Is Evangelicalism Political?

Gary continues speaking on the cultural muzzling of Christians.

The study of any subject must be placed within the limits of a biblical worldview. The third principle of the Biblical covenant is that God lays down the law to man. Man is supposed to exercise dominion by means of biblical law. To speak of justice, or anything else for that matter, as isolated from a biblical covenantal structure, is to lead us into a sea of ethical subjectivity. A recent example of such a quest for Bible-less law is the revival in some Christian and conservative political circles of a “natural law ethic” as a substitute for biblical law. (Humanist legal scholars do not take this revival seriously since they fully understand that Darwinian evolutionary thought destroyed any concept of humanistic natural law. Man makes his own rules in today’s post-Darwin world.)

There is no neutrality in making laws. A law says one thing is right or wrong. This inevitably infringes on someone’s money, lifestyle, or dreams. Who wins, who loses? If humanist man has his way, God will lose, as will all those who stand with God. When autonomous man’s law prevails, we can expect God’s law to be invalidated (Mark 7:8, 13).

Satan attacked God on the basis of His law: “Indeed, has God said, ‘You shall not eat from any tree of the garden?”’ (Gen. 3:1). He appealed to Adam and Eve to be a law unto themselves—to “be like God” (3:5). Even the devil knew there was no neutrality.

The appeal today is to ethical pluralism, everyone doing what is right in his own eyes (Judges 17:6). The God of Scripture has spoken, but so has the god of convenience, the god of tolerance, the god of expediency, the god of majority opinion, the god of experience, and the god of any other ethical system that seeks to be a part of America’s legal mainstream.

Liberty at Risk

Without a proper understanding of civil government’s biblical function and limited jurisdiction, Christians can be trapped into believing that civil government should promote policies beyond its designed purpose as long as they are for “the good of the people.” This reasoning can lead many to choose security no matter what the cost to liberty.

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Gary continues speaking on the muzzling of Christians. Evangelicals in particular, are targeted as being political by the Left, although this is seldom the actual case. Evangelicals should be political to the extent that the Bible speaks about political issues (which it clearly does), but this doesn’t define them as being “political.”

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American Vision’s mission is to Restore America to its Biblical Foundation—from Genesis to Revelation. American Vision (AV) has been at the heart of worldview study since 1978, providing resources to exhort Christian families and individuals to live by a Biblically based worldview. Visit www.AmericanVision.org for more information, content and resources