The Highway Forums General Discussion Open Forum Religion and Politics

I was just asked a question, from a confessing Christian. That I am trying to give a biblical answer to.
How would you answer it?


Unfortunately, this is something I seem to be running into a fair amount.

Tom

Hi Tom,

May I ask you how you would answer this question? As you know, "religion" is not a mere segment of a believer's life. Being a Christian represents an entire worldview and I simply do not understand how anyone could separate or segment their worldview as you describe. In other words, your worldview is informed by Scripture, right? And that should inform every aspect of a believer's life. If this is so, and I do believe it is, how can religion be left out of politics?

Thanks, I agree with you 100% that religion covers our whole world view.
We can’t turn it on and off like a light switch.

In fact, I can’t really understand the sentiment that religion and politics do not mix. Especially coming from
a professing Christian.

I have heard a few people I know, who are actually dedicated Christians that believe Christians should not be politicians.
Mainly because politics forces people to either compromise their faith, or give up being a politician.

I was however, trying to find a way to put all this in a biblical way, that would help the person understand. Assuming of course that this person is actually a true believer.

Tom

Both spiritual and earthly reality reflect truth. Lies reflect an absence of truth. Natural Law encompasses earthly realities and phenomenon that will produce good outcomes (in that things and attitudes that contradict and circumvent natural law will produce negative outcomes). Natural Law also promotes good over evil to self and fellow man. However, it only accounts for a surface level understanding of sin (similar to the golden rule). So a Christian understanding of natural law in society is important for good,unbiased, impartial, limited government to occur. Most people have a very limited, ignorant understanding of these things and it shows in their online expressions. If politics and politicians are endorsing policy built on lies or just generally lie, they are serving the wrong master. Most politicians are practical atheists bordering on pagan, so that’s the master they serve, unfortunately (but that’s a whole other conversation).

Are you sure the person is even a true participant in the discussion. There are many online who are just saying things to build consensus. There whole purpose is to establish acceptable thought & speech. They may even be paid to do so. They are not changing their mantra, so you would be wasting your time. If you have some background on the person, at least you can establish if they are at least sincere.

That is always something to remember in such conversations.
Sometimes, it is easy to discern that and other times it is revealed after further discussion

However, in some discussions over the years, I have found that discussions of that nature. Can help others
who may be still thinking through such issues.

I know that in my own case; forums such as the Highway have been valuable, even when I just read through the commends.

Tom

A lot of wisdom in that.

Western society is built on what is commonly called the Judeo-Christian ethic; which
is reflected in its laws, education, constitution and even its anthems.

It was not all that long ago, that the Lord’s Prayer was in schools.

It is clear there is a war of world views going on.

Over the past 4-5 years, I have found a lot of non-Christians that are fighting against
going away from the Judeo-Ethic ethic. They say they do not believe in God, or are sceptical. Yet
they believe the ethics found in Christianity, especially when it comes to the traditional family structure
is a no brainer.

It is in a sense sad, they cannot see the correlation between these things and the Gospel.
Yet it does tell you, a lot about people.

Sorry, for taking the discussion on a bit of a rabbit trail, yet that is where my mind went after reading
what you said.

Plus, if current leaders are owned by self-serving entities, the flourishing of US & Canadian citizens, for example, are not their priority- actually the opposite is true. The liberal, international agenda tends to not align with natural law and national preservation. So these things are actually not that complicated.

I’m not sure how some loose conception of climate change should drive public policy (obviously it shouldn’t). The same is true for social engineering policies that are destructive to mind, body and soul. These things do not enable human autonomy or a biblical view of personal accountability (including Godly priorities).