Posted on 12/24/2018 8:42:20 AM PST by SeekAndFind
Politics can get very dirty. Christians try not to get dirty (in the moral sense of the word).
Politics is always divisive. Christians try to unify around Jesus.
Politics demands party loyalty. Christians give their ultimate loyalty to the Lord, not a party.
Politics is filled with compromise and mixture. Christians are called to avoid both.
Politics is sure to disappoint. Christians are accustomed to look to One who never disappoints.
How, then, do we sort this out?
Over and again, we work hard to get a candidate elected, then that candidate lets us down. We labor and pray for the right court appointees, only to see them change their views.
Maybe we should just drop out of the whole political system? Maybe we should just give ourselves to spiritual work and let the world take care of worldly matters? Maybe we should just live like modernized Amish?
I remember hearing a pro-life leader talking on the radio shortly after the Reagan presidency.
He said that he and his organization worked day and night to elect Ronald Reagan. They helped rally other evangelicals to the cause. They fought for pro-life legislation.
But after 8 years of effort, he saw little change in the overall social and political climate, especially when it came to abortion in our country.
In the end, he felt used. Maybe he should just drop out?
I was once asked my radio listeners to call the show if they claimed to be committed followers of Jesus and yet voted for pro-abortion candidates like Barack Obama.
I didn’t want to argue with them. I wanted to understand, since, from my perspective, a committed Christian cannot vote for a pro-abortion candidate.
This would parallel my understanding of a Christian’s voting responsibility in the days of slavery. That one issue would come first when it came time to cast my ballot.
One caller raised an interesting perspective.
He said, “I’m pro-life, and I don’t like abortion at all. But I don’t think the president will be the one to change our abortion laws, even through the courts. Reagan didn’t change things. George H. W. Bush and George W. Bush didn’t change things. So, I vote for the president based on other issues, and that’s why I voted for Obama. It’s up to the church to change the abortion laws.”
Now, you might disagree with his perspective, as I do. But I also understand his sentiments. It’s akin to the quoted attributed to Einstein, namely, that insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. Are we doing that with politics?
The problem is that we can’t drop out, even if we wanted to. It would mean chaos for the nation and calamity for the church.
Of course, there’s always the question of whether we have a God-given responsibility to vote and be involved.
But there’s something more fundamental still. If we don’t cast our votes, we will quickly lose our voice – not just politically but in other ways. We will quickly find our rights disappearing. Hostility to Christians will become the national norm. We will be silenced on many fronts.
Why? Because those who hate us won’t stop voting. And those who despise our morals won’t stop campaigning. And the activists who feel a sacred calling to oppose us will be empowered.
Recently, a young mother contacted me, terribly grieved and deeply frustrated. Her teenage daughter has decided she is transgender and now wants to identify as a boy. And her school is very supportive.
The mom and dad met with a school counselor and were shocked at what they heard. Not only was the school about to announce to the students and faculty (that very day!) that “she” was now “he” and that “he” had a new name. But the school was going to do this without even informing the parents, let alone getting their consent. How on earth can this happen?
Not only so, but, the mom told me that “the school was giving her [meaning, her daughter] info, if we were not accepting of her new identity, that she should get us to sign away our rights as a parent and she could live in a group home with other children who have been kicked out of their homes, who may also be gay (which she says she is bi). Can you believe she was getting counsel like that at 15 years old?? . . . All this was supposed to ‘go down’ today without our knowledge!!!”
Well, I hate to break the news to you, but if we don’t vote and get involved politically, we won’t even have the ability to fight things like this. The state will take over, and we will have no one to blame but ourselves.
So, what do we do? In the closing chapter of the book, "Donald Trump Is Not My Savior: An Evangelical Leader Speaks His Mind About the Man He Supports as President", I lay out seven principles to help us navigate these difficult waters.
For the moment, let me share some other, related ideas:
1) Put gospel service, prayer, and evangelism first.
2) Then involved in politics without compromising your principles.
3) Always put your hope in God, not a politician.
4) It’s true that we’re only passing through this world, but we should do our best to make it better for the next generation.
5) Incremental change is better than no change at all, not to mention much better than negative change. Every little bit helps.
This, too, is part of being salt and light. This, too, is in harmony with our calling as believers. Let’s just keep our priorities straight. As I’ve repeated over and again, the Savior gets my life. The president gets my vote.
When the libtards whine about Trump being devisive, they are merely acknowledging that Trump is doing Christ\’s work!!!
Our country is no longer run by a Christian culture and those with ethics. Honesty is no longer an embedded cultural trait at the highest levels. Corporate heads and those at the highest levels lie regularly. Their culture is essentially the end always justifies the means. Look at Facebook and how they have lied.
Policy. Keep your eye on policy, and you won’t get caught up in the noise.
Aside from that, we are where we are because Christians do not know who they are. Politics rest upon a moral foundation, which in turn rests upon a spiritual one. Get the moral and spiritual foundation right, and the politics will fall in line. Fail to get it right, and the politics is a lost cause.
“Politics can get very dirty. Christians try not to get dirty (in the moral sense of the word).” Wrong! MANY Christians work openly and behind the scenes to change true Christianity to match THEIR worldly beliefs.
“Politics is always divisive. Christians try to unify around Jesus.” WRONG! MANY Christians work openly and behind the scenes to change true Christianity to match THEIR worldly and political beliefs.
“Politics demands party loyalty. Christians give their ultimate loyalty to the Lord, not a party.” WRONG! (See, e.g., the ELCA) MANY Christians sodomize true Christianity to include their worldly and political beliefs.
“Politics is filled with compromise and mixture. Christians are called to avoid both.” GOOD LUCK! (See, e.g., the ELCA) MANY Christians sodomize true Christianity to include their worldly beliefs. (See, e.g., abortion, and practicing homosexual leadership in the church.)
“Politics is sure to disappoint. Christians are accustomed to look to [the] One who never disappoints.” MANY Christians openly believe that Christianity should bend, or is truly interpreted, to cover political beliefs. See, e.g., abortion and practicing homosexuals.)
Not impressed with this article.
I think Pastor Wang Yi makes some excellent points in his letter. Every Christian interested in remaining faithful will at some point when the persecution becomes increasingly severe, have to emulate his stance. Ultimately, we are to bear witness of that “other world” that greater reality even at the cost of our lives
No.
It’s only about picking up your cross each day. Daily duty. Covers civics.
Calvary was divisive and dirty. Did all the disciples leave?
Nor am I.
Seems like the best thing that's been working for the anti-Christ scum in this country ever since Christians backed out of politics once Reagan was out of office is having no push back from Christians, aka The Moral Majority (once a specific entity broadened into a generality by the media).
At one time, for those who don't know or don't remember, offending Christians was important enough that even the Clintons assigned Al and Tipper to be their token Christian couple who wept over the lyrics in music.
By Clinton's second term, all that mattered was keeping people fat and happy, offending them no longer mattered. As long as people had enough leisure time and disposable income to fist fight over a 'Tickle Me Elmo' doll at then thriving Toys R' Us you could do any sort of anti-Christ trash talk you like.
Yeah, BS telling Christians to avoid politics and that nasty movie industry have been two of the most effective weapons of the anti-Christ, anti-God, scrotum sac faced democrats and RINOs running this country these days.
JMHo
All authentic Christians are evangelical. The Evangelium is the Gospel.
I refuse to abuse the term by applying it only to a subset, e.g., Anabaptist.
With all that being said; I agree that there is no Christian Party, but one has to be blind to see that one of the Parties is clearly Anti-Christian.
So while I can not in good conscious vote for any Party; I can vote against the Anti-Christian Party.
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