table of the Decalogue (Commandments V through X). -- “The Powers that be are ordained of God”, Frederick Nymeyer

No problem - persistent questioning beats the Hell out of the false assumptions that have sometimes been made about my posts.

My problem with saying "Yes, I think government has no authority to ban a substance not banned in Scripture" is that it might be taken to mean that I think government DOES have authority to ban a substance (or anything else) that IS banned in Scripture - which neither I nor the author of the linked essay believe.

My position is that Scripture bans a number of activities (such as failing to honor one's father and mother) that government nonetheless has no authority to ban - and that Scripture states that the subset of Scripturally banned things that government may also ban is violations of the Second Table of the Law.

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